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Albert Einstein - The Genius was born this earth on March 14, 1879 in Germany. One of the fathers of the Nuclear Age, he wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 2nd august 1939 that it might be possible to build an atomic bomb. Einstein had urged Roosevelt to provide governmental help for the study of the release of nuclear energy. Einstein also warned the President that Nazi Germany might already be trying to build an atomic bomb. His letter helped set the United States on the long, difficult and costly path that finally led to the production of an atomic bomb in 1945.
A day came when dropping of the Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima became a History and a bitter Memory! This reminds me of a read of a book 'Germs'. Maybe if any of you passing by my blog find it interesting read, here goes my Review @ Amazon :Germs
In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad of The New York Times uncover the truth about biological weapons and show why bio-warfare and bio-terrorism are fast becoming our worst national nightmare.
Among the startling revelations in Germs:
How the CIA secretly built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed germ bomb, alarming some officials who felt the work pushed to the limits of what is permitted by the global treaty banning germ arms.
How the Pentagon embarked on a secret effort to make a superbug.
Details about the Soviet Union's massive hidden program to produce biological weapons, including new charges that germs were tested on humans.
How Moscow's scientists made an untraceable germ that instructs the body to destroy itself.
The Pentagon's chaotic efforts to improvise defenses against Iraq's biological weapons during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
How a religious cult in Oregon in the 1980s sickened hundreds of Americans in a bio-terrorism attack that the government played down to avoid panic and copycat strikes.
Plans by the U.S. military in the 1960s to attack Cuba with germ weapons.
Frightening and unforgettable narrative of cutting-edge, Germs could be the worst nightmare, a weapon of 21st century!! Aren't we experiencing with Iran, Iraq and rest of the world somewhere or the other?
- Editor, Kidsfreesouls
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Paper UV Energy Measuring Instrument Detect UV Curing Lamps
Most people who know about UV energy measuring instruments know that the instruments can be used to cure paper inks. However, there are many types of paper and the curing conditions are different for different papers. What is the specific application scenario? Today we take everyone to find out.
While understanding this problem, let's first introduce the classification of paper: paper is a sheet made of plant fibers and the type of paper is different because of its use. Paper can be divided into dictionary paper, coated paper, offset printing paper, newsprint, letterpress printing paper, and cover paper according to the use.
The UV curing of the paper specifically refers to the curing of the ink on the paper. Inks cover a wide range of areas including offset printing, inkjet, pad printing, and wire mesh. Ink curing specifically means printing the font or pattern you want on a piece of paper. Then add a layer of gelatinous layer (matte, bright, glitter powder, etc.) on the font or pattern to increase the aesthetics of its appearance to improve its hardness, corrosion resistance and abrasion resistance. Then bake under the LED light. The surface of the coating is polymerized. Thereby the handwriting or graphics can be preserved on the paper.
Because the use and thickness of paper are different, when curing different types of paper inks, the power, energy, temperature and curing time of the curing lamps are required, we must choose a fully functional UV energy measuring instrument.
UV printing is an ultraviolet drying process that requires an ink containing a photosensitizer to be combined with a UV curing lamp. Therefore, the curing time and energy value directly affect the effect of the paper later. For example, if the curing time is too long, the energy may be too high and the paper may be deformed and curled. If the temperature is too low, if the time is too short, the phenomenon that the cured ink will shed. In particular, for coated paper, a cold light source must be used with no heat radiation which will not lead to thermal stress and thermal deformation of the cured product.
There are two kinds of UV lamps commonly used for paper curing: high-pressure mercury lamps and UV LED light sources. For paper ink curing of UV LED light sources, LED-specific UV energy measuring instruments must be selected. For example, the LS128 spectral response range is 340nm-420nm, which is calibrated at 395nm. The power, energy and temperature of the light source can be measured. It even shows the power curve and temperature curve. The temperature measurement range is relatively wide (-55 ° C - 125 ° C). The Linshang LS128 is the world's first UV energy measuring instrument professionally used for UV LED light source testing, with a range of 40W/cm2 and wide-spectrum (340nm-420nm) range. The instrument can measure the temperature and power simultaneously and display of power curve, temperature curve.
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About the poet
Kit Wright (b. 1944) is the author of more than twenty-five books, for both adults and children...
Ode to Didcot Power Station
What vasty thighs outspread to give thee birth,
DIDCOT, thou marvel of the plain?
Colossal funnels of the steamship EARTH,
Thy consummate immensity
Enshrines the rare propensity
Of fumes to form eternal acid rain!
While, in their pious hosts, Romano-Celtic ghosts
Are knelt to worship thy
And shadows of thy sacrificial breathing fill the sky!
DIDCOT, thou bugger!
Thou teaser of the mind
And recollection-tugger! Thee I find
To replicate the days when I was small
What time my mother, sweet and kind,
The fragrant Friar's Balsam did infuse.
A towel placed upon my head
And loving care did use
That pulmonary perils might not wake me with the dead.
DIDCOT! To one more
Soft eidolon thou steams't ope mem'ry's door...
For in thy hanging shrouds I view return
Far other blue-grey clouds;
My father's pipe-smoke I in thee discern,
That followed him all days
And ways he ventured through this singing maze,
To take that turn
All entrants in their bafflement and grace may not eschew.
What links of tenderness are forged by thee,
DIDCOT, thou ever-burning core!
Insensate lover of the loves that flee!
Thou glade of past felicity,
Thy sap of electricity
Complicit in our veins for evermore!
Struggling anent the storm, thy children ghost the form
Of all our quickenings may ever be...
DIDCOT, thy billows pour,
Connatural, contiguous, familial as the sea!
copyright © Kit Wright 2005, used by permission of the author
Sponsor this poem
Would you like to sponsor this poem? Find out how here.
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A Talk by David Leach before the A.R.S. at the Annual Meeting
Seattle, Washington - May 16, 1964
I am going to start my talk this afternoon with some speculative things concerning rhododendrons. As soon as one gets into the realm of deductions and inferences he runs into differences of opinion, but it is an interesting area of rhododendron study: the series or clans, to which the species belong. The resemblance of one species to another may not be so strong to one observer as it is to a colleague 3,000 miles away, so you do have these differing views and it is perfectly understandable. It is a little bit like the differences of opinion about children. Someone says a new born child looks just like his father; someone else says he looks just like his mother.
The phylogenetic chart in my book is a family tree of rhododendrons now shown here on the screen. It illustrates the sequence in which the different series, or clans, of species evolved in the course of evolution over millions of years. This sequence is not the same as has been previously published and 1 thought you might be interested in seeing how I arrived at the changes. In general as you look at the chart the scaly-leaved clans are on the right, the Azalea-like clans are on the lower left and the non-scaly series are in the center and the upper left of the family, tree. Such a species as R. fortunei is typical of the sorts without either hairs or scales. Incidentally this picture is of one of the plants grown from the original seed sent back from China by Robert Fortune in 1856. If you magnify the underside of the leaf of Rhododendron fortunei two hundred times it is entirely devoid of hairs.
But there is a large group of species in numerous different series with indumenta. The purpose of the indumentum is to control the loss of moisture and the higher the species grow in the mountains of southeastern Asia the thicker the indumentum. You can almost place the altitude where species originate just by examining the indumentum. Some species have two layers, with different kinds of hairs and this affords the best protection of all against moisture loss because it makes a wind break and forms a layer of still air next to the leaf's under surface. Let's examine through the microscope some of the hairs making up the indumenta of various species and see what they mean to us.
A Primitive Type
Fig. 22. Funnel shaped hairs of R.
falconeri. An unknown species
can be placed in the Falconeri
Series on the basis of this hair type.
Here is R. falconeri, the primitive large-leafed species, not much changed since the age of the dinosaur. If you take a piece from the indumentum, put it beneath the microscope so that it is magnified two hundred times you find cup-shaped hairs. You know instantly when you see the cup-shaped or funnel-shaped hairs on any species that it belongs to the Falconeri series. The identification is as certain as the brand on a steer is to a rancher. When a man who owns the C-Lazy-U Ranch sees cattle with the C-Lazy-U brand he knows they belong to him. If, under magnification, you see funnel-shaped hairs in a rhododendron indumentum you know instantly that the species belongs on the Falconeri range.
R. lacteum is a beautiful, but temperamental, yellow flowered species and wightii has been placed by taxonomists in the same series. They don't look much alike, do they? Well, what does the indumentum tell us? A photomicrograph of the lacteum hairs magnified two hundred times shows radiate hairs. If you look closely you will see that there are ovoid arms forming a loose rosette. If wightii were very closely related to lacteum the hairs of the indumentum ought to be very similar. But what do we find? They are very different as you see in this next slide. R. wightii has a two layered indumentum; the top layer is formed of ramiform or branchlike hairs on the surface and at the bottom of the slide from the under layer is a single hair of the rosulate type. This pretentious name simply means it is supposed to resemble a rose-like cluster. It doesn't look much like the lacteum hairs which we saw a moment ago and if I were a taxonomist working on the Lacteum series I would take wightii right out of it.
But let's go back and look at the hairs resembling the loose rosettes of lacteum for a moment. Remember that these hairs have to be shaved off the underside of the leaf with a razor blade so there are a lot mangled and two hair types that make up the arboreum indumentum.
Here is another species in the Arboreum series. There are no dendroid a lot of fragments but if you look closely you will see complete hairs. There are some of them there, resembling this loose rosette that I am talking about. A species in another series has indumentum hairs which are almost identical. Notice here also that the hairs are like loose rosettes where they are complete and whole in the slide as a good many of these are. This is a species with radiate hairs as you can see, identical with those of lacteum, and the name of the species is brachycarpum. Well, brachycarpum is in the Ponticum series. I would certainly take this species out of the Ponticum series and give considerable thought to putting it into the Lacteum series.
R. maximum is our native rhododendron in the northeastern United States and Dr. Cowan, Dr. Hutchison, Mr. Stevenson and other British authorities have always maintained that the mature leaves are glabrous, devoid of hairs. I can only conclude that maximum requires sunshine to maintain hairs, and that in the British climate it quickly becomes bald. In any case here are the non-existent hairs from the indumentum of one-year-old leaves of R. maximum magnified 120 times. The second photograph of another specimen clearly shows the dendroid character, or the tree-like structure, of the hairs of R. maximum. The indumentum is a thin one but you can find specimens of R. maximum literally by the millions with this dendroid type of hair.
Two Layers of Hairs
Arboreum is another species with two layers to the indumentum. The surface layer is dendroid or tree-like as you see in the large hair in the center of the slide, and the under layer is rosulate or forming rose-like clusters as you see below the tree-like branch reaching out to the left. These are the hairs here-only very small hairs forming rose-like clusters. This is R. argyrophyllum. My studies have convinced me that the Argyrophyllum subseries evolved collaterally and not directly in the same line with the Arboreum series. So in the course of preparing the chart for my book I broke this series up in the family tree. Instead of being on the main trunk of evolution with the Arboreum clan, the Argyrophyllum sub-series is on the side branch.
A good many hobbyists grow bureavii because of its handsome indumentum. R. bureavii has ramiform or branch-like hairs, the branches being thread-like in the surface layer. Another picture taken through the microscope shows the branched hairs of bureavii with the shorter armed, rose-like clusters of the rosulate hairs which constitute the under layer. There you see the two different types of hairs in the indumentum of bureavii. Dr. J. M. Cowan published a masterful work on this subject about fifteen years ago and it was called The Rhododendron Leaf. My own studies differ in some respects from his findings and I'll mention these as I go along. This species bureavii in the Taliense series has an indumentum identical with some species in the Argyrophyllum subseries of the Arboreum series and it shows their close relationship.
An old friend hardy in the east is R. smirnowii. The photomicrograph shows the ramiform tentacles along with the shorter armed rosulate hairs of the under layer. You see the ramiform hairs to the right and the single rosulate hair on the left, very similar to those of bureavii which we just saw on the preceding slide.
Now let's have another look at the smirnowii indumentum for just a second. The branch-like hairs, and rose clustered hairs constitute the two layers of the indumentum. Let's see now how different these are from the hairs on the two layers of indumentum of R. makinoi. The two are in the same Ponticum series. Here you see that makinoi has an outer surface of branched tree-like hairs quite unlike those of smirnowii, and an under layer of rose-clustered hairs. Yet makinoi, from Japan, and smirnowii, from the Caucasus of Asia Minor, were put in the same series. The two are not closely related. They shouldn't even be in the Ponticum series together. The Japanese species are one clan; the Asia Minor species are another.
Hookeri is a beautiful rhododendron as this picture shows. It is one of the most easily recognized species because of the tufts of hair along the veins. This is what these tufts of hair look like when they are magnified a hundred and twenty times. Each tuft is a single bundle of arms originating from the same base and these are called fasiculate hairs.
The Azaleas have their own distinctive trade mark in the hairs on their leaves. The picture on the screen is an evergreen Azalea hybrid called 'Marjorie' produced by the Pride Nursery of Butler, Pa. All the Azaleas, both deciduous and evergreen, have these simple stiff hairs that are called strigose. The edge of the leaf in the photomicrograph is here magnified 200 times.
Indumentum and Scales
Fig. 23. Loriform hairs from the
indumentum of R. bullatum. This
type of hair is found only on scaly
R. bullatum is a beautiful greenhouse shrub which is wonderfully fragrant. It belongs to that strange Edgeworthii series which has both the woolly indumentum and underlying scales, a unique combination. As you might expect, the Edgeworthii series has an unusual hair type shared by several other scaly leaved species and this is called a loriform hair. It is found only on species with scales, never on the non-scaly. A cross section through a bullatum leaf shows the long convoluted loriform hairs, entwined as you see here, with a single scale visible at the top. The hairs intertwined form a mat-like mass with this magnification.
R. auriculatum is a popular rhododendron for its very late white flowers. You don't usually think of auriculatum being hairy but it is. It has the bristly hairs that you see here. Note that they're tipped with glands. The little knobs that you see at the end of the two horizontal hairs are the glands. A cross section of the midrib of a different specimen of auriculatum, shows again the gland-tipped hairs. Dr. Cowan found that the setose hairs of this species are largely without glands but I have found that they are largely with glands as you have seen in the last two slides. It is really not important but it seems to me that all the specimens I have examined have these gland tipped hairs. In any case these bristle-like hairs bear little resemblance to the dendroid hairs in the form of a tree, seen in the next slide, yet this species is in the same series as auriculatum. These hairs were scraped from the indumentum of griersonianum. If there is one association in the entire genus which has nothing to support it, this is it. Auriculatum and griersonianum have so little in common that they are downright incompatible and they ought to be divorced without further delay.
R. augustinii is one of the most attractive of the Triflorum rhododendrons. Most of us look for the hairy midrib as one of the means of identifying it. If you make a cross section through the midrib of augustinii magnified 200 times, it looks like the picture on the screen. These are filiform or filament-like hairs, composed of a single cell. You see the midrib of the leaf on the left and the single-cell, needle-like hair on the underside of the leaf magnified 200 times.
R. pubescens is a pretty little shrub in the Scabrifolium series. It also has single cell hair-like filaments as seen in this picture. This is a photomicrograph of the top of the leaf. The single cell filaments arising from the leaf surface are visible. The under side of the pubescens leaf shows the scales and if you look very closely you can see a single filiform hair rising from the surface.
Fig. 25. Filiform one-celled hairs
on edge of juvenile leaf of R.
moupinense. Protective hairs
are shed when mature leaf
develops thick cuticle.
Fig. 26. Simple, bristly, gland
tipped hair of R. glischrum. The
author removed R. strigillosum
from the Maculiferum Subseries
and placed it in the Glischrum
Subseries because of its similar
R. moupinense is a popular early blooming species. The picture shows an exceptionally good pink-flowered form from Caerhays estate in Cornwall. If you take the leaf of this species in a juvenile stage it also has these filament-like hairs and this illustrates another purpose of these hairy leaf coverings. Some protect the tender young leaves until they develop a thick cuticle and then having served their purpose drop away; these hairs are not found on the mature leaves of R. moupinense.
R. maculiferum, is the type species for the Maculiferum subseries, a rather rare one in the United States. It has a distinctive hair, type called folioliferous as you will see in this next slide. This grandiose word just means "bearing leaves." You note here the little flat, ribbon-like, very short leaves branching off the main stems; folioliferous.
Notice how different these next hairs are. These are simple bristly hairs of the setose class. They bear little resemblance to the leaf clad branches of the preceding, yet this species was put in the same series as maculiferum. The hairs you see here are from R. strigillosum. It is ordinarily a brilliant scarlet. In my book I took this species out of the Maculiferum subseries because it just seemed too completely ridiculous to repeat an old mistake in a new work. Obviously, the simple bristly hair of strigillosum identifies it with the species from which this next picture was taken. This also is a simple bristly hair though it does happen to be gland tipped. It comes from R. glischrum, which is the type species of the Glischrum subseries. I therefore put R. strigillosum in the Glischrum subseries where it clearly belongs and I understand that there are still some thumps from falling bodies at the presumption of it all.
R. wasonii in its best forms is a beautiful species. The picture shows a yellow-flowered form, and so far as I know, no one has ever used this attractive rhododendron in breeding. It has a hair type unlike any we have seen so far which is called the long-rayed hair. Notice that the arms are of even width and ribbon-like as taken from wasonii.
Fig. 27. Long rayed hairs
compose indumentum of
Fig. 28. Capitellate hairs
resembling short handled mops
make up the indumentum of
R. campanulatum. Identical
hairs on R. fulvum suggest a
A Plastered Silvery Indumentum
The leaves of sinogrande are probably the most dramatic in the genus. A single leaf may be three feet long. A terminal rosette of a number of leaves may be as much as seven feet across. R. sinogrande has a plastered silvery indumentum composed of hair's in rose-like clusters with a sparse admixture of dendroid or tree-like hairs of which you see fragments in this photomicrograph. This is characteristic; whenever you see the rosulate hairs alone there is always a plastered type of indumentum.
R. fulvum is a very attractive species in the Fulvum series, scarcely ever seen in its best form as it is pictured here. It is one of the most richly indumented of all the rhododendrons. R. fulvum, has still a different type of hair structure from those we have seen so far. These are capitellate hairs as found on R. fulvum. They have short stems and a mop-like head. A magnified cross-section of a fulvum leaf looks like this.
Here we have another species with hairs like a mop with a short handle, very similar to the hairs of fulvum and yet it is in an entirely different series. This is R. campanulatum. If I were revising the Fulvum and Campanulatum series this evidence of close relationship would give me pause. I would consider other evidence too, of course, but this similarity of hair structure would make me examine the facts as to whether R. fulvum and R. campanulatum should not be in the same series.
Useful in Identification
Fig. 24. The tree-like dendroid
hairs of R. griersonianum
indumentum. The midrib hairs
of R. auriculatum, formerly in
the same series, are totally different.
Finally, to conclude this part of the talk, you might say, "What are the uses for this type of information?" Well, Cecil Smith and Hjalmer Larson provided me with most of the specimens that I used for this study but when I needed both rare and somewhat tender species, I often asked for them from several sources and one of those species which I got from several sources was kyawii. One of my correspondents sent me a leaf labeled "kyawii" and when I looked at the indumentum through the microscope it had the appearance seen on the screen. Now kyawii is in the Parishii subseries of the Irroratum series and should have stellate or star shaped hairs. I'll show you now a photomicrograph from the indumentum of griersonianum and you can identify as well as I can the late blooming red rhododendron from which the leaf came that was sent to me labeled "kyawii." So this is one of the practical uses of the study of the indumentum.
Dr. Clarke suggested that I show you some of the rhododendrons we grow and enjoy in the East. Here is one called "P. J. M.," a cross between carolinianum and dauricum. This is a group name; the best clone is number 15. The winter foliage has a striking purplish color. It blooms very early, with mucronulatum, and makes a five foot shrub, densely evergreen and well foliaged. This is a new one introduced by the Weston Nursery up in New England.
The striking white flowered dwarf you see in the next picture is 'Dora Amateis', a cross between carolinianum and ciliatum. It is scheduled for introduction this fall by Baldsiefen, in New Jersey, and at wholesale by Sid Burns on Long Island.
Here is an ordinary form of mucronulatum planted with Magnolia stellata, it's pretty but it has a good deal of blue in its pink and the color is somewhat muddy at close range. A clear pink which we like very much in the East is called 'Cornell Pink'. Henry Skinner, Director of the U. S. National Arboretum, made this selection and there is also a seed grown strain, in which the majority of the plants are equally clear in color.
'Pioneer' a Gable hybrid is some sort of a racemosum-mucronulatum derivative, it is very attractive; the flowering is, well you might say, violently, right after mucronulatum.
R. linearifolium is one of the Azaleas we like in the East. We are tired of the multitude of similar hybrids that you see everywhere in these evergreen Azaleas but this is one that we think has some character and distinction as the next picture will show. It is just a very attractive evergreen Azalea which, as far as I know, should do very well out here.
Another one with character that we like is 'Hatsugiri'. It molds itself to a six inch carpet o£ flowing color coming down the slope which you see in this picture. Euan Cox will identify it as being taken at the Botanic Garden at Edinburgh. 'Hatsugiri' is sparsely distributed in the East but commercially available.
'Hino Red' is a brand new, patented Azalea being introduced for the first time this spring from the Shammarello Nursery, in South Euclid, Ohio. It promises to be a good deal hardier and more sun fast than any of the reds we now have.
An unusual use for evergreen Azaleas is seen here in azalea Kaempferi espaliered against a building. I learned recently that this is an Italian word, not French, and the correct way is to say "es-pall-eared" whereas I have been saying "es-pallyay'd" for a good many years. Anyway, a rangy grower such as kaempferi is needed for this unusual and attractive use of azaleas as you see in this picture.
In the East we can't understand why you fellows out here don't grow more of our native azaleas. Here is prunifolium. It comes along in August, when everything else is over, with these brilliant orange-red flowers and the R. H. S. rates it 4 stars, but it is very rarely seen on the West Coast. It is commercially available from different sources.
The species shown on the screen is one that doesn't bloom; you might say that this next one detonates. It is one of my selections of cumberlandense. It is called 'Scarlet Salute' and it blooms at the end of June. Plants have been given to several nurserymen here on the West Coast who specialize in the propagation of deciduous Azaleas so it will be available out here and you should have it in a couple of years. Darrel Kammer has it and Bob Comerford and several others I can't remember. I sent sets to a number of the people who specialize in the propagation of deciduous Azaleas.
Another one that we think you would enjoy out here is canadense forma albiflorum. In the East we think this is one of the most beautiful of all Azaleas. It is very early blooming and it has these butterfly-like flowers that we think have great aesthetic appeal.
Some Natural Hybrids
I'm going to show you now a little series of natural hybrids, some of which I collected and others I grew from seed. They bloom around the first of July when not much else is in flower. In my garden I think they are attractive and I wouldn't be without them. This white came in with seeds which were marked "Furbishi." The picture gives you the garden effect of the natural hybrid and a closer look at the next slide shows you the white flowers with the yellow blotch. It is an arborescens natural hybrid.
'Colouratura' is a bakeri natural hybrid of unusual and dramatic color. Now remember these flower early in July when there is not much else in bloom.
'Cream Puff' is an ivory with a yellow blotch, the natural hybrid you see on the screen.
'Pink Puff', a salmon flowered natural hybrid coming up, is probably an advanced generation derived from bakeri and arborescens.
I named the next one 'Pink Plush' because somehow the color reminded me of the Gay Nineties.
'Chamois' is an off white with a pale yellow blaze. Again, plants of these have been given to the West Coast nurserymen who specialize in propagating deciduous Azaleas and will be available out here in a year or two. The next picture gives you the garden effect of 'Chamois'. This comes in early July and many of these are wonderfully fragrant. They scent the garden for yards around and as far as I am concerned I think they are very fine.
There is quite a little interest on the West Coast in the Ilam Azaleas and I have made a few selections from several thousand seedlings that I grew. Here is one called 'Canterbury.' You can see the enormous size of the flower, by comparison with the 4½" label. 'Chartreuse' is not my selection. It is one made by John Yeates in New Zealand.
The next one, 'Spring Salvo', is mine and it gives a brilliant garden effect. It is very early flowering, just about as early, I think, as any deciduous hybrid that I have seen. Don't get the idea, however, that gigantic flowers are necessarily the most effective as small flowers freely produced may be much more ornamental as you can now see on the screen. This picture was taken in the Northwest, incidentally. The Azalea is the old, old species luteum introduced in 1793. We may not admire the use here but the effect is hard to beat.
You've read in the Bulletin about the strange red-flowered maximum found in the Blue Ridge mountains in North Carolina. There has been a great deal of interest in the East and at least some in the West. The usual form of R. maximum looks like this at its best. It blooms the first week in July and has small trusses partly hidden by new growth. Here is the second generation grown from the red flowered maximum found on Mt. Mitchell in N. Carolina. The plants propagated from the original specimens lost their color at low altitudes and it has been suggested that it is because there is not as much difference between the day and night temperature, the differential being much greater up in the mountains. But this plant, grown from seed by Warren Baldsiefen and subsequently given to me, retains much of the red pigment and I think it is unusual and perhaps a potentially valuable parent.
Another unusual form of R. maximum is maximum var. leachii. This has an interesting, somewhat oriental foliage effect, with the undulant leaves, and a dwarf stature. It was named for me by Bernard Harkness, Rochester, N. Y., who was the botanist who first described it.
This next slide doesn't relate to anything else, but I brought it because I thought you might find it interesting. It shows the tremendous gain which can be made by flash-lighting small rhododendron seedlings one second per minute at night. The sign is self explanatory. All you have to do is give them a total of 12 minutes of light all night long and the growth rates are approximately four times the usual growth rates with a normal number of hours of darkness at night. The flat on the left was flash-lighted; that on the right was not. The equipment to do this costs about $24.00 in all and if you are a breeder and want to gain time I know of no better way to do it than by flash-lighting your seedlings at night one second per minute. This is the result you get.
Standard Hybrids in the East
It was also suggested to me that I show some of the standard rhododendron hybrids in commerce in the East together with some of the newest things produced by the eastern breeders.
'Lady Armstrong' is representative of the conventional rhododendron hybrids we grow. Ninety-nine per cent, plus, were introduced about a century ago. This one came from Anthony Waterer sometime before 1873. 'Sefton' Anthony Waterer produced about 1881; it went out of fashion for awhile and now it is having a revival and there is a fresh demand for it. It is a strange plum-red color with a bloom on it and hard to catch in a photograph. Our most popular red in the East is called 'America'. It is one of the few exceptions to the general rule that we are growing rhododendron hybrids that originated a century ago. 'America' as you see it here was introduced by Koster in 1920.
'Boule de Neige' came from a French breeder called Oudieu in 1878. This is a very old plant which you see on the screen. It is usually only about 4' tall, and broader than it is high. 'Roseum Elegans' is the most popular rhododendron grown in the East. It is very hardy, grows anywhere, propagates easily, and has a compact habit. It is over a century old, having been introduced by Anthony Waterer in 1851. Some hobbyists consider 'Mrs. C. S. Sargent' to be the finest of all the old standard clones. It has been with us since Anthony Waterer sent it over about 1888. 'Catawbiense Album' is a hybrid with the same name as the wild species. It is another of the phenomenal successes of the master breeder, Anthony Waterer, who lived from 1820 to 1896. 'Catawbiense Album' is not a species variety, but a hybrid. It used to be the fashion to latinize hybrid names because this was a sign of erudition.
'Parsons Grandiflorum', also produced by Anthony Waterer, has been with us since 1875. It speaks for itself as seen on the screen.
'Everestianum' is at least 114 years old. We know it was introduced by Mr. Waterer before 1850. At any rate, that's a representative assortment of the standard rhododendrons in commerce in the East. You must have noticed that the whites aren't bad, the red's are flawed by blue, and the pinks by modern standards are terrible. But they survive 35° below zero and subzero cold lasting two or three weeks at a time and that's what we need in the East.
Here are some of the newer things of much higher quality that have come out in the last four or five years.
'Betty Hume' is a Dexter Hybrid. It's a beautiful rhododendron but is only hardy enough for favored climates along the East Coast.
'Scintillation' is another Dexter hybrid which has received a lot of publicity and it is very attractive. It also is for favored climates, as it is not so hardy as at first appeared. It can stand brief cold snaps to possibly 10 to 15 below zero but it cannot stand prolonged cold. This is the best known of all the Dexter hybrids.
Here is another group of Dexter hybrids, quite a little bit hardier than the foregoing, selected by the Bosley Nursery of Mentor, Ohio. These are not quite so cold resistant as our old standard ironclads but they are very free flowering. This one is called 'Lavender Princess'. I would say that these Bosley Dexter hybrids bud up on each terminal about 98% year after year, I have never seen rhododendrons more floriferous.
The next one is called 'Brown Eyes', another Bosley selection. They are all extraordinarily free blooming. There are about ten of them.
Tony Shammarello. of South Euclid, Ohio, has produced a rather extensive list of hybrids; of these the following have done particularly well for me at Brookville: 'King Tut' is about as hardy as the old standards and it has a good growth habit. It is a fine rhododendron for our climate. 'Pinnacle' is another one about as hardy as the 19th century Waterer hybrids but much improved in flower quality and color. 'Caroline' is one of Mr. Gable's hybrids, introduced several years ago. It is nicely fragrant but not quite hardy enough to be called an iron clad. 'Mary Belle' may be the best of all of Mr. Gable's rhododendron hybrids. It opens pink and ages yellow. It is distinctive and there is nothing else like it that we can grow in the East. It has a good growth habit, but we don't yet know exactly how hardy it is.
'Rochelle' is the first of Guy Nearing's conventional rhododendron hybrids to come on the market. This is a handsome rhododendron, quite hardy, but it couldn't quite win an H-1 rating.
I'll show you a few pictures, if you'll excuse the personal reference, of my own hybrids for such interest as they may have. I called this one 'Duet' because of the pink and yellow color combination. It appears to be perfectly bud hardy to 25° below zero.
'Tahiti' is orange in garden effect, a novel color for the East, and again it also is hardy enough to be grown almost anywhere.
'Blaze' represents the closest I have been able to come to a deep orange-red, eliminating the blue reds which we have always had up to now.
'Limelight' is the best yellow that has so far shown up. Its flowers are very large, but the color is pale. It is hardy to 25° below zero.
This is the best white I've been able to come up with. It's called, tentatively, 'White Caps'. It is a considerable improvement, it seems to me, over the old standard 'Catawbiense Album' both in its growth habit and its flower quality, and it is even a good deal hardier.
'Janet Blair' as you see on the screen is among the most free blooming of all the rhododendrons I have seen. It is named for a well known actress who came from our neighboring county in Pennsylvania. The large ruffled and fluted orchid-like flower reminded me of the feminine Miss Blair.
The next slide shows a very pale pink, a clear delicate color which we do not now have in commercial hybrids. This is a descendant of 'Mrs. Furnival' crossed with something much hardier, and I have not yet named it.
Next is a strong pink which I call 'Pink Flourish'. I'm not so much taken with this one myself; it seems to me a trifle overblown, like a Ruben's nude. It is a little gross, but visitors liked it and 1 finally decided to name it.
Here we have a distinctive pale wine color with a burgundy blotch, not yet named.
Everybody seems to be interested in yakushimanum hybrids so I brought along a picture of one I called 'Spring Frolic'. This is a cross between yakushimanum and a selected form of catawbiense var. album. The close-up gives you a little clearer idea of the flower. This bloomed after the coldest winter in a century when the temperature went to 35° below zero.
A Woodland Garden
Finally, I thought you might be interested to see a woodland rhododendron garden in the East. Mine is the most accessible so it is mine that I photographed and I will show a few pictures of it. Here we are early in the year, in late April, with Virginia Bluebells in the foreground and Daffodils. There's a chapmanii hybrid in the middle-ground, one of my own selections called 'Vernus' just beyond and so on. Next is another early season scene with schlippenbachii on the left, carolinianum var. album on the right, Nearing's hybrid 'Rochelle' in between, and I see also vaseyi var. album on the extreme right. Very early in the season for us, this is late April.
In the next picture canadense forma albiflorum is in the foreground. Just beyond is the Gable hybrid, 'Conewago', planted with Daffodils and blooming a little later, in early May.
In mid-season which is about the end of May for us, comes the big splash as you can see here. Looking down toward the work area from the top of a flowering slope at my place in Brookville, you see a tool shed in the distance, storage shed and the ground beds on the right where the seedlings are grown. Even our century old standbys make a pretty good show. In the foreground is 'America', with 'Roseum Elegans' behind it. I don't admire the color combination very much anymore. R. calendulaceum is the yellow in the middle foreground on the right. Even 'America' and 'Roseum 'Elegans' when they get some size make a pretty brave show though their color is quite badly flawed.
In the foreground on the screen you see the ground beds where the seedlings pass two years before being lined out in rows. My place is a combination of hybridizing and trial grounds, as well as a garden, so it is really not too much of anything. After the plants come out of the ground beds they are planted out in rows as you see here until they bloom and can be judged, at least on a preliminary basis, and if they look at all promising they are transplanted out of the rows and up into the woodland landscape for further observation as you see in the next picture.
This picture was taken looking across the rows of new hybrid seedlings in bloom. In the next picture, with the woodland beyond, is another segment of what I call the nursery. Even though I don't sell plants, that's the best word for it because they're just lined out as they would be in a nursery. Next is one of the older sections of the woodland plantings.
The time I enjoy most looking at my plants when they are in flower is in the early morning and sometimes in the mist it looks like this. In the foreground you see some preliminary selections which have been made from crosses of about 10 years ago, with the hybrid seedlings beyond in another portion of the nursery.
Finally this is the aspect I most enjoy and look forward to seeing every year. The great billowing waves of color washing through the woodland have brought the phantom ship of the hybridizer's dreams home on a sea of flowers, laden with a hopeful new cargo of first blooming hybrids. Most will be disappointments, but a few will give the electric moments of recognized success, the galvanic surge of delight that here is something beautiful and new on this earth. That makes the voyage of the previous twelve months worthwhile.
Tape Recorded, Courtesy H. H. Miller Seattle Chapter
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Known in English as Damascus Gate, in Hebrew as Shaar Shechem–Nablus Gate and in Arabic as Bab el Amud -Gate of the Pillar, after the Roman-era pillars there, Damascus Gate is the most decorative of the seven existing gates into Jerusalem’s Old City.
The stone work of Damascus Gate was restored in 2011 and today the gate functions once again as the main gate in and out of the Moslem Quarter. Many orthodox Jews use Damascus Gate to get to the Western Wall from the neighborhoods of Meah Shearim and Beta Israel.
Underneath the gate as we see it today (built in the mid-1500s) lies the Roman-era gate of the 2nd century CE, built by the Roma Emperor Hadrian. Be sure to go inside and see the preserved Roman-era structures and floor.
On either side of the imposing gate you’ll find merchants laying out their wares for great prices–fruit, vegetables, fresh herbs, underwear and watches all share the flagstone pathway, where you can practice your bargaining skills.
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Blackheads are a yellow or black plug on the skin, most commonly at the tip of the nose that can pull down the overall appearance of any face. The best way to manage blackheads is to use natural ways to remove them.
What is a blackhead really?
Dermatologists can tell you that a blackhead is a type of acne vulgaris but simply put these are pimples with no skin over them allowing the air to oxidize their openings and making them appear black in colour.
Blackheads have nothing to do with skin hygiene, and even those ladies who follow a strict beauty regime can face this issue because these are caused by excess oils that accumulate in the duct of a sebaceous gland. The appearance of blackheads may vary according to the person’s age, skin care regimen, hormone status and heredity.
Remedies for blackheads
It is such a common beauty problem that there are number of remedies suggested for managing blackheads ranging from simple home remedies to prescriptions and over-the counter methods. However, the efficacy of each method can vary hugely because of different skin types, climatic conditions etc.
An ideal way to manage this problem would be to try all no side-effects methods and then personally judge their suitability for your skin and lifestyle. A regular skincare regimen and continuous maintenance can be crucial for keeping the problem at bay for long durations.
10 natural ways to remove blackheads
Natural ways of removing blackheads are so popular because they are inexpensive and have no side-effects like many prescription treatments. Also, they offer the ease of being completed as per your own convenience. The 10 most popular natural methods to remove blackheads are:
1) Baking soda- Baking soda is even used by some professional dermatologists for micro-dermabrasion which is a method of exfoliating. At home, baking soda mixed with water can be used to create a gentle scrubbing paste to remove blackheads.
2) Apple cider vinegar– Using apple cider vinegar instead of plain water in face packs and face masks can clear out the blocked pores due to its astringent and anti-bacterial properties.
Also Read – The Health Benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar Here
3) Egg white- Take the white part of a fresh egg with one teaspoon of honey and spread the mixture evenly over the face, specifically on areas with dense blackheads. Let this pack dry for 20-30 minutes and wash the face afterwards with warm water.
4) Aloe Vera- Aloe Vera is known for its soothing qualities for the skin. Break a stem and rub the mucus into areas having blackheads. Aloe Vera accelerates healing of the uppermost layer skin and can make blackheads disappear or reduce significantly.
Also Read – Discover Healing Properties of Aloe Vera Here
5) Salt- Table salt can be used to remove blackheads effectively. Washing your face once a day with warm salted water can reduce excess oils that cause blackheads and its abrasive qualities may remove prominent blackheads too.
6) Ice cubes- Rubbing ice cubes on the blackhead affected areas of the face for about 10 minutes can shrink the skin pores and check blackhead growth and expansion.
7) Lime– Mix the juice of a lime with some almond oil and glycerine, and apply to the affected areas having facial blackheads for a few minutes. This remedy is effective for the removal and reduction of blackheads as well as reduction of acne scars.
8) Honey– Honey is one of the most tried and tested methods to manage blackheads. Apply a little warm honey on the face covering the blackheads. Wash your face normally after 10 minutes. Honey acts as a natural moisturizer and removes blackheads from the face.
Also Read- Honey For Hair, Skin, Body & Beauty Here
9) Steam- Steaming is often used in beauty treatments. Put a hot towel over your face for 10 minutes. This will soften the black heads and make them surface. Wash with a mild face scrub or face wash.
10) Clay mask-A clay mask can reduce the oil in the skin and pull out blackheads as well as prevent future growth of blackheads on the face.
Also Read- Multani Mitti for Blackheads Here
Image Credit –1
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Caring, it's only natural.
The possibility that empathy is part of our primate heritage ought to please us, but we are not in the habit of embracing our nature. When people kill each other, we call them "animals," but when they give to the poor, we praise them for being "humane." The idea that our animal background is all bad is one of the reasons a country well-known for its optimism [US] refuses to embrace Darwinism. Yet it will be hard to identify anything we like about ourselves that is not part of our evolutionary background. What we need is a vision of human nature that encompasses all of our tendencies: the good, the bad and the ugly.- Frans de Waal
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The Gothic Style
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the making and buying of art was increasingly concentrated in towns and cities. In the area around Paris known as the Ile-de-France, a new style of art developed. Because of its supposedly Germanic character, this style was called ‘Gothic’, first by 16th-century Renaissance writers and again by 19th-century historians.
Its first patrons were bishops and abbots, but the power and sophistication of the new Gothic forms soon appealed to kings and nobles as well. At the same time, the knightly class was developing a more self-conscious identity. This was reflected in the growth of the ideals of chivalry and in a symbolic colour code – heraldry.
Outside France, Gothic art was at first associated with French political power, but in each country, artists and patrons found ways of adapting the style to their own aims and ideals. Gothic quickly spread throughout Europe, and versions of the style were still in use as late as the 1550s.
Gothic art in England
From 9 October 2003 - 18 January 2004, the V&A hosted the exhibition Gothic: Art for England 1400-1547, which looked at the influence of the Gothic style on the art of late medieval England.
“[…] this is a period that is very much misunderstood and overlooked. It's misunderstood, I think largely because, ironically perhaps of Shakespeare's history plays, which have created an image to most of us of a bloody, strife-torn England, obsessed with dynastic feuding, and with war first with France and latterly in England and the Wars of the Roses. Probably I think the most familiar dates to people of the period are 1415 with the battle of Agincourt and 1485 with the battle of Bosworth, when Richard III was killed and Henry VII took the throne.
[…] these people - the crown, the nobles, the leading churchmen - were far from obsessed with dynastic struggles and their own positions. What they were are major patrons of the arts. There's also the misconception around that England was a provincial back water, isolated from the main European artistic currents in this period. […] English men and women commissioned the best they could acquire, not only at home but also abroad, from leading artists like Hans Memling, Holbein and also employed these people at home, like Torriginno. So England is very much in the mainstream of Europe.”
- Richard Marks, exhibition curator
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There are LOADS of cameras in Iraq. Iraq is not Saudi Arabia. Many people studied abroad and the middle and educated classes tended to have a very good standard of living to European and American standards.The cameras would be used and then rounded up and returned for processing.
You go into the shanty towns and poor city areas? If the cameras have any value they'd vanish f-a-s-t into odd channels. Is just how things work and NOT JUST in Iraq. Same in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria etc. If the cameras don't have any value (and value is about perceived value) then nobody will be interested.
I would also like to point out that Iraq is not a vacuum. Many artists and intellectuals are already doing their most to try to photo document daily life.
Its a bad idea . Digital cameras, digital video, cameras on cell phones (and many include these days video functionality) are already quite widespread in Iraq. By even conservative estimates there are over 10 million cellular telephone subscribers (and growing).(1) Good idea/bad idea? Why
Throughout the middle east and north Africa there is absolutely NO shortage of cameras and infrastructure for communication. There is a shortage of the freedom to speak out.
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Hello everyone, I use to be a member of this forum...I can't remember my old username, either Ohoopee or Forrest...but I was not able to login with either one...my old account appears to be gone so I made a new one. I am trying to determine at what date the following units were sent to Cumberland Gap in the winter of 1861 or Spring of 1862.. If you have any information on any of these units, I would appreciate your help.
30th Alabama Infantry - Col. C. M. Shelley 36th Tennessee Infantry - Col. R. J. Morgan Eufaula Light Artillery (Alabama) - Capt. J. W. Clark Rhett Artillery (Tennessee) - Capt. W. H. Burroughs Company A, Cooke's Tennessee Infantry (later became 59th Tenn.) - Capt. Prophet Company F, Cooke's Tennessee Infantry (later became 59th Tenn.) - Capt. Geisler Capt. R. J. Mileham's Company, Virginia Infantry (from Lee County) - Capt. Russell J. Mileham
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Wise Up Journal
by Greg O’Brien
We have come to accept that the people we elect have privileges that the ordinary citizens don’t enjoy. Privileges in the EU are set to be further enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution, to further alienate the accountability of the elite and the
As part of the text of the treaty are the immunities that make the members of EU even less accountable than they already are, while your rights will be under constant attack from the Charter of Fundamental Rights. First we look at the
Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European
The premises and buildings of the
The archives of the
This is contrary to all we’ve been told by the politicians about the openness and accountability of the EU, and makes any judicial enquiry almost impossible, further eroding the lack of oversight that’s already inherent in this corrupt structure. There will be no body accountable to the people and overseeing the integrity of the EU, as we’ve seen in the tribunals in this country which have exposed the corruption and held the individuals to account while acting independently. They have cost a lot of money and the judiciary have made a fortune, but we have trawled through their findings and politicians have resigned over their conclusions. Next we look at the members:
Members of the European Parliament shall not be subject to any form of inquiry, detention or legal proceedings in respect of opinions expressed or votes cast by them in the performance of their duties.
During the sessions of the European Parliament, its Members shall enjoy:
(a) in the territory of their own State, the immunities accorded to members of their parliament;
(b) in the territory of any other
Immunity shall likewise apply to Members while they are travelling to and from the place of meeting of the European Parliament.
Immunity cannot be claimed when a Member is found in the act of committing an offence and shall not prevent the European Parliament from exercising its right to waive the immunity of one of its Members.
That’s right, we can no longer question the votes cast by our elected representatives even if they vote contrary to the wishes of the people or the national interest. We have already seen how De Rossa and members of Fine Gael have voted contrary to the people but we will not be able to hold them to account under the treaty.
As for criminal offences, they have to be caught in the act of committing a crime, unlike everyone else who has to comply with the full rigors of the law and is subject to interrogation and investigation. As for the Parliament waiving immunity, that’s absolute nonsense, as we’ve seen with any State body investigating itself or one of its members. Corruption will be given a free reign in this atmosphere and not only does this apply to MEPs, but goes further by allowing the un-elected to enjoy immunity as well:
Representatives of Member States taking part in the work of the institutions of the
This Article shall also apply to members of the advisory bodies of the
Privileges, immunities and facilities shall be accorded to officials and other servants of the Union solely in the interests of the
Each institution of the Union shall be required to waive the immunity accorded to an official or other servant wherever that institution considers that the waiver of such immunity is not contrary to the interests of the
Next we look at the judiciary, which will be responsible for your fundamental rights under which you will no longer have the protection of the Constitution of Ireland to defend you against. Again they have levels of immunity unheard of in this country:
Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union
Before taking up his duties each Judge shall, before the Court of Justice sitting in open court, take an oath to perform his duties impartially and conscientiously and to preserve the secrecy of the deliberations of the Court.
The Judges shall be immune from legal proceedings. After they have ceased to hold office, they shall continue to enjoy immunity in respect of acts performed by them in their official capacity, including words spoken or written.
The Court of Justice, sitting as a full Court, may waive the immunity. If the decision concerns a member of the General Court or of a specialised court, the Court shall decide after consulting the court concerned.
Where immunity has been waived and criminal proceedings are instituted against a Judge, he shall be tried, in any of the Member States, only by the court competent to judge the members of the highest national judiciary.
A Judge may be deprived of his office or of his right to a pension or other benefits in its stead only if, in the unanimous opinion of the Judges and Advocates-General of the Court of Justice, he no longer fulfils the requisite conditions or meets the obligations arising from his office. The Judge concerned shall not take part in any such deliberations. If the person concerned is a member of the General Court or of a specialised court, the Court shall decide after consulting the court concerned.
The Registrar of the Court shall communicate the decision of the Court to the President of the European Parliament and to the President of the Commission and shall notify it to the President of the Council.
The judges will be immune from prosecution unless other judges decide that they will lose their immunity, again a body deciding the rights of its members, with no oversight or accountability.
The judiciary will be responsible for accounting for themselves and if they don’t comply with the objectives of the Union (
We are entering into a totalitarian dictatorship, whether we pass this treaty or not. A No vote will give us time to wake more people up to what’s going on and give us the opportunity to change the course of history, but democracy can only be defended by vigilance, which means an end to mindless distractions. It will require a more critical and responsible population, educated in their Constitutional Rights and willing to defend them at every opportunity. Nothing can be taken for granted in the future and those that are handing us over to this dictatorship must be exposed and held to account, which our Constitution states the people are fully entitled to do.
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Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: December 1, 2008
Publication Date: April 7, 2009
Citation: Mukhopadhyay, S., Onwulata, C.I., Thomas, A.E. 2009. Thermo mechanical and surface morphology of reactively-mixed starch-protein composite. Meeting Abstract. Abstract 97Session 15 Technical Abstract: Plastic polymers derived mostly from refined crude-oil products, are currently regarded as unsustainable, and are fluctuating widely in costs. There is an increasing demand for finding renewable and sustainable sources for plastics. Agricultural materials such as proteins and starch are both renewable and can be thermoformed into bioplastics. Proteins and starch, although highly biodegradable, are often difficult to process individually into bioplastics as starch may degrade prior to the melting stage, and proteins exhibit low mechanical strength. Experiments were conducted using a mixture of 40% whey protein isolate (WPI) and 30% starch, with water and aqueous solutions of either Acetic Acid (AA) or Citric Acid (CA) 30% (w/w) to form composites. The composites were mixed with roller blades in a torque rheometer for 45 min at the preset initial temperatures of 35 deg C and 70 deg C. At the completion of reactive mixing, the thermoformed composite pastes were molded into ASTM D4065 strips in a Carver press for 30 min at 121 deg C. The mechanical properties indicate that the presence of mono- and poly- basic organic acids increased crosslinking of starch and protein. The storage modulus of the composites was found to be a function of the concentration of organic acids in the mix. Results indicate an increasing trend of storage modulus of the bioplastic as the AA concentration in the matrix increased. There was a 27.5% increase in storage modulus from 636 MPa for the control sample with no added AA to 862 MPa at 3.75% AA. Molded products mixed at 70 deg C performed better than those mixed at 35 deg C. Reactively extruded DBP can be used as adjunct polymers for specific products. The properties of crosslinked starch and protein composites can be tailored to specific needs by controlling the proportion of the protein or starch.
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NASA released its Fiscal year 2010 budget request today in the amount of $18.686 billion. The budget request represents an increase of $903.6 million, about 5 percent, above the amount provided NASA in the Fiscal Year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act.
Acting Administrator Chris Scolese provided this message to go along with the budget:
"Today, I am pleased to release NASA's FY2010 budget request in the amount of $18.686 billion to advance Earth science, complete the International Space Station, explore the solar system and conduct aeronautics research. The budget request represents an increase of $903.6 million, about 5 percent, above the amount provided NASA in the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act
The FY 2010 budget does a number of things: it supports the Administrationís commitment to deploy a global climate change research and monitoring system; it funds a strong program of space exploration involving humans and robots with the goal of returning Americans to the moon and exploring other destinations; and it supports the safe flight of the Space Shuttle to complete assembly of the International Space Station by the Space Shuttle's planned retirement.
With the FY 2010 budget request, we will advance our global climate change research. NASA's investment in Earth science research satellites, airborne sensors, computer models and analysis already has revolutionized scientific knowledge and predictions of climate change and its effects. Using the National Research Councilís recommended priorities for space-based Earth science research, we will develop new sensors to support the Administrationís goal of deploying a global climate research and monitoring system.
The budget request also renews NASAís commitment to aeronautics research to address aviation safety, air traffic control, noise and emissions reduction, and fuel efficiency. And NASAís diverse portfolio of science, technology, engineering and mathematics educational activities is aligned with the administrationís goal of improving American innovation and global competitiveness.
Along with the budget release, the White House also announced the launch of an independent review of NASA's human space flight activities. The Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans will examine our development programs and suggest possible alternatives. The goal is to provide options that will ensure the nationís human space flight program remains safe, innovative and affordable in the years following the space shuttle's retirement. During the
review, work on the Constellation Program will continue. The review team will work closely with NASA and seek input from the Congress, the White House, the public, industry and international partners as it develops these options. The review will be done by a blue-ribbon panel of experts. The panel's results will support an administration decision by August 2009 on how to proceed."
FY 2010 Budget Request
- Summary (200 Kb PDF)
- Exploration Systems
- Space Operations
- Cross Agency Support
- Inspector General and Reference Materials
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration, OMB
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Learn about this topic in these articles:
role in Australian history
...Another notable contribution was the institution of woman suffrage (1894), which helped bring nationwide application of the principle at federation. Appropriately, South Australia was the home of Catherine Helen Spence, the most remarkable Australian woman in public life, who published a significant novel, Clara Morison (1854), and became active in many social and...
...of the colonial experience: bushrangers and bushfires, floods and hostile Aboriginals, the tragic outcome of being lost in the bush, cattle branding and horse galloping, and a fortune earned. Catherine Helen Spence’s Clara Morison (1854) details with a nice sense of irony the social preoccupations of Adelaide in the mid-19th century, but it was not a well-known novel.
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July 29, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq
The gunmen took al-Mansouri's mobile phone, satellite phone, press card, and money, Ruba'i said. He said his colleague was rushed to a hospital but died shortly afterward. Ruba'i and CPJ sources said they believe al-Mansouri was killed because he was a journalist.
Al-Mansouri, a Shiite, received death threats a year earlier when he resided with his family in Baghdad, where sectarian violence had intensified, according to Ruba'i. The Associated Press reported that the journalist moved his wife and daughter to the Shiite-dominated city of Karbala following the threats, but chose to stay in Baghdad himself. He had dropped off his visiting wife at her parent's house in Al-Amariyeh around 7 p.m. the night of the attack, sources said.
Ruba'i said he, too, received death threats because he works for Iran's Al-Alam channel. Al-Mansouri was the first journalist from the Arabic-language Iranian satellite channel to be murdered.
The station, which started regular broadcasting in March 2003, was based in Tehran and run by IRIB, the Iranian state radio and TV service. It was opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and, in hourly news bulletins, showed extensive footage of Iraqi civilians lying dead in residential areas or being treated in hospitals.
Job: Broadcast Reporter
Beats Covered: War
Local or Foreign: Local
Type of Death: Murder
Suspected Source of Fire: Political Group
Taken Captive: No
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Sources of Funds for Small Businesses
02/12/2020 | 06:30PM - 08:30PM
Meeting Room 2
BRC, Business Training, Technology Training
Sources of Funds for Small Business
Free Workshop from SCORE
Description: This workshop will provide insights into the lending process, including tips on identifying your best financing strategy, common financing mistakes in the loan process, managing business credit, and positioning your company for loan eligibility. We will cover financing basics, start-up costs, small business lenders, applying for a loan, and more.
Please register in advance at this link: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=zsdt7zcab&oeidk=a07egvjlz1me9170a1c
Presenter Bio: After a successful 20-year Commercial Banking & Lending career in the NJ/NY region, Mr. Parag Nevatia started EZ Funding Solutions LLC, a Certified SBA Advisory & Project Finance Company in 2013, with a vision to speed up SBA lending processes and getting SBA loans to the closing table faster. Being NAGGL (SBA) Certified, EZ Funding Solutions can do upfront Risk Analysis, Document and Data gathering, Debt Structuring and Underwriting in order to make loan projects Viable, Bankable and Approvable. Once approved, they work through the Closing Due Diligence process representing their client every day in order to get to the closing table. EZ Funding is a unique platform that brings accountability and speed into the much needed financing system with an ultimate objective to help entrepreneurs close SBA loans more rapidly.
Parag sits on three Advisory Boards - SBDC New Brunswick at Rutgers University, Regional Business Assistance Corp (NJ’s largest 504 CDC Lender) and IT Connect. He is also a counselor at the SBDC and has done several seminars and webinars for SCORE, MODC (Monmouth and Ocean Development Council), IFPG (International Franchise Professional Group) and others.
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This post was originally going to be about using authentic texts with Intermediate/Upper Intermediate students, but after some reflection, I'm going to extend it somewhat, although it'll still be anchored in reading skills.
I've been doing some research and refreshment over the past few weeks on reading skills, and how to make text-based lessons more interesting to our learners. A lot of students don't really enjoy doing reading in class, as they think it's something that doesn't actually teach them any English per se. In fact, I suspect quite a few teachers think the same - it's quite a tempting thought when students have their heads down in a text, reading silently (or possibly dozing and dribbling onto the page) - there doesn't appear to be anything going on, and both the instructor and learner end up having the same uneasy sensation, that possibly there should be something apparently happening. The chances are that our students don't actually do as much text-based work as they should, and this is a shame - research shows pretty conclusively that language learners who read more are better and faster at language learning.
However, this also suggests two things - first, that the students who read more are more likely to be avid readers and, importantly, readers of a wide range of things, in their L1, and that they are motivated to do language-based activities outside the classroom. What we don't, or possibly can't, know is whether the reading drives the motivation or vice-versa, or there's some weird feedback loop thingy going on. Anyway, it seems clear that we should motivate students to practise their English outside the classroom, doesn't it? After all, if we motivate them, they will seek down each and every opportunity to use their ninja-like English skills in new and exciting ways, yes?
Or, possibly, there's something else going on, and it very much depends on the context in which we teach, and how we teach it - hence the title of this post.
I've taught in both a monolingual environment - in this case, a private language school in Turkey - and in a native English speaker context, i.e. my current job in an FE college in Deepest Berkshire. Let's imagine that we have the same student going to both places, learning broadly the same syllabus, and moderately motivated. We'll also imagine, for the sake of things, that he's had some kind of ghastly accident involving a copy of Jeremy Harmer's finest, causing him to lose his memory of his previous English learning, and he wakes up in an ESOL class in Reading at the same level he started off in in Turkey. Well, it could be worse: he could have woken up in Slough. Anyway. Our Turkish student in Turkey, if he is sincere about learning English outside the classroom, must actively seek down opportunities to speak, read, write and listen to the language. Now, of course it is relatively easy these days to do that, but our learner, being an average chap, has a thousand and one things to do outside class as well, and to be honest, English studies are really going to drop down the list unless he is a) motivated and, crucially, b) his teacher is motivated enough to be on his case, and does things such as actively suggest where to find information, things to study, where, how and when to practise etc.
Now our hapless student has his bizarre mishap with Mr Harmer, and suddenly he's in the UK, and doing the same kind of studies. And the difference? He doesn't have to actively seek English: He's totally inundated by it. I use 'inundated' correctly, I believe: it's an uncontrollable, unstoppable, tumbling, reaving, crushing, horrid tsunami of words, phrases, attitudes, assumptions of prior knowledge, in-jokes, requests, demands, persuasions, dissuasions and god knows what else. So what is the teacher's duty in all this? After all, we don't need to persuade the learner to hunt out opportunities when they are all around.
In fact, we should first consider it from the learner's point of view. It is natural, in this context, to not engage with the language: it's so overwhelming, that you just want to run away somehow - culture shock, anyone? Look at ELT practitioners the world over - how many of them form expat groups? there you go, it's the running away from the language and culture. Of course, culture shock covers more than language, but from an ELT view it's something we should be clearly aware of, even when the student has been living in the UK/USA or wherever for years and years. A lot of their language engagement may actually be embedded in avoidance strategies - and if you're an ESOL/ESL practitioner,I bet you've seen that more than once, haven't you?
The point I'm trying to make in my roundabout way is this. Depending on our teaching context, we have to deploy different language motivation strategies. If you work in a monolingual/NNES environment, you have to be a language provider - that is, you need to give the materials in class, and provide ways, methods, links, techniques through which the learner can step outside the classroom and actively use English. In a Native English speaking context, however, the teacher is not so much the provider as the manager. In other words, we need to contextualise, parse and manage the flow of information that the learner has to deal with, and render it in such a way as to make it manageable for the student, who after all has to deal with it anyway, regardless of how many lessons he or she has. Only by showing the student that the information is actually manageable can we hope to motivate them, otherwise they will reach a point where they simply switch off, and just don't want to engage with the world around them.
So, are you a provider or a manager, or both? And what do you do to motivate your learners beyond the classroom's Fourth Wall?
I'll deal with methods and practice behind this in another post, as it's getting on the late side now, and I still have to motivate myself through a torrent of student essays.
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By default, Apple does not allow you to sync your iPhone to two different Macintosh systems. However, a workaround does exist to make it possible to sync your contents on both computers to a single iPhone. This workaround makes it possible to use a work computer and a home computer and keep contents synced on your iPhone between both computers. Normally, each iTunes library has a separate library ID. This makes it impossible to sync on more than one computer without deleting the contents of the iPhone first. By inputting the same iTunes library ID into both computers you can sync between both computers.
Click "Go" and then "Go To Folder" from the Macintosh navigation drop-down menu.
Enter the following link in the "Go To Folder" dialog box: ~/Music/iTunes The iTunes folder appears listing all of the contents in the library.
Right-click the file "iTunes Music Library.xml" and select "Open With" and then "TextEdit."
Look for the Library ID located on the 14th line from the top of the text file. Copy the number located between the two "<string>" codes.
Create a copy of both the "iTunes Music Library.xml" and "iTunes Library.itl" files by navigating to the ~/Music/iTunes on the second computer. Right-click both files and select "Duplicate" from the drop-down menu.
Open the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file in TextEdit on the new computer. Copy down the Library ID number and then replace the Library ID number from the second computer with the ID from the first computer and save the changes.
Install HexEdit, HexFiend or Hex Editor XVI32 and click on the "Find" option from the menu bar. Enter the Library ID you copied from Step 6 in the "Find" text area and enter in the Library ID from the old computer into the "Replace With" text area box.
Connect your iPhone to either computer and run the iTunes "Sync" option to keep your phone updated on both Macs.
- William Thomas Cain/Getty Images News/Getty Images
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- High-quality supplements
- Tested formulas
- Wide range of products
- Vegan and allergen-free
- Helpful gut health quiz
- Only ships to the U.S. and Canada
It’s common to associate bacteria with disease, but there are also millions of good bacteria living inside our bodies. Most are located in the digestive system and are essential for our bodies to function properly. You may have heard many people talk about probiotics. These are actually good bacteria that improve your gut health, helping conditions ranging from constipation to skin irritation. This was the case for the founder of Jetson Probiotics, who started taking probiotics to ease the pain that was a side effect of his multiple sclerosis medication. Unlike the generic probiotic supplements you find at grocery stores, Jetson Probiotics bottles include specific probiotics for a variety of situations, such as losing weight, clearing up the skin, boosting the immune system, or even improving mental health. Plus, the company offers a seasonal subscription to help you get all the probiotics you need throughout the year.
Before diving into each product on offer, it’s important to learn what these probiotics are all about. At their core, they’re designed to improve gut health, which is an aspect we often overlook, but that – in reality – is key for better physical and mental health. To achieve this, the company relies on a formula that increases serotonin and dopamine through reliable and safe supplements.
Jetson Probiotics relies on a team of pediatricians, gastroenterologists, and neurologists with decades of experience, who have expertly turned their research into digestible supplements capable of significantly improving general health via the gut. The supplements contain only high-quality ingredients – mainly vitamins made in the U.S. that are 100% vegan, and allergen and gluten-free.
But the formula for these probiotics isn’t always the same, as Jetson likes its products to stay up to date with the latest scientific discoveries. Currently, the supplements available include Fit, Women, After Ate, Skin, Mood, Digest, Gut Recovery, Gut Prep, Immunity, as well as Superkids, which are for children. Choosing the most appropriate type of probiotic can be a challenging task – that’s why Jetson provides customers with a quick gut health quiz to get personalized recommendations based on individual needs.
Since each type of probiotic achieves a different goal, it may be hard to know which to take and how much. Luckily, Jetson Probiotics provides a seasonal package that tells you precisely the best way to take four different bottles across the year so you’re exposed to a variety of customized probiotic strains.
From May to August, you get the Fit formula, which has a unique probiotic-only blend for weight management to help you reach peak performance and lose weight. Following this, from September to November, the company ships you the Mood probiotic, which improves sleep while also decreasing general fatigue and anxiety.
During the cold and flu season – from December to February – you get the Immunity formula, which promotes respiratory health, maintains bowel consistency, and helps prevent constipation. Lastly, from March to April, the company recommends ingesting Skin probiotics to improve your skin’s elasticity, firmness, and resistance to environmental stress.
We tested Jetson’s products for a whole month by taking a Mood pill every day 20 minutes before breakfast, following the company’s advice. The results were not immediate, but as weeks passed there were many positive changes – from feeling more awake and in a happier mood to an improved digestive system that handled heavier foods better. By the end of the month the effects were clear, with the Mood probiotic further improving sleep, calmness, and an overall sense of well-being. This is definitely an excellent experience that left us wanting more.
Digest and Gut Prep
The wide range of products continues as Jetson Probiotics steps up its game to deliver an all-in-one bottle for optimal gut health. The Digest formula combines essential probiotic strains – without added vitamins – in a single capsule that focuses on greatly improving the digestive system by fighting off pathogens that may cause infections and other diseases.
If you’re new to the world of probiotics, Jetson recommends adding a Gut Prep Prebiotics bottle to your first purchase to help with the first month of probiotics use. Its ingredients ‘teach’ your body’s good bacteria to feast on the bad bacteria, clearing you of harmful organisms. To top everything off, there’s also a Gut Recovery package made with more robust probiotics that are ideal for anyone wishing to detox after taking antibiotics. These probiotics make the most of a multi-strain formula to survive the harsh environment created by antibiotics, thus allowing users to recharge and stabilize their gut.
With the same goal of improving digestion and the advantage of providing an instant effect, the After Ate bottle contains digestive enzyme mints for fast relief after eating. These mints contain a broad variety of digestive enzymes to help the stomach break down carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, so your body can get the most nutrients out of your food.
Jetson’s recommendation is that the mint-flavored chewable tablets are taken within 15 minutes after having a meal to alleviate and prevent discomfort, gas, and bloating from indigestion.
This is an all-in-one probiotic supplement for women’s health that supports a balanced vaginal microbiome. By emphasizing vaginal health, women can improve the condition of their urinary tracts and reduce the symptoms of menopause and PMS.
Jetson understands that parents have a hard time adding gut-healthy foods to their children’s diet, as kids aren’t always fans of peas and brussels sprouts. So, the company developed a convenient, orange-flavored supplement suitable for kids from the age of two.
The product is a three-in-one probiotic, prebiotic, and Vitamin D blend. It comes in packets that can be dissolved into a drink or poured directly on the child’s tongue. With no added sugars, artificial dyes, and being completely allergen-free, Superkids supports children’s immune system, as well as brain, teeth, and bones development.
Jetson Probiotics prices vary depending on which product, billing cycle, and frequency that you receive the probiotics. Choosing the monthly plan means you get a bottle every month for $35, except for Gut Prep and Superkids, which cost $20 and $25 per month, respectively.
Discount hunters may be glad to know that going for a recurring billing cycle is cheaper, with the price per bottle dropping to $32 for Seasonal or After Ate, and $33 for Women or Digest. Since this may be the perfect way to try the probiotics and have enough time to see how your body reacts, it’s excellent that Jetson has a 30-day money-back guarantee and a cancel-anytime policy.
But you don’t have to commit to a subscription to try some of Jetson’s products. Gut Prep and Superkids can be one-time purchased. The former costs $25 a bottle, and the latter is $30 a box. It’s also possible to save $15 by bundling different products together.
Additionally, there’s Jetson Plus, which is a digestive health treatment program. By answering a medical form, the service provides you with a free diagnosis. Then, for $100, an online appointment with a licensed medical provider is set. The professional develops a custom treatment plan of prescriptions, with Jetson-certified probiotics and lifestyle modifications.
Regarding delivery fees, it’s important to note that a $5 shipping fee is charged for Gut Prep single orders. Free shipping is only available in the U.S., plus the company only ships internationally to Canada at a cost of $10 extra. The company accepts major credit cards, as well as shopPay, PayPal, and GooglePay.
Jetson’s customer support is comprehensive and offers plenty of options. Firstly, customers can turn to the help center with many helpful articles and FAQs that explain all the ins and outs of Jetson’s products. If that isn’t enough, you can always contact the company via social media (Facebook and Instagram), email, or live chat. The latter isn’t exactly 24/7, but it tells you when it will be available. Should you open the chat outside of working hours, you can leave a message and wait for a reply. Finally, it’s also worth checking Jetson’s YouTube page. Here, you’ll find customers’ testimonials, valuable tips, and some funny commercials.
All things considered, Jetson Probiotics offers a convenient solution when it comes to taking supplements. It’s easy to see that its probiotics are made with care and backed by medical professionals with many decades of experience, as we got to test its high-quality products and almost immediately noticed their positive impact on our overall health. It’s also clear that the company is very inclusive – its probiotics are vegan, allergen-free, and suitable for almost any age. If it's your first time using this type of supplement, Jetson Probiotics provides a helpful quiz to enlighten users on its products and help them choose the right one from the plethora of different probiotics available. There’s no reason not to try Jetson Probiotics, especially when you also take into consideration its affordable prices and stellar customer service.
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100 Women: Meet America's new breadwinners
16 October 2013 Last updated at 07:49 BST
In the US a profound social change is happening, as an increasing number of families rely on mothers to make the most money.
In fact, more than 40% of American households with children now have so-called "breadwinner moms" - up from one in 10 back in 1960.
As part of the BBC's 100 Women series, Katty Kay travelled to Richmond, Virginia to see the impact it's having on women, families and the economy.
Produced by Ted Metzger, filmed by Peter Murtaugh and edited by Bill McKenna.
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The lifelong mental benefits of exercising have long been known, from improving learning in kids to staving off dementia in seniors. Yet how working up a sweat leads to better cognition is much less clear. A study in the Journal of Applied Physiology reveals that the key may lie in the body’s power supply.
Just as a booming metropolis might build new power plants to meet a rising need for electricity, our muscles respond to the demands of exercise by producing new mitochondria, the tiny structures inside cells that supply the body with energy. J. Mark Davis, a physiolo-
gist at the University of South Carolina, and his colleagues wondered if brain cells might do the same thing. While studying mice, they found that quantities of a signaling molecule, dubbed by researchers “a master regulator” of mitochondria production, increased in the brain after half an hour a day of treadmill running. The mice’s brain cells also had more mitochondrial DNA—distinct from the regular cellular DNA found in the nucleus—providing “gold standard” evidence of more mitochondria. It appears that the brain “adapts and changes by bringing more of these powerhouses” online, Davis says. The increased energy supply allows the brain to work faster and more efficiently.
The finding could help scientists understand how exercise staves off age- and disease-related declines in brain function, because neurons naturally lose mitochondria as we age, Davis explains. Although past research has shown that exercise encourages the growth of new neurons in certain regions, the widespread expansion of the energy supply could underlie the benefits of exercise to more general brain functions such as mood regulation and dementia prevention. “The evidence is accumulating rapidly that exercise keeps the brain younger,” Davis says.
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The active persecution of sodomites by the Inquisition gradually gave way to secular prosecutions under civil law, with declining ferocity as the Renaissance gave way to the Enlightenment and more modern times (although executions continued until the nineteenth century.) From this time on, theoretical condemnation of “sodomites” co-existed with increasing public recognition of some men who had sex with men, and records relating to queers in the church are less prominent than either earlier or later periods. In the nineteenth century, Cardinal Newman’s request to be buried alongside Ambrose St John does not appear to have aroused any opposition.
In the twentieth century, the increasing visibility of homosexual men produced the horrifying backlash in Germany in the gay holocaust, with its echos of the medieval bonfires of heretics and sodomites – the modern gay martyrs.
Only after WWII did the Vatican begin to seriously address the question of homosexuality, with increasingly harsh judgements and attempts to silence theologians and pastors who questioned their doctrines and practice. (John McNeill, Sr Jeannine Grammick). Other denominations drove out existing gay or lesbian pastors, and refused ordination, or even church membership, to other openly gay or lesbian church members (Paul Abel Chris Glaser, Troy Perry). However, these victims of church exclusion, who can be seen metaphorically as modern martyrs, martyred by the church for being true to their sexual identity, refused to be silenced. Like St Sebastian before Emperor Maximilian, they found new ways to minister to the truth of homosexuality and Christianity.
Today, these early pioneers for queer inclusion in church have been joined by countless others, who work constantly at tasks large and small, to witness to the truth of our sexuality and gender identity, and to its compatibility with authentic Christianity. In effect, that includes all of who identify as both Christian, and simultaneously as lesbian, gay trans, or other - and the women who refuse to accept the narrow confines of the gender roles church authorities attempt to place on us.
November 1st is the day the Church has set aside to celebrate All Saints – the recognition that sainthood is not only a matter of formally recognized and canonized saints, but is a calling to which we must all aspire. For queers in Church, it is especially a day for us to remember our modern heroes, who in facing and overcoming their attempted silencing are martyrs of the modern church – and that we, too, are called to martyrdom, in its literal sense: to bear witness, in our lives, to our truth.
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Veterans: Iraqi Abuse Photos Pale In Comparison To Abuse In Past Wars
Posted May 22, 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. — As the Iraqi prison abuse controversy lingers on, officials claim more photos of abuse are coming. Some veterans do not condone the actions depicted in the photos, but they said prisoner abuse is a common atrocity of war.
Pictures help Ray Beebe remember. The retired lieutenant flew C-47s in World War II. His photo album contains countless stories, but not all of them. Beebe remembers a fellow soldier telling him about German prisoners in an American camp.
"He said they captured 30 and they only turned in two names, so the other 28 were done away with somewhere," Beebe said.
Beebe was not there, but he said he knows in war, rules can change.
"It probably wasn't right. You get beat around by somebody, and you get a chance to get even with somebody, you're going to," Beebe said.
Beebe said he does not excuse what happened in Iraq, but he said the controversy is big only because it was captured on film.
"We get hammered on something like this with those prisoners and yet look what they're doing to our guys and have done, and will will do if they get the chance," he said.
Military expert Capt. Craig Marks said the reality of war is uglier than most imagine.
"It's not 'Hogan's Heroes,'" Marks said. "We like in America to look at this clean, antiseptic, we'll drop some bombs, and they'll give up. Then, we'll build them a Gap store and a McDonald's. It's not the way warfare is."
The photo scandal has embarassed the military. Marks fears that because of it, American leaders will clamp down on interrogation, causing intelligence agencies to miss information that could save American lives.
Marks, who served in the special forces, said some of the tactics are tough, but necessary evils. Marks also called what he saw in the photos, "amateur hour." He said the young soldiers pictured probably watched professional interrogators and then tried to emulate them.
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“Maybe it sucks,” Hillary Salmons, executive director of the Providence After School Alliance, told the audience at a conference last month centered on after-school programs and why attendance at some is so low. “Maybe the kids aren’t coming for a reason.”
It was striking honesty from a local leader, but one spoken from experience. Salmons, with a directive from then-Mayor David Cicilline, oversaw the launch of the Rhode Island capital city’s AfterZone initiative for middle schools in 2005. It was a reimagining for what an after-school program should look like. An attempt to take a program that was held in one location with a rigid format and transform it into a citywide system that offers something for a variety of interests and appeals to students' sense of creativity and individuality.
Salmons and her colleagues accomplished that through the ‘zone’ concept. The city was divided into three zones, each offering distinct menus of programs based out of one school in each zone. One might focus on music and the arts; another might revolve around physical activity and sports. The school year was broken up into three sessions, so students could have opportunities to try different things. The three anchor schools just served as a base, as field trips to nearby libraries or recreational centers became an integral part of the program. More than 100 groups contributed to the initiative in one form or another. The alliance has also set rigorous quality standards and established frequent assessments to ensure the needs of its “customers,” as Salmons calls them, are being met.
In the years since, Providence has become a model for effective after-school systems. Tens of thousands of the city’s youth have participated, and they’ve proven to be absent less and score higher on standardized tests than their peers not in the program. The alliance has started a similar system for high school students, ensuring continuity for the middle schoolers who have moved up and opening up opportunities for a new segment of students. The Wallace Foundation, which promotes best practices for after-school programs, has highlighted the efforts in Providence. The alliance has also been working to spread its ideas by hosting symposiums with other local leaders from Nashville, Tenn., New Orleans and Omaha, Neb., just to name a few.
Governing spoke with Salmons about her experience in Providence, where she thinks the after-school movement is headed, and how local officials can make sure their programs don’t, in her own words, “suck.” This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Let’s start with the basics. It sounds like one of the biggest challenges is getting students to show up. How have you tried to accomplish that in Providence?
Hillary Salmons (HS): You have to look at all these different students’ different interests and you have to pay attention to what the research and, just as important, your students are telling you. Figure out what’s leading to success. So if you have four sports programs that are basically the same design but one shows fluctuation or the girls all bailed, you can go back to that first week and say, ‘Hey, what happened? How do we shore up your program?’, so that word doesn’t get on the playground that ‘Hey, this program’s no good.’ Then we can work with the instructor to try to liven it up and make sure the youth are engaged.
And you have to create a buzz around your program. Our process is sort of like a recruitment fair, where the students meet the instructors. A sixth-grader goes around to all the tables and looks at videos and sees the products and figures out with their peers: ‘What are you doing? What are you doing? Let’s do it together.’ That’s the beginning of the session. Then at the end of each of the sessions, there’s a showcase for students to show their work so the young people see, ‘Hey, that kid who I really think is cool built a go-kart or did some sort of an arts project and built a greenhouse. That’s really cool. Or rugby, that’s a cool sport. I want to try that next time.’ So it’s a promotional way of young people marketing to each other.
Young people are really discerning when they see that their friends are motivated. If they’re talking about having cooked a crazy Chinese meal and describing it to each other, then that shows really good engagement.
Implicit in all of this is the idea that it’s not necessarily very easy to craft an after-school model that’s attractive to adolescents. Why do you think that is?
HS: Getting 100 different programs to be consistently good is in and of itself a challenge because a lot of groups compete with each other. So getting them to agree on what quality looks like and then being able to assess and self reflect is hard. But if they know that stuff is not punitive, they’re more likely to engage in that process with us. Getting public-private systems to work and getting people to really take effective action is often tricky, but I think by focusing on quality and getting everybody to work together to support each other is key. They go to professional development together. They have agreed on the definition of quality. They’ve agreed to use a self-assessment tool. It builds a reflective culture across different organization lines. But facilitating reflection and awareness takes a lot longer than requiring people to meet criteria. That more punitive approach is faster, but it doesn’t get complete ownership. It just takes more time to do things collectively.
We’re also trying to connect across generational and socioeconomic lines. We’re working with urban youth, who have a great deal of cultural diversity and quite frankly, they’re in failing schools. Providence has one of the highest child poverty rates for a city of its size. We have a huge amount of adversity in these young people’s lives, and they’re really coping with a lot of stress factors at home and I think image issues in terms of being in urban schools that are struggling. So creating a positive, can-do urban culture with a hip-hop-oriented brand was important. We needed to be sure that we had a brand that they could identify with, something that was cool.
That doesn’t mean it’s not challenging or intellectual or full of energy. But we just had to make sure that we also built some context around the kids being able to discover these new things. They may live a half mile from the bay, but they may not realize that. So their first inclination might not be to pick the aquatic science project where you go out on a boat in the bay because they were more interested in things they related to. But by going through this process of sharing and promoting, now young people select a lot more diverse stuff than they did in the early years.
Obviously, the alliance is an independent nonprofit organization, but you were founded under the leadership of a mayor. You work with your school district. What would you say is state and local government's role in supporting and facilitating initiatives like yours?
HS: I think the public-private partnership between mayors, city hall, superintendents and the nonprofit community are always easier said than done. But I think that collective, higher-level leadership is important. I think that collective body has to focus on realistic outcomes to be achieved. If you’re trying to improve math scores in two years, that may not be the perfect niche for after-school programs. The students may need more social or emotional builders, team-oriented things or sports or arts -- some of the things that have been weeded out of schools that then makes them more excited about coming. So you have to make sure everybody agrees on what we can do and what we need to do to measure and mobilize the assets that we have.
I think it’s important that the community groups think about an intermediary organization or staff or structure like the alliance, because you need to convene people and you need to leverage new resources. You can’t just be reshuffling the deck chairs. You can’t say, ‘Okay, we’ve only got this amount of money, we’re going to take it from one place and put it in another place.’ That’s not going to help anybody.
Then you have to focus on youth experiences and quality. How do you create quality experiences? How do we agree on what quality looks like for young people? What is developmentally right for what age? What you do for elementary school, high school and middle school is different. It takes a while to get a collective body of adults to recognize and understand that.
Lastly, you have to bridge cultural divides. Schools and the nonprofit sector have different cultures. Teachers in schools have to be accountable to a test. That doesn't mean they don't care about youth development and these broader objectives. I think more and more do. I think they realize that to achieve academic goals, they've got to work on the social and emotional side. So quite frankly, you've got to think about the fun stuff.
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Limited liability companies (LLCs) in Massachusetts are affordable and easy to form. And as with other states, the State of Massachusetts has some unique LLC requirements.
Interested parties must register with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division by filing the necessary forms, paying the necessary fees and meeting all naming and formation requirements.
The specifications required for forming a Massachusetts LLC are as follows:
Registration. LLCs are required to file a Certificate of Organization with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division. The certificate must include the following information:
- Federal employer identification number (EIN)
- LLC’s name and address
- General character of the business
- Date of dissolution, if applicable
- Duration, if the LLC will only last a limited amount of time
- Registered agent’s name and address
- Member’s or manager’s names, addresses and signatures
- A signature of at least one authorized signatory
- LLC contact number, email and address
All documents must be filed in duplicate and be accompanied by the required filing fee.
Forms and fees. The filing fee for the Certificate of Organization is about $500 and must be paid upon submission of the documents to the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division. Filing must be done in duplicate and can be done online, in person, by mail or by fax. Fees can change, check with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division for the latest fees.
Timeline. The general turnaround time for processing of business documents is between three to five business days. This timeline does not include shipping/mailing time. An option for expedited processing is available, but with an additional fee that is up to 4.5% of the total fee.
Naming requirements. LLC naming requirements can be confusing. However, the easiest way to make sure that your LLC name will be approved is to ensure that it is distinguishable from other LLCs and includes specific words required of LLCs. You may opt to have a preferred name checked for availability before filing your LLC formation documents by checking both the name reservation database and the corporate database.
Formation requirements. To form an LLC, a registrant must first file a Certificate of Organization with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division. All submissions must be accompanied by filing fee that is about $500.
An LLC with more than one member is also strongly advised to have a limited liability operating agreement among its members.
Starting an LLC in Massachusetts
Before you begin the registration process for an LLC in Massachusetts, it’s important to know what an LLC is and whether or not it is a viable business structure for your company, so be certain to read up on the definition and benefits of an LLC.
These steps will guide you through the LLC registration process with the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division:
1. Decide on a name for your business. You can choose any name for your LLC as long as it ends with “Limited Liability Company,” “Limited Company” or any variation of its abbreviation—e.g., LLC, L.L.C., LC or L.C. The name may also contain a name of one of its members or managers.
Names may be reserved for up to 60 days by filing a name reservation application and submitting the required $30 fee. A reservation may be extended up to another 60 days for an additional fee of $30. The extension must be filed before the initial 60 days expires. This process may be done by mail or in person. These fees can change, check with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division for the most recent fees.
You may also have a preferred name checked for availability.
2. Assign an agent for service of process. Registered agents are individuals or corporations authorized to do business in the state and which have permanent addresses in Massachusetts. Registered agents accept legal documents on behalf of the LLC and make sure its members are notified.
3. Get an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS. If there are two or more members in your LLC, your company will need to obtain an EIN from the IRS, for tax purposes.
4. Create an operating agreement. Although LLCs in Massachusetts are not required to have a limited liability company operating agreement, it is wise to have one in place with other members should your LLC have more than one member. The State of Massachusetts recognizes limited liability company operating agreements as governing documents.
5. Familiarize yourself with the LLC’s continuing legal obligations, specifically annual reports. LLCs in Massachusetts are required by state law to submit annual reports with the Corporations Division. Annual reports are due in the anniversary month of the formation of the LLC. There is also a required filing fee that is about $500.
All reports must include the following information:
- LLC name and principal office address
- General character of business
- Registered agent name and address
- ;Name and address of the person authorized to:
- Execute these documents
- Execute, acknowledge, deliver and record instruments that may affect the interest of the LLC’s property
- One signature of an authorized entity
Filing an LLC and Fees
Following are the forms and fees that are required when starting an LLC in Massachusetts:
1. Forms. Those looking to form an LLC in Massachusetts will have to file a Certificate of Organization with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division. The Certificate of Organization must be submitted in duplicate and must also be accompanied by the appropriate filing fees.
2. Fees. The filing fee for a Certificate of Organization is about $500.
3. Limited liability company operating agreement. Although the LLC operating agreement is not filed with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division, it is a good idea to have one in place for LLCs with more than one member. This agreement should be kept on file by the registered agent.
4. Taxes. LLCs in Massachusetts are treated as corporations, limited liability partnerships or single-member LLCs and are subject to federal income tax classifications. Depending on the type of taxation you opt to have for your LLC, you will have different federal tax responsibilities.
You should always make sure to acquaint yourself with the state laws regarding taxation. Your LLC may be subject to other taxes depending on the kind of services your LLC may offer.
Start an LLC online in Massachusetts in three easy steps. LegalZoom provides LLC formation and filing services, including providing a registered agent in Massachusetts.
This portion of the site is for informational purposes only. The content is not legal advice. The statements and opinions are the expression of author, not LegalZoom, and have not been evaluated by LegalZoom for accuracy, completeness, or changes in the law.
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When Mary Vince of the UK experienced the heartache of delivering a stillborn son, she needed support from her friends. Instead, she was shunned. And by sharing her story, she’s hoping to help break down the stigma surrounding miscarriages and stillbirths.
Mary has battled chronic juvenile arthritis since she was just 3 years old. But the pain she’s experienced from the disorder is nothing compared to the pain of losing a child.
When Mary and her husband Dan decided to try for children, Mary had to come off of her medication which helps treat her severe arthritis. Since the medication is instrumental in helping her combat the pain of her condition, Mary couldn’t be off of it too long. So, the couple went through fertility testing to be sure they stood a chance of conceiving.
The results were incredibly disappointing.
“All my life, my body has been failing me. Now the odds were stacked against us to have a child. I was heartbroken and took it really hard,” Mary explained.
Mary suffered from a low ovarian reserve and Dan had a low sperm count. Together, that made the odds of the couple conceiving naturally very slim. But as the couple began preparing for in-vitro fertilization (IVF), they got a wonderful surprise. Somehow, Mary conceived naturally!
Joy Turns To Heartache
Needless to say, they were over the moon. But at 38 weeks, the excitement came crashing to a halt. Doctors discovered Mary’s little boy no longer had a heartbeat.
“I didn’t believe it at first. It didn’t sink in,” Mary said. “All I could think was, ‘I’ve been through so much, and my body’s let me down again’.”
Mary gave birth to a stillborn son they named Johnny. Holding him was both wonderful and heartbreaking all at once.
“We held Johnny, spending as much time as we could with him,” Mary recalls. “Our family came and spent time with him, having a cuddle with Johnny.”
Going home empty handed was devastating.
“I couldn’t face anyone, not even my family. I had a caesarian. But the pain of the caesarian is nothing compared to losing my baby. I didn’t feel a thing,” Mary said.
It’s a time you’d expect the couple to be showered with love. But to Mary’s bitter surprise, most of her friend’s steered clear.
“After Johnny I lost some friends, who I thought were close to me, because they didn’t want to come and see me. They didn’t know how to react,” she explained. “And that’s heartbreaking. The one thing I wanted to do more than anything was talk about Johnny because I was so proud to have had him. He was a beautiful little boy.”
Johnny’s life was so short, but it was still a life. And he was so loved. That’s what Mary wants people to understand about her stillborn son.
Breaking The Silence
Sadly, there seems to be an unspoken stigma around miscarriages and stillbirths. People just won’t talk about it because it’s so hard. And as a result, the poor parents often carry the pain in silence. Their loss is kept secret, and so is the beautiful life they lost.
It took Mary two years to get up the courage to share her story. But she’s doing so in the hopes of shedding light on the “taboo” topic of stillbirth and miscarriages. More couples sharing their stories will help give others insight into what they’re experiencing. And hopefully it will encourage others to show support and love, rather than to just avoid those experiencing such a painful loss.
You can find tips on how to care for a mother who’s lost a child HERE.
After Johnny’s passing, Mary and Dan decided to try again, this time using IVF. Amazingly, the very first treatment was a complete success, and Mary became pregnant with another son.
This time, though, Mary just couldn’t get excited. She feared having another stillborn son.
Their rainbow baby, Sam, was 5 weeks premature and spent 2 weeks in an incubator. But the little fighter pulled through and has been every bit of the blessing the couple longed for.
Sam brings so much joy, but of course, the couple will never forget Johnny.
“The heartbreak of suffering a stillbirth is far more painful than anything I experienced with my arthritis, or with the countless operations I’ve had,” Mary said. “I didn’t think for one minute that it would happen to us. I didn’t think that a baby could die at 38 weeks. But you’re not a failure. You’re not an embarrassment. And we need to be more honest when it does happen. It’s taken me two years to pluck up the courage to share my story. I want to talk about the son I lost, and get others talking about it too. I want to shine a light on stillbirth. It’s such a taboo thing and because it’s a sad thing to talk about people don’t want to open up.”
h/t: Daily Mail
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Cashier's Act Of Kindness For Grieving Mother Goes Viral
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An inventor has developed a tandem bicycle that allows his elderly mother to get back in the saddle – five years after giving up because of dementia.
Daphne Loke, 87, has been cycling around Cambridge since she was a girl, but her condition meant it was no longer safe for her to ride.
That was until her son Richard invented a tandem bike with a difference.
It allows her to sit in a secure, reclined position while he keeps an eye on her, takes charge of the steering and does most of the pedal work – although he said she pushes hard too.
Richard, a director of CirceCycles, credits her cycling again with improvements in her health saying that their trips into the city centre, along the riverside and to Grantchester for tea have been an “absolute joy”.
The 59-year-old said: “Cambridge is a lovely place and she knows it well from when she was young.
“Taking her around in car is not the same with the traffic, but when you’re cycling you can hear, smell and touch things.
“She really enjoys herself and finds it quite exciting because it’s quite an unusual bike and people wave at her. She has a lot of fun.”
Richard, a coach at Cambridge University Squash Rackets Club, did not design the Morpheus bike with his mother in mind – but has since found that although it can be enjoyed by able-bodied riders it has therapeutic benefits for people with all kinds of conditions.
He said one of his friends, who in his mid 30s had lost much of the use of the right side of his body, has been getting movement in his right leg since using the bike.
Of his mother, who opened the first Chinese restaurant in the city with her husband about 50 years ago, he added: “She will come home from a trip out and you can just see from the look of the face the effect it has had on her.”
We’re on the lookout for Cambridge’s oldest cyclist. Are you still pedalling in your 80s or 90s? Contact our newsdesk on (01223) 434439 or email firstname.lastname@example.org
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". . . great things do not just happen by impulse but are a succession of small things linked together."
Vincent van Gogh
22 October 1882
As I mention earlier, the internet and the World Wide Web are extremely well suited to exchanging all kinds of information. It opens itself up to newsgroups for people who wish to exchange opinions about Van Gogh, live on-line chat bulletin boards and, of course, websites. I can recommend:
Van Gogh Specific
- The Van Gogh Museum should be the first stop for any Van Gogh enthusiast. The Museum, which opened in 1973, is host to the world's largest collection of the works of Vincent van Gogh. People have come to expect the best from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum and, as a result, it's no surprise that the Museum's official website should be such an excellent resource. The Van Gogh Museum's website presents details about its collection, its many services, the latest news as well as an interesting virtual tour--the next best thing to being there. Available in English and Dutch.
- An absolutely remarkable project, fifteen years in the making, the website Vincent van Gogh: The Letters is a revelation. Here you'll find all of the 902 existing letters to and from Vincent van Gogh. The site includes the complete text of each letter in its original language (Dutch, French or English) as well as an English translation and a facsimile copy of each letter. All letters have been newly translated and include exhaustive annotations. A marvelous resource for any art enthusiast. Edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker. The Van Gogh Museum letters project also produced the most complete volume of letters ever produced: Vincent van Gogh: The Letters, a spectacular six-volume set that includes 9,000 colour illustrations.
- In 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith published the hugely anticipated biography Van Gogh: The Life. This book, without question the best Van Gogh biography ever written, is a wealth of information. In fact, the book produced more than 6,000 pages worth of informative notes--far too many to include in the book itself. As a result Naifeh and Smith have created their Van Gogh Biography website. This site, meant to accompany the book, is also an extremely valuable resource on its own. Highly recommended.
- Van Gogh Brabant is a well designed and informative website which focuses on Van Gogh's early years in the northern Dutch province of Brabant. Here you'll find biographical information, details about Van Gogh locations in Brabant and following in Van Gogh's footsteps, a Van Gogh app for download . . . and much more.
- Dr. Wilfred Niels Arnold , a professor of biochemistry at the Kansas University Medical Center, has devoted a great deal of research into the complex origins of Vincent van Gogh's creativity as well as his mental state. Dr. Arnold's book Vincent van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises and Creativity explores these topics in depth.
- Another excellent site focusing on Van Gogh's time in the Netherlands is the Van Gogh and Drenthe site. The Van Gogh and Drenthe Foundation is responsible for the restoration of the former Scholte Inn in Nieuw Amsterdam and for furnishing the attached visitors centre. Its goal: "To give more publicity to the important role that Vincent van Gogh's stay in Nieuw Amsterdam played in the development of his career as an artist".
- Vincent van Gogh once wrote "I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate" (Letter 459a) and his adventures took him to many different locations throughout western Europe. A site of contemporary maps chronicling Van Gogh's travels yields some interesting insights. In additon, the owner of this website offers Van Gogh-related tours and lectures.
- Another website, Van Gogh Locations, details not only the various places Van Gogh lived, but also museums that own Van Gogh paintings and documentation centres that cover Van Gogh's life and works.
- The Protestant church in Zundert, The Netherlands is sometimes called the "Van Gogh Church." And with good reason. Vincent van Gogh (and his brothers and sisters) was baptized here and Zundert was Van Gogh's place of birth. This beautiful old church is well worth a visit--as is the adjacent graveyard which includes a marker for Vincent van Gogh--the stillborn child named Vincent who preceded the artist Van Gogh's birth by one year (see Photo section). This church now has an interesting and informative website: www.pk-zundert.nl (currently in Dutch only unfortunately).
- There's a good overview of the theories surrounding Van Gogh's illness on Wikipedia.
Interpretations of Van Gogh's Works
- Gianluca Masi is an astronomer at the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Italy. Gianluca and Antonella Basso have undertaken an analysis of three Van Gogh paintings from an astronomical perspective. Van Gogh's nineteenth century starry skies viewed from a twenty-first century scientific perspective.
Van Gogh-Related Apps and E-Books
iPads, smart phones . . . . the technology is ever evolving. Lots of interesting new apps are delivering Van Gogh's life and art in ways never before possible.
- Van Gogh's Dream is a turning point in the fields of editing and art. For the first time, and thanks to the revolutionary tools developed by Adobe (Adobe Digital Publishing Suite), an application devoted to the painter Vincent van Gogh is presenting unpublished content developed especially for the iPad. With this application you will have access to more than 150 documented pages, Van Gogh’s entire painted oeuvre from Auvers (80 works), and approximately 90 minutes of video and interactive tools.
- The 1-Hour van Gogh Book - Van Gogh Paintings Explained is a new e-book that gives an overview of Van Gogh's art works and life. A good introduction to the artist.
Learn more about a new app that's been developed based on Laurence Anholt’s popular children's book "Camille and the Sunflowers." This entertaining educational tool allows children to paint every page, play games and even explore a 3D museum whenever a painting in the app is touched. A well designed and informative app that's proving to be popular among children and adults alike.
- The Dutch province of Brabant, where Van Gogh was born and raised, has introduced Explore Vincent, an app devoted to the artist's early years. Animations, games and many historical facts tell the story about Van Gogh's life and works.
- My-Guides has introduced their Van Gogh Smartphone Tour App. This app includes two "tours": the first, a timeline of Van Gogh's life and the second, an overview of Van Gogh's art works. Free for use on the Android platform.
- For one of the very best arts site it's ever been my pleasure to visit, I would definitely recommend Mark Harden's Artchive. This great looking site offers a wealth of terrific information, graphics and links. You'll find yourself spending hours wandering through Mark's wonderful site.
- The Artcyclopedia is a very enjoyable site. Its mission: "To become the definitive and most effective guide to museum-quality fine art on the Internet". This site is definitely of interest to any art lover.
Schools and Educational Resources
I love the idea of young people learning to appreciate the life and works of Vincent van Gogh. I have fond memories of an afternoon in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and standing next to a man explaining the unique style of Vincent's Starry Night to his five year old daughter. Here are a few of the sites from schools that I've found which I encourage everyone to visit. Do you know of any more? Please drop me an e-mail at email@example.com and let me know.
- Educational Web Adventures (EduWeb) is a valuable resource for teachers and students alike. Lots of interesting material is available including "Inside Art" which takes the visitor to an interactive lesson featuring one of Van Gogh's paintings.
Van Gogh aficionados span the four corners of the earth. I hope to add more interesting and well designed websites from around the world.
- Claudia Perilli lives in Rieti, near Rome (Italy). In 2003 she graduated at the Fine Arts Academy of L'Aquila with an interesting thesis on Van Gogh's drawings. You can read her thesis (in Italian) on her beautiful website: http://digilander.libero.it/adiam/ (click on: Lavori, then Scritti) where you can also find her black and white and colour photographs as well as other works.
- There are many wonderful Van Gogh art works in Russia. Just as there are many Van Gogh enthusiasts. One has developed a very thorough and well done website dedicated to Vincent's life and works.
- Are you fascinated by the intrigues of stolen art? Then Saz Productions has lots of interesting and up-to-date information.
- Lucius Furius offers a 190-page on-line book called Genius Ignored which includes an extremely enjoyable chapter on Van Gogh with many of Vincent's letters to Theo and other original documents. Take some time to explore this page and the many other interesting pages that comprise this site.
- Canadian artist Johnny Wales has created a remarkable video called "Vincent: A Few Moments with the Artist". Using stop motion photography Mr. Wales conjures up a remarkable look at Vincent van Gogh in his room in the Yellow House. Subtle, understated and with an extraordinary attention to detail, this superb video is a lovely look at the artist.
- Wendy Lewis produced an enjoyable video of Van Gogh's life. It features a nice selection of Van Gogh's art works and provides additional insights through a focus on his letters.
- Vincent van Gogh wrote "I begin to suspect that I know but a very small portion of Daumier’s work and that the very things which would interest me most are in the portion of his work which I do not know (though I already greatly appreciate what I know of him)." (Letter 239). Would you be interested in learning more about the famed lithographer Honoré Daumier, so admired by Van Gogh and many others? Then I highly recommend a visit to The Daumier Website (http://www.daumier.org). This website is an excellent resource for any Daumier enthusiast. The site, extremely educational and well designed, includes a comprehensive biography, a vast amount of information about Damier's works and details about the "Daumier Registry," an evolving database of Daumier's complete lithographic works.
- Johannes Vermeer is one of the most admired artists of all time. Despite the small number of paintings that he produced, Vermeer remains one of the world's best loved painters. The website The Essential Vermeer does the artist justice. This site includes a vast amount of information: biography, complete works, research, maps, discussions of technique and much, much more. And all with a first-rate user interface. The Essential Vermeer lives up to its name: the essential website for any Vermeer aficionado.
- This website dedicated to sculptor Auguste Rodin is excellent. Extremely well designed and comprehensive. Highly recommended.
- Ron Gang is an artist living in Kibbutz Urim in Israel. His works are an eclectic mix ranging from vast landscapes to colourful abstracts. Just as Vincent van Gogh was drawn to the cypress trees and olive groves of Provence, Ron Gang takes his easel and brushes out to the wind-swept acacia trees of Israel. Beautiful works.
- British Columbia artist Glenn Payan paints in bright, bold colours and his work is clearly influenced by Van Gogh. Payan's paintings are delightful--from his surreal landscapes to the rolling fields that look like Van Gogh's sun drenched Provence. Payan is inspired by Van Gogh, but his style is all his own.
Tourism: The Netherlands
If you're planning a trip to visit The Netherlands, then I can certainly recommend the following four websites:
- Netherlands Board of Tourism: An excellent site with lots of information for tourists.
- Visitors to Amsterdam will find the website www.amsterdam.info to be a useful source of information. Includes hotel and shopping information, tips for the tourist and much more.
Return to main Van Gogh Gallery page
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In logic, syntax is anything having to do with formal languages or formal systems without regard to any interpretation or meaning given to them. Syntax is concerned with the rules used for constructing, or transforming the symbols and words of a language, as contrasted with the semantics of a language which is concerned with its meaning.
The symbols, formulas, systems, theorems, proofs, and interpretations expressed in formal languages are syntactic entities whose properties may be studied without regard to any meaning they may be given, and, in fact, need not be given any.
Syntax is usually associated with the rules (or grammar) governing the composition of texts in a formal language that constitute the well-formed formulas of a formal system.
In computer science, the term syntax refers to the rules governing the composition of well-formed expressions in a programming language. As in mathematical logic, it is independent of semantics and interpretation.
A symbol is an idea, abstraction or concept, tokens of which may be marks or a configuration of marks which form a particular pattern. Symbols of a formal language need not be symbols of anything. For instance there are logical constants which do not refer to any idea, but rather serve as a form of punctuation in the language (e.g. parentheses). A symbol or string of symbols may comprise a well-formed formula if the formulation is consistent with the formation rules of the language. Symbols of a formal language must be capable of being specified without any reference to any interpretation of them.
A formal language is a syntactic entity which consists of a set of finite strings of symbols which are its words (usually called its well-formed formulas). Which strings of symbols are words is determined by fiat by the creator of the language, usually by specifying a set of formation rules. Such a language can be defined without reference to any meanings of any of its expressions; it can exist before any interpretation is assigned to it – that is, before it has any meaning.
Formation rules are a precise description of which strings of symbols are the well-formed formulas of a formal language. It is synonymous with the set of strings over the alphabet of the formal language which constitute well formed formulas. However, it does not describe their semantics (i.e. what they mean).
A proposition is a sentence expressing something true or false. A proposition is identified ontologically as an idea, concept or abstraction whose token instances are patterns of symbols, marks, sounds, or strings of words. Propositions are considered to be syntactic entities and also truthbearers.
A formal system (also called a logical calculus, or a logical system) consists of a formal language together with a deductive apparatus (also called a deductive system). The deductive apparatus may consist of a set of transformation rules (also called inference rules) or a set of axioms, or have both. A formal system is used to derive one expression from one or more other expressions. Formal systems, like other syntactic entities may be defined without any interpretation given to it (as being, for instance, a system of arithmetic).
Syntactic consequence within a formal system
Syntactic completeness of a formal system
A formal system is syntactically complete (also deductively complete, maximally complete, negation complete or simply complete) iff for each formula A of the language of the system either A or ¬A is a theorem of . In another sense, a formal system is syntactically complete iff no unprovable axiom can be added to it as an axiom without introducing an inconsistency. Truth-functional propositional logic and first-order predicate logic are semantically complete, but not syntactically complete (for example the propositional logic statement consisting of a single variable "a" is not a theorem, and neither is its negation, but these are not tautologies). Gödel's incompleteness theorem shows that no recursive system that is sufficiently powerful, such as the Peano axioms, can be both consistent and complete.
An interpretation of a formal system is the assignment of meanings to the symbols, and truth values to the sentences of a formal system. The study of interpretations is called formal semantics. Giving an interpretation is synonymous with constructing a model. An interpretation is expressed in a metalanguage, which may itself be a formal language, and as such itself is a syntactic entity.
- Dictionary Definition
- Metalogic, Geoffrey Hunter
- Dummett, M. (1981). Frege: Philosophy of Language. Harvard University Press. p. 82. ISBN 9780674319318. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
- Lear, J. (1986). Aristotle and Logical Theory. Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780521311786. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
- Creath, R.; Friedman, M. (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Carnap. Cambridge University Press. p. 189. ISBN 9780521840156. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
- "syntactic consequence from FOLDOC". swif.uniba.it. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
- Hunter, Geoffrey, Metalogic: An Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First-Order Logic, University of California Pres, 1971, p. 75.
- "A Note on Interaction and Incompleteness" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-10-15.
- "Normal forms and syntactic completeness proofs for functional independencies". portal.acm.org. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
- Barwise, J. (1982). Handbook of Mathematical Logic. Elsevier Science. p. 236. ISBN 9780080933641. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
- "syntactic completeness from FOLDOC". swif.uniba.it. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
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OTOH, it also represents a common path for police-reform efforts: Indeed, I've never seen it work otherwise. Seldom does the first wave of reforms installed achieve their goals because police have been so powerful over the years, they usually can keep the most important changes from happening. So frequently a second round of reform is needed, maybe a third, once the board has been installed, operated for a few years, and its shortcomings become clear.
In H-Town, they are now clear. Houston city council members have suggested an aggressive reform package aimed at improving oversight and empowering the board. Mayor Sylvester Turner appointed a task force to propose its own reforms, which are significant but not as aggressive as the council members wanted. (That said, the mayor doesn't always back the findings of his various task forces.)
There is no short-term fix on these questions. It always takes years, potentially decades, never weeks or months. Ask Johnny Mata, who's been at this work for more than four decades, was involved in getting the board created initially, and now spends his waking hours trying to improve it.
We see this at the Legislature: They passed the initial law requiring gathering of racial-profiling data in 2001, didn't begin collecting the reports from departments statewide until 2009, and finally acknowledged the data's shortcomings and made it more robust in 2017. Even then, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement screwed up implementation of the 2017 legislation, failing to collect racial breakdowns for most of the so-called "racial profiling" dataset. It's being fixed now and by 2021 - twenty years after Texas' racial profiling law first passed! - Texas' data will be robust enough to identify discriminatory practices.
Your correspondent spent five years involved in a campaign culminating in creation of Austin's Police Monitor and review board around the turn of the century; after the police union gutted it in closed-door negotiations, the system was a disaster, and we weren't able to fix the biggest problems until 18 years later, when the Austin Justice Coalition won changes to the police-union contract. It's still far from perfect, but it did significantly expand complaint intake, putting it in civilian hands and providing de-identified, public accounts of alleged misconduct. We now see written reprimands in addition to cases where officers are suspended, thanks to changes in APD's 2018 contract.
So, we're getting useful information out of the process and the Office of Police Oversight has become an occasional counterweight to the police union and anti-reform police administrators who'd prefer to avoid the topic.
That's far from the vision of an independent board that investigates and punishes officers outside of law enforcement's purview. But it's not clear to me anyone has completely dis-empowered the police hierarchy in departmental discipline, anywhere, nor am I certain it's a good idea. Police management may frequently disappoint when it comes to punishing misconduct, but they're 1) closest to the problem and 2) the only ones empowered under state law to do it (at least, for Ch. 143 civil service cities like Austin and Houston).
Grits has come to believe that empowering police managers to manage personnel is a necessary pre-requisite to holding them accountable, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. I may believe Austin Police Chief Brian Manley should be fired, but I generally want his position to become more empowered within the disciplinary process, at least when it comes to his ability to punish and fire wrong-doers among his officers.
Making sure that, when a bad cop is fired, they don't repeatedly get back on the force is an important aspect of cleaning up a department. For the time being, state law forbids empowering a civilian review board to take over that task in Houston or Austin, and the chance of Greg Abbott or Dan Patrick approving legislation to change that fall somewhere along the shady line between "slim" and "none."
Protesters this summer wanted things "now," but as budget battles nearly everywhere but Austin proved, police reform doesn't typically happen on a "now" timeline. And even in Austin, what really happened is a process was created that will take years to fully implement.
So yes, by all means, fight for police reform. But settle in for the long haul.
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Training & Technical Assistance team members at NNCC work at the intersection of health centers and public housing to identify trends in public housing that directly influence health center programming and residents served at the centers. Abbottsford Falls, a nurse-managed health center in Philadelphia and an NNCC partner, was one of the first health centers to receive special population funding through HRSA’s launch of the public housing primary care (PHPC) program in the early 1990s. The center successfully increased access to health care for residents of the Abbottsford public housing development. NNCC advances the mission of health centers like Abbottsford by developing and implementing cutting edge training and technical assistance for health center providers and staff.
This project is/was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number and title for grant amount (under grant number U30CS09736, a National Training and Technical Assistance Cooperative Agreement (NCA) for $1,350,000, and is 100% financed by this grant). This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.
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Several times in class we’ve discussed the issues of fairness and balance as they relate to science journalism. Interestingly, the catch phrase of Fox News is “fair and balanced.” However, a recent study (click here for a summary) suggests that exclusive Fox News viewers know less about certain issues than those who watch only CNN or “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” In fact, people who watched no news outperformed those who watched Fox News. Does this mean that “fairness and balance” leads to a misinformed audience OR that Fox News viewers are less informed than others because their source of information is not “fair and balanced” but rather has different goals OR might it mean something entirely different? How might the goals of a media outlet affect their audience’s knowledge?
Why can't the American public answer just 2 of 4 basic questions about international news and not even 2 of 5 questions about domestic current events? Is it because of the source of news they are absorbing? Is it because we don't read newspapers or watch the news enough? Do we just not care? I cannot be sure.
Roughly a year ago, Michael Kelley wrote an article for Business Insider called "Watching Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All." It summarized a study by students at Fairleigh Dickinson University, during which they polled 1,185 participants nationwide asking them about their political affiliations, which news programs they watched in the past week, and then a series of a few questions about current events.
In the study, they found that overall, those who watched Fox News were the least informed about foreign and domestic news, less even than those who watched no news at all. They found that if people watched the program most affiliated with their political beliefs were more informed than the total population that watched these specified channels (MSNBC for Liberals and Fox News for Conservatives). Even with political affiliation assisting the scores of Fox and MSNBC viewers, they still score significantly lower than people who listen to NPR or any of the other unaffiliated news programs.
Fox News prides itself in being a "fair and balanced" program, which is curious when these poll results are taken into consideration. Rather than judge how people are misinformed due to "fair and balanced" news, I'd like to call into question Fox's definition of the term. From my experience with the program, they frequently discuss issues in a sort of round-table format where the majority of the "experts" at the table are conservative, with a small percentage of liberals who's views are typically overlooked during the discussion. If this is considered "balance" I'd like to question the predisposition of the scale.
They also use a more traditional style of news delivery, with a broadcaster reporting supposedly "fair and balanced" stories. This claim is more difficult to refute because generally reporters cover the facts as they happened, but the stories they choose to show are ones which would be of interest to their conservative audience. They rarely show stories which would interest liberals, which supports the findings of the FDU study that liberals who watched Fox News are far less informed by the program than even people who watch no news at all. It seems as if "fair and balanced," to Fox News simply means fair and balanced in the eyes of their loyal viewers.
Programs like Fox News are not the most reputable sources of information due to their obvious political affiliations. They limit their audience by reporting stories with a bias and reporting stories that would interest their biased viewers. Judging by the poll results, and assuming that "fair and balanced" reporting is that which leads to the most informed public, I would have to say that NPR takes the fair cake on this one. It makes sure to tell stories from the most true point of view out there, and they base this with evidence and investigative reporting, as well as writing in a way that is clearly beneficial to their listeners.
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D.R. Tucker points me to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s latest brainstorm for cooking up skepticism about climate change:
The program will use “red team, blue team” exercises to conduct an “at-length evaluation of U.S. climate science,” the official said, referring to a concept developed by the military to identify vulnerabilities in field operations.
“The administrator believes that we will be able to recruit the best in the fields which study climate and will organize a specific process in which these individuals … provide back-and-forth critique of specific new reports on climate science,” the source said.
“We are in fact very excited about this initiative,” the official added. “Climate science, like other fields of science, is constantly changing. A new, fresh and transparent evaluation is something everyone should support doing.”
Let me translate: this is a program designed to use taxpayer money to create reports on EPA letterhead that regurgitate all the usual claptrap of the climate deniers. In the interest of “fairness,” actual climate scientists will be allowed to write rebuttals, but no one will care about them since climate scientists have been writing that stuff forever. The real point is to get all the skeptic rubbish collected in one place and made available to the public with an official federal government imprimatur.
I suppose they can start off with this:
A new paper just published in the Journal of Climate is a stunning setback for the darling of cherry-picking for contrarian scientists and elected officials….Much of their position relies upon finding evidence that the current observations of warming are not great. That is, the Earth is not warming as fast as predictions.
To support this incorrect (and intellectually dishonest) position, contrarians have scoured the data for any evidence at all that suggests the Earth is not warming. They have skipped oceans…Earth’s surface temperature…ice loss…sea level rise, and in fact ignore everything except some select regions of the atmosphere. Their fallback position is that since a part of the atmosphere seems not to be warming very fast, this means the Earth isn’t warming or that climate models cannot be trusted.
Long story short, a new look at the atmospheric data shows that, in fact, it matches the surface data pretty well. If anything, the corrected satellite data suggests that the lower troposphere is slightly warmer than the surface:
Not to worry, though. The deniers will figure out some reason why this conclusion is wrong. Or else they’ll decide that atmospheric measurements aren’t important after all, and we should really be looking at the anomalies in tree ring measurements in 16th century Moldavia. And Scott Pruitt will be there to hand them a megaphone.
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I’ve commented on this before at Inman News and other blogs, but it deserves it’s own post. Here is an exerpt from my letter to the editor:
To help borrowers qualify for a home loan and to get payments in line with a lenders loan program, it is necessary for the taxes and insurance to be dropped as a portion of the monthly payment. The term PITI (Principle, Interest, Taxes & Insurance) does not apply to throngs of borrowers across the country. For many today, the term is “I”. They only pay the interest, literally.
For borrowers that could not qualify under the lowered standard of just Interest only(but still pays taxes and insurance as part of the monthly payment) , some lenders dropped it lower and eliminated the taxes as part of the payment. The line in the sand was drawn: either qualify this way, or, no new home.
The lending standards of “low, lower, lowest” gave me a chuckle. It reminded me of the Seattle Mariner vetaran pitcher Jamie Moyer who baffles batters with his slow, slower and slowest wizardry of pitches.
But where does this leave the borrower? Obviously, they must budget for paying property taxes on their own. Taxes are not cheap. If a borrower is stretched to the limit without property taxes included in their mortgage payment what is the probability of budgeting and paying property taxes when due? Many probably won’t, or can’t.
Today, in the Orange County Register, county officials announced that property tax delinquencies have reached an 8 yr high while sending out bills to the sweet tune of $3.8 Billion in tax revenue, the largest bill for property owners in 15 yrs. Well, it’s not a big deal in Organge County. You can skip payments for 5 yrs before they can take your home—if the lender doesn’t beat them to it.
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Are you experiencing knee pain and wondering if bracing will help?
The knee is a complicated part of the human body as it is the intersection of many bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Knee pain can be caused by a wide range of biomechanical and medical conditions and to properly diagnose what you’re experiencing, you need to speak with a professional.
If you’re looking for help dealing with knee pain from a specific condition, the team at Applied Biomechanics is here to help. We have experience treating a variety of knee problems and we understand how knee bracing can help treat most conditions.
There are a few conditions that we commonly see associated with knee pain. To learn more about the causes, symptoms, and treatments for specific conditions, select an option from the list below:
- Osteoarthritis (OA)
- Torn ACL / MCL
- Torn Meniscus
- Baker’s Cyst
- Runner’s Knee
- Osgood-Schlatter Disease
Remember that every person is different and proper treatment must be customized to your specific biomechanics. Our team understands how to design custom bracing solutions to fit your needs and can help you on the road to recovery.
Knee Pain From Osteoarthritis (OA)
Osteoarthritis is a medical condition that is caused by the gradual wear and tear of the cartilage in the knee joint. When experiencing knee osteoarthritis, there are three different parts of the knee that can rub together causing pain. These three parts are:
- Between the patella (kneecap) and the femur
- The medial compartment (inside of the knee) between the tibia and the femur
- The lateral compartment (outside of the knee) between the tibia and the femur
How do you treat OA with bracing?
The vast majority of knee osteoarthritis pain is associated with the medial compartment (inside of the knee). In order to treat this condition, our team designs an ‘unloading brace’ or a ‘load shifting brace’ that is specifically designed to unload the medial compartment.
In cases where the lateral compartment (outside of the knee) is the issue, a similar type of brace can be fitted to unload this side of the knee. If there is arthritis behind the patella (kneecap), it will require a soft brace to realign patella movement to resolve the problem.
These types of knee braces will help reduce the amount of bone-on-bone friction in the knee, by unloading the affected area. This will decrease the pain caused by osteoarthritis and help you to go about your daily activities.
Knee Pain From Torn ACL / MCL
The ACL / MCL are your anterior cruciate ligament and your medial collateral ligament respectively. Both ligaments are located in the knee and are essential for keeping it supported and stabilized. The ACL runs from the front of the tibia (shin bone) to the back of the femur (thigh bone) and controls frontward movement of the tibia. The MCL is attached to the inside of the tibia and the inside of your femur and controls the knee from bending inward (valgus).
How do you treat a torn ACL / MCL with bracing?
ACL or MCL injuries are most commonly caused by a twist, a stumble, a slip or fall, or some other sudden change in direction that puts a large amount of strain on the ligament. ACL / MCL sprains are serious injuries that should be properly treated with physical therapy and strengthening exercises.
Knee Pain From Torn Meniscus
The meniscus is the name given to the pieces of cartilage that sits between the tibia and the femur on the medial and lateral sides of the knee (the inside and the outside respectively). On both sides of the knee, the cartilage is hollowed out and the edges of the meniscus curl up to cup around the ends of the femur (condyles).
A torn meniscus must be treated properly. If your meniscus is torn and not allowed to heal fully, the cartilage around the knee will start to wear unevenly. This wearing process can lead to osteoarthritis (OA) and further knee problems down the road.
How do you treat a torn meniscus?
To allow the meniscus to heal, you need a brace that will properly unload the affected compartment. However, it is also important to treat the root cause of the torn meniscus. A torn meniscus is typically secondary to a torn ACL / MCL, which is the primary cause of the injury. See the section above for further details on treating a torn ACL / MCL.
Knee Pain From Baker’s Cyst
A Baker’s cyst is a type of cyst that will form in the area behind your knee. While a Baker’s cyst may sound serious, it is usually caused by some other type of knee injury. Addressing the root cause of the injury will typically resolve the issue and allow the cysts to reabsorb naturally.
Why do Baker’s cysts form?
The knee is a synovial joint, which means that it is lined with a fluid-filled sac called a ‘synovium’. If the synovium is damaged, some of the synovial fluid may leak out. For the knee, this leakage will typically occur in the posterior space behind the hamstring tendons. This can cause a Baker’s cyst to form in the area.
How do you treat a Baker’s cyst?
Baker’s cysts are most often caused by injuries such as a torn ACL / MCL or a torn meniscus. To treat it, our team will address the main injury with bracing. In rare cases, if the cyst is large enough, a physician may recommend that they aspirate or remove it.
Knee Pain From Runner’s Knee (IT Band Syndrome)
Runner’s knee is a common type of overuse injury or a repetitive strain injury (RSI), typically caused by doing the same activity repeatedly over an extended period of time. It is often experienced by runners or other athletes whose training involves repetitive exercises and motions.
One common condition that is often used interchangeably with runner’s knee is ‘iliotibial (IT) band syndrome’. There are a number of technical or medical terms that runner’s knee may refer to, and IT band syndrome is just one of them (patellofemoral pain is another). The iliotibial band is the ligament that extends up the lateral side of the knee, along the femur to the hip.
How do you treat runner’s knee or IT band syndrome?
Problems with runner’s knee or IT band syndrome do not come on suddenly. These chronic conditions are often caused by months or years of activity. The best way to treat these conditions is with soft bracing that will contain the knee, provide mild compression, and offer better alignment. Checking and correcting poor foot alignment with custom foot orthotics is also important in the treatment of IT band syndrome.
Knee Pain From Tendonitis
Tendonitis is the inflammation of the tendons in your body, typically caused by overuse or injury. Tendons are the part of your body that connect muscles with bones and allow smooth and coordinated movement.
Knee tendonitis is often related to some type of overuse injury or RSI, such as runner’s knee or IT band syndrome. However, it can also be caused by an acute condition, such as a tear or a rupture in your ligaments. The causes of tendonitis may vary from person to person.
How do you treat tendonitis with bracing?
As the root cause of tendonitis varies, the treatment will vary accordingly. If the cause is instability, then bracing can be used to provide better stability during the recovery process. If the cause is repetitive strain, then bracing can be used to offer better alignment for the ligaments.
Knee Pain From Osgood-Schlatter Disease (OSD)
Osgood-Schlatter disease is a biomechanical condition caused by the excessive growth, or hypertrophy, of the tibial tubercle. This is the bump on the top of your tibia (shin bone), where your patella tendon is attached.
What causes Osgood-Schlatter Disease (OSD)?
Prolonged stress on the patella tendon prompts the excessive growth of the tibial tubercle, causing it to jut up from the rest of the tibia bone. The pain associated with OSD is actually a form of tendonitis, caused by this excessive growth — and is usually experienced at the insertion point of the tendon. The same issue can sometimes occur on the leg with achilles tendonitis (or achilles tendon insertionitis).
How do you treat Osgood-Schlatter Disease (OSD) with bracing?
Did you know that Michael Jordan was well-known for wearing a brace throughout his career to treat OSD? When treating OSD, there are specific bracing designs that will apply a load to the patella tendon between the kneecap and the tibial tubercle. This will spread the loading force out to alleviate symptoms. The change in activity may eventually cause the bone to reabsorb.
Do you have any questions about knee bracing? Contact our team today to learn more.
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Throughout the month of March, the campaign will use toolbox talks and outreach events to focus on electrical hazards. In April, the focus will be on struck-by hazards; May will target fall hazards; and June will focus on caught-in/between hazards.
Campaign partners include OSHA consultation projects, state occupational safety and health agencies in Maryland and Virginia, the Mid-Atlantic Construction Safety Council, and the General Builders and Contractors Association
The Construction Focus Four Training consists of lesson plans on each of the Focus Four Hazards. Each lesson plan was developed based on specific learning objectives. Trainers must use these learning objectives when planning the training, and follow the participatory training model when conducting the training. This includes applying effective training techniques. Trainers may utilize the tests provided to measure each student’s knowledge of the learning objectives. Testing is not required and must not be counted toward the required student contact hours.
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FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. - With a heat index expected to hit 105 degrees on Sunday, health officials at the Minnesota State Fair say more paramedics and ambulances will be on hand to assist in heat-related cases.
"We expect a busy day," said Dr. Bjorn Peterson with Regions EMS. "We saw several cases of dehydration (on Saturday)."
Paramedics treated 40 people Saturday with heat-related issues. They average 30 on a normal day at the fair.
"We will be monitoring folks, but if you're with family at the fair, monitor each other, too," says Peterson. "Especially, keep your eye on those with preexisting health conditions."
Fair officials will have several misting stations available and places to find drinking water.
"The fair foods people eat can dehydrate you, so make sure your rehydrating," says Peterson.
(Copyright 2013 by KARE. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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TURN TAKING - Program #735 is a software program designed to teach the concept of “waiting your turn”. The program can be used in either two-user turn taking mode or single-user mode. When a student’s prompt appears, the student presses their switch, keyboard key, touch window, or mouse click to reveal a section of a picture. Once the entire picture is displayed, a video clip reward related to the picture is played. In turn-taking mode, the prompt alternates between the left side and right side of the screen to indicate whose turn it is. In single user mode, the student must wait for the prompt to appear before pressing their switch, keyboard key, touch window, or mouse click. Prompts can be customized to be a picture of the student. Audio prompting can be customized as well to include the student’s name.
When the student presses in turn, a section of the picture is revealed along with cheerful music. If an “out of turn” press occurs, a red “X” appears on the side where the “out of turn” press occurred. Feedback for “out of turn” presses can also be customized. If an “out of turn” audio prompt was recorded for the student, it will play it along with the red “X” feedback. The program features 60 exciting pictures and video clips. A powerful feature of the TURN TAKING program is the ability to add your own pictures and video clips. Data is automatically collected for each student and can be displayed in either a spreadsheet or text format.
TURN TAKING has many customizable features. Some of these features include:
All prices are in USD.
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The Golden Temple in India, which is often called the “Darbar Sahib” or “Harmandar Sahib,” is one of the oldest places of worship for the Sikhs and is located in Amritsar, Punjab in India. It is considered one of the holiest, blessed and sacrosanct places in India. It is a symbol of both beauty and peace. The temple is surrounded by a small man-made lake which has a lot of fish in it. This lake is said to consist of holy waters. The temple can be entered from four different sides and thus symbolizes openness and acceptance. This concept is based on the tents which would open from all four sides, welcoming travelers from all directions.
The Golden Temple has three holy trees. There is also a small Sikh Museum near the Ghanta Ghar, or clock house, in Amritsar which is very rich in information. The entire top of the temple is made of pure gold and thus adds a lot of pride and beauty to the entire temple.
During the earlier days, this place was a huge lake surrounded by a thin line of forests. It is also said that Buddha journeyed here to find the real meaning of life and spent some considerable time in this place. The first guru of the Sikh community called the Guru Nank also used to meditate in this peaceful place. Years after he passed away, many of his disciples kept coming back to the site as it was considered a sacred place. It was during the time of the Fifth Guru, Arjana when the Temple was finally built in 1604. It was Guru Arjan who installed the Guru Granth Sahib hymn book in the temple and appointed the first reader in August 1604. The temples architecture has both Hindu and Muslim qualities.
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An Italian company is looking to take the green burial movement a step further. Capsula Mundi’s alternative to coffins will see you buried in a pod, in the fetal position, with your remains feeding a tree.
The idea is to turn a graveyard of tombstones into a memorial park full of trees.
“Our main goal concerning Capsula Mundi has been to sensitize people about the unbearable way the modern culture currently deals with death,” project founders Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel said.
How it works is that a body is placed in fetal position and enclosed in a biodegradable burial capsule. Then it is planted in soil with a tree. What kind of tree you want your remains to nourish – birch, maple or eucalyptus – is up to you.
“This cultural and broad-based project suggests a different approach to death, natural and eco-friendly. Our purpose is to restore the idea of death to a natural cycle of life.”
According to the Natural Burial Association, there are four natural burial sites in Canada, with one in British Columbia, and three in Ontario.
Although burial in the form of a tree has not made its debut in Canada, natural burial by returning a body as naturally as possible to the earth is happening.
© 2016 Shaw Media
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About this project
Update: In our final week on Kickstarter we are feeling incredibly grateful. Thank you everyone for believing in this project as much as we do. I am meeting with local printers this week to finalize some quotes, as we hope to work with a local printer to support a community business and an environmentally-friendly and custom process. It's a little more expensive than we'd originally planned, but we think it will make a difference, so every pledge still counts! Check out our project update for a more detailed budget.
Twelve years ago my dad wrote this children's story, Beto's Burrito. I finally finished illustrating it last year. It was this collaboration that helped my dad and I have a relationship after twenty years of not being close, so it's really important to us! The book is just about print-ready and we need your help sending it to the printer.
"Beto is awake. He hears his father’s voice again. He thinks about his father’s voice. At times it is magic. Sometimes it scares him. Today his father is quiet and in a hurry, but always there is something in his father’s voice that makes him feel warm, even when the voice is scary."
Beto's Burrito is a simple story about a little boy who doesn't want to leave his extraordinary dreams to get ready for school, only the delicious smells from the kitchen keep waking him up! The prospect of his mother's breakfast burrito makes Beto more willing (Beto loves burritos), but it isn't without a struggle that he gets out of bed.
The illustrations bring the story to life with flying popsicles, a skateboarding dog and a scene where Beto imagines he is very very tall so he can show his mom how much he loves her. There is another wonderful part where Beto daydreams of going to work with his father, a construction worker, where together they build the most fantastic wall.
The story's origins
Dad says, "I have spent the vast majority of my life in the American southwest. It's hard to do that without coming into close contact with the Latino culture. As with any culture, conditions from family to family vary; but the truth is, a great number of families are poor, and live very simply. In most of these families, though, there are two key elements: they may not have access to privileges that others of us have, but they live happily; and love of family is practically hallowed ground, especially between children and parents."
I wanted to write a story that Latino children and parents could treasure together, to reaffirm their cultural values, and also one that would open up the beauty of this displaced culture to others who may know less about it. It is very simple, but we hope it will bring a good feeling to your hearts."
- at least 14 spreads of full color illustrations
- a few words of Spanish vocabulary (if possible we may try to print a full Spanish version)
- 25 flying popsicles
- 4 soccer balls
- one incredibly loyal dog
Where the money will go
Our target is the minimum amount I've determined we need to print about 100 copies of the book in its most basic form and cover our costs. Anything past our goal will go toward making the book as high quality as possible, including fancifying the cover, professionally scanning the artwork, printing on better paper, printing more copies, or making a Spanish version. Some of the money will go toward creating the Beto-memorabilia associated with the pledges and a bit will go toward postage and shipping.We want to stretch the budget as far as it will go.
Why not traditional publishing?I spent a long time writing the perfect query letter and last fall, 11 drafts later, I began sending copies out to literary agents. Six months later we've only heard back from a handful, and unfortunately, because Dad is sick, I'm not sure we have the luxury of time usually required by traditional publishing. It would break my heart if Dad didn't get to see the book published and I don't want either of us to miss out on seeing this project through to the end.
Why the food-themed rewards?
Beto really does love burritos, but my dad also loves cooking (and I love eating) so it's no surprise that food is a central theme in our story. We believe food can be an amazing way to show someone you love them, and like Beto's parents, we like the idea of ensuring kids walk out the front door with their bellies full, ready for what the world will throw at them. We're sure this value is shared by families of all backgrounds and I'm really excited to put some of the food-themed pledge rewards into action.
Spend some time with a kid
We hope this story resonates with people who have kids in their lives they wish they were closer to, not only because of how my dad and I reconnected, but because a childrens book is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with a child. Since this story is about every day routines, reading it with a child can be a way to talk about what your day-to-day lives are like and really get to know each other. We hope people do this with Beto's Burrito!
A good causeAfter the book is printed (post-Kickstarter involvement, since Kickstarter is not a platform for charity fundraising), we will be donating 50% of any profits to a program that does research into drug and alcohol treatment. We know addiction is an issue that affects many families and we hope in some small way to help advance treatment options for families and individuals who are suffering from this issue. Right now we are looking at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center – they are a "non-denominational institution with a Baptist history." http://www.wakehealth.edu/ Please let us know if you have more ideas.
The Kickstarter FAQs are a great place to look for answers if you're wondering about pledging or how this process works. Remember that if we don't meet our target by the deadline, we don't get anything and you don't have to pay, but please help us meet our goal so we can stop sweating!!! If you have any other questions don't hesitate to email me: email@example.com
Our street cred
Tom McDaniel has written hundreds of poems and published with Blue Unicorn, The Florida Review, The Texas Review and Kansas Quarterly among other literary journals. A native Texan he has lived in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish. As an illustrator and designer I have worked on kiddie stuff for Kids Help Phone (Canada), Domestos Kids Zone (UK), Gillette, Yell, and my favorite client so far – the Wixárika indigenous community in Mexico. Thanks for your support, it means the world!
Have a question? If the info above doesn't help, you can ask the project creator directly.
Support this project
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This log house was built in 1845 for Big John and Ann Thomson. It was constructed from trees that were felled on the property with a small side addition added in later years. The original stone fireplace is the focal point of the main floor living room/kitchen with several small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
Out back you may notice a small white building: this was the hard work of students from the Earth Keepers program at a local high school in the mid 1980’s. Constructed with a concrete floor, walls of straw bales and metal shingles on the roof, its ceiling rafters are cut from wood harvested on the Crieff Hills property. Currently it is used for large item storage.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
☞ SEE: Paris Is Burning
Showing Thursday, June 25th, 7:30 PM at the Maysles Cinema. One of the first films that I ever saw in New York City was Paris Is Burning in 1991. It really gave me a different perspective on what it was like for gay and transgender minorities living in upper Manhattan. Being transplanted from Kentucky and going to school at Parsons was rich and exotic enough for me at the time; I had never been above 42nd Street for the most part. Now living in Harlem, this blogger comes full circle in recommending this film for folks who might not understand all of the diverse communities within the city but would be open to exploring how others live. The film is at times funny, entertaining, educational and often sad. The above photo is that of the late, great Willi Ninja who is showcased in the movie and was one of the founders of Voguing as a dance form. See the full schedule on the Maysles Institute's website: LINK. Suggested admission $10.00 with limited seating. Come early. 343 Malcolm X Blvd/Lenox Avenue bet. 127th and 128th Streets. Tel. 212-582-6050.
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The Indian Cancer Society was founded in Mumbai in 1951 by the renowned oncologist Dr. DJ Jussawala, with the stated objective of providing cancer awareness and education, as well as offering high quality-low cost cancer screening facilities. Dr. Jussawala saw even in those early years that prevention through awareness and understanding was the only way to fight the scourge of cancer.... Read More >>
-- Tobacco Control Act
-- Tobacco and Cancer
From the Blog
Insights from mesothelioma survivor
Even before starting radiation treatment I met with Dr. Brown. Everything was explained to me in detail as to what would happen. Later I was taken into the room where I would be given my treatment...........
by Jodi Page
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- Why is it important to exfoliate when using lightening/brightening products?
Exfoliating dead skin is important to enhance your lightening results.
Cellular turnover (new healthy cell formation) slows down as we age giving the skin a dry, dull appearance, therefore a weekly exfoliating treatment is important to remove dead skin cells which allows lightening actives to penetrate much more effectively into the skin. Secondly, an exfoliating treatment smoothes and softens the texture of your skin, instantly restoring a luminous complexion. Add gentle SkinPolish Exfoliating Cream to your skincare regimen 1-2 times a week, always allowing 3-4 days between each use and you will see amazing lightening results. Use LightenUp Glycerin Bathing Bar Soap with lightening Papaya enzyme, Papain daily; its lightening and brightening properties are non-drying and non-irritating.
Caution: Too much exfoliation can dry and irritate the skin causing irritation and inflammation, resulting in darker skin and/or dark spots, especially for women and men of color.
2.Which lightening products are best suited for oily/acne prone skin?
Remember, that oily skin fares better with light textured products such as serums or gels. Try LightenUp PLUS Lightening Gel or Gold Intense Argan Oil Acive Serum. They’re absorbed much more efficiently, dry quickly and won’t clog pores. If you still get breakouts, try our BlemishLess™ Acne Kit, a 3-step Rapid Clarifying System which will unclog pores, kills acne bacteria and clarify skin.
3. Does Continental Laboratories do animal testing?
No, Continental Laboratories is proud to say that we do not engage in animal testing or use animal derived ingredients in our product line.
4. Do your lightening/brightening products contain sunscreen?
No, they do not. Continental Laboratories recommends using an additional sunscreen during the day to prevent dark spots from appearing and to maintain an even skin tone. No cosmetics should ever be used in place of a good broad spectrum sunscreen (broad spectrum means the sunscreen protects against UVA and UVB damage). In addition, moisturizers and foundations are absorbed by the skin, so they are by nature less effective at sitting on the skin’s surface as sunscreens do. Follow up with our SkinProtect SPF 50 Sunscreen in order to maintain even skin tone.
Common misconceptions: Men and women of color especially with darker skin, often believe that they do not need to use sunscreen, since they rarely complain of sun damage, however this is false. Dark skin also needs sunscreen protection from UV rays, especially when using any lightening or brightening skincare products.
5. I suffer from stubborn brown spots on my knuckles, knees and elbows. How can your lightening/brightening products help me lighten these areas?
Our lightening products are formulated with intense fading ingredients to specifically lighten these dark areas, resulting in an even skin tone. One of our favorites is “LightenUp Advanced Intense Spot Remover”. Follow up with a our SkinProtect SPF 50 Sunscreen daily, during and after treatment in order to maintain an even skin tone.
6. Do your lightening/brightening products work on a skin condition called, Melasma?
Yes, however melasma (often seen as dark brown patches) can take up to 6-8 months or more to completely fade dark discoloration which usually appears on areas such as lip, cheeks or forehead. If pregnant, nursing or if taking oral contraceptives and/ or experiencing hormonal changes it is highly recommended to avoid sun exposure. To restore a more even skin tone and a uniform complexion try our most effective lightening regimen called LightenUp Kit with Advance Unitone 4 Intense Fading Complex. Designed as a 3-step lightening and brightening system formulated with a combination of aggressive lightening/brightening ingredients like Hydroquinone, Kojic Acid, Exfoliant Glycolic Acid and potent anti-aging brightener Vitamin C. It is one of our best sellers and has become a favorite of the famous actor, Johnny Depp. The synergy of these 4 potent lightening ingredients fade dark spots and provide a clear, luminous complexion, leaving skin with a smooth even skin tone. Kit includes SkinProtect SPF 50 Sunscreen Lotion for strong sun protection. Follow directions on package and you will have amazing results! Use sunscreen during and after lightening/brightening treatments as well as avoiding sun exposure. This will help to maintain effective results.
7. Are lightening/brightening products safe to use during pregnancy?
No, they are not safe to use during pregnancy or while nursing.
8. I would like to lighten my skin a few shades lighter. Which body lotion do you recommend to address this concern?
One of the strongest and a favorite of mine is the 7 Day LightenUp Lightening Body Lotion (for medium skin tones). It is our most aggressive lightening lotion for the body and should be used preferably at night. For darker skin tones try Miss White 14 Day Body Lotion Be sure to follow up with our SkinProtect SPF 50 Sunscreen daily, during and after treatment in daytime in order to avoid further pigmentation.
9. I’m using lightening products and my skin is getting darker instead of lighter. Are there any concerns I should be aware of during my usage of lightening products?
Absolutely, there are 3 reasons why the skin becomes darker during a lightening treatment.
The first reason and one of the biggest mistakes is using your lightening products during the day. When using lightening and brightening products in the morning it can make our skin very sensitive to sunlight, resulting in the skin becoming darker overtime.
The 2nd reason is not wearing sunscreen every morning. When using lightening and brightening products during the day it makes our skin very sensitive to sunlight therefore, use lightening products only at night. Using our SkinProtect SPF 50 Sunscreen every morning will prevent more dark spots from occurring and leave you with a glowing complexion. Use lightening products only at night.
The 3rd reason is over exfoliating. Too much exfoliation can dry and irritate the skin causing irritation and inflammation, and this inflammation in darker skin tones brings up melanin to the surface of the skin, causing the skin to become darker especially, for women and men of color.
Another concern is sun exposure while pregnant or while taking oral contraceptives or experiencing hormonal changes during menopause. As I mentioned earlier, both of these actions cause a reaction; Hormonal changes in the body photosensitize the skin and cause it to darken quicker, resulting in hyperpigmentation. It is best to avoid the sun during this time and wear our High SPF 50 sunscreen SkinProtect. This light textured sunscreen absorbs quickly and does not leave a white residue; wear daily, rain or shine!
10. Are lightening products with Hydroquinone safe?
Continental Laboratories’s lightening products contain Hydroquinone concentrations of 2%, the amount permitted by the FDA for over the counter products, therefore they are safe. Reputable associations of medical doctors and industry professionals believe that the benefits provided by Hydroquinone are significant and that the presently FDA permitted concentration is below that which may have contributed to prohibitions of products containing this ingredient in other countries such as Japan, Australia and Europe. When used as directed and in conjunction with sun protection, the long term benefits include a more radiant, youthful and healthy complexion.
Once results have been achieved, start a maintenance regimen with less aggressive lightening products such as BrightenUp PLUS Skin Brightening Cream which has been proven in studies by the very popular pharmaceutical company, Proctor and Gamble to be 4 times stronger than Hydroquinone. The combination of 3 potent lightening ingredients exhibit powerful melanin inhibiting properties, safely and effectively. For those consumers with oily skin try BrightenUp PLUS Brightening Serum.
11. I’m looking for a rich body Lotion that hydrates and provides a luminous body sheen?
Yelen Balancing Body Lotion is a rich textured body lotion formulated to improve clarity and radiance as its sweet and delectable scent lingers on your limbs upon application. Its subtle shimmer and rich nourishing properties restore deep moisture, providing skin with a soft, silky and smoothing effect.
12. I have dark skin and I read that wearing sunscreen is important when using lightening products? Is this necessary for dark skin tones?
Yes, most dark spots are triggered by the sun. Driving to work, sitting by a window or just walking or running outdoors is enough to cause dark spots, uneven skin tone and/or premature aging over time. Indoor lighting such as florescent and halogen bulbs can also break down collagen and cause the same aging as UVA. Continental Laboratories recommends using broad spectrum UVA & UVB high protection every day. This will help to maintain your results and protect your skin from premature aging. No matter what skin color, sunscreen is a must! Look for SPF 50 SkinProtect Sunscreen. UVA rays penetrates through clouds and comes through car windows as you drive.
Must –know facts
95% of skin aging changes are caused by sun exposure and most of the skin damage is attributed to UVA (aging rays) compared to UVB (burning rays).Long wavelength UVA, which comprises the vast majority of UV rays is very close in wavelength to visible light. A simple rule of thumb: when you are outside in daytime, you should protect against UVA even if the sun isn’t hot or doesn’t shine. UVA comes through car windows and windshield as you drive.
What is the difference between UVA / UVB?
13. Why does brown skin scar so easily?
Brown skin contains more melanin (dark pigment) than fair skin and is more vulnerable to irritation. “Melanocytes”(cells that make melanin) are located in the upper layers of the skin and tend to become more reactive in darker skin. When dark skin is exposed to any type of irritation such as scratching, acne, injury, ingrown hair, poor laser treatments or too much sun exposure, more melanin is released, causing dark brown spots to appear on the surface of the skin.
14. I have an oily complexion with large pores and my skin is always shiny. How can I hide these imperfections and control the shine?
PoreFree MakeUp Primer instantly absorbs oil and mattifies shine. It is often used to hide skin imperfections such as large pores, providing skin with a silky smooth and even matt finish. One of our favorites! Available in 3 shades; light, medium and dark.
15. How do I know Fair and White products are not counterfeit?
Continental Laboratories continues to protect our brands by addressing damaging effects of counterfeit products by routinely monitoring online and in-store retailers with the help of private investigators researching throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
16. Can an exfoliating soap harm my complexion ?
Yes, do not use exfoliating soap more than 2 times a week. Most exfoliating bar soaps are too harsh and can cause skin damage. The skin on the face is very delicate and some exfoliating soaps are too aggressive for the face, causing the skin to become dry and irritated which results in inflammation. This action causes melanin to rise to the surface of the skin, making the skin darker especially for consumers with dark skin tones. As for exfoliating the body, exfoliating soaps can be used 4-5 times a week. If you like soaps try, LightenUp Glycerin Bathing Bar that can be used daily. Try our exfoliating cream treatment, Fair and White Gold Sugar Exfoliator, 1-2 times a week only, always leaving 3 to 4 days between treatments.
17. How fast can I expect to see lightening results?
Lightening/brightening skincare is formulated to work on all types of skin as well as different ethnicities. Of course results vary; most see a dramatic improvement within 2 -3 weeks. Others with darker skin may see results in 4-6 weeks. If no improvement is seen after 4-10 weeks, discontinue product usage.
18 Why are lightening/brightening skincare products recommended mostly for night-time use?
Lightening products are recommended preferably for night-time use because using lightening/brightening skincare during the day makes the skin more sensitive to sunlight, resulting in more brown spots, uneven skin tone and wrinkling over time. Thus, following up with a minimum SPF 30 or higher sunscreen every morning will help to maintain an even skin tone and prevent further skin discoloration. Try our Isispharma sunscreen (for dryer skin types) or SPF 50 SkinProtect sunscreen (a lighten texture for normal to oily skin that will not leave a white residue.
19. I have problems with acne spots (scarring). Will lightening/brightening products help to lighten these spots?
Yes, but it is important to not pick at pimples because this will often leave unattractive scarring and black skin is much more prone to keloids (scar tissue caused by trauma). And consistently following a lightening/brightening regimen is extremely important to achieve effective results in fading acne scars. After a few weeks of everyday usage, dark marks will appear less noticeable, resulting in a lighter, more even skin tone. Try our aggressive LightenUp Advance Spot Remover, a 3-step lightening/brightening regimen formulated to fade dark acne spots, restoring an even skin tone as it brightens the complexion. Be sure to follow up with our SPF 50 SkinProtect Sunscreen (included in kit -a light texture for normal to oily skin that will not leave a white residue.)It absorbs and dries quickly and will not clog pores.
20. How long before I see clarifying results when using your Acne Blemishless Kit?
You should see a difference in 7-10 days. Some people see a difference in 4-5 days. It’s important to follow directions & keep using until an improvement is seen. For best results, use all three products everyday as the ingredients have been formulated to work together. It is not advisable to use other acne products during this time as the scientific balance will not be right. Mixing will create an imbalance (a negative effect) so the products will not work as well. Remember, consistency is the key.
21. What is the best way to eliminate razor bumps?
The first step to eliminate razor rash or ingrown hairs is to cleanse with an anti-inflammatory wash like Blemishless Foaming Gel Cleanser which cleanses and calms irritated prone skin as well as dissolve excess oil and unclog pores without over-drying the skin. Follow-up with Fair & W Anti-Bump Lotion twice a day to instantly heal and eliminate razor rash, bumps and irritated prone skin. Any of these treatments can be applied on the back of the arms, legs or bikini area where rash or ingrown hairs may occur.
22. What can I use to lighten dark discoloration under my arms, bikini area and other intimate areas that is safe and effective? Can you recommend a gentle lightening product for these sensitive areas?
Yes, our Gentle Intimates Lightening Serum is designed to fade dark sensitive areas with safe and effective lightening properties. It gently absorbs and dries quickly with no mess. Uniquely developed for today’s body conscious men and women who want to enhance skin’s appearance in the privacy and comfort of their home.
23. Can you recommend Hydroquinone FREE brightening/lightening products?
Yes, some of our best sellers are F and W High Performance GOLD AHA Brightening Cream and GOLD AHA Brightening Body Lotion. BrightenUp PLUS Skin Brightening Cream or BrightenUp PLUS Brightening Serum.
Other popular Fair and White Hydroquinone FREE products consist of Exclusive Glycerin with pure vitamin C, – Original AHA Lightening Cream (contains AHA Glycolic Acid and natural Bearberry Extract)and Original AHA Body Lotion (contains gentle AHA Lactic Acid).
Any of these products are excellent choices as a maintenance regimen to maintain an even skin tone. Remember to always follow up with an SPF 50 or higher daily, during and after brightening/lightening treatments in order to avoid further pigmentation.
24. I have dark stubborn spots on my legs. What is the best lightening treatment to address these skin concerns?
Try LightenUp 7 Day Lightening Body Lotion (for medium skin tones) & Miss White 14 Day Body Lotion (for dark skin tones) high performance body lotions formulated in a sensual emulsion and designed to illuminates dull uneven skin tone as they aggressively fade brown spots, lighten skin imperfections and prevent new spots from forming. Freshly scented lightening body lotions absorb quickly and provide a smoothing effect, leaving skin soft, silky and even toned.
25. How do I determine my skin type?
Choosing the right skincare product for your type of skin matters!
If you don’t know your skin type, follow my tips below.
cleanse and dry your face and leave it bare for 2 hours.
press a piece of blotting paper against your nose.
if there is no oil, tightness or flakes, your skin is normal.
if there is no oil but your skin feels tight then you have dry skin.
if there is oil on your nose and cheeks, you have oily skin.
if you have oil on your nose but not your cheeks, then you have combination skin.
26. How do I know which product is best for my type of skin?
Oily Skin –we recommend serums or gels which are light and refreshing, won’t clog pores, fast absorbing.
Normal/Oily Skin – we recommend gels, creams or serums – lightly hydrating without feeling greasy. Lotions are best applied to the body. (The skin on the body is thicker than the skin on the face.)
Dry/Sensitive Skin – we recommend creams –acreamy texture, with very hydrating properties, prevents drying, irritation and flaking.
27. Which Fair and White products do not contain Hydroquinone?
Exclusive line -Hydroquinone FREE products consist of Exclusive Silky Gel, Exclusive Anti-Bump Lotion, Exclusive Glycerin with pure Vitamin “C” and Exclusive Purifying Lotion with pure Vitamin “C”.
Original line –Hydroquinone FREE products consist of Original AHA Brightening Cream and Original AHA Body Lotion
So White line – Hydroquinone FREE products consist of products-that don’t say “Skin Perfector.
( In other words, only So White products that read Skin Perfector, have hydroquinone.)
All LightenUp PLUS products have Hydroquinone.
All BrightenUp PLUS products DO NOT have Hydroquinone.
For skin concerns questions, call +966 12 649 3608
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Cricket in India had started in real earnest in the 1880s with the first Parsee tour of England in 1886. While this team was hastily put together and did not fare well, the second Parsee team to tour England in 1888 did much better. The improved ... Calcutta News.Net, 2 weeks ago
Why LN Mishra was killed! Mystery of dr Ambedkar`s death not to be investigated! Mind you,unlike in the past, the latest tranche of secret US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have not been leaked, but have been "legitimately obtained from a ...Silicon India, 1 month ago
Old accident forces Mane to alter batting style; former Mumbai bat hasn't forgotten the past. From being the next big thing in Mumbai cricket to fighting for survival — that pretty much sums up Vinayak Mane's story. The fatal injury in 2002 — he ...DNA India, 1 month ago
They don't have the faintest idea what Passover is, she says. I show them the film and tell them the story of Passover via Charlton Heston. Once there were 5,000 Jews in Kolkata. Now there are barely twenty-something. This year the number dropped ...Firstpost.com, 1 month ago
Sooni Taraporevala's extended portraiture of the Parsi community spanning over three decades offers a vivid and persuasive account of this micro-minority's ability to manage its internal contradictions while negotiating a demanding present. The ...Tehelka, 1 month ago
New Delhi, March 1 : Bollywood actor Nana Patekar has renewed his appeal to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray to join hands, but himself ruled out joining active politics. Replying to queries from Rajat Sharma ...IndiaTV News, 2 months ago
on your WebpageAdd Widget >Get your members hooked!
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Students move on to compete among world’s best in the World Championship in Anaheim, California, USA
Langley, BC – Five high school students from British Columbia have proven to be the best in Canada in Microsoft Office and will compete at Certiport’s Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship, the most popular technology skills competition on Microsoft Office and the only one endorsed by Microsoft since its inception in 2002.
The accomplishment demonstrates the incredible accomplishments that are coming out of technical education in British Columbia, and Canada. Building a foundational knowledge of Microsoft Office tools will help the students thrive in their future academic and career pursuits.
The winners of the Microsoft Office Specialist Canada National Championship achieved top test scores in:
Microsoft Word 2013: Noah Stelting (Surrey Christian School)
Microsoft PowerPoint 2013: Ian Chao (Surrey Christian School)
Microsoft Excel 2016: Alexander Ratner (Thomas Haney Secondary School)
Microsoft Word 2016: Karrah Hitchcox (Thomas Haney Secondary School)
Microsoft PowerPoint 2016: Abhiraj Virk (Thomas Haney Secondary School)
The group will move forward with an all-expenses paid trip to represent Canada at the 2017 Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship in Anaheim, California July 30 – August 2, 2017.
Worldwide the World Championship has attracted more than 560,000 unique candidates from 122 countries. This year, Certiport and Microsoft expect over 150 champions to compete from all around the world. Candidates will compete for a chance to win a $7,000 scholarship and the title of “World Champion” in their respective categories.
Malcolm Knox, President and CEO of CCI Learning, is proud of the success at Thomas Haney Secondary School and Surrey Christian School. He adds, “This competition finds the individuals who are able to display the most relevant technology skills for any career in the world right now: Microsoft Office. Employers, college and universities need to take note of this huge movement in education which is not just about STEM or CTE/CTS. These students are simply the most productive individuals on earth, in a world where innovation is the key to business success and growth. Microsoft Office and its ability to transform business and find quicker profits for organization is an innovation tool that has been under our noses for a long time now.”
Visit ccilearning.com for more information.
Suite # 112, 9440-202nd Street
Langley, BC, Canada V1M 4A6
About CCI Learning
CCI Learning is an education technology company specializing in interactive courseware, certification, software licensing, and educator services. At CCI Learning we take a human-centered approach to learning by focusing on the needs of each individual, offering a variety of learning solutions in productivity, computer science, digital literacy and creative computing. CCI Learning researches and develops award winning courseware for print, electronic and assessment engines that is sold and distributed globally. Founded on this world-leading courseware, CCI Learning has developed Jasperactive, the world’s first kinesthetic Microsoft Office learning and validation system mapped to the Microsoft Office Specialist Global Standard.
As a Platinum Certiport Partner and Microsoft Authorized Educational Partner, CCI Learning advances digital literacy, productivity skills and information technology for students, faculty, and staff in academic institutions worldwide by providing globally recognized certifications, learning solutions and educator services.
For additional information, please contact:
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George Washington Sailors ship donated blankets to disaster victims
YOKOSUKA, Japan — Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) joined forces with members of the Free Masons of Japan to box up and ship out donated blankets to those in need May 10.
Sixteen pallets containing more than 1,500 blankets donated by George Washington Sailors, their families and various communities from across the United States were bound for Sendai, Japan to provide relief to victims of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the island nation March 11.
The delivery to Sendai was spearheaded by Phil Ambrose, Grand Secretary of the Free Masons of Japan.
“The damage to the Sendai area is much worse than people have seen on television; the area has been totally devastated by the tsunami,” said Ambrose. “We’re taking several truckloads of supplies and these blankets to try and help people recover from the devastation.”
George Washington’s crew, wanting to do whatever they could to help the people of Japan, initiated a blanked drive in the ship’s hangar bay less than 48 hours after the earthquake and tsunami. The crew also reached out to their friends and family at home by posting a message on the ship’s Facebook page asking them to donate.
“I think it’s so important for human beings to help other human beings whenever there’s a need,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jose Pimentel, George Washington Catholic Chaplain. “The earthquake happened so unexpectedly. Life was just going along and suddenly there was this tremendous tragedy, so we all feel the need to help. It’s just human nature to want to help out and assist.”
As crates were quickly filling with blankets, George Washington and her crew were ordered to pull out to sea putting their efforts on hold. Two weeks into this unexpected deployment during a brief port visit to Sasebo, Japan, the ship received her first shipment of mail which included more than 1,000 blankets. One shipment alone, from the Lake Orion Police Department in Lake Orion, Mich., contained 425 blankets collected by school children from a nearby elementary school.
The response to the request for donations was so overwhelming that George Washington’s Sailors had a difficult time finding space to store all of the blankets while underway.
“This blanket drive started out as a really good idea that got a little complicated when the ship had to leave Japan for a then-undetermined period of time,” said Pimentel. “It was fortunate that we were able to contact [Ambrose] and work with him from all ends. It’s been a great effort from everybody involved, not just our Sailors and our families, but from people from two nations coming together to assist those devastated by this catastrophe, and it’s a great thing that we were able to complete this project under the circumstances.”
George Washington is the Navy’s only permanently forward-deployed aircraft carrier, ensuring security and stability across the western Pacific Ocean.
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Information identified as archived is provided for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. It is not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards and has not been altered or updated since it was archived. Please "contact us" to request a format other than those available.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Farm inventories of hogs declined 11.6% between July 2007 and July 2008, while smaller declines were seen in stocks of both cattle and sheep over the same period. Rising feed costs were a significant contributing factor to these declines.
Hog inventories have declined to levels not seen since 2000, as soft slaughter prices and high feed costs continued to be prevalent in the hog industry.
As the hog industry continued its transition, farmers reported 13.0 million hogs on their farms as of July 1, 2008, down 11.6% from one year ago.
With low profit margins, farmers are leaving the industry. There were 19% fewer hog producers in the country compared with a year ago, led by Saskatchewan (–30%) and Alberta (–24%).
Domestic slaughter was up 1.4% compared with last year, as some slaughter plants increased capacity by adding a second shift.
Canadian hog exports declined in the second quarter of 2008 to approximately 2.2 million hogs, which marks the first quarterly decrease in more than a year.
Canadian farmers reported a cattle and calf inventory of 15.2 million head, a decline of 4.3% from last year and continuing the downward trend that started in 2006. The beef herd and the dairy herd declined by 4.8% and 1.2% respectively.
The beef cow inventory was down 4.7% and the number of calves born decreased 4.8% from a year ago, despite an improving calving rate since the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis in 2003.
With the increase in coarse grain prices, the number of cattle on feeding operations has declined 12.3% since last summer. Over the past two years, the number of farms reporting cattle and calves has stabilized around 107,000 operations, following a loss of 8,500 cattle farms during the previous three years.
There are no signs of herd rebuilding as beef heifers for breeding replacement were down 2.0% from the same time last year.
Farmers reported 1.1 million sheep and lambs, 3.1% lower than last year and continuing a downward trend that began in 2003.
|Livestock inventories at July 1|
|thousands of head|
Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 3460.
The reports Cattle Statistics, 2008, Vol. 7, no. 3 (23-012-XWE, free), Hog Statistics, Vol. 7, no. 2 (23-010-XWE, free) and Sheep Statistics, 2008, Vol. 7, no. 2 (23-011-XIE, free), are now available online. From the Publications module of our website, under Free Internet publications, choose Agriculture.
For more information, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-800-465-1991). To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Robert Plourde (613-951-8716; firstname.lastname@example.org), Agriculture Division.
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The State of New York has launched an inquiry into the steps taken by the largest insurance companies to keep their customers and companies safe from cyber threats. This is the second inquiry of this kind. Earlier this year, a similar investigation targeted the cyber security practices of New York based financial institutions.
On May 28, 2013, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued letters pursuant to Section 308 of the New York Insurance Law (“308 Letters”) to 31 of the country’s largest insurance companies, requesting information on the policies and procedures they have in place to protect health, personal and financial records in their custody against cyber attacks.
Among other things, the 308 Letters request:
- Information on any cyber attacks to which the company has been subject in the past three years;
- The cyber security safeguards that the company has put in place;
- The company’s information technology management policies;
- The amount of funds and other resources that are dedicated to cyber security;
- The company’s governance and internal control policies related to cyber security
The insurance companies will have a short period to respond to the questionnaire. For further detail see Press Release of the New York Governor’s Office.
It is not clear what the State of New York will do with the information collected from the responses to this inquiry, but it is certain that this initiative is likely to be followed with great interest by other State Insurance and Financial industry regulators. Indeed, both the insurance and financial services institutions collect, process and retain a significant amount of highly sensitive personal information about prospective, current and past customers.
Companies in the insurance or financial services sectors, as well as their respective service providers, should take the time to review their risk assessments, policies and procedures, especially with a focus on evaluating whether they adequately address known vulnerabilities, meet the current “best practices” standards, and are keeping up with the most recent technologies and forms of cyber attacks.
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Jump to Content
Press release (4 pp.) on Korea & Soviet Union (April 9, 1948) plus 2 clippings attached.
U.S. Foreign Service reports on Syngman Rhee, the establishment of the Korean government, etc.
Report of 9 Feb. 1948
Report of 6 Aug. 1948
Memorandum, 12 Aug. 1948
Memorandum, re arrival of Douglas MacArthur, Aug. 1948
Press release, Rhee address, 15 Aug. 1948
Press release, MacArthur address, 15 Aug. 1948
Press release, Gen. John Hodge's remarks
Speech of H.E. Ambassador Liu Yu-wan
Address of Rev. Byrne, (2 pp.) 15 Aug. 1948.
Release re Jacobs' return to Wash. (25/VIII/48).
Memorandum for Jacobs, 3 Nov. 1948, re establishment of government of South Korea.
Booklet "Korea Reborn."
Material re visit of Lt. General A.C. Wedemeyer, etc. to Korea, Aug. 26 - Sept. 3. 1947
Liaison and Consular Officials attached to the U.S. Army Forces in Korea 1 Aug. 1948
American Delegation, U.S.-USSR Joint Commission, Political Advisory Group 2 Aug. 1947
Official letter of 3 May 1948 by Jacobs to Secretary of State, regarding Pyongyang Conference
Memorandum, 1 Dec. 1948 regarding threats to representative of Korea from North Korean radio broadcasts
"What is a Korean National Youth?" dated 28 Jan. 1947
Despatch enclosure regarding the South Korea Labor Party, 28 March 1948
Letter, Jacobs to Secretary of State, 4 Aug. 1948, regarding Kimm Kivsic - Kim Koo Unification Movement
Confidential memorandum, South Korean Interim Government 29 April 1948. Subject: Cost of Occupation - Military government
Note on American Expenditures, n.d.
Memorandum, 2 July 1947, Subject: social.
Despatches, No. 1028, No. 1029, 8 July 1948 to the State Dept., (4 pp. each) stamped secret.
Despatches, No. 962, 961 26 June 1948 to the State Dept.,
Despatches, No. 924, No. 923, 21 June 1948 to the State Dept.
Despatches, No. 917, 918, 19 June 1948 to the State Dept.
Despatch, No. 829, 8 June 1948
Despatch, No. 736, 26 May, 1948
Despatch (carbon), No._____, to State Dept., 12 Feb. 1948,
Memorandum, "People killed in South Korea from 1 Jan. 1948 to 26 Apr. 1948."
Copy of State Dept. telegram (No. 142) 14 July, 1947.
Press conference of General Hodge (off-the record) 7 May 1948.
Miscellaneous printed material on Korea, booklets and newspapers, periodical clippings.
Materials on the U.N. Temporary Commission in Korea.
Letter to Lt. Gen. John Hodge from Maj. Gen. C. A. Willoughby, 15 July 1948
Memorandum, State Dept. Office of Intelligence Research, 1 Nov. 1948, "Moscow Radio Criticism of the United Nations and the U.N.
Temporary Commission Korea"
Memorandum, "Description of the Interin Committee Proceedings on Korea, Feb. 19-26, 1948", dated 14 Apr. 1948
Despatch, No. 184, to Secretary of State regarding "Draft documents... (of) Australian delegate...at 65th and 66th Plenary Sessions of the U.N. Commission on Korea," plus enclosures
U.S. Mission to the U.N., Soviet statements in Comm. I, General Assembly, 2nd Session V. The problem of the independence of Korea
The Joint Commission on Korea.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R. "The Soviet Union and the Korean Question - Documents," Moscow, 1948.
Joint Communique, 11, 12 June 1947.
"Position of the Soviet delegation in the 53rd Meeting," 12 Aug. 1947,
U.S. Foreign Service, No. 24 Subject: Methods of Dealing with Soviet Officials, 6 Feb. 1948
Notes on Korean Politics compiled by the Political Advisory Group, American delegation, US-USSR Joint Comm. in cooperation of G-2, Hg. XXIV Corps. 1 Sept. 1947.
Drafts on thoughts re Korea, in letter form to Hugh Borton, State Dept, dated 25 July 1947
List of dates of Joint Commission Meetings - 1947, Meetings 38-62
Soviet proposal, 23 July 1947 re plan of work in Pyongyang during 30 June - 3 July 1947.
Position of the Soviet delegation in the 50th meeting, 1 Aug. 1947.
Op. cit. 51st Meeting 5 Aug. 1947
Op. cit., 52nd Meeting 7 Aug. 1947
Op. cit. 54th Meeting, 20 Aug. 1947.
Op. cit., 55th Meeting, 20 Aug. 1947.
Op cit., 56th Meeting, 26 Aug. 1947
Op cit., 57th Meeting, 3 Sept. 1947
Op cit., 48th Meeting, 29 July, 1947
Op cit., 49th Meeting, 31 July 1947
Draft, U.S. position on freedom of expression and eligibility for consultation (re Korean government statements) 28 June 1947.
List of Soviet Objections to parties and Social organizations (July 1947)
Observations of Interpreter of Joint Comm. trip to Pyongyang, 29 June-3July 1947
U.S. Foreign Service, No. 126, Subject: Visit to Seoul of members of intrastate and foreign commerce congressional committee, 21 Oct. 1947
U.S. Foreign Service, No. 102 (?), Subject: Visit to Seoul of Underseer of Army, Wm. H. Draper (30 Sept. 1947).
Ibid., No. 97, 26 Sept. 1947. plus attachment
Korean organizations in the U.S., as of 16 Oct. 1947
Tourist booklets and guides (6).
Materials regarding Italy, c. 1951 including a preliminary report on the VII Congress of the Italian Communist Party, etc.
Material regarding the Philippines and the Joint Committee visit of July - Dec. 1937 (18 pp.), and a press release of 7 Aug. 1939 regarding the bill to amend the Philippine Independence Act.
One large volume of material regarding a 1925 trial at which time Jacobs was American Assessor at the International Mixed Court, Shanghai.
Declassified records 1947-1951
Scope and Content Note
2011 September release of records 1947-1951
Scope and Content Note
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St. Patrick’s Day is upon us, and locally there are some fun and family friendly ways to celebrate: eat a corned beef dinner and watch a parade, hunt leprechauns and get your head shaved.
Yes, getting your head shaved has become a good way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day while supporting a good cause.
Since the first St. Baldrick’s head-shaving event on St. Patrick’s Day in 2000, the organization has raised and contributed more than $100 million to childhood cancer research. The money is primarily raised through sponsors of shavees, men and women who get their heads shaved at St. Baldrick’s events to show solidarity with children with cancer undergoing chemotherapy and typically losing their hair during the treatments.
The Art Theater, 230 Main St. in downtown Hobart, is transforming into a barbershop for St. Baldrick’s and Locks of Love from 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, but it certainly won’t be a typical barbershop.
“We’ll be shaving heads on stage at the movie theater in support of kid’s cancer research, in between sets of the three bands that will be playing. This is a kid-friendly, smoke-free event, and we’ll have free food — hot dogs, mostaccioli and more,” said Jason Lach, event organizer.
Lach has helped with other St. Baldrick’s events for the Hobart Jaycees. He’s also been growing his hair for about two years and is now one of 11 who are already signed up to be a shavee.
He said that longer hair will be kept for Locks of Love, an organization that provides hairpieces to children who have lost their hair while undergoing medical treatments. He hopes that his loss will be St. Baldrick’s gain, and that his friends and other attendees at the event will donate generously for the shavee’s efforts toward the event’s goal of raising $5,000.
Admission is only $3 including food and entertainment. The bands volunteering their time to perform are: the Allen Wronko Band playing modern country music; and Mr. Right and The Difference playing rock from the 1980s to today. There will also be beer for sale, several vendors on site, raffles and a silent auction.
Another St. Baldrick’s event is slated from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Hammond Academy of Science and Technology, 33 Muenich Court. Students, family and friends, including Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, have already signed up to be shavees, but additional shavees and those who would like to donate are welcome.
To become a shavee or to donate for these events or other upcoming St. Baldrick’s events, go online to www.stbaldricks.org then click on “get involved” and “find an event.”
Lucky Charms might be the perfect breakfast before heading to the Indiana Dunes State Park for a Leprechaun Hunt at 2 p.m. Sunday. Families are invited to help the naturalist use his GPS device to find hidden treasures and prizes for kids.
Meet at the Nature Center of the Indiana Dunes State Park, located at the northern terminus of Indiana 49 in Chesterton. There is a gate fee of $5 per Indiana plated car.
St. Pat’s night parade
Enjoy the area’s only night time St. Pat’s parade in downtown Crown Point, but arrive early for food and fun.
The corned-beef-and-cabbage dinner begins at 1 p.m. at the fire station, 126 N. East St. Tickets are $10 for a full meal, $9 for seniors and $4 for a kid’s meal. The fire station is also hosting a St. Baldrick’s event at that time. With some friendly competition from local individuals and groups, this event hopes to raise $50,000.
The vendor area opens at 3 p.m, and entertainment on the square will kick off at about 4 p.m. and include the Crown Point High School pep band, local dance organizations and Shriners.
The parade begins at dusk and has more than 30 units. This year’s parade will include the Band of Brothers Pipes and Drums, the RailCats, and last year’s parade winner, the horses and riders sponsored by Mi Ranchito restaurant in Lowell.
“A minimum of 500 lights, or five stands of lights, is required, but the entries go above and beyond that and are so creative,” said Diana Bosse, Crown Point special events administrator.
“It’s a busy, busy day here — a great day for the community to come out and join in a family friendly event, and a fun welcome to spring.”
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Search SBI Branch Citywise
You can also try :
History of SBI:
- State Bank of India (SBI) came into existence in 19th century.
- Afterwards SBI merged with the Imperial Bank. In 1955 Imperial bank was nationalised with the Reserve Bank of India.
- Afterwards it got its present name SBI. It is a largest Commercial bank.
- The main center of State Bank of India branchesis in Mumbai.
- All over India SBI branches are 16000.
- In world in 32 countries SBI branches are 131.
- The State Bank of India branches have an identification code.
SBI branch list :-
- SBI branches are grouped into 14 circles which are as follows :-
Patna, Mumbai, Lucknow, Kerala, North East, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Bengal, Bhubaneshwar, Banglore, Ahemdabad.
- SBI branch list also includes identification code.
- State Bank of India branches have good administrative structure.
- SBI branches also participate in social causes.
- State Bank of India Branches haveSWIFT facility in India.
Since 1973 State Bank of India is participating in non profit activities. These activities comes under Community Services Banking. It is for the welfare of the society. Shri O.P.Bhatt is the chairman of State Bank of India.
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Pathway to US College/University - FREE Seminar - Ibadan
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM (EDT)
Planning to attend University in the US? Have you mapped out a plan? Chosen a School? Don't worry, our FREE seminar will provide you with the valuable information needed.
In this two our seminar, you will:
- Learn the Difference between US and UK schools
- How to Build A Standout Student Portfolio>
- How to Select a College that Matches You
- How to Get on the Talent Search List for US Colleges
- How to Attend Obtain Scholarships as an International Student
- Learn Why Smart Students Bomb the SAT and How to Ace It
- Learn Schools who are Seeking International Students
Contact us at firstname.lastname@example.org for additional information
When & Where
Blaze Leadership Academy
Blaze Leadership Academy is a non-profit organization which specializes in developing standout students for college life and beyond. We provide unique programs for US based and international students who desire entrance into universities into the Unites States.
With the average cost of private university at $40,000 a year while public universities are $80,000, parents need assistance. We know most parents cannot afford to pay this tuition. They are depending on grants, scholarship and maybe loans. Our programs helps students develop an exceptional student portfolio for a free ride to university.
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43-foot baleen whale found dead on Matagorda Beach
Updated 1:31 pm, Wednesday, December 19, 2012
MATAGORDA (AP) — Animal rescuers say a 43-foot whale has been found dead on a Texas beach.
The Victoria Advocate reports the baleen whale was discovered Tuesday on Matagorda Beach.
Heidi Whitehead with the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network in Galveston says it's definitely rare for a large whale to come ashore on the Texas coast. Whitehead says a necropsy was planned Wednesday.
Further details on the animal weren't immediately available.
In 1988, a Minke baleen whale that may have been beached on a deserted part of Matagorda Peninsula for nearly a week was destroyed by biologists who later found small pieces of plastic sheets in its stomach.
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I was put onto an excellent article by Coda Hale titled ‘You Can’t Sacrifice Partition Tolerance‘ which expands on some of the ideas laid out in Dr Eric Brewer’s CAP Theorem.
The CAP Theorem is the distributed systems version of the classic engineering maxim of “Good, fast, cheap: pick two”. Briefly stated, it declares that any distributed system may only have two of the following properties: consistency; availability; partition tolerance. It makes perfect sense when you think about it, as it’s logically impossible to remain both consistent and available in the case of the system becoming partitioned due to node failure/disconnections etc.
The case raised by Hale is that, for any distributed system, partition tolerance is not something that can simply be chosen. That is, disconnections and node failures etc are guaranteed to happen at some point in time. They are simply an annoyingly constant fact of life for anyone involved in the field. Therefore, any real-world distributed system must support some kind of fault-tolerance, otherwise it’s useless.
This means that the distributed systems designer is left to decide the following: given that system failures will occur, and your system may become partitioned, is your system going to degrade by sacrificing consistency, or availability? It depends on the system requirements as to which should be chosen, however it’s the unfortunate face that you simply can’t preserve both.
Given this, Hale suggests that a better way to think about handling failure is by using yield and harvest. Yield is defined as the impact of unavailability on handling incoming requests (related to but different to uptime), and harvest is a measure of how much of the required data is available to fulfil a request (ie. if a request needs to data from two servers, one of which is unavailable, the harvest will be only 50%).
Hale’s point is that you can choose which of these will be affected in the case of system failures and partitions. Is it better for some requests to be dropped in the interests of preserving accuracy (harvest), or can we handle a lower harvest in the interests of maintaining responsiveness? Again, the system requirements determine the answer.
I find this a very useful way to think about how a system is going to degrade when faults occur. After all, if you design something to be scalable (increase throughput as nodes are added) it makes perfect sense to consider how a system will degrade/scale down as nodes are lost. It can only be beneficial to be completely clear on the choices and tradeoffs involved, and that, ultimately, you can’t have your cake and eat it too when it comes to consistency and availability.
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Acknowledging NH’s racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities are among the most vulnerable residents in NH, the following organizations collaborated to lead a process to identify priorities for action to advance health equity for racial, ethnic and linguistic minorities in NH, creating the Plan to Reduce Health Disparities and Promote Health Equity in New Hampshire:
- Endowment for Health,
- New Hampshire Minority Health Coalition,
- Foundation for Healthy Communities,
- New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of Minority Health & Refugee Affairs, and
- New Hampshire Institute for Health Policy and Practice at the University of New Hampshire.
The public-private structure used in the process to develop the plan coalesced various individuals, organizations, and coalitions around a shared vision and into a partnership, the NH Health & Equity Partnership (H&EP). The Partnership’s goal is to implement, evaluate, monitor, and improve the Plan. The plan serves as a basis for collaboration between diverse stakeholders, public and private, to promote initiatives and policies that can help make our communities healthier places to live, learn, work and play for all.
The following descriptions are from The Center for Health Equity and Social Justice
What is Health Equity?
Health equity means that everyone has a fair opportunity to live a long, healthy life. It implies that health should not be compromised or disadvantaged because of an individual or population group’s race, ethnicity, gender, income, sexual orientation, neighborhood or other social condition. Achieving health equity requires creating fair opportunities for health and eliminating gaps in health outcomes between different social groups. It also requires that public health professionals look for solutions outside of the health care system, such as in the transportation or housing sectors, to improve the opportunities for health in communities.
Health Disparities vs. Health Inequities
Health disparities, or health inequalities, are differences in the presence of disease, health outcomes, or access to health care between population groups. Health inequities, on the other hand, are differences in health that are not only unnecessary and avoidable but, in addition, are considered unfair and unjust. Health inequities are rooted in social injustices that make some population groups more vulnerable to poor health than other groups.
Consider the following example. Male babies are generally born at a heavier birth weight than female babies. This is a health disparity. While there may be a difference in the birth weight between male babies and female babies, the difference is unavoidable and rooted in genetics. On the other hand, babies born to Black women are more likely to die in their first year of life than babies born to White women. Some of this difference is due to poverty – a higher percentage of Black mothers are poor and face hardships associated with poverty that can affect their health. But we find differences in the health of Black and White mothers and babies even if we compare Blacks and White with the same income. Many scientists believe that it is racism experienced by Black women that explains this extra difference. Racism creates stress, and too much stress creates a risk for mothers and babies. This is a health inequity because the difference between the groups is unfair, avoidable and rooted in social injustice.
The Social Determinants of Health
The following description is from Robert Wood Johnson Commission to Build a Healthier America
Where we live, learn, work and play have a tremendous impact on our health. While going to the doctor and receiving medical care are essential for detecting and curing illness, access to health care can only account for 10 to 15 percent of preventable deaths. Social factors such as housing, education, income and employment greatly influence the health and quality of life in neighborhoods and communities. These social factors, generally referred to as the social determinants of health, determine whether or not individuals have parks and playgrounds to exercise, supermarkets to buy fresh and affordable fruits and vegetables, job opportunities to support their families, and other resources that allow them to be healthy. While it is definitely important for us to encourage people to make healthy choices, we must remember that people can only make healthy choices if they have healthy options.
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This tutorial assumes familiarity with Windows.Forms application development in Visual Studio 2005/C#, and at least basic knowledge of OpenGL. It also assumes a top-to-bottom readthrough; it is a guide and not a reference.
To begin with, it is quite a different approach one has to take when designing a game/application using the GLControl in a Windows.Form compared to using the GameWindow. GLControl is more low-level than GameWindow so you'll have to pull the strings on for example time measurements by yourself. In GameWindow, you get more for free!
Just as in the GameWindow case, GLControl uses the default OpenGL driver of the system, so with the right drivers installed it will be hardware accelerated. However, with large windows it will be slower than the corresponding fullscreen GameWindow, because of how the underlying windowing system works [someone with more detailed knowledge than me may want to elaborate on this..].
If you come from a "main-loop-background" (C/SDL/Allegro etc.) when it comes to coding games, you'll have to rethink that fundamentally. You'll have to change into a mindset of "what event should I hook into, and what events should I trigger, and when?" instead.
pregnancy yoga classes online
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Determining Temperature Differential to Prevent Hardware Cross- Contamination in a Vacuum Chamber
- Friday, 01 March 2013
When contamination-sensitive hardware must be tested in a thermal vacuum chamber, cross-contamination from other hardware present in the chamber, or residue from previous tests, becomes a concern. Typical mitigation strategies involve maintaining the temperature of the critical item above that of other hardware elements at the end of the test.A formula for relating the pumping speed of a chamber, the surface area of contamination sources, and the temperatures of the chamber, source, and contamination-sensitive items has been developed. The formula allows the determination of a temperature threshold about which contamination will not condense on the sensitive items. It defines a parameter alpha that is the fraction given by (contaminant source area)/[chamber pumping speed × (time under vacuum)0.5]. If this parameter is less than 10–6, cross-contamination from common spacecraft material will not occur when the sensitive hardware is at the same temperature as the source of contamination (The chamber is isothermal within 5 °C.).
Knowing when it becomes safe to have the hardware isothermal permits faster and easier thermal transitions when compared with maintaining an arbitrary temperature differential between parts. Furthermore, the standard temperature differential may not be adequate under some conditions (alpha>10–4).
This work was done by David Hughes of Goddard Space Flight Center. For further information, contact the Goddard Innovative Partnerships Office at (301) 286-5810. GSC-16244-1
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National Clean Diesel Campaign
Innovative Strategies for Cleaner Air
2005 Progress Report
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
What Is the National Clean Diesel Campaign? . . . . . . . . . . 3
Summary of Key Accomplishments, 2004–2005 . . . . . . . 4
Program Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Regulatory Strategies for the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Voluntary Strategies for Cleaning Up the Legacy Fleet . . . 9
Collaborations and Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Looking Ahead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Appendix: Verified Retrofit Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
“Working together we are going to make that black
puff of smoke a thing of the past.”
Introduction S t e p h e n L . J o h n s o n , E P A Administator
rom the farm to the neighborhood grocery store, production of ground-level ozone, or smog; hydrocar
we find diesel engines in every corner of society. bons (HC); and air toxics. These pollutants contribute to
Diesel engines power the movement of goods poor air quality in many areas of the country and can
across the nation, help construct the buildings in which cause serious health problems, especially for children,
we live and work, help build the roads on which we travel, the elderly, and the chronically ill.
and carry millions of children to school each day. While
diesel engines provide mobility and are critical to the Fortunately, many cost-effective solutions are available
nation’s economy, exhaust from diesel engines contains today that can dramatically reduce pollutants from diesel
pollutants that negatively impact human health and exhaust. There are a variety of dependable, effective, and
the environment. affordable technologies and measures—from exhaust fil
ters to cleaner fuels to idle-reduction strategies—that will
Diesel engines are a major source of pollution. Speci allow the nation to harness the power of diesel engines
fically, they emit particulate matter (PM), also known without compromising public health or the environment.
as soot; nitrogen oxides (NOx), which contribute to the
2 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
Diesel Emissions and Public Health
Reducing diesel engine emissions is one of the most
important public health challenges facing the country.
National Clean Diesel Campaign Emissions from these engines, especially particulate
matter (PM), contribute to health problems. PM has been
associated with an increased risk of premature mortality,
What Is the National Clean
hospital admissions for heart and lung disease, and
Diesel Campaign? increased respiratory symptoms. Long-term exposure to
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estab diesel exhaust is likely to pose a lung cancer hazard.
lished the National Clean Diesel Campaign (NCDC) to
In addition, nitrogen oxides (NOx) contribute to ozone,
promote diesel emission reduction strategies. NCDC
which can aggravate asthma and other respiratory
includes regulatory programs to address new diesel
diseases, leading to more asthma attacks, the use of addi
engines as well as voluntary programs to address the
tional medication, more severe symptoms that require a
millions of diesel engines already in use.
doctor’s attention, more visits to the emergency room, and
increased hospitalizations. Ozone can inflame and damage
NCDC’s Regulatory Programs for the lining of the lungs, which can lead to permanent
New Diesel Engines changes in lung tissue, irreversible reductions in lung func
tion if the inflammation occurs repeatedly over a long time
EPA has finalized two sets of clean fuel and vehicle period, and a lower quality of life. Children, outdoor work
emission standards that will lead to dramatic emission ers, people with heart and lung disease, and the elderly
reductions in new diesel-powered engines. are most at risk.
The 2007 Heavy-Duty Highway Engine Rule will cut The emissions in diesel exhaust contribute to poor air
harmful pollutants from highway engines by more quality in many areas of the country. Areas designated as
than 90 percent, resulting in annual reductions of 2.6 “nonattainment” do not meet the health-based National
million tons of NOx and 110,000 tons of PM when Ambient Air Quality Standards. About 159 million Americans
fully implemented. live in areas that are designated as nonattainment with the
8-hour ozone standard. Nearly 90 million people live in areas
The Clean Air Nonroad Diesel Rule will cut emissions that do not meet the PM standard. EPA and states are work
from new construction and agricultural and industrial ing aggressively to reduce air pollution in these areas to
engines by more than 90 percent, resulting in annual protect the health of all Americans. Reducing diesel emissions
reductions of 738,000 tons of NOx and 120,000 tons is necessary to accomplish this task.
of PM annually when fully implemented.
NCDC’s Voluntary Strategies
More than 11 million diesel engines in operation today
do not meet EPA’s new clean diesel standards, yet these
engines can continue to operate for 20 to 30 years. EPA
established voluntary programs to accelerate emission
reductions from older diesel engines to provide more
immediate air quality benefits. The goal of EPA’s volun
tary programs is to address in-use diesel engines in five
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 3
Highway Heavy-duty Diesel Engines
Diesel Emissions and the Environment
NOx Emission Standards
In addition to public health impacts, diesel exhaust can also 12
contribute to environmental problems. The NOx in diesel
exhaust can contribute to the formation of ozone (smog),
which can make plants more susceptible to disease, pests, 8
damage from other pollutants, and harsh weather condi
tions. The NOx and sulfur in diesel emissions contribute to
acid rain, which can negatively impact bodies of water and 4
damage the building blocks of aquatic ecosystems. Fine 2
particulates from diesel engines can also be a source of
haze, which affects people’s ability to see long distances
1988-89 1990 1991-97 1998-2003 2004-06 2007+
and to enjoy scenic vistas in recreational areas such as
national parks. In addition, PM, NOx, and ozone can all Engine Model Year
contribute to crop damage.
Highway Heavy-duty Diesel Engines
key sectors—freight, construction, agriculture, ports, and PM Emission Standards
school buses—by promoting a variety of cost-effective 0.7
and innovative emission reduction strategies, including 0.6
switching to cleaner fuels; retrofitting, repairing, repow
ering, and replacing equipment; and reducing idling.
EPA has made significant progress toward this goal by
engaging in partnerships, fostering innovative technolo
gies, and providing grants to accelerate the introduction
of clean diesel technologies. 0.2
Summary of Key 0
1988-90 1991-93 1994-2006 2007+
Engine Model Year
Regulations Driving Cleaner Engines
Through landmark regulations, EPA has dramatically
Through the 2007 Heavy-Duty Highway Engine Rule,
reduced and will continue to reduce the amount of PM
EPA estimates that emission reductions will prevent:
and NOx emitted from the tailpipes of new diesel
engines. Current highway trucks and buses emit about ■ 8,300 premature deaths
one-sixth of the PM and less than 80 percent of the
■ More than 9,500 hospitalizations
NOx of a 20-year old truck. In 2007 new heavy-duty
diesel engines will become even cleaner, and all high ■ 1.5 million lost work days annually
way diesel engines will be powered with cleaner diesel
fuel. In 2008, nonroad engines in construction, agricul The total health benefits from the rule are expected to
ture, and industrial equipment will become 90 percent be more than 17 times the compliance costs.
cleaner than they were just over a decade ago.
4 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
Nonroad Diesel Engines (175-750 hp) Voluntary Programs Yielding Results
NOx Emission Standards While EPA regulations are making new diesel engines
cleaner, EPA has been reducing the amount of pollution
emitted from nearly 200,000 diesel engines in operation
today through NCDC’s voluntary programs. The voluntary
programs’ estimated lifetime PM reduction of 20,000 tons
is equivalent to removing more than 1,000 heavy-duty
trucks from the nation’s roads. The NOx lifetime reduction
of more than 110,000 tons is comparable to removing
almost 115,000 large diesel trucks from the road.
1996-2000 2001-2005 2006-2010 2011-2014 Clean diesel retrofit programs currently under way will
provide approximately $4 to $5 billion in health benefits
Engine Model Year from PM reductions over the life of the programs (in
year 2000 dollars), including avoiding:
Nonroad Diesel Engines (175-750 hp) ■ Approximately 1,000 cases of premature deaths.
PM Emission Standards ■ Approximately 2,000 chronic illnesses, such as
chronic bronchitis and non-fatal heart attacks.
0.4 ■ Nearly 40,000 respiratory symptoms in children.
■ About 27
,000 asthma exacerbations, 1,000
of which would be serious enough to send a
patient to the emergency room.
0.15 ■ Hundreds of thousands of minor restricted
0.1 activity days.
0 This health benefit estimate, from clean diesel retrofit
1996-2000 2001-2010 2011-2014 programs currently underway, does not take into account
other impacts from diesel emissions such as ozone-
Engine Model Year
related health effects, visibility effects, and air toxic
effects, such as cancer risks.
In addition, the Clean Air Nonroad Diesel Rule is
expected to prevent: Fostering Technology
■ 12,000 premature deaths NCDC voluntary programs are creating demand for
emission reduction technologies. To date, EPA has
■ 8,900 hospitalizations verified emissions benefits for 17 emission control tech
■ 1 million lost work days annually nologies through extensive and statistically rigorous
testing. In addition, 20 states and Washington, D.C., are
The total benefits from this rule are expected to be using ultra-low sulfur diesel well ahead of EPA’s mandates.
40 times the compliance costs. This cleaner diesel fuel directly reduces emissions from
engines and enables the use of some of the most
effective emission control devices to date. Clean diesel
partners are using a wide variety of technologies to
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 5
Diverse Technologies Reduce Diesel Emissions
Selective Catalytic Reduction
Replacement (clean diesel, <1%
Compressed Natural Gas) Diesel Particulate Filter (Ultra-
4% Low Sulfur Diesel) 11%
Diesel Oxidation Catalyst
Biodiesel (cleaner fuels) 8%
Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel
Closed Crankcase Ventilation
(Diesel Oxidation Catalyst,
Diesel Oxidation Catalyst
Diesel Particulate Filter/Lean
Clean diesel projects currently underway employ a wide range of strategies to
achieve reductions in diesel emissions. This chart illustrates the percentage of
vehicles/engines that use a particular technology to reduce diesel emissions.
Broad-based Support Broad-based Support
Through NCDC, EPA has collaborated with more than corridors; and more than 200 shipping and trucking
500 partners to reduce the health effects of diesel emis companies have committed to reducing emissions from
sions across the nation. These diverse and committed roughly 300,000 trucks.
partners include state and local governments that have
created incentive programs to reduce emissions from EPA recently showcased the results of its collective
both public and private fleets; businesses and industry efforts and expanded the partnership base at the NCDC
groups that have provided technical assistance and devot Policy Leaders Summit, which was co-sponsored by the
ed millions of dollars to retrofit diesel engines; and envi Diesel Technology Forum and the Manufacturers of
ronmental or community groups that have successfully Emission Controls Association. Approximately 300 gov
advocated for and managed effective projects to help ernment, industry, and environmental leaders converged
reduce the public health impacts from diesel emissions. in Washington, D.C., to share lessons learned from
successful programs and to explore innovative options
Partnerships have resulted in more than one million chil for accelerating diesel emission reductions. At the
dren in 150 school districts riding more than 20,000 conference, EPA welcomed several new organizations
cleaner buses; freight collaborations have created more into the campaign and fostered new opportunities for
than 50 idle-reduction projects along major interstate collaboration and partnership.
6 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
EPA has funded many successful projects across the EPA’s clean diesel grants leverage more than $2 for
country through NCDC. The campaign’s Clean School every federal dollar invested. Demand for NCDC grant
Bus USA program has provided approximately funds has exceeded available resources by 10 times,
80 grants, which have led to approx illustrating great support for
imately 10,000 school bus retrofits. reducing diesel emissions. In
EPA has also provided NCDC fund- More than 300 clean diesel proj - addition to EPA’s clean diesel
ing toward 28 projects that will ects nationwide are resulting in funds, several state and local pro-
reduce emissions from more than significant emission reductions grams are providing financial sup
1,000 diesel vehicles and equipment (i n l i f e t i m e t o n s ) i n c l u d i n g : port for clean diesel strategies. For
used in construction, ports, agricul example, California’s Carl Moyer
ture, transit, and municipal fleets. ■ 110,000 NOx Program has granted more than
SmartWay Transport grants have $150 million in clean diesel proj
created more than 1,000 electrified ■ 20,000 PM
ects since 1998, and the program
parking spaces that reduce emis ■ 35,000 HC expects to grant more than $140
sions by eliminating engine idling. million annually until 2015. The
■ 125,000 carbon monoxide (CO) Texas Emissions Reduction Plan
has granted more than $180
million since 2001.
EPA Funded Retrofit Projects (as of 2/22/2006)
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 7
PA launched NCDC in 2004 to mitigate the impact will cut emission levels from new construction, agricul
of diesel emissions on public health and the envi ture, and industrial diesel engines by more than 90 per
ronment. NCDC is a comprehensive initiative to cent. Clean ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel will be
reduce pollution from diesel engines across the country required for use in highway diesel engines starting in 2006
by implementing varied control strategies and proactively and nonroad machines in 2010. In addition to directly
involving national, state, and local partners. NCDC com reducing emissions from the diesel fleet, these clean fuels
prises regulatory programs to address new engines and will enable the use of advanced aftertreatment technolo
voluntary programs to address the millions of diesel gies. Technologies, like particulate filters, capable of emis
engines already in use. sion reductions of 90 percent or more will be required
under new standards that will be phased in for the high
Regulatory Strategies way sector in 2007 and the nonroad sector in 2008.
for the Future
Both rules will yield enormous long-term benefits for
The Clean Air Nonroad Diesel Rule and the 2007 Heavy- public health and the environment. By 2030, when the
Duty Highway Engine Rule set stringent standards on full effect of these rules are realized, PM and NOx will
new diesel engines and diesel fuel. The Nonroad Rule
8 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
New highway and nonroad standards are the critical
Benefits from the Clean Air Nonroad Rule
foundation of EPA’s diesel emission control programs.
EPA is fully committed to the successful implementation
The long-term annual health benefits from this important of the Clean Air Nonroad Diesel Rule and the 2007
program include the prevention of approximately: Heavy-Duty Highway Engine Rule. The Agency is work
ing with industry to ensure that new engines meet
■ 6,000 children's asthma-related ER visits.
the required standards throughout their useful life.
To that end, EPA certifies and tests engines with the
■ 8,900 hospitalizations.
latest emission testing technologies.
■ 12,000 premature deaths.
EPA is also bringing clean diesel to the rail and marine
sectors by developing new emission requirements for
■ 15,000 heart attacks.
locomotives and marine engines. Without these regula
tions, locomotive and marine sources are expected
■ 280,000 cases of respiratory symptoms in children.
to contribute 45 percent of diesel PM and 27 percent
of NOx from mobile sources in 2030. Through the use
■ 1 million workdays lost.
of cleaner fuels and engines, EPA can reduce the impact
of locomotive and marine engines.
When fully implemented, the annual monetized health
benefits of this program will exceed $80 billion, compared
to implementation costs of $2 billion. Voluntary Strategies for
Cleaning Up the Legacy Fleet
The more stringent diesel engine emission standards are
Benefits from the 2007 Heavy-Duty set to take effect over the next decade, but the full effect
of new regulations will not be realized for some time.
Through NCDC’s voluntary programs, EPA seeks to
EPA's new emission and fuel standards for heavy-duty reduce emissions from millions of diesel engines in use
highway vehicles will result in large reductions in ozone and today. NCDC is built on an impressive portfolio of EPA’s
PM. In 2030, these reductions will prevent approximately: voluntary projects. Today there are more than 300 proj
ects in 44 states and more than 500 partners across the
■ 8,300 premature deaths. country. More than 20 states are using ultra-low sulfur
diesel fuel well ahead of EPA’s regulatory schedule.
■ More than 9,500 hospitalizations.
EPA is committed to reducing the emissions from the
■ 1.5 million workdays lost. existing fleet of diesel engines through collaboration
and a variety of cost-effective voluntary strategies.
The total health benefits are worth more than $70 billion States and local agencies are developing clean air imple
each year, with costs of only $4 billion. mentation plans that rely on cost-effective solutions to
reduce air pollutants that contribute to nonattainment of
the health-based National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
be reduced by 250,000 tons per year and four million To assist these governments, EPA has created
tons per year, respectively. These reductions will peer-reviewed emission models and provided State
result in annual public health benefits of more than Implementation Plan guidance to state air partners.
$150 billion, at a cost of approximately $7 billion. EPA has also created productive partnerships with
diverse groups—from environmentalists to industry
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 9
to state and federal representatives—to work toward a ■ Retrofitting engines with verified technologies.
shared goal of cleaning up diesel emissions. For exam
■ Repowering (replacing an old engine with a new,
ple, EPA has worked with the National Conference
of State Legislatures to pass a resolution in support of
clean diesel efforts. In addition, EPA has engaged its ■ Properly maintaining equipment.
stakeholders to work together with dozens of organiza
tions and groups through a Federal Advisory Committee ■ Gaining operational efficiencies.
Retrofit technologies are advancing at a rapid pace. The
use of established technologies, such as diesel oxidation
Clean Diesel Solutions catalysts (DOCs) and diesel particulate filters (DPFs),
There is a wide range of emission reduction strategies continues to grow exponentially, while new, emerging
available for any diesel vehicle or equipment application, technologies, such as lean NOx catalysts (LNC), are
including: steadily improving. Retrofit technologies often vary in
the type of pollutant reduced. DOCs and DPFs remove
■ Using cleaner fuels. PM from the exhaust. DOCs or DPFs can be combined
with a NOx reduction strategy, such as using a cleaner
■ Replacing older equipment. fuel, to enhance the emission reduction benefits.
■ Reducing idling.
While retrofit technologies are one option for reducing
diesel emissions, other options include cleaner fuels such
as compressed natural gas and the replacement of older
engines and equipment. Cleaner fuels are becoming
more prevalent throughout the country. The switch to
ULSD fuel for highway engines enables advanced emis
sion reduction technologies (e.g., DPFs) to operate effec
tively. Another option that can be applied to any vehicle or
equipment is to reduce idling. Simply turning off the
engine when the vehicle or machine is not in use can
reduce emissions as well as save fuel and minimize wear
and tear on the engine.
Verifying Emission Reductions from
To evaluate the effectiveness of retrofit technologies,
EPA created the Retrofit Technology Verification Program.
Through this program, EPA helps to ensure users of
retrofit technologies that the actual emissions benefits
from retrofit technologies match those advertised by the
manufacturer. The verification process includes evaluations
of the emission reduction performance of retrofit tech
nologies—including the durability of the technologies—
and identification of engine operating criteria and other
conditions that must exist for these approved technolo
gies to achieve the verified level of reductions.
10 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
Summary of Available Options for Reducing Diesel Emissions
PERCENT EMISSION REDUCTION *
TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION PM NO x HC CO
Diesel Particulate DPFs are honeycomb or mesh devices that filter, or trap PM from the exhaust. Up to — 60 60
Filter (DPF) Exhaust temperature, duty cycle, and fuel type are critical elements to evalu 90+ 90 90
ate prior to selecting a DPF.
Diesel Oxidation DOCs reduce harmful pollutants by catalytically converting pollutants to water 20-50 — 60 60
Catalyst (DOC) and carbon dioxide (CO2 ). Inside the canister is a honeycomb substrate that is 90 90
coated with a small amount of precious metals where the reaction occurs.
Lean NOx Catalyst LNCs are catalysts that promote the reduction of NOx by using hydrocar Up to 25 60 60
(with a DPF) bons as a reducing agent. Often an LNC is combined with a DPF. 90+ 90 90
Exhaust Gas EGR technology recirculates a portion of engine exhaust back into the Up to Up to 60 60
Recirculation engine. This recirculation cools peak combustion temperatures and 90+ 50 90 90
(with a DPF) dilutes the oxygen content of the fuel-air mixture, thus reducing NOx. (60-90
EGR can be coupled with a DPF to reduce even more PM. with DPF)
Selective Catalytic SCR technology injects urea (or some form of ammonia) into the exhaust 30-50 Up to 50 50
Reduction stream which reacts over a catalyst to reduce NOx emissions. 90+ 90 90
Closed Crankcase CCV systems are designed to return crankcase blow-by gases to the 10-25 — 30 30
Ventilation systems engine intake for subsequent combustion during the engine combustion 40 35
Ultra-Low Sulfur ULSD fuel has a sulfur content of 15 parts per million (PPM) or less. 5-10 — — —
Biodiesel Renewable fuel (meeting ASTM spec 6751) that can be manufactured varies varies varies varies
from vegetable oils or animal fats.
Additives Chemicals added to the fuel in very small amounts to improve one or — Up to — —
more properties of the base fuel. 5
Emulsions Water and additives mixed with fuel to lower combustion temperatures. 16-60 10-25 varies varies
Repowering Replacing an older engine with a newer, cleaner engine or replacing a varies varies varies varies
diesel engine with one that can use alternative fuels.
Replacement Replacing older vehicles and equipment with ones that are newer and varies varies varies varies
*Percent emision reduction of the following pollutants:
PM - Particulate Matter HC - Hydrocarbons
NOx - Nitrogen Oxides CO - Carbon Monoxide
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 11
EPA compiles this information for each of these tech
and CARB’s commitment to cooperate on the evalua
nologies and posts it on EPA’s Verified Technology List
tion of retrofit technologies. This agreement commits
(see Appendix). EPA and CARB to work toward accepting PM and NOx
verification levels assigned by the other’s verification
EPA evaluates each technology programs.
using a specific fuel, on a specific
engine, and under specific “Retrofits have been a high Additionally, as retrofit manufactur
loading cycles. Depending on the priority, and . . . they will ers initiate and conduct in-use
manufacturer and/or the technology, continue to be a high priority testing, EPA and CARB have
an independent laboratory may agreed to coordinate this testing
for my office and the Agency.”
be used to conduct the majority of so that the data manufacturers
verification testing. Bill Wehrum, EPA Assistant Administrator generate satisfy the requirements
of each program. This MOA is
The California Air Resources Board intended to expedite the verifica
(CARB) has a verification process similar to EPA’s verifi tion and introduction of innovative emission reduction
cation process. EPA signed a Memorandum of technologies, by reducing the effort needed for retrofit
Agreement (MOA) with CARB for the Coordination and technology manufacturers to complete verification. In
Reciprocity in Diesel Retrofit Device Verification. The addition to the Verified Technology List, EPA recognizes
MOA establishes reciprocity in verifications of hardware and accepts retrofit hardware strategies or device-based
or device-based retrofits, and further reinforces EPA’s systems that have been verified by CARB.
Regional Clean Diesel Collaboratives
12 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
Collaborations and Partnerships 2004 Diesel Emissions Inventory by Sector
EPA works collaboratively with businesses and industry
representatives, government, environmental and com 3%
munity organizations, and others to achieve immediate other nonroad* freight
and significant environmental results. EPA engaged its
stakeholder community to form a work group under the
auspices of the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee to
school bus 4%
gain a consensus among all members on how to best
address emission reductions from the existing fleet of
diesel vehicles and equipment. Through this effort, EPA other highway**
has developed a broad, diverse coalition of stakeholders 24% construction
that is working toward a shared vision of innovative
strategies and incentives for reducing diesel emissions
from public and private fleets. 16%
Note: Port data is unavailable.
*Examples of other nonroad include nonroad equipment used at industrial sites
At the regional level, several clean diesel collaboratives and airports.
have formed across the country and are employing **Other highway refers to smaller trucks and vehicles (LD to Class 5).
proactive, incentive-based approaches to achieve region
al environmental improvement. Members of these
regional initiatives have agreed collectively to secure agriculture, and U.S.-Canada border areas. For the
additional funds for projects and to take a more localized Northeast Diesel Collaborative, EPA Regions 1 and 2
approach to diesel emission mitigation. work with eight northeastern states in partnership with the
Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management
EPA Regions 9 and 10 formed the West Coast to reduce exposure to diesel emissions. The newly devel
Collaborative. The Collaborative is the first regional initia oped Mid-Atlantic Diesel Collaborative in EPA Region 3
tive under NCDC, charged with reducing air pollution promotes the reduction of diesel emissions by leveraging
emissions from diesel engines along the west coast. resources, raising awareness, sharing information and
This joint effort includes EPA, the U.S. Department expertise, and implementing projects.
of Agriculture/Natural Resource Conservation Service,
the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of NCDC’s Sector Focus
Transportation (DOT), the governments of Canada and
EPA chose to focus its voluntary efforts on five key
Mexico, as well as state, local, non-profit, and private sec
sectors: school buses, ports, construction, freight, and
tor partners from California, Alaska, Washington, Oregon,
agriculture. These sectors represent a diverse array
Idaho, and Hawaii. Members of the collaborative work
of diesel engines in use today and provide the best
across sector workgroups for agriculture, construction,
opportunities to obtain emission reductions that can
locomotives and rail, marine vessels and ports, and
significantly protect public health.
trucking to identify, fund, and implement regional diesel
emission reduction projects.
The five sectors were chosen for many important reasons:
Six other regional collaboratives have also been initiated ■ Each sector has a significant impact on public
around the country (see map, page 12). The Midwest health and is present in areas with poor air quality
Diesel Initiative, formed by EPA Region 5, is a coopera or near susceptible populations. Under the Clean
tive, public/private effort to reduce diesel emissions School Bus USA Program, for example, EPA
along major transportation corridors and Midwest cities. targets its resources to ensure that children, who
The Midwest Initiative is focused on trucking, rail, ports, are especially susceptible to diesel pollution,
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 13
2004 NOx Emissions by Mobile Diesel Sector 2004 PM2.5 Emissions Mobile Diesel Sectors
non-port marine* non-port marine*
other highway*** 32%
school bus 2%
agriculture transit <1%
school bus 21%
*Non-port marine includes recreational vessels and a fraction of C1, C2 and C3 marine. *Non-port marine includes recreational vessels and a fraction of C1, C2 and C3 marine.
**Examples of other nonroad include equipment used at industrial sites and airports. **Examples of other nonroad include equipment used at industrial sites and airports.
***Other highway refers to smaller trucks and vehicles (LD through Class 5). ***Other highway refers to smaller trucks and vehicles (LD through Class 5).
****Freight includes heavy-duty trucks and some nonroad rail. ****Freight includes heavy-duty trucks and some nonroad rail.
can breathe cleaner air while being safely
■ Support for the sector programs has been
transported to school.
overwhelming. Industries in the five sectors are
voluntarily acting to reduce diesel exhaust. Some
■ The five sectors combined represent roughly 80
federal funding solicitations are met with demand
percent of all diesel NOx and PM emissions from
that is 10 times greater than available resources.
the mobile sector. The freight sector alone
Grant recipients have attracted additional resources,
accounts for approximately 30 percent of all
averaging two to four times the amount of the
mobile source diesel PM emissions.
■ Cost-effective strategies exist for each sector.
■ Rapid growth in marine ports and construction.
Diesel retrofit strategies are some of the most
Seaports are expanding and vessel size is
cost-effective measures for PM emission control.
increasing in response to the nation’s increased
Nonroad equipment found in the construction,
global trade. According to DOT estimates, the
agricultural, and port sectors is often powered by
volume of foreign trade moving through U.S.
older diesel engines that comply with much less
ports will more than double 1996 tonnage levels
stringent emission standards than today’s stan
by 2020, significantly impacting our coastal and
dards. For comparable model years and engine
Great Lakes ports. In addition, the Bureau of
sizes, older nonroad equipment can emit as much
Labor Statistics projects that construction
as 70 to 100 percent more pollution than today’s
employment will increase 15 percent from 2002
engines. Thus, cleaning up nonroad equipment
to 2012, making it the only goods-producing
can be particularly cost-effective and important
sector expected to grow.
for public health.
14 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
The sections that follow describe how the components
work and achievements to date.
The SmartWay Transport Partnership:
The Partnership involves voluntary collaboration
between EPA and the freight industry. When a company,
The Freight Sector: SmartWay Transport ®
such as a freight shipper, carrier, or logistics company,
joins the SmartWay Transport
The freight transport sector is a Partnership, it commits to (1)
pivotal component of the United assess the environmental perform
”Like others in the transporta -
States’ economic strength, but it ance of its current operations using
tion industry, we need to
also presents environmental health EPA’s Freight Logistics Environ
and air quality challenges. In 2004, operate efficiently and ensure
mental and Energy Tracking (FLEET)
the freight sector emitted approxi that we red uce the impact our Performance Models; (2) identify a
mately one-third of all fine particu company has on the environ - goal to improve its environmental
lates and more than half the ment. By becoming a member performance; (3) develop a plan
amount of NOx of all mobile diesel of SmartWay, our company, detailing how the goal will be
sources. In addition, trucks and achieved; and (4) report its progress
as a whole, is challenged to
locomotives burn 35 billion gallons annually to EPA. Companies that
improve our operations for the
of diesel fuel each year, represent join the partnership improve their
ing 20 percent of the fuel used in betterment of all.“
environmental performance by
the entire transportation sector. Joe Chapman, Operations Manager adopting fuel efficiency technolo-
Triple S Trucking gies (e.g., trailer aerodynamics,
To address the impact of the freight wide-based tires, auxiliary heating
system in the United States, includ and cooling units) and policies (e.g.,
ing the legacy trucking fleet, EPA developed SmartWay no-idling zones at loading docks and speed policies) that
Transport. SmartWay Transport is a voluntary public- increase fuel efficiency of freight transport— saving
private initiative designed to improve the environmental money while significantly reducing greenhouse gases
performance of the freight delivery system in the United and air pollution.
States through money-saving, market-based approaches.
The goal of the program is to reduce emissions by Since its inception in 2004, more than 260 shipping and
promoting cost-effective strategies that reduce fuel con- trucking companies, representing more than 300,000
sumption and air pollution, by eliminating unnecessary diesel trucks, have joined the SmartWay Transport®
idling, installing emission control devices, and improving Partnership. From partner commitments during the first
freight logistics. By 2012, EPA expects to reduce more year, SmartWay Transport Partnership projects annual
than 200,000 tons of NOx annually, as well as 33 million reductions of 3.1 million tons of CO2, 777 tons of PM,
tons each year of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas and 22,096 tons of NOx. This amounts to an annual fuel
created from the combustion of fossil fuels, in addition saving of 283 million gallons of diesel fuel—worth $807
to significant PM reductions. million dollars per year to the industry.1
There are four components of SmartWay Transport: National Idle-Free Corridors Program: To address
the SmartWay Transport Partnership, National Idle-Free unnecessary idling, EPA has developed the National Idle-
Corridors Program, SmartWay Capitalization and Free Corridors Program. The program targets infrastruc-
Upgrade Kits, and the SmartWay Technologies Program. ture modifications at truck stops, travel centers, ports,
1 Fuel data is based on the November 10, 2005, diesel price of
$2.85 per gallon.
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 15
loading docks, terminals, and along the side of the road. Clean Construction USA
Over the last two years, the Agency has awarded 14
grants to states and non-profit organizations totaling Roughly two million
approximately $6 million for the deployment of idle- pieces of construc
reduction technologies around the country. tion equipment are
used throughout the
SmartWay Capitalization and Upgrade Kits: nation every day. In
In an effort to make cleaner technologies more accessi 2005, construction
ble to companies, EPA has created a unique technology equipment generated
deployment system called the “SmartWay Upgrade Kit” more than 30 per
which allows companies to integrate fuel-saving and cent of NOx and PM
emission control strategies into their operations. of all land-based,
SmartWay upgrade kits generally consist of idling control nonroad sources, according to EPA’s nonroad model.
equipment, improved tire technology, improved tractor Therefore, cleaning up construction equipment has
and trailer aerodynamics, and a PM emission control important public health benefits.
device. Together, these items create a more fuel-efficient
and lower emission truck, and benefits are realized in cost Clean Construction USA is a voluntary program that pro
savings to the truck driver. The SmartWay Upgrade Kit can motes the reduction of diesel exhaust emissions from
be customized to fit a variety of trucking operations. construction equipment and vehicles. The program’s
goal is to retrofit, rebuild, or replace approximately two
To date, EPA has partnered with two states, Minnesota million diesel engines in the construction sector by 2014.
and Arkansas, to offer small business loans that can be In the early stages of the construction program, more
used for the purchase of SmartWay Upgrade Kits. These than 7,000 machines were retrofitted, and almost $200
loans are being provided at below-market interest rates million was committed to make construction
and have flexible terms. EPA is working to develop simi engines cleaner.
lar financing options for SmartWay
Upgrade Kits with other states and Under the Clean Construction USA
A typical bulldozer emits as program, EPA works with key stake-
much PM as 500 cars. holders through collaborative efforts
SmartWay Technologies to advance the use of construction
Program: The Agency strives to retrofits. The program has partnered
help freight companies employ the most fuel-efficient, with the Associated General Contractors of America
environmentally beneficial, and cost-efficient strategies (AGC) and others to help contractors, owners, and oper
and technologies for their fleets. To this end, EPA pro ators of construction equipment to properly maintain
vides a methodology that the industry can use to quanti their equipment, retrofit and/or replace older diesel
fy the environmental benefits of new and emerging engines with verified or certified technologies, and use
products and helps accelerate the market deployment of cleaner fuels. This year, representatives of the campaign
innovative freight technologies. As a first step toward spoke at several conferences, including the largest con
developing protocols, EPA performed preliminary tests ference for the construction community, AGC’s ConExpo.
using aerodynamic and rolling drag reduction equipment
on Class 8 trucks. This preliminary testing demonstrated a EPA also works with states and local governments
strong correlation between saving fuel and reducing to implement clean diesel construction programs.
NOx emissions due to reduced engine load. A report is A number of large-scale construction retrofit projects
expected to be released in 2006. are in progress across the nation. Through state grant
16 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
programs like the Texas Emission Reduction Plan and assess nonroad emission reductions from projects. EPA
California’s Carl Moyer program, hundreds of pieces of will release guidance on how to attain credits for these
equipment have been retrofitted or replaced to signifi- reductions in air quality plans. In addition, Congress
cantly improve the quality of air in those states and passed a suite of provisions in the Energy Policy Act of
across the country. The 2005 and the
Massachusetts Turnpike Transportation Act of
Authority alleviated the “Programs like EPA’s National Clean Diesel
l 2005, which would pro
effects of diesel emis Campaign, the Texas Emission Reduction Plan,
, vide funding and other
sions near sensitive and California’s Carl Moyer Program have been
n incentives for clean con
receptors such as resi struction projects
great in achieving emission reductions while
dential communities and throughout the country.
recognizing the needs of businesses, which can be
hospitals by retrofitting For example, Congress
hundreds of construction seen in the overall positive attitude of contractors.”
” made retrofits, including
machines and by estab Bob Lanham, Vice President
t nonroad retrofits for
lishing an idle-reduction William Brothers Construction
n highway construction
policy for The Central equipment, a priority for
Artery/Tunnel Project funding available through
(The Big Dig) in Massachusetts. DOT’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ)
EPA assists these efforts by providing technical assis Improvement Program. EPA will be working with DOT to
tance, verifying technologies, and providing education provide guidance for establishing CMAQ-funded retrofit
and outreach materials to showcase model projects projects.
throughout the country.
Clean Agriculture USA
Through Clean Construction USA, EPA has funded sev
eral demonstration projects aimed at fostering the use Diesel-powered
of new technologies for nonroad equipment. In 2004, engines help make
the Agency funded retrofit construction programs in American farmers
Colorado, Massachusetts, and Illinois that have enabled among the most pro
hospital patients, university students, and local communi ductive in the world.
ties to breathe cleaner air. This November, EPA announced Roughly two-thirds of
nine new construction retrofit demonstration grants total all agricultural equip
ing almost $1 million. These grants will exhibit a wide vari ment is diesel pow
ety of technologies including cleaner fuels, retrofit ered, according to
technologies such as catalysts and filters, and engine the Diesel
replacement, while improving air quality and serving as Technology Forum. The agricultural sector accounts for
valuable models for future clean construction projects. nearly one-quarter of NOx and one-third of PM of all
land-based nonroad diesel emissions. With more than
Under the Clean Construction USA program, EPA two million diesel engines, reducing emissions voluntari
expects to launch many more clean construction proj ly from agricultural equipment can have significant public
ects throughout the country in the coming years. EPA health benefits for rural and suburban areas.
will issue additional funding assistance in 2006 and will
expand the number of tools available for clean construc
tion projects. For example, EPA’s new National Mobile
Inventory Model has a retrofit calculator that can
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 17
Clean Agriculture USA is the campaign’s newest volun works with organizations regionally to identify funding
tary, incentive-based program. Through this program, assistance, establish programs, and share lessons from
EPA will seek to achieve significant diesel emission clean diesel projects.
reductions from agricultural engines over the next 10
years. Through partnerships and demonstration projects, In the coming year, EPA expects to expand its stakehold
the Agency is identifying cost-effective solutions to er network, showcase more successful clean diesel proj
reduce diesel emissions from farms and is working ects, and release new outreach materials under the
collaboratively with the agricultural community to Clean Agriculture program.
implement diesel emission reduction projects.
Clean Ports USA
EPA grants have provided the foundation for helping curb
agricultural emissions through several groundbreaking Ports on coasts and
projects. The Agency provided funding assistance to inland waterways
place catalysts on agricultural equipment, retrofit or accommodate more
replace agricultural pumps, test fuel additives in than 95 percent, by
biodiesel, and reduce equipment use through no- weight, and 75 per
till/direct seeding techniques. cent, by value, of all
U.S. overseas trade.
In addition, EPA is working to address agricultural emis In addition, the U.S.
sions through partnerships with the U.S. Department of port industry directly
Agriculture and various farm organizations and agricultur and indirectly impacts
al businesses. The campaign’s regional clean diesel initia approximately $1.5 trillion in business sales for goods
tives play a critical role in working at the local and and services. Over the past 30 years, port industry
regional level to offer guidance and coordinate efforts to impacts on the gross domestic product have increased
reduce diesel emissions in agricultural operations. For from 13 percent to 30 percent. The ships, vessels, cargo
example, the Midwest Diesel Collaborative works to handling equipment, trucks, and rail used in and around
reduce emissions from the transport of agricultural ports rely heavily on diesel engines.
goods to market, while the West Coast Collaborative
Solutions for mitigating the effects of diesel engines dif
fer from one port to another, so EPA’s Clean Ports USA
program offers a wide selection of technology options
and emission reduction strategies to fit individual port’s
needs. EPA works with port authorities, marine terminal
operators, and other partners to overcome barriers to
reducing diesel emissions in this sector.
In its first year, Clean Ports USA has been successful in
reducing emissions at many major ports across the
country. For example, EPA awarded grants to the Port of
Houston, Port of Tacoma, and Massachusetts Port
Authority to establish new projects that demonstrate
innovative emission control technologies. The Agency
also awarded a grant to the Port of Long Beach, which is
a recognized leader in retrofitting cargo-handling equip
ment. These ports are retrofitting some of their trucks,
18 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
yard equipment, straddle carriers, and rubber-tired gantry In the coming year, EPA will continue to provide technical
cranes with retrofit technologies and cleaner fuels to assistance, support demonstration projects, and show
reduce pollution in their local area. case results. EPA expects to provide a best practices
report for port emission inventories in 2006 and will pro
EPA is also partnering with the American Association of vide additional outreach materials for the program.
Port Authorities (AAPA), the National Association of
Waterfront Employers, and other entities to develop cost-
Clean School Bus USA
effective methods to improve ports’ environmental per
formance. For example, in partnership with AAPA, ports, Each school day,
and terminal operators around the country, EPA hosted a about 24 million chil
series of clean diesel workshops to discuss the success dren spend an aver
es and challenges of reducing emissions at ports. In this age of one-and-a-half
type of venue, ports can share information and brain hours in a school bus
storm solutions to their concerns about enhancing envi on their way to and
ronmental performance, while meeting business needs. from school. School
buses have been
Several ports have already taken measures to reduce shown to be the
diesel emissions and can serve as role models for other safest way for chil
ports. For example, the Port Authority of New York and dren to get to school. However, children are especially
New Jersey led a tenant engine replacement program sensitive to diesel emissions compared to healthy adults
for tenants expanding their fleets. Through this program, because they have a faster breathing rate and their res
terminal operators were advised to substitute highway piratory systems are still developing.
engines built to stricter emission standards in place of
older nonroad engines in yard trucks. After these Through the Clean School Bus USA program, EPA is
changes were implemented, operations at the port working to retrofit or replace the approximately 400,000
increased by 25 percent, while fuel consumption diesel school buses in the United States over the next
dropped by almost 20 percent. These engine replace several years. The initiative is a partnership of educators,
ments also resulted in reductions of NOx emissions by industry and corporate partners, transportation experts,
31 percent and PM by 32 percent. Additional benefits to public health officials, and other community leaders
using newer, highway engines in yard trucks include who are committed to protecting children’s health and
improved reliability, better warranty coverage, and lower modernizing America’s school bus fleet.
Because of Clean School Bus USA, more than one mil
The Georgia Port Authority responded to its customers’ lion children ride to school in cleaner buses each day.
needs and overarching security concerns by introducing The Agency works with more than 150 school districts
a Web Access Gate System. The system reduces emis operating 20,000 school buses to reduce diesel emis
sions while improving efficiency by 84 percent and sions. More than 15 million people live in communities
increasing gate transactions from 38 manual transac with cleaner buses and are breathing better air.
tions per hour to 240 per hour. Processing time for As the program moves forward, emission reductions
entering trucks was cut from 22 to six minutes. More from retrofits alone will lead to 20,000 fewer respiratory
than 3,000 gallons of fuel are saved each day and the symptoms and 14,000 fewer asthma exacerbations
reduction in truck idling reduces a half-ton of NOx and in children.
33 tons of CO2 per day.
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 19
A key component of the program is the promotion Portland, Maine, provides another example of a communi
of idle-reduction policies in the nation’s 15,000 school ty developing a diesel emission reduction program for its
districts. EPA assists school districts in developing school bus fleets. This program focuses on idle-reduction
programs to encourage bus drivers and fuel conservation, route man
to turn off their buses when they agement to assign the cleanest
arrive at loading or unloading areas. More than one million buses to the longest routes, and
The Agency has developed an idle- children now ride cleaner investing in newer, cleaner buses
reduction pledge card program that overall. In a partnership among the
school buses as a result
helps school districts recognize driv Portland School Transportation
of the Clean School Bus
ers who successfully reduce idling. Department, the Maine Departments
U SA program. of Education and Environmental
Under the Clean School Bus USA Protection, the Asthma Regional
program, EPA also promotes local Council, and NCDC, the Portland
and state action to reduce school bus emissions. For School District has replaced 90 percent of its school bus
example, the state of Washington is working to retrofit fleet with newer, cleaner buses.
bus fleets throughout the state, reducing emissions by
50 to 90 percent. The Washington State Clean School EPA has developed a vari
Bus Program affects approximately 5,000 of more than ety of public outreach and
9,000 school buses throughout the state—the largest awareness materials for
voluntary school bus retrofit program in the country. use with school districts,
Retrofits for buses involve either installing PM filters or transportation officials, and
diesel oxidation catalysts on school bus exhaust sys the public, including a gen
tems, depending on the age of the bus and the regional eral brochure, a technical
availability of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel. fact sheet, a short video for bus drivers on idling reduc
tion, bookmarks and pencils for children, and an exten
sive Web site. An array of materials that can be used to
promote idling reduction and other Clean School Bus
USA projects nationwide are being developed.
20 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
hile NCDC has facilitated significant emission partnerships with stakeholders from states,
reductions from diesel engines, a tremendous localities, the construction and emission control
amount of work remains, and substantial industries, and environmental groups.
investments are needed. EPA will continue to work
■ EPA will strengthen existing regional diesel collabo
aggressively to reduce pollution from diesel engines
ratives and initiate new regional diesel reduction
across the country by partnering with key stakeholders
to promote clean diesel strategies.
■ EPA will work closely with industry to ensure that
In the upcoming year, EPA will be strengthening and stringent standards for new engines will meet or
enhancing NCDC through many efforts. They include: exceed regulation deadlines.
■ EPA will also work with stakeholders on a clean
Collaborations and Partnerships diesel incentives report that will be submitted to
■ EPA will expand the reach of NCDC voluntary
the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee in 2006.
programs across the nation through targeted
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 21
New Clean Diesel Tools For example, the Clean Ports USA program is
planning additional terminal operator workshops
■ EPA will provide new resources to assist state and
across the country to educate equipment
local governments in developing their own clean
owners and operators about ways to reduce their
diesel programs. In 2006, EPA will release guidance
emissions. The Clean School Bus USA program will
on incorporating retrofit projects into clean air plans.
continue to support children’s health by conducting
This guidance will supplement the Agency’s work
several idle-reduction events throughout the
with DOT on providing guidance for using CMAQ
country and launching an informational publication
funds for retrofit projects.
targeted to children.
■ EPA will expand the clean diesel toolbox by promot
■ EPA will target current PM nonattainment areas
ing the verification of innovative technologies.
where diesel retrofits and replacements will have
EPA will examine ways to improve the verification
the greatest public health impact. EPA will also
process and will begin to confirm the emission
help states and localities employ diesel reduction
performance of verified technologies in the field.
strategies to prepare for a newly proposed PM
Through in-use testing, the implementation of in-use
national air quality standard.
testing protocols for verified technologies will
provide important information to states that depend
on the field performance of retrofit technologies Regulations
in their air quality plans. ■ EPA will ensure the smooth implementation of the
2007 highway engine standards and ultra-low sulfur
Funding fuel requirements.
■ EPA expects to announce more than 25 new Clean ■ EPA will work with manufacturers to prepare for the
School Bus USA demonstration grants totaling $7.5 first wave of nonroad diesel engine standards in 2008.
million in early 2006.
■ EPA will develop new emission standards for
■ EPA plans to achieve immediate reductions in diesel locomotive and large marine diesel engines.
emissions through $12 million in grant funds to
■ EPA will implement the diesel emissions reduction
establish new clean diesel projects in the highway,
provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
nonroad, and school bus sectors.
■ EPA will work with DOT on guidance for utilizing
CMAQ funds administered through DOT. CMAQ has
a total funding level of $8.6 billion through 2009. ■ EPA will demonstrate the significant emission
benefits from new, innovative retrofit technologies,
■ EPA will continue to promote existing state pro and bring new technologies to the market.
grams—like California’s Carl Moyer Program and the
Texas Emissions Reduction Plan—to help develop Diesel engines will continue to play a vital role in our
new and innovative financial incentive programs with economy, and EPA’s NCDC can help to minimize their
other states and local governments. impact on public health. Through NCDC’s programs, EPA
has made significant progress toward cleaning up diesel
Education and Outreach engines, and the Agency will continue to work hard at
this task. We look forward to reporting on new accom
■ For each NCDC sector program, EPA will develop new
plishments and opportunities in the next progress report.
and useful educational materials and will continue to
build awareness by participating in key events.
22 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
Appendix: Verified Retrofit Technologies
Manufacturer Technology Applicability Reductions (%)
Particulate Carbon Nitrous Hydro-
Matter Monoxide Oxides carbons
(PM) (CO) (NOx) (HC)
Caterpillar, Catalyzed Highway, heavy-heavy and medium 20 20 N/A 40
Inc. Converter/Muffler heavy-duty, 4-cycle, non-EGR, model
year 1998-2003, turbocharged or nat
Caterpillar, Diesel Particulate Nonroad, 4-cycle, non-EGR equipped, 89 90 N/A 93
Inc. Filter model year 1996-2005, turbocharged
engines with power ratings 130 <
KiloWatts < 225 (174.2 <
Clean Diesel Platinum Plus Highway, medium-heavy and heavy 25 to 50 16 to 50 0 to 5 40 to 50
Technologies, Purifier System heavy-duty, 4-cycle, model year 1988
Inc. (Fuel Borne -2003, turbocharged or naturally aspi-
Catalyst plus DOC) rated
Clean Diesel Platinum Plus Highway, medium-heavy duty, 4 cycle, 55 to 76 50 to 66 0 to 9 75 to 89
Technologies, Fuel Borne model year 1991-2003, non-EGR,
Inc. Catalyst/Catalyzed turbocharged or naturally aspirated
Wire Mesh Filter
Donaldson Series 6000 DOC Highway, heavy-heavy- and medium- 25 to 33 13 to 23 N/A 50 to 52
& Spiracle heavy-duty, 4-cycle, non-EGR, model
(closed crankcase year 1991-2003, turbocharged or
filtration system) naturally aspirated
Donaldson Series 6100 DOC Highway, heavy-heavy and medium- 20 to 26 38 to 41 N/A 49 to 66
heavy-duty, 4 cycle, non-EGR, model
year 1991-2003, turbocharged or
Donaldson Series 6100 DOC Highway, heavy-heavy- and medium 28 to 32 31 to 34 N/A 42
& Spiracle heavy-duty, 4-cycle, non-EGR, model
(closed crankcase year 1991-2003, turbocharged or
filtration system) naturally aspirated
Engelhard DPX Catalyzed Highway, heavy-duty, 4-cycle, model 60 60 N/A 60
Diesel Particulate year 1994-2002, turbocharged or nat-
Filter urally aspirated
Engelhard CMX Catalyst Heavy-duty, highway, 2-cycle engines 20 40 N/A 50
Engelhard CMX Catalyst Heavy-duty, highway, 4-cycle engines 20 40 N/A 50
International Green Diesel Highway light heavy-duty, 4-cycle, 0 to 10 10 to 20 25 50
Truck & Technology-Low Navistar/International engines, model
Engine Corp. NOx Calibration years 1999-2003 in the following
plus DOC with families: XNVXH0444ANA
Ultra-Low Sulfur YNVXH0444ANB
National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report 23
Appendix: Verified Retrofit Technologies (continued)
Manufacturer Technology Applicability Reductions (%)
PM CO NOx HC
Johnson Catalyzed Highway, heavy-heavy, medium-heavy, 60 60 N/A 60
Matthey Continuously light-heavy-duty, urban bus, 4-cycle,
Regenerating non-EGR model year 1994-2003,
Technology turbocharged or naturally aspirated
Particulate Filter engines
Johnson Continuously Heavy-duty, highway, 2- & 4-cycle, 60 60 N/A 60
Matthey Regenerating model year 1994-2002, turbocharged
Technology or naturally aspirated engines
Johnson CEM™ Catalytic Highway, heavy-heavy, medium-heavy, 20 40 N/A 50
Matthey Exhaust Muffler light-heavy-duty, non-urban bus, 4
and/or DCC™ cycle, non-EGR model year 1991
Catalytic 2003, turbocharged or naturally aspi-
Converter rated engines
Johnson CEM Catalyst Heavy-duty, highway, 2-cycle engines 20 40 N/A 50
Lubrizol PuriNOxWater Heavy-duty, highway & nonroad, 16 to 58 -35 to 33 9 to 20 -30 to -120
emulsion fuel 2- & 4-cycle
Lubrizol Engine Purifilter - Diesel Highway heavy-heavy-duty, medium 90 75 N/A 85
Control Systems Particulate Filter heavy-duty; urban bus; 4-cycle; model
years 1994-2003; turbocharged or
naturally aspirated; non-EGR engines
Lubrizol Engine AZ Purimuffler or Highway medium heavy-duty, 4-cycle, 40 40 N/A 70
Control Systems AZ Purifier DOC model years 1991-2003 Cummins and
with Low-Sulfur Navistar/International engines original
Diesel Fuel (30 ly manufactured without any aftertreat
ppm S max) ment which are turbocharged or
naturally aspirated, non-EGR engines
Lubrizol Engine AZ Purimuffler or Highway heavy-heavy-duty, 4-cycle, 35 40 N/A 70
Control Systems AZ Purifier DOC model years 1991-1993 Cummins
with Low-Sulfur engines originally manufactured with
Diesel Fuel (30 out exhaust aftertreatment which are
ppm S max) turbocharged or naturally aspirated,
Lubrizol Engine AZ Purimuffler Heavy-duty, highway, 2-cycle engines 20 40 N/A 50
Control Systems AZ Purifier
Lubrizol Engine AZ Purimuffler Heavy-duty, highway, 4-cycle engines 20 40 N/A 50
Control Systems AZ Purifier
Various Biodiesel Heavy-duty, highway, 2- & 4- cycle 0 to 47 0 to 47 0 to -10 0 to 67
(1 to 100%)
Various Cetane Heavy-duty, highway, 4-cycle, non- N/A N/A 0 to 5 N/A
24 National Clean Diesel Campaign — 2005 Progress Report
Office of Transportation and Air Quality (6401A)
National Clean Diesel Campaign
Recycled/Recyclable—Printed with vegetable oil based inks on 100% postconsumer, process chlorine free recycled paper.
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How to write book reviews!
In the previous article in this series devoted to literary criticism and blogs were talking about some basic aspects when analyzing a work, how to write a review. History, Plot, Character, Conflict, Obstacles and Climax are the tools that every story should include, so it is necessary to analyze them to talk about how good or bad it is a book. However, good literary criticism must not remain just that. In this, the last article in the series, we will see how to round our opinion on a literary work.
The first aspect to consider is the Point of View.
In a literary work, the narrative is made from a particular point of view, and that view is crucial for the story to acquire all the drama necessary. For example, the series of Game of Thrones, of G.R.R. Martin, has the peculiarity that has been designed using a multiple narrator; each of the stories of the different characters is told from the point of view of that character, but not the character in the first person. As a result, Martin achieves a perfect puzzle in which the fragmented information of each character completes the picture. Similarly, the same effect is not achieved in a whodunit if we count from the point of view of the investigator that if we do from the point of view of the criminal. It follows that the view considerably alter history that reaches the reader and how to understand it.
The second point to consider is the stage.
There are two basic aspects that must be considered in this section: time and place. Shares narrated need a relationship space specific time that is logical and consistent with history. There are many historical novels, to name one example, which can be seen anachronisms, these consistent errors in placing at a particular time something that could not happen. A famous example is potatoes of The Pillars of the Earth; You could not eat potatoes in the twelfth century in England because they simply would not reach Europe until after the voyages of Columbus in 1492, almost 300 years later.
Another issue to consider when doing a review is style.
The style is just the way he writes the author of the novel, which makes the choice of grammar, syntax, etc. In all forms of expression, whether written or spoken, there are three levels of communication: elocution, illocution and perlocution, which are aspects that show the spoken words, implicit in those words message, what is meant and what to be achieved. These three levels of communication depend entirely on the author’s style. It can also achieve greater or lesser fluidity based build many subordinate sentences or short, etc. All these elements are part of the style, which is achieved based on manipulating the connotative and denotative language and semantic levels and phrasal of a literary work.
We can not confuse style with language, which is the next point to analyze in a review.
The language depends on the articulation of the characters, setting, narrative point of view and the intent of the author. the same language can not be used in a scene in which a nuclear engineering professor is teaching another class in which two criminals from the slums prepare a crime. One of the great mistakes of the novels is to make all the characters speak the same, sound the same, same build their sentences and even talk the same way we do today.
Finally, a novel structure is crucial when doing literary criticism.
The author must organize the narrative somehow to make it reach the reader, and need not necessarily be linear. A book with a complex structure was a resounding success was The Eight Katherine Neville. So, the author is able to organize its history? Does introduces the reader to the best possible way, ensuring that interested in it?
Literary criticism is in question, it is true. Literary blogs can become a very viable alternative, but few succeed. What is the reason? For the fact that, in most cases, managers of blogs are dedicated only to give an opinion (liked it or not) without going to really analyze the reasons. It’s not easy, of course. Not everyone is able to do so. But if you want to get your blog is a feasible alternative, you would do well to take into account all the factors we have considered throughout this series of articles when writing reviews.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Edie Ousley, 850-521-1231 email@example.com
Encourages Expanded Reclaimed Water Use
TALLAHASSEE, FL (April 28, 2014) – The Florida Chamber of Commerce applauds the Florida Legislature for today passing legislation that will help expand the use of alternative water supplies.
“The Florida Chamber has long supported scientifically backed measures that increase access to clean water and address the issue of a growing population’s water needs,” said Leticia Adams, Director of Infrastructure and Governance Policy. “This is another example of smart, sustainable planning for Florida’s future.”
Currently, Floridians consume seven billion gallons of water a day. That is projected to increase to nine billion gallons per day by 2030, which includes 725 million gallons of reused water every day. The bill, SB 536 by Senator Wilton Simpson (R- Trilby), directs the Florida Department Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, in cooperation with Florida’s five water management districts, to conduct a study and submit a report on expanding the use of reclaimed water in Florida, including storm-water and excess surface water.
Providing smart solutions that will address long-term water needs are steps in the right direction to ensure adequate resources. The Florida Chamber supports the expanded use of alternative water supplies such as reclaimed water and associated projects that encourage alternative water storage. Expanding the use of alternative water supplies like reclaimed water can go a long way toward helping to conserve the state’s potable surface water and groundwater resources.
“It’s a precious natural resource we need to be focused on here in Tallahassee,” House Speaker Designate Steve Crisafulli said in an interview on The Florida Chamber’s Bottom Line. “Not only myself, but the Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has been very focused on it, and Andy Gardiner, the President-elect, is focused on it. Together, we will be able work on a comprehensive approach.”
In a video presentation during the Capitol Days water panel, Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam urged Florida lawmakers to invest in projects that solve long-term water issues.
“Our water policy has to be long-term,” Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam told the Florida Chamber during their annual Capitol Days events. “This is not something that one session is going to fix.”
The Florida Chamber thanks Sen. Simpson and House bill sponsor Representative Lake Ray (R-Jacksonville) for their support.
Established in 1916 as Florida’s first statewide business advocacy organization, the Florida Chamber of Commerce is the voice of business and the state’s largest federation of employers, chambers of commerce and associations, aggressively representing small and large businesses from every industry and every region. The Florida Chamber works within all branches of government to affect those changes set forth in the annual Florida Business Agenda, and which are seen as critical to secure Florida’s future. The Florida Chamber works closely with its Political Operations and the Florida Chamber Foundation. Visit www.FloridaChamber.com for more information.
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The Effect of Smartphones on the Mental Health and General Well-Being of College Students
William P. White
In the last decade or so smart phones have undoubtedly assumed a prominent role in the lives of average Americans. Whether or not smartphone users are aware of the potential for lasting negative side effects on their mental health on account of their addictive habits is unknown and largely unstudied. It is time that as a society we begin to self-examine and identify systemic issues, especially the glaringly obvious ones like the ones screened media present. An angle that consistently presents the most profound statistics is from the victims themselves. Gathering data from the people and for the people and promptly presenting an effective solution is the job and duty of a researcher. This research does exactly this. Through a comprehensive survey dispersed across the University of Dayton’s undergraduate population, personal phone usage data was gathered. The results were staggering to some extent, yet not totally out of the realm of believability. 58 percent of respondents self-reported an addiction to their smartphones. A figure like this for a substance like alcohol or tobacco would raise serious concern across the nation. The consequences of long-term exposure to screens include but are not limited to anxiety, depression, poor sleep quality, hypertension, attention deficit disorder, and vision disorders. Public exposure to these serious and lasting symptoms of an abusive relationship with smartphones is the next step. Another idea that deserves consideration is that these symptoms are only the physiological consequences of smartphone addiction, leaving out the entire realm of social consequences that coincide with an addictive screen relationship.
Laura M. Leming
Primary Advisor's Department
Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work
Stander Symposium project, College of Arts and Sciences
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Good Health and Well-Being
"The Effect of Smartphones on the Mental Health and General Well-Being of College Students" (2021). Stander Symposium Projects. 2259.
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Railroads Canada - Travels In Canada
( Originally Published 1927 )
THE railroad has made Canada. Without the locomotive that vast area, incalculably rich in natural resources, stretching from the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains north to the Arctic Ocean, would remain largely unsettled, unproductive, inaccessible to the world. Journey across it on the map by railroad. Two daily trains—the "Ocean Limited" and the "Maritime Express"—carry passengers over the Intercolonial Railway from Halifax to Montreal. From Montreal to Ottawa we are in the populous country of the French-Canadian ; beyond Ottawa the farms are more extensive until the train reaches the great forests along Lake Superior. At Sudbury, half-way between Montreal and Fort William, on Lake Superior, long strings of cars are seen, loaded with copper and nickel, for transport east. One of the richest known deposits of nickel in the world is in this territory, and Sudbury is connected with the railroad systems of the United States by a line running to Sault Ste. Marie.
Trains moving east are laden with cattle, grain and flour. From the Lake Superior country vast quantities of lumber are shipped to the Atlantic. Pioneers are making clearings and building villages in this region that was almost impenetrable before the railroad engineers blazed the way. Many tunnels, deep rock-cuttings, long bridges, high viaducts, all bear witness to the gigantic task of making a railroad north of Lake Superior.
Fort William, on Thunder Bay, is the lake ter-minus of the western section of the Canadian Pacific. On the shore are huge grain elevators, each capable of holding almost two million bushels. Some grain goes east by the railroad, some by boats through the Great Lakes ; there is direct water communication from Fort William to Montreal.
More forests, more pioneer stations, with pulp-mills, saw-mills, flour-mills in the vicinity of the Lake-of-the-Woods, which has been made an enormous mill-pond, with an area of 3000 square miles. Four hundred miles west there is a settlement where in 1871 the Hudson Bay Company had a small fort on the Red River at its junction with the Assiniboine. The site of that fort is now the city of Winnipeg, the commercial metropolis of the 'Canadian Northwest. Here is the great depot that supplies the west from the markets of the east in exchange for western produce, here from the far north come the traders in furs. Manitoba, the province in which Winnipeg is situated, is one of the world's richest fur-bearing lands.
West from Winnipeg the railroad runs for 1000 miles through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to the Rocky Mountains. The Canadian government has surveyed these great provinces and, to provide for the inrush of settlers, has divided them like the squares on a chessboard. Each square is six miles on a side; this constitutes a "township." Each town-ship is divided into thirty-six smaller squares, which are called "sections," and each of these sections is itself divided into four squares. A road allowance, one chain in width, is provided between each of the sections running north and south, and between the alternate sections east and west. The sections are numbered and the odd numbers belong to the Canadian Pacific Railway and the even numbers to the govern-ment and the Hudson Bay Company. Two sections in each township are reserved for schools. The lands belonging to the government have been opened for free occupation to properly qualified settlers, each being granted 160 acres.
A plain--a wonderful meadowland for cattle—stretches north and south from the rails as far as the horizon when the train leaves Winnipeg. From Portage la Prairie a branch railroad runs northwest to Prince Albert in Saskatchewan. The next junction is Brandon, situated on the eastern rim of the steppes that rise to the Rockies. This is the land of the buffalo ; here also the soil is very rich and produces splendid wheat, oats, barley, rye, flax, and potatoes.
Regina, the headquarters of the Northwest Mounted Police, 360 miles west of Winnipeg, is a thriving market centre, with railroads running north and south. Moose Jaw is another railroad junction ; west of that is Medicine Hat, where the line forks in two routes to Vancouver. The more northerly road, which was the route of the original through line, goes by way of Calgary and Revelstoke ; the other by Macleod, a ranching centre, and Kootenay in the gold country.
At Calgary the Rocky Mountains come into view and the train climbs upward through scenery unmatched for natural splendor. The government has established a national park near Banff, the point of departure for tourists who wish to explore the Switzerland of Canada. A few miles west of Banff the tracks reach their highest point, a mile above sea-level. From here the road traverses the Kicking Horse Canyon, crossing from ledge to ledge, twisting and turning, cliffs overhead, a roaring river be-low.
A broad valley leads across to the ascent of the Selkirks, covered with thick forests. By many curves the road descends again and rises over the Gold Range. Beyond this range is a plain, then the last mountains, the Cascades, are surmounted, and the train runs to the beautiful harbor of Vancouver on the Pacific coast.
The Canadian government has been a great rail-road builder. The pioneer route of the Canadian Pacific has been supplemented by the Canadian National Railway, builder of what is called the "All-Red Route" across the continent. East and west in the Dominion run the tracks of this government enterprise. In the east they link more securely the Mari-time Provinces with the Province of Quebec. From the Great Lakes and Winnipeg the western division thrusts across the prairies to Saskatoon and Edmonton, crosses the Rockies through the Yellowhead Pass, follows the Fraser River to Prince George, thence swings northwest to the Skeena River,—the "River of the Clouds," as the Indians call it,—and skirts this stream for nearly 190 miles to its Pacific terminus at Prince Rupert.
Meantime two other railroad systems, the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern, were banding outlying points. Presently the Dominion found itself served by three transcontinental roads, competing for traffic. A commission was appointed to study the problem of competition, with the result that the government took over the Canadian North-ern, the Grand Trunk Pacific and its parent road, the Grand Trunk, consolidated them with the Intercolonial and the National Transcontinental, and so formed one great system, the Canadian National Railways.
To serve the "All-Red Route" it was proposed to bridge the St. Lawrence River near Quebec. This was a titanic project. The point of crossing was some eight miles above the city, where the water sweeps between bluffs 200 feet high at a rate of seven miles an hour. The plan called for a bridge of the cantilever type, 3,239 feet in length, with two anchor arms, two cantilever arms, and a central suspended span of 675 feet, making a great channel span of 1,800 feet, or 90 feet more than that of the famous Forth Bridge of the London and North Eastern Railway.
For six years work on the bridge proceeded, until the south anchor arm and almost one-half of its main cantilever span had been built from the south pier; then, on August 29, 1907, while work was in progress, the lower chords in the anchor arms buckled up. The entire 17,000 tons of steel collapsed, and only eleven of the eighty-six men at work were rescued from the ruin.
This catastrophe led to a new consideration of the whole subject of bridge-building on so vast a scale. Many designs were studied and a new plan tried. Again a span fell into the river, with more casualties. Indomitably the engineers persisted, the mighty arch crossed the St. Lawrence, and on October 17, 1917, the first train ran from shore to shore. The Quebec Bridge is the longest and largest bridge of its kind in the world, a structure of great symmetry and beauty, a magnificent link in the transcontinental chain of the Canadian National Railways.
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Academic dishonesty, in any form, is expressly prohibited by the rules of the District Board of Trustees of Florida State College at Jacksonville.
As used herein, academic dishonesty incorporates one or more of the following.
- Cheating, which is defined as the giving or taking of any information or material with the intent of wrongfully aiding one's self or another in academic work considered in the determination of course grade.
- Plagiarism, which is defined as the act of stealing or passing off as one's own work the words, ideas or conclusions of another as if the work submitted were the product of one's own thinking rather than an idea or product derived from another source.
- Any other form of inappropriate behavior which may include but is not limited to: falsifying records or data; lying; unauthorized copying, tampering, abusing or otherwise unethically using computer or other stored information, unauthorized assistance from electronic/cellular devices in taking quizzes or tests, intentionally sharing or working together on an academic exercise when such actions are not approved by the course instructor, and any other act of misconduct which may reasonably be deemed to be a part of this heading.
Any student alleged to have committed any act of academic dishonesty as defined herein shall be entitled to due process as defined in District Board of Trustees' Rule 6Hx7-2.18 prior to the administration of disciplinary action including suspension and dismissal.
A faculty member who has a concern regarding a student's conduct in the area of academic dishonesty may elect to meet with the student directly.
Once the student is notified, it is advised that the student resolve the matter with the faculty member. However, at any time the student may request a hearing with the campus dean.
Meeting(s) referenced above shall meet the College's requirements for due process.
Following the discussion with the student, the faculty member may take one or more of the following action(s).
- Verbally warn the student that continuation or repetition of misconduct of this nature may be cause for further disciplinary action.
- Require the student to retake the test or rewrite the assignment.
- Require the student to withdraw from the course.
- Fail the student for the assignment.
- Fail the student for the course.
- Refer the student(s) to the campus dean for possible suspension or dismissal.
For cases in which the student is referred to the campus dean for action, the dean will appropriately involve the faculty member and inform the faculty member of the disposition of the matter.
Each faculty member shall communicate the College's policy on academic dishonesty to each class section with which that faculty member is involved.
This subject is to be considered an integral part of the faculty member's course syllabus.
It is the responsibility of the academic deans and the appropriate academic vice president to routinely inform the faculty of this requirement.
Any student alleged to have committed any act of dishonesty on standardized tests administered through the College is subject to disciplinary action. These assessments include all standardized tests administered through the College Assessment Offices in both college credit and non-credit programs.
Any test examiner or proctor who has a concern in this area shall report this to the campus assessment and certification center manager without providing the student with the test score. Any evidence, description or witness shall be presented for further investigation. The assessment manager will present the situation to a campus dean for his/her review. The campus dean will notify the student via the student notice form to review the situation.
The campus dean may take one or more of the following actions.
- Verbally warn the student that continuation or repetition of misconduct of this nature may be cause for disciplinary action.
- Require the student to retake the test.
- Record failure for that portion of the test and/or not give credit for the course (e.g., credit by exam).
- Withhold the awarding of the degree/certificate or diploma until the requirement has been satisfied.
- Schedule an academic disciplinary hearing for possible suspension or dismissal.
For cases that involve a disciplinary hearing, the dean will involve the assessment and certification manager, test examiner/proctor and any witness. The recommendation of the hearing will follow due process as defined in District Board of Trustees Rule 6Hx7-2.18.
The Assessment Office will inform students of Florida State College at Jacksonville's Academic Dishonesty policy at each test administration.
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End of the road for the pizza delivery boy? Your Pepperoni Passion could soon be delivered by robot
Its Friday and you fancy a takeaway, but in Australia at least your pizza could soon be delivered by a robot.
It comes after Domino’s Australia said it has managed to convert a military robot into a pizza delivery machine.
Pizza Delivery Boy
The robot is called DRU (Domino’s Robotic Unit) and essentially looks like a bit like the Wall-E in the Disney Pixar film. It utilises GPS to travel along pavements at a maximum speed of 20km/h (12.4mph).
It has a specialised compartment to keep the pizza warm (another to keep drinks cool) and can even accept payment from the customer. When it arrives at its destination, the customer enters a security code on their phone to tell the robot to open its locked storage compartment and deliver the pizza.
The former military robot is apparently powered by technology from Marathon Robotics. It is weather-proof and incorporates sensors that use lasers to steer around objects (for example out of work pizza delivery boys).
A video of the robot in action on the street of Brisbane on 8 March can be found here.
“DRU (Domino’s Robotic Unit) is an autonomous delivery vehicle and is set to take the world by storm,” said the company. “With sleek, refined forms combined with a friendly persona and lighting to help customers identify and interact with it, DRU is a world first in the space of commercial autonomous delivery.”
“This highlights what can happen when disruptive thinking is fostered – it turns into a commercially viable and revolutionary product,” said Domino’s Group CEO and MD Don Meij. “The DRU prototype is only the first step in our research and development as we continue to develop a range of innovations set to revolutionise the entire pizza ordering experience.”
Meij confirmed that Domino’s has been working with the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads to ensure DRU meets relevant legislative requirements as it undergoes testing.
“We are also working with Government agencies on the project to ensure all legal requirements are met,” said Meij. “The agencies have been very supportive in the process to date and we’re all excited about what this technology can lead to.”
It seems that DRU is being tested for number of customer deliveries in restricted streets identified by the Department under special permit. At the moment, it is operated in semi-autonomous mode to ensure the robot complies with current regulation.
“With autonomous vehicles opening up possibilities for saving lives, saving time and moving goods more efficiently, we look forward to continuing our work in this field and leading the commercial trials so that our customers can reap the benefits,” Meij said.
Earlier this month Estonian start-up Starship Technologies revealed its delivery robots will be heading to the streets of Greenwich in south east London as part of a six-month trial period.
Last year research showed that British grown ups are becoming increasingly open to the idea of robots replacing humans in certain sectors.
Are you a Robot expert? Take our quiz!
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I was surprised and saddened to learn that former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer passed away on Thursday at the age of 64. Actually, I was also a little surprised by how saddened the news made me. I never met the man and it is difficult to forget the glee that he expressed about the 9/11 attacks. I greatly respect Fischer's artistry and brilliance as a chess player but it's been a long time since he publicly displayed those qualities and it seemed doubtful that he ever would again. So why did I feel so sad to hear of his death? Emotions cannot really be explained or justified but after reflecting about this I think I understand the causes for my gut reaction: Bobby Fischer's death closes the book on any possibility that he will either play brilliant chess again or that he will recant some of the despicable comments that he said about America and Jews. Of course, from a purely rational standpoint it is easy to see that the likelihood of either of those things ever happening was exceedingly remote but now that he is gone his legacy--for better or worse--is complete.
The "better" part of Fischer's legacy--his contributions to the game of chess--will never be forgotten. He set many records and achieved many incredible feats, including becoming the youngest Grandmaster ever (age 15; that mark has since been broken by youngsters who train with computers, an advantage that Fischer did not have), becoming the youngest U.S. Champion ever (age 14), winning eight U.S. championships while losing only three games total and achieving a remarkable 11/11 result in the 1964 championship, winning 20 straight games against elite level Grandmaster opponents and winning the World Championship in 1972 by defeating Boris Spassky with a 12.5-8.5 score that included a game that Fischer forfeited by not showing up because he was not satisfied with the playing conditions. Fischer's record for the highest rating of all-time has since been broken but when Fischer was the top rated player he was further ahead of his contemporaries than any chess player has been in at least the past 150 years (dating back to when Paul Morphy, the first great American chess player, dominated the chess world briefly before he, like Fischer, faded into obscurity); the rating is just a number that only has meaning in comparison with other ratings and Fischer's dominance over even the other elite players of his day is amazing.
Fischer once declared that he was battling alone against what he called "the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians," a statement that turned out to be largely true even if it sounded paranoid. For years, Fischer studied chess for hours and hours a day, learning several foreign languages so that he could read the top chess journals and books from around the world; he reintroduced old ideas that had been forgotten or considered unsound and he also came up with innovative new ideas. The top Soviet players were provided with state stipends and worked together in an organized fashion in order to maximize the chance that one of their number would always retain the world title; the Soviet Union could not compete with the West economically, scientifically or in many other ways but chess and Olympic sports were two areas that the Soviets sought to dominate in order to "prove" the superiority of communism over capitalism. It is no exaggeration to say that one lone American genius, by virtue of his talent, willpower and tenacity, overcame the collective efforts of the Soviets and wrested the World Championship from them after they controlled it for a quarter century. Fischer's will to win was legendary and induced a condition known as "Fischer fear" in his opponents; he quite openly stated that he was trying to crush his opponents and break their will and many of them spoke of the enormous psychological pressure that they felt when competing against such a talented, thoroughly prepared player who disdained draws and fought throughout every game with relentless fury until the bitter end: if you play competitive chess then you know exactly what I am talking about but if you don't, just think of Bill Belichick's New England Patriots and Tom Brady frankly saying, "We're trying to kill teams." Fischer combined Belichick's meticulous preparation with Brady's ability to stay focused and execute under pressure. Even if you don't know chess from checkers you have to appreciate any champion who hones his game to this extent.
Fischer's meteoric rise to the World Championship spawned a chess boom in the United States and put the game on the front pages of national magazines and newspapers and earned him guest appearances on mainstream talk shows. Like Tiger Woods--but to a smaller degree--Fischer's emergence resulted in bigger prize funds and elevated the status of his game among the general populace. Unfortunately, the "Fischer boom" went bust as its namesake never again played an officially sanctioned tournament or match game after his 1972 triumph (his famous 1992 "rematch" with Spassky was not sanctioned by FIDE, the world chess federation, and actually got Fischer into trouble with the U.S. government for violating trade sanctions against Yugoslavia). Fischer had vowed to not only break Emanuel Lasker's record and hold the world title for more than 27 years but he said that he would not duck any challengers and would put the title up for grabs regularly. He did neither of those things; Fischer, arguably the greatest player in the history of the game, reigned as World Champion for just three years before giving up the championship without playing a game because of disputes over playing conditions and the terms for a championship match. Fischer spent most of his remaining three decades as a recluse, periodically emerging to issue hateful statements, mainly directed against America and Jews; the man who had received a hero's welcome in America for defeating a Soviet champion turned completely against his own national and ethnic heritage. Other than his 1992 victory over Spassky--which included a few brilliant games and others that were ordinary by Grandmaster standards--Fischer had just two positive accomplishments during this period: he received a patent for the digital time delay clock that has become standard fare in chess tournaments and he invented a new form of chess that he called "Fischer Random" that he declared to be superior to the original game, which he considered to be outdated.
The "worse" part of Fischer's legacy reared its ugly head even when he was on top of the chess world, although his closest confidantes did the best that they could to both modify Fischer's conduct and make sure that press coverage of him focused on his remarkable abilities as a player. The forfeited game that almost scuttled the 1972 match was not an isolated incident for Fischer. He often feuded with organizers, sometimes justifiably so--playing conditions for even world class players were not great early in Fischer's career--but sometimes over things that seemed trivial or bizarre; Fischer might have captured the world title several years before he did if he had not stormed out of a qualifying tournament in a huff despite owning a commanding lead that all but assured a victory that would have placed him on the brink of challenging for the crown. Although it is often suggested that something went wrong with Fischer after he won the World Championship in 1972, he made strange statements during interviews and in private conversations years before that. His paranoia and growing anti-Semitism were evident for quite some time but it does seem like those features of his personality became more prominent as he got older.
Some people will say that Fischer should only be remembered as a brilliant chess player and that everything else should be forgotten; other people will say that Fischer's hate speech (and there is no other appropriate term for it) negates what he accomplished. Both of these viewpoints are wrong: it is true that Fischer's greatness as a chess player deserves to be honored but it is also true that his statements have irrevocably tainted and tarnished his name, if not his legacy. When terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon on 9/11, Fischer said that this was "wonderful" and he hoped that the United States would be destroyed. Those are not statements of political dissent; he expressed glee at the thought of innocent civilians being slaughtered by people who believe that the rest of the world must submit to their belief system or be killed. This is not a right wing issue or a left wing issue; if you believe that there is justification to deliberately kill thousands of innocent civilians then you have stepped well beyond the bounds of civil and rational discourse. It is entirely reasonable to disagree with America's foreign policy but it is quite another thing to openly hope for America's downfall and to celebrate a horrific crime. America is far from perfect but it is worth remembering that America has to build fences to keep people out, while historically her enemies have had to build fences to keep people from leaving--that is a pretty handy measure of whether or not a country is repressive; you can also use the "public square" test: in America you have the freedom to stand in a public square and express disagreement with the current government, an option that does not exist in the countries that Fischer and others laud at America's expense, countries where people are routinely jailed or killed for attempting to speak freely, support opposing political parties or worship a minority religion.
While Fischer's chess games contained an inner harmony and logic befitting an Einstein equation or a Mozart symphony, there was no order or logic to his political beliefs. Indeed, he called anyone who he considered to be an enemy a Jew--even if the person was not Jewish--and yet he had cordial relations over the years with a number of people who were in fact Jewish, including the famous Polgar sisters. It seems very likely that Fischer's anti-America and anti-Semitic statements resulted from mental illness--as opposed to the carefully thought out, malevolent world view of someone like Osama bin Laden--but that does not diminish the harm that is caused when someone of Fischer's prominence publicly says such horrible things. I have never seen Leni Riefenstahl's infamous film Triumph of the Will but it is considered to be an aesthetic and cinematic masterpiece; however, it is impossible to separate the quality of the art from the fact that she was figuratively--and possibly literally--in bed with Adolf Hitler, one of the most evil tyrants who lived. Her art was created specifically to serve evil purposes, while Fischer's art does exist separately from his hate speech, but that hate speech is nevertheless a permanent part of Fischer's overall legacy; Fischer even said that he did not want to be viewed as merely a chess genius because he thought that he had significant things to say about other issues. Ironically, Fischer accused fellow former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov of merely being a chess genius who knows nothing about anything else, even though Kasparov is a political columnist for the Wall Street Journal and a political activist in his native Russia.
Fischer cannot simply be remembered as a great chess player, nor is it fair to characterize him as nothing more than a hate monger. His chess legacy is eternal, as is the taint that he placed on his own name and reputation. Now that Fischer is gone and can say or do nothing else, that is how the matter will always rest.
One story about Bobby Fischer that captivated me years ago described how he almost met Wilt Chamberlain. The great writer Dick Schaap, who knew both champions, tried to arrange for Fischer to meet him and Chamberlain at Chamberlain's home but Fischer declined. More than 20 years ago, Sports Illustrated's William Nack wrote about this incident. Schaap later mentioned it in his autobiography Flashing Before my Eyes. This anecdote combines basketball, chess and writing and involves three people who I would have been interested to meet (and who have all since passed away, unfortunately), so it understandably made an impression on me. Over a year ago, I wrote a short story based on the premise that Chamberlain and Fischer did in fact meet each other: Not A Random Encounter. Keep in mind that this is a work of fiction.
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Download Full Text (4.3 MB)
This edition details the inauguration of a new political system on campus. Included are descriptions of both candidates for college president and secretary. An article discusses a new elective in kindergarten study offered by Wooster. Mary Robertson, the first graduate of the University Bible School, is given a position teaching at Payson, Utah. The rock of 1874 is cleaned up to revel its bottom half. Earnest Weld, class of 1903, win a great tennis honor at the open tournament at Canton Champery, in Switzerland. Additionally, the issue includes Wooster's 1905 student and faculty roster.
The College of Wooster
No Copyright - United States
college politics, Wooster presidents, Wooster secretaries, kindergarten study, college electives, Mary Robertson, Wooster Bible School, Payson, Utah, Wooster rock, Wooster rock of 1874, Earnest Weld, tennis, Canton Champery Open, Wooster roster, Wooster roster 1905, Switzerland
College of Wooster; Kindergarten; Universities and colleges--Elective system; Bible colleges; Payson (Utah); Tennis
Editors, Wooster Voice, "Wooster voice. (Wooster, Ohio), 1905-09-25" (1905). The Voice: 1901-1910. 69.
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Large numbers (estimated at around 6k) turned up for the peaceful protest against oppressive government restrictions and mandates over COVID-19 on Saturday, August 22nd at Customs House, Dublin.
The non-political event was organised by Health Freedom Ireland and Yellow Vest Ireland to voice concerns regarding government mandates, demanding transparency, proportionality of decisions and accountability by government officials and advisors.
Expert speakers in attendance on behalf of Health Freedom Ireland were:
- Prof. Dolores Cahill, (Multi award winning Molecular Biologist and Immunologist holding the position of Full professor of Translational Services at UCD School of Medicine), who pioneered research in her field at the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany and has served as expert in the EU Commission for over 20 years.
- Dr Marcus De Brun MD (Biologist and practising GP), who resigned from the Irish Medical Council in protest over the government’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes earlier this year.
- Una Mc Gurk (Barrister & Senior Counsel) spoke about the impact of mandating masks without conclusive evidence and made an argument for why PCR tests should not be used as diagnostic tools”However, a “positive” PCR result reflects only the detection of viral RNA and does not necessarily indicate presence of viable virus.” Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765837.
The Yellow Vest Ireland speakers were:
- Ben Gilroy, anti-eviction and civil rights activist who spoke about constitutional rights.
- Michael Leahy, speaking as a human rights and mental health advocate focused on the impact of serious mental health issues such as suicide.
- Ken Duffy motivational and education speaker and mental health advocate, spoke about human rights and homelessness in Ireland.
- Paul Gough is a realist who started recording current commentary videos on the YouTube channel DiYShow to counter and compliment the one-sided media reporting around the COVID-19 situation.
Maeve Murran kicked off the event with a moving speech. She provided the number of deaths from all causes obtained via FOI from the General Registrar’s Office (GRO) ending with a poignant ceremony of light and minute of silence for all who died. Maeve informed those in attendance that there had been 13449 all-cause deaths from January to May this year. This represents less than the average all-cause death figure for the same period over the last five years according to official GRO death certification figures.
The minute of silence was followed by a beautiful rendition of Nessun Dorma.
“I might not agree with everything you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”Brian Rose freedomplatform.tv
In this spirit Health Freedom Ireland invited the speakers on the day to give their perspectives on the current situation. We applaud them for their courage to speak their truth at a time when it is challenging to do so.
Some key points on the day were:
- Dolores Cahill pointed out that there is a huge discrepancy between how we treat this infectious disease (COVID-19) and other high consequence infectious diseasesFind the definition of high consequence infectious disease and a list of here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19 like Tuberculosis (TB). TB kills 1.5 million people per year worldwide (WHO statistics). To date the COVID-19 death rate is 819,430 worldwide and rapidly decreasing. This in comparison does not warrant a lockdown and destruction of our economy, communities, health screening…
- Prof. Cahill pointed out that there are proven treatments which can be used as a preventative and treatment when started in the early stages. These include Hydroxychloroquine in combination with Zinc and Azithromycin and a steroid treatment which can help prevent deaths. Also focusing on supporting one’s immune system with good nutrition and adequate Vitamins D & C can lead to better long term outcomes.
- Dr. Marcus DeBrun called for an independent inquiry into the government’s mismanagement of the COVID-19 situation in nursing homes where most of the deaths occurred. We have an obligation to seek justice for the elderly who died in nursing homes alone.
- Una McGurk asked why the government was mandating masks without adequate scientific evidence for efficacy of mask wearing by the healthy public. Currently, the WHO website reads: ‘At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.’Direct quote from page 6 of this document https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak
- This point was corroborated by Dr. DeBrun who reminded us that the government is aware that the recommendation for mask wearing by the healthy public is not evidence-based as pointed out by their independent advisor Prof. Carl HeneghanDirector of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford on 13th of August this year at the DÁIL ÉIREANN Special Committee on Covid-19 Response.
- Ken Duffy shared with us that more homeless people have died on the streets this year, compared to the previous two years. 11 homeless died in the last month alone which is more than the number of COVID deaths for the same period. Through his powerful and personal account he demonstrated how it is possible to become homeless through no fault of your own. Keeping small businesses closed for months on time, people losing their jobs and livelihoods and a continuation of evictions will undoubtedly lead to more homelessness.
“Can homelessness be fixed? Absolutely, yes, it can… it can be fixed… the money was always there, they’ve proven that… All it takes is for our government to stop ignoring homelessness, it is a crisis. It’s an Irish humanitarian crisis, people are starving and dying on our streets. The government boasted recently of having a 2bn euro rainy day fund. That would go a long, long way to solving homelessness in Ireland. How hard does it have to rain?”Ken Duffy
And this is not the only concern regarding the government’s failure to look after the safety and wellbeing of all the people of Ireland. There should be no bias in whose life is worth saving and whose life is not. Paul Gough pointed out another notable discrepancy between the government’s promises and actions.
“The Irish government has lied to us again and said there would be no repossessions while the pandemic is raging. So is the pandemic over? Is that why you’re taking homes off people now?”Paul Gough
- Ben Gilroy spoke about the arbitrary nature of government measures in response to the COVID-19 situation with no basis in science. While some measures might have been deemed as necessary precautions in March or April when we had no information on the virus, we now know better. Examples of non evidence based recommendations are being allowed to consume a 9 EUR meal in a pub for up to 105 minutes with only 6 people per table; mandating masks in shops and not a post office; being able to congregate with a maximum of 6 people at home but 50 at a wedding.
- Una McGurk also shared that the government’s narrative had changed from deaths and hospitalisations to rising case numbers which coincide with a rise in testing. The PCR test used to establish if someone is COVID-19 positive is not supposed to be used as a diagnostic tool. It is important to understand that positive tests do not equal active infections and that virus RNA can be detected by the PCR tests months after an infection has subsided. In addition it is not specific to COVID-19, it detects Coronavirus in general of which there are many including the common cold.
“PCR detects a very small segment of the nucleic acid which is part of a virus itself. The specific fragment detected is determined by the somewhat arbitrary choice of DNA primers used which become the ends of the amplified fragment. “Kary Mullins (Inventor of the PCR test)
This view is supported by Kary Mullins who invented the PCR test and several other scientists who work with PCR testing in other circumstances.
“PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers. Although there is a common misimpression that the viral load tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some cases wrongly, to be unique to HIV. The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not viruses themselves.”John Lauritsen in December 1996 about HIV and AIDS
The phenomenon described by Una is referred to “casedemic” by some. Ivor Cummins explains this well:
Some pertinent questions that remain unanswered were:
Why can’t we see the government’s evidence for the continued restrictions and mask effectiveness data as well as arbitrary measures like the 9 Euro meal or recommendations on varying maximum participant numbers for different types of events?
What is the impact on the mental health of the population, especially our young and elderly?
What are the daily suicide deaths due to isolation, loss of jobs and homes?
What are the daily cancer deaths due to delayed diagnosis, screening programmes and treatments?
What evidence supports the safety of long-term mask wearing by our secondary students and workforce?
The thousands of people attending on Saturday included many elderly people, families with young children and people of many different ethnicities who came together peacefully to learn, support each other and to voice opposition to current and pending restrictions.
The sentiment of the day was quoted aptly by one of the participants
‘It was a moving day where we were educated by some of the foremost medical experts, advocates and legal professionals and also to have our voices heard. Perhaps most gratifying was how so many different individuals and groups were able to put politics aside in order to join together for this important cause.’Protest participant
On behalf of Health Freedom Ireland we would like to say:
‘We are also very grateful for An Garda Síochana’s presence on the day and their involvement in restoring order. We have no association with those involved in the clash and we welcome their investigations. An Garda Síochána understand better than most our constitutional right to peaceful assembly.’Health Freedom Ireland
What’s next for Health Freedom Ireland and how can I get involved?
We will continue to protest to preserve and protect our right to bodily autonomy and freedom to choose medical treatments.
We would also like to encourage you to support Tracey O’Mahoney’s fundraiser to engage medical and/or scientific researchers / subject matter experts to review data and prepare papers to highlight the dangers that might be associated with eliminating or diminishing the Right to Bodily Integrity.
Thank you to everyone who joined us on the day. We appreciate your commitment to stand up for the overall health and wellbeing of the people of Ireland.
Our next rally is planned for Oct 3rd. We hope to see you there.
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US 6721195 B2
A memory module socket having a transposed pinout allowing the socket to be mounted on the second, or reverse, surface of a motherboard and connected to circuit traces configured for mounting of a memory socket on the first, or processor, surface of the motherboard to correctly accommodate signals between the motherboard and the memory module. A motherboard having at least one memory socket mounted on the second, opposing surface enhancing access to the memory socket or sockets for insertion and removal of memory modules for testing memory modules in multimotherboard test systems. A method of converting a conventional motherboard and memory socket assembly for such testing.
1. A memory socket for connection with a motherboard including a substrate having a first surface and a second surface configured to have a processor mounted on the first surface and an arrangement of conductive elements extending through the substrate from the first surface to the second surface, the memory socket comprising:
an insulative housing;
an elongated channel formed in the insulative housing configured for receipt of a portion of a memory module therein;
a first set of conductive contacts arranged within the elongated channel to be operably, removably coupled with contacts on a received portion of the memory module; and
a second set of conductive contacts electrically connected to the first set of conductive contacts and arranged to mate with the arrangement of conductive elements from the second surface of the substrate.
2. The memory socket of
3. The memory socket of
4. The memory socket of
5. The memory socket of
6. A motherboard assembly, comprising:
a substrate having a first surface and a second, opposing surface, a plurality of traces and a plurality of conductive apertures extending from the first surface to the second, opposing surface, wherein the plurality of apertures is electrically coupled with the plurality of traces;
a processor location on the first surface of the substrate in communication with the traces of the plurality; and
at least one memory socket mounted on the second, opposing surface of the substrate wherein the at least one memory socket is configured to receive a portion of a memory module therein, the at least one memory socket and processor location being electrically connected to the plurality of conductive apertures.
7. The motherboard assembly of
an insulative housing;
an elongated channel formed in the insulative housing configured for the receipt of the portion of the memory module therein;
a first set of conductive contacts arranged within the elongated channel to be operably, removably coupled with contacts on a received portion of the memory module; and
a second set of conductive contacts electrically connected to the first set of conductive contacts and arranged to mate with the plurality of conductive apertures from the second, opposing surface of the substrate.
8. The motherboard assembly of
9. The motherboard assembly of
10. The motherboard assembly of
11. The motherboard assembly of
12. The motherboard assembly of
13. The motherboard assembly of
14. The motherboard assembly of
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to memory module sockets used to interconnect memory modules with other computer components. More specifically, the present invention relates to a memory module socket which has a reversed pinout configuration and which is particularly suitable for memory device testing.
2. State of the Art
Semiconductor integrated circuit devices are manufactured on wafers or other substrates of semiconductor material. Conventionally, many devices are manufactured on a single wafer and individual devices or groups of devices are singulated, or cut, from the wafer and packaged. The devices are tested at various points during the manufacturing process, e.g., while they are still in the wafer form, in die form (after singulation but prior to packaging), and after packaging.
Testing may be directed towards detection of flaws or errors regarding one or more facets of semiconductor fabrication. For example, one stage of testing concerns the physical structure of the device. Such testing may include the use of various techniques known in the art such as emission microscopes or X-ray analysis. Testing of the structure typically focuses on whether discernible errors or flaws develop during the physical formation of the semiconductor die. Such flaws may be the result of one or more processing steps improperly performed, such as, for example, over-etching. Flaws are also developed as a result of contaminants introduced during the fabrication process. Indeed, numerous factors exist which may influence the introduction and development of such flaws or errors.
Another facet of testing concerns the functionality and performance of the device. This typically involves connecting the device to a circuit such that a signal or combination of signals may be passed through the device. The response by the device to the signal is then monitored, with the output value being compared to values expected to be obtained from a properly functioning device. Tests may involve a particular signal or combination of signals being delivered repetitively, perhaps under extreme environmental or operational conditions (temperature, voltage, etc.) outside of normal parameters in order to identify a device which would fail after a shorter than usual period of use. Other tests may involve a number of different signals or signal combinations delivered in sequence. One method for testing a memory device is to deliver the same signal or signal combination to multiple identical subsections of the device simultaneously and compare the values read from the subsections (“compression testing”). If all of the respective read values match, the test has been passed, while a mismatch between respective values read from any of the subsections indicates a device malfunction and failure of the test.
Another stage of testing may concern the compatibility of the semiconductor device with other components. For example, it becomes desirable to confirm the compatibility of a memory device having a specific design with the multitude of personal computer motherboards currently available on the market. Such testing would involve connecting identical memory modules to motherboards of different design and manufacturing origin and then subjecting the memory modules to an otherwise identical testing process. This type of testing helps to assure computer manufacturers as well as consumers that the device will function as expected regardless of who may be the manufacturer of other interconnected components.
The ultimate objective of testing is to produce a device having verified reliability and quality. While this objective is of extreme importance, the efficiency with which testing is performed is also an important concern. It becomes desirable to reduce testing time whenever possible without compromising the integrity of the testing process. A reduction in test time, without a sacrifice in quality, results in greater manufacturing throughput and thus lowers manufacturing costs. Reduced manufacturing costs are very desirable in that they ultimately lead to higher profits for the company, as well as a savings to the consumer.
One method of reducing testing time without compromising the integrity of the testing process is to perform batch tests. In other words, numerous devices are tested coterminously instead of testing each device sequentially, one at a time. An example of such testing, with regards to memory devices, can be better understood with reference to FIG. 1. A testing apparatus 10 may include a plurality of motherboards 12 housed in a holding device such as a cabinet or a frame 14. A plurality of memory devices, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or other memory modules 16, are appropriately coupled to individual memory sockets 18. Each memory socket 18 is operatively coupled to a motherboard 12 with each motherboard 12 including multiple memory sockets 18. Thus, each motherboard 12 is capable of accommodating several memory modules 16 during a given testing operation.
It is noted the testing apparatus 10 is illustrated as holding identical motherboards. However, as noted above, such a testing apparatus 10 may accommodate various motherboard styles, designs, and sizes. Thus, the system as described may be employed in various facets of testing, including compatibility testing.
With the memory modules 16 in place, functional testing or, alternatively, compatibility testing of the memory modules 16 is conducted. As described above, the motherboards 12 provide a signal, or signals, to the memory modules 16 and then monitor the responsive output of each memory module 16. The configuration as described above allows numerous memory modules 16 to be tested in a relatively short amount of time. However, while the above described system allows for a greater quantity of devices to be tested at a given time, the turnaround time in removing tested modules and subsequent installation of untested modules is less than optimal.
One problem with a testing apparatus configuration such as is illustrated in FIG. 1 is that, in an effort to maximize the number of memory modules 16 being tested at a given time, the ability to remove and replace the memory modules 16 becomes compromised. This essentially results from the density and close proximity of the motherboards 12 within the cabinet or frame 14 combined with the configuration and orientation of the memory sockets 18 on the motherboard 12. A typical motherboard 12 is configured such that the memory sockets 18 are mounted along a planar surface of the motherboard 12 so that memory modules 16 respectively inserted therein extend transversely away from the motherboard 12. Furthermore, the memory sockets 18 are typically fixed in their locations by mechanical means including soldering, riveting and other techniques known in the art. Therefore, to extract a memory module 16 from a memory socket 18, it must be withdrawn from memory socket 18 in a direction perpendicular to the planar surface of the motherboard 12. However, in a testing apparatus 10 where the motherboards 12 are configured in close vertical proximity to each other, removal of the memory module 16 becomes rather difficult and time consuming.
For example, still referring to FIG. 1, distance “A” represents the distance between the top of a memory module 16 and an adjacent motherboard 12. Distance “B”, on the other hand, represents the minimum distance that the memory module 16 must travel through to be removed from the memory socket 18 (i.e., the distance required for the bottom of the memory module 16 to clear the top of the memory socket 18). It may often be the case that distance “B” is greater than distance “A”. In such a case it becomes physically impossible to remove the memory modules 16 (or insert them) unless the motherboards 12 are first removed from the frame 14. In the instance of a cabinet or frame holding a plurality of motherboards 12, each having a plurality of memory sockets 18, replacement of the memory modules 16 thus becomes a laborious and time consuming task. Even if the motherboards 12 are spaced in cabinet or frame 14 so that distance “A” becomes larger than distance “B”, it remains difficult for an individual to maneuver his or her hands in between the vertically superimposed motherboards 12 and complete the task of insertion or removal of the memory modules 16 with any degree of efficiency.
It is conceivable that the motherboards 12 might be arranged such that the upper planar surface of each motherboard 12 is adjacent to and runs parallel with the vertical member of the cabinet or frame 14. However, this is not an ideal solution either. While this would allow the memory modules 16 to be exposed to the space external to the cabinet or frame 14 and be removed from memory sockets 18 in a horizontal direction, an access problem may still exist. For example, expansion slots 20, while shown empty in FIG. 1, typically accommodate peripheral cards allowing communication from the motherboard 12 to additional devices. When peripheral cards are installed, they present additional difficulties regarding access to the memory modules 16 due to their close proximity to the memory modules 16 on the same top surface of the motherboard 12. Similarly, other semiconductor components and device connections may create access difficulties based on the dense arrangement of all these components on the same surface of the motherboard 12.
In view of the above-enumerated shortcomings in the state of the art, it would be advantageous to reduce the amount of time required for the removal and replacement of memory modules from a testing apparatus.
It would also be advantageous to provide enhanced access to specific semiconductor components during functional testing or compatibility testing.
It would also be advantageous to provide an apparatus or system which could be configured for use with an automatic handling unit to remove and replace memory modules in a testing apparatus. Such an apparatus or system should be flexible and adaptable to a user's needs, as well as simple to fabricate and operate.
One exemplary embodiment of the present invention comprises a memory socket for facilitating a test connection of a memory module with a motherboard. The memory socket includes an insulative housing having an elongated channel-shaped socket formed within the housing. The elongated socket is configured to have a memory module such as, for example, a single in-line memory module (SIMM) or dual in-line memory module (DMM), coupled thereto. A set of conductive contacts is arranged within the elongated socket for proper electrical connection with respective, cooperative pinout contacts of the memory module. A second set of conductive contacts, electrically connected to the first set of conductive contacts and configured for connection to the motherboard, is arranged in a reverse or mirror image arrangement of a conventional memory socket second conductive contact pattern.
The first surface of the motherboard is defined to have at least the central processing unit (CPU) or “processor” (or corresponding processor socket) mounted to it, while the second, opposing surface is where the inventive memory socket is to be mounted. The second, reversed set of conductive elements may comprise conductive pins which will pass from the memory socket adjacent the second surface through corresponding apertures in the motherboard sized and arranged to receive conductive pins of a conventional memory socket mounted to the first surface. The pins of the inventive memory socket may, by way of example only, be arranged in at least two parallel rows forming an asymmetrical pin set such that the same socket would not mate with the apertures of the motherboard on both the first surface and the second surface.
Another exemplary embodiment of the present invention comprises a motherboard. The motherboard includes a dielectric substrate having a first surface and a second, opposing surface and bears a plurality of conductive traces. A processor, or a processor socket configured to couple to a processor, is mounted at a processor location on the first surface of the motherboard. A memory socket is mounted on the second surface of the motherboard and is electrically coupled to the processor location by way of conductive traces of the motherboard. A plurality of memory sockets may be mounted to the second surface as described if the motherboard is configured with traces for multiple memory sockets. The motherboard may also include additional devices such as one or more expansion slots, or other semiconductor devices, coupled to the first surface of the motherboard and electrically coupled to the processor via traces.
The memory socket may be configured to receive one of various types of memory modules known in the art. The various types of memory modules may include, for example, 30 pin SIMM modules, 72 pin SIMM modules, 168 pin DIMM modules, the various forms of small outline DIMM modules typically used in notebook type computers, or RMM modules incorporating the so-called Rambus memory dice.
In accordance with yet another exemplary embodiment of the invention, a system for testing memory modules is provided. The test system includes a plurality of motherboard assemblies which may be mounted to a frame. Each motherboard assembly includes a dielectric substrate having first and second opposing surfaces and bears a series of circuit traces. A processor, or a processor socket adapted to receive a processor at a processor location, is mounted on the first surface of each motherboard. At least one memory socket is mounted on the second surface of each motherboard assembly and is electrically coupled to the processor or socket by way of traces. Each motherboard is coupled to an input device for providing electrical test signals and a monitoring device for receiving output signals from the motherboard assembly. The system may be configured for use with an automated handling unit for inserting memory modules in the memory sockets and removing and replacing those memory modules after a testing cycle has been completed.
In accordance with yet another exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method is provided for reconfiguring a motherboard for use in the testing of a memory device. In accordance with the method, a motherboard is provided having a dielectric substrate having first and second opposing surfaces and bearing a series of circuit traces defining a printed circuit. The motherboard further includes a processor, or processor socket, mounted to the first surface at a processor location and at least one conventional memory socket mounted to the first surface, wherein the processor and memory socket are electrically connected by means of traces. The conventional memory socket is removed from the first surface, and a memory socket according to the invention is mounted on the second surface and coupled to the processor through the same traces as the conventional memory socket. The reconfiguring process may include reflowing solder connections of the original, conventional memory socket to detach it from the first surface. The method may further include arranging an array of electrical contacts of the inventive memory socket in reverse or mirror image of the pattern of contacts so that they mate with the existing pattern of conductive elements on the motherboard arranged for coupling to conductive contacts of the conventional memory socket when the inventive memory socket is mounted to the second surface.
The foregoing and other advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which:
FIG. 1 is a plan view depicting a prior art memory testing system;
FIG. 2A is a plan view of the top side of a conventional motherboard assembly;
FIG. 2B is an elevational view of the conventional motherboard assembly depicted in FIG. 2A;
FIG. 3 is an elevational view of an exemplary memory module suitable for insertion into a memory socket of the present invention;
FIG. 4 is a plan view of the top side of the motherboard assembly depicted in FIG. 2A showing specific connective features;
FIG. 5 is a plan view of the bottom side of the motherboard assembly of FIG. 4 showing specific connective features;
FIG. 6 is a plan view of the bottom side of a motherboard assembly according to one aspect of the invention;
FIG. 7A is a view of the top side of a conventional memory socket;
FIG. 7B is a view of the bottom side of the memory socket shown in FIG. 7A;
FIG. 8A is a view of the top side of a memory socket according to one aspect of the invention;
FIG. 8B is a view of the bottom side of the memory socket shown in FIG. 8A according to one aspect of the invention; and
FIG. 9 is an elevational view of a system for testing memory modules according to certain aspects of the present invention.
Referring to FIGS. 2A and 2B, a motherboard 30 suitable for use in certain aspects of the present invention is shown. The motherboard 30 comprises a dielectric substrate 32 having circuit traces formed therewith. The substrate 32 is defined by a first surface 34 and a second, opposing surface 36. The first surface 34 may be understood to have various components mounted thereon. Such components may include, for example, a central processing unit (CPU) 38, other semiconductor devices, or chips 40, and input/output connections such as expansion slots 42 and 44, which may represent PCI slots, ISA slots, AGP slots or connections pursuant to various other standards. It is noted that while the motherboard 30 is described as having a CPU 38 directly mounted to the first surface 34, such numbering also corresponds to exemplify the location of a processor socket operatively coupled to the motherboard 30. The CPU 38 may then be removed from the socket and replaced as required.
The expansion slots 42 and 44 allow for communication with various input, output and peripheral devices (not shown) of a personal computer. Such devices may include, for example, a monitor, keyboard, printer, scanner, secondary input device such as a mouse or other pointer, modem or network card. These devices are typically connected to the motherboard 30 by inserting an add-on card into one of the slots 42 or 44 and connecting the peripheral device to the add-on card. The add-on cards typically have independent circuitry and semiconductor devices associated with them and are adapted to interact with the motherboard 30 such that the CPU 38 may process signals received from the add-on card and provide signals to the add-on card for control of the associated device. Alternatively, the motherboard 30 may have many, if not all, of the basic peripheral connections built-in so that add-on cards are not required.
Also connected to the motherboard 30 is a plurality of resident memory sockets or slots 46. Each memory socket 46 is adapted to releasably receive a random access memory (RAM) device or, more typically, a memory module of one of the aforementioned types comprising a carrier substrate bearing a plurality of memory chips. A memory module 48, as shown in FIG. 3, typically comprises several memory chips 50 mounted on one or both sides of a printed circuit board 52. The memory chips 50 are linked by circuit traces extending across the printed circuit board 52 so that the motherboard 30 (not shown) “sees” them in the circuit including the memory module 48 as a continuous memory device. The memory module 48 also includes a plurality of conductive contacts 54 in one or more rows along an edge of printed circuit board 52 and may include a keyed (notched) section 56 aligned on one edge of the circuit board 52 for interconnection with the memory socket 46 (not shown).
RAM memory modules are produced in various forms such as, for example, static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), Rambus dynamic RAM (RDRAM), extended data out (EDO) RAM, double data rate (DDR) RAM, as well as others. The various types of memory devices each have associated logic and connective structures of the module to which they are mounted which allows them to communicate with the CPU 38 through interconnection with the motherboard 30. The memory module 48 receives digital data from the CPU 38 in the form of electrical signals and retains the data for later retrieval. In addition to the various types of memory devices available, they are also available in different interface styles. In other words, the type of memory socket being used must be both physically and electrically compatible with the memory module being coupled with it. Exemplary interfaces used in the industry include single in-line memory modules (SIMMs), dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs) and small outline DIMMs. These interfaces differ in the number and arrangement of conductive connections required with the motherboard 30, as well as in the bus width supported by each (the amount of data allowed to be transferred between the memory device and the CPU 38 at a given time). In addition to these interfaces, proprietary memory modules are also available, i.e., modules having interfaces which are not based on the industry standards, such as Rambus in-line memory modules, or RIMMs. The differences in these memory types and interfaces are well recognized and understood by those of ordinary skill in the art and so are not discussed in more detail herein.
In addition to the memory devices and modules mentioned above, other memory devices and modules are continually being developed and improved. Such improvements often result in larger memory size, measured in units of bytes and typically expressed in megabytes (MB), as well as the speed at which the memory device performs, expressed in MHZ. It is contemplated that memory sockets adapted for use with any type or design of memory module, including those which are newly designed and improved, are within the scope of the present invention.
Referring now to FIG. 4, motherboard 30 is shown having the conventional memory sockets 46 removed from the first surface 34 of the dielectric substrate 32. A set of apertures 58 is located in the dielectric substrate 32 where each of the memory sockets 46 previously resided. The individual apertures 60 and 62 comprise conductive elements connected to the printed circuit traces of substrate 32. Each set of apertures 58 represents the required number and arrangement of electrical connections for a given memory socket 46 to render proper communication between the CPU 38 and the memory module 48 (FIG. 3).
Referring to FIG. 5, a view of the second, opposing surface 36 of the motherboard 30 is shown. It is noted that no components are mounted to the second, opposing surface 36, which can also be seen in FIG. 2A. However, in FIG. 5 it is seen that the sets 58 of apertures 60 and 62 are shown to extend continuously from the first surface 34 through the substrate 32 to the second, opposing surface 36. With the apertures 60 and 62 extending completely through the substrate 32, the conductive elements are accessible from either of the surfaces 34 and 36 of the substrate. It is also noted that each set 58 of apertures 60 and 62 is arranged in an asymmetrical manner, in that each set of aperatures 58 includes two respective rows of apertures 60 and 62 longitudinally offset from each other. This can be seen and readily appreciated in comparing the arrangement of a set 58 of apertures 60 and 62 as viewed in FIG. 4 with the same set 58 of apertures 60 and 62 as viewed in FIG. 5. The arrangement of these apertures/conductive elements will be discussed in more detail below.
Referring to FIG. 6, an elevational view of the motherboard 30 is shown wherein a plurality of memory sockets 46′ are mounted to the second, opposing surface 36 of the motherboard 30. The memory sockets 46′ are similar to the original, conventional memory sockets 46 discussed in connection with FIGS. 2A and 2B in that they are configured to receive the same type or design of memory module 48. However, as will be discussed in greater detail below, the new memory sockets 46′ have a slightly different pinout configuration so as to be mountable on the second, opposing surface 36, or reverse side, of the motherboard 30. It is possible and contemplated as being within the scope of the present invention that the original memory sockets 46 may be modified to conform with the mounting requirements of the new memory sockets 46′ so that the appropriate pins of memory sockets 46 will connect to the appropriate apertures 60 and 62 of a given set of apertures 58 from the second, opposing surface 36. Such modification may be effected using an interposer to which memory socket 46 may be connected, the pinout arrangement of memory socket 46 being rearranged within the interposer so as to be compatible with the arrangement of a given set 58 of apertures 60 and 62 from second, opposing surface 36 of motherboard 30. However, it is more preferred that the inventive memory sockets 46′ will be originally manufactured for mounting on the second, opposing surface 36 of the motherboard 30.
Referring now to FIGS. 7A and 7B, an exemplary original, conventional memory socket 46, as utilized in conjunction with FIGS. 2A and 2B, is shown. The memory socket 46 is shown in FIG. 7A as viewed from the top surface 72 thereof while FIG. 7B depicts the memory socket 46 as viewed from the bottom surface 74 thereof The memory socket 46 includes an insulative or dielectric housing 70. An elongated channel, or slot, 76 is formed in the top surface 72 of the housing 70. Along one edge of the channel 76 is a first row 78 of individual conductive elements or contacts 82. Along an opposing edge of the channel 76 is a second row 80 of individual conductive elements or contacts 84. The contacts 84 and 82 are formed and located so as to engage the conductive contacts 54 of a memory module 48 as disclosed in FIG. 3. While FIG. 3 only depicts one side of a memory module 48, the opposing surface may carry a similar set of conductive contacts 54 thus creating two rows of conductive contacts 54 (the conductive contacts 54 of one row being optionally electrically isolated or in communication with those of the other row, depending on the module design) for engagement with the two rows of contacts 78 and 80 housed in the memory socket 46. A key element 86 is also located in the channel 76 for mating with the notched section 56 of the memory module 48 to facilitate proper installation of memory module 48 into the memory socket 46.
FIG. 7B discloses a first row 88 of conductive contacts, shown here as conductive pins 94. A second row 90 of conductive contacts or pins 92 runs parallel to the first row 88. The conductive pins 92 and 94 protrude through the bottom surface 74 of the insulative housing 70 and, as illustrated, are each electrically coupled to one of the electrical contacts 82 and 84. For sake of clarity and discussion herein, it will be assumed that each conductive pin 92 is electrically coupled to an electrical contact 82 and that each conductive pin 94 is electrically coupled to an electrical contact 84.
As noted above, the memory socket 46 shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B is configured for mounting to the first surface 34 of the motherboard 30. This configuration is established by the pattern formed by the conductive pins 92 and 94 on the bottom surface 74 of the memory socket 46. It is noted that the conductive pins 92 and 94 are arranged in two rows 88 and 90 and that the first row 88 is (as illustrated) offset slightly to the left of the second parallel row 90. Thus, if the two rows are considered together as one set 96 of pins, the set 96 is asymmetrical in configuration. Referring again to FIG. 4, the set 58 of apertures 60 and 62 is also arranged in an asymmetric pattern of two parallel rows. It is noted that the staggered or offset pattern of conductive pins 92 and 94 located on the memory socket 46 is arranged to mirror and mate with a corresponding pattern created by the set 58 of apertures 60 and 62. Thus, for example, each conductive pin 92 would be inserted into and coupled with a conductive aperture 60 comprising a conductive element and creating an electrical connection between an electrical contact 84 of the memory socket 46 and the printed circuit traces of the motherboard 30 via aperture 60. Similarly, each conductive pin 94 would be inserted into and coupled with an aperture 62 creating an electrical connection between electrical contacts 82 and the printed circuit traces of motherboard 30 via aperture 62. Thus, the conductive pins 94 and 92 found in the two rows 88 and 90, respectively, would correlate with the mating set 58 of apertures 62 and 60. Once inserted into the apertures 60 and 62, the pins 92 and 94 are typically soldered, as is well-known in the art, to secure and maintain a proper mechanical and electrical connection between the printed circuit traces of the motherboard 30 and the memory socket 46.
Referring to FIGS. 8A and 8B, an exemplary, modified memory socket 46′ according to the present invention is shown. As discussed above, the modified memory socket 46′ is configured for mounting to the second, opposing surface 36 of the motherboard 30. The modified memory socket 46′ is similar to the original memory socket 46 and, therefore, like numbering is maintained for like elements and features. The modified memory socket 46′ includes a housing 70 having an elongated channel 76 formed in the top surface 72 of the housing 70. The elongated channel 76 houses a first row 78 of conductive contacts 82 and a second row 80 of electrical contacts 84. The two rows 78 and 80 are on opposing sides of the channel 76 and run parallel to each other. A key element 86 is also located in the channel 76 for mating with a notched section 56 of a memory module 48 as described above.
The modified memory socket 46′ also has a pair of rows of conductive contacts, shown as pins, but the pin arrangement differs from that of the original memory socket 46. FIG. 8B shows a first row 90′ of conductive pins 92′ disposed on the bottom surface 74 of the modified memory socket 46′ and a second row 88′ of conductive pins 94′ located adjacent and parallel to the first row 90′. The two rows 88′ and 90′ form an asymmetric pin or contact pattern. However, the pin arrangement of the modified socket 46′ differs from that of the original socket 46 as shown in FIG. 7B. Specifically, the rows 88′ and 90′ are arranged in a mirror image pattern in comparison to the pin rows 88 and 90 of the original memory socket 46. Stated another way, the pin arrangement of memory socket 46′ is reversed from that of memory socket 46. While individual pin positions have been relocated in memory socket 46′, each pin is coupled to the same, corresponding electrical contacts as on memory socket 46. So, for example, each conductive pin 92′, while moved from its original physical position (i.e., from the location of a corresponding pin 92 in FIG. 7B) is still designated as being electrically coupled to electrical contact 82. Likewise, each conductive pin 94′, while moved from its original physical position (i.e., from the location of pin 94 in FIG. 7B) remains as the designated electrical connection with electrical contact 84.
By physically moving the pin locations while still maintaining the electrical pinto-contact relationships defined in the original memory socket 46, the modified memory socket 46′ may be mounted to the bottom side, or second, opposing surface 36, of the motherboard 30. This is physically possible because, as viewed from both sides of the motherboard, the set of apertures 58 viewed from first surface 34 forms a mirror or reverse image pattern with itself as viewed from second, opposing surface 36. Thus, the pin arrangement of the modified socket 46′—configured as a mirror image of the pin set of the original socket 46—physically mates with the set of apertures 58 from the second, opposing surface 36 of the substrate 32. Specifically, pins 92′ and 94′ of the modified memory socket 46′ may now be inserted into apertures 60 and 62 respectively (as shown in FIG. 5) from the second, opposing surface 36 of the motherboard 30.
Significantly, not only does the modified memory socket 46′ physically mate with the set of apertures 58 as seen from the second, opposing surface 36, but the electrical circuit including memory socket 46′ remains the same as when the original socket 46 was mounted to the first surface 34 of the motherboard 30. Using the examples and relationships defined above, each conductive contact 82 of the modified memory socket 46′ is connected to an associated conductive pin 92′ which is then correctly inserted in and coupled to an aperture 60. Likewise, each electrical contact 84 of the modified memory socket 46′ is connected to an associated conductive pin 94′ which is correctly inserted in and coupled to an aperture 62. Thus, even though the physical location of the memory socket has changed (i.e., from the first surface 34 of the substrate 32 to the second, opposing surface 36) and even though the conductive pin arrangement has been modified, the same circuit is formed upon insertion of a memory module 48 into the modified memory socket 46′. Therefore, regardless of whether the original memory socket 46 is mounted to the first surface 34 or the modified socket 46′ is mounted to the second, opposing surface 36, each individual conductive contact denoted as 82 will be correctly electrically coupled to its correctly associated aperture 60 and each individual electrical contact denoted as 84 will be electrically coupled to its correctly associated aperture 62. Thus, all electrical contacts of the sockets 46 or 46′ retain identity with respective, associated conductive apertures found in the motherboard 30.
A modified memory socket 46′ as described above, which may be generally referred to as having a reverse pinout, may be mounted and coupled to the reverse side (second, opposing surface 36) of a motherboard 30 to place the memory socket 46′ in an area unencumbered by other chips, slots or expansion devices. Thus, the memory sockets 46′ are now placed in a location allowing access to the associated memory modules 48 freely and without difficulty. This method of modification may be implemented with any existing motherboard 30 and is generally depicted by referring sequentially to FIGS. 2A, 4, 5, and 6. FIG. 2A shows the motherboard 30 having the original memory sockets 46 mounted and electrically coupled to the printed circuit traces of the motherboard 30. As noted above, the memory socket 46 is typically mounted by inserting conductive pins into corresponding apertures found in the motherboard 30 and then soldering the pins within apertures. Thus, removal of the memory socket 46 entails the reflow of the solder (i.e., raising the solder to a temperature which allows it to change into liquid phase) and the subsequent removal of the memory socket 46 from the substrate 32 as well as cleaning of solder therefrom. Following the removal of the memory socket 46, a modified memory socket 46′ according to the invention and having a reversed pin-out is provided. The conductive pins of the modified memory socket 46′ are inserted into the set of apertures 58 from the second, opposing surface 36 of the motherboard 30. The conductive pins are then soldered to the set of apertures 58 forming an electrical connection. The motherboard 30 is then in condition to be used as a memory testing device, or in any other capacity wherein greater access to the memory modules/sockets is desired.
Referring now to FIG. 9, a memory testing system 100 is shown in accordance with the present invention. The system 100 includes a frame 102 to which a plurality of motherboards 30 are mounted. The motherboards 30 are configured in accordance with the above disclosure and like numerals are used to reference like elements and features. Each motherboard 30 includes a plurality of modified memory sockets 46′ mounted on the second, opposing surface 36 of the motherboard's dielectric substrate 32 (not shown). The memory sockets 46′ each receive a memory module 48 as part of a testing sequence. The motherboards 30 are mounted vertically such that the second, opposing surface 36 and associated memory sockets 46′ are readily accessible. In the specific embodiment shown, the second, opposing surface 36 is mounted facing the exterior of the frame 102. This specific embodiment further shows that the motherboards 30 may be mounted adjacent each other in multiple horizontal rows and vertical columns defining a matrix of motherboards 30. However, it is noted that the frame design and arrangement of motherboards relative to the frame may be modified in numerous ways to accommodate the end user, or the programmed patterns of an automated handling unit. For example, motherboards of various styles, sizes and manufacture may be implemented with such a system. Furthermore, different motherboards 30 may be intermixed within a single system. FIG. 9 also schematically illustrates an input device 104 to generate test signals and a monitoring device 106 to receive signals from the motherboards 30. FIG. 9 further schematically illustrates that insertion and removal of memory modules 48 may be effected automatically through use of an automated (robotic) system 108 as schematically illustrated in broken lines, as clear access to each horizontally oriented memory module 48 is provided.
While the invention may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and have been described in detail herein. However, it should be understood that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the following appended claims.
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UK's Self-Repairing Cities
British engineers are determined to create self-repairing cities using (what else?) drones. The intent is that small flying robots will notice and repair everything; potholes, streetlights and utility pipes.
The University of Leeds recently won 4.2 million pound grant (about $6.5 million USD) from the U.K.’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to create a national infrastructure for so-called “self-repairing cities..."
The team, led by civil engineer Phil Purnell and including researchers from University College London and the Universities of Birmingham and Southampton, is currently working on three drone designs. One set of robots will be responsible for “perch and repair,” meaning they will perch, like birds, on tall structures and make small repairs to things like streetlights. The “perceive and patch” robots will not only automatically inspect, diagnose, and repair potholes in the road, but will also prevent future ones from forming. And “fire and forget” drones will monitor and repair utility pipes as needed.
The advantage? Using drones means that problems can be detected and fixed early on, so the city won’t have to perform large and disruptive repairs down the line. “Most of what we’re proposing is for the drones to do very simple and mundane tasks,” Purnell says. “When you look at major infrastructure failures—things like potholes or failures in pipe lines—they’re often caused by very small, millimeter-scale defects. And if those were caught early by an automated system, then the larger failures and inconveniences wouldn’t occur.”
Yes, you'd hate for "inconveniences to occur". My only caveat about this shiny sfnal future is that it seems to so often go bad. I think one of the earliest mentions of a city that takes care of itself is the machine city from science fiction legend John W. Campbell's 1934 story Twilight:
The city was divided into two sections, a section of many strata where machines functioned smoothly, save for a deep humming beat that echoed through the whole city like a vast unending song of power.
Seven or even seventy million years don't mean much to old Mother Earth. She may even succeed in wearing down those marvelous machine cities...
When the builders made those cities, they forgot one thing. They didn't realize that things shouldn't go on forever.
That's fine, as far as it goes. But in Robert Silverberg's The Man in the Maze, the city actually defends itself against invaders with horrific traps; Ray Bradbury refers to cities that not only kill invaders but also clean up after themselves.
Fans of Stanislaw Lem might recall the idea of repair robots in his wonderful 1954 novel The Invincible:
Faint rattling noises came from inside the hull as if swarms of tiny animals were busily scurrying about scratching the metal walls with their sharp little claws. This was the sign that the repair robots had started out on their rounds, checking the solidity of the braces of the ship's framework; making sure that the hull had not been damaged anywhere and that all seams were still welded tight.
(Read more about Stanislaw Lem's repair robots)
See this story about self-contained Russian lighthouses, as well as this article on the Bridge-MINDER Repair Robot
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/16/2015)
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Herbal Information For You
Antioxidants help stop the effects of
aging. Antioxidants are molecules which attack free radicals. Free
radicals are unstable molecules with an unpaired electron. As they take
electrons from other molecules they damage normal cells. Damage caused by
free radicals is call oxidation. Oxidation has been linked to many
diseases including heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, arthritis,
cancer, cataracts, macular degeneration, immune suppression, Alzheimer's
and aging in general.
Free radicals occur naturally in the
body. Additional free radicals are generated in the body by stress,
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In tough economic times, police departments struggle to keep their K-9 units afloat
To absorb more than $30 million in losses, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department had to focus almost exclusively on answering 911 calls, but police dogs and their handlers survived the cuts. It's a scenario that is playing out among the thousands of K-9 teams across the country that have survived deep budget cuts to stay on the job.
In part that's because dogs are winning the popularity contest. In a few towns where cutbacks targeted K-9 dogs, citizens rallied to raise money to keep the animals at work. They've even had help from celebrity friends such as Ozzy Osbourne, who donated a K-9 dog to the Muncie Police Department in Indiana in September.
But there are other advantages to keeping animals on the job. They protect the officers they work with, do jobs that people can't and use bites, not bullets.
"When you look at the tremendous savings in man-hours that are achieved by using trained dogs to search for suspects or victims or narcotics or explosives, it's very easy to recognize the fact that they are the probably the most cost-efficient tool we have," said Officer Bill Cassell of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Dogs can run faster, get into tighter spots and look more menacing than most humans. Plus they have stronger noses, better hearing and better vision, at least under low light conditions.
"They are so valuable, so important to what police officers do," said Pamela Reid, vice president of the ASPCA's Animal Behavior Center in Urbana, Ill.
In San Diego, police eliminated 12 dogs from its K-9 corps to save about $500,000 of the $15 million it had to cut. But the department still has 27 dogs on the force in a city where a use-of-force panel recommended more K-9 units because of the number of people being shot by officers.
That was 20 years ago, and things have changed, said Assistant Chief Bob Kanaski.
"I don't expect to see a rise in officer-involved shootings," he said. "We'll miss the dogs, no doubt about it. We'll have to use different tactics to slow things down until we get the dogs there."
Cleveland, Ohio, reduced its K-9 unit in 2004 when the department lost 252 jobs, but the dogs were all reinstated, said Tom Ross, recording secretary for the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Assn.
To a street officer, the benefits of a dog are immeasurable, Ross said. "If they [suspects] think you're going to let that dog go, it's going to influence their decision" to run or surrender, Ross said.
No K-9 in the country has more job security right now than Nitro of Aberdeen Police Department in Washington. Nitro was laid off in May as police struggled to wring every last cent from a shriveling budget, Chief Robert Torgerson said.
But the German shepherd was back two months later because the department received $14,000 in donations from around the country and a $43,000 check from the philanthropic Tamaki Foundation in Seattle. That was enough to buy a new dog vest and a new K-9 car, as well as guarantee Nitro four more years on the job, Torgerson said.
"It was great. We were blessed," Torgerson said.
The Bloomsburg Police Department in Pennsylvania laid off its three dogs one year ago, Chief Leo Sokoloski said, when town fathers chose to eliminate them instead of the department's 26 sworn and civilian personnel. It saved $5,000 to $6,000, the chief said.
A lot of people heard about it and sent money. Several thousand dollars came in.
"But in the interest of fairness to the goodwill of the people, we sent the money back with gratitude. The council's decision was not to re-implement the program," Sokoloski said. "We decided it was prudent to wait and see if the economy gets better."
A K-9 dog costs between $10,000 and $20,000 and must be trained along with its handler, said Sacramento Deputy Brian Amos.
Even so, dogs are the "cheapest employee that any agency will ever have," said Russ Hess, director of the United States Police Canine Assn.
"He only works for the love and his food," he said.
Every department in the country is cutting everything it can, said Jeff Meyer, the publisher of Police K-9 Magazine in Lakewood, Colo., but you don't see the public support for other programs the way you do the dogs.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's foundation has donated money to that city's police department for K-9s and equipment. Roethlisberger also donates a dog to all the cities where the Steelers play each year.
The 22 K-9 teams with the St. Paul Police Department in Minnesota became mini-celebrities when their unit was featured in the "Animal Planet" TV series.
"It was one of the first opportunities for people to see what police dogs do, not only here, but across the country, every day," Sgt. Paul Dunum said.
Dunum said he is constantly amazed by what the dogs do. One of the best things is winning over people.
Money, Dunum said, can't buy that kind of goodwill.
-- Associated Press
Photo: Jesse, a Belgian Malinois police dog with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, poses with his handler Brian Amos on Feb. 17. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
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As a new teacher, starting the first quarter can be an exciting but daunting experience. You are eager to make a difference in your students' lives but at the same time, you are faced with many challenges. From managing your class, creating engaging lessons, to dealing with difficult students, it can be overwhelming. In this article, we share five proven strategies that can help new teachers survive and thrive in the first quarter.
1. Plan and Prepare Thoroughly
The first step in surviving the first quarter is to plan and prepare thoroughly. Before the first day of school, make sure you have a clear understanding of the curriculum, lesson plans, and activities you will be teaching. Additionally, create a lesson plan for each day, including class routines and procedures, to ensure that you have a smooth start to the school year.
2. Establish a Classroom Management Plan
One of the biggest challenges new teachers face is managing their classroom. To make your life easier, create a classroom management plan that outlines your expectations for student behavior, consequences for misbehavior, and rewards for good behavior. Make sure to communicate these expectations to your students on the first day of school, and consistently enforce them throughout the quarter.
3. Engage Students with Interactive and Hands-On Activities
Making learning fun and engaging is key to keeping your students interested and motivated. Try incorporating hands-on activities, games, and interactive lessons into your teaching. This will not only keep your students interested but also help them retain information better.
4. Seek Support from Colleagues and Mentors
As a new teacher, you don't have to go through the first quarter alone. Seek support from your colleagues, mentor teachers, and administrators. They can provide valuable advice and support as you navigate your first year of teaching.
5. Stay Organized
Finally, staying organized is crucial for survival in the first quarter. Keep track of deadlines, assignments, and grades for each student, and use technology tools to help you stay organized. This will help you save time and avoid stress, allowing you to focus on what really matters - teaching.
Starting the first quarter as a new teacher can be challenging, but with these five proven strategies, you can thrive and make a positive impact in your students' lives. Remember to plan and prepare thoroughly, establish a classroom management plan, engage students with interactive and hands-on activities, seek support from colleagues and mentors, and stay organized. With hard work and dedication, you will become an excellent teacher in no time.
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Last stretch of ‘True’ Chinatown could vanish, Bangkok
Plaeng Nam Road embodies all of the Chinese culture that has taken root and grown here in the past, but modern development threatens to destroy it if compromises aren’t made
Anyone who wants to understand Bangkok’s past should take a journey down Plaeng Nam Road, a 200m-long street running between Yaowarat and Charoen Krung Road that is packed with the remnants and colour of earlier eras. But before entering this evocative world, it is important to have an overall view of the city’s Chinatown. Although every part of it is important and has its special character, it is the area alongside the Chao Phraya River by Ratchawong Road, with its wharves and warehouses, that was the original financial, commercial, and entertainment centre of the Chinese community in Bangkok. There were Chinese opera theatres, tea houses and legal card-playing venues, as well as Thailand’s first topless dancing clubs. On Suea Pa Road there were luxurious Chinese restaurants with big bands and dancing.
Behind the buildings lining the roads were residences and shrines. There were both Chinese-style compounds and homes whose style combined Chinese and Western features. The grounds of the compound reflected the status of the people who lived there, but that was a relatively minor feature. Much more important were the many wooden rooms and other structures that were joined to form rows. These were connected by walkways that made a web-like network. This environment was extremely crowded, and the walkways were so narrow that when passing someone coming the other way it was necessary to tilt one’s head to avoid collisions.
The inhabitants of the rows were members of a single Chinese family. Some of these families were very big, but even though they were so jammed together that they sometimes had to take turns sleeping because of limited space, they were content to live that way. They belonged to the same kind of society, and understood each other. If a stranger or an ethnic Thai came into the neighbourhood, he was viewed with suspicion.
Chinatown still has significance for ethnic Chinese Thais, even those who live far away. When they want to buy certain products, such as coffee beans, they go to Ratchawong Road. If they want to see a Chinese opera performance or buy seasonings for cooking it usually means a trip to Yaowarat or Charoen Krung Road. The same is true if they want to purchase gold. But for some, Chinatown is now too big, varied and spread out. For these ethnic Chinese, Plaeng Nam Road presents a compact version of Chinatown that offers the basic necessities.
The buildings there are old and in the style of earlier times, low rather than multi-storeyed and blending Chinese and Western architectural concepts. All of the land they stand on belongs to the Crown Property Bureau, which built these shophouses for Chinese merchants. The merchandise sold on Plaeng Nam Road in the past was mostly for daily use in traditional Chinese households. There were shops with Chinese notebooks, and writing brushes and ink, and shops that carved Chinese characters into stone to create stamps, together with the red ink needed to stamp seals and signatures. Chinese kitchen equipment of all kinds was available, including ceramic teapots, as well as a full selection of traditional Chinese medicines and fresh medicinal herbs. Chinese musical instruments were offered, too, as well as lanterns and paraffin-fuelled stoves. While many of these items can no longer be found on Plaeng Nam Road, today, as in the past, there is plenty of food.
Shops selling khao kha moo (rice with aromatic stewed pork leg), khao man kai (Hainanese-style chicken and rice), the sweet Chinese sausage called kunchieng, and khao tom pet (rice soup with duck) are easy to find, and they look and operate pretty much as they did in the past. It all adds up to make Plaeng Nam Road a centre for the needs of traditional Chinese families, whether they live in Chinatown or come from far away.
The small but busy street has lost none of its importance, but it has had to adapt to changing times. For example, because the musical instrument shops are doing business at a time when not many young people play traditional Chinese music, they now repair old instruments and sell equipment for use in shrines. The ones that used to deal in lanterns and kerosene stoves now repair these items brought in by collectors.
Old shops whose businesses have been overtaken by changing times have been rented to new tenants that sell different kinds of products, like shark’s fin soup or bird’s nest soup. There are even khao tom shops that serve customers round the clock, making Plaeng Nam Road a street that never sleeps. All in all, it remains a place full of interesting things to discover, as it has been for a long time.
Today, there are some developments that cause uneasiness and fear in long-time residents of Chinatown. The end of Charoen Krung Road will be the site of a new underground station, and some row houses have been razed to make room for the entrance. But one thing is certain _ in the future, this area will be swarming with people who come in by train, and it will become a prime commercial district. So the current residents and merchants are nervous because they don’t know what plans the Crown Property Bureau has for Plaeng Nam Road. The bureau has not renewed any leases nor explained what is in store.
Many people want to preserve the character of the area. Some locals have painted their buildings to make them more attractive and therefore, hopefully, more worth saving, but others seem more resigned and see such activities as useless. They feel it’s just a matter of time before they’re kicked out. Then there are the many younger people who feel no strong attachment to the neighbourhood.
If everyone accepts that the bureau wants to earn more income from the area, there are several ways out. The residents and the bureau will have to understand each other’s viewpoints and find a compromise. If it is decided that the original atmosphere and character of the neighbourhood should be preserved but that rents have to go up, the residents must be willing to pay and to restore their properties.
Invasive features will have to go, meaning that tangles of electrical wires, air conditioners and the like must be concealed. The environment, including traffic on pavements and streets, will have to be made to run smooth and orderly. Plaeng Nam’s residents will need to have a concrete plan for accomplishing the improvements, with an awareness of the rewards that will follow.
In the meantime, and hopefully in the future as well, those who go to Plaeng Nam Road for a taste of the original flavour of Chinatown _ in terms of both cuisine and culture _ will not be disappointed.
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Lyon Arboretum signs up to protect HawaiiUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species
The Harold L. Lyon Arboretum is the first botanical garden in Hawaiʻi to adopt the "Codes of Conduct," a list of voluntary actions to help protect Hawaiʻi from invasive ornamental plants. New actions Lyon Arboretum plans include:
· Examine its vision, mission, policies and practices to ensure clear guidance to stem the spread of invasive plants.
· Use the Hawaiʻi Weed Risk Assessment, a screening tool that predicts a plant‘s potential to become invasive if planted here. The Hawaiʻi Weed Risk Assessment is like a "background check" on a plant.
· Review its entire collection using the Hawaiʻi Weed Risk Assessment, and work with the Oʻahu Invasive Species Committee to identify potentially harmful species that should be controlled before they spread.
"Having organizations like the Lyon Arboretum voluntarily take these proactive measures is extremely importantómost people don‘t realize that it is perfectly legal to import almost any of the world‘s 200,000+ plant species into Hawaiʻi, without any sort of review process, even if they are known to be harmfully invasive elsewhere," said Christy Martin, Public Information Officer, Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, said. "The Codes of Conduct go beyond what‘s mandated by law to protect Hawaiʻi‘s environment."
Dr. Christopher Dunn, the new director of Lyon Arboretum, was surprised that they were the first garden to sign the Codes of Conduct, but believes that more will agree to help once word gets out. "Although botanic gardens exist primarily to showcase the richness of the plant world, we must be mindful of the actual and potential impacts of non-native plants on our natural habitats. Signing the Voluntary Codes is just one way that Lyon Arboretum can mālama ʻāina," explained Dr. Dunn.
Lyon Arboretum is the only university botanical garden located in a tropical rainforest in the U.S. and covers almost 200 acres atop the Manoa Valley watershed. Its tropical plant collection focuses on native Hawaiian species, tropical palms, aroids, ti, taro, heliconia and ginger.
Established in 1918 by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, Lyon Arboretum demonstrates the value of water restoration, reforestation and plant collection. Today, it is a branch of the University of Hawaiʻi and coordinates and conducts research, instruction and service activities using its collections and resources. Lyon Arboretum serves approximately 34,000 visitors a year.
More information on the Codes of Conduct can be found at www.lickhawaii.edu (click on invasive species).
For more information, visit: http://www.lichawaii.com
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NOK 11,5 million (app €1,5 million) have been granted to three joint Norwegian-Russian projects on polar and petroleum research. Three new research projects will give us new knowledge on the Arctic and strengthen Norway’s and Russia’s common knowledge base on the area.
The three projects that have received grants are “4DARCTIC: Structure and evolution of Arctic crust and mantle based on multi-scale Geophysical studies”, which is a joint project between the University of Oslo and the Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics; “CLIMate variability and change in the Eurasian ARCtic in the 21st century”, a cooperation project between the Nansen Center and Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory; “Combined effects of Petroleum and the Environment in bivalves from the Norwegian-Russian Arctic”, a joint project between the University of Tromsø and the Karelian Research Centre, RAS Institute of Biology.
All the three projects are cooperation projects between scientists in Norway and Russia. The project partners are covering half of the expenses, the rest is covered by the Russian research foundation Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and the Research Council of Norway is covering the Norwegian part.
“This research cooperation will give an important contribution to a holistic management of the sea and the resources in Arctic areas through a common knowledge base”, says the Research Council of Norway’s Director Arvid Hallén to the council’s web site.
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[Papers for Discussion]
[Multimedia for Discussion] [XMCA Website Search]
[New Books] [Book Reviews] [Analyses of XMCA] [Links]
The Mind, Culture, and Activity Homepage is an interactive forum for a community of interdisciplinary scholars who share an interest in the study of human mind in its cultural and historical contexts. Our emphasis is research that seeks to resolve methodological problems associated with the analysis of human and theoretical approaches that place culture and activity at the center of attempts to understand human nature. Our participants come from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, cognitive science, education, linguistics, psychology and sociology.
Central to the organization of activities in the community is the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition at the University of California, San Diego. LCHC sponsors the MCA Discussion Forum and the associated XMCA, an e-mail discussion group.
This homepage seeks to integrate a variety of activities in the community into one on-line resource. On this page you will find links to current and past issues of MCA, on-line discussions from the XMCA mailing list, personal profiles of our participants, and links to other related Web sites. We invite all people interested in any aspect of our activities and research to contribute to a common dialogue among e-mail discussants, journal subscribers, and interested researchers.
2010: Towsey, P., Kellogg, D., & Cole, M.
The Symposium on Vygotsky's Concepts: Part One (PDF)
This document was created from a video presentation that we put together for posting on the CHAT Vimeo site. The purpose of creating this text version is to provide people with a transcript of the speakers' arguments from the video to facilitate citations.
January 1st, 2008: David Kellogg et al. on development
David Kellogg and in colleagues in S. Korea have sent us a very interesting video response to an ealier discussion by Cole, Subbotsky, Hakkarainen, and Engestrom on development in CHAT. The movies are digitzed in nine parts (Quicktime Movies): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
In addition, David Kellogg has provided us with some of the PowerPoints and Word Documents that accompanied these wonderful discussions above. Download these presentations and notes to further engage in our discussion!
Kim Yongho's PowerPoint
Cho Hyosun's PowerPoint
Song Seonmi's Word Document
Shin Jieun's PowerPoint
David's Contribution Summary
November 5th, 2007: Development
A discussion between LCHC in San Diego and the Center for Activity Research in Helsinki is available for viewing online. In addition, there are the powerpoint files used by the various presenters (Mike Cole, Pentti Hakarainnen, and Yrjo Engestrom). These discussions should be followed up on the XMCA mailing-list.
The current article
for discussion in
Mind, Culture,and Activity:
An International Journal
Papers for Discussion:
Related Web Sites:
An archive of Historical Cluster Maps for MCA
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New Year Brings New Members to European Union
RENÉE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning, I'm Renée Montagne.
The New Year's celebrations in Romania and Bulgaria also marked a new day for the two former communist countries. As of January 1st, they became part of the European Union. The new citizens of the EU flocked to their capitals for fireworks and celebrated in the streets. It took over a decade of negotiating, but both countries - now the poorest in the EU - have a lot to gain by joining.
This is MORNING EDITION.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
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In the 1950s, three examples of mural art depicting extinct creatures, The Age of Reptiles, The Age of Mammals and the 'King of the Sea' or Kronosaurus queenslandicus, were painted as decorative and instructive images on the walls of the new Geology Museum at the University of Queensland. Despite heritage-listing, these murals have not fared well in terms of their visibility, something this study seeks to redress by setting them in the local historic and artistic context as well as in relation to the development of palaeoart worldwide.
In the 1950s, during the construction and decoration of the University of Queensland at its new St Lucia site in suburban Brisbane, three murals were painted on the walls of the Geology Museum in what is now the Richards Building. The subject of the first picture was The Age of Reptiles while the second depicted The Age of Mammals (or, more specifically, local megafauna). The third celebrated the giant marine reptile Kronosaurus queenslandicus, described in a 1936 newspaper article as the 'King of the Sea' that 'swam in the seas of Central Australia' 110–100 million years ago. The museum is now located elsewhere; and although the heritage-listed murals survive, they are largely ignored since they are situated in a restricted access laboratory.
The 1936 article goes on to argue for the value of studying and restoring fossils:
The discovery of these fossil skeletons of monsters of the past presents to scientists definite evidences of the processes of evolution.
As the telescope enables the astronomer to look far into space and thrill us with the magnitude of things once unknown, so the study of fossils enables the palaeontologist to look far back into time, and reconstruct to some degree the wonderful life of the remote part of our earth millions of years before the coming of man.
But if this study does allow the palaeontologist 'to look far back into time, and reconstruct to some degree' past life, the issue of degree is a significant one. Pictures that seek to re-create and vivify extinct creatures ('palaeoimages' in recent terminology) raise interesting issues about what we mean by realism as well as the relationship between art and science. They are dependent on current scientific notions and can easily seem out-of-date as ideas about these creatures change. Do they thereby become worthless? Or does their status as works of art or as indicators of particular historical ideas and values make them significant? While they aim to convince with their realism, such representations are also highly conventional, characterised as they are by what Stephen Jay Gould describes as 'unnatural crowding and pervasive predation'.
In other words, palaeoart has a history. One of my aims in this study is to situate the University of Queensland murals within this wider history by describing their precursors, possible influences, and relationship to other noteworthy examples from the mid-twentieth century. This will enable an evaluation of their claims to heritage significance. Other goals include enhancing their visibility and reviving the intended memorial function of the Kronosaurus mural. I begin by describing the murals and the particular events that led to their presence at St Lucia, including the dramatic circumstances surrounding the painting of the 'King of the Sea'.
Designed by Jack Francis Hennessy (1887–1955) of the Sydney architectural firm of Hennessy, Hennessy & Co., the Richards Building is part of the Great Court complex (see Fig. 1), one of the first buildings to be completed in the years after the Second World War and one of the few to receive a full complement of decorative schemes, both outside and inside, something that had to be curtailed in subsequent building work as the university sought to cope with an influx of students and a cut-back in funding. The Geology Department made the move to St Lucia in the summer of 1949–50 and staff members designed the frieze above the main entrance to the building. Both Frederick William Whitehouse (1900–73) and Dorothy Hill (1907–97), two very successful graduates of the department who returned to teach and undertake research at the University of Queensland after obtaining postgraduate qualifications from Cambridge, were involved. Whitehouse's reputation has been tarnished by the circumstances surrounding his resignation from the University of Queensland in 1955 (he was being prosecuted on a morals charge). According to Hill in her 1981 history of the department, he was 'charismatic, vital, and a bachelor, enthusiastic about his teaching, his research, his U.Q. Dramatic Society and Rowing Club activities, and his various amusements'; his resignation was a 'grievous blow'.
The low relief scene above the main entrance depicting dinosaurs and vegetation was carved in sandstone by John Theodore Muller (1872–1953). German-born and trained, Muller carried out most of the stone carving done at St Lucia between 1939 and his death in 1953. The various relief panels were designed by others, but he was responsible for the preparation of final cartoons and any adjustments that seemed necessary during the actual cutting of the stone. In his 1957 guide to the university, literary scholar Frederick Walter Robinson (1888–1971) notes that the dinosaur relief:
represents a pleasant afternoon spent together by various types of dinosaurs and their contemporaries, including the first birds, against an ideal landscape of Jurassic vegetation, more than a hundred million years ago. All the animals represented were, one is assured, herbivorous, not carnivorous; hence the scene corresponds to a pastoral landscape of our own age!
There is also a carved trilobite on the left of the main door, Xystridura saint smithii, named after a former Geology Survey of Queensland officer, E Cecil Saint Smith, while an ammonite (Prohysteroceras richardsi) on the right celebrates Richards.
the mural on the south wall comes nearer home. It is quite 'recent' in geological time, depicting animals that have lived and developed in Australia in the last million years. The skeletons on which reconstructions are based were found in the Pleistocene and Recent sediments, from, for instance, the Darling Downs.
Hole returned in 1958 to paint by himself the Kronosaurus queenslandicus mural (see Fig. 5). It was intended as a memorial to Heber Longman (1880–1954), the recently deceased former director of the Queensland Museum and the person responsible for identifying and naming Kronosaurus in 1924. The perceived need for such a memorial at this particular time is related to events taking place in the same year at another university museum: in 1958 the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology finally unveiled its reconstruction of an enormous skeleton of Kronosaurus collected on an expedition to Queensland in 1931–32. I will return to the politics of this situation later in this article, but at this stage I would like to signal the important precedent offered by American institutions, including some noteworthy university museums, with their decorative and instructive depictions of what Martin Rudwick has termed 'scenes from deep time'. Before considering the murals further, the training and experience of the two local artists should be examined.
Brisbane-born Don Cowen served in the Australian Army from 1942 to 1946, having completing his artistic training under local teacher Melville Haysom and also at the Central Technical College in Brisbane. Quentin Hole was a few years younger, a country lad born in Charleville who also served briefly in the Australian Army (1945–46) . Following this he studied art at the Central Technical College Art School under the auspices of the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme. Cowen and Hole seem to have been friends; they were members of the Younger Artists Group of the Royal Queensland Art Society and they also exhibited at Brian Johnstone's Marodian Gallery at 452 Upper Edward Street, Brisbane, during its brief life (1950–51), and at its successor, the Johnstone Gallery in the Brisbane Arcade (1952–57). They participated in the first exhibition at the Marodian Gallery, described by Louise Martin-Chew as consisting of 'unabashed flower painting with popular appeal. There was little in this exhibition of many Brisbane-based artists to frighten the natives'. They also exhibited together in a joint exhibition at the Marodian Gallery in April 1951. The Brisbane Courier-Mail reviewer Elizabeth Young favoured Hole over Cowen, writing that Hole was 'an artist of noteworthy promise' and suggesting that (in contrast to Cowen) he:
maintains an even standard in his work. Characterised by careful draughtsmanship with a delicate feeling for line, his watercolours have a pleasing unity, and in both watercolour and oil we are impressed by his sensitive colour.
Cowen is described as 'broad and emotional in his approach', while his work 'is, on the whole and unexpectedly, most satisfying in one or two of his watercolours'.
Most of the two artists' exhibited works were landscapes, with Hole painting inland scenes while Cowen favoured coastal or river subjects. Neither showed a particular interest in scenes from deep time. Nevertheless, the three murals are well designed and painted, especially the second and third. Detailed preliminary sketches survive for the first and second. What precedents existed in Brisbane and elsewhere for them to draw upon? I have noted that they were advised by Geology Department staff, including Whitehouse, who was probably also a friend, but they would also have needed artistic models. The prevailing style of art in Brisbane at this time was very conservative. The traditional academic training available there would have been an excellent preparation for the process of carefully constructing these murals depicting imaginary historical scenes. But what images of deep time might have been influential?
The earliest examples of palaeoart date from the first part of the nineteenth century and draw on a tradition of biblical imagery and conventions established in natural history illustrations, and also animal portraiture. It developed in the context of momentous discoveries in geology. While the idea of representing different stages in the history of the earth was influenced by the tradition of depicting the different days of creation as recounted in the Bible, awareness of the great age of the earth was developing along with a flexible notion of the time length of each 'day'. Fossils were initially understood as the remains of antediluvian creatures destroyed as a result of the Biblical Flood, but the idea of a single catastrophic flood was also being challenged by the geological record. Increasingly systematic approaches to geological research established the importance of careful recording of stratigraphy and it became apparent that different layers were characterised by different fossil remains.
In Paris, comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) began the process of reconstructing extinct creatures from fossil remains. He also popularised the use of illustrations of these skeletal reconstructions. Eventually 'they became as a matter of routine the first stage in the reconstruction of complete prehistoric scenes'. However, the inclusion of whole scenes from deep time in scientific works took some time to be accepted. The Geological Society in Britain frowned on speculative theories, so men of science who were anxious to preserve their professional reputations tended to avoid publishing anything that might be construed as speculative. For this reason Cuvier never published drawings where he had added a body outline and musculature to his reconstructed skeletons. In other words, he eschewed publication of restorations of extinct creatures, drawings that show their 'alleged appearance during life'.
Another view of the prehistoric past was offered by artist John Martin (1789–1854). Martin had achieved renown with his apocalyptic images of death and disaster including representations of the Biblical flood. His mezzotint, The Country of the Iguanodon, used by Gideon Mantell as the frontispiece for his Wonders of Geology (1838), introduced an unfamiliar atmospheric effect in prehistoric scenes with his prehistoric creatures depicted as terrifying monsters. Another important development in the history of ideas about the prehistoric past was the creation of three-dimensional models of prehistoric creatures. In Britain Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807–89) produced examples of dinosaurs under the advice of English comparative anatomist Richard Owen (1804–92), who invented the name 'dinosaur'. In 1854 these still-surviving models were displayed in the grounds of the relocated Crystal Palace at Sydenham. According to Stephen J Gould, they were responsible for the first instance of dinosaur-mania.
In the case of painted or engraved images, the main conventions of the genre were established in the 1860s, with the illustrations included in The Earth before the Deluge (1863) by Guillaume Louis Figuier (1819–94) being especially influential. The artist Edouard Riou (1833–1900) represented different stages of evolution in a series of scenes in which a wide variety of creatures are gathered together. Such images were usually designed for popular appeal, frequently being used in literature aimed at children.
Knight went on to paint scenes from deep time for many museums, including the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The images for the Field received wide circulation when they were used as illustrations in Alfred Sherwood Romer's Man and the Vertebrates (first published in 1933). Knight specialised in animal imagery, arguing in an article on the topic that 'Animal painting is a difficult art, more particularly if one is serious minded and not just dabbling with no real aspirations in any particular line'. In summary, he writes:
Far more than in figure painting, therefore, it is necessary to know something of the anatomy of the creature you desire to portray, and you simply must acquaint yourself with the important points in its general physical make-up. But one must also have an insight into the psychology behind the animal's actions because this psychology is the controlling element in its emotional responses.
This emotional intensity is evident in his palaeoimages, some of which, such as his encounter scene between Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, were very influential (see Fig. 7). Indeed, this image is reproduced in the Dinosaur or 'Playasaurus' Garden at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, re-opened in 2009 after refurbishment (see Fig. 8).
Closer to hand, the Queensland Museum and Heber Longman, its director between 1918 and 1945, provided some visual models. Longman, a former journalist and newspaper owner as well as an enthusiastic amateur naturalist, developed expertise in palaeontology. He was a keen promoter of the museum and its contents in local newspapers and he encouraged the use of images and illustration as an aid to display. In the 1920s he set up a display of the local herbivorous dinosaur, Rhoetsaurus brownei, which included a painting of the creature in its environment done by Douglas S Annand (1903–76), another local artist and graphic designer trained at the Central Technical College (Fig. 11). Longman also established links with the University of Queensland, becoming a part-time lecturer in palaeontology and collaborating with Whitehouse, so he is another possible source of advice for the artists.
In a 1921 paper on Euryzygoma Longman comments:
In 1915, when describing a giant turtle from the Queensland Cretaceous formations, the writer ventured to forecast that, when our areas were better known, novelties rivalling the grotesque monsters of other lands would be exhumed In life, this mammal must have been bizarre as a monster in an artist's realm of phantasy.
Journalist Clem Lack responded to Longman's ideas about the creature in a 1936 article on Longman and the museum, dubbing the creature 'Eury The Slobberer' and describing it as 'the weirdest fossil in the collection' and 'a bizarre marsupial type from the Cainozoic'. However, although viewers may well be struck by its curious appearance, its apparently cheerful expression and the direction of its gaze make it appealing as well. It is also a convincing depiction: the naturalistic style deriving from Renaissance art with light and shade creating a three-dimensional effect on a two-dimensional surface is a rhetorical device as well as a representational one.
Other adjustments in the final picture result in less 'pervasive predation' (replaced by imminent attack in the case of the thylacine and lungfish in the left foreground) and an overall slight reduction in clutter. Two reptiles, a large horned turtle (known as Meiolania oweni then, now renamed as Ninjemys oweni) and a giant carnivorous lizard, Megalania, are moved to centre stage, also an improvement. Megalania stands upright, with a bright blue tongue, while the turtle escapes the jaws of a giant crocodile in the sketch to be merely menaced by it in the final work. Again, both creatures appear to interrupt their activities in order to examine the viewer, as do the giant kangaroos in the left middle ground. Although overall the picture is static, the artists have introduced some movement by varying stances, avoiding too great a reliance on profile specimen-like poses. The sense that various attacks are about to take place adds a note of tension. The vibrant use of colour also attracts interest. This can be attributed solely to Hole and Cowen, since any possible sources such as Parker's newspaper illustrations based on his gouache and wash preparatory drawings or the Knight image included in Romer were black and white. It is a striking and unique picture and a significant achievement for the two artists as they prepared themselves to quit Brisbane for overseas.
The 1958 mural depicting Kronosaurus queenslandicus is the most accomplished of the three pictures, benefiting perhaps from Hole's trip to Europe, where he viewed art in England, France and Italy. The choice of viewpoint, composition, scale and handling of paint are all very effective in conveying a dramatic image of this enormous, air-breathing marine reptile with teeth 'the size of bananas'.
The project was initiated by Irene Longman (1877–1964), the wife of Heber Longman, and the first woman to be elected to the Queensland parliament, where she served as Member for Bulimba from 1929 to 1932. In 1957 she wrote to the University of Queensland proposing a monetary donation for a Kronosaurus mural that would be situated in the Geology Museum. She stated that the work would be 'in memory of my husband' (who had died in 1954) and that she would be 'happy to pay for the work of the artists engaged if the cost is not beyond my capacity'. Accuracy was to be an essential ingredient:
It is, I know, unnecessary to suggest to you that the artists, who are not palaeontologists, should not introduce into the sketch (for artistic or other reasons) specimens belonging to other geological periods.
This would be an appropriate memorial, since the fragmentary type specimen, held in the Queensland Museum, had been identified, christened and described by Longman in 1924. The name refers to the ancient Greek Titan Kronos who devoured his children. The discovery was important in establishing Longman's reputation in spite of his lack of formal training in geology or palaeontology. He seems to have regarded the creature as a particular favourite, recording further fragments in 1930. In one 1936 newspaper article he describes Kronosaurus as 'a pliosaur, a terrible reptilian monster, half crocodile, half fish, which basked in the Cretaceous seas of Western Queensland'. In a more popular vein, Longman declared: 'It must have been more terrible a reptile than [novelist] Zane Grey's "White Death Sharks" ... Without doubt ... King of the Sea'.
Heber Longman regretted the loss of this potential exhibit. Furthermore, in the United States there was a general lack of acknowledgement of his role in identifying and naming Kronosaurus queenslandicus. Science News Letter triumphantly announced that 'THE ONLY complete 100-million-year-old fossil skeleton of what was once the largest flesh-eating reptile in the sea has been reconstructed at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge'. No mention was made of Longman or of any local help in locating the specimen; instead Schevill is celebrated as the discoverer of the creature.
Plans for the reconstruction were long known in Queensland and there was dissatisfaction that Longman was being neglected. Indeed, under the heading 'WAS QUEENSLAND MONSTER', the Courier-Mail in April 1956 informed the public that 'Bones of a 50ft. sea monster, being restored in the U.S., were discovered in Queensland'. In the article, University of Queensland Geology Professor, WH Bryan, describes the true circumstances of the discovery and naming of the creature, noting that the Harvard University collector 'was directed to the specimen' he collected, but also acknowledging that restoration of the specimen was beyond the financial capacity of local institutions. The mural was well-advanced on 6 June 1958 when the Courier-Mail gave the local public 'A look at Kronosaurus Queenslandicus' just days before the unveiling of the Harvard reconstruction (details of which are contained in the article). Under a photograph of two staff members viewing the 'spectacular' picture, the sub-heading 'Local credit for monster' makes clear that the picture was part of the campaign to restore Longman's role in the story of Kronosaurus. Indeed, the article begins by stating, 'Queensland University has sent a firm reminder to America that the man who "discovered" and named the world's biggest marine reptile was a Queenslander' (in the form of a letter from Bryan to Harvard), and it goes on to recount the history of the finding and identification of the original specimen.
from Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 10 no. 2, facing p. 98
When the vice-chancellor, JD Story, wrote to Mrs Longman in June 1958 thanking her for her donation as well as for her 'keen interest and practical help', he suggested that 'the mural will be of absorbing wonderment for countless visitors'. He also stated: 'To me, personally, the linking of your husband's names with the University is a great pleasure. As colleagues, our comradeship was long and close'. Today there is no notice of the memorial function of the mural. Nor is it possible to view the image in its entirety, as it is bisected by a window with part in a corridor and the rest in a private office.
The Geology Museum in the Richards Building became a student laboratory in the later 1960s in response to a great influx of students at that time. A new museum was established in another building by the early 1970s. Space pressures are a constant problem at the University of Queensland, perhaps providing the most significant reason for abandoning the original setting for the murals; but changes in scientific conceptions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures probably also played a role. The pictures quickly became old-fashioned exemplars of outworn theories, especially the first mural, but they could still be the starting point for discussions about changes in scientific ideas. This approach is taken by the Queensland Museum in its Playasaurus Garden, where the illustration is supported by written texts to assist understanding. More marginalisation of the University of Queensland murals occurred in January 2003 when the space they occupied was turned into 'a modern fully refurbished area' for the Stable Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory. Although a 'special effort was made during refurbishment of the lab space to preserve the heritage-listed murals', they remain hard to see.
The murals are significant heritage items, unique in Australia and valuable in the context of worldwide palaeoart. They deserve to be more easily viewed and better known.
This paper has been independently peer-reviewed.
1 Ray Roberts, 'It swam in the sea of Central Australia!', Queenslander, 28 May 1936, p. 9. Roberts is quoting Heber Longman, director of the Queensland Museum at that time.
3 Allen A Debus & Diane E Debus, Paleoimagery: The Evolution of Dinosaurs in Art, McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina and London, 2002, pp. 7–8.
4 Stephen Jay Gould, 'Preface: Reconstructing (and deconstructing) the past', in Stephen Jay Gould (ed.), The Book of Life, Ebury Hutchinson, London, 1993, 6–21, p. 9.
5 Dorothy Hill, 'The first fifty years of the Department of Geology of the University of Queensland', Papers of the Geology Department of the University of Queensland, vol. 10, no. 1, 1981, 1–68 (p. 1); see pp. 6, 8 for more information about Richards and his personality. See also Barry Woodworth, 'Geological research in Queensland', Semper Floreat, 4 August 1954, p. 3.
6 Hill, 'First fifty years', p. 31.
7 See 'University of Queensland, Great Court Complex', Cultural Heritage Register, Place ID 601025.
8 See Malcolm I Thomis, A Place of Light & Learning: The University of Queensland's First Seventy-Five Years, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1985, especially pp. 212–13.
9 Hill, 'First fifty years', pp. 35–6.
10 On Whitehouse, see Richard E Chapman, 'Whitehouse, Frederick William (1900–1973)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 16, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 2002, p. 538. Whitehouse began lecturing on palaeontology and stratigraphy in 1926, replacing WH Bryan who lectured on these topics between 1920 and 1926: Hill, 'First fifty years', p. 17. On Hill, see KSW Campbell & JS Jell, 'Dorothy Hill 1907–1997', Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 12, no. 2, 1998, www.science.org.au/academy/memoirs/hill.htm.
11 Hill, 'First fifty years', pp. 17, 41 ('grievous blow').
12 FW Robinson, 'Obituary: John Muller', University of Queensland Gazette, June 1953, p. 10. See also HJ Summers, 'A German craftsman leaves his mark on St Lucia University', Courier-Mail, 17 November 1951, p. 2.
13 FW Robinson, The University of Queensland, St Lucia Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1957, p. 25; on Robinson, teacher of English and German at the University of Queensland, see Nancy Bonnin, 'Robinson, Frederick Walter (1888–1971)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 11, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 1988, pp. 424–5.
14 Robinson, University of Queensland, p. 25.
15 Hill, 'First fifty years', p. 36. Note that the sandstone dinosaur frieze was used to adorn the cover of the Geology Department Papers.
16 Robinson, University of Queensland, p. 27.
18 Martin JS Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time: Early Pictorial Representations of the Prehistoric World, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1992.
19 Information from WW2 Nominal Roll, www.ww2roll.gov.au/.
20 Exhibition of Queensland Art Catalogue: Queensland National Art Gallery, Brisbane 10th September to 7th October 1951, Commonwealth Jubilee Celebrations State Arts Sub-Committee, Brisbane, 1951, p. 11.
21 Information from WW2 Nominal Roll.
22 Exhibition of Queensland Art Catalogue, p. 16.
23 For information on the Marodian and Johnstone galleries, see the Johnstone Gallery Archive, State Library of Queensland; Louise Martin-Chew, '"Like Topsy": The Johnstone Gallery 1950–1972', Master of Creative Arts thesis, James Cook University, 2001.
24 Martin-Chew, '"Like Topsy"', p. 28 (Martin-Chew lists Don Gowen amongst the artists, commenting in brackets that this 'maybe Cowan', but it must be a misprint for 'Cowen').
25 Elizabeth Young, 'Two-man effort', Courier-Mail, 5 April 1951, p. 2.
27 WL, 'Christmas art show', Courier-Mail, 11 December 1951, p. 2.
28 Letter dated 8 October 1951 from JL Treloar, director of the Australian War Memorial to Miss Daphne Mayo, Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library, Papers of Daphne Mayo, UGFL 119. Thanks to Cassie Doyle for this reference.
29 See Acquisitions 1951–1953, Queensland National Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1953, p. 4, no. 13: Daisy and Violet, Oil by Quentin Hole (Purchased by the trustees). Glenn Cooke's 'Notes' in the Queensland Art Gallery file on this artist record that Hole was included 'in the first exhibition of Queensland Artists of Fame and Promise in 1952'.
30 Cowen settled in Tucson, Arizona, and continued to produce artworks there, including a mural illustrating the history of science for the University of Arizona Optical Sciences centre: see www.arizona.edu/tours/artworks/artworks3.php.
32 See Stephanie Owen Reeder, 'Quentin Hole (1923–99): Master of design and humour', Lou Rees Archives Notes, Books and Authors, no. 22, 2000, pp. 4–6; Marcie Muir, Australian Children's Book Illustrators, Sun Books, South Melbourne, 1977, p. 15; Marcie Muir, A History of Australian Childrens Book Illustration, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, p. 137; Robert Holden, Koalas, Kangaroos and Kookaburras: 200 Australian Children's Books and Illustrations 1857–1988, Bloxham and Chambers, Sydney, 1988, p. 48; and Walter McVitty, Authors & Illustrators of Australian Children's Books, Hodder and Stoughton, Sydney, 1989, p. 96.
33 Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library, UQFL 459.
34 Personal communication via email from Dr Andrew Simpson, 10 February 2009.
35 See Glenn R Cooke, A Time Remembered: Art in Brisbane 1950 to 1975, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 1995, p. 34.
36 I am indebted to the work of Martin Rudwick in his Scenes from Deep Time in this section.
37 ibid., pp. 20; 27–30.
38 ibid., p. 32.
39 ibid., pp. 35–6; see also pp. 56–8; for more on Cuvier, see Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, pp. 20–3.
40 See WE Swinton, Dinosaurs, Trustees of British Museum (Natural History), London, second edition, 1964 [1st edition 1962], pp. 38–9.
41 Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time, pp. 43–8. On the aquarium craze and the development of the underwater viewpoint, see Stephen Jay Gould, Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms, Vintage, London, 1999, pp. 57–73 ('Seeing eye to eye, through a glass clearly').
42 See Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time, pp. 21–4.
43 See William Feaver, The Art of John Martin, Clarendon, Oxford, 1975.
44 Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time, pp. 78–82; see also Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, pp. 24–31.
45 For a useful summary of Owen's background and approach, see Jacob W Gruber, 'Owen, Sir Richard (1804–1892)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21026.
46 Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, p. 42; see pp. 42–7 ('Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins — a modern Pygmalion'); also Gould, 'Reconstructing (and deconstructing) the past', pp. 6–7.
47 Stephen Jay Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus: Further Reflections in Natural History, Penguin, London, 1991, p. 97.
48 Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time, pp. 238–53; Gould, 'Reconstructing (and deconstructing) the past', pp. 16–17.
49 Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, pp. 83–96.
50 William H Ballou, 'Strange creatures of the past: Gigantic saurians of the Reptilian Age', Century Magazine, vol. 55, no. 1, November 1897, 15–23. Many of Knight's images can be seen online at www.charlesrknight.com.
51 Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, p. 8.
52 'Personalities in paleontology: Charles Knight', available online from the American Museum of Natural History: www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/fossilhalls/personalities/bios/knight.php; see also Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, pp. 48–51; Gould, 'Reconstructing (and deconstructing) the past', pp. 17–19.
53 Alfred Sherwood Romer, Man and the Vertebrates, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1933.
54 Charles R. Knight, 'What are they thinking?', Natural History, February 1938, www.naturalhistorymag.com/editors_pick/1938_02_pick.html.
56 WJT Mitchell, The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1998, p. 101.
57 Rudolph Zallinger, 'The making of The Age of Reptiles mural', www.peabody.yale.edu/explore/makingmural.html; see also Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, pp. 108–10.
58 Vincent Scully, 'THE AGE OF REPTILES as a work of art', in Vincent Scully et al., The Great Dinosaur Mural at Yale: The Age of Reptiles, Harry N Abrams, New York, 1990, pp. 14–15.
59 ibid., pp. 6–17.
60 ibid., pp. 6, 16.
62 ibid., p. 15.
63 For further discussion, see Andrew Darley, 'Simulating natural history: Walking with Dinosaurs as hyper-real edutainment', Science as Culture, vol. 12, no. 2, 2003, 227–56; Karen D Scott & Anne M White, 'Unnatural history? Deconstructing the Walking with Dinosaurs phenomenon', Media Culture Society, vol. 25, no. 3, 2003, 315–32.
64 See Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus, pp. 94–103 ('The dinosaur rip-off').
65 This idea began in the late nineteenth century with OC Marsh's reconstruction of Brontosaurus: see Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus, pp. 88–9; Gould, 'Reconstructing (and deconstructing) the past', pp. 12–13.
66 The museum was situated in the former Exhibition Building from late 1899 until 1984: Patricia Mather, A Time for a Museum: The History of the Queensland Museum 1862–1986, Queensland Museum, Brisbane [published as vol. 24 of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum], 1986, pp. 22–33.
67 JCH Gill, 'Longman, Albert Heber (1880–1954)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 10, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 1986, pp. 138–9.
68 Bettina Macauley, 'Annand, Douglas Shenton (1903–1976)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 13, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 1993, p. 60; Heber A Longman, 'Palæontological notes', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 9, no. 3, 1929, pp. 247–51. See also Heber A Longman, 'The giant dinosaur: Rhoetosaurus brownei', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 9, no.1, 1927, 1–18. However, current opinion considers that the reconstruction is 'flawed in many ways': Notes on the painting, Registration Number H19511, Queensland Museum Records.
69 Hill, 'First fifty years', p. 25, notes that 'Longman gave 5 special lectures a year on vertebrate palaeontology from 1939 onwards'; see also Susan Turner, 'Vertebrate palaeontology in Queensland', Earth Sciences History, vol. 5, no. 1, 1986, 50–65; Susan Turner, 'Heber Albert Longman (1880–1954), Queensland Museum scientist: A new bibliography', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 51, no. 1, 2005, 237–57 (p. 242).
70 Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, 111–14.
71 See Illustrated London News, 22 December 1951, p. 1043. This is the only such scene I found looking through the extensive, albeit slightly incomplete, holdings of this newspaper for the period 1951–52 in the State Library of Queensland. Some dioramas of 'Extinct prehistoric sea creatures' 'Re-created for Chicago Museum' were illustrated on p. 707 of the issue dated 3 November 1951, while an assemblage of Australian marsupials (not an integrated scene) drawn and painted by Parker appeared in a double-page spread in the issue for 29 March 1952, pp. 548–9.
72 AS Romer, Man and the Vertebrates, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1954 (1933), vol. 1, Illustration 50.
73 Turner, 'Heber Albert Longman (1880–1954)', p. 238. For a history of discovery and identification of Darling Downs fossil remains, see Susan Turner, 'Vertebrate palaeontology in Queensland' (pp. 51–4).
74 Heber A Longman, 'Restoration of Euryzygoma dunense', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 10, no. 4, 1934, 201–02 (p. 201).
75 Heber A Longman, 'A new genus of fossil marsupials', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 7, no. 2, 1921, 65–79 (p. 65). It might be argued that Longman is ignoring here the long history of discovery of prehistoric creatures in Australia, but his emphasis probably concerns the very unusual appearance of this animal. For the historical background, see Patricia Vickers-Rich & Neil W Archbold, 'Squatters, priests and professors: A brief history of vertebrate palaeontology in Terra Australis', in P Vickers-Rich, JM Monaghan, RF Baird & TH Rich, Vertebrate Palaeontology of Australasia, Pioneer Design Studio, Lilydale, Victoria, in association with Monash University Publications, 1991, pp. 1–43.
76 Clem Lack, 'Musing round the museum: Mr. Longman is proud of the skeletons in his cupboard', Courier-Mail, 10 October 1936, p. 23.
77 See Martin Kemp, 'Temples of the body and temples of the cosmos: Vision and visualization in the Vesalian and Copernican revolutions', in Brian S Baigrie (ed.), Picturing Knowledge: Historical and Philosophical Problems Concerning the Use of Art in Science, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1996, pp. 40–85; and David Topper, 'Towards an epistemology of scientific illustration', in ibid., pp. 215–49.
78 McVitty, Authors & Illustrators, p. 96.
79 'Kronosaurus queenslandicus', www.qm.qld.gov.au/features/dinosaurs/queensland/kronosaurus.asp.
80 Mary O'Keeffe, 'Longman, Irene Maud (1877–1964)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 10, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 1986, pp. 139–40.
81 Information from the University of Queensland Archives: UQA S15 Minutes of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, 23 September 1957.
82 Heber A Longman, 'A new gigantic marine reptile from the Queensland Cretaceous: Kronosaurus queenslandicus new genus and species', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 8, no. 1, 1924, 26–8.
83 Turner, 'Heber Albert Longman (1880–1954)', p. 241.
84 Heber A Longman, 'Kronosaurus queenslandicus: A gigantic Cretaceous pliosaur', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, vol. 10, no. 1, 1930, 1–7.
85 Lack, 'Musing round the museum', p. 23.
86 Roberts, 'It swam in the sea of Central Australia!', p. 9.
87 Mather, Time for a Museum, pp. 58, 140.
88 See 'Australian fossils for the Harvard Museum', Science, vol. 77, no. 1992, 3 March 1933, 232–3 (p. 233).
89 Alfred Sherwood Romer & Arnold D Lewis, 'A mounted skeleton of the giant plesiosaur Kronosaurus', Breviora, no. 112, October 1959, 1–15 (p. 2). Arnold Lewis directed the process of reconstruction, with work being carried out by James A Jensen and David Fuller, while Romer was the scientific advisor.
90 For further discussion, see PV Rich & GF van Tets (eds), Kadimakara: Extinct Vertebrates of Australia, Pioneer Design Studio, Lilydale, Victoria, 1985, pp. 147–51; Allen A Debus, 'Kronosaurus — an imaginary sea monster that got away', in Debus & Debus, Paleoimagery, pp. 13–19; and John A Long, Dinosaurs of Australia and New Zealand, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1998, pp. 138–42. Recent advice from Dr Alex Cook of the Queensland Museum states that there is only one species of Kronosaurus: personal communication via email, 11 March 2009.
92 'Ancient fossil exhibited', Science News Letter, 14 June 1958, p. 373. See also 'Ancient monarch of the seas', Natural History Magazine, June 1959, 22–23, www.oceansofkansas.com/kronosar.html.
93 'Ancient fossil exhibited', p. 373. For the response in 1933, see 'Australian fossils for the Harvard Museum', Science, vol. 77, no. 1992, 3 March 1933, pp. 232–3.
94 'Was Queensland monster', Courier-Mail, 27 April 1956, p. 5.
96 'A look at Kronosaurus Queenslandicus', Courier-Mail, 6 June 1958, p. 3. When Romer and Lewis published a scientific paper on the reconstructed skeleton in 1959 they did include details of Longman's role and that of the local resident ('A mounted skeleton of the giant Plesiosaur Kronosaurus', pp. 1–15) as did an article published in 1959 in the Australian Museum Magazine (although the role of the local landowner is not acknowledged): HO Fletcher, 'A giant marine reptile from the Cretaceous rocks of Queensland', Australian Museum Magazine, vol. 13, no. 2, 1959, 47–9.
97 Plate 15: Ideal Scene of the Lias with Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus.
98 Reproduced as Illustration 41 in Romer, Man and the Vertebrates, vol. 1, 1954.
99 See The Reptiles Return to the Sea, in 'The world we live in: Part V: Two billion years of evolution', Life, 7 September 1953.
100 Neave Parker, Macroplata, a Plesiosaur (postcard), British Museum of Natural History, London, 1950s.
101 Entry on 'Queensland Kronosaur' available online from the Australian Museum: www.lostkingdoms.com/facts/factsheet6.htm; see also www.qm.qld.gov.au/features/dinosaurs/queensland/kronosaurus.asp. For a recent scientific discussion of Kronosaurus, see Benjamin P Kear, 'Cretaceous marine reptiles of Australia: A review of taxonomy and distribution', Cretaceous Research, vol. 24, 2003, 277–303 (pp. 291–3).
102 Gould, 'Reconstructing (and deconstructing) the past', pp. 10–11.
103 Letter dated 18 June 1958 from JD Story to Mrs I Longman, The University of Queensland Archives: UQA S130 – File – Murals – St. Lucia Buildings.
104 'SIGL NEWS', www.uq.edu.au/geoche.
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1. In math we studied Unit Rates. Students completed Lesson 12.6 in their math journals. 4M students practiced adding and rounding decimals. We also plotted points on a graph to make a shape.
2. We started studying Minnesota's history. We learned about primary and secondary resources. We look forward to reading stories about Minnesota's past later this week.
3. In literacy we learned about conjunctions. A conjunction is a type of word that links other words or clauses in a sentence.
4. This afternoon we performed our music concert for the entire school. You guys did a really nice job.
The concert tonight is at 6:30. My room will be open at 6:00. Students should come to my room and then we will go to the concert together. Wear dark pants, and a colorful t-shirt!
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Reference Page: January 2011
In Denver, the nuns of St. Francis recently moved into Casa Chiara, a new solar-powered monastery where the seven Sisters can live “with gentle courtesy toward all creation”. It’s no surprise that they’re so concerned about the environment. In 1979, Pope John Paul II rebranded Francis as the patron saint “of those who promote ecology.” Granted, St. Francis wasn’t an environmentalist in the contemporary sense of the word, but he did love animals and “spent a third to half of each year praying in nature and the wilderness,” Steel Yard generation, the revitalization of Providence, Rhode Island, was led by former mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, a charismatic politician known for his toupees and authentic marinara sauce. In his more than 20 years in office, the “Prince of Providence” helped create attractive river walks and a vibrant downtown arts-and-entertainment district. He later spent four years in jail on racketeering and corruption charges. Freed in 2007, he resurfaced without a toupee but with a new radio show on WPRO. In his free time, he also hosts culinary tours of his beloved city.
Photo credits for “Baby Rems”:
Rem Koolhaas: Blommers + Schumm/courtesy OMA; Willem-Jan Neutelings: portrait, courtesy Neutelings Riedijk Architecten; project, Sarah Blee/courtesy Neutelings Riedijk Architecten; Farshi Moussavi: portrait, Valerie Bennett/courtesy FOA; project, courtesy FOA; Zaha Hadid: portrait, Steve Double/courtesy Zaha Hadid; project, Luke Hayes/courtesy Zaha Hadid; Winy Mass: portrait, Rob’t Hart/courtesy MVRDV; project, Edmund Sumner/courtesy MVRDV; Mattias Sauerbruch: portrait, Wilfried Dechau/courtesy Sauerbruch Hutton; project, courtesy Sauerbruch Hutton; Laurinda Spear: portrait, Maggie Silverstein/courtesy Arquitectonica; project, courtesy Arquitectonica; Jeanne Gang: portrait, Chris Kitahara/courtesy Studio Gang Architects; project, courtesy Studio Gang Architects; Dan Wood and Amale Andraos: portrait, Andy French/courtesy WORKac; project, courtesy WORKac; Matthias Hollwich: portrait, Noah Kalina/courtesy HWKN; project, MINI/courtesy HWKN; Fernando Romero: portrait, Juan Carlos Polanco/ourtesy LAR; project, Adam Wiseman/courtesy LAR; Galia Solomonoff: Manuel Rearte, Simon Rearte/courtesy Solomonoff Architecture Studio; Markus Schaefer: portrait, courtesy Hosoya Schaefer Architects AG; project, Hosoya Schaefer Architects AG (visualization by Raumgleiter); Joshua Prince-Remus: portrait, Art Strieber/courtesy REX; project, Iwan Baan/courtesy REX; Bjarke Ingels: Jakob Glatt/courtesy BIG; project, courtesy BIG; Ole Scheeren: portrait, courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren; project, courtesy OMA and Ole Scheeren; Kate Orff: courtesy SCAPE; Jeffrey Inaba: portrait, Darien Williams; project, Greg Irikura/courtesy INABA
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As you venture your way into 2012 and try to reach the goals, make the habits, and finish up the projects that you have outlined for yourself, you may start to see a bit of stress and overwhelm building up in your life. You become so concentrated on what you have setup for yourself to accomplish during the year that the “less important things” fall by the wayside.
Most productivity gurus will tell you that this is a good thing; to make sure that they things that you are working on are the things that you want to do, are good at, and are important. It makes sense to concentrate on the things that keep you energized and creative. But, we may that because of all the attention we are giving to our “big ideas” we start to lose touch with some of the other things in life that are important.
We have to accomplish the things that we have set out for ourselves all while staying mindful of what is important to us in our lives. And, boy, it can be tough sometimes.
Make a list
David Allen talks about our “Areas of Focus.” These are all the areas in our life that we deem important and that need attention to ensure that we are operating at a certain level of productivity with the least amount of stress.
GTD is so useful, at least for this geek, because it concentrates on the lower levels of productivity first; tasks and projects. It’s a bottom-up approach that helps one “clear the decks” so they can start to look at the higher levels of their lives (ie. Areas of Focus).
This is where some GTD practitioners get stuck. They concentrate on the task and project portion so much that they forget the higher levels. It’s important to get your deck clear as soon as possible, that is, closing all your open loops and making sure that you have everything on the task and project level accounted for.
Then you can list the areas of your life and start to find balance.
I make the list of my Areas of Focus in a mindmap and then review it at least once a month with my weekly review. Sometimes, especially if you are feeling extra unbalanced in your life, you may need to pull this list out to re-ground yourself.
- Health and vitality
Take some time and quiet yourself
I noticed yesterday that most times I only think of myself. What am I going to do today? What am I going to write about? How will I have enough money for that? Am I going to make it this year?
This constant, selfish self-talk had me wake up with a slight realization. I need to stop. And when I stop, I will think of others in my life. I don’t mean thinking of others in the way of “how am I going to do ‘x’ to help them.’ I’m talking about an honest look at the person or situation for what it is.
You’d be surprised how often your mind is selfish. What will surprise you even more is that when you stop and think about others, many things that you may have been ignoring start to show up like realizing your anniversary is coming up, that you haven’t seen your friends in-the-flesh for several weeks, or haven’t talked to anyone in your family recently.
Wash, rinse, and repeat
The only way to stay mindful while accomplishing your goals this year is to make sure that you get in the habit of reviewing your Areas of Focus and stopping to reflect and think of things other than yourself.
Our minds are constantly on; analyzing and troubleshooting everything around us. It’s a good thing that they are so powerful. But we have to use them vigilantly to ensure that we are paying attention to the right things and doing the right things in our lives. You can only make sure this happens by repeatedly evaluating your focus.
If you have been on the productivity kick for any period of time, you know just how hard it can be to stay focused as well as focus on the right things. The only way that I have found to keep this going is to make sure that you have defined what your focus should be and then stopping yourself and become mindful of it. Hopefully with this type of practice you can accomplish your goals this year knowing that what is important to you isn’t being ignored.
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Celebrity Smoking - “Dead People” Magazine (The Consequences)
For online celebrity photographs of dead celebrity smokers, go to:
A large collage of photographs of celebrites that died because of their smoking. Scroll down the page to see the age of death and cause of death for some of those shown.
Another collage of celebrities that died because of their smoking, with a following listing of the celebrites in the collage and the smoking related cause of their death.
A large list of celebrities that died from smoking (many with the diagnosis of specific smoking related cause of death).
What a shame that all this talent had to be cut short. Just think of all of the additional memories the world could have had if these people had been able to live their full lives. The movie industry could play an important role in discouraging tobacco addiction by adopting Dr. Stanton Glantz’s guidelines, which are endorsed by all of the major U.S. medical organizations, and which are discussed in Chapters 3, 8 and 12 of the book, Ending The Tobacco Holocaust.
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The heat capacity specifies the heat needed to raise a certain amount of a substance by 1 K. For a gas, the molar heat capacity C is the heat required to increase the temperature of 1 mole of gas by 1 K.
Defining statement: dQ = nC dT
Important: The heat capacity depends on whether the heat is added at constant volume or constant pressure.
Why care about the difference?
Defining statement: dQ = nCV dT
1st Law of Thermodynamics gives: dQ = dE - dW = dE at constant volume.
|Thus dQ = dE = nCV dT =||
|nR dT ,|
|Comparing, we get, for a monatomic ideal gas: CV||=||
Since dQ = dE when the volume is
dE = n CV dT.
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Seneca (4 BCE- 65 CE): Natural Questions I, 16
16. At this point I want to tell you a little story so that you
may understand how lust scorns no instrument for rousing passion
and how ingenious it is for inciting its own aberration.
There was a man named Hostius Quadra, whose obscene acts even
became the subject of a theatrical performance. He was rich, greedy,
a slave to his millions. The deified Augustus did not consider
him worth being avenged when he was murdered by his slaves, and
almost proclaimed that he seemed to have been murdered justly.
He was vile in relation 2 not to one sex alone but lusted after
men as well as women. He had mirrors made of the type I described
(the ones that reflect images far larger) in which a finger exceeded
the size and thickness of an arm. These, moreover, he so arranged
that when he was offering himself to a man he might see in a mirror
all the movements of his stallion behind him and then take delight
in the false size of his partner's very member just as though
it were really so big.
In all the public baths he would recruit favourites and chose
men by their obvious size, but none the less his insatiable evil
took delight in misrepresentations. Go on now and say that the
mirror was invented for the sake of touching up one's looks !
The things that monster said and did (he ought to be torn apart
by his own mouth) are detestable to talk about. Mirrors faced
him on all sides in order that he might be a spectator of his
own shame. Also, secret acts which press upon the conscience and
which every man denies that he has done, he not only presented
to his mouth but to his eyes as well. But, by Hercules, crimes
avoid the sight of themselves! Even among those who are degenerate
and inured to every disagree there is still some modesty, very
tenuous, at what the eyes see. As though it were not enough to
submit himself to unheard of-even unknown-acts he summoned his
eyes to witness them. Not content to see how greatly he sinned
he surrounded himself with mirrors by which he separated one by
one and assembled his vices. And, because he could not watch so
attentively when his head dipped in and clung to his partner's
private parts, he displayed his own doings to himself through
reflections. He used to look at that obscene lusting of his own
mouth. He used to watch men admitted all alike to his person for
all the doings. Sometimes shared between a man and a woman, and
with his whole body spread in position for submitting to them,
he used to watch the unspeakable acts. What did the foul creature
leave for performance in darkness? He did not shrink from daylight
but even showed himself monstrous coitions, and gave approval
of them to himself. You would not suppose that he would not have
been willing to have his portrait painted in such a position !
Even among prostitutes there exists some sort of modesty, and
those bodies offered for public pleasure draw over some curtain
by which their unhappy submission may be hidden. Thus, towards
certain things even a brothel shows a sense of shame. But that
monster had made a spectacle of his own obscenity and deliberately
showed himself acts which no night is deep enough to conceal.
" At the same time," he said, " I submit to both
a man and a woman. Nevertheless, also with that part of my body
not occupied I perform the role of a male in the violation of
another person. All my organs arc occupied in the lechery. Let
my eyes, too, come into their share of the debauchery and be witnesses
and supervisors of it. By means of a device let even those acts
be seen which the position of our bodies removes from sight, so
that no one may think I do not know what I do. Nature did poorly
in providing such scanty accessories to human lust. She better
arranged the coition of other animals. I will discover a way to
deceive my sick wants and satisfy them. To what purpose my depravity
if I sin only to the limit of nature? I will surround myself with
mirrors, the type which renders the size of objects incredible.
If it were possible, I would make those sizes real; because it
is not possible, I will feast myself on the illusion. Let my lust
see more than it consumes and marvel at what it undergoes."
Shameful behavior! Perhaps he was murdered quickly, even before
he saw it; he ought to have been immolated in front of a mirror
of his own.
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A new set of proposed rules from The Librarian of Congress and the US Copyright Office will make it easier for game preservation work for titles that rely on online servers to exist as well as helping independent repair work be done to old hardware.
Users seeking to repair or perform maintenance on their devices are now allowed to legally break DRM (digital rights management) on the device in order to complete their work to keep it in a “state of working in accordance with its original specifications.” This essentially means for those whose original hardware no longer properly play games or act as originally intended can now be repairs and modified to restore its usage without worrying about a copyright owner coming down on you. This specifically relates to independent stores that offer to repair old hardware, such as Macbooks that include a kill switch if it detects unauthorized by Apple.
Proposed Class 8: Computer Programs – Video Game Preservation is the expansion of previous rules concerning the preservation of games that rely on online servers. Previously only library, archives, or museums were able to circumvent the restriction on keeping servers offline, so long as they did not distribute the game outside of its physical premises. The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment sought to expand this exemption because it, ” does not allow it to preserve the growing number of online video games for future generations to study,” as well as, “broaden the class
of users of the exemption to include volunteer “affiliate archivists,” who wish to circumvent access controls off-premises, but under the supervision of game preservation entities.” Opponents this measure did so out of fear of it becoming less about game preservation and more about a “market substitute.” However the Acting Register granted the expansion, though only in the case of the preservationist acquiring the server code and local code from the owner.
The Acting Register found that the record supported granting an expansion in the relatively discrete circumstances where a preservation institution legally possesses a copy of a video game’s server code and the game’s local code. She concluded that in such circumstances, the preservation activities described by proponents are likely to be fair uses. She further found that proponents demonstrated that such uses would be adversely affected by the statutory prohibition absent an exemption. The record indicated that an exemption would enable future scholarship by enabling researchers to experience games as they were originally played and thereby better understand their design or construction. The Acting Register additionally found such activity unlikely to harm the market for video games.
Short version: An exemption in the DMCA has been suggested for a “preservation institution” to run their own servers for games when it “legally possesses a copy of a video game’s server code and the game’s local code”
— Phil Salvador (@ItsTheShadsy) October 25, 2018
While this exemption was granted, the extension to “affiliate archivists” was not, meaning this work still needs to be done by libraries, museums, and similar entities. Additionally, recreating software code does not constitute fair use, in order to abide legally people will have to obtain the original code in order to sustain the game, which means cooperating with the owners. This can be a difficult task to accomplish, given how source code frequently goes missing and developers, especially old ones, are not the greatest when it comes to preserving their own work. The closure of studios and publisher’s unwillingness to cooperate out of profitability on something they have no intention of releasing also create barriers. Despite these challenges, this does set up the beginning of original code being obtained for games such as the recently shuttered PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Twisted Metal, and Warhawk that will keep them playable, in a limited capacity, for those who were never able to play it during its original lifespan.
Multiple organizations petitioned to renew the exemption for video games for which outside server support has been discontinued. The petitions stated that individuals still need the exemption to engage in continued play and libraries and museums continue to need the exemption to preserve and curate video games in playable form. In addition, the petitioners demonstrated personal knowledge and experience with regard to this exemption through past participation in the 1201 triennial rulemaking relating to access controls on video games and consoles, and/or representing major library associations with members that have relied on this exemption.
The US Copyright Office has granted our DMCA exemption to allow us to preserve online games! All of that hard work has paid off! Big thanks to UC Berkeley, David Petchey, and James Clarendon who testified on our behalf.
— Video Game Museum! (@TheMADE) October 25, 2018
With more games relying on online infrastructure in order to be accessed at all, Destiny, The Division, every MMO, and the growing list of unplayable multplayer portions of games, Warhawk, Killzone 2 & 3, Resistance 2 & 3, MAG, Demon’s Souls, this sort of change is great for paving the way for the servers that support these games to be preserved beyond their original shut down.
Other Proposed Classes also expanded the exemptions for certain copyright protections, such as motor vehicle repairs and repairs and maintenance made to home appliances. Computer software, except for video games, are now able to be preserved in museums and the like if they are no longer sold commercially.
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You may have heard of PRP therapy, the treatment that involves using a patient’s own blood. Famous celebrities such as Kim Kardashian have used this treatment for it’s cosmetic benefits. What exactly is Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy, though? It is a non-surgical treatment that uses a person’s own blood to treat a number of conditions such as arthritis, bone or spine injuries, hamstring or tendon injuries, hair restoration, and even wrinkles for cosmetic purposes.
How The Process Works
The process of PRP therapy starts with a collection of the patient’s blood, which is then placed in a centrifuge where the platelet-rich plasma is separated from the other components of the blood. Platelets are the body’s natural supplier of growth factors, which stimulate soft tissue repair, facilitate blood flow, and promote stem cell generation, which assists the body in healing itself.
Platelets are injected into the damaged area, where they encourage and enhance the body’s natural healing process. It is a fairly quick procedure, often taking less than an hour, and is typically an outpatient treatment. Due to its success in repairing tendons, ligaments, and muscle damage, it has become increasingly popular in treating sports injuries.
Who Can Benefit from PRP?
If you have problems with your joints or have another common injury, you may be in a lot of pain. Every time you move, you may feel a stinging sensation. You may not want to see a specialist before going under the knife. PRP is common among professions that are hands-on or require more physical labor. Often, patients come in with work-related injuries or pain that may have been caused by their labor-intensive work.
Patients who have been injured playing sports or enjoying their favorite hobbies such as golf, tennis, or running are also among a patient group PRP specialists see frequently. For more serious injuries a specialist might recommend stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy is very similar to PRP, but instead of platelet rich plasma, a form of stem cells are used.
A PRP specialist, like a PRP specialist in Los Angeles, CA, can use adult stem cells and blood platelet treatments for different types of injuries, such as osteoarthritis. By taking your own stem cells or PRP, the specialist will be able to help you heal. These professionals know what they are doing, so you don’t have to worry about receiving treatment the wrong way. These treatments do not hurt at all, and they can help you manage pain better, improving your overall quality of life.
Thanks to MetroMD for their insight into what PRP is and how it can be used to treat pain.
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Four summers ago my friend Roger Deakin died, too young, of a brain tumour. He was a film-maker, environmentalist and author who is most famous for his trilogy of books about nature: Waterlog (1999), Wildwood (2007) and Notes from Walnut Tree Farm (2008). I say "nature", but his work can perhaps best be understood as the convergence of three deeply English traditions of rural writing: that of dissent tending to civil disobedience (William Cobbett, Colin Ward), that of labour on the land (Thomas Bewick, John Stewart Collis), and that of the gentle countryman or the country gentleman, of writer as watcher and phenologist (Gilbert White, Ronald Blythe).
In early June 2006, Roger called me to ask if I would act as his literary executor. It was a difficult conversation. His illness was seriously advanced. He was having trouble forming speech. I was having trouble not crying. I said of course, of course I will, though I had no idea what such a role involved. A few weeks later, he died.
Roger was someone who never threw anything away. He lived in the same place for nearly 40 years (a timber-framed farmhouse by a spring-fed moat in north Suffolk). And whenever he ran out of space to store things, he just built another shed, raised a barn, or hauled an old railway wagon into the corner of a field – and began to fill that up with stuff, too. So in the strange months after his death, it became clear that the main question facing me as executor was what to do with his vast archive: the many hundreds of notebooks, draft manuscripts, box-files, cassettes and journals in which he had recorded his life.
I remember entering the steep-eaved barn into whose topmost room the archive had slowly been gathered. Up two ladders, through a trapdoor, and into the narrow attic. Dusty slant light from a gable window. And boxes: 60 or 70 of them, all but filling the space. A life condensed to a room. I felt overwhelmed, partly by sadness and partly by hopelessness. How could this volume of documents ever be brought under control?
I sat down on a pile of files, pulled a notebook from an open box, and opened it. "Angels are the people we care for and who care for us," the page read, beautifully and fortuitously, in Roger's spidery black hand-writing. So started a brief jotted essay on angels, which gyred out to the double hammer-beam roof of the church in the fenland village of March (where the 200 wooden angels' wings are feathered like those of marsh harriers) and then back to a reflection on friendship.
It was enough. I began the eerie, often mournful and sometimes funny process of working out what Roger had left behind. Digging through boxes. Brushing away mouse droppings and spiders' webs. Letters from friends, readers and lovers. A scribbled poem "To Pan". A folder titled "Drowning (Coroners)", which turned out not to be a record of coroners that he had drown- ed, but an account of his research into East Anglian deaths-by-water.
It was hard not to get distracted, especially with his notebooks. Each was a small landscape through which it was possible to wander, and within which it was possible to get lost. As I read them, I could sometimes hear him speaking the words, in his scratchy, deep voice. Friendship, I now know, is something that continues after death. We carry on conversing with the dead, running things by them, listening to what they have to say.
Two things quickly became obvious. That the archive was a remarkable record of a remarkable life. And that it needed proper care, safe from damp and rodents, and accessible to the increasing number of people interested in Roger and his work. A year ago I approached Professor Jon Cook at the University of East Anglia, to see if UEA would provide a home for the archive. Last summer, the UEA librarians hired a van and hauled the archive to Norwich over several trips. Last autumn and winter, they sorted and catalogued the material in all its eccentric variety. And yesterday, the Roger Deakin Archive was formally opened. The barn-room stuffed with boxes had been reduced to 23 linear metres of files and a 54-page catalogue.
I read the catalogue with trepidation, anxious at the thought of seeing Roger's life reduced to a data-set. But it turned out to be a wonderful document: an accidental epic prose-poem of his life, or a dendrological cross-section of his mind. File RD/TW/5/1/7, for instance, contains entries for: "Calvados; bristlecone pines; dachas; diving; jungle boys and land girls; pixies; protestors; skylarks; timber frame houses" – along with about 70 others: a zany haberdashery of Roger's interests. Cryptic entries abound: "The Oriental Rat Flea" or "Nudged by Languid Mullet". File RD/WLOG/1/1/2 contains "Complete MS of Waterlog with corrections. (With a strong fishy smell)".
The catalogue poses puzzles that I haven't yet had a chance to solve. Did the 1996 London Festival of Whistling that Roger planned ever occur? Who was "Purple Dolph"? Why did Hanif Kureishi send Roger a draft of the screenplay of My Beautiful Laundrette? What is a "gee-haw wimmy diddle"? And where can the work of the sand artist Frederick Bultitude be seen?
Literary archives can have a troublesome aura of fetish to them: laundry lists become holy writ, pens and pencils a saint's finger bones. But here, Roger's natural irreverence shines through. File RD/WLOG/2/34 is catalogued as "Swimwear, 1996", and contains his black Speedo swimming costume, in which he swam through Britain's lakes, rivers, lochs and llyns. I can't think of another writer who has their performance-fabric sports-briefs catalogued as part of their archive. I haven't ascertained if UEA washed the trunks before filing them.
This isn't, of course, where Roger's archive ends: with the final file on the shelf (RD/WTF/15 Aga cooker: 1998–99). The dimensions of his legacy exceed these 23 linear metres. A life lived as variously as his, with the gift for inspiration that his writing possesses, means that his influence ripples unpredictably outwards. Green Man-like, Roger keeps cropping up in unexpected places, speaking in leaves. Letters arrive from around the world: readers who have encountered his work, and been powerfully changed by it. There is a BBC4 film of Waterlog under development, with Simon Beaufoy writing the script. A theatrical adaptation of the same book by Andrew Burton is due to open in Ipswich on 1 June.
Approaches have been made by would-be biographers. What next? Wildwood as hip-hop? A tweeted version of Notes from Walnut Tree Farm? Roger's life turned into a vaudeville musical, with high-kicking water sprites and dryad can-cans? Actually, he'd have quite liked that.
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Students volunteered their time to clean up the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach. Oak View is an approximately one square mile with a population of approximately 10,000 individuals. The low-income residents face multiple barriers in accessing services and financial resources. This project helps beautify the neighborhood.
Volunteers picked up trash from the neighborhood and cleaned the elementary school: washed the entire gym, washed windows, cleaned the play ground equipment, and swept the sand off the playground. Home Depot and Harbor Freight donated the shovels, gloves and bags.
Service learning is a powerful means of teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.
Golden West College is engaging students in three more community based service activities this Fall.
November 11 – Military Deployment Project
November 21 – Sustainability Project
December 1 – Dream Act Project
Faculty and students from College 100 and Peace Studies classes, ASGWC, Alpha Gamma Sigma, the Peace, Mind & Body Club, and the Sustainability Club.
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Balancing act: Banks move away from the 'cult of overwork'
Matt Rourke, Associated Press
One of the advantages of producing a weekly column for a dozen years is that regular readers have learned my interests and often send me articles that make good column fodder.
Even better is when those articles espouse an idea that I wholeheartedly support.
This piece, by James Surowiecki, talks about changes to an "unspoken pact" between entry-level bankers and Wall Street firms that has traditionally amounted to this: "in exchange for reasonably high-paying jobs and a shot at obscene wealth, young analysts agreed to work 15 hours a day, and forgo anything resembling a normal life."
However, Surowiecki writes, that may be changing. Since last October, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse have told analysts that they should take at least a few weekend days off every month.
"These changes may sound small, but, in the context of the Street, they’re positively radical," the New Yorker piece says. "Alexandra Michel, a former Goldman associate who is now on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, published a nine-year study of two big investment banks and found that people spent up to a hundred and twenty hours a week on the job."
Surowiecki proceeds to draw parallels between these analysts and other so-called "knowledge workers" who seem to work longer and longer hours these days — and often see that as a badge of honor.
"The perplexing thing about the cult of overwork is that, as we’ve known for a while, long hours diminish both productivity and quality," he writes. "Among industrial workers, overtime raises the rate of mistakes and safety mishaps; likewise, for knowledge workers fatigue and sleep-deprivation make it hard to perform at a high cognitive level."
These points are absolutely correct, and I know that from personal experience. In fact, an embarrassing personal experience emphasized this reality for me.
First, here's some background. I wake up at about 5:15 a.m. each day so I can have time to exercise, get ready for work and drop children off at two different schools while still making it to the office by about 8:15 a.m. This means that, in order to get my bare minimum of six hours of sleep (yes, I know that's not enough!), I really need to be in bed by 11 p.m. each night.
Usually I do a good job of hitting that bedtime. But one Monday night a couple of months ago, I decided to go to a late movie with my wife. I rationalized that it was a movie I really wanted to see, and it wouldn't be in theaters much longer. I also figured that, since it was early in the week, I wouldn't be tired at work on Tuesday even if I didn't get six hours of sleep. After all, I used to operate on four or five hours of sleep all the time, back in my college days and early career!
Needless to say, the day after the movie was a disaster. I was tired all day, struggling to focus on my tasks and get things done. The low point came after lunch — always a tough time for me, concentration-wise — when I had a one-on-one meeting scheduled with one of my team members.
About 15 minutes into the meeting, I realized that I was struggling to keep my eyes open. The man in the meeting with me could tell I was having problems, and he did his best to keep me engaged, but it was a losing battle.
After the meeting, I pushed through the last couple of hours of the workday, then came home and collapsed on the couch for a brief nap.
Following a better night's sleep, I was alert enough on Wednesday to be properly mortified at my behavior the previous day and to offer a sincere apology to my co-worker. He was, thankfully, quite forgiving.
Although my work-time sleepiness was due to a bad choice, and not to overwork, the lesson I learned still applies. When I don't get enough sleep, my productivity at work takes a serious nosedive. No matter how many hours I spend at the office on such a day, I'm not likely to get much real work done.
I've seen the same scenario play out with co-workers over the years, especially when they come to work sick or pull an all-nighter to complete a big project. Lack of rest leads to trouble concentrating and a significant dip in productivity.
The problem is that, whether you're an investment banker, a journalist or some other knowledge worker, our culture seems to glorify those who sacrifice sleep and their own physical well-being to work longer hours.
As Surowiecki puts it in the New Yorker article, "Grinding out hundred-hour weeks for years helps bankers think of themselves as tougher and more dedicated than everyone else. And working 15 hours a day doesn’t just demonstrate your commitment to a company; it also reinforces that commitment.
"Over time, the simple fact that you work so much becomes proof that the job is worthwhile, and being in the office day and night becomes a kind of permanent initiation ritual. The challenge for Wall Street is: can it still get bankers to run with the pack if it stops treating them like dogs?"
That same question applies to our society. Can we accept a cultural change in which we value people who work hard and are productive, even if they put in a more reasonable number of hours at the office and try to build meaningful lives outside of work?
I'm glad to see any progress in that direction. If investment banks can do it, I hope we'll also see other companies place more emphasis on work-life balance.
If they do, I believe we'll be able to build a workforce that is healthier and happier and as productive as it always has been.
In fact, we might even find we're more productive when we're not falling asleep in our cubicles all the time.
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Hi, I have two computers, a windows machine and a linux machine and both are in network. I want to share/copy/modify foders & files between the two machines.I have installed samba. Now i can only access the shared foders & files of windows in my linux machine but i cannot copy them .How can i do that. when i type "smb://192.xxx.x.x/testsite" it just shows the folders as a link.but i want the php script that is present in the folder "testsite" to run in my linux machine. And also i want to copy the folder. How can i do this???
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Windows and doors are not just functional elements of a home; they also significantly enhance its aesthetics, energy efficiency, and overall value. When it comes to upgrading or replacing windows and doors, enlisting the expertise of a reputable contractor is crucial. In this article, we’ll explore the importance of windows and doors contractors and highlight the contributions of First Light Windows & Doors in transforming your home.
Understanding the Impact of Windows and Doors
Windows and doors serve as the face and the gateway to your home. They influence the curb appeal of your property, contribute to natural lighting and ventilation, and provide insulation against the elements. Upgrading to energy-efficient windows and well-designed doors can lead to reduced energy costs and a more comfortable living environment.
The Benefits of Professional Expertise
Enlisting the services of a professional windows and doors contractor offers numerous advantages:
- Expert Consultation: Contractors can assess your home’s unique requirements and offer tailored solutions that meet your aesthetic preferences and functional needs.
- Quality Products: Established contractors work with reputable suppliers and offer high-quality windows and doors made from durable materials.
- Proper Installation: Proper installation is crucial for the performance and longevity of windows and doors. Contractors have the experience and skill to ensure accurate installation.
- Energy Efficiency: Modern windows and doors are designed to be energy-efficient, reducing heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. Contractors can recommend the best options for your home’s climate.
- Enhanced Security: Windows and doors contractors can recommend security features that provide peace of mind, keeping your home safe from potential intruders.
- Curb Appeal: Contractors can assist in selecting windows and doors that complement the architectural style of your home, enhancing its overall curb appeal.
The Role of First Light Windows & Doors
First Light Windows & Doors is a reliable partner for homeowners seeking to enhance their living spaces through premium windows and doors solutions. Their team of experienced professionals is dedicated to providing top-notch consultation, installation, and customer service. Here’s how they contribute to transforming your home:
- Consultation and Assessment: The team at First Light Windows & Doors starts by understanding your vision and assessing your home’s requirements. They offer expert advice on styles, materials, and features that suit your needs.
- Quality Products: Partnering with trusted manufacturers, they offer an array of high-quality windows and doors that combine functionality with aesthetic appeal.
- Custom Solutions: Every home is unique, and First Light Windows & Doors offers custom solutions that align with your preferences and home’s architecture.
- Professional Installation: Proper installation is a cornerstone of their service. Their skilled technicians ensure that your windows and doors are installed correctly for optimal performance.
- Energy Efficiency: They offer energy-efficient options that can lead to reduced energy bills and a smaller environmental footprint.
- Exemplary Customer Service: Their commitment to exceptional customer service ensures a smooth and satisfying experience from the initial consultation to post-installation support.
Choosing the Right Windows and Doors
When considering windows and door replacement or upgrade, keep these factors in mind:
- Material: Choose materials that offer the right balance of durability, aesthetics, and energy efficiency. Standard options include wood, vinyl, fiberglass, and aluminium.
- Style: Select windows and doors that match your home’s architectural style. Whether you prefer modern, traditional, or transitional designs, options are available.
- Energy Efficiency: Look for Energy Star-certified products that meet energy efficiency standards, reducing your utility bills and carbon footprint.
- Security Features: Prioritize safety by choosing windows and doors with enhanced security features such as multi-point locking systems and impact-resistant glass.
- Budget: Set a budget for your project and work with your contractor to find options that meet your financial considerations.
Windows and doors play a pivotal role in shaping your home’s aesthetics, comfort, and efficiency. The expertise of a professional windows and doors contractor like First Light Windows & Doors of Beverly can guide you through selecting, installing, and upgrading these essential elements. Investing in quality products and professional installation can enhance your home’s value, functionality, and curb appeal. Whether you want to improve energy efficiency, elevate aesthetics, or enhance security, a reputable contractor can help you achieve your goals and transform your living space into a haven of comfort and style.
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The practice of sending out barrels of beer to third parties for bottling was quite common in the 19th century. And it wasn't just the obvious candidates like Bass and Guinness who were up to it. I've seen Barclay Perkins labels that indicate bottling in Scotland. Third-party bottling continued in the 20th century, though it mostly withered away as brewers took up bottling themselves. Guinness still do it, I think.
"According to Wright, ale for bottling should be allowed to go through all its cask changes, spontaneous brilliancy (unaided by finings) at the end of them being the simplest criterion of ripeness for bottling.
The temperature of the bottling cellar should not exceed 55° F. (10° R.), and may well be lower, and a fair amount of ventilation, if it can be managed, with a uniform temperature is desirable. When bottled, however, a higher temperature is required to insure, proper condition, say from 58° to 6o° F. (11.5° to 12.5° R.) ; but note that too speedy maturity is not to be wished for. pointing, as il does, to faulty brewing or incomplete secondary fermentation.
Messrs. Bass & Co. used to issue the following instructions to their agents:
'The proper season for bottling pale ale commences in November and ends in June."American handy-book of the brewing, malting and auxiliary trades" by Robert Wahl and Max Henius, 1902, pages 811 - 812.
Pale ale should not be bottled during the summer months, nor after hot weather has set in, even though the temperature should afterward become cool.
The ale should be placed bung upward in a cool, ventilated store, about 50° to 55° F. temperature.
If the ale should get into a brisk state of fermentation, a porous cane or porous oak spile should he inserted in the hung until the excessive fermentation has subsided, when a tight, close peg should be substituted.
Ale should never be allowed to become flat.
It should be bright and sparkling when bottled, but not fermenting. The bottles to lie corked directly they are filled.
In bottling, a tap with a tube reaching toward the bottom of the bottles should be used.
When corked, the bottles to be piled standing upright and not lying on their sides.
When the ale becomes ripe, a sediment will be deposited in the bottles. In uncorking be careful not to disturb it, but empty the contents of the bottle into a jug, keeping back the sediment.'"
I love the idea of bottling, just like football or cricket, having a season.
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How to Make a BIG and Powerful Electromagnet with the Primary of the transformer of a microwave oven. Remove the Secondary. With Iron or Steel (ferromagnetic materials) it attracts with a really great strength. With non ferrous metals like aluminum and copper it repels them due to Eddy currents.
Courtesy of mopatin
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Many individuals, including former Premier Danny Williams, have spoken out against Corner Brook businessman Bill Barry after he announced his campaign for leader of the provincial Progressive Conservatives. Primarily, this reaction was caused by Barry’s suggestion to increase the role of private firms in many elements of the public sector, including education and health care. While this has caused substantial debate about the implications of such actions, the discussion has ignored one model that could actually offer some positive change to the way in which education is delivered in the province: charter schools.
For those unaware, a charter school is an institute that is publicly funded and privately operated. This provides schools an additional level of autonomy, as they are not responsible to local school districts, but are instead held accountable to the provincial Minister of Education. As a result, charter schools can provide alternative education methods which can better enhance a student’s ability to learn, and, as well, can later be implemented into the public system. In a time where school board mismanagement of public funds has made a mockery of our education system, and students are overwhelmingly unprepared for post-secondary education, it is perhaps in the best interest to review the implementation of these institutes and measure the potential benefits for society.
The best model to consider adapting would be the system currently operating in Alberta, where they have capped the number of charter schools to 15. While the core operations of many of these schools are different, they all are forced to share a set number of core characteristics to be eligible to operate. Notably, these includes ensuring that all charter schools are open to all students, are secular, have no tuition fees, and are still structured around a basic core curriculum as outlined by the provincial Department of Education. The success of the Alberta model has been plentiful, as we have seen these schools provide clear educational vision for students, and often be able to satisfy a niche in a system that would otherwise be left unresolved. If we could repeat some of the benefits, why would we not follow through with such policy?
The implementation of such schools would indeed be a contentious one. This is a nightmare for some teachers, as charter schools could hire (and as well, fire) teachers based upon their own conditions, rather than have hiring procedures based on seniority or other attributes as defined by a particular district. However, is this really a good enough excuse to ignore the potential benefits from implementing these schools? We are in no shortage of teachers within the province, and we should ultimately prefer to have the best of these teachers educating our young people and preparing them for their future. As a result, while some concerns should be heard from executives within the current system, we should not use this noise to deter the implementation of—or at least increase the research for—this policy.
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his topic is a bit on the periphery of ‘Gene-Environment Interactions,’ but –– without Life on Earth –– we wouldn’t have genes to interact with the environment. 🙂
How and Why did Life come to exist on this planet? Is it simple for life to emerge on many newly formed planets? Or is it the virtually impossible product of a long series of unlikely events? Advances in fields –– as unrelated as astronomy, planetary science and chemistry –– now hold promise that answers to such profound questions may be coming soon. If life turns out to have emerged multiple times in our galaxy (as scientists expect to discover), then that means the path to “development of life” cannot be so difficult. Moreover, if the route from chemistry-to-biology proves simple to traverse, the universe could be teeming with life.
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets [see attached editorial] has sparked a renaissance in origin-of-life studies. In a stunning surprise, almost all the newly discovered solar systems look very different from our own. Does that mean something about our own, very unusual, system favors the emergence of life? Detecting signs of life on a planet orbiting a distant star is not going to be easy, but the technology for teasing out subtle “biosignatures” is developing –– so rapidly that, with any luck, we may see solid evidence of distant “Life” within one or two decades.
To understand how Life might begin, we must first understand how — and with what ingredients — planets normally form. A new generation of radio telescopes has provided beautiful images of proto-planetary disks and maps of their chemical composition. This information is motivating scientists to develop better models of how planets assemble from the dust and gases of a disk. Within our own solar system, the Rosetta mission (which had visited a comet) has helped us to appreciate early materials that formed Earth. OSIRIS-REx will soon visit an asteroid, and even try to return samples from it, which might give us the essential inventory of the materials that came together in our planet.
Once a planet, such as our Earth — not too hot and not too cold, not too dry and not too wet — has formed, what carbon-hydrogen-oxygen (CHO) chemistry must then develop to yield the Building Blocks of life? In the 1950s the Miller-Urey experiment (which zapped with electric pulses, a mixture of water and simple chemicals, to simulate the impact of lightning) demonstrated that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are easy to create in a chemical flask (i.e. in vitro). Other molecules of life turned out to be harder to synthesize, however. It is now apparent that we need to completely reimagine the path from chemistry to life. The central reason hinges on the versatility of RNA, a very long molecule that plays a multitude of essential roles in all existing forms of life. RNA can not only act like an enzyme, but it can also store and transmit information. The [attached] excellent editorial provides the Reader with a concise summary.
Nature 10 May 2o18; 557: pp S13–S15
COMMENT: Hi Dan, I like the Panspermia Model. It has had a number of really smart and famous proponents –– including Fred Hoyle, Stephen Hawking, and even S. Steven Potter (ha ha)!!
So, the basic notion is that Life came from Outer Space. Microorganismal life should be able to travel in interplanetary space on dust particles, knocked into space (from the planet of origin) by meteorites or interplanetary collisions. (Actually, there are many meteorites from Mars found on the surface of Earth; at last count, 132 have been found.) Microorganismal life on dust particles can be driven away from a sun by solar wind, and then decelerated by solar wind in another solar system. Upon hitting an atmosphere, the dust particles would float to the surface like a feather, rather than burn like a rock (i.e. a meteor).
But, then, WHERE did the Life in outer space originate?? Well, it has been estimated that there are ~100 billion planets in our Milky Way galaxy. For Life to begin, you only need a one-time accident, an “original incubator planet”, to get things started. And then these microorganisms would be spread throughout the galaxy. The Panspermia Model increases your odds by 100 billion –– because Life would only be required to have started once and then spread. I like those odds.
“Getting Life started” looks to be very, very tricky. Some have compared it to “assembling a wristwatch that happened by chance”, as an argument for Divine Creation. Cells do have a lot of vital parts, and we don’t really have any good models for how you go from organic soups to dividing cells. I do like “the RNA-first” idea of how things might have started, and maybe “somewhere out there” –– ideal conditions one way or another existed for creating the first living cell. Given a hundred billion planets, there would be a lot of possible “sets of starting conditions”.
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29-Apr-2006 -- The 22N 25E confluence, correspondent to the tri-point boundary between Egypt-Libya-Sudan, has a very interesting history. The today independent nations of Egypt, Libya, and Sudan inherited unchanged the boundaries established during the colonial era. The boundary between Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was agreed on the 19th January 1899 by the Government of Great Britain and the Government of the Khedive to be coincident with the parallel of 22N. Following the Italian-Turkish war in 1911, Libya became an Italian colony. By the Egyptian-Italian Accord of 5 November 1925, the southern terminus of the Egypt - Libya boundary was established at the point of latitude 22N and longitude 25E. On 20 July 1934, the Italian-British-Egyptian Agreement, finalized in Rome by a note exchange, fixed the boundary between the Italian colony and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan along the 25E meridian southward up to its intersection with the 20N parallel.
In 1933, Captain Oreste Marchesi of the IGM (Italian Military Geographic Institute) was sent to the Jabal `Uwaynāt to survey the massif. Field operations lasted eight months and the first detailed map of the region at 1:100,000 scale was produced. Count Ludovico di Caporiacco, a professor in zoology from the University of Florence, joined the topographic mission. He kept a diary that was published in 1934 (Caporiacco (di) L., 1934 - Nel cuore del Deserto Libico. A Cufra, a Auenat ed oltre con la spedizione Marchesi - Garoglio, Firenze).
According to Caporiacco's memories, Captain Oreste Marchesi in 1934 built a cairn at the 22N 25E confluence. Although not really descriptive, Caporiacco's note does not suggest any difficulty was met in reaching the place. Thanks to the 17 November 2005 visit by Dave Morrison and party, we know that the 22N 25E point is 150 meters uphill, in a quite steep place. No sign of previous visitors was found by Dave where the GPS finally zeroed.
On 29 April 2006 I tried with my friends to reach the 22N 25E confluence point starting from Libya: our attempt was motivated by the wish to find and document the Captain Oreste Marchesi Cairn. On the field, at Lat 22.01181466 - Long 24.98634967, we found an old boundary iron pole with the writings EGYPT/LIBIA on the opposite sides of the arrow shaped mark. The writings on the rusted iron mark were reduced to phantoms but still readable (LIBIA without "Y" is the Italian form of the name). Lying on the ground we noticed an old empty bottle of glass (a wine bottle). The pole was undoubtedly placed by Italian military surveyors. The same model of pole is testified by published pictures shot on 3 September 1934 south of the Jabal `Uwaynāt, where a joint Italian-British commission marked on the flat serir the boundary between the Italian colony and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Actually, the pole is about 1.6 km west of the 25E meridian, within the Libyan territory. The Italian topographers likely fixed the pole where they established the 25E meridian, possibly in 1933 or 1934.
At short distance to the SW (Lat. 22.00989889 - Long 24.98858730) we found a cairn, presumably Captain Marchesi's one. It was apparently quite old; we noticed, in fact, faded traces of white paint on the stones. The practice to white-wash the stones used by the Italian topographers is attested by a report on the boundaries' verification written in 1934 by Colonel Enrico De Agostini, the head of the Italian delegation. In the hope of finding a message in a bottle, like the one left by the Marchesi team of topographers on the summit of Jabal `Uwaynāt (Cima Italia), we carefully examined the void interior of the cairn but found nothing. The cairn is about 1.6 km NW from the place of the true Confluence as pointed out by the GPS (cf. map of the region). From the cairn we shot a picture toward the 22N 25E confluence point, 200 m uphill on the slope of a remarkable gully, but we did not reach it due to a lack of time.
Of course, the expedite topographic methods used by Captain Oreste Marchesi were not as accurate as the modern GPS devices. Anyway, we are reasonably confident we found the 22N 25E confluence point established and marked by Captain Oreste Marchesi in 1933.
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Italian translation of “past”
the past (also the past tense) A2 in grammar, the form of a verb that is used to show what happened in the past
il passato semplice
someone’s past › all of the things that someone has done in their life
il passato di qualcuno
I knew nothing about his past.
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