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How have care and support been organised?
Elderly people want to remain in their own homes for as long as possible. People with a disability want to live as independently as possible. That is why the government changed the way it organises care, in order to stop care becoming too expensive.
Care at home
Municipalities must ensure that people can live at home for as long as possible and continue to take part in the community. They first consider what elderly or disabled people can still do for themselves, and what relatives, friends and neighbours can do to help. If necessary, the municipality will provide support at home.
Home-based nursing and other medical care (including personal care) is also available.
Residential care
People who need constant care or supervision are eligible for residential care. Care institutions provide high-level care for vulnerable elderly people, people with disabilities and people with a psychiatric disorder. If they wish, and if it is practicable, they may continue to live at home and receive constant care there.
What laws apply to care services?
The organisation of long-term care is covered by the following laws:
Social Support Act (WMO 2015)
The Social Support Act states that municipalities must provide support to help people live independently and take part in society. They must also offer sheltered housing to people with a psychiatric disorder.
Healthcare Insurance Act (ZVW)
Nursing and personal care at home is covered by the Healthcare Insurance Act (ZVW).
Youth Act
Municipalities are responsible for almost all forms of care and support for minors.
Chronic Care Act (WLZ)
This Act covers high-level care for vulnerable elderly and people with disabilities. It replaces the Exceptional Medical Expenses Act (AWBZ). |
Domestic abuse support
What can be defined as sexual violence?
BSL Support
There are lots of behaviours that you may not realise are sexual violence, they include:
• A completed non-consensual sex act, known as rape
• Attempted non-consensual sex act, known as attempted rape
• Abusive sexual contact, like unwanted touching
• Non-contact sexual abuse, such as threatened sexual violence, exhibitionism, verbal sexual harassment.
Childhood sexual abuse is a form of sexual violence.
There are no excuses for sexual violence
You are not to blame – 100% of the blame for rape and sexual assault lies with the perpetrator. Sexual violence has nothing to do with the way you are dressed or being under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Nobody has the right to have sex with you without your consent.
Most victims are raped by someone they know. If you are in a relationship with someone or married and they force you to have sex, or do something sexual against your will, it is still rape or sexual assault.
If you say, “yes” to sex or sexual contact because you feel under pressure or you are frightened of the consequences if you don’t, this doesn't mean that you have consented to sex. |
DIY – How to Adjust the String Action on an Acoustic Guitar
The string action is the distance between the strings and the frets. The string action has a significant influence on both the playability of the guitar and its sound.
A low string action requires less force when pressing down the strings and therefore easily allows for faster playing.
A high string action offers more dynamics when playing. The higher the string action, the less danger there is of the strings touching the frets and causing unwanted noise.
As so often, we have to find a compromise, which lies somewhere between the two. Of course, it still depends very much on the guitarist's playing style. With a harder attack, it may be appropriate to raise the position. On the other hand, there are guitarists whose playing style allows for a much lower string action.
truss rod nut sound hole Checking the Truss Rod
Before we go any further, we have to check the truss rod for correct adjustment and eventually make necessary changes. If the neck relief is OK, the distance between strings and fretboard is maximum at the halfway point of the vibrating part of the string. To check this, tune the guitar as you would play it. Now press down the low E-string at the first and last fret at the same time. Half the distance is now approximately at the seventh/eighth fret, depending on the total number of frets. You might want to attach a capo to the first fret for better handling. Measure the distance between the strings and the fret. If the distance is about 0.3 mm, everything is fine. If the distance is smaller, the truss rod must be loosened a little, if it is larger, it should be tightened. Of course, the 0.3 mm mentioned above can only be a general guideline. Playing style and hardness of attack strongly influence the proper degree of neck relief. This can vary between 0.1 and 0.8 mm. However, the latter is already an extremely high value, for most guitarists values between 0.2 and 0.3 mm are optimal.
checking neck relief acoustic guitarAdjusting the Neck
The truss rod nut is located in the sound hole or at the headstock, depending on the guitar model. Turning it clockwise increases the amount of bow of the truss rod. The neck bends backwards and thus resists the string tension to a greater extent, the distance between neck and strings is reduced. Turning the screw counterclockwise makes the truss rod straighter, decreases the tension of the neck, the distance between neck and strings increases. When adjusting the truss rod nut, it is important to proceed only in very small steps, an eighth of a turn can already make a great deal of difference. It can happen that the truss rod does not react immediately. In this case, simply allow the instrument a little time to adjust to the changed tension. Very important: NEVER use force. If you cannot turn the nut, you should go to a professional. He has the experience and the tools to deal with this problem and you can save yourself the cost of repairing a broken truss rod.
Once the neck relief is optimised, the string action can be adjusted.
Measuring the String Action
• The string action is usually measured between the upper edge of the 12th fret and the lower edge of the string. A metal tape measure is sufficient for a simple estimation of the height; more precise results can be achieved with a feeler gauge.
• The high E-string should be about 0.5 mm lower at 12th fret than the low one.
• On a steel string guitar, 2.0 to 2.2 mm for the high E-string and 2.5 to 2.7 mm for the low E-string are good average values.
• The nylon strings of the classical guitar are somewhat higher because of their greater amplitude, that is 3.0 to 3.5 mm (E1) and 3.5 to 4.0 mm (E6).
Adjusting the String Action
The string action can be adjusted at two points, the bridge and the nut.
Never correct the nut by yourself
Correction at the nut is necessary if the guitar is difficult to play at the first fret, e.g. F-major can only be played with great effort. To check this, press the strings individually at the 3rd fret. There should now be just enough space between the string and the first fret for a sheet of paper to fit through. If the distance is higher or lower, have the saddle re-filed or replaced by a professional. I strongly advise against self-help measures here.
The situation is different if the string action is too high over the entire fingerboard.
Sand the bridge saddle by yourself
In this case, the bridge saddle must be sanded down. All you need is patience, some sandpaper and a glass plate. The sandpaper (150 or 180 grit) is stuck to the glass plate with double-sided adhesive tape, so that you have a 100% straight sanding surface.
When the strings are loosened, the bridge saddle can be removed and then sanded from the underside by simply running it over the glass plate. By repeatedly inserting and checking the string position, the optimal height can be found.
Lutherie: sanding the bridge saddle
Sanding the bridge saddle
Of course, the utmost care must be taken, because what has been sanded once is irretrievably lost - the string action becomes too flat. In this case, a veneer strip or similar aid can be placed under the saddle as an immediate aid, but this should not be a permanent solution for tonal reasons.
Adjusting the String Action Via Truss Tod?
There is a widespread belief among guitarists that the truss rod is used to adjust the string action. The aim of changing the string action is always a continuously decreasing distance between strings and fingerboard, starting from the bridge towards the nut. This is achieved by working on the bridge, i.e. from the lower end of the strings. In contrast, changing the truss rod has less effect on the string action near the nut, and more effect towards the middle of the neck. |
What is a provisioned resource?
What is provisioned concurrency?
A host or computing node that has allocated computing resources such as CPU, memory, I/O, disk, or network that are saturated at peak times. In the real IT world, especially for on-prem instances, it’s actually fairly rare to find an under-provisioned system. IT managers are so sensitive to this problem, that they routinely vastly over-provision most resources. This results in waste and over-spending, and is a far more common case than under-provisioning. On the web, under provisioning can result in a public bashing over the inability to access an important application. On-prem, it can cause workers to stop their work. An over provisioned application merely results in over-spending.
In cloud computing, customers seek “elasticity” in their systems, so that they may dynamically adapt to workload changes by provisioning and de-provisioning resources in an autonomic manner, such that at each point in time the available resources match the current demand as closely as possible. Elasticity aims at matching the amount of resource allocated to a service with the amount of resource it actually requires, avoiding over- or under-provisioning. Under-provisioning, i.e., allocating fewer resources than required, must be avoided, otherwise the service cannot serve its users with a good service. Under-provisioning the website may make it seem slow or unreachable. Web users eventually give up on accessing it, thus, the service provider loses customers. On the long term, the provider’s income will decrease, which also reduces their profitability.
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Sharpening Instructions
Sharpening Instructions
Download Sharpening Instructions -pdf here
In Västilä, a village in Längelmäki, Finland the Stoneman of Wästilä quarreies the bedrock which has deposits of good quality, schistose mudstone. The stone has been blasted from rock and cut into slates for centuries by hand using a hammer and wedge.
The rock has matured into whetting stone (phyllite) slowly. In the course of millions of years, great heat and pressure has forged into good quality and fine grained mudstone. The main minerals in it are quartz, feldspar and mica. The quality varies considerably. The better quality soft rock is separated off each piece by hand.
The history of Wästilä Whetstone goes back for centuries and in its time whetstone provided employment and a source of income for Längelmäki. Wästilä Whetsone has also been imported to different Parts of the world for both weapons and tools.
The stone itself has been made by the Finnish god Ukko Ylijumala. The Wästilä Stoneman is responsible for the quarrying and and design using skills inherited from his forefathers. The stone is sold and marketed by Wästikivi Oy.
Wet your stone with water and grind parallel to the angle of the knife edge and you will see how cleverly nature has built this sharpening stone.
A traditional way to sharpen.
Centuries of history
How to sharpen with a Wästilä Whetstone
Sharpening a knife or “puukko”
1. Moisten the stone with water.
2. Hold the knife at angle of 20° (or the angle of the edge to be sharpened) so that the knife lies on the stone. Grind the edge with a circular motion so that some burr is created to the end of the edge.
Repeat for other side of the knife edge. The mud emerging on top of the stone Helps the process, so do not rinse it a way.
3. In the end the burr is neutralised with a few strong strokes on both sides with a slightly sharper angle than when sharpening (as if cutting thin shave from the stone).
When sharpening scissors remember to grind with parallel strokes and only to grind the cutting edge ( do not touch the flat side).
You can sharpen a cheese slicer with the sharp end of the stone. With the narrow end of the stone you can reach other awkward places. You can use the stone as a nail file or to sharpen hooks, various chisels, scythes, and sickles.
Fly-fisher’s stone (c. 70 x 30 x 8 mm)
For sharpening flies and hooks. Does not rip the hook but sharpens finely without wasting metal.
Homestone (c. 150 x 30 x 10 mm)
A general sharpening tool for every home.
Homestone has a sharp end for sharpening Tight places like cheese slicers.
Chef’s stone (c. 270 x 30 x 12 mm)
A longer, rounder model for chefs used to A steel sharpener.
Wästikivi Oy
Ruovedenkuja 3 35300 Orivesi
How to use Wästikivi whetstone |
Ground Your Reader, or Why Storyboarding is Important
The Room is our generation’s Rocky Horror*. It’s at best a D-List movie with horrible stock footage and acting right out of a CCD production of Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The writing is Nemesis-worthy.
Basically, if The Room was being graded for actual artistic merit, it would beyond fail.
The Room is a great learning experience. Tommy Wiseau’s “masterpiece” is a great example on what not to do in writing from character confusion, sloppy dialogue, poor pacing, and more.
He would've definitely benefited from using a storyboard, which is something I thought all film types did in form or another. For the sake of this post, storyboarding will encompass actual storyboards, maps, and logical sense.
1. Sense of Time. Novels span anywhere from one hour to several years. As writers, it’s our job to convey this information accurately to the reader. We can’t effectively do this unless we know how much time has passed in between scenes, chapters, or sections.
Example a la The Room: Lisa and Johnny are to be married in a month. Lisa is throwing a surprise birthday for Johnny in less than a week. The infamous tuxedo scene happens before the surprise party**.
Further Example a la The Room: At the start of the movie, there is a mention that Johnny and Lisa have been together for five years. At the end, someone else mentions it’s been seven years. There’s no indication that the movie takes place over a two-year span.
Why Storyboard? If you lay everything out, you’ll see where your inconsistencies lie, therefore making your story tighter. (Holly does this with her snazzy outline breaking it out by timestamp.)
2. Pacing. Does your action scene actually go fast? Did you include that much needed beat in between sentences?
Example a la The Room: I’ll just let Tommy help out here.
Why Storyboard? While storyboarding won’t help with that dialogue beat, it can help you figure out the logistics of your fight scene.
3. Logistical Plausibility. If you deal with multiple settings, it can be difficult to remember that the door is on your protagonist’s left or that this room has no windows.
Example a la The Room: For most of the scenes in Johnny and Lisa’s apartment, we see the living room from one angle. This angle gives us their couch which is in front of a window and has a coffee table in front. The outside door is house left of the couch. There’s only one scene where we see the other part of the apartment, which confuses the viewer to the point where we think the scene with the fireplace is a different location.
Further Example a la The Room: Right before the surprise party, we watch Johnny walk home from presumably work***. The walk takes over an hour****. Now yours truly walks 45 minutes each way to work, but she doesn’t do it in dress shoes and a business suit.
View Larger Map
Why Storyboard? Figuring out simple things like the commute home (if that’s important to your novel) aids in the believability of your characters’ world.
That’s what I learned from watching The Room. If you want more writing tips from this heckle-tastic movie, hop on over to Kat’s, Erinn’s, or Pam and Quita’s blogs where they’re sharing their learning experiences as well. Also, one of us will be giving away this awesomeness this week. Stay tuned.
And if you learned something from The Room, do tell.
* Minus The Time Warp, Meatloaf, crossdressers, and everything else that makes Rocky Horror brilliant.
** Which occurs almost at the end of the movie.
*** It’s about as exciting as you think it is. Cutting out extraneous crap is another writing lesson.
**** No, I didn't locate all this information. Someone had done the work for me.
________________ hit of the day: The Reckoning by Godhead |
Key Characteristics of Brain Training
In the review of the science behind the Lumosity brain training games, Hardy and Scanlon (2009) described five essential characteristics required to ensure the effectiveness of brain training interventions. These characteristics are:
• Targeting: Effective training intervention should focus on broadly generalizable and transferable processes rather than specific content knowledge of tasks, while targeting to enhance the most essential aspects of brain function;
• Adaptivity: Provision must be made to adapt the level of difficulty of the training task to the performance of the user on a moment-to-moment basis. An optimal level of difficulty must be maintained so that the performance task is challenging, yet not discouraging;
• Novelty: Brain training will be more effective when the performance task requirements are novel to the user. Familiar tasks simply reactivate existing brain circuitry and will not foster significant information processing improvements;
• Engagement: Effective brain training interventions are designed to capture user engagement and provide appropriate rewards to maintain and reinforce that engagement. Both of these conditions ensure that the brain becomes more receptive to learning and modification; and
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Essay范文-Creators and evolution of ideas-51Due留学教育
Creators and evolution of ideas
2021-07-06 来源: 51Due教员组 类别: Essay范文
今天给大家带来一篇优秀的论文 这篇论文主要讲述的是 在一个社会群体中，所有成员创造性受益于创造力,一些人仅仅是模仿或享受别人的创造性成果。这篇社会essay代写范文概述了这个问题，使用一个计算机模型的进化。基于神经网络的代理,通过修改现有的发明。对于所有水平的创造力,思想的多样性在人群中的比例呈正相关。一起来看看吧 有论文需要帮忙的亲亲 可以联系我们的专属客服 微信号 Even100100 进行咨询喔~
There are both benefits and drawbacks to creativity. In a social group it is not necessary for all members to be creative to benefit from creativity; some merely imitate or enjoy the fruits of others’ creative efforts. What proportion should be creative? This paper outlines investigations of this question carried out using a computer model of cultural evolution referred to as EVOC (for EVOlution of Culture). EVOC is composed of neural network based agents that evolve fitter ideas for actions by (1) inventing new ideas through modification of existing ones, and (2) imitating neighbors’ ideas. The ideal proportion with respect to fitness of ideas occurs when thirty to forty percent of the individuals is creative; yet when creative agents innovate half of the time or less, this proportion grows to a hundred percent. For all levels or creativity, the diversity of ideas in a population is positively correlated with the ratio of creative agents.
Computer science is drawing ever more extensively upon the natural world for inspiration in the design of search algorithms, optimization tools, problem solving techniques, and even computer-based artistic expression. Probably the most effective problem solver Mother Nature has come up with is the human mind itself. Its effectiveness derives largely from the fact that it is endlessly creative, able to break out of ruts and come up with ideas and solutions that are new, useful, and appealing. Not only are we individually creative, but we build on each other’s creations such that over the centuries our ideas and inventions can be said to have evolved. In order for computer scientists to put to use the process by which creative ideas evolve through cultural exchange we must first get a deeper computational understanding of it. This paper presents investigations of one aspect of the process: the interaction between how creative individuals are, and how numerous they are in a society. That human creativity is immensely beneficial is fairly obvious.
Our considerable capacity for selfexpression, for finding practical solutions to problems of survival, and coming up with aesthetically pleasing objects that delight the senses, all stem from the creative power of the human mind. However, there are also considerable drawbacks to creativity. A creative solution to one problem often generates other problems or unexpected negative side effects that may only become apparent after much has been invested in the creative solution. Moreover, creative individuals are more emotionally unstable and prone to affective disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder, and have a higher incidence of schizophrenic tendencies, than other segments of the population (Andreason, 1987; Flaherty, 2005; Jamieson, 1989, 1993; Styron, 1990). They are also more prone to abuse drugs and alcohol (Goodwin, 1988, 1992; Ludwig, 1995; Norlander & Gustafson, 1996, 1997, 1998; Rothenberg, 1990) as well as suicide (Goodwin & Jamieson, 1990).
Also, creative people often feel disconnected from others because they defy the crowd (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995; Sulloway, 1996). However, in a group of interacting individuals only a fraction of them need be creative for the benefits of creativity to be felt throughout the group. The rest can reap the benefits of the creator’s ideas without having to withstand the dark aspects of creativity by simply copying, using, or admiring them. After all, few of us know how to build a computer, or write a symphony, or a novel, but they are nonetheless ours to use and enjoy when we please. One can thus ask: in order for a culture to evolve optimally, what proportion of individuals should be ’creative types’ and how creative should they be? This paper investigates this using an agent-based modeling approach. The agents are too simple to develop affective disorders or abuse alcohol; the drawback to their creativity is that complex solutions to multi-part problems (in biological terms, epistatic relations) break down when too much variation is introduced too quickly. Ideas that are too creative are not implemented as actions in the world; thus if an agent is overly creative, its creative potential is wasted. Moreover, since each iteration each agent either invents or imitates, by deciding (and failing) to invent, it forgoes a chance to imitate.
The Modeling Approach
EVOC consists of neural network based agents that invent ideas for actions, and imitate neighbors’ actions Gabora, 2008). EVOC is an elaboration of Meme and Variations, or MAV (Gabora, 1995), the earliest computer program to model culture as an evolutionary process in its own right. MAV was inspired by the genetic algorithm (GA), a search technique that finds solutions to complex problems by generating a ’population’ of candidate solutions through processes akin to mutation and recombination, selecting the best, and repeating until a satisfactory solution is found.
Although MAV has inspired the incorporation of cultural phenomena (such as imitation, knowledge-based operators, and mental simulation) into evolutionary search algorithms (e.g. Krasnogor & Gustafson, 2004), the goal behind MAV was not to solve search problems, but to gain insight into how ideas evolve. It used neural network based agents that could (1) invent new ideas by modifying previously learned ones, (2) evaluate ideas, (3) implement ideas as actions, and (4) imitate ideas implemented by neighbors. Agents evolved in a cultural sense, by generating and sharing ideas for actions, but not in a biological sense; they neither died nor had offspring. The approach can thus be contrasted with computer models of the interaction between biological evolution and individual learning (Best, 1999, 2006; Higgs, 2000; Hinton & Nowlan, 1987; Hutchins & Hazelhurst, 1991).
MAV successfully modeled how ’descent with modification’ can occur in a cultural context, but it had limitations arising from the outdated methods used to program it. Moreover, although new ideas in MAV were generated making use of acquired knowledge and pattern detection, the name ’Meme and Variations’ implied acceptance of the notion that cultural novelty is generated randomly, and that culture evolves through a Darwinian process operating on discrete units of culture, or ’memes’. Problems with memetics and other Darwinian approaches to culture have become increasingly apparent (Boone & Smith, 1998; Fracchia & Lewontin, 1999; Gabora, 2004, 2006, 2008; Jeffreys, 2000). One problem is that natural selection prohibits the passing on of acquired traits (thus you don’t inherit your mother’s tattoo).1
In culture, however, ’acquired’ change-that is, modification to ideas between the time they are learned and the time they are expressed-is unavoidable. Darwinian approaches must assume that elements of culture are expressed in the same form as that in which they are acquired. Natural selection also assumes that lineages do not intermix. However, because ideas cohabit a distributed memory with a multitude of other ideas, they are constantly combining to give new ideas, and their meanings, associations, and implications are constantly revised. essay代写)
It has been proposed that what evolves through culture is not discrete memes or artifacts, but the internal models of the world that give rise to them (Gabora, 2004), and they evolve not through a Darwinian process of competitive exclusion but a Lamarckian process involving exchange of innovation protocols (Gabora, 2006, 2008). EVOC incorporates this in part by allowing agents to have multiple interacting needs, thereby fostering complex actions that fulfill multiple needs. Elsewhere (Gabora, 2008a,b) results of experiments using different needs and/or multiple needs are described, as well as how cultural evolution is affected by affordances of the agents’ world, such as world shape and size, population density, and barriers that impede information flow, and potentially erode with time. This paper investigates how different proportions of creative to uncreative agents affects the fitness and diversity of ideas.
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How did nationalism develop in India?
Indian nationalism developed as a concept during the Indian independence movement which campaigned for independence from British rule. Indian nationalism is an instance of territorial nationalism, which is inclusive of all of the people of India, despite their diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds.
What were the causes of rise of Nationalism in India?
The causes that led to the rising of Nationalism in India is, Contradiction against Colonial Interests. Political, Administration and Economical conditions give rise to situations of Unification. Education and Western thoughts.
When did India develop nationalism?
The last decades of the 19th century saw the emergence of nationalism in India. The Indian National Congress was established in 1885 and it soon became the spearhead of the Indian Nationalist Movement.
What is the nationalism movement in India?
The Nationalist Movements in India were early popular movements seeking independence of India from Great Britain. Although actions such as the Salt March in 1930 raised pressure on the colonialist administration and won concessions, these remained limited in scope and fell short of the complete independence sought.
How did nationalism Start emerged after the revolt of 1857?
Political unification of India, fall of India’s old social and economic system, the beginning of modern trade and industry and the rise of new social classes laid the basis of nationalism. The social and religious reform movements and popular anti-British revolts contributed to the growth of nationalism.
IT IS INTERESTING: What all is India famous for?
What are the 3 types of nationalism?
Types of Nationalism
• Ethnic Nationalism:
• Civic Nationalism:
• Expansionist Nationalism:
• Romantic Nationalism:
• Cultural Nationalism:
• Revolutionary Nationalism:
• Post-Colonial Nationalism:
• Liberation Nationalism:
When did the rise of nationalism start?
Scholars frequently place the beginning of nationalism in the late 18th century or early 19th century with the American Declaration of Independence or with the French Revolution. The consensus is that nationalism as a concept was firmly established by the 19th century.
WHO said about Indian nationalism?
Indian nationalists led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to make what was then British India, as well as the 562 princely states under British paramountcy, into a single secular, democratic state.
How did British rule contribute to the rise of nationalism in India?
Answer: The British system of rule gave upper-class Indians opportunities to be educated in Europe and to serve in minor government roles. A generation of educated Indians, then, were exposed to Enlightenment ideals of democracy and national sovereignty.
What was the Gandhi concept of nationalism?
Gandhi’s nationalism seems simple and straightforward: he wanted an independent Indian nation state and freedom from British colonial rule. But in reality his nationalism rested on complex and sophisticated moral philosophy. … He sought a tolerant and unified state that included all communities within a ‘Mother India’.
Chants of India |
Enter the width in pixels and the width in micrometers into the calculator to determine the resolution.
Resolution Formula
The following formula is used to calculate a resolution.
R = Wp/ Wum
• Where R is the resolution (pixels/micrometer)
• Wp is the width in pixels
• Wum is the width in micrometers
Resolution Definition
A resolution is defined as the density of pixels within a screen.
Resolution Example
How to calculate a resolution.
1. First, determine the number of pixels.
Measure the total number of pixels across the screen.
2. Next, determine the width in micro meters.
Measure the total width of the screen in micro meters.
3. Finally, calculate the resolution.
Use the formula above to calculate the resolution.
What is a resolution?
A resolution is a measure of pixels per unit of distance. The higher the resolution the higher the quality of vision.
resolution calculator
resolution formula |
Expected Default Frequency (EDF)
A measure of the probability that loan payments will default within a given period, usually one year
What is Expected Default Frequency (EDF)?
Expected Default Frequency (EDF) is a credit measure that was developed by Moody’s Analytics as part of the KMV model. EDF measures the probability that a company will default on payments within a given period by failing to honor the interest and principal payments, usually within a period of one year.
Expected Default Frequency
The term “Expected Default Frequency” is trademarked for the probability of default that was derived from Moody’s KMV model. The KMV model was based on the work of three researchers – Stephen Kealhofer, John McQuown, and Oldrich Vasicek. EDF holds that a company defaults when the market value of its assets declines below its liabilities payable. The EDF model measures credit from a one-year to five-year time horizon.
• Expected Default Frequency (EDF) is a credit measure that determines the likelihood of a company defaulting on its debt obligations over a time horizon, usually one year.
• The EDF model holds that a company is considered to be in default when the market value of its assets decreases below the book value of its liabilities.
• EDF is a trademarked term for the default probability derived by Moody’s Analytics, Inc.
Components of Expected Default Frequency
There are three objective factors that determine the Expected Default Frequency measure of a company. They include:
1. Market value of assets
The market value of assets is not a directly observable metric, and Moody’s Analytics developed a model to determine the value. The option-theoretic approach uses the market characteristics of a company’s equity value, as well as the book value of its liabilities, to arrive at the market value of assets. The model treats the equity value of the company as a call option on its underlying assets.
2. Asset volatility
Asset volatility refers to the dispersion of returns of a specific asset (s) owned by a company. Investors view increased volatility as an increase in the risk of investing in specific assets or companies. Volatile assets are considered high risk because their prices are less predictable.
Asset volatility is measured as the standard deviation of returns from the asset or market index. If a company’s assets show higher volatility, there is a greater risk of its value falling below the default, point and investors will be less optimistic about the company’s market value.
3. Default point
Default point is defined as the level of a company’s market value of assets below which it will not be in a position to make scheduled debt payments. The default point is specific to the company being evaluated, and it depends on the company’s liability structure and the value of its assets.
What is Default Probability?
Default probability is the likelihood that a company will not be able to make scheduled repayments over a specified period of time. It provides an estimate of the probability that a borrower will be unable to meet its debt obligations, i.e., principal and interest payments, over a particular time horizon.
The probability of default depends on the borrower’s characteristics, as well as the economic environment. For example, during periods of high inflation, there is a strain on the borrower’s ability to make repayments due to the loss of value of the currency. The default probability of individual borrowers may be determined by looking at their FICO scores, whereas the default probability of business is implied by their credit rating.
Factors that Determine the Default Probability of a Company
The following are the key factors that affect the default probability of a company:
1. Value of assets
The value of assets refers to the market value of the company’s assets. It is the value that investors would pay to own the asset. In other words, the value of assets equals the current value of future free cash flows generated by the assets and then discounted at the appropriate discount rate.
2. Asset risk
The asset risk is a measure of the business and industry risk that a company faces. When determining the value of assets, analysts calculate an estimate of the assets based on the fair market value that similar assets would fetch in the market.
Since the value is uncertain, there exists a risk on the asset value, and businesses should measure the asset value in the context of the asset risk.
3. Leverage
Leverage occurs when a business uses borrowed funds to invest in its operational activities. Investors use leverage to increase their buying power in the market and amplify the returns obtained from an investment. Rather than issue new shares to raise capital, some entities prefer using debt to finance their activities and increase shareholder value.
A company’s leverage is measured by comparing the market value of assets against the book value of liabilities that it must pay. The default risk increases when the market value of assets declines with an increase in the book value of liabilities.
When the book value of liabilities exceeds the market value of assets, it signals that the value of assets is inadequate to meet future obligations.
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from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term diaspora ([ diˈaspoʀa ]; ancient Greek διασπορά diasporá , dispersion, scatteredness') denotes the existence of religious , national , cultural or ethnic communities abroad after they have left their traditional homeland and are sometimes scattered over large parts of the world. In a figurative sense, which is often colloquial, it can also refer to the communities themselves living in this way or their settlement area.
Originally, and for many centuries, the term only referred to the exile of the Jewish people and their dispersal outside their historical homeland. Since early modern times he has also referred to local minorities of the Christian diaspora. In Greece, the term is used to designate the Greeks abroad who make up over half of the Greek population.
Since the 1990s, the term diaspora has been increasingly brought into semantic proximity to the concepts of transnationalism or transmigration .
Origin and meaning
The word comes from the translation of the Septuagint , the Greek translation of the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible ( Tanakh ): "The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth" ( Deut. 28.64 EU ) It is used as a metaphor that describes the dissolution of the people or separation and distance from their homeland.
Jewish diaspora
Originally, diaspora denoted settlements of the Jews that were closed after the fall of the kingdom of Judah in 586 BC. First arose in Babylonian exile and spread from there and from Palestine in the following centuries . After the expulsion of the Jews from Palestine by Emperor Hadrian in 135 AD , a new situation arose: unlike other refugees who set out in search of a new place to live, the expelled Jews were characterized by their being sent to one for religious reasons Believed to return to their homeland in Palestine. This belief in the Promised Land was anchored both in writing in the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible ( Dtn 30.3 EU ) and in the main prayer of the Jews . The end of the diaspora was to be brought about by the arrival of the Messiah ( Isa 11.12 EU ; Isa 27.12f EU ). This unique situation, which had an identity-forming effect on the Jews, motivated some scholars to limit the meaning of the term diaspora to the Jewish exile life from the first Babylonian exile to the expulsion from Palestine in 135 AD. On the other hand, the life of the Jews in the period after their expulsion in 135 up to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 is said to be called Galut. This definition became influential in Judaic studies because it is the only one given in the Encyclopaedia Judaica .
Today, however, the term is often applied to different manifestations of life outside of home, even if this is not tied to a belief in a Messiah. Nevertheless, the Jewish diaspora with 8,074,300 people (as of January 1, 2016) is still a relatively large and significant diaspora despite its inflationary use.
Other religious and ethnic diaspores
The term has also been used to refer to local minorities of the Christian diaspora since the early modern period. While the term diaspora has a negative connotation in the historical context of religion, the term diaspora in the current theoretical discourse no longer necessarily has a primarily negative connotation. In any case, the diasporic situation - life as an ethnic or cultural community abroad - can be seen as a paradigm of the globalized world. The diaspora finds itself in the field of tension between cosmopolitan detachment and a nationalism that no longer defines itself purely territorially. Diasporic cultures and groups have become diverse and heterogeneous. Terms used in the context such as exile , immigrant , outcast, refugee , expatriate or minority and transnationality show the problems of creating a generally applicable definition of the term diaspora from today's perspective.
William Safran has established six rules for differentiating diaspores from migrant communities . They keep a myth alive or keep a collective memory of their homeland. They consider their ancestral home to be their true home to which they will eventually return. They are committed to restoring or maintaining this home. And they relate personally or on behalf of their homeland to the point where it shapes their identity.
In addition to material problems, the diaspora situation confronts people with the question of their cultural identity . They often emphasize and exaggerate the values of their country of origin. Voluntary or forced demarcation and exclusion on the one hand ( parallel society ), assimilation up to the loss of the native language or religion of the community on the other hand are the extremes between which diaspora populations seek their way. The experience gained over the centuries can be valuable for a world in which cultural diversity is becoming the norm. Overall, minorities , who for a long time nowhere can hope to become a majority, develop specific political concepts; also towards other minorities.
Robin Cohen distinguishes between different concepts of diaspora in his book on the concept of diaspora. First of all, the victim diaspora , for which he cites the Armenians , the Jews or the African slaves as examples . He also lists the diaspora of labor migration and population movements in imperial colonial empires, citing the Indians in the Commonwealth as an example . He speaks of the diaspora of trade and examines it using the example of the Chinese and Lebanese. He describes a cultural diaspora and discusses this using the example of the Caribbean diaspora. After all, he deals with those notions of diaspora which above all articulate a strong longing for a homeland or even cultivate a myth about this homeland. The last traces of their original cultural affiliation of people in a diaspora are therefore often the resistance of the exiled community to a change of language and the maintenance of traditional religious practice.
List of diaspores
Important diaspores include the following communities (in alphabetical order):
Modern diaspora
As the century of migration , the 20th century is characterized by countless refugee movements , which have their origins in war, nationalism, poverty and racism. In the first half of the 20th century, numerous refugees from Europe, Asia and North Africa saw their salvation in North America.
The refugee ethnic groups include a .:
Diaspora politics
Diaspora policy, also known as emigrant policies, aims in most cases on the one hand to strengthen the ties of the emigrants to their places of origin and countries and on the other hand to promote their integration in the host country. Diaspora policy should not be confused with emigration policy, which regulates the act of emigration itself. Diaspora policy starts later: With the rights, duties and participation opportunities of emigrated citizens who already live outside the national borders. The approaches to integrating the emigrated citizens in their countries of origin are referred to as "state-led transnationalism" (in English state-led transnationalism).
Reasons for diaspora politics
There are many reasons why countries of origin have an interest in lasting ties to their emigrants. They range from ensuring a steady flow of money transfers (remittances) to controlling the population living abroad to functionalizing the emigrants as a foreign policy lobby in the country of residence. The most important policy area is civil rights, followed by social policy measures that represent an expansion of welfare state functions beyond national borders.
Diaspora policy is also important for the host countries of the migrants, because some countries actively help their emigrated citizens to integrate into the local society. Such political approaches can lower the integration costs for emigrants - and offer a so far little-used potential for cooperation between countries of origin and destination.
Challenges for home and host countries
Diaspora politics nonetheless remains a challenge. The expansion of policies beyond national borders answers a concern of many emigrants, but it also leads to new demands - be it for more transparent and institutionalized participation in the country of origin or for more and better support in the host country. This remains difficult terrain for government policy. Beyond the national borders, closely coordinated political approaches are required for areas that fall within the jurisdiction of very different authorities in the country itself. At the same time, the resources for implementation abroad via the consular network and cooperation with migrant organizations and local representatives are generally much lower.
Latin America as a pioneer
The tolerance of dual citizenship has become more widespread in Latin America than in any other region of the world. With the exception of Cuba, all states allow their emigrated citizens to acquire a second citizenship without losing the first. While nationality and citizenship are often used synonymously in Europe, there is a legal distinction between the two categories in Latin America. While nationality denotes membership in a nation state, citizenship (in Spanish ciudadanía) is a sub-category of it, which relates to the status of formal participation in the political community.
Research on Latin America shows that the expansion of diaspora politics there is linked to an orientation towards civil rights and state services that can have a positive influence on integration in the host countries. It is also true for European host countries that among the diverse forms in which countries of origin maintain ties with their emigrants, there are opportunities for productive cooperation that can reduce the costs of migration and integration - for the benefit of all parties involved. Both countries of origin and receiving countries as well as migrants can benefit from this.
The expansion of state functions and political innovations in dealing with emigrants are a global trend that reflects a new interest in the countries of origin in their emigrated citizens. Latin America experiences the expansion of diaspora politics as strategies to revive a broken relationship with all those people who have left their countries for lack of prospects.
• Gavriʾel Sheffer: Diaspora Politics. At Home Abroad . Cambridge University Press, New York 2003, ISBN 0-521-81137-6 .
• Ruth Mayer: Diaspora. A critical explanation of terms . Transcript, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89942-311-9 .
Web links
Commons : Diasporas - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Diaspora - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Individual evidence
1. entry diaspora in Duden.de , accessed on April 13 of 2019.
2. Jenny Kuhlmann, Exil, Diaspora, Transmigration , Federal Center for Political Education , October 6, 2014. Accessed July 4, 2017.
3. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica , Second Edition, Volume 5: Coh-Doz , pp. 637–643.
4. Sergio DellaPergola: World Jewish Population, 2016. In: Arnold Dashefsky, Ira M. Sheskin (Ed.): American Jewish Year Book 2016. Springer, 2017, pp. 274, 311-317. ISBN 978-3-319-46121-2 (e-book: doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-319-46122-9 ; limited preview in Google Books ).
5. Ruth Mayer: Diaspora. A critical definition. transcript Bielefeld, 10/2005. ISBN 978-3-89942-311-2 . Limited preview ( Memento from February 14, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
6. ^ William Safran: Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return. In: Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies. 1, 1991, pp. 83-99 ( doi: 10.1353 / dsp.1991.0004 ).
7. ^ Robin Cohen: Global Diasporas: An Introduction . Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-43550-5 .
8. http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2006/0251/tema02.php (Russian-Cyrillic text)
9. ^ VG Makarov; VS Christoforov: «Passažiry‹ filosofskogo paroxoda ›. (Sud'by intelligencii, repressirovannoj letom-osen'ju 1922 g.) ». In: Voprosy filosofii No. 7 (600) 2003, pp. 113-137 [Russian: «The passengers of the ' Philosophership' . (The fate of the intelligentsia persecuted in the summer / autumn of 1922) »; contains a list with biographical information on all intellectuals exiled from Russia between 1922 and 1923].
10. Serbs in Germany, Serbia-Montenegro.de Serbs in Germany and in German-speaking countries ( Memento from November 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
11. a b Pedroza, Luicy; Palop, Pau; Hoffmann, Bert: New Proximity: The Policy of the States of Latin America towards their Emigrants . Ed .: GIGA Focus Latin America. tape 3 . Hamburg July 2016, p. 13 ( giga-hamburg.de [PDF]).
12. Pedroza, L., Palop, P. & Hoffmann, B .: Emigrant Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean . FLACSO-Chile, Santiago de Chile 2016, ISBN 978-956-205-257-3 , pp. 360 ( giga-hamburg.de [PDF]). |
Introducing Computer Science to High School Students through Logic Programming
08/09/2018 ∙ by Timothy T. Yuen, et al. ∙ Texas Tech University The University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at San Antonio 0
This paper investigates how high school students in an introductory computer science course approach computing in the Logic Programming (LP) paradigm. This qualitative study shows how novice students operate within the LP paradigm while engaging in foundational computing concepts and skills: students are engaged in a cyclical process of abstraction, reasoning, and creating representations of their ideas in code while also being informed by the (procedural) requirements and the revision/debugging process. As these computing concepts and skills are also expected in traditional approaches to introductory K-12 CS courses, this paper asserts that LP is a viable paradigm choice for high school novices. This paper is under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
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This week in AI
1 Introduction
The debate in paradigm selection in introductory computer science (CS) courses is often split between object-oriented (OO) and procedural paradigms, which also leads to discussions on programming language choice. This choice is difficult as there are no standard languages or paradigms to use in the field. Though both these approaches have been successful in introductory CS courses, some research has also shown only minimal differences when comparing the outcomes between paradigms [Chen et al. (2006), Vilner et al. (2007)]. However, research on the teaching of introductory CS courses also reveals the limitations of those approaches [Pears et al. (2007), Chakravarty and Keller (2004)] and that the suitability of Java, C/C++ for education is debatable. Often, these discussions of introductory courses are aimed at the university level. However, high school is a critical juncture when CS educators have one last opportunity to engage students in CS and provide adequate preparation before they select their majors and begin university. Thus, this paper emphasizes the importance of introductory CS courses, as well as paradigm/language selection, at the high school level. At this time, more research is needed on how to best teach CS in high schools.
Some research shows that teaching programming to middle and high school students is challenging [Sherin et al. (1993)]. By a recent survey on teaching CS in K-12 using programming (K-12 is a USA school system including Kindergarten, first grade (usually 6–7 years old) until 12th grade. Elementary schools usually include 1st to 5th grade, middle schools 6th to 8th grade, and high schools 9th to 12th grade), the majority of education research uses visual programming languages [Lye and Koh (2014)]. Examples of these languages include Scratch [Resnick et al. (2009)], Toontalk [Kahn (2004)], and Alice [Cooper et al. (2000)]. With these visual languages, students build programs using graphical objects and drag-and-drop interfaces, which significantly reduces the challenges for students to learn the syntax (compared to text-based programming). Another prominent feature of these environments is to encourage and facilitate tinkering and fit the needs of students who prefer tinkering to logic and planning [Papert (1980), Resnick and Rosenbaum (2013)]. On the one hand, these languages and environments have been very successful in reaching a large K-12 population. On the other hand, more research is needed to understand how computation thinking occurs as students are tinkering while using visual programming languages [Guzdial (2004), Lye and Koh (2014)]. While substantial efforts have been made in introducing CS to younger audiences through visual programming languages which are largely procedural or OO based, logic programming (LP) based approaches have been largely ignored by the K-12 Computer Science education research community [Pears et al. (2007), Lye and Koh (2014)], despite continuing efforts in both teaching and research on LP.
1.1 Logic Programming and CS Education
Prolog may be the most well-known instance in which LP was used to teach CS. In particular, Prolog was used to teach children in the 1980s [Kowalski (1982), Kowalski (1987), Nichol et al. (1988), Guzdial (2004)]. As a pioneer, Kowalski 1987 focused on the declarative aspects of Prolog and restricted the use of procedural aspects of Prolog to a minimum. Later, researchers and practitioners found that the procedural aspects of Prolog have been the main source of misconceptions and difficulties Mendelsohn et al. (1990), while the benefits of its declarative aspects were acknowledged. In the last two decades, Prolog has made some appearances: listed in high school curriculum Scherz and Haberman (1995), and taught to gifted and talented high school students Stutterheim et al. (2013) as well as to general high school and undergraduate students Levesque (2012); Beux et al. (2015) though it does not enjoy the same attention as procedural and OO paradigms. In the last two decades, a breakthrough in LP research was the establishment of the Answer Set Programming (ASP) Brewka et al. (2011); Gelfond and Kahl (2014); Kowalski (2014), a paradigm which has inherited the declarative nature of Prolog while fully removing its procedural features.
ASP meets the expectations of a programming environment for young children Papert (1980); Guzdial (2004); Resnick et al. (2009); Grover and Pea (2013): “low floor” (easy to get started) and a “high ceiling” (opportunities to create increasingly complex projects over time). ASP has a simple syntax. LP, in general, and ASP, in particular, are closer to natural language compared with other programming paradigms, allow natural modeling of problems and thus allows the focus on the essence of the problems. Also, ASP is a full-fledged programming language that can be used to solve NP complete problems or problems in a higher level of the complexity hierarchy.
As for CS education at the level of both K-12 and colleges, significant efforts in the last two decades were made to understand what CS is and what to teach about CS. One line of work is carried out under the notion of Computational Thinking Allan et al. (2011); Barr and Stephenson (2011); Brennan and Resnick (2012); Wing (2011). Progress is being made on what Computational Thinking is Grover and Pea (2013), but significant effort is still needed to have a full understanding of Computational Thinking Hemmendinger (2010); CSTA (2012); Voogt et al. (2015). The study of computational thinking has led to the development of several national and international standards for teaching computational thinking at the secondary school level.
As shown in the recent curriculum standards and framework (e.g., Computer Science Teachers Association Standards CSTA (2012) and K-12 Computer Science Framework K-12 CS Framework Committee (2016)) and the AP course (an Advanced Placement high school course in USA) “Computer Science Principles” CollegeBoard (2017), CS education should cover the following components: abstracting, algorithms, programming and communicating.
ASP provides an environment for teaching these components. The objects, variables and relations underlying ASP provide a rich structure for students to practice abstraction when modeling a problem. For example, students can practice abstraction from the very basic level involving a relation among concrete (constant) objects, to a higher level involving queries containing variables, and to the fullest level involving rules. There are also many finer abstraction levels in between those three levels.
As a well-established programming paradigm, ASP offers a setting for students to learn and practice all aspects of programming: design the model (program), edit the program, and learn the (informal yet rigorous to a great extent) syntax and semantics, recursion, coding and debugging. ASP allows a modeling methodology which starts from the description of knowledge (in the problem of concern) in natural language (e.g., English) and may need continuous refinement of the English description. The transition from English description to ASP rules provides scaffolds for students to understand both rules and English description in a more precise way. Therefore, ASP based modeling trains students to practice communicating information.
As for algorithms, ASP can cover recursion. The training of students in abstraction and rigorous representation through LP is expected to increase students’ capacity for specifying problems accurately, which is taken as desirable before studying algorithms Kleinberg and Tardos (2006). However, as a pure declarative programming paradigm, ASP is hardly the best option for teaching algorithms. On the other hand, by skipping the need to know algorithms, ASP significantly reduces the gap between (interesting) problems and their computer modeling, which seems to serve better the initiative Smith (2016) in the United States to teach computer science to all students in K-12. See Section 7.1 for a more detailed discussion.
1.2 Advantages of Logic Programming
From the existing work and practice in LP and general programming Pears et al. (2007); Chakravarty and Keller (2004); Scherz and Haberman (1995); Ball and Zorn (2015), the main advantages of LP as related to computing education are: 1) simple syntax and intuitive/declarative semantics; 2) natural connection to abstraction, logical reasoning and knowledge representation which form the foundation of computing and other disciplines; 3) early involvement of non-trivial, interesting and challenging problems (e.g., Sudoku problem); and 4) the mathematical flavor of LP. LP also provides a rich context for embedding essential computing concepts and skills (as argued in the previous subsection). As for industrial relevance, LP and Declarative Programming (DP), in general, have seen their profound application and impact in database query languages, problem (formal) specification languages, and domain specification languages including popular web application development languages such as HTML, CSS and XSLT etc. Currently, ASP is a dominating LP formalism in knowledge representation.
1.3 Research Question
Given the advantages of LP in CS education, more investigation is needed in how LP could be introduced to K-12 students. Although there is progress being made to expand LP to secondary schools[e.g., Dovier et al. (2016)], research on how ASP facilitates student learning in introductory computer science is still absent. Therefore, the research question for this study is: How does adopting ASP to teach an introductory CS course for high school students impact their understanding of computer science and computing?
2 Methods
This study adopted a qualitative approach to investigate, in-depth, how high school students obtain understanding of CS and computing through LP, specifically ASP.
2.1 Setting and Participants
Participants were recruited from the TexPREP program at Texas Tech University during Summer 2015. TexPREP is a summer enrichment program for 6th-12th graders and offers full day courses in science, engineering, math, and computer science over several weeks. Students in these grades typically range from 11 to 18 years old. Programs such as TexPREP are often used to motivate students to attend university after the 12th grade.
TexPREP courses are typically taught by local school teachers as well as university faculty members and students. In the case of this study, the class was taught by the third author with some TAs (the second author was also a TA). TexPREP is a selective program: students had to have an A/B+ average, letters of recommendations, a written essay, and a personal interview for consideration. Prospective participants were in their fourth year of TexPREP taking Computer Science 4 (TexPREP-CS4). They had already taken TexPREP-CS2 with Scratch Resnick et al. (2009) and TexPREP-CS3 with Alice Kelleher and Pausch (2007). The TexPREP-CS4 course teaches the foundations of computing using ASP Gelfond and Kahl (2014). This course emphasized problem solving and knowledge representation through the ASP paradigm. The course met Monday through Friday from 1:00pm to 1:50pm from June 17 to July 9 of 2015.
Informed consent was obtained from both the participants and their parents prior to the start of class. There were sixteen (N=16) participants for the study. There were seven females and nine males. Participants were students at high schools in the Texas Tech area in Lubbock, TX. In terms of rising grades, there were eleven 10th graders, three 11th graders, and two 12th graders.
2.2 Course Organization
The teaching methodology employed is influenced by the existing work on teaching Logic Programming, e.g., the work by Kowalski 1987, Sterling and Shapiro 1994, Clocksin and Mellish 2003, and Gelfond and Kahl 2014. Course topics were centered around building computer models, using objects and relations, for solving problems. This section describes how course activities are structured with respect to problem-solving methodologies within the LP paradigm.
2.2.1 Sparc
This course approached CS through SPARC222The manual for SPARC is available at It contains detailed information on the installation and use of a SPARC solver. Balai et al. (2013) which is the result of introducing sorts into ASP. A SPARC program consists of three sections: sorts section where sorts are defined, predicates section where the sorts of the parameters of each predicate is declared and rules section which consists of ASP rules. A full example is given in Section 2.2.2.
We use ASPIDE Febbraro et al. (2011) as the programming environment for SPARC. ASPIDE 333 ASPIDE is designed with advanced projects and users in mind. Its user interface is quite involved. Also the installation and maintenance of ASPIDE, a stand alone software, are a challenge in our teaching Marcopoulos et al. (2017). In our more recent outreach to middle and high schools, we use onlineSPARC – an online programming environment for SPARC with simple and only necessary functionalities including an editor, query asking, obtaining answer sets and rendering literals in answer sets that represent a drawing or animation Marcopoulos et al. (2017). provides a graphical user interface for students to edit a program, ask queries and get answer sets of the program.
We choose SPARC, instead of popular ASP languages such as DLV Alviano et al. (2011) or Clingo Gebser et al. (2011), as our teaching language for the following reasons. First, the three-section structure provides a direct support of the modeling methodology (see next subsection). Second, the introduction of sorts helps avoid thinking about/teaching safety conditions on rules. Finally, sorts also help provide warning on type errors so that programmers can identify bugs early.
2.2.2 Explicit Modeling Methodology
Before the discussion of any modeling, we always first give the problem description, which consists of two components: the knowledge in the problem and the questions and intended answers.
Here is an example of a problem description:
• Knowledge in the problem: There is a family. John is the father and Joan is the mother. The children are Jim, Bill, and Sam.
• Questions and answers: Is John the father of Bill? Yes. Is John the dad of Bill? Yes. Is John a parent of Bill? Yes.
Students can be easily involved in understanding the problem, giving answers to the questions, as well as extending the knowledge and questions.
Note that we emphasize both questions and intended answers in problem description. Usually the knowledge in a problem description (particularly in a real life setting) is not complete or contains extra information. The questions and intended answers help the students to understand/decide the relevant knowledge to represent. The students are expected to understand what knowledge (and the reasoning process) is needed to obtain the intended answers. However, students are not encouraged to focus on “algorithmic” ideas to “find” a solution to a question. For example, to model the Sudoku problem (or word problems in algebra or physics), students are expected to use intended answer to help them to clarify knowledge needed and to “debug” if they miss any knowledge or use wrong knowledge. But students are not encouraged to figure out how to construct a final concrete answer manually or systematically. (In fact, a more specific modeling methodology for constraint satisfaction problems is needed for students to model the Sudoku problem.)
Students are expected to build computer models for the problems so that the questions in the problems can be answered by the computers correctly. The next part is a two-step explicit methodology to model a problem:
1. Identification.
1. Objects in the problem. Examples for the problem above include John.
2. Relations in the problem. Examples for the problem above include the dad and father relation between two persons. Students are expected to write the relation in the atom form with compulsory comments on its meaning. E.g., dad(X, Y) denotes that person X is the dad of person Y, and father(X, Y) denotes that person X is the father of person Y.
3. Knowledge in the problem. E.g., John is the father of Bill. Students are expected to list all knowledge (explicit in the problem description or implicit in our common sense) needed to answer the intended questions.
2. Translation/coding.
1. Objects are defined and grouped into sorts. For example,
#people = {john, bill, joan, sam}.
where #people is the sort name while the right side of = employs a standard set notation. Intuitively, the sort #people means the set of the four persons.
2. Relations are declared. For example,
dad(#people, #people).
declares that dad is a relation over #people.
3. Knowledge will be translated into rules. For example, the knowledge
“for any person X and Y, X is the dad of Y if X is the father of Y”
can be translated into a rule:
dad(X, Y) :- father(X, Y).
Here is an example of a full SPARC program:
% father(X, Y) denotes that X is the father of Y
father(#people, #people).
% dad(X, Y) denotes that X is the dad of Y
dad(#people, #people).
father(john, bill).
In this course, students have a lot of opportunities to identify relations and their meaning (e.g., dad(X, Y) and its meaning) and to figure out what relation is used to represent a piece of knowledge (close to the declaration/specification of a function in an imperative language and the use of a function to solve a problem component). Once they are able to switch freely between the atom form of a relation and the English description of the relation, they are ready to write rules. Students are encouraged to always start from English description of the knowledge before writing any rules.
2.2.3 Course Content
The sequence of major topics covered by this course is: an introduction to Computer Science, modeling methodology, use of ASPIDE, applying methodology to model the family problem (facts on relations father and mother, rules on relations of dad and parent), queries to SPARC programs, reasoning (informal but in a manner as rigorous as possible) with facts and rules in the context of the family problem, writing rules through iterative refinement of English description, default negation (only in representing the closed world assumption), modeling the family problem with more relations such as sister etc., modeling the simplified battle field problem (a game used in middle school math teaching) and map coloring problem, recursion (defining one person is an ancestor of another using the parent relation), modeling a map problem (about the neighbor of a state and the color of a state), and modeling the map coloring problem and Sudoku problem. Details of the course content, except for the Sudoku problem, can be found in the lecture notes available online Zhang (2015).
2.2.4 Course Design
This section now discusses the course design. First, we explain the iterative refinement based methodology used to help students to develop rules from their English description of knowledge they generated for a given problem. The class starts from facts. Students will practice writing English sentence(s) about simple facts. These sentences will then be translated into facts in SPARC. Depending on the problem description, this task might not be trivial. Guidance and examples are given to help students to get used to the methodology for writing facts. Next, we introduce rules with body using dad. We started from students’ English description of the relationship between dad and father. The first version of the English description is usually hard to translate into a rule using the relation dad(X, Y) and father(X, Y). The difficulty arises from the flexibility of natural language. Here, English allows us to employ an object and a relation related to the object. An example description of dad could be “Dad is the same as father.” Instead of giving an idiomatic representation of such knowledge in ASP, we encourage students to apply the iterative refinement methodology, a fundamental method in computer science, to refine their description until a rule can be written to their satisfaction. In the iterative refinement, students will recursively use our problem modeling methodology to identify the objects and relations in their description. Students will be asked what objects are involved in the description above and how they are related. With some hints, they can figure out the objects (implicit) in the description and relate them using the intended relation dad and father. This practice is expected to enhance students’ reasoning capacity, clarity and preciseness in communication. Consider a refined description of grandparents: is a grandparent of if is a parent of a parent of . This English description involves the similar phenomenon in the example for dad. The second occurrence of parent is used to denote both an object and parent relation between this object and . By making the object explicit using a variable , the description can be further refined as: is a grandparent of if (there is a person such that) is a parent of and is a parent of . The translation of the refined description to a rule is now straightforward. We would also emphasize that our teaching materials are organized surrounding the modeling methodology. The methodology is practiced repeatedly in the family problem and its extension, the map problem, the simplified battle ship problem, the map coloring problem and Sudoku problem.
In the Sudoku problem, we were able to demonstrate the top down designing approach, another important problem solving skill in CS, when defining two squares in the same 3 by 3 block. Belt concept is introduced to define the same 3 by 3 block relation: two squares are in the same 3 by 3 blocks if the rows of the squares are in the same belt and the columns of the squares are in the same belt. We next define what is a belt. Two numbers are in the same belt if they are in first 3 numbers (i.e., 1 to 3), in the second 3 numbers (i.e., 4 to 6), or in the third 3 numbers (i.e., from 7 to 9). The key in the top down approach is to introduce and use a relation(s) as needed and define this relation(s) later.
Finally, as an introductory course to CS for high school students, the formal definitions of terms, rules or semantics (usually covered in most textbooks for college or graduate students) are not covered. However, by formulating definitions (e.g., for parent) in English and translating them into rules, the students are expected to experience and appreciate the rigor in representing the knowledge needed to solve a problem. Given the precise form of the rules and intuitive logical reasoning, the students are also expected to exercise their reasoning capacity to a great extent.
2.2.5 Lab Assignments
Four labs (closely related to topics discussed during class) were given, usually along with a program stub. However, students had the opportunities to modify and/or add: sort definitions, predicate declarations and rules. The first lab was based on the family problem and focusing on the basics of the problem description, modeling methodology and the programming in ASPIDE (for SPARC). The students were asked to define the relations of father and mother that were discussed during class and any new family relations they were interested in and model them in SPARC. They were also expected to submit a report containing the problem description and the result from the identification step of the problem modeling methodology. In the second lab, students were asked to define three specific family relations: mom(X, Y), uncle(X, Y) and sister(X, Y). The third lab is the standard map coloring problem, and the fourth lab is the standard Sudoku problem.
2.3 Data Collection
Three main types of data were collected. Surveys were used to gather background information on what students learned before and after the class. The main data source came from clinical interviews which were used to examine students’ conceptual understanding. Scores from lab assignments and the task in the clinical interview were then used to support the qualitative findings.
2.3.1 Surveys
Participants responded to surveys with open-ended questions at the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the course regarding their experiences with computing and declarative programming. The purpose of the surveys was to provide some background information on participants’ CS knowledge and to triangulate the findings from the clinical interviews. The survey refers to declarative programming (DP), rather than LP or ASP even though this study focuses on the latter two paradigms. The rationale for referring to the more general DP is because: ASP belongs to the LP paradigm and LP is one paradigm of DP. So, knowing other DP paradigms (such as functional programming) may give an edge to the students in learning ASP. The pre-survey asked about participants’ general knowledge of computer science and declarative programming. The pre-survey questions were:
• What is computer science?
• Describe what you know about declarative programming.
The post-survey asked about participants’ knowledge of computer science and the topics of this course. The post-survey questions specifically asked what participants learned in this course and how they understood the concepts; that is, rather than asking participants directly to explain declarative programming, these questions asked how they perceived declarative programming:
• What is computer science?
• What have you learned, if anything?
• After having taken this course do you feel that you understood the subject of this course and the tasks that were asked of you? Why or why not?
2.3.2 Clinical Interviews
Clinical interviews are task-based activities in which the researcher attempts to explore participants’ understanding and cognitive process through active questioning and probing Ginsburg (1997). Clinical interviews were conducted one-on-one by the research team and the participant. During the interview in the last week of class, participants were asked to work out one class-based problem while thinking aloud. Researchers asked probing questions in order to prompt participants to explain and clarify their thought processes. All researchers received the same training from the first and third author on conducting the clinical interviews. Clinical interviews lasted 30 minutes or until the participant completed their task – whichever came first. Clinical interviews were video recorded and transcribed.
We have collected interviews for 16 participants. All the other participants were out of town in the last week and thus no interviews can be done with them.
In the interview task, each student was asked to write a SPARC program to represent the knowledge about family relationships. This problem was an extension of the second lab and not a formal assignment in the course. Some relations, such as father(X, Y), denoting X is the father of Y, and mother(X, Y) are given. A program stub including the declarations of these relations were also given. The students were asked to write rules to represent the knowledge: 1) Jon is the father of Matthew, and 2) to define the following relations: grandparent(X, Y), son(X, Y), aunt(X, Y), and descendant(X, Y). The results of the surveys and interviews are presented in the following sections.
2.3.3 Programming Assignment Grades
Grades for programming assignments were collected by the instructor of this course and used to support the qualitative findings of this course. Lab assignments were graded by a PhD student (called the grader) who was not a part of this study. The rubric graded projects for: completion of requirements, abstraction, correctness, coding style/readability, and documentation (commenting) on a 4-point scale. Completion refers to the extent in which a participant implemented all of the assignment’s requirements. Correctness refers to the program’s ability to produce the correct results for all test cases created by the teaching staff. Abstraction refers to the extent that participants were able to write generalized code that is reusable and adaptable. Participants’ source code was graded on coding style in terms of organization, readability, and adherence to class coding style conventions. Documentation refers to the amount and quality of documentation (comments) that describes the source code.
3 Survey Results
Survey responses were transcribed and analyzed by the researchers using an inductive coding approach in which responses were coded with descriptive labels Corbin and Strauss (2008). That is, the researchers attempted to understand the meaning of each fragment and assigned a descriptive label. Similar labels were merged into larger categories. The main unit of analysis was a sentence. Longer sentences that included multiple ideas were sometimes separated for further coding. Similarly, some consecutive sentences were grouped together for analysis when they continued the same line of thought.
Through this analysis, researchers found common themes across participants. Responses were grouped by common themes (or labels). The most frequent themes are presented below. Participants were given pseudonyms in the presentation of the results in the form of P#.
3.1 What Students Know about Computer Science
Since this course was the third in the pre-engineering program sequence, participants already had two courses in computing and other courses in science and engineering. Most participants’ definition of computer science in the pre-survey centered on the creation of a program that does some task with the programming language being the means through which those tasks are completed [e.g., The science behind how a computer functions and performs tasks (P1); Computer science is using different computer “languages” to get computers to perform tasks (P13); Understanding and being able to reproduce the code and programs that make a computer do its task (P4)]. There was a strong connection between computer science and programming with ten participants mentioning programming or the creation of software in their responses. Some participants acknowledged the importance of computers and technologies in the advancement of society [e.g., The study [of] how to develop computers to help the world be an easier and more efficient place (P10); It has become extremely prominent in our daily lives and must always be improved for technology to come (P11)].
At the end of the course, participants were asked the same question. In the post-survey, only three participants mentioned programming in their definition of computer science. The participants’ responses could be categorized as defining computer science as problem solving [e.g., Computer science is a study that involves mathematics and helps us understand the way a computer thinks (P3); Computer science is the study on how to make a computer work/think like a “human” (P10); It is how we get computers to solve problems and how we can use them for simplifying, numbers, solutions, or problems themselves (P11)] and the study of technologies [e.g., The science behind a computer and how it functions (P1); Computer science is the study of how and why computers work (P16)]. Thus, by the end of the course, the participants’ definition of CS had broadened a bit away from just programming; rather, it become more holistic and more on emphasizing problem solving in order to complete tasks and how technologies can support those processes.
3.2 What Students Know about Declarative Programming
In the pre-survey, most participants did not know what DP was; however, many were familiar with the more “traditional” procedural programming and/or had prior programming experience. Eight participants said that they did not know what declarative programming was. Some participants offered an explanation of what declarative programming could be [e.g., I would guess that it is a branch of computer science that has to do with making statements and receiving some form of output from the statements (P12); I believe that you give a description to of an object then the program runs it to find the item similar to what was described (P8)] or explanation that they have done programming before [e.g., In school, I have learned a little about Java and how Java is a declarative language, Other than that, I don’t know much else about declarative programming (P3)]. In such explanations, participants were attempting to make connections to previous programming experiences, even though those were incorrect.
The remaining five participants have some understanding of what DP was: Declarative programming is stating a statement and being able to program that statement. Giving the computer a “command” and programming it to accomplish that particular command (P5); It is a program where it does the things you type out (P10); Declarative programming is more of an elaboration off of algorithmic programming as it is developed for a broader use compared to Algorithmic programming. It is much more elaborates and is well suited for situations with similarities (P12); and It is the type of programming needs to be defined before any output action can be achieved (P15). Participant 16 was the closest to having a correct answer: I know that declarative programming works like telling a computer rules for what something is then having the computer rules for what something is then having the computer go find all the somethings [sic] in a set.
From the participants’ responses, they did not have experience with DP although have had some intuitive understanding of what DP may be.
3.3 What Students Have Learned in This Course
The survey data showed that most students reported learning how to program with the SPARC language within the context of their lab assignments. Though most did not explicitly articulate their understanding of LP, as they did with procedural-type languages from prior CS experiences, they were able to report how they solved problems using ASP methodologies and tools. Although the participants emphasized learning how to program with SPARC, eleven responses implied that the programming language provided the structure that required students to think about their problems through a deeper, more thorough perspective. P12’s response was representative of how learning the programming language helped guide declarative understanding: I’ve learned how to reevaluate my thinking process and consider the basis of my thought (so I can program). I’ve learned how to ‘translate’ – by writing my goals/rules/knowledge in English, then transferring and modifying it to fit SPARC code.
Similar responses include: I learned how to look at a problem in a different way (P2); I have learned how to sort objects, define relationships with predicates, use multiple variables, use multiple predicates/ rules, use tex***444The words in the original writing were not readable. rules with variables, and use if when for rules to help simplify solutions (P11); I have learned a new coding language to go along with the others I know, which is very valuable to me. I have also learned a new way to look [at] relations between objects (P15); New syntax - A new way to specify relations (P9). These examples show that the rules and structure (i.e., syntax and semantics) that SPARC required and the associated methodologies helped guide participants in their problem solving. Four participants emphasized learning about the syntax and coding style. P8 also mentioned that this was the first course in which she had to type out her programming rather than through a drag-and-drop interface.
3.4 How Students Understood the Course Topics and Tasks
Eight participants stated that they understood the subject of this course within the confines of the course activities and three were indifferent. They understood that there was more to learn with respect to the programming language [e.g., I think if given more time and work on the computer, I could use this language in the future (P3); The prompt and things that were asked were clear and easy to understand. They were easy to pick up on and gave a general understanding – making it relatively easy to complete a given task (P5); I understand the subject because it was easy. I’m pretty sure that if you wanted to program more complex things, it would be harder (P13).
Two participants stated they were able to understand the subject of the course, but were unsure how it was applicable in a real world or everyday setting:
I understand how, but not why. So, I don’t understand the purpose of this type of program and how it will be beneficial to the world, other than artificial intelligence, but I feel as though this program requires more to get to that point
(P9) and I do feel I understood the subject of the course as I did actually learn something. However, I did not always understand exactly what I was supposed to do and I was occasionally completely lost (P4). Therefore, most participants knew that there was more to learn about LP beyond the contexts with which they were presented. Both P10 and P14 felt that the course was too repetitive with the simple topics and was not challenging enough.
3.5 Student Feedback
Participants were asked to provide feedback on what they thought of the course and its LP activities, and 13 of them responded. Participants seemed to appreciate555Some feedback overlapping with the positive comments reported in Section 3.3 is not repeated here. the different approach that LP/ASP takes to programming as most of them have worked with either Java and/or a visual programming language like Scratch:
• I like this program because it makes you look at code in a different way. ASPIDE is such a different set of code then the standard JAVA. I like the format of this code and the different symbols.
• I learned a lot about declarative programming and how to use it. The course was actually writing code and not drag and drop.
• …this course has a lot of potential and if executed right it can be very beneficial because the concept is cool and it is always great to comprehend a new language.
• It was a good course that has allowed me to learn a type of programing.
They also found the ASP activities easy and interesting to work on, even if there was a small learning curve:
• Once we got into actually working with the program, it was very interesting and I enjoyed playing around with it and figuring out just how simple it really was.
• The course structure and the SPARC program make it relatively easy for someone who has not spent much time doing computer science to understand the program and how to program…Following the ”methodology” also makes it very easy to learn the program.
• It was a bit easier to understand and even enjoy a little after a while, for the TAs went around and took the time to make sure it made sense.
• It was a little difficult at the beginning because I had no prior knowledge of programing. But it was a very enjoyable course and i would take it again.
The main critiques of the course included the need for more specific instructions and expectations for the assignments, better pacing as some participants remarked that the teaching was occasionally too slow or too fast, more time for assignments. Most of these critiques had to do with the delivery of the course. Aside from one comment on the ASPIDE programming environment for SPARC, there were no explicit critiques of the logic programming paradigm.
4 Interview Results
A grounded theory methodology was adopted to generate a theory that explained how students understood and approached computing through ASP activities based on the interview data. Details of the methodology can be found in Corbin and Strauss (2008). This qualitative approach generates a theory or explanation through systematic analysis of data. Grounded theory goes beyond describing and categorizing by finding the processes and relationships in the phenomenon being studied. This approach was conducted on the clinical interview data and served as the main analysis for this study. The unit of analysis was an utterance, which consisted of a complete thought or phrases spoken by the participant. In cases where utterances were rich with many potential units, they were broken down into smaller utterances. Utterances made by the researcher provided context to those made by the participant, but were not analyzed. There were 1,452 utterances used for analysis.
The first author analyzed the data through an open-coding process coding each utterance with a descriptive label. This process required several iterations to ensure that coding was consistent across the entire dataset. Then, the third author coded the data using the set of labels created by the first author. Through that process, the researchers debated the labels and coding of the utterances, which led to several iterations of re-coding the data and revision of the initial labels. Memos were kept during this analysis process regarding the rationale behind labels and the formation of coding. Since the third author was the expert in the field of ASP and DP and taught the course, his coding was used for the remaining analysis. The resultant set of labels found in open coding are presented in Table 1 with their frequency.
Knowledge representation 137 Sorts 28
English definition 131 Predicate declaration 26
Reasoning 109 Commenting 22
Debugging 86 Relationship 19
Testing 71 Query 18
Rule 66 Thinking 17
Syntax 63 Translation 12
Strategy 60 Reusing 10
Refining 59 Prior knowledge 6
Problem understanding 44 Reflection 5
Problem solving 35 Variable 4
Table 1: Resultant labels from open coding
The next step was creating categories that represented larger constructs that were happening in the data. Many of the merged labels were found to relate to each other as well with infrequent labels, which helped form these categories. The five major categories were: Abstraction, Representation, Reasoning, Revision, and Procedures. Axial coding analyzed the way these categories were related based on their properties; that is, this part of the analysis found the relationships between the major categories. The first author led the first stage of axial coding which led to these five major categories. Then, these were also debated and discussed by the researchers. The surveys, particularly the post-surveys, were used to guide the axial coding and the creation of the categories. The definitions of the categories also went through several revisions.
The next sections define each category and give example quotes.
4.1 Abstraction
This category describes instances where the participants understand the problem space in more general or abstract terms and are thinking on a higher level within the context of the code they are writing. This type of thought is in contrast to only discussing idea in concrete terms or with specific examples. In this generalization, participants are generally describing relationships with respect to these real-world terms and/or integrating their prior knowledge of the problem space.
Example quotes included: The descendant part because the descendants can be anything that’s…that was before that person, well before X in this case (P8); So, father of person and person, ok, parent, sister, same parent, gender (P10); I am thinking of like a family tree I guess sort of and so I am thinking of X being or I am thinking of Y being so I am thinking of Y being a person, whose descendants we are looking at… (P12). P03: Yeah um I am just trying to think of like a more general way of putting it instead of just listing it all down. (pop up appears and then is closed out) Parent XY and uh… (P3).
Thus, Abstraction occurs when participants are able to explain and apply the LP concepts within the ASP environment as well as outside it using real-world examples. That is, students’ understanding of the LP concepts is not limited to only working within the ASP environment.
4.2 Representation
This category refers to the process in which the participants are trying to understand the problem space in coding terms; that is, how their abstraction or understanding of the problem translates into the code. This category includes references to both the conceptual understanding and coding as well as the transition process between the two.
Example quotes included: You can’t say, X is the parent of Y if X, if Y is the son, because it’s flipped. I hope I am explaining it right. So then I’m saying X is the son of Y if Y is the parent of X, and I’m putting gender because if you are a son you have to be male. And if X is a male. All right I am going to move on to aunt (P1); A descendant is like it’s the same as a child it’s umm like the child of two parents. That is their descendant that’s their heir so that is what I am trying to say but I don’t know how to say it (P14); I put X is the son of Y. I put that in the predicates. This is it. The son is a person. And I know that we have the example here. I can put Matthew is the son of Jon… (P15) .
Representation is when participants map their understanding of the LP concepts into code; it is a translation between their conceptual understanding and coding. Rather than simplifying this process just as coding, Representation refers to the participants’ process in creating a code-based representation of their understanding of the ideas.
4.3 Reasoning
This category is the problem-solving process. It describes instances in which participants were actively thinking about the problem, apply problem-solving strategies associated with ASP, and adapting existing code to solve the current problem. Reasoning was selected as the category name as that was the most frequently used label related to the problem-solving process. Example quotes included: So grandchild Isaac of George, grandchild Joseph, George, grandchild Susie, George. Grandchild, those are the children, so, grandchild, grandchild, X is a grandchild of Y, if Y is grandfather, if Y is the grandfather of X and X is the, do we define gender? Yes, gender of X is male, because grandfather has to be a male (P2); I think I’m doing aunt. (Begins typing comment for aunt.) …… For any person X and person Y, X is the parent of Y. There is a person Z, Z is the sister of X such that X is the sister of Z… I mean Z is the sister of X and the aunt of Y. (P5). Nephew, so then you have Isaac, and actually you can create a rule (P11).
Thus, Reasoning describes the entire problem-solving process as participants attempt to negotiate their understanding of the problem and the solution. It was this reasoning process – the internal discussions within themselves and the reflection – that was the most observed activity in the problem solving process, which is why this category was named Reasoning.
4.4 Revision
Revision encapsulates a lot of the overall debugging process, but emphasizes the importance of participants asking questions in SPARC to see if their code was correct. This category includes the participants’ process of questioning to see if they completed the tasks correctly, which was done through querying to see if their solutions were right. Example quotes included: So I’ll write aunt and then I’ll write Rose comma Susie, and then I’ll have to add a question mark, and then have to press execute (P1); Ok and now I need to write queries to see if my program works (P14); I am going to ask who are descendants of George because George is like the patriarch of the family (P12). Simply put, Revision is the debugging process after the participants developed their initial solution.
4.5 Procedures
This category represents a large part of the data in which participants were either restating or interpreting facts or instructions. In some cases, participants were asking if they had the correct interpretation of the assignment instructions. In this category, participants frequently mentioned specific rules and strategies associated with declarative programing. Often, these utterances were co-labeled with other more descriptive categories such as Representation and Reasoning. Example quotes included: So I write. I have to comment first do that the people, errr, so that anyone else that is reading it knows what I am trying to say. …… So I said that son X and Y denotes. Hmmm! It’s all caps (small laugh). Denotes that X is the son of Y. And then I write the actual code and just put son, I put in parenthesis, uhh, …… (P1); OK so X is the son of Y if Y is the parent of X and X is male. So… Gender um, Oh I was reading the English, …… (P3); So now I am at son. Oh forgot to add the periods. Ok. Got it, got it, and got it. Now I need it aunt (P8); Jon is the father of Matthew, so that rule that I wrote works (P16). So, in the case of ASP, the procedures category describes the participants’ actions and ability in identifying the instructions and facts involved with the problem, which eventually helped them to develop a solution for their problem sets.
4.6 Order of Category Occurrences
As part of axial coding, there was an analysis of when these categories occurred during the clinical interview to learn more about the categories themselves and how they related to the other categories. A letter-coded graph plotted out the occurrence of each category in the order they appear with each participant. Figure 1 shows an example of this graph. When an utterance had more than one category associated with it, plots are stacked.
Figure 1: Sample (Participant 12) of order of category occurrences during clinical interview
A visual analysis of all participants’ graphs was conducted to describe when each category occurred and the relationships between those occurrences. Across all participants, interviewers had them all read the instructions once at the beginning, but these utterances were not coded. Since participants were asked to work on their assignments, some participants had already started on them prior to the interview. Thus, those graphs immediately started with non-procedural labels. Findings from a visual analysis of all participants graphs are presented in the following subsections.
4.6.1 Abstraction
Evidence of Abstraction mostly came from the beginning to the middle for most participants. For several participants, it occurred alongside Procedures (P3, P7, P8, P10, P11, P12, P13) as well as with Representation (P4, P9, P11, P12, P14, P16). Three participants had Abstraction after Revision, which may suggest that the questioning process may support part of abstraction abilities. Another three participants (P2, P3, P13) showed no evidence of Abstraction during the interview. However, the interviewer reported that P2 did not get a chance to test their program and P3 had technical issues with the computer. P13 was reported to feel confident about what they were doing, and started Revision early.
4.6.2 Representation
Similar to Reasoning and Procedures, Representation also happened throughout the interview. For the most part, Representation started before clusters of Revision for 11 participants (P1, P3, P4, P5, P7, P8, P9, P11, P12, P15, P16). However, for three of these participants (P2, P11, P16), there were more revision afterward. For P13, Representation was intertwined into Revision throughout the interview. Most of P14’s interview consisted of utterances labeled as Representation as he was mostly listing out what had to be represented in the knowledge base.
4.6.3 Reasoning
Reasoning was noted throughout the interviews for most participants, similar to the procedural utterances, which may suggest that it is an important recurring process. Reasoning occurred with and between instances of Revision (P1, P16) and Representation (P2, P13), Abstraction (P14, P15). Thus, Reasoning is also intertwined with other parts of the ASP process. There was no evidence of Reasoning from P6; however, there were not many coded utterances from that participant in general.
4.6.4 Revision
Most participants (P1, P2, P3, P4, P6, P7, P8, P9, P11, P15) were engaged in revision during the last half the interview, which was expected as they spent the first half identifying the objects, relationships, knowledge, and coding before testing. P10 did not get as far during the interview to be engaged in revision. Other participants had already started their assignments before the interview, so they began to revise their solutions earlier than others.
4.6.5 Procedures
All participants had instances of utterances of procedure, which were distributed throughout the interview as well as simultaneously appearing with other categories. An interesting observation was that there were procedural moments throughout the interview, but not just at the beginning. That is, participants kept going back to the instructions and/or the facts presented in the assignment.
At first, the Procedures category did not seem to provide much insight into how the participants approached computing and computer science. After all, these utterances were of participants reading and re-reading the rules and asking if they understood the instructions and information correctly. Procedural utterances were made throughout the entire computing process. In selective coding, analysis examined how one category could be connected to other categories Corbin and Strauss (2008): the Procedures category was found as that central theme. Identifying objects and relations in the problem, through English definitions, by carefully reading the problem description and integrating one’s common sense knowledge was a major component of the explicit methodology for solving LP problems. Thus, there was deep interaction between the Procedures and other processes. Students had also mentioned in their post surveys that they had learned this methodology to solve the problems. Although that may not be surprising, it showed that they were able to adopt those strategies, which in turn, led to more reasoning and representation processes.
5 Achievement Results
Each lab was scored using a rubric, which had five parts: completion of requirements, abstraction, correctness, coding style/readability, and documentation (commenting). Each component was scored on a scale from 0 (poor) to 4 (excellent) by the grader. Table 2 shows the scores and completion rate for Labs 2 through 4. Due to the logistics issues, we were not able to collect the submissions of Lab 1.
Lab 2 (N=16) 95% 88% 82% 100% 84% 90%
Lab 3 (N=14) 100% 92% 92% 95% 70% 90%
Lab 4 (N=11) 89% 98% 73% 100% 96% 91%
All labs 95% 92% 83% 98% 82% 90%
Table 2: Average lab scores rounded to the nearest whole number: COMPLETE = completion, ABS = abstraction, CORRECT = correctness, STYLE = coding style, DOC = documentation, TOT = total
Overall, participants did well on all three labs across each component. The average score of completion was 95% (3.8 out of 4 points). This high average shows they were able to address the project requirements as well as follow the two-step methodology. The average score for abstraction was 91.9% (3.68 out of 4 points). The average score for correctness (e.g., getting the correct output) was lower than completion and abstraction: 83.1% (3.32 out of 4 points). For completion, the grader looked for attempts made by students to address each requirement. Thus, a participant could have made a reasonable attempt at all the requirements, but implementation did not fully match the specifications or yield correct results for all test cases. Similarly, abstraction scores would also be lower in those events. With respect to the model in Figure 2, this quantitative data supports the notion that students are able to engage in Representation (coding), Abstraction, and Reasoning (problem solving) within the LP paradigm. The lower correctness scores may demonstrate that the participants may need to improve in the area of coding. The ordering of the categories showed that revision did not happen until the second half of the interview, if at all, which places some limitations on the revision (debugging) process. The high completeness score is also in line with the dominance of the Procedures category during the task, corresponding to the predictions of our model, since participants mostly attempted to address all the requirements. Coding style was exceptionally good across all the labs at 98.1% (3.92 out of 4 points). The lowest component was documenting code, which was 81.9% across the labs (3.28 out of 4 points). Generally, most students that submitted the assignment received high scores: the average lab score was 90% (18 out of 20 total points). The lower submitted rates in the later labs was attributed to student absences mainly resulted from family vacations (which are not rare in the summer in the United States).
6 Model of How Participants Approach Computing through LP
Based on the grounded theory analysis, supported by the visual analysis of ordering of categories, a model was constructed that may explain how participants approach computing through LP as based on the data. It is shown in Figure 2. This figure highlights the foundational importance of following the strategies (i.e., explicit modeling methodology) of declarative programming. In the case of Answer Set Programming, it allows for an explicit methodology, which guides students towards abstracting the concepts, representing it in code, and reasoning in their problem solving. Abstraction, Representation, and Reasoning often occurred together and are grouped separately from Revision, which mostly came toward the end of the task. Similarly, Abstraction and Representation happened more sequentially with Abstraction coming before Representation. Reasoning was observed throughout the interview, which is indicated by a larger rectangle in the figure.
Figure 2: Model of how participants approach Logic Programming through Answer Set Programming
The model shows the importance of Procedures in logic programming; in this case, students were able to follow the explicit methodology in LP. The students also demonstrated the general problem solving skill of iterative refinement. There are two distinguishable big loop components: Knowledge Specification and Revision. The knowledge Specification component is again an iterative refinement consisting of interleaving steps: Abstraction, Representation and Reasoning. As an example, when a student tries to specify their knowledge about aunt, they try to figure out the objects (individual persons) and relations (e.g., who is whose sister, or who is whose parent) and then tried to define their knowledge about aunt using these objects and relations. Participants tried to make sure the definition captures their intended meaning, which requires them to reason with and understand the relations better. In fact, this model reflects the intended skills most researchers would like the students to obtain in an introductory course: the skills should be general but important in computing (and beyond). The skills include: the understanding and the application of the LP procedures (a general methodology for problem solving), iterative refinement in problem solving, programming, abstraction, rigorous high level (logic) representation of knowledge and (logic-based) reasoning with the knowledge.
Logic Programming can be thought of as allowing for an explicit problem solving methodology: problem understanding, precise representation, and reasoning with knowledge. This methodology is almost universal in problem solving. It will particularly be useful as LP lays the foundation for problem understanding and knowledge representation. This foundation is expected to be helpful when students study algorithms in future.
7 Discussion
The research question asked how using LP, specifically through ASP, to teach an introductory computer science course for high school students impacts their understanding of computer science and computing.
Prior to this course, most participants had limited experiences with CS, and certainly even more limited experience with declarative programming. Their perception of CS was mainly connected to programming and creating technologies for the world. Given that participants were unfamiliar with declarative programming, they attempted to explain within the context of a paradigm with which they were familiar: imperative and, to an extent, object-oriented programming, because of their previous courses in Alice and Scratch. Interestingly, after this course, they were able to explain the tasks and procedures, even though they were unable to articulate what declarative programming was. The data suggests that students may not even understand what programming paradigms are.
The students had done very well in their lab assignments with an average score of 90% overall on all labs. Students also reported on post-surveys that they were able to learn how to program with SPARC and follow the modeling methodology in their computing activities. Such results are in line with other research that shows that LP can be easy to learn Mendelsohn et al. (1990). The main reason is the simple syntax and intuitive/natural semantics of ASP which allow the students to focus less on language specific feature and more on the problem solving skills. The clinical interview data shows further that the students were able to learn and apply the important concepts underlying computing. The model (Figure 2) shows that they were able to apply explicit LP methodologies in problem solving and iterative refinement in both big steps (Knowledge Specification and Revision) and small steps (Abstraction, Representation and Reasoning), when solving the problems. Participants applied their knowledge and skills in Abstraction, Representation and Reasoning heavily, in an interwoven manner, in understanding, extracting and defining the knowledge needed in solving a given problem. Once they identified/defined the knowledge needed, they are able to carry out the standard programming tasks from coding to debugging.
The overall scores for completion (95%) showed that students were able to make reasonable attempts at meeting lab requirements. Though students were able to follow the two-step methodology, the lower correctness does bring attention to a need to help students address all specifications and provide more support during the revision process. The lower documentation score (81%) also suggests that students need to be encouraged to document their code. However, the instructional staff did refer to time being a limitation, which may explain higher completion, abstraction, and correctness (slightly) scores over documentation: that is, students may have focused on getting the project done and making it work first. This study shows that working within the LP paradigm yields similar results as within a traditional imperative or object-oriented paradigm. The model generated shows that students can engage in computing skills, such as abstraction, problem solving (Representation), and debugging (Revision). These important LP skills are aligned with four of the six core computational thinking practices found in the AP CS Principles Framework CollegeBoard (2017): connecting computing, creating computational artifacts, abstracting, analyzing problems, and communicating, and collaborating.
Similarly, the study shows that participants were always engaged in cyclical process of Abstraction, Reasoning, and Representation. In fact, LP requires programmers to have a solid grasp of the problem space before starting on the solution. The data also shows that participants were engaged in abstraction – they were able to think about the major ideas in a more generalized context. In this course, they were also expected to explain and connect basic computing concepts. Indeed, the participants were able to explain computing concepts within the context of this course and tasks. Students were able to operate within the LP paradigm driven by the explicit methodology for LP; however, they may not immediately see how it is applicable outside the context of the assignments. But, they understood the LP concepts and processes and were successful in completing their assignments. More work needs to be done to make connections to how they see CS in the real world through LP: students understood the problem-solving nature of CS and believed LP was one way of solving problems.
7.1 Limitations
Participants were above average students and were pre-screened for this program, and had some experience with Scratch and Alice. However, participants stated no prior experience with LP or Declarative Programming. A few students missed some assignments mainly due to family vacations. Lastly, this course met for four weeks, which provided limited exposure to LP as compared to regular secondary school or university courses. Future studies on LP in introductory CS courses could be conducted on full semester courses rather than short courses.
Also, it is worth of noting that algorithms are also taken as an important component of Computer Science in K-12 education. As a pure declarative programming paradigm, ASP is hardly the best option for teaching algorithms. In our perspective, one reasonable sequence of computer science courses would be teaching the foundations (except algorithms) of CS using ASP, and introducing algorithms in a subsequent course.666If one really wants to introduce algorithmic ideas in the foundation class, one can employ the unplugged approach Feaster et al. (2011) which is independent of a programming language. The advantage of this approach is to shorten the distance from problem understanding and representation to programming by skipping the algorithm component which is certainly non-trivial and significantly prolongs the learning process before students can solve interesting problems using computers. This advantage becomes more prominent given that the computer science education in K-12 is expected to serve all students.
We do note that ASP can cover some important aspect(s) of algorithms. One example is recursion in ASP. It is also argued that a precise problem specification is desirable before the study of algorithms solving them Kleinberg and Tardos (2006). As shown in our data, LP based modeling helps to develop students’ capacity on abstraction and representation (in a rigorous manner) which are key skills in precisely specifying problems.
8 Conclusions
This paper asserts that CS educators should take a closer look at using LP during the introductory courses. As suggested in Ball and Zorn (2015), future computer scientists should be equipped with foundational programming language principles involving logic and formal specification to design and implement complex software systems needed by the society. Our results show that the students were able to focus on the key concepts of computing including abstraction, representation and reasoning when solving problems. The results show evidence that it is viable to teach an introductory computing course using ASP. It may also bring attention to how early we can teach students about different paradigms and if that would expand the students’ conceptions of computing in order to engage in abstraction and problem solving within the declarative programming paradigm. This effort would later require educators to build the connections between these different paradigms and the rest of CS.
9 Acknowledgments
The authors thank Cynthia Perez, Rocky Upchurch and Edward Wertz for their contributions to this project, and thank Michael Gelfond for valuable discussions and sharing his teaching materials. This work is partially supported by NSF grant CNS-1359359. We thank the anonymous reviewers whose feedback helps to improve the quality of this paper.
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How do you explain chromosomes to a child?
How do you explain chromosomes to a child?
How do you explain genes to a child?
Genes carry the information that determines your traits (say: trates), which are features or characteristics that are passed on to you — or inherited — from your parents. Each cell in the human body contains about 25,000 to 35,000 genes.
What happens if a baby is missing a chromosome?
How are chromosomes inherited?
People usually have two copies of each chromosome. One copy is inherited from their mother (via the egg) and the other from their father (via the sperm). A sperm and an egg each contain one set of 23 chromosomes.
What genes are inherited from mother only?
Do you get your nose from your mom or dad?
Who has stronger genes mother or father?
What are the symptoms of abnormal baby in pregnancy?
Top 5 Conditions of Abnormal Pregnancy
• Vaginal bleeding during pregnancy.
• Abdominal discomfort, cramping or pain.
• Frequent headaches and blurred vision.
• Excessive thirst and sweating.
• No fetal movement or reduced fetal movement at more than 20 weeks gestation.
What are the chances of having a baby with a chromosomal abnormality?
What Is the Risk of Having a Baby With a Chromosomal Abnormality*?
Age of Woman Risk of Any Chromosomal Abnormality
20 0.2%
35 0.5%
40 1.5%
49 14%
What does a girl inherit from her father?
Girls get two X chromosomes, one from Mom and one from Dad. This means that your daughter will inherit X-linked genes from her father as well as her mother. When your daughter inevitably ends up with his X chromosome, does that mean she’ll inherit all of his X-linked genes and traits? Genes, yes.
Does height come from mom or Dad?
Why do daughters look like their fathers?
A common bit of parenting folklore holds that babies tend to look more like their fathers than their mothers, a claim with a reasonable evolutionary explanation. Human evolution, then, could have favored children that resemble their fathers, at least early on, as a way of confirming paternity.
What are the 4 main causes of birth defects?
What causes birth defects?
• Chromosomal problems.
• Infections.
• Exposure to medications, chemicals, or other agents during pregnancy.
What are the 5 most common birth defects?
The most common birth defects are:
• heart defects.
• cleft lip/palate.
• Down syndrome.
• spina bifida.
What are the signs of Down syndrome during pregnancy?
Signs and Symptoms of Down Syndrome
• Flat face with an upward slant to the eyes.
• Short neck.
• Abnormally shaped or small ears.
• Protruding tongue.
• Small head.
• White spots in the iris of the eye.
• Poor muscle tone, loose ligaments, excessive flexibility.
Can folic acid prevent Down syndrome?
Does height come from Mom or Dad?
What does a child inherit from their mother?
From the mother, the child always receives the X chromosome. From the parent, the fetus can receive an X chromosome (which means it will be a girl) or a Y chromosome (which means the arrival of a boy). If a man has many siblings, he is more likely to have children.
What are the symptoms of unhealthy pregnancy?
7 Pregnancy Warning Signs
• Bleeding.
• Severe Nausea and Vomiting.
• Baby’s Activity Level Significantly Declines.
• Contractions Early in the Third Trimester.
• Your Water Breaks.
• Flu Symptoms.
What is the number 1 birth defect?
The most common birth defects are: heart defects. cleft lip/palate. Down syndrome. |
Juan Luna
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Juan Luna
Luna 1899.png
Juan Luna c. 1899
Juan Novicio Luna
(1857-10-23)October 23, 1857
DiedDecember 7, 1899(1899-12-07) (aged 42)
Known forPainting, drawing, sculpting
Notable work
in museums:
MovementRomanticism, Realism
(m. 1886–1892)
FamilyAntonio Luna (brother)
Joaquin Luna (brother)
Juan Luna de San Pedro y Novicio Ancheta (Spanish: [ˈxwan ˈluna]; October 23, 1857 – December 7, 1899) was a Filipino painter, sculptor and a political activist of the Philippine Revolution during the late 19th century. He became one of the first recognized Philippine artists.
His winning the gold medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts, along with the silver win of fellow Filipino painter Félix Resurrección Hidalgo, prompted a celebration which was a major highlight in the memoirs of members of the Propaganda Movement, with the fellow Ilustrados toasting to the two painters' good health and to the brotherhood between Spain and the Philippines.
Regarded for work done in the manner of European academies of his time, Luna painted literary and historical scenes, some with an underscore of political commentary. His allegorical works were inspired with classical balance, and often showed figures in theatrical poses.
Early life[edit]
Born in the town of Badoc, Ilocos Norte in the northern Philippines, Juan N. Luna was the third among the seven children of Joaquín Luna de San Pedro y Posadas and Laureana Novicio y Ancheta. In 1861, the Luna family moved to Manila and he went to Ateneo Municipal de Manila where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree. He excelled in painting and drawing, and was influenced by his brother, Manuel N. Luna, who, according to Filipino patriot José Rizal, was a better painter than Juan himself.[1]
Luna enrolled at Escuela Nautica de Manila (now Philippine Merchant Marine Academy) and became a sailor. He took drawing lessons under the illustrious painting teacher Lorenzo Guerrero of Ermita, Manila. He also enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts (Academia de Dibujo y Pintura) in Manila where he was influenced and taught how to draw by the Spanish artist Agustin Saez. However, Luna's vigorous brush strokes displeased his teacher and Luna was discharged from the academy. However, Guerrero was impressed by his skill and urged Luna to travel to Madrid to further pursue his work.[2]
Travel abroad[edit]
In 1875 Manuel and Juan Luna traveled to Europe, where Manuel studied music and Juan painting.[citation needed] Juan entered the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where he befriended the painter Don Alejo Vera. Luna was discontented with the style of teaching in school and decided that it would be much better to work with Vera.[3]
Vera brought him to Rome for some of his commissions, and Luna was exposed to the art of the Renaissance painters. It was in 1878 when his artistic talents was established with the opening of the first art exposition in Madrid which was called the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Demonstration of Fine Arts). From then on, Luna became engrossed in painting and produced a collection of paintings that he exhibited in the 1881 Exposition.
In 1881, his La Muerte de Cleopatra (The Death of Cleopatra)[4][5] won him a silver medal and came in second place. Luna's growing reputation as an artist led to a pensionado (pension) scholarship at 600 pesos annually through the Ayuntamiento of Manila. The condition was that he was obliged to develop a painting which captured the essence of Philippine history which would then become the Ayuntamiento's property.
Artistic career[edit]
Juan Luna in his Paris studio.
Spoliarium of Juan Luna displayed at Philippine National Museum of Fine Arts
In 1883 Luna started the painting demanded of him by the Ayuntamiento. In May 1884, he shipped the large canvas of the Spoliarium to Madrid for the year's Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes. He was the first recipient of the three gold medals awarded in the exhibition and Luna gained recognition among the connoisseurs and art critics present. On June 25, 1884, Filipino and Spanish nobles organized an event celebrating Luna's win in the exhibition. That evening, Rizal prepared a speech for his friend, addressing the two significant things of his art work, which included the glorification of genius and the grandeur of his artistic skills.
Luna developed a friendly relationship with King Alfonso XII and was later commissioned by the Spanish Senate to paint a large canvas which was called the La Batalla de Lepanto (The Battle of Lepanto).[6] He moved to Paris in 1885 where he opened his own studio and befriended Hidalgo. A year after, he finished the piece El pacto de sangre (The Blood Compact) in accordance with the agreement he had with the Manila City Council. Depicted in this piece was the blood compact ceremony between the Datu Sikatuna, one of the lords in Bohol island, and the Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi.[7] It is now displayed in the Malacañan Palace. He also sent two other paintings in addition to the one required; the second canvas sent to Manila was a portrait of López de Legazpi reconstructed by Luna from his recollection of a similar portrait he saw in the hall of the Cabildo, and the third was of Governor-general Ramón Blanco y Erenas.
In 1887, Luna traveled back to Spain to enter in that year's Exposition two of his pieces, the La Batalla de Lepanto and Rendición de Granada (Surrender of Granada), which both won in the exhibition. He celebrated his triumph with his friends in Madrid with Graciano López-Jaena delivering the congratulatory speech. Luna's paintings are generally described as being vigorous and dramatic. With its elements of Romanticism, his style shows the influence of Delacroix, Rembrandt, and Daumier.
In 2015, a Luna masterpiece called ¿A Do...Va la Nave? sold for P46.8M at a Makati auction.[8]
On December 4, 1886, Luna married María de la Paz Pardo de Tavera, a sister of his friends Félix and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera. The couple traveled to Venice and Rome and settled in Paris. They had one son, whom they named Andrés, and a daughter, María de la Paz, nicknamed Bibi, who died when she was three years old. Luna was fond of his wife. However, the jealous Luna frequently accused Paz of having an affair with a certain Monsieur Dussaq. Finally in a fit of jealousy, he shot the door wherein his wife was behind. Killing his wife and mother-in-law and wounded his brother-in-law Félix in the process, on September 22, 1892. He was arrested and murder charges were filed against him.
Luna was acquitted of charges on February 8, 1893, on the grounds of a crime of passion. Temporary insanity; the "unwritten law" at the time forgave men for killing unfaithful wives.[9] He was ordered to pay the Pardo de Taveras a sum of one thousand six hundred fifty one francs and eighty three cents, and an additional twenty five francs for postage, in addition to the one franc of claims for damages ("dommages-intérêts"). Five days later, Luna went to Madrid with his brother, Antonio Luna, and his son, Andrés.
A few years later, in October 1889, the artist travelled to southeast Spain, Murcia, as contained in the news release at the time, was provisionally installed in Moratalla where he made a portrait of the daughter of Juan Tamayo, an eminent man in this town. Passing through Murcia gave two portraits of the Queen Regent had made to the Provincial and City Council, respectively, and one of these was acquired by the provincial body for five hundred seventy-five pesetas installed on top of the Hall of Sessions of the Provincial Palace and then going to the presidential office in April 1932, one year after the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, enters as a deposit Museum of Murcia along with several official portraits of royal iconography, being included in the different inventories and catalogs without sufficient data or references, just a terse "DJ.LUNA" as artistic attribution.
Final years[edit]
Tampuhan by Juan Luna
In 1894 Luna moved back to the Philippines and traveled to Japan in 1896, returning during the Philippine Revolution of the Cry of Balintawak. On September 16, 1896, he and his brother Antonio Luna were arrested by Spanish authorities for being involved with the Katipunan rebel army.[10] Despite his imprisonment, Luna was still able to produce a work of art which he gave to a visiting priest. He was pardoned by the Spanish courts on May 27, 1897, and was released from prison and he traveled back to Spain in July.[11]: 394 He returned to Manila in November 1898.[11]: 394 In 1898, he was appointed by the executive board of the Philippine revolutionary government as a member of the Paris delegation which was working for the diplomatic recognition of the República Filipina (Philippine Republic). In 1899, upon the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1898),[12] Luna was named a member of the delegation to Washington, D.C. to press for the recognition of the Philippine government.
He traveled back to the Philippines in December 1899 upon hearing of the murder of his brother Antonio by the Kawit Battalion in Cabanatuan.
He traveled to Hong Kong and died there on December 7, 1899, from a heart attack. His remains were buried in Hong Kong and in 1920 were exhumed and kept in Andrés Luna's house, to be later transferred to a niche at the Crypt of San Agustin Church in the Philippines. Five years later, Juan would be reinstated as a world-renowned artist and Peuple et Rois, his last major work, was acclaimed as the best entry to the Saint Louis World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.[13] Some of his paintings were destroyed by fire in World War II.
Media portrayal[edit]
See also[edit]
1. ^ "JUAN NOVICIO LUNA". Geringer Art, Ltd. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
2. ^ "Juan Luna Painter - Biography, Facts and Paintings". FAMOUS PAINTERS. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
3. ^ "Juan Luna". PHILIPPINE ART GALLERY. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
4. ^ "The Death of Cleopatra" by Juan Luna Archived June 23, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, kulay-diwa.com
5. ^ Ocampo, Ambeth R. (Chairman, National Historical Institute of the Philippines) "The Death of Cleopatra" by Juan Luna, from the article "Las Damas Romanas (Roman Maidens) by Juan Luna (The Philippines 1857-1899)", Christie's, Department Information, Southeast Asian Modern and Contemporary Art, christies.com
6. ^ Anderson, Benedict Richard O'Gorman. "The Battle of Lepanto" by Juan Luna, including Footnote No. 15, Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination, page 18.
7. ^ Ocampo, Ambeth. "The Blood Compact" by Juan Luna, from Juan Luna's Works, Looking Back, Inquirer Opinion/Columns, Inquirer, opinion.inquirer.net, October 24, 2007
8. ^ "Juan Luna masterpiece sold for P46.8M at Makati auction". Retrieved September 25, 2015.
9. ^ "The Case of Juan Luna Is an Argument for Legalizing Divorce in RP". Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2011.
10. ^ Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, A plot to kill a general (October 27, 2008), The Philippine Star.
12. ^ "Treaty of Peace Between the United States and Spain; December 10, 1898". Yale. 2009. Retrieved April 7, 2013.
13. ^ “Peuple et Rois” by Juan Luna Archived January 29, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, lopezmuseum.org.ph
External links[edit] |
Five Fun Classroom Educational Group Games for Teachers
Classroom Educational Group Games for Teachers
As a classroom teacher I love to engage students in learning through purposeful or educational classroom group games. It beats rote learning or learning from text books. Here are a five great educational group games that you may like to try in your classroom. Use these games to engage students in learning their times tables, quick recall or spelling words.
Pac Man
A great game for learning the times tables or for reciting quick answers to content taught in any subject. For example; recall of capital cities of the countries of the world. To play, students find a spot around the room. The teacher calls out a country and players call out that country’s capital city. The first to call it out correctly can take two steps in any direction in the room, aiming to reach and tag another player. If tagged that player is out of the game. Repeat this process until only one player remains in the game.
Times Tables Relay Game
Form up teams. Each team has a circle drawn on a white board. Write random numbers (about 9) around the inside edge of the circle. Teams line up the other side of the room to their circle. Decide upon a times table (say the 7 times table). The first player from each team must race up to their own circle and place one answer to the 7 times table on the outside of their circle. Then that player races back to tag the next player in their team. This player races forward and provides another answer, or corrects an answer. Keep going until one team completes all the answers to be the Champions!
Shoot the Sheriff
This fun classroom game can also be applied to general knowledge or number facts. Players take up a place somewhere in the classroom, holding their ruler (as a toy gun). The players are all cowboys in a shootout. The teacher calls out a question, the first to answer (all call out) correctly, get to shoot two other players. The players shot are out. Repeat until only two players are left. They are the Sheriffs. The Sheriffs finish the game with a duel. They stand back to back. Players 5 step away from each other, turn around and call out the answer to the basic fact question given. The sheriff who shoots their answer correctly first wins.
Bumper Board
Classroom Educational Group Games for Teachers
This is like a leader board for the times tables. Place student’s names onto individual cards and attach these in a vertical line on the wall. The aim is to be at the top of the leader board. Any player can be challenged to a battle by a player sitting one or two cards below them. Fire them off with ten questions from the times tables. The player to answer most correct gets to take the position of the player who was being challenged.
Beat the Chalk
An excellent classroom game for challenging students to their spelling. Ask for five challengers to stand three meters from the whiteboard. Call a spelling word. Players race to the white board and write the word, then step back to their start line (cannot return to the whiteboard once back at the start line). The first player to spell the word correctly remains as the Champion. Call out four new challengers to take him/her on with another spelling word.
Teachers who are able to bring the fun into learning will have better engaged students. Having a ‘toolbox’ full of indoor group games and circle games, will not only keep the kids happy, but the teacher will be having fun as well!
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In "The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations" (1965), scholar Cyrus Gordon argued for a common cultural origin for the Greek and Hebrew peoples. Specifically, he argued that both pre-Monarchic Israelite and Mycenaean Greek (i.e. Homeric or "heroic" Greek) cultures sprang from the same cultural matrix.
Is there any support for this view within the present scholarly/academic community?
Mycenaean Greek is an Indo-European language. Hebrew is a Northwestern Semitic language. This by itself makes the notion a non-starter.
Gordon makes the case in the book that Minoan and Hebrew have the same roots, and Minoan culture preceded the adoption of Greek in Mycenaea in his speculative Eastern Mediterranean civilization, but this is unfounded in science - as Minoan remains untranslated and unclassified. If it were as closely related to Hebrew as he claims, it would be translated or at least classified into a language family by now by tracing back language features to Northwestern Semitic or its precursors in the Afroasiatic family.
In short, Gordon could not prove Minoan was related to Hebrew in any meaningful way. Without a shared language, it's unlikely the cultures developed from the same source.
More, he was invested in other questionable historical beliefs that receive regular debunking - such as precolumbian trade with the Americas by many of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations.
To me this sounds all a bit too contrived. I haven't read the book but there is a contemporary review by Marvin Pope. Pope points out many flaws in Gordon's arguments and concludes by saying that
[F]or all the intermingling and syncretism in the Amarna age, it appears likely that Gordon has overstated the case for cultural and linguistic uniformity.
That said, this is not a subject I am deeply familiar with so I might be missing something (e.g. I don't know what's the current scholarship on whether the Minoan language was "Northwest Semitic", as Gordon had claimed, or not).
On the other hand, if one is looking for interaction between Greek and "Oriental" cultures, the much latter Orientalizing Period is something more solid. Check out especially the Pyrgi tablets.
Going back that far (to Mycenaean Greeks) seems kind of unnecessary (and tenuous) to me. When Alexander invaded and conquered the Levant it ultimately resulted in a fusion of Greek and Hebrew culture under the Laomedon Satrapy. For example, a synagogue was originally a Macedonian town hall, but this custom became general under the Hebrews. Many other such institutions and cultural combination occurred.
• What custom became common under the Hebrews? Aug 15 '15 at 10:37
Your Answer
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Home Did you know ? Web applications attacks: HTML injection
Web applications attacks: HTML injection
by Unallocated Author
HTML injection is a sort of injection bug that happens when an attacker is able to inject arbitrary HTML code into a vulnerable (unfiltered input) web page. This issue can have many results, such as the disclosure of a victim’s session cookies, or it can enable the attacker to change the page content that seen by many users.
it’s a basic security issue in which data (information like an email address or address or first name) and code (that build the web page, such as the creation of <script> elements) mix in unwanted ways.
An XSS attack rewrites the content of a web page or performs arbitrary JavaScript within the user’s web browser. This happens when a website gets some piece of data (text with HTML or JS code) from the user—an e-mail address, a user ID, a comment to a blog post, a status message, etc. and displays this data on a web page. If the site is not filtering the users inputs, then the meaning of the HTML document can be changed by a carefully crafted string.
This vulnerability is similar to Cross-site Scripting (XSS). Attacker finds an injection vulnerability and determines to use the vulnerability to hack some victims. The attacker will craft malicious link, including his injected HTML code, and send the malicious link to the victim.
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A history of the Crusades, as told by crusaders' DNA (phys.org)
50 points by davesailer on June 26, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments
Not a teeth missing?! The crusaders must have had excellent dental coverage!
But seriously, anyone who knows how can they have a full mouth of teeth at that era can explain?
Years back I recall reading an article about a skeleton which was found in the SF bay area (I think), and the difficulty of finding out who it was. They knew it was a woman and her approximate age, but because she had perfect teeth, dental records would be of no use. On the other hand, the fact that she had perfect teeth was itself a clue.
Skipping to the end of the story, she was a "mail order bride" from southeast asia; her husband got tired of her, killed her, and buried her in a remote spot. She had perfect teeth because she grew up eating a non-western diet with no sugar/coke/etc, probably mostly vegetables, rice, and fish.
Also, Southeast Asia probably means drinking green tea, which equals fluoride, thus good for teeth (up to a point).
Relatedly, I remember hearing of archaeologists finding skulls of "cave men" (can't remember the time or place) with perfect teeth and signs of tooth picks (grooves around the gum line). The implication was that cultural knowledge (or perhaps just personal habits) had solved bad dental hygiene at times throughout history--and it was repeatedly lost and found again. Could have also been happenstance with natural fluoride in the water (how the effect was discovered, I believe), or non-intentional as with the green tea.
If you don't brush or floss, your teeth end up completely coated in a layer of plaque. I think I once read somewhere that, due to low-sugar diet everyone else is talking about, the plaque on people's teeth "back in the day" was non-corrosive, and probably pretty good protection.
You'd think the plaque would still be present on the skeletons, but who knows. This is just speculation to begin with...
I'm lucky enough not have the bacteria that cause cavities - I'm awful with going to the dentist, but every time I do I walk out without any cavities. However, I do walk out with a stern warning about the dangers of plaque - how it's constant inflammation that causes tooth decay, gum disease, and a multitude of systemic problems - having teeth covered in plaque seems to be a problem in and of itself.
Again, this is drawn mostly from hazy memories of articles previously read, but my understanding was that plaque on the teeth of people who don't eat a diet high in sugars and refined carbs doesn't cause inflammation, ie it's fairly neutral on the teeth and gums. I'm not trying to start a pseudo-science upswell here, though, so maybe ignore this for the time being.
Low carb diet and no sugar
No sugar, sure. But wouldn't the diet of common medieval soldiers have be primarily grain based?
Maybe, it depends which crusade I think, and the amount of fiber left in their grain products was much higher. That makes a difference in the adhesive characteristics of the starch to the mouth. Also the insulin response, water retention, and gut health but that is a different topic though linked to gum health for sure.
In pre-modern times, a predominantly grain diet led to tooth decay not only because of starch sticking to the mouth, but also because all grain was stone-milled and the process left tiny fragments of stone in the grain that were abrasive on teeth.
They died young.
They were burned and buried. I doubt they were old.
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AnnaMarie Houlis
Journalist & travel blogger
New York is recognized as, arguably, one of the most progressive states in the United States. In fact, the state boasts a law that prohibits the discrimination of people for their pronouns — one that, if violated, could end in a hefty fine.
We're talking civil penalties up to $125,000 for violations, as well as up to $250,000 for violations that are the result of "willful, wanton or malicious conduct" if people refuse to use others' self-identified pronouns, names or titles.
So what is New York's pronoun law? Here's what should you know about it.
What Is New York’s Pronoun Law?
The New York City Commission on Human Rights has proposed "Legal Enforcement Guidanc...Expression," known as Local Law No. 3 (2002); N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-102(23).
The document serves as the Commission’s legal enforcement guidance on the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL)'s protections, as they apply to discrimination based on gender, gender identity and gender expression, which all constitute gender discrimination under the NYCHRL. The document does not intend to serve as a complete list of all forms of gender-based discrimination claims under the NYCHRL, however.
That said, the document reads as such:
"The New York City Human Rights Law ('NYCHRL') prohibits discrimination in employment, public accommodations, and housing. It also prohibits discriminatory harassment and bias-based profili
ng by law enforcement. The NYCHRL, pursuant to the 2005 Civil Rights Restoration Act, must be construed 'independently from similar or identical provisions of New York state or federal statutes,' such that 'similarly worded provisions of federal and state civil rights laws [are] a floor below which the City’s Human Rights law cannot fall, rather than a ceiling above which the local law cannot rise.'
"The New York City Commission on Human Rights (the 'Commission') is the City agency charged with enforcing the NYCHRL. People interested in vindicating their rights under the NYCHRL can choose to file a complaint with the Commission’s Law Enforcement Bureau within one (1) year of the discriminatory act or, in the case of gender-based harassment, within three (3) years of the discriminatory act. Alternatively, a complaint can be filed in court within three (3) years of the discriminatory act.
"The NYCHRL prohibits discrimination by most employers, housing providers, and public accommodations on the basis of gender. The term gender 'shall include actual or perceived sex, gender identity, and gender expression including a person's actual or perceived gender-related self-image, appearance, behavior, expression, or other gender-related characteristic, regardless of the sex assigned to that person at birth.”
Under the NYCHRL, employers and covered entities (in the areas of employment, public accommodations and housing) are required to use the name, pronouns and title (e.g. Ms./Mrs./Mr./Mx.) with which a person self-identifies, regardless of that person's sex assigned at birth or the sex indicated on that person's identification, or that person's anatomical makeup, gender, appearance or otherwise. Failing to use pronouns with which a person self-identifies can constitute as discrimination under the law.
"All people, including employees, tenants, customers and participants in programs, have the right to use and have others use their name and pronouns regardless of whether they have identification in that name or have obtained a court-ordered name change, except in very limited circumstances where certain federal, state or local laws require otherwise (e.g., for purposes of employment eligibility verification with the federal government)," according to
That said, asking someone "in good-f...r pronouns is not a violation of the NYCHRL. And, because many people use non-binary or non-conforming gender pronouns (such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir), asking is sometimes the only way to know someone's pronouns. Some entities may avoid NYCHRL violations by creating policies of asking everyone for their pronouns in updated systems, intake forms and other questionnaires that allow people to self-identify.
Of course, it's important to note that since, according to the City, "refusal to use a transgender employee’s preferred name, pronoun or title may constitute unlawful gender-based harassment," harassment is a keyword of which employers should take note. Harassment law requires employers to prevent harassment by co-workers and patrons — not just themselves.
What Are Some Examples of Violations of New York's Pronoun Law?
Some examples of violations of New York's pronoun law include the following.
• The intentional or repeated refusal to use a person's pronouns, as well as that person's name or title — such as calling a trans woman "him" after she clearly identified with she/her/hers pronouns.
• Refusing to use a person's pronouns because they don't conform to gender stereotypes — such as insisting on calling a non-binary person "Mrs." after they have repeatedly and clearly requested to be called "Mx."
• Forcing a person to provide proof of their medical procedures and history in order to use their preferred pronouns, name or title.
• Refusing to use a person's name without a court-ordered name change or an identification with that name. |
What financial goals should I have as a college graduate?
In general, there are four financial goals people work towards. Saving for retirement, an emergency fund, a large expense (home, new car) and repaying debt. Since you have just graduated, your timeline should look more like saving for an emergency fund, contributing to a retirement account and paying off your debt.
What are some good financial goals for college students?
Examples of Financial Goals for College Students
• Pay off any credit card debts < $1,000.
• Save $1,000 for emergencies.
• Buy a small car (debt-free of course)
• Commit to paying $20 a week towards student loans.
• Purchase a laptop in 3 month’s time.
• Reduce your living expenses and set a barebones budget.
What is a good example of a financial goal?
Examples of financial goals
Paying off debt. Saving for retirement. Building an emergency fund. Buying a home.
What are financial goals for students?
Specifically, they should be achieved in 1 to 5 years. Good examples of medium-term financial goals for students might include: Getting a paid internship. Finding a full-time job after graduation.
IT IS INTERESTING: Quick Answer: How do you establish relationships with students?
How much should you have in savings when you graduate college?
During college, don’t worry about saving—take everything you have and use it to pay for college and stay out of debt. After college, target to save at least 15% of your gross income, and a higher percentage as your income increases.
What are long term financial goals examples?
What are long-term financial goals?
• Retirement fund.
• Paying off a mortgage.
• Starting a business.
• Saving for a child’s college tuition.
What are family goals examples?
Below are typical family goals:
• To provide financial resources to achieve each member’s personal goals.
• To maintain good health for all family members.
• To maintain a home of which you are all proud.
• To have a son or daughter join the family business.
• To enjoy leisure time as a family.
What are the 5 smart goals?
What are examples of financial values?
Areas of Influence
• Having enough money.
• Wanting money to last.
• Making appropriate money choices.
• Bargain hunting and getting a good deal.
• Saving for long-term security and short-term goals.
How do I write a good financial plan?
Build your own financial plan: A step-by-step guide
1. Set financial goals. It’s always good to have a clear idea of why you’re saving your hard-earned money. …
2. Create a budget. …
3. Plan for taxes. …
4. Build an emergency fund. …
5. Manage debt. …
6. Protect with insurance. …
7. Plan for retirement. …
8. Invest beyond your 401(k).
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What are educational goals?
What are social goals for students?
Social goals span a broad range of interactions, and may include skills such as positive peer interactions, self-awareness, perspective taking, or conflict resolution. Goals can be affirmative actions on the part of the child, eliminating specific behaviors or responses, or learning to understand a new social concept.
What are your financial goals for the future?
Long-Term Financial Goals. The biggest long-term financial goal for most people is saving enough money to retire. The common rule of thumb that you should save 10% to 15% of every paycheck in a tax-advantaged retirement account like a 401(k) or 403(b), if you have access to one, or a traditional IRA or Roth IRA.
How much money should I have saved by 18?
How much do college students have in their bank account?
Most Students have $51-$500 in their Bank Accounts
399 student responses over 82 schools. The majority of students (23% of respondents) reported having $51-$500 in their bank accounts. This is a very low amount and can definitely be concerning.
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Is it realistic to graduate debt free?
How much debt is a reasonable amount to take on? The rule of thumb is your total debt at graduation should be less than your annual starting salary. That means you should be able to repay your debt in 10 years. Anything more than that, and you’re going to struggle to repay.
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Horsetail encourages the healing of tissue and has been used as a wound herb to stop bleeding since ancient times. Horsetail is used for “fluid retention” edema, kidney and bladder stones, urinary tract infections, incontinence, and general disturbances of the kidney and bladder. Horsetail is an ancient herb and is the sole survivor of a line of plants going back three hundred million years.
Botanical name: Equisetum hyemale
Status: Certified organic
Actions: Horsetail is a known antibiotic, astringent, diuretic, and anti-inflammatory. It stops bleeding and heals tissues. It has a restorative effect to damaged pulmonary (lung) tissue.
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How Deep Can You Dive Before Being Crushed?
How Deep Can You Dive Before Being Crushed?
Photo by Hunter Nolan on Unsplash
There are a few factors to consider when trying to determine a diver’s “crush limit”. The human body consists of up to 60% water, leaving 40% of body tissue. Air compartments surrounded by body tissue and the water percentile itself have different susceptibility to crushing. The easiest to crush are our air spaces such as our middle ear, sinuses and our lungs. So, how deep can you dive before being crushed?
In short, a diver can’t simply be crushed by the weight of water. Even at extreme depths. But why is that? Read on for more information on how deep we can dive before being crushed!
Looking for how deep we can scuba dive?
Check out how long freedivers can hold their breaths!
How Deep Can you Dive Before Being Crushed?
The 40% of non-water non-gaseous minerals and tissues such as salts, proteins, fats and lipids are virtually impossible to compress similar to water.
Read More: Q&A with a Commercial Diver
Let’s look at the most basic physics that determine volume changes with pressure in an effort to work out how easily a diver’s air spaces could be crushed. Boyle’s law states the linear relationship between depth, pressure, volume and density in water. For the purpose of this article we are assuming 1 bar for 10 meters of water.
See the Boyle’s law table below.
1 bar
2 bar
3 bar
4 bar
5 bar
Because water is virtually incompressible we are focusing on the crushing of air spaces within our body first.
Scuba divers and free divers rely on equalising to prevent damaging their bodies. They compensate for static water pressure by adding equal gas pressure into their air spaces as the atmospheric pressure of the depth they are diving in. This prevents their air spaces from collapsing under pressure.
In order to answer, how deep can you dive before being crushed?, we are going to ignore the other limitations we face when diving to great depths. These include differential pressure (saturation and off-gassing), gas toxicity and narcosis to mention a few.
Getting Crushed With vs Without A Pressure Suit
Diving often requires some form of exposure protection to be worn in order not to get too cold. Depending on the suit worn a diver is subjected to variable degrees of crushing.
No Pressure Suit means that we dive with the water touching our body all around and we only need to equalise our own air spaces. A skin suit or wetsuit won’t change this. The only way this diver will be crushed is when the water in the diver’s body solidifies. Otherwise as long as the diver is able to equalise their air spaces with gas, they prevent being crushed.
A Pressure Suit traps a gas bubble around the diver underwater. To prevent crushing, divers need to ensure gas pressure inside the suit is equal to the water pressure outside the suit. Dry suit divers learn to add gas to their suits as they descend in order to prevent “suit squeeze”, a very painful side effect.
Learn more about How Does A Drysuit Work?
If suit pressure drops, the decrease in gas volume inside the suit would crush the diver. Commercial divers double check their non-return valve before their dives. Failure of this valve in the event of a gas supply failure would create a vacuum inside the suit crushing the diver. At great depths, high pressure would completely crush the diver. At lower pressure however, the diver’s lungs would collapse still resulting in a death by crushing.
An Atmospheric Suit is a hard suit able to withstand the pressure of the surrounding water on its own. The gas inside these suits is at 1 bar (same as our atmosphere). By being rigid, the water will not crush the diver inside these suits. John Lethbridge first conceptualised the atmospheric diving suit in 1715. The depth limits of these suits is currently around 700 meters. Venturing beyond these suits’ maximum operating depths has the potential to crush the diver in the event of a suit failure.
Can Pressure Turn Water Into A Solid?
We all know solid water as ice. A gas turns into a liquid if cooled enough. In turn, a liquid turns into a solid if cooled enough. This is how we turn water into ice. So, freezing a human would kill them, however, that is not technically crushing them and not what we are looking for.
Kinetic-molecular theory determines the effects of temperature and pressure on liquids.
As mentioned above it is theoretically possible to cool any liquid to arrest particle movement, making it a solid. Since we are not looking for when a human freezes, let’s look at pressure. It is theoretically possible to apply enough pressure to a liquid to restrict particle movement enough in order to turn the liquid into a solid. Water is rather incompressible. Solidifying water requires immense pressure. This amount of pressure does not occur in any diving conditions on our planet.
If the water pressure was high enough in order for water to solidify under its own weight, we would be unable to submerse ourselves or dive into such water. Similar in that we can’t go diving in ice.
The deepest point in our ocean is just on 11 kilometers. Since the water down at those depths is still liquid and not solid, there is not enough depth in our ocean to solidify water simply with pressure. Water remains a liquid at even 1101 bar or pressure. The human body would therefore not solidify under that pressure.
How Much Water Pressure can the Human Body Take?
As established above, the human body is 60% water. Earlier I mentioned how bone crushes at about 11,159 kg per square inch which is not achievable by diving on earth. Our other body minerals and salts are virtually incompressible along with water. In theory as long as a diver equalises their own air spaces or that of the suit they wear, they avoid being crushed. There is no body of water deep enough to exert sufficient pressure in order to solidify water or compress salts, proteins, fats and lipids or even to crush bone in our atmosphere and gravitational field.
Read More: Q&A with a Female Commercial Diver
Final Thoughts
Diving depths have always intrigued people. Non-return valves failing and crushing divers in early pressure suit diving further highlighted this fear. How deep can you dive before being crushed therefore can’t be answered definitively. Achievable depths with SCUBA, freediving, and even commercial diving, are not enough to crush a diver. Phew!
Learn about Recreational Scuba Diving Depth Limits. |
A Mirror Universe: Metaverse
The term metaverse was first used by American author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. According to this, Metaverse, beyond the universe we live in and the reality we live in, defines a fictional universe whose boundaries are determined by imagination and whose construction has already begun. In 2021, we started to hear the name of this universe more often, which we have already gradually entered with cryptocurrencies, NFT coins and digital artworks, AR/VR applications and games. There were two reasons for this.
Digital Transformation With The Pandemic
The first reason was determined by user preferences and orientations. Especially during the pandemic process, our daily life has become more digital. Children (3-11 years old), adolescents (12-17 years old) and young (17-25 years old) users who direct this digital transformation started to spend more time with computers, mobile phones and tablets, to escape from the real world more often, and to seek more satisfying pursuits in the virtual universe. The spaces and objects created by the applications and games were not enough for them. So they started to produce their own objects and to build their own spaces.
They even entered this universe with AR/VR technologies. In 2020, 12 million people attended a rap concert in a game with their avatars. An NFT work, which is a digital photo (jpeg), was sold for $69 million in the past months. The young people who bought it also announced that they will exhibit the work in a virtual exhibition hall in the near future.
Fashion and clothing brands such as Gucci have started to develop technologies where some of the products you buy can also be used in the virtual universe. In other words, when you go to a concert with your avatar, the brands in your real life will be able to accompany you. It seems that the Metaverse will not only host us, but will also be a reflection of things that belong to us. A mirror universe...
New Investment Area of Technology Giants
The second reason is that big companies like Facebook have invested billions of dollars in the metaverse years ago. For example, Facebook bought the VR company Oculus for $2 billion in 2014 and has continually improved this product. Epic Games offered its players a crafting feature in the 6th season of Fortnite. This means that the users will construct and build the alternative universe.
Metaverse presents an unfamiliar state of the internet, game world, fashion, art and entertainment. Maybe, in future, there will be multiple parallel universes, multiple mirror worlds, multiple virtual planets. Integrated metaverses. And perhaps, a multiverse… |
There have not been many concerns surrounding the practice of moderate drinking. In a startling report, scientists at Cancer Research UK have revealed the link between alcohol consumption and cancer.
While excessive alcohol drinking has been associated with this cancer, not much has been talked about mild drinking. In this study, the team analyzed almost 113 academic papers and found that for each extra drink per day, the risk factor increased by 7 to 12%. The investigators used statistical analysis to gauge the patterns observed in the disease.
Those consuming one small drink each day apparently experienced 5% increased risk for breast cancer. Though this is not that large a value, it does reveal that light drinking cannot be overlooked. The basic take home message for women is that they will benefit more if they cut down on alcohol consumption.
Though a small drink would not have a significant effect on cancer incidence, consuming such low proportions every day may add to the overall amount of alcohol in the body. According to the team, almost 3,000 cases of breast cancer occurring every year could be correlated with alcohol.
While heavy drinking is to be avoided at all costs, light drinking could be harmful too, as revealed by the team. There have been apparent cases of breast cancer due to binge drinking practices. Though light drinking accounts for a relatively much lower risk, it seems like a red flag has arrived already. |
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a progressive degenerative disease that contributes to more than $140 billion in medical expenditures annually (Murphy, Costernas, Pasta, Helmick, and Yelin 2017). Recent data suggest OA affects approximately 12% of the U.S. population between the ages of 25 and 74 (Cisternas, Murphy, Sacks, Solomon, Pasta, and Helmick 2016).
This disease is a joint ailment that involves the cartilage and many of its surrounding tissues. The most common joints affected are knees, hips, hands, facet joints, and feet (Litwic, Edwards, Dennison, and Cooper 2013). These represent several types of synovial joints, which are characterized by a joint cavity that contains synovial fluid. The bone ends of these kinds of joints are covered with articular cartilage, which is a thin layer of hyaline cartilage, a metabolic form of Teflon. Synovial fluid is a lubricant that reduces friction between the articular cartilage (Zhang, Egan, and Wang 2015). The knee joint is a hinge joint that is stabilized by exterior and internal ligaments; the flexion and extension movements are softened by synovial fluid, several types of bursae, and an infrapatellar fat pad.
OA is inflammation of the joint, typically characterized by pain, swelling, stiffness, and reduced mobility. During the joint degeneration process, the articular cartilage wears down and there is increased production of synovial fluid. While the standard of care involves intake of medications to relieve pain and inflammation, some interventions may include gene therapy and possibly joint replacement surgery or arthroplasty (Walsh, Mapp, and Kelly 2015). Dietary interventions may include the consumption of collagen and gelatin as well as their respective hydrolysates (Liu, Nikoo, Boran, Zho, and Regenstein 2015) and possibly glucosamine and chondroitin (Fransen, Agaliotis, Naim, et al. 2015; Clegg, Reda, Harris, et al. 2006; Henrotin, Mobasheri and Marty 2012).
Collagens are unique structural proteins and represent the most abundant proteins (~30%) in the human body. These proteins have vital functions in maintaining the integrity of skeletal muscle and are critical in the growth and development of muscle tissue (McCormick 2009). There are nearly 30 types of collagen among vertebrates and invertebrates that are products of more than 30 genes (Gordon and Hahn 2010). The helical structure of collagen is dominated (>10%) by the amino acid sequences of glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline. The hydroxylation of proline is a post-translational process in the collagenous domains via a family of propyl 3-hydroxylases (Hudson and Eyre 2013; Pokidysheva, Boudko, Vranka, et al. 2014). Irreversibly hydrolyzed collagen is gelatin, which is used in the food, medical, and pharmaceutical industries.
Consuming collagen and gelatin has been advocated to improve joint health, bone strength, and skin wellness, and has gained popularity in the functional foods category. The hydrolysates and the respective peptides may have biological activities, which may reflect the purported beneficial effects of these substances. Several studies among animal models indicate that as much as 70%–90% of the low molecular weight (nearly 15 kDa) gelatin hydrolysate peptides may be absorbed based on the accumulation of radioactive proline (Oesser, Adam, Babel, and Seifert 1999; Watanabe-Kamiyama, Shimizu, Kamiyama, et al. 2010).
Several small, short-term studies with collagen hydrolysates fed to humans suggest some symptoms associated with OA may be reduced (Schauss, Stenehjem, Park, Endres, and Clewell 2012; Benito-Ruiz, Camacho-Zambrano, Carillo-Arcentales, et al. 2009). More than a dozen small studies of marine gelatin hydrolysates and their respective peptides demonstrated biological activities in model systems (Liu, Nikoo, Boran, Zhou, and Regenstein 2015).
It is interesting to note that rat intestine enterocytes produce proline-specific carboxypeptidases, which may be important in the digestion of proline-containing peptides and proteins such as collagen and gelatin (Erickson, Song, Yoshioka, Gulli, Miura, and Kim 1989). In part, these findings are consistent with kidney Pro-X carboxypeptidases that can hydrolyze several Pro-X dipeptides, whereas these enzymes do not recognize Pro–Pro, Pro–Hyp, Hyp–Gly, and Pro–Leu bonds (Hiraoka 2004). However, these specific enterocyte-derived enzymes have not been identified in humans.
There are a limited number of studies that suggest some microflora, such as specific bifidobacteria, probionibacteria, and yeast, produce exopeptidases that exhibit proline-specific activities (Quelen, Dupuis, and Boyaval 1995; Minagawa, Kaminogawa, Tsukasaki, Motoshima, and Yamauchi 1985; Bolumar, Sanz, Aristoy, and Toldra 2003). These studies reinforce our understanding of the amino acid composition of collagen, which is dominated by proline. Like any other structural and ubiquitous protein, the uniqueness of its digestibility and its hydrolysates by humans must be investigated rigorously, especially with respect to managing OA.
Roger ClemensRoger Clemens, DrPH, CFS,
Contributing Editor
Adjunct Professor, Univ. of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy, Los Angeles, Calif.
[email protected] |
Crimean Karaites attend services in Simferopol, Crimea, June 9, 2018. (Photo/JTA-Sergei Malgavko-TASS via Getty Images)
Ukraine honors Karaite Jews as ‘indigenous,’ and Putin is furious
Two tiny sects with Jewish roots have been dragged into yet another diplomatic fight between Russia and Ukraine.
The few hundred Karaite Jews who remain in Ukraine today are members of a sect that broke off from mainstream Judaism in eighth-century Iraq. They were documented in Crimea in the 13th century and nearly wiped out during the Holocaust. (Karaite communities elsewhere today include a sizable population in Israel and smaller ones in several other countries. The only Karaite synagogue in America is in Daly City.)
The nearly extinct Krymchaks, meanwhile, are related to Ukrainian Karaites but are believed to be more heavily descended from Georgian Jews.
Last month, Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky unveiled a bill that he said was designed to help preserve the heritage of the tiny minority groups, plus the Tatars, a Muslim people.
But by designating those groups “indigenous peoples,” Zelensky, who is himself Jewish, angered Russia, which zealously guards the interests of Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minority.
Russian President Vladimir Putin came out swinging, using the opportunity to further stoke Ukraine’s many preexisting interethnic tensions. He protested the bill’s perceived implication that ethnic Russians, who make up about a third of the population of Ukraine, and other groups are somehow not indigenous to it.
“The division into indigenous, first-class categories of people, second-class and so on — this is definitely completely abhorrent, reminiscent of the theory and practice of Nazi Germany,” Putin said Wednesday on the Russia 1 television channel.
Historians agree that the peoples that are now known as Slavs have inhabited Ukraine long before the arrival about 500 years ago of the Tatars. Ethnic Slavs also arrived centuries before the Jewish sects.
But Slavic cultures are not in danger of disappearing in Ukraine. In fact they are thriving amid a surge of nationalism in the wake of the 2014 conflict, a turbulent revolution that invited Russian meddling.
Things are different for the some 300,000 Crimean Tatars living in Ukraine and in territories internationally recognized as belonging to it.
Russia’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 has separated many families from the Tatar minority, which even before the war was dwindling due to assimilation, emigration and a low birthrate. The financial crisis created by the war, especially in eastern Ukraine where most Tatars lived, has expedited immigration to large cities and the disintegration of centuries-old communities.
The Karaites and Krymchaks are in far worst shape. Most of the 800 or so Ukrainian Karaites live in Crimea. In 2007, the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress estimated there were only 300 Krymchaks in Ukraine.
Recognizing this, Zelensky’s bill “promotes the development of ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine,” the document states. It prescribes special funding for media and cultural projects focused on preserving the heritage, languages and education of the three groups the bill designates.
A bitter dispute divides many ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians in the country, which for the past five years has been dealing with breakaway enclaves of ethnic Russians in its eastern regions.
Ukraine’s Jews — about 50,000, according to a 2020 demographic study — also have been divided by this fight. At issue are the status of the Ukrainian and Russian languages and the state’s attitude to Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazi Germany to fight against the Soviet Union.
Some Jewish groups, like the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, join ethnic Russians in vocally opposing the glorification of Nazi collaborators by government and private groups. But other groups, like Vaad, an umbrella group of many Jewish organizations and communities in the country, defend Ukrainian nationalist sentiment and opposition to Russia.
Ukraine’s Jewish organizations have not spoken about the bill on indigenous people.
Zelensky, a former actor with little political experience and plummeting approval ratings, has been careful not to anger Ukrainian nationalists. He has expressed displeasure about the naming of streets for nationalists whose troops murdered countless Jews during the Holocaust, but tends to focus on restoring the economy during Covid-19.
In attacking Zelensky over the new bill, Putin referenced Zelensky’s own ethnic identity. He suggested that Zelensky’s designation of Tatars, Karaites and Krymchaks as “indigenous” is an injustice to Ukraine’s Jews, whose presence there was first documented in the 11th century — about 200 years before the newly designated indigenous groups.
“Zelensky himself is a Jew ethnically,” Putin told Russia 1. “I don’t know, maybe he has mixed blood. So what will be done with such people? What will happen to them now? Perhaps their body parts should be measured like in Nazi Germany, so ‘real Aryans’ may be set apart from the fake ones? So now they’ll define a ‘real Ukrainian’?”
In Ukraine, critics of Putin said he was throwing stones from inside a glass house.
“In Russia, indigenous peoples are only allowed to dance around in national costumes,” Syres Bolyayan, a Ukraine-based member of Russia’s tiny Erzya minority — a Finno-Ugric group — told Radio Liberty. “Those who fight for the rights of their people are persecuted for extremism or get forcefully admitted into psychiatric hospitals.”
Cnaan Liphshiz, Netherlands-based Europe Correspondent for JTA
Cnaan Liphshiz
JTA Europe correspondent
Content distributed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service. |
Melanoma Stages
Diagnosis and Staging. What it Means for You.
How is melanoma diagnosed?
To diagnose melanoma, a dermatologist biopsies the suspicious tissue and sends it to a lab, where a dermatopathologist determines whether cancer cells are present.
After the disease is diagnosed and the type of melanoma is identified, the next step is for your medical team to identify the stage of the disease. This may require additional tests including imaging such as PET scans, CT scans, MRIs and blood tests.
The stage of melanoma is determined by several factors, including how much the cancer has grown, whether the disease has spread (metastasized) and other considerations. Melanoma staging is complex, but crucial. Knowing the stage helps doctors decide how to best treat your disease and predict your chances of recovery.
What are the melanoma stages, and what do they mean?
Early melanomas
Stage 0 and I are localized, meaning they have not spread.
• Stage 0: Melanoma is localized in the outermost layer of skin and has not advanced deeper. This noninvasive stage is also called melanoma in situ.
• Stage I: The cancer is smaller than 1 mm in Breslow depth, and may or may not be ulcerated. It is localized but invasive, meaning that it has penetrated beneath the top layer into the next layer of skin. Invasive tumors considered stage IA are classified as early and thin if they are not ulcerated and measure less than 0.8 mm.
Find out about treatment options for early melanomas.
Intermediate or high-risk melanomas
Localized but larger tumors may have other traits such as ulceration that put them at high risk of spreading.
• Stage II: Intermediate, high-risk melanomas are tumors deeper than 1 mm that may or may not be ulcerated. Although they are not yet known to have advanced beyond the primary tumor, the risk of spreading is high, and physicians may recommend a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) to verify whether melanoma cells have spread to the local lymph nodes. Thicker melanomas, greater than 4.0 mm, have a very high risk of spreading, and any ulceration can move the disease into a higher subcategory of stage II. Because of that risk, the doctor may recommend more aggressive treatment.
Learn more about sentinel lymph node biopsy and melanoma treatment options.
Advanced melanomas
Spread beyond the primary tumor to other parts of the body. There are also subdivisions within these stages.
• Stage III: These tumors have spread to either the local lymph nodes or more than 2 cm away from the primary tumor through a lymph vessel but not yet to the local lymph nodes. Thickness no longer plays a staging role. If local lymph nodes are palpable, meaning they feel enlarged when examined by a doctor, the tumor has reached them, and they are removed. Sometimes melanoma is present even in lymph nodes that are not palpable.
• Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a technique used to determine whether the disease has spread to one or more nearby lymph nodes. Melanomas that have spread to very small areas of nearby skin or underlying tissue but have not reached the lymph nodes are known as “satellite tumors” — and are also included in stage III. The staging system includes metastases so tiny they can be seen only by microscope (micrometastases). The degree of disease advancement depends on whether the tumor has reached the nodes, the number of nodes involved, the number of cancer cells found in them and whether they are microscopic or are palpable and can be seen with the naked eye.
• Stage IV: The cancer has advanced to distant body areas, lymph nodes or organs, most often the lungs, liver, brain, bone and gastrointestinal tract. The two main ways to determine the degree of advancement in stage IV melanoma are the site of the distant tumors and the presence of elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels. LDH is an enzyme that turns sugar into energy; the more found in blood or body fluids, the more damage has been done.
These stages are each further broken down, from lowest to highest risk, depending on different characteristics of the original tumor and the areas where it has spread.
Cancer staging can be complex and confusing. If you have been diagnosed, ask your doctor to explain your stage in a way you can understand.
What happens after staging?
Once your melanoma stage is determined, your doctor will develop a treatment plan that’s best for you.
Learn more about melanoma treatment options.
Reviewed by:
Allan C. Halpern, MD
Ashfaq A. Marghoob, MD
Ofer Reiter, MD
Last updated: May 2020
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Mrs.Black S.S India
Ancient India
What are the two main rivers in India? Ganges and Indus River
What are the details that help set up the Harappan civilizations towns and cities? Plumbing, Public baths, Wells, Large Graneries, Uniform Weights, Streets running along a pattern.
Who were the Aryan people? (4-5 kinda same question) A group of Nomadic people that conquered the Indus Valley.
Where did the Aryan people come from?
What types of things did the Aryan people do to change society/social classes? Raja, Kshatriya, Marharajas, Dharma.
How did the Aryan people change/influence the region in the Indus Valley? They created a social class based off of "varna" or color of skin.
Name the two empires that settled Ancient India. Mauryian and Gupta Empires.
Who were the founders of the empires? Chandragupta Maurya Chandra Gupta
What are some achievements of the Maurya Empire? Central Taxation and Coins.
What are some achievements of the Gupta Empire? University, Astronomy, Science, Math, Lit., Metalurgy.
What is the centralized currency and what is its advantage? Money same from place to place/trade.
Explain some of the topographical features of India. Decan Plateau, Ghats, Himalayas, Hindu-Kush
What are the two mountain ranges in India? Himalayas and Hindu-Kush
How did Ashoka influence religion in India? He encouraged Buddihism throughout the region.
What is "enlightenment"? Peaceful
What is "karma"? The effects that good and bad action have on actions have on a person's soul.
What is "reincarnation"? Process of rebirth
What are some differences and similarities between Hinduism and Buddhism? Non- Violent, Believe in reincarnation/Animal sacrifices: H, Vegatarian: B
What modern day country has the most Buddhist population? China
In modern India, what religion do the majority of Indians practice? Hinduisium
What is a "subcontinent"? A piece of land no big enough for its own contient
What is the Hindu people's symbol of good luck? What other time has it been used in history? Swasticka. It was use in the time of the Nazi party when Hitler cam to power.
What are "monsoons"? How does it affect the weather? Wet and dry air/Summer-Wet ~ Winter-Dry
What was one of the reasons the Maurya Empire fell? The last Mauryan Emperor was assassinated.
What is a "raja"? A Tribal Chieftain
Why did Ashoka convert to Buddhism? Because of the bloody battle of Kalinga
How did Hinduism influence Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi? Non-violent protest teachings
What was Gandhi trying to accomplish in India? A effect of societal change, equal right, followed by independence
Created by: megsleeks27
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Work Done By A Force
Work Done By A Constant Force
Technically speaking, this video is a tad on the introductory side for Calculus, since it doesn't use any integrals. But that's kind of the point! Work is a confusing topic -- it's basically physics thrown into the middle of a math class -- so it's best if you learn how to do these more basic work problems first, before throwing crazy integrals into the mix.
What the heck is work?
Work Done By A Variable Force (integrals)
This is what you've been waiting for: work problems with integrals. Work is a confusing topic, though, so it's highly recommended that you watch the prior two videos first. Examples: launching satellites, expanding gasses, springs, reeling up chains. |
Python Tutorial
Python is an object-oriented, high-level programming language. Python was created as a successor to the ABC language by Guido van Rossum at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands in the late 1980s. The first version of Python was released in 1991.
Python was named after the popular comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus, and not a python snake.
Where is Python used?
• Python is used for developing desktop GUI applications, web applications, scientific, business applications. It is also widely used in scientific and numeric computing.
• Python has a high built-in data structures, that is combined with dynamic typing and dynamic binding. This makes Python, a very good choice for Rapid Application Development, as well as for use as a scripting language. It is also used as a language for connecting existing components together.
Why should you learn Python?
You should learn Python because:
• Simple and easy to learn: Python has simple syntax which makes it easy to learn.
• Interpreted: Python is an interpreted language because python runs from the source code. The code is compiled first before it is used and is interpreted.
• Support Modules and packages: Python encourages program modularity and code reuse as it supports modules and packages.
How to print Hello World in Python?
A Simple Python program to print Hello World:
print("Hello World")
Python Function
A Simple Python function to print Hello World:
def my_function():
print("Hello World") |
Homelessness and Environmental Innovations
Homelessness has gradually decreased in the past years, but it is still very prevalent in America. Many poor people are at risk of homelessness. Ultimately, this is due to the high cost of housing and unemployment. Our society mainly recognize homeless people standing in front of stores begging for money wearing worn down clothing, but experiencing homelessness can be from sleeping outside of a tent or in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. There are many perceptions on the homeless. Nonetheless, homelessness affects us, from the environment we live in from sustainability to our economy. Homelessness is a social issue that connects us with the physical and natural environment. There are some arguments that environmental degradation is correlated or the same as social equity, this could be the result of large corporation greed. For example, large corporations who are producing harmful chemicals in the environment near a poverty-stricken area, where homelessness is more prevalent.
Every Saturday, I volunteer with the Low Country Herald. The Low Country Herald is a nonprofit organization that produces print publications that the homeless sell to the people, and they get to keep the profits to generate an income for them get out of poverty. Paul Gangarosa is the founder of this nonprofit organization and a professor at the College of Charleston.
Professor Gangarosa is trying to create a Shower truck for the homeless in Charleston, SC. This would provide the homeless to have a suitable area for them to shower and provide hygiene products. This is also, an environmental effort by having a portable shower truck: conservation of water (having timed showers), low consumption of energy, portability (meaning not having a permanent area, less space is used), and cost-effective. This project is still in the works. His other projects include building tiny houses for the homeless this would incorporate green building practices into public houses. This would be both sustainable, cost-effective, and a way to get people off the streets.
Every Saturday, volunteers and I usually set up a couple tent, tables, and chairs on a vacant lot. And then we usually bring food trays that contain various amounts of foods that are all voluntarily brought. So I usually serve food for the homeless and wrap up their foods if they are on the go. We also, provide hygiene bags that contain travel sized soaps, toothbrush, toothpaste, razors, women’s hygiene products, shampoo, conditioner, and many more. Every second Saturday, a health clinic comes and people who are certified to check the homeless body conditions. This includes measurement of blood pressure, glucose levels, temperature, and giving them advice to keep up their health.
We also ask questions to the individuals who come on Saturdays, we ask for their name, age, if they are experiencing homelessness, and if they had a job or not. By asking these questions, this helps us become more aware on how prevalent the homeless community is in the area and what we could do about it. We hand out flyers for the homeless that has a number on it, if they need a job.
All in all, I think we should create more sustainable innovative ways for the community to go green. This would not only help our environment overall, but also the homeless.
2 thoughts on “Homelessness and Environmental Innovations
1. This seems like such a great and rewarding volunteer opportunity. The idea of a shower truck is genius and would be very helpful within the Charleston community. The idea of the Lowcountry Herald is also great since it allows homeless people to get back on their feet.
2. Wow, thank-you for being such an active citizen, Angela, and taking time out of your Saturdays for such a worthy cause! I agree that the shower truck is a great idea.
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Natural rights and legal rights are the two basic types of rights. * Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are ''universal'', ''fundamental'' and ''inalienable'' (they cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their enjoyment through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's rights). Natural law is the law of natural rights. * Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights. Natural law first appeared in ancient Greek philosophy, and was referred to by Roman philosopher Cicero. It was subsequently alluded to in the Bible, and then developed in the Middle Ages by Catholic philosophers such as Albert the Great and his pupil Thomas Aquinas. During the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of natural laws was used to challenge the divine right of kings, and became an alternative justification for the establishment of a social contract, positive law, and government – and thus legal rights – in the form of classical republicanism. Conversely, the concept of natural rights is used by others to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments. The idea of human rights derives from theories of natural rights. Those rejecting a distinction between human rights and natural rights view human rights as the successor that is not dependent on natural law, natural theology, or Christian theological doctrine. Natural rights, in particular, are considered beyond the authority of any government or international body to dismiss. The 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important legal instrument enshrining one conception of natural rights into international soft law. Natural rights were traditionally viewed as exclusively negative rights, whereas human rights also comprise positive rights. Even on a natural rights conception of human rights, the two terms may not be synonymous.
The idea that certain rights are natural or inalienable also has a history dating back at least to the Stoics of late Antiquity, through Catholic law of the early Middle Ages, and descending through the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment to today. The existence of natural rights has been asserted by different individuals on different premises, such as ''a priori'' philosophical reasoning or religious principles. For example, Immanuel Kant claimed to derive natural rights through reason alone. The United States Declaration of Independence, meanwhile, is based upon the "self-evident" truth that "all men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". Likewise, different philosophers and statesmen have designed different lists of what they believe to be natural rights; almost all include the right to life and liberty as the two highest priorities. H. L. A. Hart argued that if there are any rights at all, there must be the right to liberty, for all the others would depend upon this. T. H. Green argued that “if there are such things as rights at all, then, there must be a right to life and liberty, or, to put it more properly to free life.” John Locke emphasized "life, liberty and property" as primary. However, despite Locke's influential defense of the right of revolution, Thomas Jefferson substituted "pursuit of happiness" in place of "property" in the United States Declaration of Independence.
Stephen Kinzer, a veteran journalist for ''The New York Times'' and the author of the book ''All The Shah's Men'', writes in the latter that: The 40 Principal Doctrines of the Epicureans taught that "in order to obtain protection from other men, any means for attaining this end is a natural good" (PD 6). They believed in a contractarian ethics where mortals agree to not harm or be harmed, and the rules that govern their agreements are not absolute (PD 33), but must change with circumstances (PD 37-38). The Epicurean doctrines imply that humans in their natural state enjoy personal sovereignty and that they must consent to the laws that govern them, and that this consent (and the laws) can be revisited periodically when circumstances change. The Stoics held that no one was a slave by nature; slavery was an external condition juxtaposed to the internal freedom of the soul (''sui juris''). Seneca the Younger wrote: Of fundamental importance to the development of the idea of natural rights was the emergence of the idea of natural human equality. As the historian A.J. Carlyle notes: "There is no change in political theory so startling in its completeness as the change from the theory of Aristotle to the later philosophical view represented by Cicero and Seneca.... We think that this cannot be better exemplified than with regard to the theory of the equality of human nature." Charles H. McIlwain likewise observes that "the idea of the equality of men is the profoundest contribution of the Stoics to political thought" and that "its greatest influence is in the changed conception of law that in part resulted from it." Cicero argues in De Legibus that "we are born for Justice, and that right is based, not upon opinions, but upon Nature."
One of the first Western thinkers to develop the contemporary idea of natural rights was French theologian Jean Gerson, whose 1402 treatise ''De Vita Spirituali Animae'' is considered one of the first attempts to develop what would come to be called modern natural rights theory. Centuries later, the Stoic doctrine that the "inner part cannot be delivered into bondage" re-emerged in the Reformation doctrine of liberty of conscience. Martin Luther wrote: 17th-century English philosopher John Locke discussed natural rights in his work, identifying them as being "life, liberty, and estate (property)", and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract. Preservation of the natural rights to life, liberty, and property was claimed as justification for the rebellion of the American colonies. As George Mason stated in his draft for the ''Virginia Declaration of Rights'', "all men are born equally free," and hold "certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity." Another 17th-century Englishman, John Lilburne (known as ''Freeborn John''), who came into conflict with both the monarchy of King Charles I and the military dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, argued for level human basic rights he called "''freeborn rights''" which he defined as being rights that every human being is born with, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or by human law. The distinction between alienable and unalienable rights was introduced by Francis Hutcheson. In his ''Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue'' (1725), Hutcheson foreshadowed the Declaration of Independence, stating: “For wherever any Invasion is made upon unalienable Rights, there must arise either a perfect, or external Right to Resistance. . . . Unalienable Rights are essential Limitations in all Governments.” Hutcheson, however, placed clear limits on his notion of unalienable rights, declaring that “there can be no Right, or Limitation of Right, inconsistent with, or opposite to the greatest public Good." Hutcheson elaborated on this idea of unalienable rights in his ''A System of Moral Philosophy'' (1755), based on the Reformation principle of the liberty of conscience. One could not in fact give up the capacity for private judgment (e.g., about religious questions) regardless of any external contracts or oaths to religious or secular authorities so that right is "unalienable." Hutcheson wrote: "Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affections, at the pleasure of another; nor can it tend to any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart. The right of private judgment is therefore unalienable." In the German Enlightenment, Hegel gave a highly developed treatment of this inalienability argument. Like Hutcheson, Hegel based the theory of inalienable rights on the ''de facto'' inalienability of those aspects of personhood that distinguish persons from things. A thing, like a piece of property, can in fact be transferred from one person to another. According to Hegel, the same would not apply to those aspects that make one a person: In discussion of social contract theory, "inalienable rights" were said to be those rights that could not be surrendered by citizens to the sovereign. Such rights were thought to be ''natural rights'', independent of positive law. Some social contract theorists reasoned, however, that in the natural state only the strongest could benefit from their rights. Thus, people form an implicit social contract, ceding their natural rights to the authority to protect the people from abuse, and living henceforth under the legal rights of that authority. Many historical apologies for slavery and illiberal government were based on explicit or implicit voluntary contracts to alienate any "natural rights" to freedom and self-determination. The ''de facto'' inalienability arguments of Hutcheson and his predecessors provided the basis for the anti-slavery movement to argue not simply against involuntary slavery but against any explicit or implied contractual forms of slavery. Any contract that tried to legally alienate such a right would be inherently invalid. Similarly, the argument was used by the democratic movement to argue against any explicit or implied social contracts of subjection (''pactum subjectionis'') by which a people would supposedly alienate their right of self-government to a sovereign as, for example, in ''Leviathan'' by Thomas Hobbes. According to Ernst Cassirer, These themes converged in the debate about American independence. While Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, Welsh nonconformist Richard Price sided with the colonist's claim that King George III was "attempting to rob them of that liberty to which every member of society and all civil communities have a natural and unalienable title."Price, Richard. ''Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty''. 1776, Part I. Reprinted in: Peach, Bernard, (Ed.) ''Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution''. Duke University Press, 1979. Price again based the argument on the ''de facto'' inalienability of "that principle of spontaneity or self-determination which constitutes us agents or which gives us a command over our actions, rendering them properly ours, and not effects of the operation of any foreign cause." Any social contract or compact allegedly alienating these rights would be non-binding and void, wrote Price: Price raised a furor of opposition so in 1777 he wrote another tract that clarified his position and again restated the ''de facto'' basis for the argument that the "liberty of men as agents is that power of self-determination which all agents, as such, possess." In ''Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism'', Staughton Lynd pulled together these themes and related them to the slavery debate: Meanwhile, in America, Thomas Jefferson "took his division of rights into alienable and unalienable from Hutcheson, who made the distinction popular and important", and in the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, famously condensed this to: In the 19th century, the movement to abolish slavery seized this passage as a statement of constitutional principle, although the U.S. constitution recognized and protected the institution of slavery. As a lawyer, future Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase argued before the Supreme Court in the case of John Van Zandt, who had been charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Act, that: The concept of inalienable rights was criticized by Jeremy Bentham and Edmund Burke as groundless. Bentham and Burke claimed that rights arise from the actions of government, or evolve from tradition, and that neither of these can provide anything ''inalienable''. (See Bentham'
"Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, Natural Rights"
and Burke's ''Reflections on the Revolution in France''). Presaging the shift in thinking in the 19th century, Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts". By way of contrast to the views of Burke and Bentham, Patriot scholar and justice James Wilson criticized Burke's view as "tyranny". The signers of the Declaration of Independence deemed it a "self-evident truth" that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". In ''The Social Contract'', Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims that the existence of inalienable rights is unnecessary for the existence of a constitution or a set of laws and rights. This idea of a social contractthat rights and responsibilities are derived from a consensual contract between the government and the peopleis the most widely recognized alternative. One criticism of natural rights theory is that one cannot draw norms from facts. This objection is variously expressed as the is-ought problem, the naturalistic fallacy, or the appeal to nature. G.E. Moore, for example, said that ethical naturalism falls prey to the naturalistic fallacy. Some defenders of natural rights theory, however, counter that the term "natural" in "natural rights" is contrasted with "artificial" rather than referring to nature. John Finnis, for example, contends that natural law and natural rights are derived from self-evident principles, not from speculative principles or from facts. There is also debate as to whether all rights are either natural or legal. Fourth president of the United States James Madison, while representing Virginia in the House of Representatives, believed that there are rights, such as trial by jury, that are social rights, arising neither from natural law nor from positive law (which are the basis of natural and legal rights respectively) but from the social contract from which a government derives its authority.
Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
John Locke (1632 – 1704) was another prominent Western philosopher who conceptualized rights as natural and inalienable. Like Hobbes, Locke believed in a natural right to life, liberty, and property. It was once conventional wisdom that Locke greatly influenced the American Revolutionary War with his writings of natural rights, but this claim has been the subject of protracted dispute in recent decades. For example, the historian Ray Forrest Harvey declared that Jefferson and Locke were at "two opposite poles" in their political philosophy, as evidenced by Jefferson’s use in the Declaration of Independence of the phrase "pursuit of happiness" instead of "property." More recently, the eminent legal historian John Phillip Reid has deplored contemporary scholars’ "misplaced emphasis on John Locke," arguing that American revolutionary leaders saw Locke as a ''commentator'' on established constitutional principles. Thomas Pangle has defended Locke's influence on the Founding, claiming that historians who argue to the contrary either misrepresent the classical republican alternative to which they say the revolutionary leaders adhered, do not understand Locke, or point to someone else who was decisively influenced by Locke. This position has also been sustained by Michael Zuckert. According to Locke there are three natural rights: * Life: everyone is entitled to live. * Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right. * Estate: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights. Locke in his central political philosophy believes in a government that provides what he claims to be basic and natural given rights for its citizens. These being the right to life, liberty, and property. Essentially Locke claims that the ideal government will encompass the preservations of these three rights for all, every single one, of its citizens. It will provide these rights, and protect them from tyranny and abuse, giving the power of the government to the people. However, Locke not only influenced modern democracy, but opened this idea of rights for all, freedom for all. So, not only did Locke influence the foundation of modern democracy heavily, but his thought seems to also connect to the social activism promoted in democracy. Locke acknowledges that we all have differences, and he believes that those differences do not grant certain people less freedom. In developing his concept of natural rights, Locke was influenced by reports of society among Native Americans, whom he regarded as natural peoples who lived in a "state of liberty" and perfect freedom, but "not a state of license". It also informed his conception of social contract. Although he does not blatantly state it, his position implies that even in light of our unique characteristics we shouldn't be treated differently by our neighbors or our rulers. “Locke is arguing that there is no natural characteristic sufficient to distinguish one person from another…of, course there are plenty of natural differences between us” (Haworth 103). What Haworth takes from Locke is that, John Locke was obsessed with supporting equality in society, treating everyone as an equal. He does though highlight our differences with his philosophy showing that we are all unique and important to society. In his philosophy it's highlighted that the ideal government should also protect everyone, and provide rights and freedom to everyone, because we are all important to society. His ideas then were developed into the movements for freedom from the British creating our government. However, his implied thought of freedom for all is applied most heavily in our culture today. Starting with the civil rights movement, and continuing through women's rights, Locke's call for a fair government can be seen as the influence in these movements. His ideas are typically just seen as the foundation for modern democracy, however, it's not unreasonable to credit Locke with the social activism throughout the history of America. By founding this sense of freedom for all, Locke was laying the groundwork for the equality that occurs today. Despite the apparent misuse of his philosophy in early American democracy. The Civil Rights movement and the suffrage movement both called out the state of American democracy during their challenges to the governments view on equality. To them it was clear that when the designers of democracy said all, they meant all people shall receive those natural rights that John Locke cherished so deeply. “a state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another” (Locke II,4). Locke in his papers on natural philosophy clearly states that he wants a government where all are treated equal in freedoms especially. “Locke’s views on toleration were very progressive for the time” (Connolly). Authors such as Jacob Connolly confirm that to them Locke was highly ahead of his time with all this progressive thinking. That is that his thought fits our current state of democracy where we strive to make sure that everyone has a say in the government and everyone has a chance at a good life. Regardless of race, gender, or social standing starting with Locke it was made clear not only that the government should provide rights, but rights to everyone through his social contract. The social contract is an agreement between members of a country to live within a shared system of laws. Specific forms of government are the result of the decisions made by these persons acting in their collective capacity. Government is instituted to make laws that protect these three natural rights. If a government does not properly protect these rights, it can be overthrown.
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (1731–1809) further elaborated on natural rights in his influential work ''Rights of Man'' (1791), emphasizing that rights cannot be granted by any charter because this would legally imply they can also be revoked and under such circumstances they would be reduced to privileges:
American individualist anarchists
While at first American individualist anarchists adhered to natural rights positions, later in this era led by Benjamin Tucker, some abandoned natural rights positions and converted to Max Stirner's Egoist anarchism. Rejecting the idea of moral rights, Tucker said there were only two rights: "the right of might" and "the right of contract". He also said, after converting to Egoist individualism, "In times past... it was my habit to talk glibly of the right of man to land. It was a bad habit, and I long ago sloughed it off.... Man's only right to land is his might over it."Tucker, Instead of a Book, p. 350 According to Wendy McElroy: Several periodicals were "undoubtedly influenced by ''Libertys presentation of egoism, including ''I'' published by C.L. Swartz, edited by W.E. Gordak and J.W. Lloyd (all associates of ''Liberty''); ''The Ego'' and ''The Egoist'', both of which were edited by Edward H. Fulton. Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed were the German ''Der Eigene'', edited by Adolf Brand, and ''The Eagle'' and ''The Serpent'', issued from London. The latter, the most prominent English-language egoist journal, was published from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle 'A Journal of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology. Among those American anarchists who adhered to egoism include Benjamin Tucker, John Beverley Robinson, Steven T. Byington, Hutchins Hapgood, James L. Walker, Victor Yarros and E.H. Fulton.
Many documents now echo the phrase used in the United States Declaration of Independence. The preamble to the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that rights are inalienable: "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." Article 1, § 1 of the California Constitution recognizes inalienable rights, and articulated ''some'' (not all) of those rights as "defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy." However, there is still much dispute over which "rights" are truly natural rights and which are not, and the concept of natural or inalienable rights is still controversial to some. Erich Fromm argued that some powers over human beings could be wielded only by God, and that if there were no God, no human beings could wield these powers. Contemporary political philosophies continuing the classical liberal tradition of natural rights include libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism and Objectivism, and include amongst their canon the works of authors such as Robert Nozick, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard. A libertarian view of inalienable rights is laid out in Morris and Linda Tannehill's ''The Market for Liberty'', which claims that a man has a right to ownership over his life and therefore also his property, because he has invested time (i.e. part of his life) in it and thereby made it an extension of his life. However, if he initiates force against and to the detriment of another man, he alienates himself from the right to that part of his life which is required to pay his debt: "Rights are ''not'' inalienable, but only the possessor of a right can alienate himself from that right – no one else can take a man's rights from him." Various definitions of inalienability include non-relinquishability, non-salability, and non-transferability. This concept has been recognized by libertarians as being central to the question of voluntary slavery, which Murray Rothbard dismissed as illegitimate and even self-contradictory. Stephan Kinsella argues that "viewing rights as alienable is perfectly consistent with – indeed, implied by – the libertarian non-aggression principle. Under this principle, only the initiation of force is prohibited; defensive, restitutive, or retaliatory force is not." Various philosophers have created different lists of rights they consider to be natural. Proponents of natural rights, in particular Hesselberg and Rothbard, have responded that reason can be applied to separate truly axiomatic rights from supposed rights, stating that any principle that requires itself to be disproved is an axiom. Critics have pointed to the lack of agreement between the proponents as evidence for the claim that the idea of natural rights is merely a political tool. Hugh Gibbons has proposed a descriptive argument based on human biology. His contention is that Human Beings were other-regarding as a matter of necessity, in order to avoid the costs of conflict. Over time they developed expectations that individuals would act in certain ways which were then prescribed by society (duties of care etc.) and that eventually crystallized into actionable rights.
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church considers natural law a dogma. The Church considers that: "The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie: 'The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted. The natural law consists, for the Catholic Church, of one supreme and universal principle from which are derived all our natural moral obligations or duties. Thomas Aquinas resumes the various ideas of Catholic moral thinkers about what this principle is: since good is what primarily falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, the supreme principle of moral action must have the good as its central idea, and therefore the supreme principle is that good is to be done and evil avoided.
See also
* Constitutional economics * Constitutionalism * Fundamental rights * Human dignity * Human rights * Natural law * Positive law * Rule according to higher law * Rule of law * Substantive due process
Further reading
* Grotius, Hugo, The Rights Of War And Peace: Three Volume Set, 1625 * Haakonssen, Knud, Grotius, Pufendorf and Modern Natural Law, 1999 * Hutcheson, Francis. ''A System of Moral Philosophy''. 1755, London. * Locke, John. ''Two Treatises of Government''. 1690 (primarily the second treatise) * Lloyd Thomas, D.A. ''Locke on Government''. 1995, Routledge. * Pufendorf, Baron Samuel von, Law of Nature and Nations, 1625 * Siedentop, Larry, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism, Belknap Press, 2014. * Tierney, Brian, The Idea of Natural Rights, Eerdmans, 1997. * Tuck, Richard, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development, 1982 * Waldron, Jeremy d.''Theories of Rights'' 1984, Oxford University Press.
External links
The U.S. Declaration of Independence and Natural Rights
from Constitutional Rights Foundation
The U.S. Committee for the Protection of Natural Rights
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STAR (Space Tether Automatic Retrieval) is an experiment devised by five engineering students from the University of Padova, aiming to test technologies for tethers deployment and rewind. The team participates to ESA’s Drop Your Thesis! programme, which allows students to test their experiment at ZARM drop tower in Bremen.
Whilst the physics at the basis of tethered systems in space is well-known, practical applicability must be much further investigated, not regarding tether behaviour, but the mechanical implementation of the deployment system. In fact, the deployment of a space tether has always been a critical issue in the past space tether missions, causing failure in some of them. Furthermore, a tether retrieval has, to date, never been performed by small spacecrafts.
In this context, the STAR team’s main objective is to design, build, and test an innovative tether deployment mechanism with retrieval capability. The system is conceived to be simple, compact, and light and thus be employable in small spacecraft platforms, such as CubeSats.
The technology under study could have several space applications. For example, the retrieval capability of the system could be used in Active Debris Removal tasks that take advantage of tethered soft-docking systems. Other applications could be On-Orbit Servicing like refuelling and reboosting of spacecrafts, or tethered formation flying.
The experiment is composed of a launch mechanism that will deploy a tethered probe, a braking system which controls the tether deployment, and a reeling mechanism that is the key subsystem of the experiment and will perform the tether retrieval once the deployment is complete.
From left to right: Leonardo Pellegrina, Gilberto Grassi, Alvise Rossi, Alessia Gloder, Mattia Pezzato
Experiment description on ESA website:
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Lake that cleans up on tourists
Updated: 2013-03-22 07:04
By Xu Taotao (China Daily)
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'Taihu Lake is beautiful, and the most attractive part is its water." That lyric from an East China folk song inspired Wan Yaoyao to travel hundreds of kilometers to visit the lake and admire its beauty.
When two of us from China Daily arrived in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, to gain firsthand experience of the pollution-control efforts in and around one of China's biggest freshwater lakes, Wan, a native of nearby Anhui province, was leaning against a railing overlooking the lake, marveling at the wide expanse of water.
Just like Wan, millions of tourists visit the city every year, lured by the lake. Many may not realize that the clean, peaceful lake they see before them was heavily polluted just a few years ago. Only after traveling 1,300 km in five days around the lake and its surrounding area did we understand the tough task facing the lakeside cities in their attempts to restore the ecological balance.
One of the key ways of reducing the level of pollutants was the diversion of water from the Yangtze River to dilute and eventually flush out the excessive number of nutrients that had turned the waters murky and encouraged frequent outbreaks of oxygen-absorbing algae.
The project, carried out by the Taihu Basin Authority under the Ministry of Water Resources, allowed clean Yangtze water to enter the lake via the Wangyu River, accelerating the water flow and improving its quality.
In addition to these short-term measures, a wider battle against pollution has been ongoing in the cities of Wuxi, to the north of the lake, and Huzhou, to its south.
In 2007, a massive outbreak of blue-green algae in Wuxi resulted in the suspension of tap water supplies to millions of residents. Since then, the city authorities have embarked on a lengthy pollution-control program.
Improving the water environment in this heavily populated, developed region has been tough work, according to Wang Hongyong, director of the Wuxi Water Conservancy Bureau.
In Huzhou, a well-protected riverside park, wetland and a reservoir are embodiments of the goal of building an ecological and environmentally friendly city.
The last stop on our media trip was Anji county, a model of soil and water conservation that was formerly a major source of pollution in Taihu Lake. The water quality in Anji's Zhangwu township has improved so much that residents are happy to clean vegetables in the small waterways in front of their houses, the sight of which was one of the highlights of our trip.
There's an ancient Chinese saying, "With a combined effort, we can even move Taishan Mountain," which roughly means, "Together we are stronger." The city took those words to heart in its efforts to beat pollution.
Given the example of Anji, locals can expect to see further improvements in the lake water and, by extension, a furthering of the concept of a "beautiful China".
(China Daily 03/22/2013 page6) |
Every war ends. Even the wars we are currently engaged in will eventually end. And so, the Cold War ended, some four decades after it began. But why? Without ever fighting out their differences on the battlefield, the United States and our NATO allies and the Soviet Union and the other communist nations of the world gave up their nuclear faceoff.
It’s hard to imagine that after all the money spent, and lives lost, that the two great superpowers would simply hang it up and walk away. Indeed, it is not that simple, but from a distance, it is clear that the Cold War deserves that name. It ended without the Herculean war that everyone spent all that time preparing for.
How is that possible? We couldn’t stop Hitler without a war. We didn’t prevent the Cold War from starting. So how is it that it ended with such a whimper? Why did the Cold War end?
When the communists took control in China in 1949, they created the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and exiled the nationalists to the island of Taiwan. The United States recognized the nationalist Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan as the sole government of all of China, and that government held China’s seat at the United Nations Security Council. But early in his first term, Nixon began sending subtle hints that he was ready to have warmer relations with the communist government on the mainland. After a series of these overtures by both countries, Nixon’s national security advisor, Dr. Henry Kissinger, flew on secret diplomatic missions to Beijing where he met with Premier Zhou Enlai.
On July 15, 1971, Nixon himself shocked the world by announcing on live television that he would visit the PRC the following year. While most politicians would have been criticized as being soft on communism for visiting mainland China or normalizing the relationship, Nixon was different. As a veteran of HUAC, Nixon’s reputation as a cold warrior gave him the political cover to make a change in America’s policy toward Beijing.
The week-long visit, from February 21 to 28, 1972, allowed the American public to view images of China for the first time in over two decades. Throughout the week, the President and his senior advisers engaged in substantive discussions with the PRC leadership, including a meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong, while First Lady Pat Nixon toured schools, factories and hospitals in the cities of Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai with the large American press corps in tow.
American President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to communist China was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration’s rapprochement between the United States and China. The seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities was the first time an American president had visited the PRC. Nixon’s arrival in Beijing ended a 25-year gap in communication and diplomatic ties between the two countries and was the key step in normalizing relations between the United States and communist China.
Nixon didn’t decide to go to China because he suddenly believed that communism was acceptable. The reason for opening up China was for the United States to gain more leverage over relations with the Soviet Union. The Soviets in Moscow and the communists in China viewed each other with suspicion and had even fought a minor war over their shared border. By normalizing relations with the Chinese, Nixon was able to play the two communist powers off one another.
Kissinger and Nixon also wanted to get help in resolving the Vietnam War. By dealing with both Russia and China, they hoped to put pressure on Ho Chi Minh’s government in Hanoi to negotiate seriously. At a minimum, Nixon wanted Russia and China to encourage Hanoi to make a deal with the United States and give Hanoi a sense of isolation as their two patrons were dealing directly with the Americans. Indeed, by their willingness to engage in summit meetings with Nixon, the Russians and Chinese demonstrated that bilateral relations with the United States was a higher priority than their support for Vietnam.
Unknown to Nixon and the rest of the American diplomats at the time, Mao Zedong was in poor health and he had been hospitalized for several weeks before Nixon’s arrival. Nevertheless, Mao felt well enough to meet with Nixon. Upon being introduced to Nixon for the first time, Mao, speaking through his translator, joked with him: “I believe our old friend Chiang Kai-shek would not approve of this.”
Primary Source: Photograph
In contrast, Nixon held many meetings with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during the trip, which included visits to the Great Wall, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the United States and the PRC governments issued the Shanghai Communiqué, a statement of their foreign policy views and a document that has remained the basis of Sino-American bilateral relations. Kissinger stated that the United States also intended to pull all its forces out of the island of Taiwan. In the communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic policy.
The relationship between China and the United States is now one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world, and every successive president, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, has visited China. The trip is consistently ranked by historians, scholars, and journalists as one of the most important, if not the most important, visits by a president anywhere. A “Nixon to China” moment has since become a metaphor for an unexpected, uncharacteristic or especially impactful action by any politician.
By formally recognizing the government of mainland China, Nixon initiated an enormous shift in global power. The communists took over China’s seat at the Security Council of the United Nations. The United States moved its embassy from Taipei to Beijing. However, formal recognition did not end American support for Taiwan. To this day, the government of the Republic of China remains an important American ally in Asia. The American military conducts joint operations with their Taiwanese counterparts and, much to Beijing’s disapproval, the United States sells advanced weapons systems and aircraft to Taiwan.
Primary Source: Document
The United States and China wanted to hold public demonstrations of their new friendship. One of the most obvious of these was a series of ping pong matches between Chinese and Americans. The friendly competitions showed that the two nations could be both patriotic and competitive in ways that were not dangerous. In fact, Ping Pong Diplomacy became a synonym for the cultural exchanges between competing nations that were designed to foster better relationships. Additionally, the government of China gave a gift of two pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were the first giant pandas to live in the United States and were beloved symbols of friendship.
Primary Source: Photograph
Officially, the United States holds a One China Policy – that is, the government believes the mainland and Taiwan should be united under one government, but in reality, while doing business with both, Americans are as dedicated to preventing a communist takeover of Taiwan now as they were in 1949.
When he was elected in 1980, Ronald Reagan was the nation’s oldest president. As a former movie star, Reagan was already well known in the United States. He had tried to root out communists in Hollywood during the Red Scare of the 1950s and had served as governor of California. He even ran against President Gerald Ford for the republican nomination in 1976.
Unlike Nixon and Kissinger, Reagan did not believe détente and coexistence with the Soviet Union was possible. He did not trust communists and believed that allowing the Cold War to go on indefinitely was unacceptable.
Angered by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the armed forces and implemented new policies toward the Soviet Union. He revived the B-1 bomber program that had been canceled by the Carter Administration, and began producing the MX Peacekeeper missile. These MIRV missiles each had multiple warheads that could be directed at different targets. In response to Soviet deployment of short-range nuclear missiles, Reagan oversaw NATO’s deployment of Pershing short-range nuclear missiles in West Germany. Reagan also ordered the development of a defensive system that would be able to shoot down incoming Soviet missiles.
Reagan’s struggle against the Soviet Union was more than just about military strength. Together with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, Reagan denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms. In a famous address given on June 8, 1982 to the British Parliament at Westminster Palace, Reagan said, “the forward march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history.” On March 3, 1983, he predicted that communism would collapse, stating, “communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history, whose last pages even now are being written.” A few days later in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals Reagan called the Soviet Union “an evil empire.”
Unlike Nixon and Kissinger who wanted to manage the Soviet Union and find ways for the superpowers to coexist, Reagan and his aids sought to confront Soviet power everywhere in the world. Reagan was also desperate to put to rest Vietnam Syndrome (the reluctance to use military force in foreign countries for fear of suffering another embarrassing defeat), which had influenced American foreign policy since the mid-1970s. Under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, Reagan and his administration provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist resistance movements in an effort to manipulate governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America away from communism and toward capitalism. Sometimes this meant supporting authoritarian regimes who were not supporters of freedom just to keep them “safe” from Soviet influence.
Reagan deployed the CIA’s Special Activities Division to Afghanistan and Pakistan where they trained, equipped, and lead Mujahidin forces against the Soviet Army. Many historians believe the support from the United States was critical to ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, although the American weapons that were provided in the 1980s were later used against American troops during the war in Afghanistan in the 2000s.
The end of détente and the confrontational tone set by President Reagan did not last forever. In 1985, Mikael Gorbachev, a young, charismatic leader took over in the Soviet Union and sensing opportunity, Reagan began to change his rhetoric and thinking.
In March of 1983, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a project that would use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. In short, Reagan wanted to be able to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles. He believed that this defensive shield would make nuclear war impossible. However, disbelief that the technology could ever work led opponents to nickname the project “Star Wars,” in a reference to the popular science fiction trilogy in theaters at the time. The Soviets were highly critical of the SDI program since it would seriously unbalance the power relationship. If the Americans could intercept Soviet missiles, the Soviet Union would lose its deterrent power.
The technological challenges proved to be daunting and Reagan’s dream of a missile shield never became a reality during his presidency or even his lifetime. However, in the years since 1983, the SDI program has continued. Today, the Missile Defense Agency continues to work to perfect missiles that could be used to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles from North Korea.
Primary Source: Editorial Cartoon
The American public was supportive of Reagan and his approach to fighting the Cold War. In 1984 they returned him to the White House for a second term with one of the largest landslide victories in presidential history. In his second term, however, his efforts to confront communism nearly brought down his administration.
The Iran-Contra Scandal came to light in November of 1986. During the Reagan Administration, senior officials had secretly facilitated the sale of weapons to Iran, which at the time was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration then used the funds from the sales to finance the anti-Sandinista Contras in Nicaragua.
While President Reagan was a supporter of the Contra cause, the evidence is unclear as to whether he authorized the diversion of the money raised by the Iranian arms sales to the Contras. Investigating Reagan’s role in the affair, the Tower Commission found no evidence of the president’s involvement. However, they deemed Reagan negligent for not monitoring and managing his staff, and indicted 14 administration officials, 11 of whom were convicted.
President Reagan addressed the public, accepting full responsibility for the crisis and maintaining his ignorance of the affair. The Iran-Contra Scandal cut Reagan’s approval ratings from 67% to 46% in November 1986, the largest single drop for any president in history, though this rating had climbed back to 64% by the end of his term, the highest rating ever recorded for a departing President.
Although Reagan survived the scandal and finished his second term, the public had a new awareness of the extent of their government’s efforts to fight communism in the Third World and began to question much more carefully America’s involvement in proxy wars.
The Soviet Union’s large military expenses, in combination with collectivized agriculture and inefficient planned manufacturing, were a heavy burden for the Soviet economy. By the time Mikhail Gorbachev had ascended to power in 1985, the Soviets suffered from an economic growth rate close to zero percent. At the same time, Saudi Arabia increased oil production, which resulted in a drop of oil prices in 1985 to one-third of the previous level. Petroleum exports made up approximately 60% of the Soviet Union’s total export earnings. The Soviet Union was on the verge of economic collapse.
To restructure the Soviet economy before catastrophe, Gorbachev announced an agenda of rapid reform based on what he called perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (liberalization, openness). Gorbachev needed money to implement these changes. In order to redirect the country’s resources from costly Cold War military commitments, he offered major concessions to the United States on the levels of conventional forces, nuclear weapons, and policy in Eastern Europe.
Many of Reagan’s advisors doubted that Gorbachev was serious about winding down the arms race. Reagan, however, recognized the real change in the direction of the Soviet leadership and shifted to diplomacy in order to give Gorbachev an opportunity to further his reforms. Reagan sincerely believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to examine the prosperous American economy, they too would embrace free market capitalism.
Primary Source: Photograph
In all, Reagan and Gorbachev met face-to-face five times. Gorbachev visited New York and Reagan toured Moscow. Most famously, they met in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1985 to discuss a nuclear missile treaty. During the summit, they had a chance to sit down together and, finding that they both wished to see a world free from nuclear weapons, promised that they would eliminate their entire nuclear arsenals. Quickly, however, aids to both leaders pointed out that such a move would be politically impossible, and they settled for a much less extensive agreement. Despite the tremendous differences between their two nations, Reagan and Gorbachev got along well personally and their working relationship is still seen as a model of how diplomacy and mutual respect can advance peace in the world.
Reagan’s approach to the Soviet Union was not entirely friendly during his second term however. Reagan was determined that the United States would remain the leader of the free world, and as such, he believed that it was his responsibility to continue to speak out against the evils of the communist system. Against the advice of his aids, Reagan decided to visit Berlin and to speak in front of the Berlin Wall. Much like Kennedy years before, Reagan forcefully reaffirmed America’s commitment to maintaining West Berlin’s freedom and personally challenged Gorbachev to allow Easterners to travel to the West. In what has become one of the most well remembered lines from the Cold War, at the conclusion of his speech he said, “There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
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President Reagan delivering his Tear Down this Wall Speech in front of the Berlin Wall. A bullet proof glass wall was erected behind the podium so that the Brandenburg Gate would be clearly visible behind him.
Despite all the posturing, the tremendous arms race, and all the lives lost in the proxy wars of the Third World, communism and the Cold War ultimately came to an end peacefully. In fact, communism ended because the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union rose up against it.
The first clear sign that the people of the communist world were tired of living with their failed system was the Solidarity movement in Poland. Begun by shipbuilders in 1980, Solidarity was a labor union. Typically in communist nations the government thought of all workers as part of one great union which, of course, the government controlled. For workers this meant that being part of the people’s union was worthless. Solidarity was a challenge to the status quo.
Led by Lech Walesa, the shipbuilders went on strike. Although Poland’s government fought back against Solidarity with violence on numerous occasions, in the end it agreed to allow the workers to form their own union. By 1982, one third of all the workers in Poland had joined Solidarity and the government was forced to recognize the first non-government labor union in the communist world.
Walesa was hailed as a hero by the suffering people of Poland and by the West. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent movement.
Primary Source: Photograph
Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement and first president of Poland after the fall of communism.
Walesa could not have achieved all he did without moral and financial support. One particularly influential voice of support was Pope John Paul II. John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in hundreds of years. In fact, he was from Poland. Like Archbishop Oscar Romero, the pope believed that religious leaders had an obligation to stand up for suffering people. As leader of the Catholic Church, John Paul II was a reformer. He gave churches permission to hold services in the languages of the people instead of Latin, which even few priests understood.
Primary Source: Photograph
John Paul II also took a special interest in the people of the communist world and spoke out regularly in favor of freedom and democracy. His voice in the struggle against communism was heard around the world and he inspired many people, especially American Catholics, to donate money to support Solidarity. Because he was a religious leader and not the president of a country, the pope was able to present himself as an impartial voice of reason.
The changing climate in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe inspired people in communist, mainland China to stand up for civil rights in their own country. In 1989, students across the nation began public demonstrations calling for freedom of speech, assembly and the press. The protests culminated in Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing in June, 1989. Known in China as the June Fourth Incident, the protests were forcibly suppressed after the government declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks killed at least several hundred, and perhaps several thousand demonstrators trying to block the military’s advance towards Tiananmen Square.
As the protests developed in April, communist government leaders veered back and forth between conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership. Some advocated for more change and wanted to negotiate with the student leaders. Others saw the protests as a dangerous first step toward civil war and believed the protests should be ended with force.
By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support for the demonstrators around the country and the protests spread to some 400 cities. Ultimately, China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping resolved to use force. Communist Party authorities declared martial law on May 20, and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing.
There, millions of young students and their supporters had concentrated in Tiananmen Square where they had erected a 33 foot tall statue entitled Goddess of Democracy. The statue was constructed in only four days out of foam, papier-mâché and metal and was strikingly similar to the Statue of Liberty. The constructors decided to make the statue as large as possible to try to dissuade the government from destroying it.
On June 3, the leadership had enough and the army marched through the streets toward the square. Met by students who had barricaded the roads with burning busses, the troops opened fire, killing hundreds of protesters. By June 5, the massacre was over. Tiananmen Square was empty. The Goddess of Democracy had been toppled and ground to dust by tanks.
Primary Source: Photograph
The infamous “Tank Man” photograph from the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
The Chinese government was condemned internationally for the use of force against the protestors. The entire affair had been broadcast live on television and immortalized by photographer Jeff Widener who snapped an unforgettable picture of a lone man standing in the middle of Chang’an Avenue facing down an oncoming column of tanks. Western countries imposed economic sanctions and arms embargoes.
The protests also led the government to set limits on political expression in China that have endured well into the 21st Century. Discussion of the Tiananmen Square protests is forbidden and textbooks have little, if any, information about the events. After the protests, officials banned controversial films and books, and shut down many newspapers. The government also announced it had seized 32 million contraband books and 2.4 million video and audio cassettes. Internet searches of “June 4” or “Tiananmen Square” made within China return censored results. Specific web pages with select keywords are censored, while other websites such as those of overseas Chinese democracy movements are blocked entirely. The censorship, however, has been inconsistent. Many sites have been blocked, unblocked, and re-blocked over the years, including YouTube, Wikipedia, and Flickr. The policy is much more stringent with Chinese-language sites than foreign-language ones. Social media censorship is more stringent during anniversaries. Even oblique references to the protests are usually deleted by government censors within hours. While the Chinese government allows a certain measure of freedom of speech and criticism of the government online, freedom of assembly is strictly controlled. Since 1989, there have been no major public demonstrations.
The massacre has not been forgotten outside of China. Since its destruction, numerous replicas and memorials of the Goddess of Democracy have been erected around the world, including in Hong Kong and Washington, D.C.
Although political change did not come to China, massive political change was underway in Moscow, and especially in the Soviet Union’s policy toward Eastern Europe.
The Sinatra Doctrine was a major break with the earlier Brezhnev Doctrine, under which the internal affairs of satellite states were tightly controlled by Moscow. The Brezhnev Doctrine had been used to justify the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, as well as the invasion of the non-Warsaw Pact nation of Afghanistan in 1979. By the late 1980s, structural flaws within the Soviet system, growing economic problems, the rise of anti-communist sentiment and the effects of the Soviet-Afghan War made it increasingly impractical for the Soviet Union to impose its will on its neighbors.
In Poland, Solidarity had flourished because of good leadership, international support, and most importantly, because the government of the Soviet Union had decided not to intervene in Poland’s internal affairs.
In 1989, Gorbachev’s Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze announced that the Soviet Union recognized the freedom of choice of all countries, specifically including the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe. When pressed about his boss’s surprising declaration, Shevardnadze’s spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov told an interviewer that, “We now have the Frank Sinatra doctrine. He has a song, ‘I Did It My Way’. So every country decides on its own which road to take.” When asked if this meant that Moscow would accept the rejection of communist parties in the Soviet Bloc, he replied, “That’s for sure… political structures must be decided by the people who live there.”
This was an incredible change in global politics. Since 1945, the Soviet Union had maintained total domination over its satellite states. Now, Gorbachev was ready to let them walk away from communism altogether.
In fact, the Eastern Europeans had already acquired greater freedom. A month before Gerasimov’s statement, Poland had elected its first non-communist government. The government of Hungary had opened its border with Austria, dismantling the Iron Curtain on its own border. As Hungary was one of the few countries that East Germans could visit, thousands travelled there to flee across the newly opened border into the West. To the great annoyance of the East German government, the Hungarians refused to stop the exodus.
These developments greatly disturbed hardline communists such as the East German leader Erich Honecker, who condemned the end of the traditional unity of the Soviet Bloc and appealed to Moscow to rein in the Hungarians. Honecker faced a growing crisis at home, with massive anti-government demonstrations in Leipzig and other East German cities.
Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to escapte to the West, chanting “Wir wollen raus!” (We want out!). Then protestors began to chant “Wir bleiben hier!” (We are staying here!) demanding a change of government. The protest demonstrations grew considerably and neared its height on November 4, 1989, when half a million people gathered to demand political change at the Alexanderplatz, East Berlin’s large public square and transportation hub.
In the middle of the chaos of the fall of 1989, Honecker, resigned. He had predicted that the Berlin Wall would stand for 50 or 100 more years if the conditions that had caused its construction did not change, but conditions were rapidly changing.
To reduce the social unrest, the new East German government decided to allow refugees to exit directly through crossing points between East Germany and West Germany, including between East and West Berlin.
Günter Schabowski, the communist party leader in East Berlin and the spokesperson for government, had the task of announcing the new regulations. However, he had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated. Shortly before a press conference on November 9, he was handed a note announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards. But this starting time was not communicated to Schabowski.
At the end of the press conference, Schabowski read out loud the note he had been given. One of the reporters, asked when the regulations would take effect. After a few seconds’ hesitation, Schabowski assumed it would be the same day based on the wording of the note and replied, “As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay.”
Excerpts from Schabowski’s press conference were the lead story on West Germany’s two main news programs that night. This, of course, meant that the news was broadcast to nearly all of East Germany as well. News anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, “This 9 November is a historic day. The GDR (East Germany) has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide.”
East Germans began gathering at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates. The surprised and overwhelmed guards began making hectic telephone calls to their superiors to find out what to do.
It soon became clear that no one among the East German government would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use force against the protesters. The vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Finally, at 10:45 at night, Harald Jäger, the commander of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing yielded, ordering the guards to open the checkpoints and allow people through to West Berlin. As the Easterners swarmed through, they were greeted by Westerners waiting with flowers and champagne amid wild rejoicing. Soon afterward, a crowd of West Berliners jumped on top of the Wall, and were soon joined by East Germans. They danced together to celebrate their new freedom.
Primary Source: Photograph
Berliners climbed onto the Berlin Wall
Television coverage of citizens demolishing sections of the Wall that night was soon followed by the East German regime announcing ten new border crossings, including the historically significant locations of Potsdamer Platz, Glienicker Brücke, and Bernauer Straße. Crowds gathered on both sides of the historic crossings, waiting for hours to cheer the bulldozers that tore down portions of the Wall to reconnect roads that had been divided for years, and images of everyday Berliners destroying the wall were broadcast around the world. The end of the Iron Curtain had come without bloodshed. It was an emotional moment for freedom-loving people everywhere.
Primary Source: Photograph
Berliners brought hammers to chip away at the wall.
On Christmas Day, 1989, American conductor Leonard Bernstein led a symphony of East and West German, British, French, American and Soviet musicians in concert in Berlin. He concluded the performance with the great German composer Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and in the final movement, Ode to Joy, he asked the chorus to sing Freihairt (freedom) instead of Freude (joy).
In June 1990, the East German military officially began dismantling the Wall. Virtually every road that was severed by the Berlin Wall was reconstructed and reopened by the end of the summer. Today, little is left of the Wall, a scar that has been erased by the Berliners who hated it.
The fall of the Wall marked the first critical step towards German reunification, which formally concluded a mere 339 days later on October 3, 1990 with the dissolution of East Germany and the official reunification of Germany.
Unlike in China, Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union were specifically designed to permit more freedom by allowing a free press and the election of members of the government. Gorbachev had wanted to extend political freedom in order to preserve the communist economic system, but in the end his reforms set in motion events that would break up the nation itself.
Radical reformists were increasingly convinced that Gorbachev should abandon communism and transition to a market economy even if the eventual outcome meant the disintegration of the Soviet Union into several independent states. Boris Yeltsin, the newly elected leader of Russia, the largest and most powerful of the Soviet Union’s republics, was also openly critical of the slow pace of Gorbachev’s reforms.
But not everyone welcomed change. On August 19, 1991, Gorbachev’s vice president, prime minister, defense minister and the head of the KGB put Gorbachev under house arrest and formed a “General Committee on the State Emergency.” The coup organizers expected some popular support but found that public sympathy in large cities and in the republics was largely against them, manifested by public demonstrations, especially in Moscow.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin condemned the coup. Thousands of Muscovites came out to defend the White House, the Russian parliament building and Yeltsin’s office, the symbolic seat of Russian sovereignty at the time. The organizers tried but ultimately failed to arrest Yeltsin, who rallied opposition to the coup with a speech atop a tank. The special forces dispatched by the coup leaders refused to storm the barricaded building. The coup leaders also neglected to jam foreign news broadcasts, so many Russians watched everything unfold live on CNN. Even Gorbachev was able to stay abreast of developments by tuning into the BBC World Service on a small transistor radio.
Primary Source: Photograph
Boris Yeltsin (left side holding papers) address a crowd from on top of a tank outside of the Russian parliament building during the coup.
After three days, on August 21, 1991, the coup collapsed. The organizers were detained and Gorbachev returned as president, albeit with his influence much depleted. Three days later, Gorbachev dissolved the Central Committee of the Communist Party, resigned as the party’s general secretary, and dissolved all party units in the government, effectively ending communist rule in the Soviet Union and dissolving the only remaining unifying force in the country.
The Soviet Union collapsed with dramatic speed in the last quarter of 1991. By the end of September, Gorbachev no longer had the authority to influence events outside of Moscow. He was challenged even there by Yeltsin, who had begun taking over what remained of the Soviet government, including the Kremlin. Between August and December, ten republics declared their independence.
In a nationally televised speech early in the morning of December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. He declared the office extinct, and all of its powers, including control of the nuclear arsenal, were ceded to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
That night, after his resignation address, Gorbachev left the Kremlin, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time and the Russian tricolor was raised in its place, symbolically marking the end of the Soviet Union. On that same day, the President of the United States George H.W. Bush held a brief televised speech officially recognizing the independence of the 11 former Soviet republics. The following day Yeltsin moved into Gorbachev’s former office.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia radically transformed from a centrally planned economy to a globally integrated market economy. Corrupt and haphazard privatization processes turned major state-owned firms over to politically connected oligarchs, which left control of Russia’s wealth concentrated among a few enormously rich individuals. The result was disastrous, the economy fell more than 40% by 1999, hyperinflation ensued which wiped out personal savings, and crime spread rapidly. Difficulties in collecting taxes amid the collapsing economy and a dependence on short-term borrowing to finance budget deficits led to the 1998 Russian financial crisis. Many Russians began longing for the order and predictability of the old days.
Today, Russia has a free market economy but control of the nation’s wealth continues to be in the hands of a few of the world’s most wealthy men. The Russian government, like many of the governments of the former soviet republics, looks far more like the dictatorships of the Cold War era than the democracies of the West.
After the Cold War ended, communism did indeed end up on the “ash heap of history.” As an economic system it had failed.
Vietnam’s leaders followed the example of China. They opened up the economy, creating a vibrant free-market system, while maintaining strict political control. The United States and Vietnam maintain a positive relationship today.
Cuba’s leadership, under the aging Fidel Castro and now his brother Raul, tried to hold on to communism. However, during the Cold War their economy had been supported financially by the Soviet Union. After 1991, they were set adrift and the Cuban economy collapsed. Faced with ever deepening poverty, the Cuban government has begun to allow limited private enterprise. The Castros, however, do not seem to be interested in relinquishing political power any time soon.
Only North Korea remains a Cold War-like opponent of the United States. Now ruled by the third generation of the Kim Family, the North has developed nuclear weapons as a deterrent to attack. Its only patron, China, is increasingly fed up with the problems its small neighbor creates. The economy, still based on communism, is in disarray. Without imports of rice, there would be mass starvation. Today, North Korea is one of the world’s poorest nations, while on the other side of the DMZ, South Korea is one of the most vibrant. Truly, the two Koreas are proof that Reagan was right: democracy and a free market system are the paths to prosperity.
Although the Cold War ended more than 20 years ago, its legacy continues to be tremendously important.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the post-Cold War world became unipolar instead of bipolar, with the United States the sole remaining superpower. The Cold War defined the political role of the United States as the leader of the Free World and institutionalized a global commitment to large-scale deployment of American servicemen, as well as a permanent, peacetime military industrial complex. Without the bipolar dynamic, the United States had to find a new role for itself in the world.
During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union used large portions of their nations’ wealth to fund military buildups and wars. In addition to the loss of life by uniformed soldiers, millions died in the superpowers’ proxy wars around the globe. Although most of the proxy wars ended along with the Cold War, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union did not bring peace to the world.
The breakdown of the governments in a number former communist nations resulted in new civil and ethnic conflicts, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. In Eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War has ushered in an era of economic growth and a large increase in the number of liberal democracies, while in other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, independence was accompanied by state failure.
Despite the end of the Cold War, military development and spending has continued, particularly in the deployment of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and defensive systems. Because there was no formalized treaty ending the Cold War, the former superpowers have continued to maintain and even improve or modify existing nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Moreover, other nations not previously acknowledged as nuclear-weapons states have developed and tested nuclear-explosive devices including India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
Attitudes learned during the Cold War have proven hard to unlearn. Mistrust and rivalry between Americans and Russians is still potent. NATO’s expansion into the nations of Eastern Europe is seen by many Russians as a threat to their security. While violent conflict between the two Cold War foes may be less likely now than in the past, cyberwar and espionage are still very much alive. In 2016, Russian government agents launched a concerted effort to use social media and the news media to manipulate the American presidential election.
The Cold War ended in a series of steps over a few years. In the 1970s America’s warming relationship with China opened up the opportunity for China to transition away from a communist economic system. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan correctly deduced that making arms-reduction treaties with Mikael Gorbachev would give the Soviet leader the money he needed to reform his government, leading eventually to political freedom in Eastern Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Two years later the Soviet Union itself disintegrated.
But what made all this happen? Was it the work of political leaders or the people of the nations themselves who were fed up with poverty and political persecution? Why did the Cold War end?
Republic of China (ROC): Non-communist Taiwan.
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Question: Why did unions use clothing tags?
But before we became obsessed with brands, labels generally had another source: It was a way for labor unions to show their strength. In fact, the first example of such labels came from cigar-makers in 1874, who used it as a way to highlight the higher product quality compared with products made elsewhere.
What is the purpose of clothing tags?
Clothing labels can show your logo, slogan, or a promise to the buyer. They can convey a message about your companys commitment to sustainability or explain the eco-friendly manufacturing process of the garment. Some brands use their clothing labels as a platform for humour, adding funny jokes or holiday wishes.
When did clothes start having tags?
1874 The first documented tagged garment was produced in 1874, with the tag signifying this products quality versus the competitors wares. Tag tactics it was, made to show a unions clout as the top clothing manufacturer.
Why is it important to read labels on clothes?
Reading the care instructions before purchasing a garment can help you avoid items that are expensive to maintain. A label that reads “Dry Clean Only” means just that, and it can cost a considerable amount to keep it clean. Care labels also include important time-saving information.
Who invented tags on clothes?
Arthur J. Minasy Arthur J. Minasy, an entrepreneur and inventor who developed the surveillance tags used in retail stores to thwart shoplifters, died on Monday in Brussels.
What is your basis in sorting clothes in laundry?
So, the first step to sorting your clothes for washing is by sorting by colour and material type. Basic laundry categories can be sorted into the following: Whites: Any white socks, underwear, shirts or items in varying shades of white such as cream and ivory should all be washed together to ensure the brightest clean.
Why should you never overload a washing machine?
When you overload your washing machine, you put extra strain on your appliance. Because everythings rammed into the drum, clothes wont be free to move around and get evenly clean. Conversely, underloading your washing machine will cause problems, too. Youll waste energy, detergent and time.
What means union made?
The only way to know whether a piece of clothing is union-made is if it has a union label on it. That means that the workers who produce the clothing are represented by a labor union and have a collective bargaining agreement (a contract) with their employer that governs wages, hours, working conditions, and benefits.
Who invented tags?
Arthur Minasy, 68, The Inventor of Tags To Thwart Thieves.
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from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ruler (also potentate or regent ) or female ruler ( potentate, regent ) is a general term for the ruling head of a people , country or empire . Rulers titles are, for example, sultan , tsar , emperor , king , duke or general prince and monarch. Even dictators and other rulers are referred to as the ruler or regent and the time of their government exercise as a rule or reign (see rule ).
In the constitutional sense, the term is regent or regent (from the Latin regere "govern, direct, conduct") for the ruler of a monarchy needed the governance representative for a recognized legitimate exercise ruler (which is not capable of governing by illness or by adolescent or old age).
In the ruling houses ( dynasties ) of the European cultural area , the ruler's names were usually formed from their first names , followed by an ordinal number (e.g. Louis XIV. ).
In the tarot there are the two trump cards The Ruler (with the symbols scepter and orb) and The Ruler (a lush woman in a garden).
See also
Web links
Commons : executives, leaders (leaders) - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: rulers - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wikiquote: Rule - Quotes
Individual evidence
1. a b Duden editorial team , all accessed on June 16, 2019: Ruler: “someone who rules (1), who has power; Ruler, Regent ”. Ruler: "female form to ruler". Portentat:Rulers ; Ruler". Portentatin: "feminine form of potentate". Regent: "1. ruling prince, monarch, crowned ruler / 2. [constitutional] representative of a minor, incapable of governing, absent monarch, ruler ”. Regentin: "feminine form of regent". |
Social Studies Exam Test Quiz Primary 6 Part 2
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#1. The total number of workers in a country is regarded as _____.
#2. The fifty naira bank note contains the picture of the _____ of Nigeria.
#3. What is a spinster?
#4. Poor health can affect the labour force in the following way except _____.
#5. The full meaning of STD's is _____.
#6. The slogan of Lagos State is _____.
#7. The type of family practiced in Nigeria before the Europeans came was _____.
#8. Drug of the following is an example of a synthetic drug.
#9. Why is division of labour necessary in Nigeria?
#10. The system of government practiced presently in Nigeria is _____.
#11. National disaster includes the following except _____.
#12. Marriage between a Yoruba man and Igbo woman is known as _____ ethnic marriage.
#13. Which of the following is not a voluntary organisation in our community?
#14. The process of choosing a leader by vote is known as _____.
#15. The following are the means of water transportation in Nigeria except.
#16. Nigeria is running a _____ government.
#17. The major source of revenue for Nigeria is _______.
#18. A citizen of a particular country living in our country is regarded as _____.
#19. The human effort employed in the production of goods and services is called _____.
#20. The goods that are produced in Nigeria and sold to other countries are known as _____.
#21. Formal education is been received in the _____.
#22. The first story building in Nigeria was built in _____.
#23. A piece of land surrounded by water is called a/an _____.
#24. Inter - ethnic marriage promote the following except.
#25. All the following are aspect culture except _____.
#26. Marriage is meant for _____ men and women.
#27. The marriage between couples of the same ethnic group is regarded as _______ marriage.
#28. The sign of Y - shape letter on the Nigeria Coast of Arms represents _____.
#29. The green colour in Nigerian flag stands for _______.
#30. Which of these drugs is not obtain from nature?
#31. _______ is the nearest government to the people of Nigeria.
#32. Foreign influence affects Nigeria family in _____.
#33. Sexual transmitted disease can lead to _____.
#34. The three major ethnic groups in Nigeria include _____, _____ and _____.
#35. What is group conflict?
#36. Gift from nature are called _____ resources.
#37. A bachelor is _____ man.
#38. All these are good qualities of a leader except _____.
#39. Who designed the Nigeria flag?
#40. Pre - marital sexual relationship can lead to _____.
#41. The goods produced and sold to other countries are known as _______.
#42. Inter marriage helps to promote the following except _____.
#43. Drug can be group into _____ types.
#44. The major source of government revenue in Nigeria is _____.
#45. Marriage performed according to one's custom is known as _______ marriage.
#46. Labour force of a country is _____.
#47. One of the consequences of pre - marital sexual relationship is _____.
#48. AIDS is a disease which can be contacted through _______.
#49. The _______ must seek their parent's and elders' advice before getting married.
#50. A weekly payment received for works and services alone by a worker is regarded as _______.
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Updated: Sep 30, 2020
Author: Mounir Bashour, MD, PhD, CM, FRCSC, FACS; Chief Editor: Donny W Suh, MD, MBA, FAAP, FACS
Classification of albinism
OCA Subtypes
Gene Position
Affected Protein
• OCA 1A (tyrosinase-negative OCA)
• OCA 1B (yellow-mutant/Amish/
• xanthous, temperature-sensitive)
• OCA 1A/1B heterozygote
(tyrosinase-positive OCA, brown OCA)
P protein
Tyrosinase-related protein
OA Subtypes
Gene Position
Affected Protein
X p22.3-22.2
Not a distinct position
Tyrosinase in some cases;
P protein in some cases
Melanin in the eye
Melanin pathway
Pathogenesis of ocular features
United States
Albinism affects all persons of races.
A high incidence of HPS exists among Puerto Ricans.
All types of albinism are usually congenital.
Patients with albinism have a normal lifespan.
Albinism does not cause a delay in development or mental retardation.
Patient Education
Remind patients to avoid excess sun exposure.
Provide genetic counseling for the family.
Patients with more severe forms of albinism with cutaneous manifestations are easier for a physician to diagnose compared with those with more subtle forms or those with ocular albinism. With respect to ocular complaints, patients typically report decreased central vision and photophobia. Skin symptoms include skin photosensitivity.
Search for a history of easy bruising, frequent nosebleeds, or bleeding after surgery or dental work. A positive history may point in the direction of HPS. A history of frequent infections may be consistent with Chediak-Higashi syndrome (CHS).
Inquire about a family history of albinism. Children with albinism tend to prefer reading with a head tilt and usually hold reading material up close.
The following is a more detailed description of the different subtypes of albinism:
Oculocutaneous albinism
Oculocutaneous albinism 1
OCA 1 is a disorder that results from mutations to the tyrosinase gene found on chromosome 11 (band 11q14-21). Several different types of mutations to the tyrosinase gene (missense, nonsense, and frameshift) are responsible for producing the 2 types of OCA 1 (OCA 1A and OCA 1B). Mutations can result in either inactive/no tyrosine (null mutations) or in the production of tyrosine enzyme that has reduced activity from normal (leaky mutations). Null mutations produce OCA 1A, while leaky mutations result in OCA 1B.
An important distinguishing characteristic of OCA 1 is the presence of marked hypopigmentation at birth. Most individuals with OCA 1 (especially OCA 1A) have white hair, milky white skin, and blue irides at birth. The irides can be very light blue and translucent, such that the whole iris appears pink or red in ambient or bright light. However, with age, the irides usually become darker blue and may remain translucent or lightly pigmented, with reduced translucency.
Oculocutaneous albinism 1A
OCA 1A (classic tyrosinase-negative OCA) is the most severe form of OCA. It is caused by nonsense, frameshift, and missense mutations of the tyrosinase gene on chromosome 11 (band 11q24). These null mutations produce completely inactive tyrosinase, resulting in no melanin formation throughout the patient's life.
The typical phenotype is white hair and skin, with blue and translucent irides. No pigmented lesions develop in the skin, although amelanotic nevi may be present. Because of a lack of pigmentation, these patients have no tanning potential and are at risk for sunburn and skin cancer. This phenotype is the same in all ethnic groups and in all ages. Visual acuity usually is diminished to as low as 20/400. Photophobia and nystagmus tend to be the worst in this subtype. Hair bulb incubation in tyrosinase is usually negative.
Oculocutaneous albinism 1B
OCA 1B (yellow mutant OCA, Amish albinism, xanthous albinism) is produced by leaky mutations of the tyrosinase gene that result in reduced/residual enzyme activity. To date, 55 mutations to the tyrosinase gene have been found to cause OCA 1B. These different mutations result in differing amounts of residual tyrosinase activity and are the primary reason for the variation in pigmentation in individuals with OCA 1B.
The range in pigmentation can vary from very little cutaneous pigment to nearly normal skin pigmentation. Occasionally, a moderate amount of residual activity can lead to near normal skin pigmentation and the wrong diagnosis of ocular albinism. These patients completely lack pigment at birth, which can cause difficulty in distinguishing it from OCA 1A. However, because some tyrosinase activity is still present, individuals may show an increase in skin, hair, and eye pigment with age and may tan with sun exposure.
Patients rapidly develop yellow hair pigment in the first few years of life and then continue to slowly accumulate pigment, principally yellow-red pheomelanin, in the hair, eyes, and skin. Interestingly, patients with OCA 1B tend to develop dark eyelashes, often darker than the scalp hair. The irides can produce hazel or light brown pigment that sometimes is limited to the inner third of the iris. Visual acuity may be 20/90 to 20/400 and may improve with age. Pigmented nevi can develop, although most nevi are amelanotic. Hair bulb testing shows greatly reduced activity of tyrosinase, though still present.
Temperature-sensitive albinism
Temperature-sensitive albinism is a subtype of OCA 1B. This type of OCA 1B is caused by a mutation of the tyrosinase gene that produces a temperature-sensitive tyrosinase enzyme.[4] Heat-sensitive tyrosinase has approximately 25% the activity of normal tyrosinase at 37°C and improved activity at lower temperatures. The enzyme does not work at regular body temperatures (axillary and scalp region) but functions in cooler areas of the body (arms and legs). Therefore, because melanin synthesis occurs in cooler areas of the body, arm and leg hair pigment is usually dark, while axillary and scalp hair remains white (occasionally developing a yellow tint with time). Individuals are believed to have OCA 1A during the first few years of life, with white hair and skin and blue eyes.
This may be because the temperature of the fetus is high, so the tyrosinase has low activity, resulting in absent pigment. However, postnatally, the skin is cooler, and, with time, body hair in the cooler areas of the body develops pigment, while the eyes remain blue and the skin remains white and does not tan. The eyes are warmer than other areas of the skin; therefore, they do not develop additional pigmentation.
Oculocutaneous albinism 2
OCA 2 (tyrosine-positive OCA) is the most prevalent type of albinism in all races. This disorder is also autosomal recessive but coded on a different chromosome from OCA 1 (band 15q11-13). This mutated region also is deleted in Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and Angelman syndrome (AS), accounting for the close linkage of OCA 2 to these syndromes.
In OCA 1, the genetic mutation affects the gene coding for tyrosinase; however, the OCA 2 genetic mutation affects the gene coding for the P protein and tyrosinase is normal. The human P gene located on band 15q11.2-q12 is the homologue of the mouse p locus (mutation causes reduction of eumelanin, a black pigment in the mouse, causing the mouse pink-eyed dilution). It is postulated that this human P gene encodes for a melanosomal membrane protein involved in the transport of tyrosine.[5]
The phenotypic spectrum of OCA 2 varies, ranging from absent pigmentation to almost normal pigmentation. Even though the tyrosinase genes are normal, most type 2 albino persons have no black pigment (eumelanin) in the skin, hair, or eyes at birth. As a result, pigment is nearly absent at birth, sometimes making it indistinguishable from OCA 1. However, pigmentation tends to develop with age. The exact mechanism of this delay in albinism is not known. The intensity of pigment accumulation depends on the racial background of the patients. As the child matures, the increased pigmentation also results in improved vision (20/100 to 20/40).
In whites with OCA 2, the amount of pigment at birth can vary substantially. The hair can have a light yellow-blond color, or it may be darker with a darker blond-red color. The normal delayed maturation of the pigment system can make it difficult to distinguish OCA 2 from OCA 1. The skin is white and does not tan. Iris color is blue-gray, and the degree of iris translucency is proportional to the amount of pigment present. As the child ages, increased pigmentation occurs with pigmented nevi and freckles developing in areas of repeated sun exposure. The hair also may turn darker with age.
In African Americans and Africans, OCA 2 has a distinct phenotype. At birth, the hair is usually yellow and tends to remain as such through life, although some darkening may occur. The skin is white and has no tanning potential. The iris is blue-gray, and pigmented nevi may develop in some individuals.
Brown OCA is part of the OCA 2 spectrum that is exclusive to Africans and African Americans. It is speculated that this syndrome may arise from leaky mutations to the P protein gene, resulting in reduced P protein activity. The hair and skin are light brown, and the irides are gray. As time passes, the hair and irides may darken, while the skin color remains mainly unchanged. The ocular features are characteristic, with punctate and radial iris translucency and retinal hypopigmentation. Visual acuity ranges from 20/60 to 20/150.
Oculocutaneous albinism 3
OCA 3 (previously known as red/rufous OCA) is caused by a mutation to the human gene coding for TRP-1. This protein is the product of the brown locus in the mouse. A mutation at this position causes the fur to be brown rather than black. In humans, the formation of TRP-1 is not fully understood. However, it acts as a regulatory protein in the production of black melanin (eumelanin). With mutation, a subsequent dysregulation of tyrosinase occurs, and brown pigment is synthesized instead of black pigment.
OCA 3 is autosomal recessive. The clinical phenotype in African patients is light brown or reddish brown skin and hair, and blue-brown irides. The ocular features are not fully consistent with the diagnosis of OCA because some do not have iris translucency, nystagmus, strabismus, or foveal hypoplasia. No misrouting of the optic nerves has been demonstrated by a visual-evoked potential, suggesting either that this is not a true type of albinism or that the hypopigmentation is not sufficient to consistently alter optic nerve development. The phenotype for whites and Asians is not known at this time.
Ocular albinism
Ocular albinism 1
OA 1 (X-linked recessive OA/Nettleshop-Falls type) involves the eyes only. Patients with OA 1 have normal skin; however, it may be paler than first-degree relatives. Ocular findings in OA 1 are similar to those of OCA, with decreased visual acuity, refractive error, fundus hypopigmentation, absent foveal reflex, strabismus, iris translucency, and posterior embryotoxon in 30% of patients (implying anterior segment dysgenesis). The presence of nystagmus occasionally has led to the misdiagnosis of congenital motor nystagmus.
The OA 1 locus is Xp22.3. Because this disorder is X-linked recessive, only males manifest the disease and females are carriers. Hence, males show the complete phenotype, while female carriers can show a mud-splattered fundus with hypopigmented streaks in the periphery and marked iris translucency.
The protein product of the OA1 gene, termed OA 1 (and also identified as GPR143 in GenBank), is a pigment cell–specific membrane glycoprotein, displaying structural and functional features of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). However, in contrast to all other previously characterized GPCRs, OA 1 is not localized to the plasma membrane but is targeted to intracellular organelles, namely late endosomes/lysosomes and melanosomes. These unique characteristics suggest that OA 1 represents the first example described so far of an exclusively intracellular GPCR and regulates melanosome biogenesis by transducing signals from the organelle lumen to the cytosol.[2, 3]
Skin biopsy in carriers and in individuals with OA 1 usually shows the presence of macromelanosomes, which aids in the diagnosis of OA 1. It has been postulated that the OA1 gene is a glycoprotein necessary for the maturation of melanosomes, because macromelanosomes are formed when premelanosomes fail to separate from the endoplasmic reticulum–Golgi system.
Autosomal recessive ocular albinism
AROA was first described in the 1970s in a series of families in which children of normally pigmented parents had ocular features of albinism but did not have any cutaneous hypopigmentation.
AROA was classified as autosomal recessive because both males and females were affected. However, it has been shown that AROA is not a distinct entity. In fact, genetic analysis revealed that some of those diagnosed with AROA had either abnormalities of the tyrosinase gene or the P gene. Of those previously diagnosed with AROA, 14% have a mutation of the tyrosinase gene on chromosome 11, making them OCA 1, while 36% have an abnormality of the P gene on chromosome 15, actually making them OCA 2. Fifty percent have neither an abnormality of the tyrosinase gene nor the P gene.
Conditions with close linkage to albinism
Close linkage to OCA 2
PWS and AS are both caused by deletion to band 15q11-13, the same region coding the P protein gene. In OCA 2, the P gene mutation is adjacent to the area commonly deleted in PWS or AS. One percent of patients with PWS or AS has OCA 2. Both PWS and AS are caused by the same chromosomal deletion, but there are 2 separate phenotypes because of genomic imprinting. If the deletion occurs on the paternal band 15q11-13, then PWS results. However, if the same mutation occurs on the maternally derived chromosome, AS occurs. The cause of this is unknown.
AS is a developmental disorder characterized by developmental delay, severe mental retardation, inappropriate laughter, hyperactivity, tongue protrusion, widely spaced teeth microcephaly, hypotonia, and ataxia. PWS is a systemic disorder characterized by obesity, hypotonia, hypogonadism, short stature, dysmorphic facial features, and intellectual impairment.
Close linkage to OA 1
X-linked ichthyosis, Kallmann syndrome, X-linked recessive chondrodysplasia punctata, late-onset sensorineural deafness, and microphthalmia and linear skin defects (MLS) have been linked to the OA1 gene. These contiguous gene syndromes involve the band Xp22.3 region. Albino phenotypes result when the deleted region includes the OA 1 gene.
Conditions associated with albinism and not because of close linkage
HPS includes oculocutaneous albinism, platelet granule deficiency, and a lysosomal ceroid storage disorder leading to accumulation of ceroid in tissues throughout the body. It is an autosomal recessive inherited condition first described in Czechoslovakia by Hermansky and Pudlak. This syndrome has a high frequency in Puerto Rico. The HPS gene is localized to band 10q23.1-23.3. Skin pigmentation varies from none to almost normal, with ocular features of nystagmus, strabismus, foveal hypoplasia, retinal hypopigmentation, and decreased visual acuity. Late complications of HPS include interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, inflammatory bowel disease, renal failure, and cardiomyopathy secondary to ceroid deposition.
CHS is an autosomal recessive condition that is characterized by albinism, increased susceptibility to infections, and deficiency in natural killer cell activity. This rare condition is caused by mutation to band 1q42.1-q42.2, but the CHS gene product is unknown. The skin, hair, and eye pigment is reduced in CHS, but the patient usually does not have obvious albinism. Hair color is light brown to blond. The skin is creamy white to slate gray. Iris pigment is present, and nystagmus and photophobia may or may not be present.
Begin with an external examination, checking hair and skin color for depigmentation.
Follow with a complete ocular examination, including a slit-lamp evaluation and dilated fundus examination. The ocular features common to all types of albinism include the following:
• Refractive error and astigmatism
• Nystagmus (may compensate with a head tilt that may help improve vision)
• Iris depigmentation (usually blue-gray or light brown color) and iris transillumination
• Strabismus
• Fovea hypoplasia
• Reduced depth perception secondary to abnormal neural connections
• A positive angle kappa in patients with congenital nystagmus is associated with albinism. The pathophysiology of the positive angle kappa may relate to the anomalous decussation of optic axons that characterizes the albinotic visual system.[6]
Once albinism is suspected, the following steps should be taken to ascertain the type of albinism involved:
• Assess the phenotype. If the patient (newborn or adult) completely lacks pigment in the skin and hair, OCA 1A is the probable diagnosis. The only type of albinism that is associated with white hair at birth is OCA 1. If a minimal amount of melanin is present, the diagnosis is OCA 1B, OCA 2, or OCA 3.
• CHS should be suspected if the patient has silvery hair and neutrophils with large inclusions on a blood smear. HPS may be the diagnosis if a minimal-to-moderate hypopigmentation is present along with decreased blood clotting.
• If OCA 1A is suspected, a hair bulb assay may be performed to confirm this diagnosis. A negative result indicates OCA 1A. However, a positive result could indicate OCA 1B, OCA 2, OCA 3, or OA 1.
• A patient with minimal pigment and a positive hair bulb assay could have OCA 1B, OCA 2, or OCA 3. A patient with only ocular features, presence of hair and skin pigmentation, and a positive hair bulb assay probably has OA 1.
• To distinguish between OCA 1B, OCA 2, or OCA 3, a sequence analysis of the genes coding for tyrosinase, P protein, and TRP-1 can be completed. Unfortunately, these tests may not be routinely available. Another alternative test (if available) is a shave skin biopsy (5-8 mm). Cultures of melanocytes can be assessed for function of tyrosinase, P protein, and TRP-1.
• If OA 1 is suspected, a skin biopsy can be taken to check for the presence of macromelanosomes. It may be necessary to assess the ocular status of female family members. Since the disorder is X-linked recessive, females would be carriers. They typically have a mud-splattered fundus.
• Albinism does not cause a delay in development or mental retardation. Suspect other causes if this is present.
Albinism is inherited genetically through specific mutations along the melanin pathway.
See the list below:
• Skin cancer, sunburn
• Reduced visual acuity
• Social stigma
Laboratory Studies
Hair bulb assays help to indicate the status of tyrosinase activity. Hair bulbs are taken from the scalp, and the catalytic activity of tyrosinase is determined either by incubation in DOPA and consequential induction of melanin determined by visual inspection or by a radioactive biochemical assay in which the samples are incubated with a radiolabeled tyrosine precursor and the amount of radiolabel released after enzymatic conversion quantified spectrophotometrically. The usefulness of this test is debatable because a negative result indicates oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) 1A, but a positive result still leaves the possibility of OCA 1, OCA 2, OCA 3, or OA 1.
The most definitive test in determining the albinism type is genetic sequence analysis. Of course, the test is useful only for families with individuals who have albinism. The test cannot be used as a screening tool.
Genetic sequence analysis can be used to determine if a fetus has albinism. Amniocentesis at 16-18 weeks could be performed to obtain a sample for analysis. However, parents should be aware that children with albinism could function well and have a good prognosis.
Obtain a bleeding time if the patient is planning to undergo surgery. Some physicians believe that a bleeding time should be obtained in all albino persons. If Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS) is suspected, bleeding time, platelet aggregation, and platelet electron microscopy is necessary.
If Chediak-Higashi syndrome (CHS) is suspected, a hematologist should evaluate polymorphonuclear leukocyte function.
Imaging Studies
Macular optical coherence tomography[7, 8]
Handheld ultra-high-resolution spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) can be used in young children with nystagmus and other ocular problems to classify foveal abnormalities and help determine the cause of the infantile nystagmus with the use of foveal morphology.
Other Tests
Visual-evoked potential tests
Sweep visual-evoked potential (VEP) testing can be used as a predictive tool for recognition acuity in children with albinism. Predictability was found in a clinical spectrum of albinism.[9]
Pattern-appearance VEP shows a strong association between the magnitude of the interhemispheric latency asymmetry and the clinical signs of albinism.[10]
Flash VEP also shows a strong association between the magnitude of the interhemispheric latency asymmetry and the clinical signs of albinism.[10]
Histologic Findings
Histologic examination of the skin of male patients with this condition and female carriers of OA1 reveals the presence of macromelanosomes.
Medical Care
Until late 2011, no potential effective treatment or cure existed for albinism, but the following may be helpful and a new medication may offer some potential hope:
• Low-vision aids: No one device can serve the needs of all patients in all situations. Young children may simply need glasses, while older children may require bifocals. Occasionally, telescopic lenses mounted on glasses (bioptics) are prescribed for close-up work and distance vision. The use of Braille is not necessary as children with albinism read the dots visually.
• Tinted glasses may be used to reduce photophobia. Some patients do not like tinted lenses; they may benefit from wearing a cap or visor when outdoors.
• For the treatment of strabismus, it is preferred to start eye-patching infants at age 6 months (prior to completion of eye development). Some cases of strabismus may improve with glasses correction.
• Nitisinone, which is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating hereditary tyrosinemia type 1, elevates plasma tyrosine levels and increases eye and hair pigmentation. Nitisinone may soon be a potential treatment for people with ocular albinism.[11, 12]
Surgical Care
Albino persons with strabismus rarely achieve binocularity and depth perception after strabismus surgery, possibly because they lack the necessary neuronal connections.
Patients with albinism tend to do poorly after retinal detachment repair because of nystagmus and inherently weak retinal pigment epithelium–retinal adhesions.
Consult a hematologist if a patient is diagnosed with Chediak-Higashi syndrome (CHS) or Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS).
Consultation with a genetic counselor may be helpful.
Medication Summary
No effective medical treatment of albinism is currently available. Nitisinone, which is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating hereditary tyrosinemia type 1, elevates plasma tyrosine levels and increases eye and hair pigmentation. Nitisinone may soon be a potential treatment for people with ocular albinism.[11, 12]
Questions & Answers
What is albinism?
How is albinism classified?
What is the pathophysiology of albinism?
What is the role of melanin in the pathophysiology of albinism?
What is the pathogenesis the ocular features of albinism?
What is the prevalence of albinism?
What is the mortality and morbidity associated with albinism?
What are the racial predilections of albinism?
What are the sexual predilections of albinism?
Which types of albinism are congenital?
What is the prognosis of albinism?
What is included in patient education about albinism?
What is oculocutaneous albinism 1 (OCA 1)?
What is ocular albinism 1 (OA 1)?
Which clinical history findings are characteristic of albinism?
What is oculocutaneous albinism 1A (OCA 1A)?
What is oculocutaneous albinism 1B (OCA 1B)?
What is temperature-sensitive albinism?
What is oculocutaneous albinism 2 (OCA 2)?
What is oculocutaneous albinism 3 (OCA 3)?
What is autosomal recessive ocular albinism?
Which conditions are closely linked to OCA 2?
Which conditions are closely linked to OA 1?
Which conditions are associated with albinism?
Which physical findings are characteristic of albinism?
How is the type of albinism determined?
What causes albinism?
What are the possible complications of albinism?
What are the differential diagnoses for Albinism?
What is the role of hair bulb assays in the workup of albinism?
What is the role of genetic testing in the workup of albinism?
When are hematologic tests indicated in the workup of albinism?
What is the role of imaging studies is the workup of albinism?
What is the role of visual-evoked potential (VEP) testing in the workup of albinism?
Which histologic findings are characteristic of albinism?
How is albinism treated?
What is the role of surgery in the treatment of albinism?
Which specialist consultations are beneficial to patients with albinism?
What is the role of medications in the treatment of albinism? |
EyeWiki:Featured article/April 01, 2020
From EyeWiki
Featured Article for March 31, 2020
Congenital Hereditary Endothelial Dystrophy
Congenital Hereditary Endothelial Dystrophy (CHED), one of the Congenital Corneal Opacities (CCO), is a bilateral corneal condition characterized by cloudy cornea that may be present from birth or may be infantile in onset. As a consequence of the endothelial dystrophy, the cornea becomes edematous, which leads to a degradation in the patient’s vision.
CHED has been traditionally classified as either an Autosomal Dominant (CHED 1) or an Autosomal Recessive (CHED 2) variant. However, thanks to advances in corneal imaging and genetic analysis, this classification has recently been revisited and modified. A review of medical literature rendered a total of 5 families that presented with an autosomal dominant inheritance of CHED. After careful scrutiny, Aldave et al discovered that only 1 out of the 5 families, described by Pearce et al presented enough evidence of following an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance that concurs with CHED 1.
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For example, if one were stranded in a survival situation could they eat only wild edible leafy plants, such as goose grass and dandelions, and eventually fully replenish all of the bodies muscle glycogen, whilst walking long distances and performing labour equivalent to moderate intensity callisthenics?
• If your focus is more on the survival aspect then you may be better off asking at outdoors.stackexchange.com
– aucuparia
Apr 15 '19 at 15:44
• 2
Any edible source that contains glucose can be fine if consumed in sufficient amount.. The amount of glucose from leaves is not sufficient even for survival. Think of green salad. You can't live just from that.
– Jan
Apr 15 '19 at 16:04
• Related, has energy for special forces survival studies
– JohnP
Apr 19 '19 at 22:18
• Note that you can perform exercise - even to quite high levels - with only intake of fat (no carbohydrates). In a survival situation, access to protein will also become essential. Sep 17 '19 at 10:27
Yes, it's a process called glycogenesis. Your larger issue is simply about calories. While your body can produce glycogen from spinach (as an example), there's only 105 calories in a pound of spinach. Spinach actually has some protein in it as well, and your body will use gluconeogenesis to convert some of that protein into glucose.
So while from a pure bio-chemistry standpoint your body does this every day, to get ~2,500 calories you would need to eat roughly 24 pounds of spinach. And walking long distances daily is going to consume a lot more than 2,500 calories.
The primary realistic pathway towards what you're thinking here is the aforementioned gluconeogenesis, converting from stored fat to glycogen then glycogenesis to glucose. Back of the envelope math says that 1 pound of stored fat in a human is about ~3,500 calories.
A 180 pound person, averaging 20% body fat, has 36 pounds of fat on them. Once you get under ~4% things can get pretty horrible since fat does other things like insulation and vitamin storage. So leave 4% (7 pounds) of someone's fat in place.
That still leaves you with 29 pounds of fat-energy, or 101,500 calories. At 5,000 calorie days, that's nearly three weeks. It would be an absolutely horrible 3 weeks I wouldn't want to participate in, but I'd rather do that than eat 48 pounds of spinach every day.
In theory, provided you consume enough of something containing carbohydrates then yes, you can replenish muscle glycogen eventually.
It's a little more complicated than that in practice.
For example, 100 grams of raw dandelion provides only 5.7 grams of carbohydrates (when you remove the fiber). Assuming total muscle glycogen depletion (which never completely happens) of 400 grams and assuming that all of those carbs end up as glucose (and they won't). Then you'd have to eat ~7kg of dandelion to restore glycogen.
That's a lot of leafy greens!
If you boiled the dandelion, you actually get less carbs per 100 g (only 3.5 g). Presumably because you lose a bunch to the water (which you might be able to drink).
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that practically speaking leafy greens suck at restoring glycogen. There are many foods that would simply require too much quantity of that food to make it practical.
And yes, it would depend to some degree how much glycogen you utilize doing whatever you're doing. It would also depend on how much of those carbs end up as glucose in the blood to be converted to glycogen in the muscle. Also how much glycogen is in the liver.
About 400 grams of glycogen are stored in muscles and about 100 grams are stored in the liver. All carbs are eventually broken down into glucose, fructose or galactose, but only glucose makes it past the liver without the need for conversion in the liver.
By long distance walking plus callisthenics, you could burn ~5,000 calories per day. To prevent glycogen breakdown (and consequently ketosis), you would probably need to consume at least 10-15% of calories as carbohydrates, that is 125-190 g carbohydrates per day (study 1 ; study 2 - table 2).
The amount of digestible carbohydrates (total carb - fiber) and calories in various foods that can be found in wilderness:
From foods you can find in wilderness, berries and chestnuts are high in carbohydrates, and nuts and animal foods are high in calories. Green vegetables are not high in carbohydrates or calories.
In conclusion, to prevent glycogen depletion during a period of heavy physical activity, you may need to consume more than 100 grams of digestible carbohydrates per day. Saying that, you do not need to have glycogen stores or consume carbohydrates to survive and remain active.
Not as efficiently depending on the presentation or arrangement of the glucose molecules, they might be assembled in a more complex form in certain food types (i.e: in larger chains known as polysaccharides).
Generally speaking leafy and cruciferous vegetables are not the #1 way to go when it comes to this carbohydrate since simple glucose (a monosaccharide) also known as "dextrose" is found in fast digesting carb food sources that have a high GI or "Glycemic Index".
Foods types that mostly belong to the "grains and cereals" realm such as white: bread, pasta, and even tubers such as white potatoes, others include highly sweet fruits such as watermelons, pineapples and dates, and finally to be more extreme all the fast food junk such as pretzels, sodas, doughnuts and cupcakes . You can also find fast shooting glucose in other forms for example as candy, and its been said that gummy bears in particular are one of the quickest ways to replenish muscle glycogen, as used by many bodybuilders for post workout recovery.
Also, and since you mentioned a survival situation in the example that requires you probably to stay fed for a long period of time, and adding to that a demanding activity such as calisthenics or physical activity that compares to it, you might want to consider SLOW digesting carbs that keep you fuel for longer since they have a low GI.
Sources of the above mentioned? Black beans, whole wheat everything (pasta, rice, etc), oats, sweet potatoes, legumes and nuts, quinoa, amongst others.
Your Answer
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The factsabout the story’s plot that involve
The novel that I chose to do this report on was, "ThePlague", by Albert Camus. It is about a plague that hit theEuropean countries in the middle ages. I chose to describethe literary term of parallelism.
Here are some following factsabout the story's plot that involve parallelism through thenovel. The novel begins at Oran where the plague becomesknown. The main character, Dr.
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Gernard Rieux, is a doctor.In the beginning of the story he finds a dead rat on the floor.Even in those times rats were not found dead on the middleof the floor. This was unusual, but he threw out the rat andforgot about it. Eventually the dead rats began to pile intolarge masses and burned. Soon after there were somepeople that got very sick, which made Mr.
Rieux verycurious. These reports of these ill people and the death ofthe rats were the beginning of the parallelism for this story.Since Bernard was a doctor he was the first to actuallyattempt to help one of these sick people. Michael was hisfirst patient in this matter.
He was the sickest person that thedoctor had ever seen. Michael was pale white and vomitedoften, he hurt so much from the vomiting that he seemedparalyzed. Mr. Rieux tried to help the man the best that hecould, but he ended up dying. Michael was the first personto die of this illness. After his death, many cases of thisillness were reported widespread.
Again more details ofsickness and death, this is the parallelism for this novel. Asthe reports of sickness and death came to inform Dr. Rieux,he tried to comfort and cure the plagued patients. Aboutninety percent of the people infected had died. He wanted a
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Africa: the time has come for African countries to develop their urban agriculture
As COVID-19 strains urban food systems, cities can innovate to grow more locally and provide jobs for young people
Esther Ngumbi is Assistant Professor of Entomology in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Across Africa, the third wave of COVID-19 infections is unfolding, with South Africa leading the new wave. This is of concern, especially for urban housing communities, where access to land, water and other resources needed to grow food sustainably is still a big challenge.
In addition, according to a report by the United Nations World Food Program, urban populations, especially populations living in slums, suffer the most when food systems are disrupted by lockdowns caused by the pandemic.
There is an urgent need for governments of African countries and all food security stakeholders to strategize to ensure that the third wave of COVID-19 across Africa does not lead to new waves of food insecurity, especially among the nearly 588 million Africans living in cities.
Empowering young city dwellers, who constitute the majority of the population, and investing in building a thriving and sustainable urban agricultural sector on the African continent is the way forward. In addition, young Africans living in urban areas represent an untapped resource which, if properly harnessed, has the potential to help build vibrant and resilient urban food systems. But if they are neglected as has been done before, they could become a destabilizing force.
In addition, urban food systems offer multiple avenues for innovation and creativity as they encompass many factors such as production, processing, packaging, distribution, retail, consumption and waste management. food. However, due to COVID-19, urban food systems have been disrupted and continue to be vulnerable.
The time has come for the African continent and its leaders can take advantage of this difficult time of the third wave of COVID-19 as an opportunity to reimagine African urban agriculture. Drawing on its creative, tech-savvy and enterprising youth, African countries can build resilient and sustainable urban food systems with the capacity to provide affordable food that meets cities’ demands for local, fresh, nutritious food. and healthy.
It is important to note that African countries should not simply seek to copy existing models of urban agriculture, but inspire new designs that use materials and resources available in African countries. Alternatively, African countries can strengthen existing urban growth models and prototypes that are already working. For example, in Uganda, vertically stacked wooden crate units are a local and convenient method of farming in urban towns. In Kenya and Ghana, bag gardens made from locally available and inexpensive sisal fibers represent a local and practical form of a vertical farm.
Along with the strategies, African countries should continue to create spaces where young people can access land to practice urban agriculture.
Other concrete measures that can help develop urban agriculture to meet food needs are to set up funds intended exclusively to support young people who venture into food crops to feed urban populations. African governments, the African Development Bank, organizations like USAID and private foundations like Mastercard Foundation and other foundations based in Africa can achieve this.
In addition to sources of funding, there is the need for training, retraining and access to training in urban agriculture. Those who venture into urban agriculture should further have access to agricultural extension and other services to ensure that they are running profitable urban agriculture businesses. Universities and non-governmental organizations can take this opportunity to train young people and offer other valuable courses. The training should also include topics such as creating a business plan for urban agriculture.
There is a need for African governments to build databases and create inventories of urban agriculture initiatives across the African continent. Other resources, including available materials, such as the United Nations framework on urban agriculture, are important.
Finally, the time has also come for Africa to create a center that is dedicated to imagining and supporting all the needs of urban agriculture for the continent. If the future is urban, why does the African continent not have a center exclusively dedicated to study, research and support for the needs of urban agriculture?
Governments of African countries, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mastercard Foundation, Aliko Dangote Foundation, African Development Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and others stakeholders who have continued to invest in African countries can work together to launch and financially support this Center tasked with training and bringing together all the actors needed to continue to support growing African cities while consulting and advising African governments on the policies to be implemented to allow urban agriculture to thrive.
It is clear that urban agriculture will be relevant today and in the future. African countries must invest in building strong and resilient urban agriculture and food systems. Hurry up.
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Freedom from religion
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Freedom from religion is the freedom to choose not to engage in religious activity. It does not imply the freedom to suppress religious messages in the public sphere, as those messages are generally protected by freedom of speech.
It is frequently claimed that freedom from religion is not part of freedom of religion, and that laws guaranteeing the latter do not guarantee the former – implying heavily that one has a legal obligation to engage in religious activity of some sort and that atheism is therefore illegal or at least somehow a less protected viewpoint than those based in religion. These claims are generally baseless.
Freedom from religion is a necessary right in a free society.
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The book “Islam, Jews and the Temple Mount: The Rock of Our/Their Existence,” is bound to cause an uproar in the Muslim world. Published last year, it presents a comprehensive list of early Islamic sources that recognize the historical Jewish claim to Jerusalem, contrary to modern Muslim religious scholars who—in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict—deny any Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and promote the argument that no Jewish Temple ever stood there.
Fifty-four years after the unification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City, professor Yitzhak Reiter and co-writer Dvir Dimant hold a mirror up to this prevailing Muslim narrative.
According to the book, Islamic leaders deny canonical Muslim historical works that date back to the seventh century C.E., a few decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and that state that the very reason Islam came to regard the Foundation Stone situated in the center of the Dome of the Rock as holy is because of the knowledge that the Jewish Temple stood there.
It’s all in there. Muslim sources time and again describe history the same way Jewish sources do: the building of the First Temple on the Foundation Stone by King Solomon; its destruction by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar; the Babylonian exile; Persian emperor Cyrus the Great’s permission for the Jews to return to Jerusalem and build the Second Temple; and its destruction by Roman emperor Titus.
The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’s Old City. The dome is an Islamic shrine that houses the Foundation Stone, the holiest spot in Judaism, and is a major landmark located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It was completed in 691 C.E., making it the oldest extant Islamic building in the world. Aug. 11, 2009. Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90.
Moreover, not only do Islam’s most respected historians confirm the Jewish historical timeline, but they also emphasize that the reason Jerusalem and the Temple Mount came to be considered holy in Islam is that the sites were regarded as sacred in Judaism.
Professor Yitzhak Reiter
In their book, Reiter, an expert on Islamic, Middle Eastern and Israeli studies, and Dimant, a graduate of the Shalem Academic Center in Jerusalem and a research assistant at the Truman Institute for Peace Research, present Jewish and Islamic sources side by side and reveal an undeniable resemblance between the two.
“Islam, Jews and the Temple Mount” shows that until the Balfour Declaration of 1917, not only did Muslim sources not deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, they systematically pointed it out and confirmed it. However, in 1967, when Israel took control of the Old City during the Six-Day War, the narrative took a drastic turn, and denying any Jewish link to the Temple Mount became the norm.
Centurion tanks armed with 105 mm guns in the Negev, May 20, 1967. Credit: Israeli Government Press Office.
From then on, Muslims turned their backs on a vast and rich Islamic literature that confirms the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.
In the 10th century C.E., Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, perhaps one of the most well known and respected historians in the Muslim religious world, described how God prevented King David from building the Temple because he had blood on his hands, and how therefore the task was assigned to his son, Solomon. His account is almost identical to that found in the Book of Chronicles.
In the 11th century, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wasiti, who served as the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, described how King Solomon had difficulty opening the gates of the Temple and only succeeded in doing so after mentioning in prayer the name of his father. The story appears almost word for word in the Babylonian Talmud.
In the 14th century, Arab historian Ibn Khaldun in his canonical work “Muqaddimah” also noted how King Solomon built the Temple in the fourth year of his reign. His description of the inauguration of the Temple is identical to that of Kings I, Chapter 6.
In the 15th century, historian Mujir al-Din from Jerusalem also mentioned how the Temple was built by King Solomon, and so did many after him. Almost always, the description in Muslim sources is similar to that found in Jewish scripture.
The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, oil on canvas, by Francesco Hayez. Both the first and second iterations of the “Beit HaMikdash” were razed on Tisha B’Av, hundreds of years apart. Credit: Francesco Hayez.
The most important thing, Reiter and Dimant told Israel Hayom, “is that the Al-Aqsa compound—or as Jews call it, the Temple Mount—be acknowledged by [modern] Islam as the site of two Jewish Temples, and most importantly, Solomon’s Temple. Islam has adopted the Jewish and Christian tradition in this matter, and in medieval times it did not try to deny the fact that the Dome of the Rock symbolizes the continuation of Solomon’s Temple. One could go as far as to say that Islam was proud of this.”
“Some scholars even noted that certain customs and ceremonies that took place outside the Dome of the Rock and even inside, during the Umayyad dynasty, were similar to those that used to take place in the Jewish Temple,” they said.
An interior view of the Dome of the Rock, Jan. 25, 2018. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Dimant added that one of the best sources to look at when one wants to learn about the traditional Muslim narrative regarding the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount is Islam’s holiest book, the Koran.
“The sources we quote in the book have a special significance, in that they do not deal with history. It shows how deeply rooted the subject of the two Temples and the Israelites was among Koran commentators.”
Reiter, who participated in dozens of diplomatic meetings between Israelis and Arabs, said he often met with Palestinians and Muslims from Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries who were convinced that the Jews made up the story of the First and Second Temples after the establishment of the modern state, for political and national reasons.
“Moreover, it became clear to me that senior Arab public leaders and academics are not familiar with their historical sources, that have described for centuries the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and the history of Israelites in Jerusalem and the Land of Israel,” he said.
Q: How do these intellectuals react when you first share this history with them?
Reiter: Many admit that they did not know [this], but there are also intellectuals, academics, who have these books on their bookshelves. They tell me in private conversations that what [Former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization Yasser] Arafat said in his time, that there was never a temple in Jerusalem, is nonsense. At the same time, they explain that they cannot in the current state of conflict publicly agree with the accepted academic narrative, which is also the Jewish narrative. “We need to keep our mouths shut,” they say.
Q: How does Islam deal with the obvious contradiction between its current argument and its most respected historical sources?
Reiter: “There’s denial. Disregard. Embarrassment. I showed the manuscript to Arab students that I teach. What baffled me is there were no responses. Nobody spoke out in favor or against it. Nobody said it was true or false. Just complete silence. I sent a copy to a friend in the Jordanian royal family as well, who wants to stay updated on the Temple Mount conflict. He, as well, remains silent for now.”
Throughout the years, when it came to negotiations over Jerusalem, the Israeli government did not use the sources Reiter and Dimant quote in their book.
“The goal was to maintain a diplomatic and political debate, without bringing in the religious aspect,” explained Reiter, who served as deputy adviser on Arab Affairs for three Israeli prime ministers – Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres.
“Once Begin asked me the exact verse in the Koran that says that the Land of Israel was promised to Moses,” Reiter recalled. “But then we found out that one of the commentators on the Koran explained that although the Jewish nation is connected to the Holy Land, they do not merit it because of the sin of the Golden Calf.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Credit:
Q: Now that you have compiled these sources and made the information available, do you think Israeli diplomats will use it?
Dimant: “Our goal is to make the discourse more source-based. It is very sensitive. We don’t want to offend anyone. The book is explosive, and officials will not rush to use it. We don’t want the book to become a source of conflict, but to transform the discourse and enrich it with an aspect that is missing from it now completely.”
Q: The connection between Islam and Judaism, how far does it date back to?
Reiter: “It just so happened that last week I read a biography of Muhammad that was written several decades after his death. The prophet, the book said, met with tribe leaders from the city of Medina, who studied with Jews and would often meet with Jews. He asked them about the Jews and their beliefs, and they told him, among other things, that Jews believe in one God.
“The connection between Islam and Judaism existed from the very beginning of Islam. Islam has always seen itself as a continuation of Judaism. The Koran is full of stories of [Jewish] prophets. The Yusuf surah in the Koran is almost identical to the story of Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis. And this is just one example.”
Reiter and Dimant explained that modern Islam is much less proud of its Jewish origins and often goes out of its way to hide them. Also, modern Islam has prohibited archeological excavations on the Temple Mount and uses the absence of significant archeological discoveries on the mountain—the result of the prohibition—to reinforce its denial of any Jewish connection to Jerusalem or the existence of the Temple.
Reiter and Dimant list several types of “deniers” in their book: those who claim that the Jewish Temple was not in the Land of Israel at all, but in the Arabian Peninsula; those who are convinced that Abraham, King David and King Solomon were not Jewish, but Islamic figures; and those who think that the traditional Islam is a set of biased, made-up traditions, changed by Jews who converted to Islam and influenced the religion with their own content.
Some contemporary leaders, Reiter and Dimant explained, acknowledge that there was once a Jewish Temple on the mountain, but claim that it was a small, short-lived structure and, therefore, the Jews have no rights to the site today. According to them, the Jews of today have no connection to those Israelites.
For many Muslims, “Judaism is the backbone of Zionism and they see the religion as a threat to Islam and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and they choose to address this threat by rewriting Muslim history on the one hand, and Jewish history on the other.”
Early Islamic sources, Reiter and Dimant concluded, “fully or almost fully accept the Jewish tradition and span over hundreds of years, almost from the early days of Islam all the way to the 20th century. We claim that those who deny the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount due to political purposes inadvertently undermine the Islamic legitimacy of Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, and the credibility of essential sources written in Arabic, which are the classics of Islam and its culture and identity.”
This article first appeared in Israel Hayom. |
1 [+ object] : to remove (money) from a bank account
She withdrew $200 from her checking account.
2 [+ object] : to take (something) back so that it is no longer available
The pills were withdrawn [=recalled] from the market because they were unsafe.
3 [+ object] formal : to take back (something that is spoken, offered, etc.)
The company withdrew [=retracted] the job offer.
The prosecutor withdrew her question to the witness.
They have withdrawn the charges.
withdraw support for a candidate
4 [no object] : to stop participating in something
Students can withdraw from a class anytime until the last week of the semester.
The injury forced him to withdraw from [=drop out of] the tournament.
5 a of soldiers : to leave an area
[no object]
The troops were forced to withdraw.
They withdrew from the battlefield.
[+ object]
The troops were withdrawn [=pulled back] from the front line.
b [no object] somewhat formal + old-fashioned : to leave a room, area, etc., and go to another place — + to
He retired and withdrew [=moved] to the country.
After dinner, we withdrew to the library. |
Question: What Are The Basic Steps For Cleaning And Sanitizing?
Does Lysol spray kill flu?
Many common household cleaning products can kill the flu virus and help lower the risk of spreading the virus.
What are the steps to cleaning a kitchen?
Kitchen Cleaning: A Step-by-Step GuideClear clutter off your counters. … Empty the dishwasher and the dish drainer and wash dishes. … Dust the tops of the fridge and cabinets. … Clean small appliances. … Clean anything else that stays out on your counters. … Scrub down the exterior of your stove and oven. … Wipe down your counters. … Deep clean your sink.More items…•
What is the difference between safety and sanitation?
Food safety is how food is handled to prevent foodborne illness. Food sanitation is the cleanliness of equipment and facilities. temperature danger zone 40°-140° for personal/home 41°-135° for food service and useto PREVENT foodborne illness.
What are the 3 methods of sanitizing?
What is the process of sanitizing?
Sanitizing Procedure: Sanitizing is a three step process. 1. Washing with clean, hot soapy water. … The rinse step is to further remove food and debris and to remove the soap so it does not interfere with the effectiveness of the sanitizer.
What are the 2 methods of sanitizing?
There are two generally accepted methods of providing for the final sanitization of a utensil after effective removal of soil, heat and chemical. A. Hot water – an effective, non-selective sanitization method for food- contact surfaces; however, spores may remain alive even after an hour of boiling temperatures.
Which is an example of sanitizing?
Sanitizing is defined as cleaning something to make it free of bacteria or disease causing elements. An example of sanitizing is wiping a counter with a bleach solution.
What is the difference between cleaning and disinfecting?
What is the final step in cleaning and sanitizing a prep table?
4 Steps to Cleaning & Sanitizing Tables Clean the surface with an appropriate cleaner. After cleaning, thoroughly rinse the surface with clean water. Apply a sanitizing solution to the surface. You can use a quat-based or chlorine-based sanitizer. … Allow the sanitizer to air dry on the surface.
What are the 5 steps to clean and sanitize a surface?
Scrape or remove food bits from the surface.Wash the surface.Rinse the surface.Sanitize the surface.Allow the surface to air-dry.
What must be cleaned and rinsed but not sanitized?
All surfaces must be cleaned and rinsed. This includes walls, storage shelves, and garbage containers. However, any surface that touches food, such as knives, stockpots, cutting boards, or prep tables, must be cleaned and sanitized.
What are the cleaning activities?
Cleaning ActivitiesDusting Activity – A complete classroom activity set. … Table Washing Activity – Complete classroom activity set. … Sweeping Activity – A complete classroom activity set. … Cloth Washing Activity – A complete classroom activity set. … Dishwashing Activity – Complete classroom activity set. … Mopping Set – Save when you order this set.More items…
When Sanitising What 2 things do you need to Sanitise?
1. Scrub or wipe down surfaces using a clean cloth or scourer, a solution of dishwashing detergent and warm water in a bucket. Remove all visible signs of dirt/food/oil. Be sure to change the solution regularly or when it becomes dirty.
What are the 7 steps of sanitation?
Thus, attaining a sanitary environment involves seven essential steps:Inspection, Identification, Equpment Breakdown.Sweeping and Flushing.Washing.Rinsing.Sanitizing.Rinse/Air Dry.Validation.
What is the 4 step sanitizing process?
To be effective, cleaning and sanitizing must be a 4-step process. Surfaces must be cleaned, rinsed, sanitized, and allowed to air dry. Clean the surface. Sanitize the surface.
What is SOP cleaning?
A housekeeping SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) is a documented, step-by-step process on how to effectively perform housekeeping procedures, such as daily cleaning and maintenance tasks.
What does sanitized copy mean?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Sanitization is the process of removing sensitive information from a document or other message (or sometimes encrypting it), so that the document may be distributed to a broader audience.
What are the steps to cleaning and sanitizing?
The sanitizing process typically includes using a chemical disinfectant to reduce microorganisms on the surface….Follow this general procedure for cleaning surfaces:Wet the surface.Scrub the surface with detergent.Rinse the surface.Allow the surface to air dry.
What are the 6 stages of the cleaning procedure?
The 6 main stages in cleaning are: pre-clean, main clean, rinse, disinfect, final rinse, drying. |
Sometimes, the fur color of your cat can say a lot about its behavior and personality. This thing it may hold a certain significance and it can even influence us, humans, when choosing them as our companions.
We need to understand that much like human beings, each animal is different in its own way and it has a unique personality. This individual personality is shaped by various factors including its sex, hormonal factors, family or even the socialization process when it was a kitten. Breed is also an important influence. We all know that different breeds have different personality traits, but with mixed breed cats, it is difficult to tell. It may have led some people to look for other factors, with some questioning what does a cat’s color says about its personality?
It is true that the coat’s color affects the cat’s personality?
In the introduction, we noted that some scientists have made a correlation between personality and melanin. Melanin is a general term for the color pigments of animals. A greater concentration of melanin leads to darker skin or fur color. A report from 2015 collated previous studies on the melanocortin system, claiming that “[individuals] with darker pigmentation are found to be pleiotropically linked to higher levels of aggression, sexuality, and social dominance than individuals with lighter pigmentation”
However, the same report says that these studies are also impacted by many other factors other than skin and coat color. Also, the specific correlations with cats are not well mentioned. What it does suggest is that there might be more of a chance that certain colors might have correlating behavior patterns. What it does not claim is that all these different colors mean they will behave in any predictable way. Cat color personality traits are also given to cats by we humans. Let’s look at what we might be able to link between a cat’s coat and their personality.
Let’s start our study with Black cats about which opinions are always shared. Many people know that black cats are associated with bad luck in many cultures and they were heavily persecuted in continental Europe in the Middle Ages. However, in other cultures, the black cat has received much more favorable treatment. For instance, they are believed to bring good luck in the British Isles, but they are mistrusted in the United States.
The truth is that black cats can have a range of personality types. While it is possible the study mentioned above points towards aggression in black cats, there are many who are the most lovable, affectionate and docile creatures.
Orange cats often do get given this perception of being chill cats which love to be lazy and play more than others. Another 2015 study shows that we have some particular biases towards certain colors of the cat. These aren’t always related to aggression or negative personality traits. This study found that participants were “more likely to attribute the trait ‘friendliness’ to orange cats”.
Orange cats are seen as being particularly sweet and loving. They are thought to have a greater tendency to meow when they want attention, and particularly enjoy petting and kind words. Out of all the different types of cats, many people think that orange cats let you handle them more than any other. This is so even if they are often shy at first.
Gray cats are seen as having a mischievous, fun-loving attitude. They’re particularly beautiful and exhibit traits from all personalities. There are some cat breeds that are noted for their gray coloring. These include the Russian Blue and the Nebelung. These breeds are known for having certain characteristic personality elements, mischievous and fun-loving being shared traits.
The same study about human perception of a cat’s personality due to their coat color also discusses White cats. They are seen as “less bold and active and more shy and calm than other colors of cat”.
One aspect of white cats that is interesting and may have a bearing on their perceived personality is their tendency to have deafness. “Deaf white cats show an absence of melanocytes” which may correlate to the idea that pigmentation and personality are linked. It is also possible that white cats that are deaf will be more likely to be shy due to their vulnerable state. However, this doesn’t link up when we think of white cats that are not deaf.
Culturally, white cats are also given certain characteristics due to their color. This is because white is often seen as a sign of purity and innocence. This might have lead many people to see white cats as being sweet, pure and good-natured in their personality, things we can’t deny.
Particolor and tortoiseshell cats. Another study in 2016 was made to study the aggression in cats putting them is diverse circumstances such as vet visits, everyday interaction etc. One of the most interesting aspects of this study was the findings that particolor cats (cats with more than one color) seemed to have more aggressive tendencies. These coat patterns include tortoiseshell, calico, gray and white and black and white cats. Something interesting about tortoiseshell and calico pattern cats is that these cats tend to be almost exclusively female. The study found that “[female] cats had a higher aggression score than did males”. However, this finding was adjusted because of the fact calico and tortoiseshell cats were seen as the most aggressive overall. This meant they skewed the results toward female cats.
There is enough evidence to suggest that there is the potential for the color of a cat’s coat to have a minimal influence on their personality and behavior. However, there is more evidence to support the fact that other factors are likely more significant. These factors include whether or not the cat has been sterilized, age, history and socialization.
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The Bridges that You Need to Build in Life
The English language lexicon has 1 million words, and of which, 273,000 are headwords. Hence, as a rule of thumb, we can say that 136,500 headwords are the antonyms of the rest. You can get, for example, courage as an antonym of fear. Similarly, hope has despair, it is laziness for hard work and so on. Notwithstanding this, life throws up another set of antonyms whose meanings are not counted for them to be qualified as antonyms of words as mentioned in lexicons. Does fear have an unconventional antonym other than courage or bravery? Yes, it has. Life gives us another lexicon which has words whose meanings are not necessarily as diametrically opposite of other words as used in the languages although they are antonyms capable of meaningfully negating the other words. Finding those missing and immediate antonyms, in fact, is a way to reach the accepted-antonyms as mentioned in lexicons. So, how do we reach the state of courage from the state of fear? By finding the missing antonym that connects the two — the bridge from fear to courage.
I will say that knowledge is the immediate antonym of fear. One cannot reach the state of courage from the state of fear without obliterating the reasons of fear. Once the reasons of fear are taken out of you, YOU are you-less-fear called fearless — courageous. What can take fear out of you? Knowledge. Only does knowledge have the power to take fear out. Fear is the debilitating anxiety that pushes a person to suboptimal mode. Fear can be caused by information about something as well as ignorance. And knowledge is the panacea for both. We are used to hearing this: It happened as I feared — the person knew that something was going to happen and that she/he was fearful of it. What kind of knowledge can take such fears out of a person? In other words, how can we make the person to change the statement like this: I knew it was going to happen but was prepared. The operative word here is ‘prepared.’ Fortify yourself with as much knowledge as possible about an impending event and be ready with a prepared-mind to face the event as and when it happens — you have replaced fear with knowledge.
Fear from ignorance is a challenging hurdle to overcome. Before psychology and psychiatry were developed as science, we used to attribute mental illness to curses owing to the possession of a person by demons and devilish forces, hence, were fearful of such persons. But the science of mind brought in knowledge that took out the misunderstanding — fear— due to the lack of knowledge — ignorance — about lunacy. Knowledge lightens out the darkness of ignorance. What about handling the ubiquitous ‘fear of unknown?’ Presumptive knowledge helps one to mitigate the fear of unknown. Travelling to a new country, joining a new company, starting a new venture and similar maiden attempts can evoke the fear of unknown. Presumptive knowledge from the preparatory works is the way to minimalize the fear of unknown. So knowledge is the missing antonym, the bridge, that takes you from the state of fear to the diametrically opposite destination of courage. “Life begins where fear ends,” the words from the Malayalam movie: Mikhael as told to the protagonist played by Nivin Pauly by his father characterized by Babu Antony.
How do we move from despair to hope? What is the bridge we need to build to make this passage? The biggest invention of difficult times is self-motivation. Despair is a difficult time, so what could be the immediate self-motivating thought that would act as the platform to catapult oneself from despair to the hope for a better tomorrow? Inspiring stories! Yes, real-life stories of men and women who went through similar patches and defeated their failures. “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life,” J.K. Rowling, the quintessential author of Harry Potter fantasy series, once said. She went through the worst patches of her life; she saw the death of her mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband and poverty making her to live on the state benefits during the 7-year period preceding the publication of her first book. From there, she went on to become the first billionaire writer who mesmerized an entire generation with her ‘magical’ writing — the spirit of this inspiring story of nadir-to-sky lies in the 12-word quote from Rowling. We have many such inspiring personalities like Colonel Sanders, who pulled himself back from the brink of suicide, then, turned himself around and went on build the business empire of Kentucky Fried Chicken, or K.F.C., at the age of 65; Steve Jobs, who lost the company he once founded but worked his way back to the same company and proceeded on to develop the most iconic product — iPhone — of our times. We have many such inspiring stories before us. The bridge from despair to hope is the motivating and inspiring stories of men and women who rose like a phoenix from the ashes.
There are many other bridges that we need to build to enable our passage from debilitating states to stages of productivity. What is the bridge from negativity to positivity? Similarly, short temper to maturity. laziness to hard work, theoretical to pragmatism and so on. The distance from negative (-) to positive (+) is a straight-cut that passes through the heart of the negative. In other words, a move from a negative attitude to a mental framework of positivity can be achieved only through a deliberate attempt by the person himself/herself. This deliberate-attempt is introspection-induced self-correction that builds the bridge through the heart of the negativity and transform you to a person of positivity .
Containment is the antonym-bridge from short temper to maturity — contain the impulsive response and allow yourself to make a measured and weighed in response. Many more bridges are needed to be built to elevate ourselves to the virtues of a wholesome living. What bridges would you build to move from laziness to hard work or theoretical to pragmatism?
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© The scientific sentence. 2010
Mathématiques 2: Optimization
1. Definitions
Optimization of a situation refers to
maximize or minimize that situation. We often
want to maximize profit and revenue and minimize
time and losses.
We want to optimize some simple situations using graphs.
Complex optimization problems, to be solved, recquire
the use of derivatives and operational research.
Using the graphs, the steps to solve an optimization problem are:
1 - Read the problem,
2 - Reread the problem,
3 - Understand the word-problem,
4 - Draw a picture or graph if appropriate,
5 - Identify the constants, the variables, and what is to be optimized,
6 - Set the constraints,
7 - Plot the graphs of the constraints,
8 - Draw a polygon of constraints in the whole graph,
9 - Identify the objective function (max. or min.),
10 - Evaluate the objective function at the polygon's vertices.
11 - Make a decision (written response).
12 - Reread the question and make sure you have answered what was asked.
All the acceptable solutions can be found inside the
polygon of constraints.
The objective function determine the best solution. Depending
on the situation, this best solution gives the highest value
(maximum) or lowest value ( minimum).
2.Three cases of situation
Generally, we have three cases:
Case 1:
The optimal solution is unique and situated
at a vertex of the polygon of constraints.
Case 2:
If the line of the objective function is parallel to
a segment of the polygon, the optimal value in located
between the two consecutive vertices that form this
Case 3:
If we cannot build a polygon with the given
constaraints, we do not have solutions.
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Question: How Many KW Is A Lightning Bolt?
Can DC current kill you?
This typically takes place at 30 mA of AC (rms, 60 Hz) or 300 – 500 mA of DC.
Though both AC and DC currents and shock are lethal, more DC current is required to have the same effect as AC current..
Can 30mA kill you?
DC current is about 2-4 times less dangerous than AC current because the AC current will cause faster ventricular fibrillation which is often the cause of death from electric shock. … Applying 9V from your hand to hand directly in your bloodstream would then give 30mA DC which is highly unlikely to kill you.
Can we use lightning for electricity?
Sure, it’s possible. Unfortunately, relying on lightning bolts to power our hair dryers, TVs, and refrigerators would be far from cost effective. … The problem is that the energy in lightning is contained in a very short period of time, only a few microseconds.
Is lightning kinetic or potential?
kinetic energytypemotionexamples and subtypesthermal energyrandom motion of microscopic particles of matter (molecules, atoms, ions)heat, fire, geothermal, …electrical energybulk flow of charges (electrons, protons, ions)household current, AC and DC circuits, lightning, …2 more rows
Is lightning DC or AC?
How many houses can a bolt of lightning power?
= 56 houses/bolt of lightning for one day. So the answer to the original question is that a big bolt could power a small, 56-house town for a day. That assumes we can catch all of that average bolt of lightning in a large capacitor.
Can 5 amps kill you?
Amperage, the higher the amps the more damage Some amperages and their effects on the body: 1 milliamp is the perceptual level; 5 milliamps is a shock felt; 6-30 milliamps is painful shock; 50-150 milliamps can result in extreme pain, respiratory arrest, severe muscular contraction; 1-5 amps results in ventricular …
Do volts or amps kill you?
An electrical current at 1,000 volts is no more deadly than a current at 100 volts, but tiny changes in amperage can mean the difference between life and death when a person receives an electrical shock.
Can we convert lightning into electricity?
Lightning strikes over a year are around 1.4 billion, and of those, only about 25 per cent are actually ground strikes since most (75 per cent) are intra-cloud and cloud-cloud, and cannot be harnessed. … So, basically, all the lightning we can capture will give the world enough electricity for only nine days!
Can a bolt of lightning produce 1.21 gigawatts?
This is the amount of power created by… 1 1/2 Nuclear reactors at 800 MW each would generate this much power. … 1 Lighting strike would generate this much power. Power levels of lightning strikes vary greatly but 1.21 gigawatts is within their range.
How many amps is a bolt of lightning?
30,000 > Safety > How Powerful Is Lightning? A typical lightning flash is about 300 million Volts and about 30,000 Amps.
What type of energy is in a lightning bolt?
The potential energy that was present to begin with will be reduced by this motion of charges, and instead there will be lots of kinetic energy (heat) produced as the lightning ionized the air and slams into the ground.
How many volts is a 3 phase?
What’s the difference between single phase and three phase? Electricity is either connected at 230 or 240 volts (single-phase, which accounts for the majority of domestic situations), or 400 and 415 Volts (three-phase).
How much is 1.21 gigawatts?
A gigawatt is equal to one billion watts, and most of us are familiar with a watt. The light bulbs in our homes are typically between 60 and 100 watts. So 1.21 gigawatts would power more than 10 million light bulbs or one fictional flux capacitor in a time-traveling DeLorean. |
Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus is a venomous snake belonging to the Viperidae family. It is also known under different names: Brown Spotted Pit Viper, Taiwan Habu, Chinese Habu, Pointed-Scaled Pit Viper or Formosan Pit Viper.
The term “Protobothrops” in its scientific name comes from the Greek words Bothros and Ops, which mean Pit and Eye respectively. This name was given in reference to the heat-sensitive dimples inherent to this snake. The word Mucrosquamatus means “with pointed scales”. This characteristic has earned him one of its names, the Pointed-Scaled Pit Viper.
This species was first described in 1839 by a zoologist named Theodore Cantor.
Currently, no subspecies has been recognized.
The large head of Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus is flattened and triangular in shape, which easily differentiates it from its neck. It is covered by small scales that overlap. The upper part of its head is brown with more or less intense dark spots.
Its eyes of average size are located on the higher part of its head. The irises are of light brown or golden color, and filled with spots of the color of its skin. These pupils are elliptical vertical. This snake also has a dark band that extends from the back of the eye to the corner of its mouth.
Its dorsal scales vary from light brown to brown and dark. They are decorated with dark spots that vary from “chocolate” brown to black. Sometimes, some of these patterns have clear margins rather narrow.
Its ventral scales are of an off-white or light brown tint. These become darker the closer you get to its tail. This last one is of average size.
Its thermoreceptors are positioned between its eyes and its nostrils. Of triangular shape, this pit allows the animal to detect temperature variations and, consequently, to locate warm-blooded preys.
Its fangs are located at the front of its upper jaw and are the largest of all venomous species in Taiwan. They are mobile and retract when the reptile closes its mouth.
Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus Size
Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus is a medium sized snake. Its average size is between 2.3ft and 3ft (70 cm and 90cm). However, some females can reach up to 5ft (150cm).
Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus is a nocturnal snake. It is also considered a terrestrial animal, although it likes to climb trees from time to time. This snake likes to hide in the middle of rocky areas, under clumps of foliage or in dense vegetation. All these hiding places make it difficult to see.
This species is one of the snakes that actively hunts its prey and sets traps for them. When it falls in front of its victim, it bites it to inject its venom.
With its rather calm temperament, the Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus always tries to flee from danger. However, if it feels threatened, it can quickly become aggressive and attack anything that moves.
Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus is an endemic species of Asia. It lives in Bangladesh, China, India, Hong Kong, Burma, Taiwan and Vietnam.
This snake appreciates open spaces as much as wooded areas. Its main criterion is that there is a lot of vegetation and hiding places.
It prefers bamboo forests, agricultural areas and mountains. This species can also wander in urban areas to search for prey, but this remains rare.
What does Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus eat ?
Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus feeds mainly on rodents, birds, lizards, bats, insects, and even other snakes.
Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus is an oviparous snake, which means that females lay eggs. In summer, the female can lay between 3 and 15 eggs in a single clutch. Then, she finds a place to hide them and protect them until they hatch.
At birth, babies are about 0.82in (25cm) long.
The venom of the Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus is not the most powerful. However, it is still dangerous and potentially deadly. A bite from this reptile should not be overlooked and requires medical intervention in all cases.
The composition of its venom includes anticoagulants, procoagulants, necrotoxins and toxins that cause bleeding and edema.
After a bite from this snake, the victim has an 80% chance of being poisoned.
The first effects are local and include severe pain, swelling of the affected area, blisters and bruising. Necrosis of the limb can sometimes occur, but this is rare.
Subsequently, general symptoms such as dizziness, kidney damage, blood clotting and heart problems may occur.
The mortality rate of Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus bites is still unknown. However, we know that some people have died as a result of its bite. Severe damage to the body has also been observed in victims who have been medically treated.
A bite from Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus always requires medical attention. That’s why you should always go to the nearest hospital.
While waiting for medical help, you can always perform some simple actions such as removing any accessories that might be compressing the affected limb. You can also use a bandage to immobilize the limb.
On the other hand, you should avoid cutting the wound or sucking the venom out with your mouth. Also avoid applying ointment or cream to the wound. Finally, do not take painkillers as they will make the medical intervention more complicated.
Currently, there are 4 antivenoms that are effective against the poison of Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus. Several doses may sometimes be necessary to treat the infection.
The IUCN red list indicates a low concern about the risk of extinction of Protobothrops Mucrosquamatus. It is therefore not currently threatened.
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Many animals find themselves host to ticks. Pets, rodents, deer and other wildlife are perfect candidates for a tick to take a snack. Unfortunately, ticks are also very prone to carrying diseases that they can spread through their bite. Many people wonder where ticks go in winter? Ticks can survive winter in a variety of ways. Some go dormant, while some are actually most active in winter months. And others may latch on to a host and hold out until warmer days are back.
Take, for instance, the deer tick. The adult form of this tick doesn’t become active until after the first frost. For them, winter is their most active time. While other ticks stop feeding during the winter months, the deer tick will feed any day that there is not snow on the ground. This also happens to be the tick that carries the dreaded lyme disease. But, in most cases, if you remove the tick within the first 24 hours, your chances of infection are slim. This is because the germs need an re activation period to get into the ticks saliva glands once it feeds.
The black legged tick has a two year life span in most cases. in spring time, eggs hatch releasing blood sucking larvae. When it gets cold, the larvae dig into soil and molt, emerging the following year as adults. They mate, lay eggs and die in the second year. The lone star tick, on the other hand only lives one year. They overwinter in nymph and adult stages to lay eggs the following spring.
But with the onset of warmer weather, a two year tick can fast track its life cycle into one year. A warm day comes, and the tick emerges, gets a blood meal, and moves through the next phase earlier than most. This means that a cold winter won’t kill off ticks, even if the temperature rises and dips again. A particularly harsh winter may slow them, but cold doesn’t kill them off.
If warm weather doesn’t effect ticks, what does? For a tick, their reproduction strategy is fairly simple. When one of these pests needs to move from one stage of life to another, they need a large amount of energy. This is common in all insects, but especially in blood feeding pests. In order to do this, ticks feed on blood. This gives them a large dose of energy with which they can move to the next stage of life. Whether it is molting old skin, laying eggs, or becoming an adult, they will need a blood meal to do this.
That means that the predominate factor in the speed of their life cycle is their ability to get their next blood meal. Many larger animals that would be a host for these ticks are dormant during the winter. This means that finding a host may be difficult this time of year. Some ticks specialize in animals that are active during this time, such as the deer tick. Others find a host before they hibernate. Hibernating animals aren’t going to be bothered by a small tick biting them. Some ticks, such as the winter tick, only feed off of one host. They find a host in the fall as a larvae, then continue their life cycle the entire winter, feeding off of one host.
Understanding ticks and their habits tell us where ticks go in winter. If you are looking for an exterminator in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area, Contact Us at TermMax Pest Control. We are here to help!
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Litter Size
How many babies does a Charming thicket rat have at once? (litter size)
How many baby Charming thicket rats are in a litter?
A Charming thicket rat (Thamnomys venustus) usually gives birth to around 1 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 36.8 cm (1′ 3″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Thamnomys). An adult Charming thicket rat grows up to a size of 100 cm (3′ 4″).
The average litter size of a Charming thicket rat is 1
The charming thicket rat (Thamnomys venustus) is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is described as data deficient as Thamnomys schoutedeni.It is found in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda.Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.It is threatened by habitat loss.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Charming thicket rat is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
Animals that share a litter size with Charming thicket rat
Those animals also give birth to 1 babies at once:
Animals with the same weight as a Charming thicket rat
What other animals weight around 61 grams (0.13 lbs)? |
The title of Caesar and everything that it represents stems from the actions of a heroic man who had an undying thirst for advancement. That man, Julius Caesar, had a brilliant, tactical militant mind that he joined with the political shrewdness of Senator Pompey and the economic patronage of Crassus to form the First Triumvirate of Rome.
Together, through bribes, intimidation, and ruthless pragmatism, they brought about change that resonated throughout all of Rome — until a betrayal famously turned the Senate against Caesar. So, what does one do when betrayed by his allies? What stance does one take when the very people who brought you to power now want to see you die for treason? What can you do in the face of reckless envy?
Well, if you have an army, you declare war.
In the aftermath of the Gallic Wars (58 B.C. to 50 B.C.), Caesar was set to return to Rome, astride the high of triumph. However, jealous senators (including the once-loyal Pompey) demanded that he answer for the crime of levying an army without senatorial approval. It was a charge of treason — and the perfect excuse for the aristocracy in the capital to dispose of the greatest threat to their power: Julius Ceasar.
Caesar details the campaign to defend the Empire's borders against the barbarian hordes of Gaul (modern day France and Belgium) in his book Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Though the book is far from the most credible account of the war (Caesar is known for inflated battle statistics in his favor), what's undeniable is that a victory is a victory. Caesar's conquest over the barbarians remedied his massive debt problems and elevated his status among the people.
Victory aside, Caesar was ordered to return to Rome unaccompanied by his army and stand trial before the senate. He uttered, "alea iacta est" ('the die is cast') and crossed the Rubicon River with the 13th Legion (Legio XIII) in an act of defiance and informal declaration of war against his accusers.
Senator Pompey and the others fled Rome when they heard that Caesar would not go down without a fight. Rome was officially in a civil war.
Senator Pompey fled across the Adriatic Sea and commanded his allies in Greece to raise troops to help him defend the Republic. Caesar, dedicated to seizing the initiative whenever he could, ordered his men to march to southern Italy in an attempt to cut off Pompey's army from a rendezvous with eastern allies. Unfortunately, the 13th Legion did not make it in time to stop them and the stage was set for The Battle of Pharsalus (48 B.C.E.).
Caesar's victory here sent the Roman Republic into the throes of death — and gave rise to the Roman Empire.
Caesar appointed himself dictator with Mark Antony as his right-hand man (his master of cavalry) and continued his campaign. Just 11 days after establishing his dictatorship, he secured Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus as an ally and his emperorship was beyond reproach.
Did senators ever tell the truth?
Several decisive victories in Greece and the Italian mainland later, Caesar had turned what was once seen as an illegitimate military rulership into an unquestionable empire. Long live the Emperor of Rome, hero of the common man.
Caesar's renown and unchecked power eventually led to his assassination. Beware the ides of March. |
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October 11, 2021
Solving pension crises
Opinion image
Regardless of the type of pension, the working generation needs to share a part of the GDP it produces with the retirees. Pension systems still dominating today were devised at a time when each working generation was more numerous than the previous, which enabled easy and cheap financing of pension and other government expenditures out of rolled-over debt. In the 21st century, population aging has wiped out that way of financing. Policies cannot substantially alter demographic trends. Rather, institutions need to adapt to demographic developments. Demography rules in pensions.
Universal pension systems are kept solvent by increasing redistributions from the shrinking working-age population to retirees and/or by underfinancing other goals. Given population dynamics, other options are reducing benefits or raising the retirement age. Other options are negligible or non-existent; unfortunately, that sad fact is not apparent in public perceptions due to the non-transparency of most pension systems.
Initially, old-age pensions were financed through taxation of the economically active population. Taxation was politically convenient, and technology at the time did not allow for individualized participation. The social tax was fairly low, negative labor market externalities were negligible. Today individualization is both needed and possible (savings/insurance instead of taxation).
By paying contributions participants “buy” pension rights to participate in the GDP they will not produce. If that is not adjusted to population developments, inflated pension expectations generate large hidden and open debts left to the following working generations. Reforms are needed to reduce unrealistic expectations and to protect the interests of the young. The present value of contributions needs to equal the present value of benefits, so that the share of GDP going to finance pensions is constant, and remuneration of production factors is not affected.
Automatic adjustments provide information on the population-driven decline of benefits, which reduces pension expectations. Longer working activity is the most promising method to reduce the decline. Workers who work longer contribute more and take out less, since they will be receiving the benefits for a shorter period. Retiring later is less burdensome than either of its two components since it does not raise flows of monthly payments or reduce flows of monthly benefits.
Unable to change demographic trends, countries must adjust their institutional structures to the new situation. Waiting is an expensive error. Non-transparent institutions generate public unrest, making adaptation difficult. More transparency makes it easier to understand the trade-offs and to adapt to reality. The guiding principle behind pension reform should be recognizing participants’ interest in both phases of their life: economically active and retired. An optimal combination of the contribution rate and the wage replacement rate is crucial. That can be achieved when participation in the system is based on the individual accounts instead of political discretion.
Automatic adjustment based on rules can work properly in bad times as well as good, while discretionary adjustment works only in good times. Governments need to make pension systems more transparent and make adjustments to reduce the burden on workers, returning the pension system to its social role, which is helping the very old without overburdening the young. Pension solidarity should not be confused with political discretion. Transparency, fairness, and firm legal protection of individual accounts are the key preconditions when adjusting pension systems for the 21st century.
© Marek Góra
Read Marek Góra’s IZA World of Labor article: “Redesigning pension systems.”
Find more content (articles, commentary, video) on the aging workforce and pensions reform.
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February 8, 2021 @ 12:00 pm
February 9, 2021 @ 12:45 pm
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQRA5BmVdUA&feature=youtu.be
What are the lessons that can be learned from a history of policing rooted in race and sex discrimination? How have money-bail systems affected women? How does policing affect women even after they've been incarcerated, such as in cases of solitary confinement? Our experts address the glaring lack of consideration given to how policing is perceived, which results in rendering women invisible as victims and targets in the criminal justice system. Their conversation will grapple with the historic and modern-day challenges involving women, policing, and incarceration.
Race, Sex, and Policing in America features: Michele Goodwin (ACLU of MN and national ACLU Executive Committee Member); Nusrat Choudhury, the Roger Pascal Legal Director of the ACLU of Illinois; Amy Fettig, the Executive Director of the Sentencing Project; and Judge Glenda Hatchett, former Chief Presiding Judge and department head of one of the largest juvenile systems in the nation.
This program is part of a series led by Goodwin called "Advancing Women's Equality: Confronting Barriers to Full Inclusion and Progress." The series addresses women's status in the United States through a civil liberties lens, examining how histories of race, sex, immigration and LGBTQ discrimination undermine constitutional equality. The series identifies historic and contemporary legal and social barriers to women's advancement and identifies pathways forward. |
Specialized Inspection Methods-UR Flashcards Preview
ndi > Specialized Inspection Methods-UR > Flashcards
Flashcards in Specialized Inspection Methods-UR Deck (8)
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Magneto optical inspection (MOI) is able to image through paint and other surface coverings in ...
real time
the magneto optical inspection (MOI) instrument is hand-held, portable and requires ..
(A) Minimal training
(B) two operators
(C) no vibration
(D)240 volts
A. minimal training
The mobile automated scanner system (MAUSS) is effective in all the following production manufacturing and aircraft maintenance environments except ..
(B) damage assessment
(C) aging structure evaluation
(D) validating a repair is complete
A. conductivity
a can speed of up to how many square feet per hour is possible when using a mobile automated scanner system (MAUSS) inspection system?
100 feet per hour
Shearography is a NDI technique based on viewing the surface of a part with what type of light?
Which is not a loading technique that has been proven to be efficient for shearographic testing?
(A) Cooling
(B) Vacuum
(C) Vibration
(D) Mechanical
A. Cooling
The earliest and most widely used application of thermopraphy in NDI was the inspection of ...
Aerospace composites
The transfer of heat from the surface to the cooler interior can be recognized as what when detected with the camera?
changes in surface temperature |
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Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 639
Mumbo Jumbo is an experimental novel that blends fiction and history. In it, Jes Grew, an epidemic of ecstasy originating in New Orleans, is rapidly taking over the United States, making people dance, laugh, and love life. It can be the blues, jazz, ragtime, or slang and black vernacular. Jes...
(The entire section contains 1988 words.)
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Mumbo Jumbo is an experimental novel that blends fiction and history. In it, Jes Grew, an epidemic of ecstasy originating in New Orleans, is rapidly taking over the United States, making people dance, laugh, and love life. It can be the blues, jazz, ragtime, or slang and black vernacular. Jes Grew needs its Text to survive, and apparently the Text exists somewhere in Manhattan.
The novel takes place in 1920’s Harlem. PaPa LaBas’s search for the Text and the murderer of Abdul Hamid is linked to the ancient past of Egypt. Reed gives a revisionary interpretation of the rise of Western civilization, one based on an Afrocentric worldview. The conflicts in the novel revolve around a basic split in human consciousness. Osiris, the Egyptian god, created a sect of life-affirming principles that resulted in Jes Grew. Set, his brother, instigated an antilife sect determined to destroy the world—the Atonists. Osiris’s dances of fertility are recorded in The Book of Thoth, the original Text of Jes Grew. The lost Text was discovered in 1118 by the Knights Templar, a secret Christian society formed during the Crusades. Hinckle Von Vampton, an original member of the Knights Templar, steals the Text. In 1307, Pope Clement outlaws the Knights Templar, and Von Vampton escapes with the Text. Wherever Von Vampton goes with the Text, there are spontaneous outbreaks of Jes Grew as people sense the nearness of the sacred book.
The latest outbreak of Jes Grew occurs during the 1920’s in Harlem. This is the period of the Harlem Renaissance, a great flowering of African American arts and culture. The action of the novel is played out against historical events such as the U.S. Marine invasion and occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) and the politics of Warren Harding.
Von Vampton is an editor of the New York Sun and disperses the Text in installments to African Americans in Harlem. He makes a deal with the Atonists that he will turn over the text if they make the Knights Templar the leading eradicators of Jes Grew. The Text ends up in Abdul Hamid’s hands. Von Vampton tries to get it back. When Abdul resists, he is killed.
PaPa LaBas discovers Abdul’s body, his hand wrapped around a clue to the whereabouts of the Text. As a metaphysical detective, LaBas is intrigued by the philosophical implications the Text has for liberating African Americans. Concerned with protecting the ancient mysteries of Haitian hoodoo, LaBas is undergoing a crisis brought about by the defection of his assistants. He also has argued with Abdul Hamid, who urged a more pragmatic and stricter approach to African American organization and behavior.
Berbelang is a former assistant of LaBas. He and his gang of art snatchers, the Mu’tafikah, kidnap Biff Musclewhite, the former police commissioner. Musclewhite escapes and kills Berbelang, but the Mu’tafikah recover important pieces of ethnic art and deliver them to Benoit Battraville’s ship. Battraville is a Haitian rebel fighting for freedom in the line of Toussaint L’Ouverture, who gained independence for Haiti.
LaBas and Black Herman arrest Von Vampton for the killing of Abdul. They also arrest Gould, another Knight Templar, who is in blackface acting as a talking black android urging African Americans to resist Jes Grew. They deliver the two for punishment to Battraville on his ship. Jes Grew begins to die out. LaBas and Black Herman dig up an ornate box, in which Abdul hid the Text, from under the Cotton Club. The Text is gone, and in a letter Abdul explains that he burned the Text because it would be a bad influence on African Americans.
In an epilogue, LaBas lectures students at a university in the 1960’s. He predicts continued conflict between the Atonists and Jes Grew, a conflict in which Jes Grew will eventually triumph.
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Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 1349
One night in 1920, the mayor of New Orleans is drinking bootlegged gin with his mistress when a messenger announces the outbreak of Jes Grew, a “psychic epidemic” causing African Americans to thrash in ecstasy and to lust for meaning in life. By the next morning, ten thousand people had contracted the disease, which is spreading rapidly across America.
PaPa LaBas, a conjure man who carries “Jes Grew in him like most other folk carry genes,” runs Jes Grew Kathedral and represents the old ways of Jes Grew, specializing in “Black astrology charts, herbs, potions, candles, talismans.” His former assistant, Berbelang, moved away from old ways and worked to expand Jes Grew to other non-Western peoples such as Native Americans, Asians, and Muslims, as well as to more people of African descent. Berbelang leads the Mu’tahfikah, a radical group of Jes Grew Carriers who loot Centers of Art Detention (museums) to return treasures to their native lands in Africa, South America, and Asia.
Attempting to halt Jes Grew, the Wallflower Order of the Atonist Path (Western culture) forms a two-step plan. Its first step is to install Warren Harding as anti-Jes Grew president of the United States; their next step is to implant a Talking Android within Jes Grew to sabotage the movement. Atonist Biff Musclewhite gives up his job as police commissioner and becomes a consultant to the Metropolitan Police to qualify for a higher paying job as Curator for Art Detention.
One day, LaBas is in court facing charges that he allowed his “Newfoundland HooDoo dog 3 Cents” to defecate on the altar at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Manhattan Atonists use charges like this, fire inspections, tax audits, censorship of writings, and other means to deter LaBas and Jes Grew.
Atonist Hinckle Von Vampton works in the copy room of the New York Sun, a Wallflower Order newspaper. One night, his landlady sees him performing secret rituals. At work, when he forgets to keep a headline in present tense, his boss thinks he is “losing his grip.” Later, Von Vampton is fired for printing the headline “Voo Doo Generals Surround Marines at Port-au-Prince,” violating the paper’s policy against mentioning U.S. military action in Haiti. Their reason is that “Americans will not tolerate wars that can’t be explained in simple terms of economics or the White man’s destiny.” Von Vampton is later seized at gunpoint and taken to Wallflower Order headquarters, which is buzzing with activity monitoring the Jes Grew epidemic.
The person in charge of the headquarters, Hierophant 1, explains to Von Vampton that the Wallflower Order needs The Text, the sacred Jes Grew writings. Von Vampton had divided The Text into fourteen parts and sent it to fourteen individual Jes Grew Carriers in Harlem. Only Von Vampton had the power to reassemble The Text, so the Wallflower Order agrees to let him control the project. First, he must burn The Text. Second, he must create the Talking Android that would infiltrate and undercut the Jes Grew movement. Von Vampton recruits Hubert “Safecracker” Gould to help run The Benign Monster, the magazine he will use to carry out the project.
Woodrow Wilson Jefferson, a young man who left rural Mississippi to begin a journalism career in New York City, is laughed out of the New York Tribune because of his ragged, rural appearance and because he wants to meet Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Later, Jefferson sees a sign outside the offices of The Benign Monster, stating, “Negro viewpoint wanted.” Von Vampton hires Jefferson and gives him an office in his estate, Spiraling Agony. Jefferson is like putty waiting to be formed and would have made a perfect Talking Android, except Von Vampton thinks his skin is too dark. The Talking Android has to be black, but Von Vampton believes people will not accept anyone too dark.
Von Vampton learns that Abdul Hamid has acquired and is trying to publish The Text. Von Vampton, Gould, and Jefferson go to Abdul’s office and offer to buy it, but Abdul refuses to sell. When Gould pulls out a gun and demands to see the safe, Abdul resists, so Von Vampton stabs him in the back. Gould opens the safe but finds it empty. The Sun headline distorts the incident by suggesting that Mu’tahfikah is responsible for Abdul’s death.
Charlotte, a young French translator at the Kathedral, quits her job to perform Neo HooDoo dances at the Plantation House cabaret, despite LaBas’s warning against using The Work for profit. She also entertains customers outside the club.
The Mu’tahfikah—Berbelang, Yellow Jack, Thor Wintergreen, and José Fuentes (whom La Bas had met during an art history class in college)—plan to recover some cultural artifacts. Biff Musclewhite is in Charlotte’s apartment when the Mu’tahfikah kidnaps him to gain access to the Center for Art Detention. As ransom, they demand the return of the Olmec Head, a Central American sculpture.
Left to guard the hostage, Thor Wintergreen is tricked into helping Musclewhite and the police ambush Berbelang, who is shot and killed. Musclewhite convinces Wintergreen that the Mu’tahfikah members not only are taking back their culture but also getting ready to take over the country. Once free, Musclewhite makes an appointment to see Charlotte, but before he arrives, she sees the headline announcing Berbelang’s death. When she accuses Musclewhite of having something to do with the incident, he strangles her.
Making his last run of the night, a trolley operator is seduced by LaBas’s assistant Earline, who had picked up a loa, the sensuous spirit of the Voodoo goddess Erzulie. When PaPa LaBas leaves to tell Earline of Berbelang’s death, she faints and LaBas calls Black Herman to exorcise the loa.
The next morning, Black Herman takes LaBas to see Haitian Benoit Battraville aboard the freighter The Black Plume in the harbor. Battraville explains the Atonist role in Haiti and reveals the Wallflower Order plot to install a Talking Android. LaBas and Black Herman volunteer to track the Talking Android.
Meanwhile, Von Vampton is still looking for someone to become the Talking Android when he sees an advertisement for skin bleaching cream. He is applying the cream to Jefferson’s face when the young man’s father rushes in and then takes his son back home to Mississippi. The skin-lightening plot failed. Instead, Von Vampton settles on an opposite plan when Gould accidentally falls facedown into black mud. Gould becomes the Talking Android.
Concerned about President Harding’s political blunderings and alleged black ancestry, the Wallflower Order decides to do away with him by sending him on a train trip to California and slowly poisoning him along the way. Harding dies in San Francisco. The order also takes defensive moves to combat the spread of Jes Grew. The federal government seizes control of the arts and decentralizes art objects away from the Centers for Art Detention to protect them from the Mu’tahfikah.
At a gathering north of New York City, the Talking Android is reading his epic poem “Harlem Tom Toms” when LaBas and Black Herman break in and expose Gould as a fake. Asked to defend their charges, LaBas gives an extended history of the mythology behind Jes Grew, dating back thousands of years to ancient Egypt. Having brought Jes Grew history up to the present, LaBas explains how he solved the mystery and located the box that should have held Abdul’s copy of The Text underneath the floor of the Cotton Club where Abdul had hidden it. A seal on the box reminds LaBas of Von Vampton’s pendant, connecting the Atonist to the mystery. Then Buddy Jackson, operator of several Harlem speakeasies, steps forward and announces that he had given The Text to Abdul. PaPa LaBas and Black Herman seize Von Vampton and Gould and turn them over to Benoit Battraville.
Jes Grew dies down, but PaPa LaBas continues telling its history, giving yearly university lectures. The novel ends with a philosophical discussion of the psychic power of blackness in the American imagination.
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Symposium: Selmer Bringsjord & John Licato, New-Millennium Logic, Computing, & the Mind
1 Historical Context
Aristotle inaugurated formal deductive logic before, and for exploration in, the first millennium.1 The Organon provided principally two things: an initial (and painfully inadequate2) stab at formalizing the stunningly seminal reasoning of Euclid, and another at formalizing the capacity for humans to acquire and reason deductively over inferentially interconnected declarative knowledge and belief.
The first of these two achievements eventuated, near the end of the second millennium, in perhaps modern mathematical logic’s greatest triumph: a formalization of not only Euclid’s reasoning, but the reasoning of mathematicians through the ages. In addition, since this formalization allowed the Entscheidungsproblem to be rigorously posed, and settled, general-purpose computation at the level of standard Turing machines (and their equivalents) arrived on the scene; soon these purely abstract machines were physicalized. These remarkable developments eclipsed the invention, progress in, and great promise of inductive logic, in the second millennium.3
The second trajectory established by Aristotle eventuated, also near the end of the second millennium, in the modern, classical conception of AI: viz., AI as the attempt to engineer artificial intelligence by building a machine able to itself use logic at the human level.4 Such machines were often, and sometimes still are, called “knowledge-based” systems.
In addition, traditionally, formal logic and logicist disciplines such as decision theory have been devoted to confronting, and at least attempting to resolve, paradoxes. Aristotle, in this regard, was active. He for instance took on Zeno’s paradox of the arrow. His proposed solution, while seminal, was ultimately inadequate — but when Leibniz and Newton invented the differential and integral calculus in the second millennium, the paradox of the arrow was put to rest. It’s reasonable to say the same sanguine thing about other deductive paradoxes, for example The Liar. Yet many paradoxes remain unsolved to this day; particularly challenging ones produce their counter-intuitive results on the strength not just of deduction, but of induction as well, and they often involve propositional attitudes like knowledge and belief.
We are now firmly into the third millennium. Today, AI isn’t just an interesting thread within the march forward of science and engineering; no, AI seems to dominate the headlines. But there are some noteworthy twists: One, robots, only creatures of fiction for the vast majority of the second millennium, are here, and fast becoming ubiquitous. Two, that part of logic-less AI based in statistical learning is all the rage: “deep learning,” if media reports of today were to be trusted, will be bringing us computing machines of superhuman intelligence in just a few short years.
2 On-Theme Papers & Attendees
Within the historical context set out above, and specifically under the themes brought out in its articulation, our symposium is composed of a 15-minute overview by Bringsjord, and then the following four papers. The enumeration of the quartet that follows includes authors in each case, with bolded text for an author’s name indicating that the researcher in question is already committed to coming to Ferrara.
“Formalizing Confidence Propagation in Analogico-Inductive Reasoning”; John Licato, Maxwell Fowler (Indiana University/Purdue University Fort Wayne) et al.
In the third millennium, inductive logic will be revived into all of the glory that its advent in the second one quietly indicated. Along with the probabilistic and statistical machinery so popular now in AI, inductive logic is driven by an insistence that cogent argumentation is crucial. This means movement beyond deductive proof to analogical, inductive, and abductive argumentation, and use of not only probability theory, but other formal frameworks for uncertainty (e.g., confidence levels/strength factors). At the same time, these innovations will be applied not just to the extensional realm of classical mathematics, but the realm of human mentation. The paper from Licato and Fowler constitutes a detailed case in point.
“Normative Conflicts and Moral Robots: Challenges and Prospects”; Paul Bello (Naval Research Laboratory) & Matthias Scheutz (Tufts University)
Contradictions had for Euclid great utility, and their role in his work has been sustained to this day in many parts of the formal sciences. For example, his justly famous reductio proof that there are infinitely many primes still routinely serves as an exemplar for secondary-level students of mathematics across the globe. But logic in the third millennium will increasingly explore, for domains other than classical mathematics, more flexible kinds of “conflict” — such as the kinds that arise when norms, including ethical ones, conflict. Bello and Scheutz provide their own case in point, showing that third-millennium deontic logics can handle such conflict, and do so in connection not merely with intelligent software, but real-world robots.
“Toward a Logic-Based, AI-Powered Interrogation System”; Will Bridewell, Paul Bello (Naval Research Laboratory), Rikhiya Ghosh (RPI) et al.
Aristotle, as mentioned, laid a foundation for a focus on the logic of knowledge and belief, and AI as the second millennium ended, buoyed by advances in philosophical logic, began to build artifacts that not only (at least in some formal sense) know, believe, desire, and intend (so-called “BDI” systems). But today, logic for AI and cognitive robotics is pressing ahead with implemented formalizations of extremely nuanced concepts in the realm of human psychology and communication. Could an AI system, armed with computational logic able to model such phenomena as mendacity, paltering, and bullshitting, detect instances of such concepts in human interrogatees, and prove that such detection is correct? Bridewell et al. establish the affirmative response to this query.
“Solving the Lottery Paradox in a Cognitive Calculus”; Kevin O’Neill, Peter Kassimis (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) et al.
The Lottery Paradox (LP) involves not just deductive reasoning, but inductive reasoning as well. A pioneer in the intersection of computing and philosophy, the late John Pollock, proposed a solution, using his Oscar system. Unfortunately, Oscar fell into desuetude. It has now been resurrected, and, courtesy of more expressive metalogical machinery than what Pollock originally devised, Pollock’s intractable approach paves the way to a tractable one. In addition, a second, Bringsjordian solution to LP, via a so-called “cognitive calculus” that is a third-millennium successor to BDI logics, is provided by O’Neill et al.
1. There were some antecedents, yes, but for present purposes they can be blamelessly left aside.
2. Courtesy of the theory of the syllogism, the fixed, limited quantification of which Euclid had greatly exceeded.
3. A robust treatment would cite Pascal, Boole, Kolmogorov, and that indefatigable inductive logician, Carnap.
4. We thus have Herbert Simon’s LOGIC THEORIST, which stole the show at the original 1956 Dartmouth Conference that marked the inception of the field of AI, by revealing to the world that some of the theorems in Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica could be machine-proved. |
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BlogClinical Teaching
What Nurses Can Learn from an ED Physician to Be Better Prepared for Practice
By June 8, 2017February 1st, 2019No Comments
As a nurse who works in the emergency department, I have seen it all.
People at their worst and sometimes at their best.
To provide compassionate care in this challenging setting, it takes two, the nurse and the emergency department care provider.
I have been blessed to work with an exceptional and experienced ED physician by the name of David Peterson. He is compassionate but also practical.
Those who work in stressful settings such as emergency care, are known to develop a dry sense of humor to keep ones sanity when everything seems to be falling apart.
Dr. David Peterson has written a book The Peterson Laws that contain 71 practice based principles gleaned from over 25 years of clinical practice.
Though written from a physician’s lens of practice, it can also provide insights that can help prepare nurses with insights from real-world clinical practice.
Law #71:Is your medical patient also a “psych” patient?
Dr. Dave has laws titled, “You can’t teach common sense”, “Never try to pacify someone at the height of his or her rage”, and “All bleeding eventually stops”.
Today, I want to share and highlight law #71. It is titled how to determine if your patient is a psychiatric patient.
From a nursing perspective, I would filter this law with the importance of “avoiding assumptions” or making judgments about a patient.
Consider the following insights as “red flags” that need to be considered as you gather additional assessment data to cluster and make a clinical judgment.
He writes:
I have noticed the connection between multiple allergies and psychiatric conditions right away as a resident, and then started to make a conscious note each time I encountered this. Knowing that a person may be a psychiatric patient can give you insight into the pathology of their current complaint.
Sometimes psychiatric patients have somatization, which is a physical symptom due to a psychological condition.
There are other more subtle conditions that can affect the evaluation of your patient. Narcissism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and general hypochondria can impact how you examine and diagnose a patient.
Narcissism also plays a role in patient behaviors as well. All people want to be “special”. Some just go out of their way to show it.
Clinical Red Flags
To determine if your patient who is not on a mental health unit may have a mental illness, psychological condition, or is “special” if any of the following are present you may want to consider this possibility.
1. Three or more allergies in different drug classes
An allergy must not just be a side effect that makes you vomit. Some people say, “I’m allergic to all antibiotics” which of course makes no sense.
Antibiotics have wildly different chemical structures and God is not mean enough to make someone allergic to all of these wonder drugs.
A patient who has an extensive list of allergies to drugs, consider this a clinical red flag that they either have side effects which are NOT allergies, or may be a psychiatric patient.
2. Allergic to any psychiatric medication
This should be self-explanatory I hope. If you are allergic to a psychiatric medication, you have some form of mental illness if that is the reason you received the medication.
3. Allergic to non-allergenic meds such as cortisone, diphenhydramine and other antihistamines
This really puts you into the “special” category when you can’t take a medication that treats allergic reactions because you’re allergic to it.
Furthermore how can you be allergic to cortisone? It’s something your own adrenal glands create in your body and you can’t live without it.
4. Three or more unrelated chief complaints
Your body just doesn’t create three separate emergencies at the same time. Nobody has that much bad luck. Therefore having three completely unrelated chief complaints, not secondary complaints but chief complaints indicate that the mind may be at work manufacturing symptoms.
A person having a heart attack can have chest pain, nausea, and sweating. Although seemingly unrelated, they are part of a symptom complex, so they count as one.
A good example of this principle would be a patient saying, “I am depressed and suicidal. I also have new sharp lower back pain, and I also have a nail in my leg from a nail gun.”
5. Anyone who says, that’s a fever for me
When I tell the patient that their temperature is normal at 98.5 degrees, but they came in for a fever and the patient says, “No I usually run 97°, that’s a fever for me!”
It is possible that humans vary slightly in their core temperature. But not over a degree and a half! What species are you then?
Mammals have similar cell structures and their innards work at 98.6°. Did your mom Mary a reptile? I’m sorry, but no you aren’t special, your current temperature of 98.5 is normal. Even for you.
No you do not need an antibiotic. Good luck convincing them of this. You can’t. If you could, they wouldn’t be special anymore. And they need to be special.
In Closing
The perspectives of Dr. Dave are gleaned from the crucible of decades of clinical practice.
They are in no way meant to be prejudicial, but observations based on patterns that he has observed in this challenging setting.
Though you may not agree with everything he writes, consider and do not quickly discount these reflections.
If you are in need of tongue-in-cheek humor as well as pearls to strengthen your practice, The Peterson Laws can help any health care worker be better prepared for real-world clinical practice!.
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Get Students Practice Ready!
THINK Like a Nurse: Practical Preparation for Professional Practice was written to provide practical strategies to get students ready for professional practice by emphasizing clinical reasoning and mastery of essential content.
Programs across the country have successfully adopted and student learning has been strengthened.
Contact Keith to see how to obtain a faculty eBook preview copy so you can see for yourself why leading nurse educators including Patricia Benner have endorsed it!
How to think like a nurse using clinical reasoning step-by-step!
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COVID-19 has killed many young Black men with deadly efficiency. When ProPublica reporters began collecting their stories and speaking to health experts to understand why, their efforts led them to a little-known body of research that takes its name from one of the most enduring symbols of Black American resilience.
Sherman James is a social epidemiologist who has spent the past four decades exploring why Black men have higher rates of diseases that lead to shorter lifespans than all other Americans.
His conclusion is that the constant stress of striving to succeed in the face of social inequality and structural racism can cause lasting physical damage.
“The stress is enormous. And people, people don’t give up,” James said.
“That persistence, working twice as hard, over time can really impair multiple physiological systems.”
Who Was John Henry?
As the legend goes, John Henry was a steel-driving man who defeated a steam-powered drill and died with a hammer in his hand. The folktale celebrates one man's victory against seemingly insurmountable odds. But it holds another, harsher truth: his determination and strength are also what killed him.
The John Henry of contemporary social theory is a man striving to get ahead in an unequal society. The effort of confronting that machine, day in and day out, leads to stress so corrosive that it physically changes bodies, causing Black men to age quicker, become sicker and die younger than nearly any other U.S. demographic group.
What Is John Henryism?
The stress-linked underlying conditions that Black people develop younger are the very ones that make people more vulnerable to the worst outcomes from the coronavirus. When the Brookings Institution examined COVID-19 deaths by race, Black people were dying at roughly the same rate as white people more than a decade older.
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Extracting fossil fuels, like coal, tar sands, and fracked gas releases greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide that are quickly warming the planet.
For decades, climate change has been a global crisis that will impact every single person and living being on this planet. Now, according to the latest UN climate report, we have less than 10 years to cut global emissions in half.
Burning fossil fuels isn’t just bad for the climate, these industries also violate countless fundamental human rights. From frontline communities facing a fossil fuel pipeline on their land to Indigenous people facing fires in the Amazon to worker rights violations on palm oil plantations, the industries fueling climate change are also fueling injustice.
Coal, tar sands, and fracked gas show everything that’s wrong within the fossil fuel industry. These extraction practices are harming people and planet every day, and big banks are fueling this destruction of the planet and negligence of life.
So what’s so bad about coal, tar sands, and fracked gas? Basically everything, from start to the finish these fossil fuels are disastrous.
Pollution from coal-fired power plants kills communities and cooks our climate.
The biggest coal companies in the U.S. have gone bankrupt in the past few years because coal is so clearly a bad investment for people and the planet.
Communities across the nation are already seeing and feeling the impacts of climate change, driven by carbon pollution, from increased health risks like asthma attacks and lung disease to devastating extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy and wildfires across the American West, and the world.
Coal companies, and the banks that finance them, have felt the immense pressure from communities that are impacted by coal plants, and public health threats, and our own campaigns and partners. The science is clear: inaction will only increase these deadly and costly threats.
In the United States, coal mining also involves a process called mountaintop removal (MTR). MTR destroys some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the U.S. The first step in blowing the top off a mountain is clear-cutting the forest off the top of it—some of the most diverse forests in the United States.
MTR debris is very toxic. The rubble that’s left after the coal gets picked out of it is full of mercury and heavy metals—and all of it gets pushed into the valleys and streams next to the blown-up mountain. And there is no coincidence to what communities feel the most impact of coal mines and the pollution they bring. People who endure the detrimental health impacts are primarily Black and Brown folks and poor, working class communities.
Coal mines are also an extremely dangerous place for workers. Countless, senseless, tragedies have occurred at coal mines, due to coal outbursts and fires, resulting in many lives lost. These disasters expose the horrific cost of “cheap” and dirty energy. Miners’ deaths such as these are preventable. And then there are the long-term impacts. Every year, more than one million people die of air pollution that comes from burning coal. 150,000 more die from extreme weather events aggravated by climate change–and coal is the single biggest driver of climate change.
We must not continue to make these sacrifices in order to produce energy from such a dirty and unsustainable source. Coal is a dangerous and outdated fuel, and in the 21st century, we should not be using it to power our homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses. It is past time for us to shift our energy production to clean, safe renewable power. While coal is being phased out in the US, around the world it is still a huge piece of the fossil fuel industry that needs to end.
Tar sands oil is the worst type of oil for the climate.
Tar sands consist of heavy crude oil mixed with sand, clay, and bitumen. The extraction of tar sands includes burning natural gas to generate enough heat and steam to melt the oil out of the sand. As many as five barrels of water are needed to produce a single barrel of oil.
Tar sands oil is the worst type of oil for the climate, producing three times the greenhouse gas emissions of conventionally produced oil because of the energy needed to extract and process tar sands oil.
Across the United States, oil refineries are trying to get permits to expand their business to process heavy crude oil from the tar sands. Processing tar sands oil will mean more asthma and respiratory diseases, more cancer, and more cardiovascular problems. Many local communities are fighting these expansions every day.
Indigenous people, and First Nation coalitions, are leading the fight against tar sands projects on their land that banks and companies are trying to steal for profit. We must break our addiction to oil and fossil fuels. Big banks need to stop investing in dirty fossil fuels and start funding the future.
Fracked gas isn’t a safe choice.
“Natural Gas” (aka gas) has had an upswing in the last few years in the United States with fracking wells popping up across the country.
Despite the name “natural” gas is one of the most destructive types of fossil fuel. While it has a half life, methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years. This means, if we want to fight climate change fast, we absolutely must keep gas in the ground.
What makes matters worse? The main way gas is extracted, fracking, poisons water, releases radioactive isotopes, and harms communities that live near the wells.
Also, the handful of ways you can transport gas are equally as destructive as burning the fuel. In order to pass gas through pipelines it must be liquified. Liquified natural gas (LNG) has an enormous impact on local communities, ecosystems and the climate.
LNG is piped to the coast, supercooled, and compressed into a liquid. Due to over-extraction from fracking, the U.S. faces an oversupply of natural gas. In search of new ways to use and profit off of this oversupply, fossil fuel corporations are now looking overseas. Enter the LNG export terminal, otherwise known as the “fracked-gas terminal.”
Companies are racing to build dozens of LNG export facilities across North America. Each of these facilities connects to a maze of pipelines that are fed from the fracking sites. LNG terminals span hundreds of acres and have ships, three football fields long, to carry the greenhouse-gas-intensive fuel to be burned in other countries.
There are 30 of these LNG facilities proposed or existing in the United States, with 77% along the Gulf Coast.
Exporting LNG is disastrous for the climate. In fact, three terminals, proposed in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, would do the same annual damage to the climate as approximately 61 coal plants. And any inevitable leaking along the way releases methane, a super-potent greenhouse gas.
Just like coal and tar sands, banks that provide loans to construct these projects, or other financial support for companies building fracked-gas terminals, share responsibility for the impacts.
We demand banks defund climate change, and that means ditching coal, tar sands, and fracked gas for a just transition to renewable energy, for people and the planet. |
Fleas can quickly over run a home within days, and the signs are typically obvious when an infestation occurs. Most people have had a run in with fleas, often a single flea that takes a bite. It’s extremely easy for just a few fleas making it into your home to turn into an infestation. If you have pets, the chances are good that it will happen to you (or already has).
Humans have the potential to suffer allergic reactions from the bites and become a buffet in the night, and the pets you have become the perfect appetizer around the clock for this blood-sucking insect.
Size & Appearance
Fleas are fairly common and exist within a variety of 5 species (Hen, Human, Dog, Cat and Rat). The most common type encountered are the dog and the cat flea, which are strikingly similar tiny insects measuring approximately 1/6 of an inch in length. Cat fleas are laterally flattened which is why people have such a difficult time trying to squish them. Their color is typically a reddish brown. For the most part they have no real visual acuity and have very short antennae. The lengths of their bodies are covered with bristles that help them cling to you when they land. While they have no wings, they can jump great distances (across an entire room of a common home) with their powerful legs.
A female flea can lay over 18 eggs a day, unfortunately there’s rarely just one female flea. Most household animals or humans traveling through a flea infested area outside could bring in up to a dozen (or more). 20 fleas on your pet can produce up to 360 eggs in a single day – over 2000 in the span of a weak. It doesn’t take long for your home to be overrun, and you’ll certainly notice.
While the fleas will gather in the area where the host (your dog or cat) spends their sleep time, they will spread throughout the home. Telltale signs will be noticeable on tables and flat surfaces where the fleas leave their excrement – very tiny black pellets. Fleas are an ectoparasite, meaning they feed on blood from the surface of the host. Once a home is infested, the host quickly goes from 1 animal or person to just about everyone in the home. They have no bias or preference toward anyone in particular. Blood is blood.
While they tend to exist in more rural areas, they can be introduced to a back yard setting by wild animals such as raccoons that travel through your property. From there, your pets or your family can easily track them in.
Control Methods
In order to detect potential pest issue early, we recommend you have regular inspection at your premises. All of our services are tailored to suit the need of your individual business.
• Residual and ULV Mist
A sprayer with a multiple spray nozzles can apply insecticides safely and accurately to the insect harborages& ULV Mist Deliver insecticides in droplets that are smaller than aerosol ULV droplets remain in the air for several minutes before settling on surfaces or directly on the pest. This method is effective in controlling insects that remain in narrow crevices because the droplets can be carried to the sites with air currents.
• Sanitation
Vacum regularly or wash pet bedding weekly will maintain a hygienic living environment as it is important to reduce or prevent Fleas infestation, make sure that pets are always clean & healthy conditions. Keep them away from hanging out with stray cats or dogs. Apart from that, frequent vacuuming will also help to remove fleas and their eggs.
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HTML Text Formatting Elements
HTML contains a number of tags with special meaning that you can use to display content that appears differently from the normal text on your web pages.
It is also used for logical text-formatting elements , text formatting tags and exercises, text formatting style and example, and text formatting in html code.
HTML <b> and <strong> elements
The HTML belement displays the text in bold, without any extra importance such as a keyword or a place name.
It is used only to attract the user's attention without giving any special meaning to the text.
I am from <b>paris</b>
I am from paris.
The HTML strong tag used to defines highly important content in a document.
Typically, the contents within the strong tag are displayed in bold.
<strong>This text is important!</strong>
<p>This liquid is <strong>highly toxic</strong>.</p>
<p>I am counting on you. <strong>Do not</strong> be late!</p>
This text is important!
This liquid is highly toxic.
I am counting on you. Do not be late!
It is also used for difference between b and strong elements, html em strong b, html email b or strong, bold text and bold style ,underline, heading, strong meaning and strong underline, and strong deprecated.
HTML <i> and <em> elements
The HTML i element displays a part of the text in italic format.
Softwares like screen reader read the text in different tone of voice.
The i tag is often used to indicate a technical keyword, a phrase, a quote, the name of an object, etc.
<i>This text is italic</i>
This text is italic
The HTML em tag indicates the more stressed emphasis on its contents in comparison with the text around it..
A screen reader will pronounce the words/text in em tag with an emphasis.
<em>This text is emphasized</em>
<p>I am <em>glad</em> you weren't <em>late</em>.</p>
This text is emphasized
I am glad you weren't late.
It is also used for i vs em, i tag onclick and i tag name, image, disabled, html italic text and italic style, header, italic in paragraph, em size and meaning, dash code, space, emphasized text in html.
HTML <small> elements
The HTML small element defines content which is not the important of the page and it display in smaller font size by browser.
For example, copyright statement, licensing information, disclaimer, side comments, or restrictions and so on.
<small>This is some smaller text.</small>
This is some smaller text.
It is also used for text, small tag syntax and font size, small tag deprecated and alternative , and small code.
HTML <mark> Element
The HTML mark element specifies text that should be highlighted due to its importance in another context.
<p>Do not forget to buy <mark>milk</mark> today.</p>
Do not forget to buy milk today.
It is also used for html question mark element, mark tag with different color, mark tag not working in outlook, html mark code, html mark input as invalid.
HTML <del> Element
The HTML del (deleted text) tag represents text that has been removed from a page.
Browsers will draw a line on the text.
<p>My favorite color is <del>Green</del>dark blue.</p>
My favorite color is Green dark blue.
It is also used for del tag color, del element, del ins, del vs ins, del style and dlt class, href, button, symbol, code, delete button in table, delete row from table, delete confirmation.
HTML <ins> Element
The HTML ins (inserted text) tag represents newly added text in a document.
Browsers will draw a underline on the inserted text.
<p>My favorite color is <del>yellow</del> <ins>rose</ins>.</p>
My favorite color is yellow rose.
It is also used for insert background image and insert table, space, line, button, text box, insert variable into text, ins vs u, ins underline, ins tag cite.
HTML <sub> Element
The HTML sub element defines subscript text in a smaller font.
It appears under the normal line half a character.
Chemical formulas like H2O can be written in subscript text.
<p>This is H<sub>2</sub>O</p>
This is H2O
It is also used for sub element by id, html sub tag list, sub tag not working, sub heading tag, and sub code.
HTML <sup> Element
The HTML sup tag defines superscript text (appears above normal line half a character) in a smaller font.
It can be used for chemical formulas, footnotes, mathematical equations, and so on.
<p>My parents wedding day is on the 12<sup>th</sup> of June 2005.</p>
My parents wedding day is on the 12th of June 2005.
It is also used for sup tag not working and sup tag line height, means, style, uses, what are sup tag, and what does the sup tag do in html. |
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Helen Adams Keller was an American writer and social activist; an illness (possibly scarlet fever or meningitis) at the age of 19 months left her deaf and blind. No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right. It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in search for knowledge. Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, - if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. Helen Keller was left blind and deaf by a terrible disease at the age of 19 months, trapped in a shell of incomprehensibility. With the help of Annie Sullivan, she was able to overcome these handicaps and educate herself. Shortly after her autobiography, My Story, appeared in 1900, this book on Optimism was also published. |
Smoking can have a negative impact on more than just your health. It can affect many other areas of your life. Making the switch from smoking to vaping can eliminate smoking’s negative effects while giving your overall life a boost. Here’s how.
Helps Your Health
A Public Health England report determined vaping was about 95 percent healthier than smoking, an estimated the group has continued to uphold over the past several years.
The greatest danger from smoking comes from combustion. Lighting a cigarette produces smoke packed with more than 4,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic to you as well as the environment. Vaping involves the use of an electronic device to heat e-liquid to produce a vapor, with no combustion involved.
The only chemicals in vaping are those found in your e-juice. While most e-liquids contain propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin to make up the base of the liquid, you can keep other chemicals at a minimum by avoiding artificial flavors. Opt for a naturally flavored e-liquid, such as Black Note, which is flavored with real tobacco extract.
Enhances Your Social Life
Smokers often find themselves facing rejection due to social attitudes. Not only is smoking banned from many areas, but the habit tends to bring on foul breath, stinky clothing, stained teeth and yellow nails. Some even view smoking as a deal breaker when it comes to dating.
Making the switch to vaping automatically eliminates the heavy stench, both literally and figuratively. Vaping produces little to no odor, doesn’t leave you with bad breath or foul clothing, and is gaining ground on the social acceptance scale. Even if you still need to head to the smoking section to vape, you are unlikely to be viewed with as much disdain as the smokers surrounding you.
Shows You Care about the Environment
Living a good life means living in a healthy environment, and cigarette butts are the most common form of litter across the world. Millions of pounds of them are discarded across the environment every year. Not only do they release toxic chemicals into the surrounding landscape, but they can take up to 10 years to fully degrade.
Vaping comes with minimal waste, with rechargeable batteries and refillable e-liquid chambers.
The only component that requires regular changing is the heating element, which typically consists of a small atomizer that can be neatly discarded in the trash.
Saves You Money
Cigarette prices can soar as high as $14 per pack, with the average price per pack in the U.S. around $6. Smoke a pack per day, and you’re easily spending upwards of $2,000 on your cigarette habit every year. Vaping can cut that cost by 50 percent or more, even with the initial startup cost of purchasing a vaping device.
Improving your health, social life, environment and finances are just four ways vaping can enhance your life. Give vaping a try and you may quickly discover many other ways it beats out smoking every time.
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Retail loans and good debt
A retail loan is given to an individual by a commercial bank, a credit union, or a financial institution to purchase assets like property, vehicles, consumer electronics, etc.
Banks offer retail loans to consumers to meet their personal needs
Generally, a bank or a financial institution lends to customers with a high enough credit score in order to ensure they repay the money and do not default. Customers pay interest on a monthly or annual basis, for the entire term of the loan based on a pre-agreed rate.
So why do people opt for Retail Loans? A simple reason is that that many would want to make a purchase sooner, but might not have the full amount until much later. A typical example is the purchase of a house. Real estate is expensive, and it is unlikely that an average worker will have the entire amount required for a purchase in full. It may take years until he can gather the amount needed to buy a house. So, the bank lends him the money and the consumer agrees to pay the money back bit by bit over the course of several years.
It should be clear how this benefits a home buyer. He did not have to pay the full amount now but gets to live in a house of his own.
If not for the loan, it would’ve taken years for him to make the purchase, all the while wasting money in rent. The major benefit here is that a customer can enjoy a certain asset long before he can actually afford it.
Some of you may be thinking about interest payments. Sure, borrowing money costs extra, so then, why should one do so. There are two main factors that prove borrowing to be a logical option:
1. All the money that would’ve been wasted in rent and perhaps even moving every year would not be wasted, and instead would build up equity as the homeowner continues to make his payments.
2. The prices of real estate are known to gain as years pass, so waiting too long to make a purchase may actually cost way more than what one may pay in interest.
Retail loans are not limited to real estate purchases
Banks and consumer finance companies also finance customers to buy electronics like laptops, refrigerators, HD TVs and home theatre systems, washing machines, etc. The concept remains the same: the consumer pays a part of the total cost of the electronic item as down payment and borrows the rest. The borrowed amount is paid back through Equated Monthly Installments (EMI).
Affordability is not usually the issue here. The consumer may be able to afford to pay the full amount, but through retail lending, he can purchase several appliances at once.
Another popular area where retail lending comes into play is automobile purchases. A consumer can immediately drive out in his car, instead of otherwise waiting for seven to 10 years until he can gather the full amount to make a purchase. Retail Loans, hence, are an exceptionally valuable tool available to an average consumer to make use of, saving time, and offering them convenience.
The Retail Loan industry not only benefits consumers, but also provides employment to a huge number of people in the banking sector. Moreover, it makes earning interest on one’s savings possible. A person saving money in his or her bank account is paid interest by the bank. The bank, in turn, can give this interest from what it earns by giving out loans. It is the lending activities, as described above, that generate the interest revenue for the bank.
There is always a difference between the rate of interest a bank pays to its depositors, and the rate it charges from borrowers. The difference is earnings for the bank.
Do the benefits of retail loans go beyond the savers, the consumers, and bankers? Sure they do. More purchases keep the overall economy healthy. More and more people are employed in banking and other industries as the demand increases.
There is, however, should be an element of caution when employing tools such as retail loans in an economy. As the saying goes, “cut your dress according to your cloth”. Over-extending oneself and not borrowing responsibly can lead to huge, unmanageable debts that can cause more harm than good, even bankruptcies.
Banks must also be cautious of their lending practices, lending to only those who can repay it in time, and in full.
If used sensibly and cautiously, retail loans can have huge positive impacts on the economy, as we have discussed earlier. However, if abused, they can harm the economy thrust it into recession.
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Killer ants
Killer ants is a term to describe any of several species of ants that are predatory, attack en masse when their mounds are disturbed, and can kill animals many times their size, even deer if they are immobilized. They have been called the fiercest predators on Earth. Predator ants kill more individuals than all the big predators combined.
The most commonly cited example of killer ants are the Red Imported Fire Ants (RIFA, IFA, Solenopsis invicta).
Other kinds of killer ants include:
Name Range Comments
The first two entries are Velvet ants (all ants are related to wasps, but Velvet ants really are wasps, Mutillidae) Reference
Velvet Ants: Cow killers (Dasymutilla occidentalis) Eastern USA A fanciful name; they cannot kill animals as large as cows.
Velvet Ants: Red velvet ants (Dasymusilla magnifica) Western USA
Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) Argentina, Southern Europe, Southern USA, California Very small, attack mostly other ants. The main supercolony (Italy, Atlantic coast of Spain) is said to be the largest cooperating ant population in the World.
Pharaoh ants (Monomorium pharaonis) Worldwide In February 2000, an invasion of Pharaoh ants terrorized office workers in Berlin, Germany.
Red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) Western USA Bright red myrmicine ants whose venom has the highest relative azoicity of any ants species. Images
Bulldog ants (Soldier ants, Genus Myrmecia) Australia They are said to be repelled by yellow objects. Belonging to the subfamily Myrmecinae, these are the most primitive extant ants. All but one of the three score or so species is found in Australia.
Bullet ants (Paraponera clavata) range? Bullet ants, and their close relatives of the genus Dinoponera are new world ponerines.
Honeypot ants (genus Myrmecocystus) range? (It is claimed that these are really harmless ants. An expert opinion is needed.) M. mendax is rather attractively coloured and diurnal, whereas the darker species such as M. californicus tend to be more active during the night.
Legionaires / Amazon ants (Polyergus breviceps) range? Polyergus are most interesting southern boreal obligate dulotes of the Formicinae subfamilly. Their host is, like a similar convergent species, Formica sanguinea, ants of the Formica fusca group. Although absent from the British Isles, Polyergus rufescens is present on the continent, and many observations of its behaviour were made by Forel. Like the unrelated British-found parasite to tetramorium caespitum, Strongylodus testaceus (first discovered in Britain by Horace Donisthorpe), the Legionaires display greatly adapted, strongly falcate mandibles, which they use for piercing the heads of F. fusca et. al. during raids.
Yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) range? Kill red crabs on Christmas Island, and generally destroy the ecosystem for the other 17 species of terrestrial crab found there, including the largest terrestrial invertebrate in the known world.
New World Army ants (Eciton spp.) South America, Southern Mexico See below; Reference The new world army ants have recently been separated from the Dorylinae.
Driver ants (Subfamily Dorylinae) The Old world, esp. West Africa and the Congo Basin See below.
Army and Driver ants appear to be the most dangerous of the killer ants. Driver ants can reduce a tethered cow to polished bone in several weeks. A few cases of human deaths (inebriated or infant) have been reported.
Unlike the army ants of the new world, old world army ants lack a functional sting, but this is more than compensated for by their razor-sharp, falcate mandibles. Dorylus spp. colonies also reach larger sizes than Eciton.
These images are copyrighted as indicated, and are used by permission (see Talk page for details) from the author, Bart Drees, Director, Texas Imported Fire Ant Project, Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University.
Many more images like these can be seen at their Fire Ant Web site (Home Page, Photos).
Cow killer ants
©Bart Drees
Crazy ants
©Bart Drees
Pharaoh ants
©Bart Drees
Red Harvester ants
©Bart Drees
Red Imported Fire Ants
©Bart Drees
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What is Prioritization?
Definition of Prioritization
Prioritization in regard to Product Development is where a product manager assesses a number of tasks so they can make decisions about those that should be developed and in which order. Commonly, the tasks are described as a Product Backlog. A roadmap for the development of a product might show the backlog as a variety of tasks, some of which are essential and practical, and others that are more luxurious and aspirational. The tasks must be assessed and ranked so that their importance and developmental order can be determined. There are a variety of ways to prioritize a backlog.
Why Prioritization?
Although the initial premise for a product can be simple, it is easy for it to become complex and convoluted.
Tasks can mount up and a development plan can quickly become turgid. It is critical a Product Backlog does not become a dumping ground for any vague ideas or ambiguous thoughts relating to the product.
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Applying an effective prioritization process can add structure and organization to chaos, and facilitate astute resource allocation while adhering to the organization’s strategic vision. Schedules can be devised and deadlines set.
Some Practices for Prioritization
One strategy to address backlog prioritization is to order your tasks so that those at the top will be the ones employed in the development team’s next sprint. The sprint automatically enables timelines to be set to the tasks in question since the sprint itself is timeline-driven.
Another prioritization strategy is to create a tier-based system for ideas or tasks. In initial discussions with other team members, it will always be useful to capture any concepts as a result of brainstorming sessions.
However, a tiering system will be able to determine which ideas should make it onto the Product Backlog. Through this, the backlog can remain athletic and realistic.
Make sure time has been set aside - and at regular intervals - to review the Product Backlog. Resource availability, an evolving marketplace, commercial competition, and alterations to the organization’s strategic objectives, are just some of the things that can have a profound impact on how a task is prioritized.
Equally, and perhaps in conjunction with creating the tiered system above, keep more aspirational, outlandish, notional, long-term, abstract, fanciful, or obscure ideas within a separate and secure log.
This will eliminate the urge to dump every concept in the backlog and fatten it. Furthermore, schedule time to review the log and consider those items that might be promoted for development.
Consider the use of a scoring system. A mechanism like this can help to maintain the strategic alignment of a task and thus determine its overall commercial value to the organization. Scoring tasks in the backlog in this fashion can make issues such as resource allocation easier to direct.
Further still, developing a robust framework based around the company’s commercial objectives can streamline the whole prioritization process.
This can afford the further advantage of being able to justify any decisions made to wider stakeholders and the leadership team. Aspects of product development to bear in mind when creating a scoring system are time consumption, cost, and specialist knowledge. Other factors specific to an organization’s niche should always be considered too.
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Different Types of Prioritizing
Although there are currently a number of ways to prioritize tasks in Product Management, there are always new ways emerging.
Also, any given technique can never be as important as the discussions that take place between staff and the benchmarks agreed upon in the prioritization process.
A) Value vs Complexity Quadrant
In this framework, the business assesses a task based on how complicated it will be to implement compared to its worth. This is a common tool used by product managers. Put plainly, if a task is simple to complete and high in value, its priority will be high.
B) Scoring
This technique is best utilized when considering what is strategically most important to a given business (outside of simply making money). Equally, it can also be used in concert with the value vs complexity type.
A scoring system is dynamic because the criteria for applying the scoring can be forever tweaked, which is especially useful if all the variables impacting an organization remain in flux. A scoring system also aids an objective understanding of the issues influencing the prioritization process.
C) The Kano framework
The Kano concept is based on viewing your product from the point of view of the consumer and their appreciation. Specific features of the product might give the consumer satisfaction (like performance).
Other product attributes that normally require investment may become less important as a result. In a Kano framework, the product may only have basic features with which to enter the marketplace (threshold) and exhibit only a few attributes that the consumer will have a proportionately high interest in.
D) Pricing
This is based on obtaining feedback from consumers or other stakeholders having asked them what “price” they would place on a particular aspect of the product. A finite total expenditure can be given to the stakeholder or consumer and they can then allocate a price to each aspect of the product. Simply, attributes with the highest prices get the highest priority.
E) Consumer ranking
In this prioritization technique, the idea is to obtain feedback from consumers where they are able to give a rank to each feature of the product based on their appreciation or satisfaction of it. Priorities would then be given to those features that ranked low in customer satisfaction data.
F) Brainstorming
In this method, a team pools all of their ideas. In collaboration, they would then group the ideas based on their similarities.
Once ideas are in their groups, the team would assign them names and proceed to rank the groups based on their perceived importance. By doing this, common attributes emerge and can be prioritized.
G) Story Mapping
This is a technique used more in agile-orientated Product Management and utilizes the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept. An MVP is a product that has just enough features to attract early-adoption consumers.
These stakeholders can validate the features of the product. Having this data enables the development team to focus on particular aspects of the product with the assurance that the consumer is already invested in them.
This technique in particular is useful because the product can be released to these pioneering consumers at different intervals for their feedback. This helps to keep the entire roadmap on track and generates valuable data.
General FAQ
What are Prioritization techniques?
Product teams can leverage multiple prioritization techniques. One of the most common is the Value vs Complexity Quadrant, in which features are prioritized based on their value to the user and their complexity to implement. Others include weighted scoring, the Kano model, and opportunity scoring.
How do you improve Prioritization?
You can improve prioritization by employing one of the various prioritization techniques — Kano models, opportunity scoring, etc. — and utilizing in-depth research (with both existing or target users). This eliminates guesswork and makes prioritization choices more effective.
What is a prioritization framework?
A prioritization framework helps product teams decide what steps to take next. It helps to focus their energy on the most beneficial products/features, to provide users with the most value, and to minimize wasted time. These frameworks help teams to assign tasks based on their importance — developing crucial products first.
What is roadmap Prioritization?
Roadmap prioritization is the process of determining which items should be included on a product roadmap. This typically involves scoring features based on their value and importance to the overall product, before deciding where they stand on the roadmap. The result? Teams won’t waste time and resources on low-priority items.
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ⓘ Child abduction
ⓘ Child abduction
Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor from the custody of the childs natural parents or legally appointed guardians.
The term child abduction includes two legal and social categories which differ by their perpetrating contexts: abduction by members of the childs family or abduction by strangers:
• murder
• extortion to elicit a ransom from the parents for the childs return
• Abduction or kidnapping by strangers by people unknown to the child and outside the childs family is rare. Some of the reasons why a stranger might kidnap an unknown child include
• Parental child abduction is the unauthorized custody of a child by a family relative usually one or both parents without parental agreement and contrary to family law ruling, which may have removed the child from the care, access and contact of the other parent and family side. Occurring around parental separation or divorce, such parental or familial child abduction may include parental alienation, a form of child abuse seeking to disconnect a child from targeted parent and denigrated side of family. This is, by far, the most common form of child abduction.
• illegal adoption, a stranger steals a child with the intent to rear the child as their own or to sell to a prospective adoptive parent
1. Parental child abduction
Parental child abductions may result in the child be kept within the same city, within the state or region, within the same country, or sometimes may result in the child being taken to a different country.
Most parental abductions are resolved fairly quickly. Studies performed for the U.S. Department of Justices Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reported that in 1999, 53% percent of family abducted children were gone less than one week, and 21% were gone one month or more.
Parental abduction has been characterized as child abuse, when seen from the perspective of the kidnapped child.
1.1. Parental child abduction International child abduction
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is an international human rights treaty and legal mechanism to recover children abducted to another country. The Hague Convention does not provide relief in many cases, resulting in some parents hiring private parties to recover their children. Covert recovery was first made public when Don Feeney, a former Delta Commando, responded to a desperate mothers plea to locate and recover her daughter from Jordan in the 1980s. Feeney successfully located and returned the child. A movie and book about Feeneys exploits lead to other desperate parents seeking him out for recovery services.
By 2007, both the United States, European authorities, and NGOs had begun serious interest in the use of mediation as a means by which some international child abduction cases may be resolved. The primary focus was on Hague Cases. Development of mediation in Hague cases, suitable for such an approach, had been tested and reported by REUNITE, a London Based NGO which provides support in international child abduction cases, as successful. Their reported success lead to the first international training for cross-border mediation in 2008, sponsored by NCMEC. Held at the University of Miami School of Law, Lawyers, Judges, and certified mediators interested in international child abduction cases, attended.
2. Abductions by strangers
2.1. Abductions by strangers Child abduction for ransom: United States
The earliest nationally publicised kidnapping of a child by a stranger for the purpose of extracting a ransom payment from the parents was the Pool case of 1819, which took place in Baltimore, Maryland. Margaret Pool, 20-months-old, was kidnapped on May 20 by Nancy Gamble 19-years-old and secreted with the assistance of Marie Thomas. On May 22, the parents, James and Mary Pool, placed an ad in the Baltimore Patriot newspaper offering a $20 reward for Marys return. When the child was recovered on May 23 - through the efforts of members of the community who conducted a search - it was revealed that the child had been badly whipped by Gamble and bore bloody wounds. Both Gamble and Thomas were tried for the crime of kidnapping and found guilty. The motive for the crime was demonstrated to be financial. She had kidnapped the child with the intention of waiting for a reward to be offered, then would return the child and collect the money. This is a technique favored by many ransom child kidnappers before the use of written ransom demands became the favored method. Nancy Gambles crime and subsequent trial were reported in detail in Baltimore Patriot June 26, 1819. The June 26 article, as well as others on the case that had appeared in the Patriot, were reprinted in newspapers in other states including: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and Washington D.C.
2.2. Abductions by strangers Children abducted for slavery
The Lords Resistance Army, a rebel paramilitary group operating mainly in northern Uganda, is notorious for its abductions of children for use as child soldiers or sex slaves. According to the Sudan Tribune, as of 2005, more than 30.000 children have been kidnapped by the LRA and their leader, Joseph Kony.
2.3. Abductions by strangers By stranger to raise
A very small number of abductions result from - in most cases - women who kidnap babies or other young children to bring up as their own. These women are often unable to have children of their own, or have miscarried, and seek to satisfy their unmet psychological need by abducting a child rather than by adopting. The crime is often premeditated, with the woman often simulating pregnancy to reduce suspicion when a baby suddenly appears in the household.
Historically, a few states have practiced child abduction for indoctrination, as a form of punishment for political opponents, for profit. Notable cases include the kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany 400.000 children kidnapped for possible Germanization, the lost children of Francoism, during which an estimated 300.000 children were abducted from their parents. and the about 500 "Children of the Disappeared Desaparecidos" who were adopted by the military in the Argentine Dirty War. In Australia the Stolen Generation is the term given to native Aboriginal children who were forcibly abducted or whose mothers gave consent under duress or misleading information so the government could assimilate the black population into the white majority.
Some other abductions have been to make children available by child-selling for adoption by other people, without adopting parents necessarily being aware of how children were actually made available for adoption.
3. Abduction before birth
Neonatal infant abduction and prenatal fetal abduction are the earliest ages of child abduction, when child is expansively defined as a viable baby before birth usually a few months before the typical time for birth through the age of majority the age at which a young person is legally recognized as an adult. In addition, embryo theft and even oocyte misappropriation in reproductive medical settings have been legalistically construed as child abduction.
4. Global Missing Childrens Network
Launched in 1998 as a joint venture of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children ICMEC and NCMEC, the Global Missing Childrens Network GMCN is a network of countries that connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations. The Network has 22 member countries: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the US.
The parents of Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old girl who disappeared from her bed in a hotel in Portugal in 2007, approached ICMEC to help them publicize her case. ICMECs YouTube channel, "DontYouForgetAboutMe," which lets people post videos, images, and information about their missing children, was launched that year as a part of these efforts, and as of November 2014 had 2.200 members. ICMEC reviews the postings to ensure that any child in a posted video is in fact missing, that authorities are aware that the child is missing, and that the images are not inappropriate.
5. Laws
• Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction
United Kingdom
See the Child Abduction Act 1984, the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 and the Child Abduction Northern Ireland Order 1985.
United States
The United States has a variety of related laws on the books at both the state and local levels. The US developed the AMBER Alert system, which broadcasts cases of suspected kidnapping when the child is believed to be in a motor vehicle and the vehicle licence plate is known.
Some laws, such as the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, attempt to prevent stranger abductions by making it possible for people to learn where people previously convicted of sexual crimes are living. |
Why do airplanes get louder when approaching the airport?
I live about 20 miles from a busy airport and am underneath one of the approaching flight paths. Often when a commercial jet passes overhead, it suddenly gets much louder, sort of like a car shifting down. It definitely sounds like the turbines are revving up. Why would an airplane get much louder while descending?
In: Engineering
Part of it is because it’s descending, so getting physically closer. The main reason though is because aircraft land into the wind. That means as you’re looking at it coming towards you, the wind is blowing the engine noise away from you. As it passes overhead and continues away from you, the wind is now blowing the noise to you.
planes land with they’re noses pointed upward, flaps up and landing gear down. All this creates drag. When there’s too much drag, the plane slows down too much and the plane starts falling too fast. To not fall so fast, more power is needed by the engines for a soft touchdown or to fall down slowly and also make it to the runway.
There’s more to it as well like the surroundings of the plane, etc
I haven’t seen anyone mention how slowly the engines spool up and down. Until you’re on the ground and slowed significantly, you always need to have a plan to abort the landing. You’re going super low and slow by the time you near the ground. You’re going to run out of energy and stall if you try to abort the landing and go around without adding thrust. Eventually you get close enough to the ground that you can’t just add power from idle and expect the thrust to come before you’re out of time, so you rev the engines up a little. That way you’ll be making good thrust in a second or two rather than needing to wait several seconds.
Edit: [Source](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1046488001) |
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What is FEA?
What is FEA?
Acronyms are so often thrown around in our day to day lives that it’s easy to glimpse over their actual meaning the letters represent.
In engineering consulting conversations, the term FEA often comes up, especially when talking about the best FEA software to use for engineering projects. We’ve done our share of throwing around the term, but want to take a step back and define it.
FEA stands for finite element analysis, a commonly used method for multiphysics problems. Finite element analysis is defined as a numerical method which provides solutions to problems that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. In simple terms, FEA is a faster way to get results to problems that are hard to solve.
At its most basic level, FEA answers the question: if we apply a force on a solid, what are the value of the displacements, stresses, and strains at each material point? For the non-science people, basically FEA tells us where an object is liable to break or strain in some way, making it unsafe or unusable.
The most common FEA problem involves determining stress intensity factors of a load upon a given object. This can take the form of a structure analysis, solid mechanic analysis, dynamics, thermal analysis, electrical analysis, biomaterials, etc.
FEA uses displacement formulation to calculate component displacements, strains, and stresses under internal and external loads upon an object. Most FEA calculations involved metallic components. These components can be analyzed by either linear or nonlinear stress analysis. Choosing linear or nonlinear depends upon how far you’d like to push the design.
Most FEA calculations are done in FEA software like SIMULIA. A component is designed in a CAD software like CATIA and imported into SIMULIA to be analyzed. FEA problems never have an exact answer.
FEA is an important part of the product design and development process. It identifies where problems may occur in a product or object. FEA mathematically calculates the problem areas of an object, saving engineers the time and effort needed to build a physical prototype. Prototype tests do not provide the type of numerical information that FEA does, making the product development process longer. FEA software saves time and effort for engineers—they can tweak design based on FEA calculations.
RGBSI has a knowledgeable FEA team to help you complete complex simulation projects. To learn more about RGBSI’s FEA engineering services, click here. You can also do your own FEA with DS’s SIMULIA. To learn more about RGBSI’s partnership with FEA software SIMULIA, click here.
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danger arises, not from freedom granted, but from freedom withheld.
[blocks in formation]
THE U. STATES A SLAVEHOLDING NATION. Thousands of Americans now enslaved in the
United States.
1. More than twenty thousand Americans are now held in slavery, by the laws of Congress, in the Territories and District of Columbia.
On the 230 December, 1788, Maryland passed an act, to cede to the Congress "any district in the State, not exceeding ten miles square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of government of the United States."
A similar act was passed by Virginia, on the 3d of December, 1789, in these words
And the same is hereby forever ceded to the Congress and Government of the United States, in full and absolute right, and EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION as well of soil as of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and EFFECT of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution.
Accordingly, on the 16th of July, the year follow. ing, Congress accepted the cession of Maryland and Virginia, and passed a law which ordained, that the existing laws of those two States should remain in force “ until Congress shall otherwise provide."
Hence, by that very act, Congress established slavery in the "ten miles square," because it not only refused to revoke those laws of Maryland and
Virginia, by which slavery had been established there before, but it ordained that they should remain in force till Congress should repeal them. The following is an extract from one of these laws; it is true, it has been repealed in Maryland, but it
REMAINS” in full force in the District of Columbia to this day :
Every sheriff that now hath, or hereafter shall have, committed into his custody, any runaway servants or slaves, after one month's notice given to the master or owner thereof, of their being in his custorly, if living in this province, or two months' notice if living in any of the neighboring provinces, if such master or owner of such servants or slaves do not appear within the time limited as aforesaid, and pay or secure to be paid, all such imprisonment fees due to such sheriff from the time of the commitment of such servants or slaves, and also such other charges as have accrued or become due to any person for taking up such runaway servants or slaves, such sheriff is hereby authorized and required (such time limited as aforesaid, being expired,) immediately to give public notice to all persons, by setting up notes at the church and court-house doors of the eounty where such servant or slave is in custody; of the time and place for sale of such servants or slaves, by him to be appointed, not less than 10 days after such time limited as aforesaid being expired, and at such time and place by him appointed, as aforesaid, to proceed to sell and dispose of such servant or slave to the highest bidder, and out of the money or tobacco which sach servant or slave is sold for, to pay himself all such IMPRISONMENT Fees as are his just due, for the time he has kept such servant or slave in his custody, and also pay such other charges, fees or reward as has become due to any person for taking up such runaway servant or slave, and after such payments made, if any residue shall remain of the money or tobacca such servant or slave was sold for, such sheriff shall only be accountable to the master or owner of such servant or slave for such residue or remainder as aforesaid and not otherwise.-- Laws of Maryland, act of 1719, (May session,) chap. 2.
And that this barbarous law is not a dead letter, there is abundant evidence to prove. In a memorial of the inhabitants of the District of Columbia, signed by one thousand of the most respectable citizens of the District, and presented to Congress March 24, 1828, then referred to the Committee on the District, and on the motion of Mr. Hubbard of New Hampshire, Feb. 9, 1835, ordered to be printed, the following statement is introduced :
A colored man, who states that he was entitled to freedom, was taken up as a runaway slave, and lodged in the jail of Washington City. He was advertised, but no one appearing to claim him, he was, according to law, put up at public auction for the payment of his jail fees, and sold as a SLAVE for LIFE. He was purchased by a slave-trader, who was not required to give security for his remaining in the District, and he was soon shipped at Alexandria for one of the southern states. An attempt was made by some benevolent individuals to have the sale postponed until his claim to freedom could be investigated; but their efforts were unavailing; and thus was a human being sold into PERPETUAL BONDAGE, at the capital of the freest government on earth, without even a pretence of trial, or an allegation of crime.
According to the testimony of Mr. Miner of Penn. in Congress, in 1829, there were no less than five persons thus sold, in the year 1826–7. Special recognition of slavery in the District of
Columbia. 2. Slavery in the District of Columbia, has been acknowledged, and its existence recognized there by special laws of the United States.
June 12, 1834, a bill was passed by the House of Representatives, giving the right to Edward Brooke, a resident of the District, to bring into it two slaves, and retain them as his property. This bill passed by a vote of 106 to 47.
Slavery perpetuated by the property of the United
States. 3. The property of the United States' Govern. ment is used to perpetuate slavery and the slave trade in this country. In 1826, Congress appropriated out of the public treasury $5000 " for the purpose of altering and repairing the jail in the city of Washington," and $10,000 to build " a county jail for the city and county of Alexandria.”
For what purposes those prisons are used, the following notices will show :
Notice. Was committed to the prison of Washington Co. D.C., on the 19th day of May, 1834, as a runaway, a negro man who calls himself David Peck. He is 5 feet 8 inches high. Had on, when committed, a check shirt, linen pantaloons, and straw hat. He says he is free, and belongs to Baltimore. The owner or owners, are hereby requested to come forward, prove him, and take him away, or he will be sold for his prison and other expenses, as the LAW DIRECTS.
JAMES WILLIAMS, Keeper of the Prison of Washington Co., D. C.
For ALEXANDER HUNTER, M. D. C. The above is but a specimen. One keeper of the jail in Washington has stated that in five years, upwards of four hundred and fifty colored persons had been lodged there for safe keeping, i. e. until they could be disposed of in the course of the slave trade ;—besides nearly three hundred, who had been taken up and lodged there as runaways. Revenue received by the General Government
from Slavery. 4. The government of this nation receives a constant revenue, for licenses granted to slave dealers in the District of Columbia.
"For a license to trade or traffic in slaves for profit, whether as agent or otherwise, four hundred dollars:"
The Register to " deposit all monies received from taxes imposed by this act to the credit of the Canal Fund. City Laws, p. 249. Approved by Congress, July, 1831.
Internal slave trade tolerated by Congress. 5. Congress has "power to regulate commerce between the states,” and consequently it has control of the domestie slave trade, which is constantly producing such an awful amount of misery, and yet it refuses to abolish this nefarious traffic.-Constitution U. States, Art. 1. Sec. 8. Slavery is protected by the United States' Army.
6. An officer of the United States' army who was in the expedition from fortress Monroe, against the Southampton slaves, in 1831, speaks with constant horror of the scenes which he was compelled to witness. Those troops, agreeably to their orders, which were to exterminate the negroes, killed all that they met with, although they encountered neither resistance, nor show of resistance; and the first check given to this wide barbarous slaughter grew out of the fact, that the law of Virginia, which provides for the payment to the master of the full value of an executed slave, was considered as not applying to the cases of slaves put to death without trial. In consequence of numerous representations to this effect, sent to the officer of the United States' army commanding the expedition, the massacre was suspended.—Child's Oration.
In 1832, a company of U. S. troops were ordered to Newbern, N. C. to keep the slaves in awe, at the request of many ladies made to the President. Free-born Americans reduced to slavery by the
United States' laws. 7. Laws are now in force, enacted by Congress by which free-born citizens of this republic are reduced to slavery.
In 1820, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress as
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Periods of english literature
On the other hand, during the same period in the 20th century, many notable practitioners of English literature left the British Isles to live abroad: James JoyceD. The literature of this time is known for its use of philosophy, reason, skepticism, wit, and refinement.
This era also produced a group of poets known as the Georgian poets. A contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Chaucer, Gower is remembered primarily for three major works: the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantisand Confessio Amantisthree long poems written in Anglo-NormanLatin and Middle English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes.
Poststructuralist literary theory and criticism developed during this time. Many writers of the Edwardian Period continued to write during the Georgian Period.
history of english literature slideshare
The second half of the fourteenth century produced the first great age of secular literature. Beowulf is the conventional title, [18] and its composition is dated between the 8th [19] [20] and the early 11th century. During this time, medieval tradition was blended with Renaissance optimism.
Restoration comedies comedies of manner developed during this time under the talent of playwrights such as William Congreve and John Dryden.
Periods of english literature chart
Novelists include James Joyce, D. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre. In September of , the Puritans closed theatres on moral and religious grounds. Ideas such as neoclassicism, a critical and literary mode, and the Enlightenment, a particular worldview shared by many intellectuals, were championed during this age. Georgian poetry today is typically considered to be the works of minor poets anthologized by Edward Marsh. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a poet, was prolific at this time and noted for challenging stereotypically female roles. The authors of the Modern Period have experimented with subject matter, form, and style and have produced achievements in all literary genres. Nor was attraction toward European intellectualism dead in the late 20th century, for by the mids the approach known as structuralism, a phenomenon predominantly French and German in origin, infused the very study of English literature itself in a host of published critical studies and university departments.
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Blockchain Tech
What Is Blockchain Technology | How Does It Work
Introduction to Blockchain
Blockchain, as the name depicts, is a chain of blocks in which the data is stored and works similarly like the databases. Every next block in the blockchain is connected to the previous block via a cryptographic hash value which tells the block about the previous block. Blockchain is the backbone of all digital currencies, all the transactions made with these digital currencies are saved in the blocks of the blockchain.
Basically, a stream of different nodes constitutes a network of blockchain, and each node comprises a ledger in it. When a transaction occurs, the ledger of all the nodes gets updated. Doesn’t matter which nodes are doing the transactions, the ledger of all the nodes in the network gets updated.In this way, the blockchain works. For example, Bitcoin, a well-known cryptocurrency working these days, working on blockchain. All the transactions of bitcoin are stored in its blockchain, and when some transactions occur between two persons, the ledger of all the nodes in its network gets updated.
blockchain technology
Pros & Cons of Blockchain
You have gone through the basics now it’s the right time to start off with the advantages and disadvantages of using blockchain technology.
Blockchain technology is the network of decentralized devices. All the nodes in the network contain a copy of the same data. So, all the data of transactions stays resisted, and there would be no possibility of data loss.
If we talk about stability, the data entered in the blocks get checked if the transactions are legitimate or illegitimate. The confirmed block of transactions cannot be reversed. In other words, we can’t make any change or remove that piece of the transaction. Hence, the data stays immutable, which proves the stability of the blockchain.
After consensus from all the network members, the finalized transactions are immutable, and the security of transactions is guaranteed. Not even the system administrator can delete or even change a single transaction.
Before blockchain technology, in the traditional ways of transactions, some intermediaries, like banks, happened to be there. But as we all know that blockchain technology is developed by peer-to-peer connection, there is no need for any intermediary. Hence, it also helped in enhancing financial efficiency.
There is also a list of crimes, and heists in cryptocurrencies. Binance, a most famous crypto exchange platform, bore a heist of around 7000 Bitcoins worth $40 Million in 2019. In around 2014, MtGox, which was one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, encountered a heist of an estimated $400 Million worth of bitcoins. After these and some more incidents, it can be stated that the blockchain system has some weak security points that can be covered over time.
Some of the blockchains require so much energy, and Bitcoin’s blockchain is on top of that. An analysis by Cambridge University suggests: “Bitcoin uses more electricity annually than the whole of Argentina.”
Blockchain is sometimes inefficient. For example, if someone wants to make a few transactions per second, the blockchain would perform very well. But if some industry requires thousands, or millions of transactions altogether in a second, the blockchain would not be the best idea to implement. Also, blockchain works in an organization. It doesn’t work in some isolated workplace. So, using it in some isolated situation wouldn’t be a wise choice.
If we talk about the cost and implementation struggle, blockchain is expensive to implement. As we know that the cost of a project varies according to the project’s requirements. But roughly saying, blockchain app development price starts from $5000 and goes up to $200,000.
Types of Blockchain
Blockchain is of three types inexact. Below are the types of blockchain:
type of blockchain
About Bitcoin Blockchain
The bitcoin blockchain is a public type of blockchain in which the ledger is distributed over the complete network. Everyone in the bitcoin blockchain network has a ledger, and at all the nodes, it gets updated when a transaction occurs. This currency was first invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using Satoshi Nakamoto. The digital currency began to be used in 2009 after its implementation was released as open-source software.
Bitcoin Ledger Distribution
Below is an image illustrating the distribution of the ledger of all the transactions that occurred among the different nodes in a network.
blockchain technology
Above the diagram, a transaction of £5 took place from node ‘A’ to node ‘B.’ The ledger of A and B got the transaction data, but the node C and D also updated their ledger. In the same way, transactions occurred between node ‘B’ and node ‘C,’ between node ‘C’ and node ‘D’, and finally between node ‘D’ and node ‘A’. But the main concern is about the updation of the ledger with each transaction. When a transaction occurs between two nodes, the ledger of all the nodes gets updated. This is the beauty of blockchain technology because of this assured data integrity within a network.
Ethereum is the same type of blockchain as bitcoin i.e. distributed, open-source, public blockchain. But the focus of this blockchain is running programming code on the blockchain. It is a blockchain that is not just aimed to enable a digital currency. But it also allows running decentralized applications on different nodes of a network. Ethereum has its native digital currency named Ether and is the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.
How Etherum is different from Bitcoin?
etharium vs bitcoin
Here are some points that differentiate Ethereum blockchain from the Bitcoin blockchain.
1. A ‘Smart Contract’ is a piece of code that runs on the nodes of a blockchain network. This code runs only on the Ethereum blockchain and not in bitcoin.
2. Ether transactions are confirmed in seconds as compared to minutes for bitcoin transactions.
3. For consensus, Ether uses the ‘Ethash’ algorithm while the ‘SHA-256’ algorithm is used by Bitcoin.
4. Bitcoin was made in order to replace the physical currency of the country, but Ethereum was mainly built in order to enhance the functionalities of blockchain by introducing programmatic contracts in it.
What are DAPPS?
Decentralized Applications (DAPPS) are the applications developed for running on different nodes of blockchain specifically on Ethereum. We have already talked about Smart Contracts, and DAPPS are the practical examples of these Smart Contracts.
Here are some examples of DAPPS that execute on a decentralized network.
It is a decentralized application that is built for the foretelling purposes of the stock market. It foretells the price of specific stocks on the basis of information provided by the network.
It is also an example of a decentralized application that is aimed to manage digital assets over a network of blockchain.
A blogging platform like Twitter but is decentralized. The main difference is that in Ether Tweet the posts cannot be deleted just like on Twitter. for more detail Follow my blog with Bloglovin
1. […] cryptographic key that connects them to the public chain is unlike more traditional blockchains technology where all the nodes are required to maintain consensus on the network and keep a record of the […]
2. […] Also Read: What Is Blockchain Technology | How Does It Work […]
6. […] way, the Permissioned blockchains are treated as more secure, and verifiable than Permissionless blockchain networks. For example, Ripple is one of the cryptocurrencies that give specific permissions to the members […]
7. […] curse someone, or you'll feel like you are being dumped. What if I tell you the same goes for this blockchain revolution? If you are not going to ace it, you'll feel […]
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Learning by thinking and the development of abstract reasoning
• Author(s): Walker, Caren Michelle;
• Advisor(s): Gopnik, Alison;
• Lombrozo, Tania
• et al.
As adults, we have coherent, abstract, and highly structured causal representations of the world. We also learn those representations, as children, from the fragmented, concrete and particular evidence of our senses. How do young children learn so much about the world so quickly and accurately? One classic answer points to the similarities between children’s learning and scientific learning. In particular, researchers have proposed that children, like scientists, implicitly formulate hypotheses about the world and then use evidence to test and rationally revise those hypotheses. In testing these claims, the vast majority of research in this area has investigated children’s developing abilities to draw causal inferences from observed data. However, we know much less about the human ability to build abstract knowledge that extends beyond their observations, simply by thinking. In the current dissertation, I examine a suite of activities that involve learning by thinking in the causal domain, and consider how these activities impose unique, top-down constraints on the processes underlying causal learning and inductive inference. First, in chapter 1, I situate this work within the theoretical context of rational constructivism that has recently emerged in the field of cognitive development. Chapter 2 then presents a series of experiments demonstrating very young children’s ability to infer the abstract relations “same” and “different” in a novel causal reasoning task. I conclude this chapter by considering the implications of these findings for our understanding of the nature of relational and causal reasoning, and their evolutionary origins. Chapter 3 extends this paradigm to describe a surprising developmental pattern: younger children outperform older children in inferring these abstract relations. I provide evidence that this failure may be explained by appealing to the role of learned biases in constraining causal judgments. The second part of this chapter explores how prompts to explain during learning facilitate children’s ability to override a preference to attend to object properties, and instead reason about abstract relations. Chapter 4 presents empirical findings further examining the particular effects of explanation on the mechanisms underlying causal inference in preschool-aged children. In particular, results demonstrate that explanation prompts children to ignore salient superficial properties and consider inductively rich properties that are likely to generalize to novel cases. Finally, in Chapter 5, I discuss the implications for this body of work as a whole, and suggest a variety of future directions. Taken together, this research contributes to our understanding of the cognitive processes that influence early learning and inference in early childhood.
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The IPM process: the heir and their inheritance
How did the IPM process actually work? What were the formal and informal procedures through which IPMs were taken, and the subsequent processes through which a tenant's lands taken into the king's hands, accounted for, and delivered to an heir or granted out to a custodian. This page explores these questions from the viewpoint of the tenant-in-chief's heir, using the example of Robert Robell of Great Yarmouth, a minor Norfolk tenant (CIPM XVIII.876). This is one of a small number of IPMs from Henry IV's reign for which a related certificate of homage (described below) survives.
How did the crown know when a tenant had died, and consequently when an IPM was necessary? In the case of a minor tenant like Thomas Robell, government must very often have relied on the information of private individuals. Such individuals had their own interest in ensuring that an IPM was taken. For a tenant's heir, if they were of full age, the inquisition was a crucial stage in securing legal possession of his or her inheritance. (If female heirs were married, as was often the case, it was of course their husbands who acted on their behalf.) If a tenant was under age, the IPM was often initiated by a person interested in obtaining their wardship. (After a statute of 1429-30 a wardship could not, in theory, be granted before an IPM had been taken; but even when a grant preceded any inquisition, a later IPM would usually be necessary) [1. Statutes of the Realm ii.252-3 (8 Hen. VI c. xvi)]. The IPM was not, therefore, simply a document concerned with the king's rights: it was important to any party with an interest in obtaining possession of the estates it described. As we shall see in later features, this can have important implications for the reliability of various aspects of the inquisitions.
Robert Robell died, according to the inquisition, on 24 February 1404. His son and heir Thomas, who was said to be aged 23 in the IPM, was almost certainly of full age and took the leading role in initiating the IPM process. The aim was to ensure proper livery of his father's lands from the crown's hands. Of course, at his father's death the lands are unlikely to have been in the crown's keeping. Indeed, they might never have come to its notice, and Thomas might simply have entered the lands informally without an IPM or any subsequent procedure. But if such entry without due process were later discovered, the lands would be taken into the king's hands and only released on payment of a fine; and an inquisition might, in any case, be required in addition. [2. For one example, see CIM, viii.49 with CPR 1429-36, 199 (fine of 6s. 8d., a year's issues of the lands) and CIPM, xxiii.625.]
Since Thomas wished to have livery of his father's lands, it was necessary to have an inquisition taken virtute brevis, by virtue of a writ, rather than one taken virtute officii, by virtue of the escheator's office. Later in the fifteenth century legal opinion had established that only an inquisition virtute brevis allowed livery (an inquisition virtute officii only established the king's rights), and by and large, this also seems to have been the case earlier. [3. K. Parkin, ‘Tales of Idiots, Signifying Something: Evidence of Process in the Inquisitions Post Mortem', in Companion, ed. Hicks, 95.]
The writ diem clausit extremum, addressed to the escheator of Norfolk, was issued on 12 April. The details of exactly how writs were obtained from Chancery, and the associated costs, are not fully clear. Various sources refer to writs being issued by the Lord Chancellor, although this may not have been necessary in all cases [4. Paston Letters, ii.16; iii.191; Carpenter, ‘General Introduction', 20; and cf. Stonor L&P, i.93; C 1/69/8, 327.]; the expense of obtaining a writ, later in the fifteenth century, was 9s. 2d. [5. Stonor L&P, i.145; iii.11 (both apparently relating to IPMs of 1474).]
We do not know when the escheator, John Strange or le Strange, received Robert Robell's writ diem clausit extremum, although it was probably within one or two weeks after its issue. Possibly Thomas delivered the writ to the escheator himself; heirs are known to have delivered writs on other occasions [6. C. Noble, ‘Writs and the Inquisitions Post Mortem: How the Crown Managed the System', in Companion, ed. Hicks, 188-91; e.g. CIPM, xxv.33.]. Then, however, almost three months elapsed until the inquisition was actually taken, on 15 July 1404. That does not seem to have been an untypical interval in this period, although the process could be much quicker and equally much longer; only in 1445-6 was it officially enacted, as a result of parliamentary petition, that escheators should take IPMs within a month of receiving the writs, and it is not clear whether this statute was at all effective [7. SR ii.389 (c. ix); PROME, Parl. Feb. 1445, item 50. For examples of intervals longer than a month after 1447, see CIPM, xxvi.559, 563, 566. In the early fourteenth century, the modal interval between writ and inquisition was as little as three weeks: Campbell & Bartley, Atlas, 14]. It seems possible that, had Thomas Robell wished to expedite the taking and return of the inquisition, he might have offered the escheator a douceur. It is also likely that he would also have had to make various payments simply to ensure that the inquisition took place: these would probably have included ‘rewards' for the jurors, the escheator's clerk, the sheriff (who empanelled the jurors), as well as the escheator himself. Such payments recorded at a later date in the Stonor papers totalled over £5. The total that an escheator himself might receive for taking an inquisition was fixed at 40s. by statute in 1429-30; again, though, it is not clear how effective this was [8. Stonor L&P, i.145; iii.11; PROME, Parl. Feb. 1445, item 50; Carpenter, ‘General introduction', 30; CP 40/872 m. 457d (a reference I owe to Jonathan Mackman); for later sixteenth-century evidence see IND 1/17396 f. 61.].
How the information contained in the IPM was obtained is, again, somewhat obscure. It is clear from other sources, however, that heirs were often expected to provide relevant details to the escheator, perhaps even to supply draft versions of the findings, and this may well have been the case in this instance. There was the potential for conflict between the interests of the escheator, as the crown's representative, who might want to return findings favouring the king, and the heir, who might want a different outcome. Such conflicts, and the actual deliberations at inquisitions, are very rarely recorded [9. For some examples, see M. Holford, ‘Thrifty Men of the Country?': The Jurors and their Role', in Companion, ed. Hicks, 202-5]. Like most IPMs, that for Thomas Robell offers few clues as to how its findings were arrived at.
We do not know how quickly the escheator returned the inquisition to Chancery: only in 1429-30 was it enacted, again as a result of parliamentary petition, that inquisitions should be returned within a month of being taken, and it was only several years after that statute that it become usual to note, at the head of IPMs, the date when they were returned into Chancery [10. PROME, Parl. Sept. 1429, item 56; SR, ii.252-3 (c. xvi); Noble, ‘Writs', 191.]. At any event, it was not until October that Thomas Robell initiated the next in entering into his inheritance: suing livery of the estates out of the crown's hand.
Once the inquisition declaring that he was of full age had been returned to Chancery, Thomas would have been able to obtain a letter from the master of the Rolls directed to the chamberlain of the royal household. Thanks to the survival of his certificate of homage (relatively unusual at this period) we know that Thomas obtained such a letter on 26 October 1404 and did homage on or before 28 October [11. PSO 1/61/9.]. The certificate recited his father's IPM, and instructed the chamberlain to present him to the king so that he could perform homage, which had to be done to the king in person; fealty could be taken by an official, and was often in fact taken by escheators [12. The text of an oath of fealty is given in CIPM xviii.1098; homage and fealty are described in Prerogativa Regis: Tertia Lectura Roberti Constable de Lyncolnis Inne anno 11 H. 7, ed. S. E. Thorne (New Haven, 1949), 63-4.]. Thomas's homage and fealty were taken on or by 28 October; then a writ was issued to the escheator, ordering the livery to Thomas of his father's estates, after the escheator had taken surety for a future payment of relief [13. E 153/2397 m. 5.]. These writs for livery were enrolled, either on the Close or the Fine Roll (both available in modern calendars): the latter, apparently, as in this instance, when further payments, such as relief, were due to the king [14. For the calendar of the present writ, see CFR 1399-1405, 281 (omitting, however, the reference to relief, a common omission in these calendars).].
The extracts from the Fine Roll sent to the Exchequer, on the Originalia Roll, then provided warrant for enforcing payment of relief. Thomas was distrained in Easter term 1406, and paid 8s. 4d.: that is, two-thirds of one-eighth of 100s., the standard relief for a knight's fee. (Thomas held of the king by a half of a quarter of a knight's fee, but because of his mother's dower claim he was only entering into two-thirds of his holding.) As happened not infrequently, a search of the Exchequer records was ordered to confirm that the tenure and service recorded in the IPM were correct; the inquisition's findings were confirmed by the relief paid by earlier holders of the manor, as recorded in earlier Memoranda Rolls, and by the summary of an earlier IPM in a roll of escheator's accounts [15. E 368/178 m. 127; E 372/250 res. Norf. m. 1.]. It is important to note that the procedure for obtaining relief provided an opportunity for relatively systematic checking of IPM information; we hope to return to this subject in a future feature.
In fact Thomas received livery of only two-thirds of the estate: one-third was retained in the king's hand, to be assigned to Rose, Robert's widow, as dower. Rose and her dower claim had not been mentioned in the IPM and it is not entirely clear how they came to the crown's notice. One possibility is that Rose herself pressed her claim, but this is unlikely, since her third remained in the king's hand the following year and was not released from the king's hands until 7 February 1407 [16. E 136/125/5-6, 8; CCR 1405-9, 191.]. More probably Thomas had been questioned about Rose's claim when he sued livery. We know little about what was demanded of those claiming livery of their ancestors' estates, but it appears that this was a process when title could be challenged on behalf of the king, and when it might be necessary to produce deeds and evidences in support of one's own claim [17. See, for example, CPR 1436-41, p. 294; CPR 1439-41, p. 293; CIPM xxi.625; S. Payling, ‘ ‘A Beest Envenymed Thorough...Covetize': An Imposter Pilgrim and the Disputed Descent of the Manor of Dodford, 1306-1481', in The Fifteenth Century X: Parliament, Personalities and Power, ed. H. Kleineke (Woodbridge, 2011), 30.].
Again, the process of livery will have involved expenditure on Thomas's part. In 1473 an Essex landholder incurred expenses of over £5 obtaining a writ of livery: £2 to the chamberlain, £2 to the master of the rolls, £1 to the clerk of the petty bag, in addition to the costs of travel to London and ‘bribes' to the clerk of the hanaper. The actual writing and sealing of the writ were a modest 22d. These fees may well have been typical [18. H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, Historical Notes on the Use of the Great Seal (London, 1926), 358-9, printing C 47/34/1/13; for later evidence regarding fees cf. Rawlinson C. 339, f. 78v (?early sixteenth century).].
In all, about eight months passed from Robert Robell's death until his son received seisin of the estates. That is perhaps a surprisingly lengthy interval, given that Thomas could receive no profit from the lands during this period and therefore that the best part of a year's income would be lost [19. It has been stated that the king was entitled to a year's primer seisin of land held of him ut de corona, or a payment of an equivalent sum (Carpenter, ‘General Introduction', 3, apparently following a more cautious statement in Bean, Decline, 11). It is not clear on what evidence such statements are based. The later fifteenth-century readings on Prerogativa regis refer only to the loss of issues between death (or seizure of the lands) and livery (Prerogativa regis, ed. Thorne, xxiv, 67), as do the ‘Rules for liveries' drawn up in 1477 (Bodl, MS Eng. hist. c. 304 f. 376r; for details of the text, see J. H. Baker, with J. S. Ringrose, A Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library (Woodbridge, 1996), 279); and this was certainly the period for which escheators accounted in the first half of the fifteenth century. ]. It was certainly possible for the process to take place with considerably greater alacrity: Robert Chyrche died on 7 April; his writ diem clausit extremum was issued the following day; and although the inquisition did not take place until 22 June, livery of seisin was ordered on 26 June [20. CIPM xviii.219; CFR 1399-1405, 65]. Why Thomas, and others like him, were not able to obtain livery more quickly is not an easy question to answer. The legislation of 1429-30 and 1445-6, mentioned above, suggests a widely-felt frustration with the potential length of the process. Before this legislation, though, the only remedy of a frustrated heir seems to have been to pay the escheator, or to obtain a royal writ ordering him to hurry [21. As for example in CIPM xviii.423, 592-3 (revised online text, forthcoming; the writs are not fully described in the printed calendar)]. Both remedies could prove costly: John Luttrell in 1428 paid £4 9s. 1d. ‘for the speed of' his father's IPM [22. H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, A History of Dunster, 2 vols. (London, 1909), i.109.]. Perhaps for Thomas, and others like him, the modest value of the estates taken into the king's hand (assessed at just over 23s. in the IPM) meant that it was more economical to wait for the escheator to act at his own convenience.
Much of the actual procedure involved in obtaining an IPM and suing livery remains somewhat obscure. Clearly, however, both processes could be time-consuming and expensive. For those with lands in several counties, or inheriting estates from several ancestors, they could also be complex process, and mistakes at any point could lead to reseizure of the lands by the king. In such circumstances it was perhaps not unnatural that some tenants-in-chief should attempt to avoid the processes of inquisition and livery. By its nature such avoidance, unless it was later discovered, is difficult to detect, although there are several instances where it might be suspected. (One example concerns the manor of Kingsham in Sussex, which appears not to feature in IPMs between 1422 and 1592.) [23. VCH Sussex, iii.105] But the significant fact may be that evasion was not more common, and that a substantial number of tenants-in-chief followed due process. That is likely to have reflected the rapid and dense flow of information from localities to centre which kept central government informed about wardships and other dues; and also the interests of tenants themselves in securing the evidence of title that IPMs provided, despite the potential expense of the process. |
When Did Nehemiah Go To Jerusalem?
When did Ezra and Nehemiah return to Jerusalem?
How long did it take Nehemiah to get from Babylon to Jerusalem?
And the Old Testament book of Nehemiah records how Nehemiah completed that massive project in record time — just 52 days. Notes. Nehemiah had just completed a trip from Susa, the capital of Persia, to Jerusalem. This trip would have taken about three months and was approximately 900 miles in distance.
How long did it take Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem?
You might be interested: Often asked: Why Do You Think Nehemiah Felt Compelled To Remind God About These Things?
How did Nehemiah become Cupbearer?
What is the difference between Ezra and Nehemiah?
What tribe was Nehemiah from?
Jerusalem, which was undertaken by Nehemiah, a Babylonian Jew and court butler who was appointed governor… In the Book of Nehemiah the reconstruction of the city walls of Jerusalem becomes the basis for a meditation…
Are Nehemiah and zerubbabel the same person?
What is the main message of the book of Nehemiah?
How many times has Jerusalem been rebuilt?
Why did Nehemiah rebuild the walls of Jerusalem?
You might be interested: Where In The Bible Does It Tell Of The Third Wave Who Returned To Judah With Nehemiah?
Was Nehemiah a good man?
What was Nehemiah occupation?
1, 38). In the Post-exilic period, Nehemiah rose to the high ranking palace position of cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes, the sixth King of the Medio/Persian Empire. The position placed his life on the line every day, but gave Nehemiah authority and high pay, and was held in high esteem by him, as the record shows.
What does the name Nehemiah mean?
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What is non-territorial autonomy?
Non-territorial autonomy is a collective-rights-based concept to deal with national diversity within a country. It grants autonomous decision-making to an ethnically, linguistically or culturally defined national group. Irrespective of their place of residence within the state, all members of such a group form a corporate body. They elect representatives who then autonomously manage clearly defined areas of their national life, e.g. schools, cultural institutions, associations, etc. With its emphasis on national affiliation as the key denominator of autonomous rights, non-territorial autonomy belongs unquestionably to groupist approaches to minority protection.
The two alternative approaches to minority protection in European history attributed national rights either to the individual citizen or to autonomous territorial units. While both approaches have been applied more often and therefore have been subject to extensive research, NTAutonomy proposes to write the first history of non-territorial autonomy as a political idea and as an applied policy. It traces the idea of non-territorial autonomy from its emergence in the late Habsburg Empire, to its spread in interwar Central and Eastern Europe and through its continuities into present day European minority protection.
Adaptability and travel of an idea
We understand non-territorial autonomy as a translatable and adaptable tool for the protection of minorities that has been travelling through Europe for 150 years. We seek to understand how it circulated synchronically in geographically different but entangled spaces in Europe; and how it meandered diachronically from the late Habsburg Empire through the twentieth century. This project emphasises two analytical aspects of the movement of ideas. First, we focus on the hybrid outcomes and analyse the adaptations and differences to the purported ideal type. Second, we focus on the transmitters of the concept, whether people or texts.
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Various Tips for Maintaining Heart Health
The heart is a vital organ that works nonstop. The heart plays an important role in pumping blood throughout the body to support survival. Therefore, it is appropriate for heart health to be maintained in order to avoid various diseases that can damage it. Maintaining heart health can be done with a few simple steps, such as living a healthy lifestyle and eating patterns. Maybe you have also often heard doctors recommend routine exercise, maintain ideal body weight, and not smoke. This is because some of these steps are effective methods for maintaining heart health. How to Maintain Heart Health Here are some lifestyle choices to maintain heart health: 1. Stop smoking Smokers have a much higher risk for coronary heart disease. Not only smokers themselves, people around them who inhale cigarette smoke (passive smokers) are also more at risk of developing the disease. This is because toxic substances in cigarettes can damage the heart's blood vessels, so that over time the bl
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Causes of High Leukocytes in Pregnant Women
The number of white blood cells or leukocytes can vary depending on age and body condition, including pregnancy. Pregnant women generally have high levels of leukocytes. This can be seen in the results of routine blood tests during pregnancy. Leukocytes are a part of the immune system that functions to fight infection. Therefore, increasing the number of leukocytes is often associated with an infection. But in pregnancy, the number of leukocytes can increase even though there is no infection. This is caused by various changes in the body of pregnant women. Reasons for High Leukocytes in Pregnant Women Normal leukocyte count is 5,000-10,000 cells per microliter of blood. The condition for high leukocytes (leukocytosis) is when the number of white blood cells exceeds 10,000 cells per microliter. But during pregnancy, the number of leukocytes can increase to 6,000-13,000 cells per microliter. This condition starts in the first trimester and increases gradually until the last trimest
Various Healthy Food Choices After Exercising
Not only before exercise, eating the right foods after exercise can maximize body health and burning calories you know. Come on, choose and prepare your food after exercising properly. People more often think of what foods will be consumed before exercising. When in fact the choice of food after exercise is no less important. Help the Body's Recovery Process When you exercise, muscles use glycogen reserves as fuel so that some of the protein in the muscle will also be damaged. Then the body will rebuild glycogen reserves and repair muscle protein after exercise. Eating carbohydrates and protein after exercise can help speed up this process. Consumption of the right foods is very important, especially after strenuous exercise. These foods mainly play a role in helping speed recovery and restore energy reserves. It also can help the formation of new muscle tissue and restore the balance of electrolytes and body fluids. Choosing Healthy Foods After Exercising Eating after exe |
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Why is high speed daplink faster?
Why is high speed daplink faster?
Influence of high speed USB and full speed USB on daplink speed
Pcbsky has produced two daplink, which are based on the official STM32 and NXP lpc11u35 MCU. These two MCU are equipped with full speed USB, and the transmission speed of full speed USB is 12MB / s. The design of high-speed daplink-v4 is based on the new Tang m48x Series MCU with high-speed USB, the transmission speed can reach 480MB / s. This is just like the USB communication speed of ordinary daplink is like an ordinary train, while the USB communication speed of high-speed daplink belongs to high-speed railway.
The influence of HID protocol on daplink speed
HID protocol allows our devices to communicate with computers without installing additional drivers after USB is plugged in. Daplink drive free is because of the HID protocol, and the HID protocol itself is not designed for big data transmission, such as our mouse and keyboard, which need to respond in time but have a small amount of data is the HID protocol. Therefore, the transmission speed of HID protocol limits the speed of communication between daplink and computer.
So there are two ways to improve the burning speed of daplink
Using non hid to realize daplink data transmission (this method will not be discussed)
Improve the transmission speed of hid, which is also the way of our high-speed daplink implementation
How to improve the speed of HID transmission? In fact, this has something to do with the high speed and full speed USB. HID protocol is different under different USB standards.
In full speed USB, hid transfers up to 64 bytes per packet
In high-speed USB, hid transfers up to 1024 bytes per packet
Therefore, the comparison between the high-speed version and the full speed version is more obvious. Not only the high-speed transmission speed is fast, but also the carrying capacity of each trip is higher (the difference between 64 and 1024).
Comparison of transmission speed between high speed daplink and ordinary daplink
As shown in the figure above is an effect of my actual test. Using two different daplink to burn the same program for the same MCU, the ordinary one can burn in 12.5 seconds, while the high-speed one can burn in 6 seconds. The test is burning STM32F103 MCU in MDK environment, if there may be some differences in other environments. However, it is obvious that the speed of high-speed daplink is more than twice that of ordinary daplink.
Besides hid speed, what other factors limit daplink transmission speed
Some small partners may have doubts. According to the previous USB transmission speed and HID protocol transmission speed, the high-speed model should be more than 10 times of the ordinary model. The actual test shows that the high-speed version can achieve more than twice the burning speed of the ordinary version. Why?
As shown in the figure above, to burn the program from the computer to the MCU, it needs to be transferred to daplink through USB, and then daplink is transferred to the MCU through SWD interface. The previous analysis is to optimize the USB transmission speed, but the SWD transmission speed, as well as the microcontroller to write flash after receiving data also need time, so when we use high-speed USB, hid can no longer be a limiting factor. However, the speed of SWD interface and flash writing still have an impact.
Introduction to DAPLINK-HS V4
High-performance main control ARM® Cortex® -M4F core, main frequency up to 192MH, FLASH 512KB, RAM 160KB
Built-in high-speed USB interface, the speed is 480m, type-c interface supports positive and negative insertion
Supports MCU debugging and programming of the full range of ARM Cortex-M cores
Comes with USB to serial port
Support automatic reset after programming under keil, onboard reset button
With fuse, anti-short circuit;
With acrylic protective upper shell, effective protection to avoid PCB short circuit
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Independence Day
Independence Day 2022, 2023 and 2024 in Togo
Togo’s Independence Day comes on 27 April, commemorating its 1960 exit from the French overseas colonial empire.
202227 AprWedIndependence Day
202327 AprThuIndependence Day
202427 AprSatIndependence Day
The beginnings of European domination of what is now Togo came in the 1500s when Portugal established the fort of Porto Seguro on the coast and commenced trade relations there. The commodity was largely slaves, earning this region of Africa the infamous nickname “The Slave Coast”.
Germany took control of “Togoland” in the late 1800s and made it a prosperous colony. It was one of the most valuable, though also one of the smallest, of German overseas possessions. During World War I, France and Britain seized control of German Togoland and administered it jointly for decades. After World War II, British Togoland became part of what is now Ghana, and French Togoland became what is today called Togo.
During the 1940s and 1950s, France gradually granted more and more autonomy to Togo until, on 27 April, 1960, they gave it full independence. Today, Togo’s Independence Day is celebrated with military and civilian parades, patriotic speeches, and many local, festive events spread throughout the country.
Previous Years
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Southern Nationalism
Exploring the roots of the Civil War
When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams, New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 255 pages, $24.95
The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, by Manisha Sinha, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 362 pages, $19.95
Apart from the American Revolution itself, the Civil War is the event that has most defined the United States. More than 130 years later, we still argue over its causes, effects, and meaning. Some argue that the main, though not only, cause of the war was slavery. Others insist that the war was provoked by an overreaching federal government that refused to recognize the Southern states' rights.
This debate isn't merely historical. As could be gleaned from the flaps surrounding statements by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Interior Secretary Gale Norton during their confirmation periods, issues stemming from the Civil War go to the heart of many current political debates: What is the proper role of the federal government? Is a strong national government the best guarantor of rights against local despots? Or do state governments stand as a bulwark against federal tyranny? And just what rights are these governments to protect? Those of the individual or those of society? Such matters are far from settled.
So why was the Civil War fought? That seems a simple enough question to answer: Just look at what those fighting the war had to say. If we do that, the lines are clear. Southern leaders said they were fighting to preserve slavery. Abraham Lincoln said the North fought to preserve the Union, and later, to end slavery.
Some can't accept such simple answers. Among them is Charles Adams. Given Adams' other books, which include For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization and Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts that Built America, it isn't surprising that he sees the Civil War as a fight about taxes, specifically tariffs.
In When in the Course of Human Events, he argues that the war had nothing to do with slavery or union. Rather, it was entirely about tariffs, which the South hated. The tariff not only drove up the price of the manufactured goods that agrarian Southerners bought, it invited other countries to enact their own levies on Southern cotton. In this telling, Lincoln, and the North, wanted more than anything to raise tariffs, both to support a public works agenda and to protect Northern goods from competition with imports.
Openly partisan to the South, Adams believes that the Civil War truly was one of Northern aggression. He believes that the Southern states had the right to secede and he believes that the war's true legacy is the centralization of power in Washington and the deification of the "tyrant" Abraham Lincoln. To this end, he collects all the damaging evidence he can find against Lincoln and the North. And he omits things that might tarnish his image of the South as a small-government wonderland.
Thus, we hear of Lincoln's use of federal troops to make sure that Maryland didn't secede. We don't learn that Confederate troops occupied eastern Tennessee to keep it from splitting from the rest of the state. Adams tells us of Union Gen. William Sherman's actions against civilians, which he persuasively argues were war crimes. But he doesn't tell us of Confederate troops capturing free blacks in Pennsylvania and sending them south to slavery. Nor does he mention the Confederate policy of killing captured black Union soldiers. He tells us that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; he doesn't mention that the Confederacy did also.
Adams argues that Lincoln's call to maintain the Union was at root a call to keep tariff revenues coming in from Southern ports. Lincoln, he notes, had vowed repeatedly during the 1860 presidential campaign that he would act to limit the spread of slavery to the West, but he would not move to end it in the South. Lincoln was firmly committed to an economic program of internal improvements—building infrastructure, in modern terms—that would be paid for through higher tariffs. When the first Southern states seceded just after Lincoln's election, Adams argues, it was to escape these higher taxes. Indeed, even before Lincoln took office, Congress—minus representatives from rebel Southern states—raised tariffs to an average of almost 47 percent, more than doubling the levy on most goods.
Lincoln was determined to collect the tariff on goods flowing into Southern ports, even if locals dragged their heels on collections. That's why the conflict began at South Carolina's Fort Sumter. If the Union kept Sumter, it could control shipping into the key port of Charleston.
Regardless of Northern motives, however, Adams never offers a convincing argument for why the first Southern states left the Union. After all, tariffs were still moderate when they left. And if they'd stayed, their representatives in Congress likely could have blocked the higher tariffs. More to the point, what about slavery? Before and during the war, almost every Southern political leader explicitly said the Southern states seceded to protect slavery.
Well, Adams says in effect, Stephens was lying. Southern leaders knew that people couldn't be roused to fight over something so unappealing as tariffs. So they whipped up a fear that slavery was at stake. "Men will not willingly, and with zeal, die for an economic purpose, but they will die for some 'cause' that has a noble purpose," writes Adams, neglecting to lay out precisely why slavery was so noble. Indeed, Adams' thesis is a completely unsatisfying one. Even if true, he can't answer an important question: Given that most Southerners didn't own slaves, why was this a more attractive issue for raising fighting passions than tariffs? Why would so many die with "zeal" for a "noble" purpose from which they were excluded? After all, less than one third of Southerners owned slaves.
Manisha Sinha, a historian at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, shows how slavery did in fact became the rallying cry for the South. In The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, Sinha traces the growth of Southern "nationalism"—that is, a sense of the South as a distinct region with a common culture and set of political priorities that were in conflict with the rest of the U.S.—in the decades leading up to the Civil War. At the heart of that nationalism was slavery. Earlier Southerners such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington had seen slavery as an evil, albeit one they could not or would not abolish. Their descendants, Sinha writes, articulated defenses of "slavery as a benevolent and harmonious system that allayed the conflict between capital and labor, as a guarantor of social and political stability, as the engine of economic prosperity, as a result of the allegedly natural racial differences, and as a divinely sanctioned institution."
This "Southern thought" was antagonistic to classical liberalism, capitalism, industrialism, and democracy. Indeed, it saw itself in opposition to the very ideals of the American Revolution. Hence, Southern apologist George Fitzhugh said the "Southern Revolution of 1861" was a "solemn protest against the doctrines of natural liberty, human equality and the social contracts as taught by Locke and the American sages of 1776, and an equally solemn protest against the doctrines of Adam Smith, Franklin, Say and Tom Paine and the rest of the infidel, political economists, who maintain that the world is too much governed." Fitzhugh was hardly alone: Journalists, ministers, politicians, and academics from across the South contributed to this body of thought.
Southern thinkers savaged the Declaration of Independence. All men are not created equal, they said. And natural rights were just a myth. "Nothing can be more unfounded and false," said John C. Calhoun. Southern nationalists didn't just believe that blacks were unequal to whites. Many Southern ideologues argued for a hierarchical polity—with the big plantation owners at the top, slaves at the bottom and other whites in between. Society is superior to the individual, they said. Sinha doesn't say much about how Southerners who weren't at the top of the ladder felt about the system. But clearly, they jealously guarded their rank and privileges against those below them, even if they chafed at the dominance of those above .
As its subtitle suggests, The Counterrevolution of Slavery shows how and why South Carolinians took the lead in creating this Southern identity based on slavery. South Carolina differed from many other slave states in two key ways: The majority of its white citizens owned slaves, and by the 1820s, slaves outnumbered whites. Sinha notes that no one, North or South, was surprised that South Carolina was the first to secede. "No human being ever was, now is, or ever will be born free," said South Carolinian Thomas Cooper. Individuals, he argued, only have such rights and liberties as society wishes to give them. And in a healthy society, true liberty will be restricted to a relative few.
Some Southern ideologues wanted to establish a hereditary aristocracy. And antebellum South Carolina came closest to that ideal. By the time of the war, most white men could vote, but most political offices had large property requirements. Indeed, slave ownership was a prerequisite for holding some offices. And many key offices, such as governor, were not elected at all, but appointed by the legislature. In fact, political power in the state was highly centralized in the legislature, and political districts were drawn to maximize the power of the big plantation owners. Sinha quotes one observer who noted in 1861 the irony that those who claimed to want to limit the centralization of power in Washington "have been at the same time strongly inclined toward centralization and consolidation of power within their respective States."
To be sure, Southern ideologues sometimes disagreed among themselves, but these differences were rarely large. For instance, many wanted to reopen the Atlantic slave trade. Others opposed this move, but not on moral grounds. Those who opposed reopening the trade feared that a flood of new slaves would reduce the value of their own property. Opponents also argued that bringing in large numbers of Africans not conditioned to slavery could provoke slave rebellions or even provoke a war with Great Britain, which had ended its slave trade in 1807. (When the Confederacy was formed, it did refuse to reopen the slave trade for that latter reason. That wasn't enough to bring an alliance between the two nations, though the British remained on better terms with the South than with the North.)
Most intriguingly, Sinha convincingly argues that Southern "states' rights" ideology was formed with the express purpose of defending slavery. Indeed, antebellum Southerners were quick to use national power, at the expense of states' rights, to defend slavery. From 1789 to 1860, the South dominated the national government, and the "Slave Power," as critics called it, readily used the federal government to protect and advance its interests.
The most obvious example of those efforts was the Fugitive Slave Act. Historian James McPherson calls that 1850 law the strongest manifestation of national power to that point in U.S. history. It extended the long arm of the federal government into Northern states—through marshals and the army—to recover alleged escaped slaves for their owners. The national government advanced slave interests in other ways, too. The Slave Power was among the most hawkish elements of the national government, and every war that America fought between the Revolution and the Civil War was waged, at least in part, to expand slave territory or to deprive escaped slaves of places to flee.
Sinha shows that even as Southerners came to see slavery as a moral good, they felt increasingly embattled and fearful. And with good reason: European nations had abolished slavery and British ships prowled the seas enforcing a ban on the slave trade. In the North, the abolitionist movement was growing in popularity and power. The successful slave revolt in Haiti in 1791, the attempted slave uprising led by Nat Turner (1831), and John Brown's raid (1859) reminded them just how tenuous their hold on power could be.
Charles Adams says that Southern fears that Lincoln's election foreshadowed the end of slavery were "irrational" because tariffs and slavery were separate issues. After all, Lincoln vowed not to move against slavery in the South, and many Northerners didn't wish to press the issue. But Sinha shows how slavery and the tariff were closely intertwined in the minds of most Southerners. Southerners saw high tariffs as a Northern plot against Southern agriculture and therefore against slavery. Southern fears, she argues, may have been exaggerated, but they were far from irrational.
Secession, then, was an attempt by the slave-owning class to preserve its regional hegemony. At the very least, Lincoln's election meant the Slave Power could no longer use the national government to advance its interests. Further, having a president who firmly stated that slavery was immoral would embolden Northern abolitionists. If the South remained in the U.S., Northerners might feel more free to defy the Fugitive Slave Act, despite Lincoln's vow to enforce it. And more John Browns might come South to provoke slave uprisings.
Further, a thriving Republican Party might attract non-slaveholding Southerners—who were coming to resent the power wielded by slave owners, if not slavery itself. Slave owners thought they could keep the Republicans from playing on those conflicts by leaving the Union. In fact, those tensions exploded during the Civil War.
In western Virginia, the mostly non-slaveholding population had long resented a political system that favored slave owners. When Virginia seceded, the western counties refused to join, eventually forming the state of West Virginia. And in western North Carolina, east Tennessee, and parts of north Georgia, initial enthusiasm for secession quickly soured. These were areas in which few slaves were owned, and they became dangerous places for Confederate forces and their sympathizers to tread. Union sympathizers waged guerrilla war there, fighting a civil war within the Civil War.
"Slave society," Sinha writes, "could not withstand even a mildly antislavery president, who could effectively challenge the regional mastery of southern planters and slaveholders without ever abolishing slavery." The actions the slave-holding class took to defend its privilege ended up hastening its demise.
NEXT: When the Chips Are Off
1. If anyone doubts that Secession was about slavery — just read the nearly hidden “Declarations of Causes” by almost every Southern State– official documents written BY the South at the time.
These documents scream out that Slavery — and Lincoln — were the cause of secession.
Florida’s Declaration said that Lincoln was out to stop the SPREAD of slavery – and said that alone, just the stopping the SPREAD of slavery, would be like burning the South slowly to death, because slaves would be worthless, and our children will have to live in equality with blacks. Therefore, the state of Florida decided to secede.
South Carolina took deep offense that unnamed people in the North had “called slavery a sin”. Tariffs — which some say was the real cause of secession — was not even mentioned.
Texas said the North had advocated “the debasing heresy” that blaks and whites were equal.
A speech in support of Alabama’s Secession shows that slave owners were actually talking about killing all their slaves if they had to free the slaves. Not that they hated the slaves — but liberating slaves meant they would have to live in equality with them, and they would surely have to kill them before that could happen.
Reading the South’s Declarations of Causes — and the accompanying speeches, reminds me of reading Hitler’s Mien Kampf.
It’s no wonder the South has largely hidden their own Declarations of Causes. Oh you can find the Declaration of Secession — a innocuous paragraph or two of boilerplate announcing secession.
But the Declaration of Causes, for some reason, they apparently hope you don’t notice.
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The 411 on the vaccines in the fight against COVID-19
Intensive Care Unit nurse Kathy Brady looks on as Pharmacist, Courtney Mattley, left, draws the first dose of Pfizer BioNTech, Covid-19 vaccine before administering it to Brady at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia on Thursday, 121720. Dan Watson/The Signal
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There are three forms of the COVID-19 vaccine, two of which remain in active use as of the publication of this article: Moderna and Pfizer.
The third, Johnson & Johnson’s inoculation effort, is now under a new microscope that’s been discussed by local, state, national and world health officials, due to the widespread demand for vaccines.
Here’s some information to help understand the differences, some of the possible side effects and why there’s been concern for the effects of a vaccine that’s caused a severe reaction in only the tiniest percentage of its recipients.
Moderna & Pfizer
Moderna and Pfizer have both developed vaccines that require two doses of the shot, and both work in similar ways, according to the experts.
“The Moderna and Pfizer are called mRNA vaccines,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, the chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center. “The J&J vaccine is an adenovirus vector vaccine.”
The difference?
“The way that the technology is, is that the mRNA is a sequence of a protein that basically tells the body how to make the ‘spike protein’ of the Coronavirus, and they wrap that information in a liquid molecule and put it in the vaccine and then they give it to you through a shot,” said Courtney Mattley, the pharmacy clinical coordinator for Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. “Ultimately, your body is making the spike protein of the Coronavirus, which is the little spikes you see on the outside of all these pictures of the Coronavirus.
“So, that’s your body, making a piece of the virus so that eventually, if you actually get the real virus, they can acknowledge what that is and know what to do,” she explained, “because you’ll have already been exposed to it.”
It is through this creating of a small version of the disease within you that, according to the experts, results in arm pain, or even what is known as “a classic presentation.” The first dose is generally associated with the arm pain, while the second dose can sometimes result in flu-like symptoms in some patients.
“It’s your immune system being exposed again and actually mounting an immune response, so you feel almost as if you were exposed to something that makes you sick, because you’re making that same reaction,” said Mattley. “But you’re not actually having an infection.”
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine, but rather, as previously mentioned, is an adenovirus vector vaccine.
In layman’s terms, this roughly equates to meaning that it is a traditional virus-based technology that delivers instructions on how to defeat COVID-19. However, it cannot replicate in your body, and will not give you an infection.
“Johnson & Johnson is linked to a different virus, like a weakened virus that cannot affect you,” said Mattley. “Ultimately, you get the same result — you get the spike protein being made by your body, and then your body knows what to do as far as antibodies and what to do if exposed to the real virus.”
Both injections of the Moderna and Pfizer contain the same exact solution within them, with the body experiencing equal exposures both times.
Johnson & Johnson differs in that it is one shot, but because of its approach, it’s easier to store and allows for people to be fully vaccinated if they are at risk of not returning for a second shot.
Yale Medicine officials released a report in February comparing all three vaccines and their ability to produce to the desired effect of immunization, stating Pfizer has a 95% efficacy of preventing infection; Moderna has 94.1% in people before infection; and Johnson & Johnson has 72% overall efficacy. It’s important to note that all three of these vaccines are highly effective, according to officials. The differences in reported effectiveness are due to the different locations and time of the pandemic that the vaccine trials were held.
Rare concerns
On Tuesday, both the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration recommended a pause on the administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in order to conduct further investigation.
“It’s a rare blood clot that also is associated with low platelets which is a strange thing to happen, so that basically means you’re (at a) higher risk of clotting and high risk of bleeding at the same time, which is what makes it a special circumstance,” said Mattley. “So, that’s why they’re giving it more attention than just a normal blood clot.”
“There was just as many people who disagree with pausing the vaccine because six is extremely, extremely rare out of 7 million, I mean that’s such a low number,” she added. “But because of the fact that it’s such a rare circumstance of the type of blood clot that that it is, and the fact that we’re doing this mass vaccination across the world, they’re just not wanting to take the risk.”
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, of the CDC has yet to issue an update about when the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine might resume.
There are a number of myths circulating around the vaccines, from the vaccines causing a change in your DNA to it resulting in infertility.
“It’s literally scientifically impossible for mRNA to be incorporated into your own body’s DNA,” said Mattley. “It does not enter the nucleus, which is where our DNA is, and it also gets broken down extremely, extremely fast by our own body, which is why you have to freeze it at these ultra-low temperatures to make it stable.”
The second rumor that she and her colleagues have been trying to put down is a potential fertility issue.
“Now, of course, we have no long-term data, but we have no scientific reason to believe that it would cause infertility,” said Mattley. “There’s a ton of people in the studies who have become pregnant while they were getting studied or as soon as the study was over.”
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Irregular Sleep Patterns Double the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in Older Adults
March 4, 2020
Older adults with irregular sleep patterns -- meaning they have no regular bedtime or wake-up schedule -- are nearly twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) as those with more regular sleep patterns, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The 5-year study suggests that an irregular sleep pattern may be a novel and independent risk factor for CVD, and that maintaining regular sleep patterns could help prevent heart disease just as physical activity, a healthy diet, and other lifestyle measures do. “We hope that our study will help raise awareness about the potential importance of a regular sleep pattern in improving heart health,” said Tianyi Huang, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “It is a new frontier in sleep medicine.” “Research has linked irregular sleep schedules to a constellation of disease-causing abnormalities in body function, including changes in blood sugar and inflammation,” added Michael Twery, PhD, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. “This study is Important because it is among the largest of its kind, and it specifically associates these irregular sleep patterns with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.” For the current study, researchers followed 1,992 men and women aged 45 to 84 years who did not have CVD at the start of the study. The participants, who were part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), lived in communities across the United States. Participants wore actigraph devices on their wrists to closely track sleep and wake activity for 7 consecutive days, including weekends. They also underwent a 1-night at-home polysomnography at the beginning of the study and took a questionnaire-based sleep assessment. Of the participants, about 38% were white, 28% African American, 22% Latino, and 12% Chinese American. During the 5-year follow-up period, 111 participants developed CVD events, including myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke, or died from CVD-related causes. The researchers found that participants with the most irregular sleep duration or timing had more than double the risk of developing a CVD event over the follow-up period compared with those with the most regular sleep patterns. The associations remained strong even after adjusting for known cardiovascular risk factors and other sleep variables such as obstructive sleep apnoea and average sleep duration. The association between irregular sleep and CVD appeared stronger among racial/ethnic minority populations, particularly African Americans, than among whites, the researchers said. This finding is consistent with recent studies that show racial minorities tend to have a higher risk of sleep disorders than whites. Although past studies suggest that women are more likely than men to be affected by unhealthy sleep, the current study did not find significant gender differences. The researchers said they are still unclear about the exact biological mechanisms behind the sleep irregularity and CVD link, but they suspect that multiple factors, including harmful disturbances in the body’s circadian rhythm. In future studies, the researchers said they will look for blood biomarkers that may help explain the apparent link. Larger studies with longer follow-up will also be important to confirm these findings. Reference: SOURCE: National Institutes of Health |
What is Scottish nationalism, what is it not, what could it be?
Half the country thinks it’s a cult, the other half is chugging down the Kool-Aid.
The SNP is a political and cultural phenomenon sweeping away the old certainties of British politics, enthusing and enraging in equal measure as it goes along.
As things stand, the Nationalists are the majority government at Holyrood, the third party at Westminster, and run 11 councils across Scotland. They have 64 MSPs, 56 MPs, more than 400 councillors, 105,000 members, and opinion polls rate their leader Nicola Sturgeon as the most popular politician across the UK. Few political parties in the democratic world can claim to dominate a country so completely.
The political commentator and Nicola Sturgeon biographer David Torrance has explored the historical themes underpinning the rise of the SNP. His is a sober and insightful take but one that tells only part of the story. Just as important, and in some ways more so, are the ideological, emotional, and attitudinal forces at work in the movement that has seized the country.
What is the SNP? What does it want for us? What, in short, is Scottish nationalism?
The SNP is an ideological chameleon. Formed in a merger of the left-wing National Party of Scotland and the right-wing Scottish Party, it was for many years a small-c conservative outfit. Prominent elements dallied with more reactionary ideologies in the 1930s and 1940s but the party has remained firmly within the democratic nationalist tradition. In recent times, it has identified itself with social democracy and egalitarianism.
For much of its existence, the SNP was the party of strange little men with names like Hector and Drummond and spinster Home Economics teachers austerely swathed in tartan shawls. Their alpha and omega was “the restoration of Scottish national sovereignty”; there were about five smiles between them. The epithet “Tartan Tories” described their social profile as much as their political inclinations. Beginning in the 1980s, the party underwent a quiet modernisation, adopting leftish language and poses to define itself against Thatcherism and an increasingly moderate Labour Party. Policy shifted from absolute sovereignty to “independence in Europe” and the vestiges of Anglophobia were superseded by opposition to “Westminster” and “London”.
There are any number of SNPs. It is a party of the sensible centre in the rural fringes and of the political fringe in the urban centre. There’s the Fergus Ewing SNP, low-tax and pro-business, and there’s the 45er SNP, the tens of thousands of new members convinced they have joined a radical party. There’s the tattie-peelings fundies and the Glasgow solicitor gradualists. The SNP unites the entrepreneur with the artist, the public sector worker with the welfare claimant, as distinctions of income and class are blurred in pursuit of national advancement.
In the middle of this unconscious coalition of sharply opposed interests, there is to be found a standard European party of the centre-left: Pro-public services and pro-business, pro-growth and pro-environment(ish). On fiscal and economic policy, they are not radically different from the “Red Tories” they excoriate. The 2015 manifesto echoed Labour’s major pledges on tax and for all its anti-austerity bombast the party merely advocated “a more moderate approach to deficit reduction”.
Analysis of its spending plans by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies found the SNP would cut borrowing by as much as Labour, though it would do so more slowly. While raising spending in real terms, the proposals could have seen a cut of 4.3% on everything except the NHS and foreign aid. “The SNP’s stated plans do not necessarily match their anti-austerity rhetoric,” the think tank noted, adding that “the implication of the plans they have spelt out in their manifesto is that the period of austerity would be longer than under the other three parties”.
Even without the IFS’s commentary, we could conclude that the SNP’s electoral prospectus, committed in rhetoric if not in reality to ending austerity, was far from a transformative programme. Their newfound fondness for Brown-era public spending levels is amusingly ironic but doesn’t suggest a party in the grips of economic radicalism. This moderate Labourism can also be seen in their exercise of power at Holyrood, where the first two SNP governments have abolished the graduate endowment, funded 1000 more police officers, abolished prescription charges, and delivered a council tax freeze.
As with all centre-left parties, it has learned the limitations of government. Its council tax policy “disproportionally benefits the wealthy”, according to Unison, and means “those on lower incomes face new or increased charges for the services they rely on”. It continues to miss its own targets on A&E waiting times and climate change, has presided over drops in literacy rates, and seen college places fall by 140,000 and college staff numbers by more than 1000.
Where the SNP stands apart is in trigger areas like nuclear deterrence, immigration, and Europe, where the party feels it can differentiate Scotland from the rest of the UK. The Nationalists are anti-Trident, though whether this is motivated by genuine internationalism or an insular reaction against the complexities of global politics is up for debate. They are pro-immigration and put their rivals to shame with calm, rational, evidence-led policymaking. When the latest quarterly migration statistics showed a spike in immigration, the Conservatives and Labour duelled over who would tighten the borders more; the Scottish Government released a statement welcoming the figures.
For a party that organises its politics around national identity, the Nationalists’ vocabulary on asylum, refugees, and humanitarian crises is commendable even if their queasiness about British military power can render their compassion impotent. They back Britain’s (and a future independent Scotland’s) membership of the European Union, though this is one constitutional question on which they do not wish to give Scots a referendum.
And of course there is independence, or rather interdependence. For the SNP does not envision a truly independent Scotland but one that pools sovereignty and resources across the EU. Its dictum that “decisions about Scotland should be made by people in Scotland” would be more accurately rendered as “decisions about Scotland should not be made by people in London”. Yet despite its antipathy for all things Westminster, the party went into last September’s referendum proposing that a separate Scotland share a monarchy, currency, central bank, monetary policy, financial regulation, and (temporarily) a welfare infrastructure with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Former leader Gordon Wilson fears his party is drifting away from independence and towards federalism; a casual perusal of the Scottish Government’s 2013 White Paper suggests the drift began some time ago.
Qualified sovereignty aside, there is no discernible ideology of any coherence but the Nationalists’ mode of governing is notably authoritarian. The SNP doesn’t seek to manage economic outcomes but it is obsessed with controlling social behaviour. Nationalist parties are often more attached to the ideal of a given country than to the country itself. With the SNP there is a near-missionary zeal to improve us all and to this end ministers now determine what kind of songs we may sing at football matches and what products shopkeepers can put out on display. Every child in the land will soon be assigned a state-approved guardian who will, at their own discretion, “promote, support or safeguard the wellbeing of the child or young person”.
A centralised police force roams the streets armed and searches people, including children, at rates that would make the NYPD blanch. A plan to scrap the ancient safeguard of corroboration was only latterly shelved after much condemnation. And yet the party is sexually tolerant and is a wellspring of measures to increase gender equality, even ones which are meritocratically dubious.
The enduring paradox of Scottish politics is that the country tells itself it is left-wing while what it tells pollsters can be startlingly right-wing. The political theorist Stephen Maxwell, instrumental in the left-nationalism project, once lamented “the myth that the Scottish working class has an instinct for radical if not revolutionary socialism lacking in its Sassenach counterpart”. This national myth is perhaps the only common ground remaining in a politically divided land. In championing national identity over ideological struggle, the Nationalists have managed to square this circle. Scotland now has a party that speaks to its socialist sentimentalism and a party that appeals to its economic pragmatism, only they are both the same party. The SNP’s greatest achievement is not turning Scotland nationalist but deploying the rhetoric of Clement Attlee while accepting many of the economic assumptions of Margaret Thatcher. When his political perceptiveness was at its height, Alex Salmond remarked that Scotland “didn’t mind the economic side” of Thatcherism – “but we didn’t like the social side at all”.
The long march of the Nationalists, towing along a colourful caravan of Trots and cultural establishment luvvies, vindicates that analysis. The SNP is not a socialist party and it requires a generous interpretation to accept its claims to be a social democratic one. There is a strong egalitarian instinct at work but it emerges in checklist progressivism rather than a coherent radical programme. Hate the Tories? Tick. No student fees? Tick. Ban the bomb? Tick. Reshape the fundamentals of the economy? Ummm… Indeed, it can seem a party in denial of its own pragmatism, even though technocratic centrism has been largely responsible for its electoral success.
Shettleston and Salford
Into the vacuum left by Labour’s forsaking of class, the SNP has inserted the nation as the organising principle of political action. “Stronger for Scotland” ran its election campaign slogan. This is of a piece with the endless charge that opponents are “talking down Scotland”. Unionists protest, with some justification, the sinister conflation of the country with the governing party but far more telling is the apparent belief that a nation is something that can be wounded by words. Poor little Scotland’s ears must be shielded from these big, bad self-loathers lest it get itself in a guddle.
The fragility of the nation and the enervating influence of those who do not cheer for it are common themes in nationalist thought. It is also a tacit admission that national strength takes priority over social solidarity and economic justice. Those principles are important to the SNP but only sovereignty is precious.
Depending on whom you believe, Alastair Darling either did or didn’t describe the Nationalist ideological impulse as “blood and soil”. (Some Unionists will never forgive the SNP for not being the party they desperately want it to be.) There is a drop of blood to Scottish nationalism but it has been diluted over the years. Above all else, to accept the SNP as a nativist outfit requires us to believe that its many first-generation Scots supporters are victims to a mass Stockholm Syndrome. No, blood is of little help to us here.
What, though, of soil? There I think we are on more solid ground. The charge to which the SNP has offered no coherent answer is that of parochialism; that by choosing nationalism we forgo what used to be called international solidarity but might now be termed cosmopolitanism. At root, the Nationalist contention is that a bus driver in Shettleston has more in common with Sir Brian Souter than with a bus driver in Salford. The connection, though, is not genetic but geographic; it matters to the SNP which side of the Tweed the bus is being driven on.
The risk for the SNP is not advancing the bigotry of race but the bigotry of place, a danger only underscored by lofty campaign talk about a “progressive alliance” across the UK. A meaningful alliance, if it is to be more than warm words, must involve the redistribution of resources and the safeguarding of equal public provision of services. The SNP has yet to set out how such a pact would function after a vote for Scottish independence.
If the SNP lacks an ideological backbone, this doesn’t seem to trouble the new members. A majority of supporters report that they experience criticism of the party as a “personal insult”, a phenomenon unique in British politics. To Nationalists, this is not evidence of an unhealthy emotionalism – the SNP as the Princess Di party – but proof that there is finally a party that people trust. Throughout the campaign, they would share pictures on social media of adulating crowds surrounding Nicola Sturgeon and demand: “Could you imagine this happening for Cameron, Miliband or Clegg?” Of course no one could because those are men, not icons.
This unyielding devotion can be a blessing and a curse. One of the side effects of mass re-engagement in politics is a Miranda tendency whereby 45ers, still dazzled by the shiny new club they’ve joined, puzzle at fusty, unfamiliar conventions and bristle at the discovery of opposing points of view. In the good-natured and inquisitive, this dramatises the awkward joys of political self-discovery. In the drudgingly humourless and Pentecostally literal, it manifests as innocence enraged. O brave new world, that has such quislings in it!
Ask any political journalist in Scotland and all but the most committed adherents of The Cause will tell you that criticism or even insufficiently flattering reporting of the SNP attracts a brand of backlash peculiar to that party. Into your Twitter feed and email inbox rush reservoirs of invective, some of which is creatively paranoid (“…but your MI5 paymasters won’t let you report that, will they?!”) though much of which is prating victimology, whataboutery, and the Salmond Subjunctive (“If Alex Salmond had said that…”). The patriotism police will arraign you for bias, treason, and assorted crimes against the nation. Try as you might to maintain a professional distance, reminding yourself that Unionists can write in green ink too, you know the preponderance of zoomers is very much with the SNP. What kind of party, you find yourself asking, consistently attracts people like this?
Political self-help
Most political parties are a broad tent. In the case of the SNP, there is no tent. As long as you believe independence is the answer, the question can be anything you like. Believe in a Scotland of lightly-regulated small businesses, low-taxed nuclear families, and the Queen on the money? That’s why we need independence. Long for a demilitarised socialist republic? You’re going to need independence for that.Supporters are fiercely loyal to their conception of the SNP more than to the party itself. Once we appreciate this, the fervency becomes a little less impenetrable and a lot less unnerving.
The SNP has been compared to a megachurch, a cult, a collective madness but while there is a palpable post-rational strain to contemporary Scottish politics none of these descriptions is satisfactory.
Emotionally, the party can function as a political self-help group, providing meaning and a feeling of belonging for those hitherto excluded from the democratic process. “See me, I’m SNP” declared a popular badge at the party conference, and you always know you’re in the presence of an SNP member because they proudly tell you so within about a minute. The gradual eclipse of economics by identity politics across the Western world has found expression in a number of parties and platforms. In Scotland, the SNP operates at the intersection of national and personal selfhood.
But if the personal is political, so too is the social. The enlarged SNP is a source of new friends, new pastimes, and a sense of community. In the former industrial towns of the west and central belt, where working men’s clubs and Co-operative societies were once landmarks in the social topography, communal spaces lie empty, or in disrepair, or have become bookmakers and charity shops. A spectre haunts these towns, the ghost of Labour Scotland receding into memory just as manufacturing and municipal socialism did.
The SNP offers civic rejuvenation and participatory politics on a scale not seen since the peak of trade unionism. Public meetings are back in vogue and rallies, once organised around occasional flashpoints, are regular events. Members feel like their views matter, that they are shaping a movement and through it changing a nation. Labour reduced politics to a four-yearly transaction between a remote governing class and the public; the Nationalists seem open to a crowdsourced democracy, though the test will come when civil society turns its guns on Scottish Government policy failures.
Nationalisms, civic and cultural
Professor Lindsay Paterson of Edinburgh University laments as “drearily familiar” the British’s left’s “misconceptions” about the Scottish national movement, which he characterises, sunnily, as “liberal nationalism” and, heroically, as “a child of the Enlightenment”. The attempt to write the nationalism out of the Nationalist project is no doubt appealing to liberal sympathisers but it deprives us of a genuine understanding of the party’s purpose and its role in a changing Europe.
In this regard, Professor Vernon Bogdanor’s analysis of the new nationalism is more enlightening, even if his close comparison of the SNP and Ukip contains important flaws. The constitutional expert contends that the Nationalists, like other anti-consensus parties across Europe, appeal to those left behind by globalisation and the austerity measures imposed in the wake of the global recession. Despite the economic roots of the crisis, parties like the SNP offer a national rather than social democratic solution.
Professor Bogdanor asserts: “They seek to replace the politics of ideology with the politics of identity. They are not easy to place on the left-right spectrum of politics… You can be a left-wing Nationalist or a right-wing Nationalist and the Scottish Nationalists aren’t saying that the other parties aren’t too left-wing or too right-wing but that they’re not Scottish enough.
“These parties are concerned not primarily with the distribution of income and resources – the economic matters which constitute the main elements on the political agenda for the other parties – they’re concerned about questions on where we belong.”
Where the esteemed academic loses his footing is in garbling SNP and Ukip nationalisms. Both are dissenters from the Fukuyama school of history (a dubiously accredited institution from which even Dr Fukuyama has since graduated) and the liberal internationalism project of the 1990s. Both too are populist insurgencies against remote and sneering elites, champions of the democratic emboldening of their respective nations. The root of their difference lies in identity, how they answer the “questions on where we belong”.
For the SNP, identity is a choice rather than an accident of birth, an interior dialogue between people who find themselves living in Scotland and the Scotland they find around them. For Ukip, identity is external, it lies out there in the modern, multicultural world which is Not England and therefore threatening. Ukip blames immigrants for our social and economic maladies while the SNP proposes them as a partial solution to demographic decline and a monochromatic culture. Reduced to its simplest terms, Ukip wants fewer people to be English while the SNP wants more people to be Scottish.
The fault line in traditional national movements lies between civic and ethnic nationalism. The SNP has comprehensively rejected the latter, though it might be the case that a small minority of its supporters still view independence through an anti-English prism. However, there is a midway point between the civic and ethnic strains, which might be called cultural nationalism. By this I mean the proposition that Scots and English people are not racially separate but socially, culturally, and even morally so.
The cultural nationalist can be an elusive creature but usually conforms to certain behaviours. Such people are readily identified by the five-foot Saltire on their car and ten-foot chip on their shoulder. Their case for independence is rooted in historical claim and cultural distinction as much as or more than democratic self-determination. They imagine Scotland as an oppressed nation, classify (English) incomers as settlers or colonists, diagnose self-loathing in non-nationalists and fear their morale-sapping influence, and spout mystical cant about “hidden poo’ers”. Much havering about the differences between Scottish and English society will shoot from their lips, regardless of the evidence from social attitudes research. And never, ever pass critical comment on their project to subsidise Gaelic into relevance in the 21st century. They don’t like that.
The sterile fetish of flags and heritage that makes a culture out of rewritten history will always be backward-looking. Nationalism is not, contra Orwell, the belief that the past can be altered; it is the fear that the past, or at least a political rendering of it, might be forgotten. Adherents protest loudly that theirs is nothing like other and earlier nationalisms all the while replicating the same tropes of division, grievance, and victimhood. Sometimes, a cultural nationalist is just an ethnic nationalist with a humanities degree.
‘Community justice’
Cultural nationalism does not characterise Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership but it remains a force within the wider movement. For a party that talks left and governs centre, the SNP’s nationalism in places bears the hallmarks of old-right chauvinism.
Alex Salmond charges Scottish Labour under Jim Murphy with being “neither Scottish nor Labour” and accuses the Unionist parties in general of being a “parcel of rogues”, while his political mentee Joan McAlpine denounces them as “anti-Scottish”. Stewart Maxwell, ordinarily a thoughtful and considered parliamentarian, tweeted a picture of a man in Ku Klux Klan garb and asked if he was marching in favour of a No vote in the referendum. During the election campaign Dr Lisa Cameron, the new Nationalist MP for East Kilbride, Strathaven & Lesmahagow, enjoined Scots to “vote for your country, not against it”.
Edinburgh South candidate Neil Hay tweeted about the “disproportionate number of non-Scots accents” in the audience of STV’s Scotland Debates programme, chivalrously attributing the observation to his “non-Scots wife”. He will have more time to monitor television’s Sassanach cadences after the ignominy of being the only SNP candidate to lose to Labour on election night.
The Edinburgh Western branch had to be reproved by HQ after it told people to take pictures of Labour activists and post them online. Nationalist campaigners in Glasgow East evidently took their advice and went “hunting” for Margaret Curran, filming the former Labour MP as she spoke to constituents on their doorsteps. (Her SNP opponent objected because it “obstruct[ed] the access to democracy” of the voters but allowed that politicians were “fair target for community justice”. She is now MP for Glasgow East.)
One of Curran’s pursuers was later suspended from the party after ugly scenes at a Jim Murphy event. But in contempt for alternative points of view, none could surpass the four Renfrewshire SNP councillors who publicly burned the Smith Commission report on further powers for Scotland.
The real tension that runs through the party is no longer left versus right; that battle has resolved in a score draw. The dividing line is now civic versus cultural nationalism.
The Salmond problem
These incidents seem at odds with Nicola Sturgeon’s optimistic vision for Scotland. It is hard to imagine the First Minister believes her opponents are sell-outs earning a hireling traitor’s wages. This sinister mood music belongs to the tenure of her predecessor.
Alex Salmond was, until Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP’s greatest electoral asset but as defeat in the referendum loomed Mr Salmond’s tone grew more belligerent. In the six months since he stood down as First Minister, his behaviour has become even more erratic, including a new hobby of penning logically tortured bon mots to the editor of The Herald. Someone encouraged Mr Salmond to write at greater length and he produced The Dream Shall Never Die, a triumph of third-rate style and first-rate self-regard. Score-settling books customarily trade in low blows but Mr Salmond’s scribblings are just plain low, that infamous swagger translated onto the page.
When not engaged in literary vulgarism, he has raised the spectre of a unilateral declaration of independence, opened a discount supermarket as a political statement, and picked a fight with a headteacher over which plays she allows to be taught in her school. Mr Salmond is now the poor soul on the night bus who tries to convince you the driver and the little man on the EXIT sign are conspiring against him. The comedown from high office is seldom easy.
The Gordon MP’s political abilities and achievements on behalf of his party cannot be denied. His blokeish bonhomie forged with national sentiment and economic populism was central to bringing the SNP out of its seven decades of opposition and into power. He ran and won two presidential-style election campaigns and without him Scotland would almost certainly have Anonymous Labourbot 2.0 as First Minister today. It would be a less confident country, a less dynamic economy. And it would be a nation that had not glimpsed the possibility of independence, though his vexatious personality and dubious currency proposals played some part in it remaining a mere glimpse.
I understand why Nationalists hold him in such affection but he is a figure of and for the 45%. What the SNP needs is a leader who can take it to 60%, a clear and decisive victory for independence. The old politics must give way to the new politics.
The Sturgeon opportunity
The herald of that new politics is Nicola Sturgeon. Mr Salmond’s departure from the leadership and inevitable declining influence on the party is an opportunity for the SNP. The Salmond era saw a change in Scotland’s electoral behaviour; the Sturgeon era could witness the transformation of the nation’s political imagination. The First Minister has a strength of character and force of personality that no one in Scottish politics can match. She is a politician capable of recalibrating the debate from whether Scotland should be independent to what kind of independent country it should be.
Sturgeon was responsible for arguably the most effective front in the Yes campaign, the pitch to Labour voters that an independent Scotland could more practically achieve the just society they longed to see. Those voters, the ones who came on the journey and the ones who stayed behind, remain key to a Yes vote next time round. They like Nicola Sturgeon, they trust her, they think she’s one of them.
Too often in pursuit of their votes, she has charged Scottish Labour with “talking down Scotland”. That, however, is a nationalist response and what she needs is a social democratic one; not that Labour is not Scottish enough but that it is not Labour enough. To advance this line, the SNP has to become more like the Labour Party instead of just aping its rhetoric. If it can reconcile an assertive national identity with authentically social democratic politics, there is potential for the SNP to be more than a nationalist party. Not just stronger for Scotland, but fairer for Scotland, more prosperous for Scotland, more outward-looking for Scotland – and recognising that other people and institutions can be for Scotland too.
That will take a change in what the SNP stands for and how it expresses it. It means redefining the SNP as a left-of-centre party that happens to believe in independence rather than a nationalist party that sees left-populist policies as a means to achieving independence. (It would also be helpful if it could live up to this.) Cultural nationalism should be shunned in the process and the abrasive machismo of the Salmond years too. If she relies on the current toxic brew of anger, blind optimism, and flag-waving, Sturgeon should know that sentiment passes and when it does the public deflects its embarrassment by turning on the object of their affection. Just ask Tony Blair.
That the SNP leader does not approach independence with the impatience of her members signals an openness to such changes. In an interview in April, she told the BBC’s Evan Davis she’d be “disappointed” but “philosophical” if Scotland was still part of the UK at the end of her political career. That is not the response of a doctrinaire nationalist but is consistent with the party’s “democracy and constitutionalism” tradition. As Neil MacCormick observed: “Gradualism is an all but inevitable corollary of constitutionalism, but also of a commitment to democracy, for we should seek to go at the speed of the greatest majority in promoting constitutional change.”
Gradualism can be arid and formalistic or it can be purposive; waiting for the nation to realise the wickedness of the British state or working constructively within the Union to improve people’s lives and by doing so give them hope that things can be even better. The opportunity of devolution was only ever partially exploited by Alex Salmond, for whom the allure of populism was often too great.
If Sturgeon is sincere about progressive politics-and I think she is-she could amend her party’s constitution to enshrine those values. The SNP swear left-wing motives but turn to their constitution and the only aims listed are independence and “the furtherance of all Scottish interests”, a helpfully vague if ideologically suspect phrase.
Such a change might be largely symbolic but as Blair’s reform of clause four of the Labour constitution proved, symbolism can be powerful. By 1995, no one seriously believed Labour was still committed to “common ownership of the means of production” but by replacing this with a paean to “the strength of our common endeavour”, the party signalled that a shift had taken place in its psyche and its designs on government.
The Nationalists’ mission statement could be reworded thus: “The SNP is a social democratic party that believes the people of Scotland, from wherever they may come and whenever they may have arrived here, are sovereign and entitled by their democratic will to the same rights of self-determination as every other people on earth. To this end, the SNP seeks to realise an independent Scotland based on the principles of social equality, economic justice, and personal freedom.”
A union lost
And the charge of parochialism is a substantive one; it warrants a substantive answer. How would an independent Scotland, no longer pooling and sharing resources, maintain socioeconomic solidarity with people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland? I don’t know the answer but the SNP’s promise to work in the interests of people across the British Isles, while not sufficient, hints at a way forward. In selling their vision for an independent Scotland, the Nationalists should be honest about the effects on England and Wales and articulate a post-UK progressive relationship that goes beyond bromides about a “social union”. This would entail breaking new ground in intergovernmental relations but the United Kingdom is a unique proposition and its unravelling was never going to be straightforward. If the SNP can settle for a federal Britain in the short term, it should recognise its interest in fashioning a post-independence social and economic community between the countries of the former UK.
None of this is incumbent upon Sturgeon. Her position in the party and the country is secure. Her approval ratings are of the sort that usually originate from the Pyongyang politburo. She could take a nail gun to the nation’s pets and the electorate would agree Fluffy had it coming. But victory is not power and nor is adulation. Power, real power, is about making choices and challenging people.
It matters what Sturgeon chooses. The Scottish Labour Party is in existential crisis and the Scottish Tories are too marginal to offer anything but intermittent resistance. There is no opposition to the SNP in Scotland. With strong leadership, a policy overhaul, organisational restructuring, a lot of hard work and even more luck, Labour may one day return as a force in Scottish politics but the scale of the challenge is dizzying. The greatest obstacle is not the referendum alliance with the Tories – on balance, probably a mistake – but how a party selling economics can trade with a country where identity is now the primary currency. As Tony Blair counsels: “Nationalism is a powerful sentiment; let that genie out of the bottle and it is a Herculean task to put it back in.”
Scotland is independent in all but the numbers. YouGov polling now shows the over-60s are the only age group still opposed, and excepting an unforeseen catastrophe or a painful taster of full fiscal autonomy, it is hard to imagine that trend reversing. We are approaching the Columbo moment in the long-running psychodrama that is the British constitution; “just one more thing” the voters will say and suddenly Westminster will know it’s all over. Less than a year after we rejected independence, it seems more likely than ever. Every impossible height reached by the SNP turns out to be a false summit. Nothing is impossible in Scottish politics anymore.
Unionists have no one to blame but themselves. Ten words saved their hide on September 18, 2014: “Nothing else than a modern form of Scottish Home Rule”. Ten words they had to redeem, ten words they reneged on. The Union was lost for ten words.
For much of his tenancy of Bute House, Alex Salmond showed spirit but lacked the temperament to coax a sceptical people into the history books. He was an undeniably successful political demagogue but never an instinctive statesman. That is not the case with Nicola Sturgeon. Day by day, she shows that she has what it takes to lead an independent country out into the world. Day by day, I grow more convinced that she will.
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Disappeared: historical figures who vanished
There’s probably been a few points in your life when you wished a prominent figure would just vanish off of the face of the planet.
While this may seem like a good solution to problems like, say, a disagreement over who won a certain US election, the practical ramifications of a high-profile disappearance can be devastating.
When cultures and nations suddenly lose their leaders without closure it destablises the succession process, creating a sort of cultural and political limbo that can be difficult to emerge from.
It is similar when figures who should have been brought to justice were not, because the world seemingly opened up and swallowed them.
Without knowing the full story, without getting the closure that human beings so desperately crave, societies and communities can become paralysed.
This article takes a look at some of the 20th century’s most high profile disappearances, highlighting why the figures were so significant, and the rift that formed when they vanished.
Harold Holt, Australian Prime Minister
The clothes and spearfishing equipment left on Cheviot Beach by Australian PM Harold Holt. Holt never returned from this quick swim. (Source: Hulton Archive)
On a hot Sunday afternoon in December 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt went for a swim off of Cheviot Beach, near Melbourne. He never came back.
It took two days for him to formally be declared missing, but there was never any hope of survival.
His lover Marjorie Gillespie was with him on the beach, and said that she had watched him slowly drift out of sight “like a leaf being taken out.”
The waters around Cheviot Beach are notoriously rough, and the swells are buffeted by currents moving up from the Antarctic. On this particular day the tide was said to be noticeably high.
Holt was a keen spear fisherman but was said to not be the best outright swimmer. Moreover, at the time of his disappearance he was struggling with a shoulder injury which meant that he couldn’t perform a forward stroke.
This seems like a fairly straightforward case then, doesn’t it? A 59 year old man was tragically dragged out to sea by strong currents, never to be seen again. An accident, but nothing more sinister than a misjudgement of nature’s perils.
That may have been the case if this wasn’t the head of a western government, and if this wasn’t the height of the Cold War.
JFK had been assassinated just four years earlier, and conspiracy theories were rife.
Like JFK, Holt was involved with the Vietnam War. His government had rapidly increased Australia’s involvement in the conflict as part of a wider strategy to become a major regional power in Asia Pacific.
Widespread protests against the war led to speculation that his assassination had been carried out by activists who wanted to pull Australia out of Vietnam.
There was also speculation that his death was to do with the treasurer Billy McMahon, who was universally distrusted within Australian politics.
The most outlandish theory however relates to China. 200,000 Chinese students study at Australian Universities today, but back in 1967 the two nations had very little to do with one another.
Back then Australia recognised the Republic of China (Taiwan), not Beijing. The Chinese meanwhile were in the midst of Mao Zedong’s catastrophic Cultural Revolution.
Despite this, a book released in 1983, titled The Prime Minister Was a Spy, argued that Holt worked for the Chinese government. He wasn’t washed out to sea as had been claimed, instead he had been picked up by a Chinese submarine and evacuated to Beijing before his identity could be revealed.
There is no evidence to support these claims, and it is now almost universally accepted that Holt died by drowning in the turbulent depths of the South Pacific.
In line with the Australian tradition of gallows humour, a memorial to the late Prime Minister was unveiled in Melbourne in 1969: The Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre.
Gedhun Choekyi Niyma, the Panchen Lama
Gedhun Choekyi Niyma, recognised at the 11th Panchen Lama within the Gelug Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, was kidnapped aged 6 by the Chinese Government. His whereabouts are still unknown. (Source: Free Tibet)
The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the Gelug Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Despite ceding partial control of the Tibetan government in exile in 2001, the Dalai Lama still holds tremendous political influence within the struggle for Tibetan autonomy.
The Panchen Lama is second only to the Dalai Lama himself in terms of importance, and is the figure that officially recognises the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation.
Once the Lamas were forced into exile in Dharamsala following the 1959 Tibetan Uprising, the Panchen Lama of the time, Lobsang Trinley Lhundrup Choekyi Gyaltsen, was an outspoken critic of Communist China and chronicled the Tibetan famines of the 1960s.
The CCP ordered his arrest and he died in jail in 1989. Keen to crush the Tibetan independence struggle, Beijing quickly set about locating the Panchen Lama’s reincarnation.
Gedhun Choekyi Niyma was recognised as the 11th Panchen Lama by the Dalai Lama in May 1995. Six weeks later Gedhun, who was just six years old, was abducted by the Chinese government.
He has never been seen since, and Beijing has consistently refused to disclose any information relating to his whereabouts or wellbeing.
Six months after Gedhun’s abduction the CCP announced that it had found the ‘real’ incarnation of the Panchen Lama – Gyaltsen Norbu. Gyaltsen also happens to be the son of two CCP members.
Gyaltsen is a strong supporter of ‘national unity’, and only ever visits Tibet in heavily guarded scenarios in order to prevent Tibetans from protesting what they call the ‘Panchen Zuma’ or ‘false Panchen’.
Possible locations for the true Panchen Lama include Beijing, Lhari in Tibet, or Gansu Province. In May 2016 Free Tibet confronted the Chinese Ambassador to the UK over Gedhun’s whereabouts, to which he responded that he is ‘just an ordinary boy’.
The abduction of the Panchen Lama has been devastating for Tibetan culture. The Dalai Lama has speculated that he may be the last incarnation. The struggle for Tibetan autonomy continues, but China’s grip is tightening.
Olof Palme’s killer
Stig Engström was named by Swedish authorities this year as the man responsible for the 1986 assassination of Swedish PM Olof Palme. Most Swedes remain unconvinced.
If you asked people in the west to name a country that seems like it has its sh*t together, Sweden would probably be a common answer.
The country ranks consistently high within indexes on factors such as happiness and social cohesion, and the Swedish brand of social democracy is often used as a barometer for progressives in the United States.
The strong external image of Swedish society masks a deep internal struggle that has torn at the heart of the country’s psyche since a fateful evening in February 1986.
On that cold winter night, Prime Minister Olof Palme was walking in central Stockholm with his wife Lisbet when he was shot in the back.
He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, and Sweden lost its Nordic innocence.
Worse still is that the Swedish never found their Lee Harvey Oswald. The killer had made an amazingly clean escape, leaving no trace of evidence apart from two .357 Magnum bullet casings.
This was Sveavägen, one of Stockholm’s main streets. How could a gunman murder the Prime Minister in the centre of the capital and get away with it?
Naturally, the failure to identify a killer caused a host of theories and conspiracies to emerge around Palme’s death.
Palme was a divisive figure back in 1986. He was head of the Social Democrats, and as such was a vocal supporter of financial and social equality; putting him at odds with the Swedish right.
On the international front Palme was a staunch opponent of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He also refused to align with either side in the Cold War and opposed US involvement in Vietnam, continuing the Swedish tradition of neutrality which had existed since 1814.
Far right agitators, the Swedish Police, and South African Special Forces were among the groups highlighted as potential culprits for Palme’s murder.
These are more than just tenuous conspiracy theories: the South African link was formally investigated by the South African government, who handed over a dossier of their findings to Swedish investigators earlier this year.
The Swedes thought they had their man back in 1989. Christer Pettersson was identified from a 10-man line up by Lisbet Palme. Pettersson had been convicted of mansalughter back in 1970 for stabbing a man to death during a street brawl, and rumours of his involvement in Palme’s death had emerged within small-time criminal circles.
The evidence for Petersson’s involvement was tenuous from the start. No murder weapon was found, and prosecutors couldn’t even confirm that he was in central Stockholm at the time.
His initial 1989 murder conviction was overturned in 1990, and he was awarded $50,000 in compensation.
In later life he went on to become a kind of minor celebrity, teasing his involvement in Palme’s death within high-profile TV interviews but never fully confessing or sticking to one story.
The story was left to simmer for decades, spawning countless whodunnits, novels and podcasts investigating the murder.
Then, in June 2020, Swedish investigators held a press conference in which they promised to announce the assassin’s identity, closing the case once and for all.
As it turned out, the information presented only raised more questions and has given no closure to a Swedish population who just want to put the story to bed.
Their man was Stig Engström, known as “Skandia man” because he worked at the Skandia offices next to where Palme was shot.
Engström had been known to investigators and journalists, and gave several varying witness testimonies. The 2020 announcement demonstrated that Engström had weapons training, and had access to firearms via an associate. He was in the immediate vicinity on the night of the attack, and apparently had associates in “Palme-critical circles”.
They still have no murder weapon. Engström’s motive is loose at best. A substantial amount of ‘evidence’ comes from original witness testimonies which were known to be problematic from the start.
To make things worse, Engström had died back in 2000. Even if he was the killer, the lack of accountability means that a satisfying close to the saga was and remains impossible.
Sweden still hasn’t healed, and it looks like the uncertainty around Olof Palme’s death will continue to pull at the heart of Swedish society for decades to come.
Heinrich Müller
Heinrich Müller (left) was the highest ranking Nazi to have disappeared. He played a central role in the Holocaust.
Müller is a slight departure from the rest of this list, as his disappearance was a tragedy not because of the loss of his life (if he did indeed die in 1945) but because he was never held to account for the central role he played in the Holocaust.
Müller had been with Hitler in his Berlin bunker in 1945, and was last seen alive on the 1st of May 1945, the day after Hitler had committed suicide.
He had been an outspoken critic of communism, and his success in investigating communist activities in Muncih had fuelled his rise to the top of the Nazi party. As such, he was terrified of what the soviets might do if they got their hands on him.
Hitler’s pilot Hans Baur quoted Müller as having said: “I haven’t the faintest intention of being taken prisoner by the Russians.”
His fate is unknown. He may well have followed the lead of Hitler and Goebels and taken his own life in order to spare himself from the incoming Soviets. He might have done what so many other Nazis did and escaped to South America. No concrete evidence of these scenarios has been encountered.
In 1961 Polish triple-agent Michael Goleniewski, deputy head of Polish military counterintelligence, defected to the United States. He stated to the CIA that he had been told that Müller was captured by the Soviets and taken to Moscow.
He added that German officials who were interrogated at the end of the war gave weight to this information. No evidence has been found to support these claims beyond Goleniewski’s word.
The only hint that Müller may have escaped to live a free life came from another high-profile Nazi in Adolf Eichmann.
Eichmann had managed the logistics of transporting Jews to ghettos and concentration camps before fleeing to Argentina. He remained there until 1960, when he was captured by Israeli Special Forces and sent to trial. He told investigators that he believed Müller to be alive, but gave no further details.
More recently, evidence emerged suggesting that Müller never managed to escape Berlin as it fell to ruin around him in 1945. Allied documents seem to indicate that Müller had been positively ID’d, dead, and buried in a mass grave at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin. Jewish laws forbid exhumations, meaning these claims can never be substantiated.
Müller was an outright monster. He was Chief of the Gestapo, and had ordered the arrest of 30,000 Jews during Kristallnacht. 200 people were executed on his orders following the attempted to assassinate Hitler in July 1944. He was also present at the 1942 Wannsee Conference, when leading Nazis formulated the plan for a ‘final solution’.
The vagueness surrounding Müller’s fate is a disservice to the thousands of people that he directly or indirectly had a hand in murdering and enslaving at the height of Nazi rule.
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Why Rabbits Should Live In Pairs
When it comes to our fluffy bunnies, companionship is important. While single rabbits do well enough, a rabbit will be much happier and healthier when kept with another rabbit. According to a 2019 PDSA Animal Wellbeing report, 49% of the UK rabbit population live alone.
Rabbit sitting by himself
Nature of Rabbits
In the wild, most rabbit species live in colonies, digging interconnecting burrows with several entrances. These intricate underground labyrinths are called warrens. A warren consists of living and nesting areas, bolt runs, and emergency exits. Pregnant females will also build a ‘stop’ in a separate burrow.
Depending on the species, a rabbit colony can include as many as 20 bunnies! Within the social group there will be a dominant doe (female) and a dominant buck (male) who usually get the best sleeping spots within their burrow.
Living in a social group provides rabbits with safety. Whenever a rabbit spots danger such as predators they will thump a foot on the ground to warn their family and everyone heads for the protection of the warren.
Rabbits living in colder climates will sleep in small groups within their warren as a way of conserving body heat. For the first two weeks after birth, a mother will seal her nest with soil to trap heat and keep her kittens warm. Like most mammal litters, rabbit kittens sleep tightly curled with their littermates.
group of rabbits in the wild
Benefits of a Bonded Pair
There are several benefits for rabbits’ that are part of a bonded pair including physical and mental health, behaviour, and overall happiness. Believe it or not, a lone rabbit can suffer from anxiety and depression due to a lack of companionship!
Safety is key to rabbits feeling content and having a rabbit pal is key to this. Rabbits in pairs or small groups will often watch for danger and alert their companion if they feel threatened.
Grooming is a sign of a well bonded pair. On initial meetings rabbits tend to stick to grooming themselves, but bonded rabbits will soon engage in mutual grooming.
Playtime is always better with a friend. Happy rabbits will binky, which is also referred to as popcorning. They will jump high, turning their bodies and kicking out with their hindlegs. Bonded rabbits have been observed to binky considerably more often than rabbits kept alone.
Health is the best benefit of a bonded pair. Single rabbits can quickly become stressed, which makes them more susceptible to illness. Bonded pairs feel safe and relaxed and so less likely to get sick. As bonded rabbits tend to be neutered, they are also expected to live longer than a single unneutered rabbit.
How To Pair Rabbits
Although there are several methods available to successfully introduce two rabbits, the following two methods are most common and the least likely to cause stress. Introductions are best started in the morning as this gives you the entire day to monitor their behaviour and you can give them time alone as well. Some rabbit pairings are ‘love at first sight’ while others may take several days to cement their bond.
Neutral Territory
1. Choose a neutral area to introduce your rabbits. A large run or room in the house that neither rabbit is familiar with will work well for this method.
2. Place lots of hiding spots within the space so both rabbits can get away from each other whenever they wish. Tubes or open-ended boxes work best.
3. Scatter a variety of foods around the space such as hay, your current rabbit’s favourite veggies and fruit. Do not put it all in one spot as the rabbit may try to defend the food.
4. Start the introduction by placing each rabbit at opposite ends of the neutral space and allow them to meet in their own time. Normal behaviour includes circling, chasing, mounting and licking. If the interaction becomes aggressive you should step in immediately to prevent injury.
5. The dominant rabbit will mount the other and lower their head. The submissive rabbit will lick the other rabbit’s head as a signal of acceptance. Signs of a good bonding include mutual grooming, eating together or napping together.
6. House them separately overnight and re-introduce them the following morning. If all goes well again you can house them together overnight. You will either need to thoroughly clean your hutch or use a new one. Your current rabbit sees the hutch as their territory so not cleaning it may cause territorial scuffles. A new hutch is neutral to both rabbits and the better option.
Parallel Runs
1. For this method, position two runs directly next to each other. This keeps the rabbits separate but in constant sight of each other. They can always smell one another and will sniff through the mesh.
2. Put one rabbit in each run and allow them to investigate each other and do as they wish. After an hour or so, swap the rabbits over. This will prevent them from establishing one run as their territory.
3. Make sure both runs have hiding spots and scatter some tasty treats for the rabbits to graze on. Once you observe your rabbits sitting or lying together, you can introduce them. Follow the same guidelines as the first method, keeping an eye out for any aggression or fighting. House them separately overnight and continue the introduction in the morning.
The key thing to remember is that every rabbit pairing is different. Some rabbits may bond instantly while others may need introducing over several days before they accept one another. The best pairing is a neutered male and neutered female. You can keep same sex pairs, but the rabbits should ideally be the same age and size.
Bonded pairs should not be separated unless one rabbit passes away. If one rabbit needs to go to the vet, you should take both rabbits with you as this will reduce stress. Pairing rabbits can be done at any age, even if your single rabbit has lived most of their life alone. Provided you supervise the introductions and things are carefully managed, your rabbits should live happily ever after with their companion.
two bunnies sitting together
- Hannah Elizabeth
Animal Health and Behaviour Blogger |
The world’s cargo ships use bunker fuel which is the most polluting form of all fuels, and they need to reach carbon zero by 2050. Ammonia could be the answer.
There’s a lot to like about ammonia. But its smell isn’t one of them. This colorless fuel emits no Carbon Dioxide when burned. It’s abundant and common, and it can be made using renewable electricity, water, and air. Both fuel cells and internal combustion engines, like the one for this next generation hypersonic aircraft, can use it, and unlike hydrogen it doesn’t have to be stored in high-pressure tanks or cryogenic dewars like the ones in the latest superyachts. Plus, it has 10 times the energy density of a Lithium-Ion battery.
A scientist captured an impossible photo of a single atom
For all these reasons, ammonia (NH3) is gaining favor in the global shipping industry, a multi trillion-dollar industry that’s slowly turning itself electric as it desperately searches for cleaner fuels to power the freighters and tankers that haul manufactured goods and bulk materials across the ocean.
Maritime shipping contributes nearly 3 percent of annual carbon-dioxide emissions, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations body that regulates the industry. In 2018, delegates agreed to reduce emissions by 50 percent from 2008 levels by 2050. But, needless to say, meeting that target will require swift and widespread development of diesel-fuel alternatives and new designs for freighters, tankers, and container ships.
Shipowners and industry analysts say they expect ammonia to play a pivotal role in decarbonizing cargo ships. But there’s a crucial caveat: No vessels of any size today are equipped to use the fuel. Even if they were, the supply of renewable, or “green,” ammonia produced using carbon-neutral methods is virtually non-existent. Most ammonia is the product of a highly carbon-intensive process and is primarily used to make fertilizers and chemicals.
North Americas first Tidal energy turbine goes online in Nova Scotia
Recently, though, a handful of projects aim to change that. Finland’s Wärtsilä plans to begin testing ammonia in a marine combustion engine in Stord, Norway, by late May. Germany’s MAN Energy Solutions and Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries are also part of an initiative to develop the first ammonia-fueled oil tanker by 2024, and by 2024, the Viking Energy, which will be chartered by Equinor and fuelled using green ammonia from chemicals giant Yara, is poised to become the first vessel propelled by ammonia fuel cells.
The initiative “will open up a completely new option for zero-emission shipping,” says Henriette Undrum, Equinor’s vice president of renewable and low-carbon technology. “We are not just solving one small problem for one ship. It’s part of the bigger picture. It will be a starting point to build up the market for zero-carbon fuels.”
Still, industry experts say that revamping the global shipping fleet will be extraordinarily expensive. Researchers estimate that up to US $1.4 trillion will be needed to achieve the IMO’s emissions-reduction target. And fully eliminating emissions will require an additional $500 billion, according to a January 2020 study by a panel of maritime experts.
A number of climate-friendly technologies are being considered to reach that goal, including fuel cells, hydrogen-storage systems, and large battery packs, the latter of which was recently trialled in China.
Spinning metal cylinders, towing kites, and other propulsion methods are already helping to curb diesel fuel consumption by harnessing the wind. But ammonia will likely dominate among ocean-crossing vessels, which sail for days or weeks between refuelling and rely on common infrastructure worldwide.
“For such ships ammonia is the lowest-cost zero-emission fuel that we could find,” says Tristan Smith, a researcher at University College London’s Energy Institute, which evaluated more than 30 different shipping fuels.
Scientists create a liquid fuel that can store the Sun's energy for 18 years
Smith predicts green ammonia, so called because it’s produced using electricity from renewable green sources, will be produced in large volumes and will start to be used on ships during the coming decade. Other researchers make similar predictions. According to a September 2019 report from the international consultancy DNV, ammonia could make up 25 percent of the maritime fuel mix by mid century, with nearly all newly built ships running on ammonia from 2044 onward.
For ammonia-fuelled shipping to become a reality, though, several things need to go right. Manufacturers and engineers must overcome key technical hurdles and safety issues in the design of ammonia engines and fuel cells.
Record breaking solar powered aircraft stays aloft for 26 days straight
Port operators and fuel suppliers must build vast “bunkering” infrastructure so ships can fill ammonia tanks wherever they dock. And energy companies and governments will need to invest heavily in solar, wind, and other renewable energy capacity to produce enough green ammonia for thousands of ships. Globally, ships consume an estimated 300 million tons of marine fuels every year. Given that ammonia’s energy density is half that of diesel, ammonia producers would need to provide twice as much liquid ammonia, and ships will need to accommodate larger storage tanks, potentially eating into valuable cargo space. But, if these efforts succeed, it will mark a dramatic revival for a transportation fuel that’s largely sat on the sidelines since World War II.
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Dilution is a reduction in the concentration of a chemical (gas, vapor, solution). It is the process of reducing the concentration of a solute in solution, ... more
Sphericity of soil particles (related to the volume)
Wet bulk density of soil (total bulk density)
Moist unit weight
In fluid mechanics, specific weight represents the force exerted by gravity on a unit volume of a fluid. Specific weight can be used as a characteristic ... more
Charles's law
Charles’ law is an experimental gas law which describes how gases tend to expand when heated. When the pressure on a sample of a dry gas is held ... more
Worksheet 296
(a) Calculate the buoyant force on 10,000 metric tons (1.00×10 7 kg) of solid steel completely submerged in water, and compare this with the steel’s weight.
(b) What is the maximum buoyant force that water could exert on this same steel if it were shaped into a boat that could displace 1.00×10 5 m 3 of water?
Strategy for (a)
To find the buoyant force, we must find the weight of water displaced. We can do this by using the densities of water and steel given in Table [insert table #] We note that, since the steel is completely submerged, its volume and the water’s volume are the same. Once we know the volume of water, we can find its mass and weight
First, we use the definition of density to find the steel’s volume, and then we substitute values for mass and density. This gives :
Because the steel is completely submerged, this is also the volume of water displaced, Vw. We can now find the mass of water displaced from the relationship between its volume and density, both of which are known. This gives:
By Archimedes’ principle, the weight of water displaced is m w g , so the buoyant force is:
Force (Newton's second law)
The steel’s weight is 9.80×10 7 N , which is much greater than the buoyant force, so the steel will remain submerged.
Strategy for (b)
Here we are given the maximum volume of water the steel boat can displace. The buoyant force is the weight of this volume of water.
The mass of water displaced is found from its relationship to density and volume, both of which are known. That is:
Force (Newton's second law)
Number density (Relation to Mass density)
Reduced specific volume
In thermodynamicsIn thermodynamics, the reduced properties of a fluid are a set of state variables normalized by the fluid’s state properties at its ... more
Atomic packing factor
In crystallography, atomic packing factor (APF), packing efficiency or packing fraction is the fraction of volume in a crystal ... more
The density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume. For a pure substance the density has the same numerical value as its mass concentration. ... more
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What are thyroid cysts and how are they diagnosed?
Updated: Aug 19, 2020
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Thyroid cysts represent 15-25% of all thyroid nodules and are usually diagnosed by the aspiration of fluid from a solitary thyroid nodule. These entities are often caused by cystic degeneration of normal thyroid tissue, hemorrhage or trauma, occult follicular adenoma or carcinoma, multinodular goiter, or branchial anomalies that involve the thyroid gland. Simple epithelium-lined cysts, hemorrhagic colloid nodules, or necrotic papillary thyroid cancers can be found in resection specimens. In one particular study, 68% of cystic thyroid lesions selected for surgical therapy were benign, while 32% were thyroid carcinomas. To improve the diagnostic accuracy of aspiration biopsy, some authors advocate biochemical analysis of cyst fluid.
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Understanding Electrical Grounding in Household Wiring
Electrician Working on Electrical Service Panel
duckycards / Getty Images
Grounding is a principle of electricity that sometimes puzzles homeowners. To understand its importance to a home wiring system, it is important to know something about the nature of electrical energy flow.
What Is Electrical Grounding?
Grounding offers excess electricity the most effective and safest route from an appliance back to the ground by way of an electrical panel. Electrical grounding is a backup pathway that is generally only used if there is a fault in the wiring system.
Some Electricity Basics
The electrical current in your home's wiring system consists of a flow of electrons within metal circuit wires. The current comes in two forms, a negative and a positive charge, and this charged electrical field is created by huge generators operated by the utility company, sometimes many hundreds of miles away. It is this polarized charge than effectively constitutes the flow of electrical current, and it arrives at your home through a vast network of high-tension service wires, substations, and transformers that blanket the landscape.
The negative half of the charge is the "hot" current. In your home's wiring system, the hot current is normally carried by black wires, while the neutral wires, which are white, carry the positive charge. Both sets of wires enter your home through the utility's main service wires, run through your electrical service panel, and run side-by-side through every circuit in your home.
The physics of electrical flow are more complicated than most simple explanations can convey, but essentially, electricity seeks to return its electrons to "ground"—that is, to discharge its negative energy and return to equilibrium. Normally, the current returns to ground through the neutral wires in the electrical system. But should some breakdown of the pathway occur, the hot current may instead flow through other materials, such as metal or wood framing, metal pipes, or flammable materials in your home. This is what may happen in a short circuit situation, where most electrical fires and shocks originate. A short circuit is when electricity strays outside the wires it is supposed to flow through—in other words, when it takes a shorter path to ground.
The Home Grounding System
To prevent this danger, your home's electrical system includes a backup plan—a system of grounding wires that runs parallel to the hot and neutral wires. It provides an alternate pathway for electrical current to follow should there be a breakdown in the system of hot and neutral wires that normally carry the current. If a wire connection becomes loose, for example, or a rodent gnaws through a wire, the grounding system channels the stray current back to ground by this alternate pathway before it can cause a fire or shock.
The grounding pathway is generally formed by a system of bare copper wires that connect to every device and every metal electrical box in your home. In standard sheathed NM cable, this bare copper wire is included along with the insulated conducting wires inside the cable. The bare copper grounding wires terminate in a grounding bar in your main service panel, and that grounding bar is in turn connected to a grounding rod driven deep into the earth outside your home. This grounding system provides a path of least resistance for electricity to follow back to ground should a break in the wiring system allow electricity to "leak" out of the preferred system of black and white circuit wires.
In most home wiring systems, evidence of the grounding system can be seen at each outlet receptacle, where the third round slot in the face of the receptacle represents the grounding connection. When a grounded appliance plugs into such a receptacle, its round grounding prong is now directly connected to the system of bare copper grounding wires inside the house circuits.
Not all homes have this elaborate and complete grounding system formed by a network of bare copper wires. While such a grounding system is standard in homes with circuit breakers that are wired with sheathed NM cable, older wiring systems installed before 1965 may be grounded through metal conduit or metal cable, not bare copper grounding wires. And even older systems installed before 1940 may not have any form of grounding at all. Such is the case in knob-and-tube wiring, where there is no grounding path of any kind. Many older systems have already been updated, and it is a good idea to have it done if your wiring is of this older generation. One clue that your wiring is old is when the outlet receptacles have two slots rather than three. This indicates the outlets may not be grounded.
Built-In Protection
Your home wiring system also includes other safety devices to help prevent disaster. Circuit breakers or fuses protect and control each individual circuit. The breakers or fuses serve two functions: They protect the wires against overheating in the event that they are overloaded by too much electrical current being drawn through them; they also sense short circuits and trip or "blow" to instantly stop the flow of current when problems occur. In a short circuit or ground fault situation, a sudden reduction in resistance causes an uncontrollable amount of current to flow, and the circuit breaker responds to this by tripping.
Finally, it is fairly common practice for the metal plumbing pipes in your home to also be connected to the grounding pathway. This offers additional protection should electricity come in contact with these metal pipes. Often, this grounding is established by a grounding wire clamped to a metal water pipe near your water heater or where the public water line enters your home.
Appliance Grounding
Not only does your home wiring system have a grounding system for safety, but many plug-in appliances and devices do, too. Power tools, vacuums, and many other appliances are much safer when they have a third prong on the cord plug, which is shaped to fit the round grounding slot on an outlet receptacle. The presence of this third prong indicates that the appliance has a grounding system, and it is essential that these be plugged into grounded outlets. Some people have been known to cut off the grounding prong on an appliance plug in order to make it fit an outlet or extension cord that has no grounding slot. This is an extremely dangerous practice that could lead to a shock if the internal wiring in the appliance short circuits.
Plug Adapters
Most people are familiar with the plug adapters than allow three-prong plugs to be inserted into two-slot outlet receptacles. It is important to note that these offer grounding protection ONLY if the pigtail wire or metal loop on the adapter is properly attached to the mounting screw on the outlet cover plate, AND if that cover plate screw is connected to a metal box AND if that metal box is properly grounded. This is no sure thing, by any means, so three-prong to two-slot adapters should be used with great caution, if at all. The better solution is to plug three-prong plugs only in into three-slot receptacles that are grounded.
Where a grounded outlet is not possible, as in older wiring, some protection is offered by installing a GFCI (ground-fault circuit interrupter) receptacle at that location. The GFCI will sense ground faults and shut off the power before straying current can cause problems. It's important to note, though, that using a GFCI does not actually create a grounding pathway; it merely makes an ungrounded outlet somewhat safer.
Of course, not all appliances and plug-in devices have a three-prong grounded plug, and these are still safe to use since normally they have a double-insulated construction that minimizes the risk of short circuits.
Article Sources
1. Research on Electrical Fires: The State of the Art. International Association for Fire Safety Science
2. Construction Safety & Health. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor
3. Black and Decker: The Complete Guide to Wiring. Creative Pub. International, 2008 |
Are you looking for something to do this weekend?
In the past week or so the temperatures outside have fluctuated all over the place. And, most of the houses out there have snow up on the roof that will melt and/or evaporate until it is all gone.
Yesterday we introduced you to the concept of Ice Dams. Just to make things very clear, an ice dam is a phenomenon that you would not like at your house! So, what causes Ice Dams to form?
• Poorly insulated attic
• Poor attic ventilation
• Melting snow creates meltwater
• Meltwater then re-freezes
• Frozen meltwater creates an Ice Dam
It is almost always easy to tell if you have an Ice Dam up on your roof; as some of the Meltwater drips over the roof edge Icicles will form. If you see Icicles hanging off your roof it is very likely you have Ice Dams.
So that we understand, Meltwater comes from melting snow and runs down the roof and over the edge or into a gutter. Meltwater comes from the bottom layer of the snow that is resting against the roof. The snow melts because the roof temperature is above freezing. The roof temperature is above freezing because there is escaping heat from inside the house. The indoor heat escapes and warms the roof because there is not enough attic insulation. The temperature of your attic goes up for two reasons:
• Not enough insulation
• Poor ventilation.
The temperature in your attic should be virtually identical to the ambient temperature outside.
If things are working properly the snow on your roof will melt as the temperatures go up above freezing. As the temperatures go up the snow will melt and not freeze when it gets to the overhang because the air temperature is above freezing.
None of this is complicated Rocket Science, the melting snow is a reflection of how much insulation you have, or don’t have.
Ice dams and the resulting water intrusion into the house can cause a ton of problems, none of which are good.
• Sheetrock damage
• Saturated insulation
• Lumber rot
• Structural damage
All these problems can be taken care of and fixed but at a cost. It is easier to eliminate Ice Dams.
The easiest and best solution is to add more insulation and that will quickly solve the Ice Dam problem. The added insulation will also help you fight Heat Loss.
Adding the insulation is a quick, easy, and relatively cheap fix.
What are you doing this weekend?
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Readers ask: What Was The Bloodiest Battle In Marine Corps History?
Have the US Marines ever lost a Battle?
What is the bloodiest Battle in history?
Deadliest Battles In Human History
• Operation Barbarossa, 1941 (1.4 million casualties)
• Taking of Berlin, 1945 (1.3 million casualties)
• Ichi-Go, 1944 (1.3 million casualties)
• Stalingrad, 1942-1943 (1.25 million casualties)
• The Somme, 1916 (1.12 million casualties)
Was Okinawa the bloodiest Battle of all?
Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. The most complete tally of deaths during the battle is at the Cornerstone of Peace monument at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum, which identifies the names of each individual who died at Okinawa in World War II.
Why was Iwo Jima so bloody?
However, by early 1945 Iwo Jima was the focus of the costly war in the Pacific, now in its fourth bloody year. The Japanese had also constructed three airfields on Iwo Jima, and enemy planes flying from these locations posed a threat to American naval units operating ever closer to Japan proper.
You might be interested: Question: What Do Combat Engineers Do In The Marine Corps?
What do Marines call each other?
How do Marines earn the blood stripe?
What does the D stand for in D Day?
What US Battle had the most casualties?
With between 46,000 and 51,000 casualties on both sides, the Battle of Gettysburg is the costliest battle in US history. The fighting for the “Little Round Top” alone left nearly 1,750 dead.
What was the bloodiest day of ww2?
What ended WWII?
Some were caught in the cross-fire, killed by American artillery or air attacks, which utilised napalm. Others died of starvation as the Japanese occupying forces stockpiled the island’s food supplies. Locals were also pressed into service by the Japanese; used as human shields or suicide attackers.
You might be interested: FAQ: Can The Marine Corps Guarantee Your Mos?
How many died at Iwo Jima?
Approximately 70,000 U.S. Marines and 18,000 Japanese soldiers took part in the battle. In thirty-six days of fighting on the island, nearly 7,000 U.S. Marines were killed. Another 20,000 were wounded.
Who controls Iwo Jima today?
Can you visit Iwo Jima?
Visiting Iwo Jima Today Civilian access is severely restricted. Only a small number of official tour operators are allowed to land there with tourists.
Why did Japanese soldiers fight to the death?
Fear of being killed after surrendering was one of the main factors which influenced Japanese troops to fight to the death, and a wartime US Office of Wartime Information report stated that it may have been more important than fear of disgrace and a desire to die for Japan.
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Question: What are the signs of emotional immaturity?
What causes emotional immaturity?
Emotional maturity is linked to a persons development. Research shows that while adolescents may reason as well as adults, they often lack the same level of emotional maturity. Any number of factors may lead to emotional immaturity in adults, from lack of supportive parenting in childhood to underlying trauma.
What does emotional maturity look like?
People with emotional maturity are aware of their privilege in the world and will try to take steps toward changing their behavior. This means you dont blame others (or yourself) when something goes awry. You possess a spirit of humility — instead of complaining about your circumstances, you become action-oriented.
What are the qualities of an emotionally healthy person?
5 characteristics of an emotionally healthy personTheyre self-aware. Someone who is self-aware can perceive themselves accurately and understands how their behavior comes across to others. They have emotional agility. They have strong coping skills. They live with purpose. They manage their stress levels.5 Mar 2021
What are the characteristics of a mentally strong person?
Here are 18 things mentally strong people do.They practice gratitude. They retain their personal power. They accept challenges. They focus on the things they can control. They set healthy boundaries. They take calculated risks. They make peace with the past. They learn from their mistakes.More items •8 Jun 2016
What is mature thinking?
“Maturity is the ability to think, speak, and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity.” - Samuel Ullman, poet. “Caring—about people, about things, about life—is an act of maturity.” - Tracy McMillan, author and matchmaker. “Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values.” -
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Havre de Grace
Population: 11331
The first recorded history of Havre de Grace dates back to the mid-1500's. An Englishman named Wyth created a preliminary map of the Bay in 1585, but it was not until John Smith's exploration of the Upper Bay and Susquehanna River area in 1608 that a detailed description of the area was recorded. The City became known as Havre de Grace in or around 1782. According to legend, Lafayette referred to the City as Havre de Grace in a letter to George Washington. The letter stated that the site reminded him of the French seaport, Le Havre . Havre de Grace was incorporated as a Town in 1785.
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The Apple Of God's Eye
June 21, 2009
The Cross: A Symbol Of Faith Or Rank Paganism?
The hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” portrays the cross as the identifying sign of everything for which Christianity stands and around which Christians should rally in their fight against the forces of evil.
Throughout the world, people universally regard the cross as THE symbol of Christianity. Churches have crosses atop their steeples, on their walls, windows and doors. Catholics and Protestants wear crosses on necklaces, bracelets, rings, pendants, keychains and items of clothing. People in some churches “cross” themselves by touching the forehead, breast, and then each shoulder to form a symbolic cross in carrying out certain religious rituals or in blessing themselves or others. Some think the sign of the cross to be effective in warding off evil spirits and for generally protecting believers from harm.
So is it okay to wear a cross as a symbol of our personal faith? Is it OK to assume that the early Christian Church revered the cross as part of its religious observance? Check any encyclopedia or historical reference work on this subject. It makes for an interesting study for those who are not afraid to face the truth.
The cross, in many shapes and forms, was used centuries before Christ by abject pagans! Notice a few of the many examples:
• In the British Museum is a statue of the Assyrian king Samsi-Vul, son of Shalmaneser. Around his neck is an almost perfect Maltese cross. On an accompanying figure of Ashur-nasir-pal is a similar cross.
• The ancient Greek goddess Diana is pictured with a crosses over her head, in much the same way that the “Virgin Mary” is represented by many medieval artists.
• Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, is often pictured wearing a headdress adorned with crosses.
• Different types of crosses were used in Mexico centuries before the Spaniards arrived.
• The Egyptians used cross symbols in abundance, as did the Hindus.
The shape of the two-beamed cross had its origin in ancient Chaldea and was used to represent the god Tammuz. Tammuz is the deified Nimrod, the first man to lead the opposition against God after the great Flood. He founded the city of Babylon, and along with his mother/wife Semiramis, founded the pagan Babylon mystery religion—the origin of all false religion today. The Egyptians used crosses in abundance, as did the Hindus.
The surprising thing is that the Christian use of the cross did not begin until the time of Constantine, three centuries after Christ. Archaeologists have found no Christian uses of the symbol before that time. According to one writer, “By the middle of the third century A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had transvestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system, pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols” (W.E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, article “Cross“).
“In the papal system, as is well known, the sign of the cross and the image of the cross are all in all. No prayer can be said, no worship engaged in, no step almost can be taken, without the frequent use of the sign of the cross. The cross is looked upon as the grand charm, as the great refuge in every season of danger, in every hour of temptation as the infallible preservative from all the powers of darkness. The cross is adored with all the homage due only to the Most High; and for anyone to call it, in the hearing of a genuine Romanist, by the Scriptural term, “the accursed tree,” is a mortal offense. To say that such superstitious feeling for the sign of the cross, such worship as Rome pays to a wooden or a metal cross, ever grew out of the saying of Paul, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”—that is, in the doctrine of Christ crucified—is a mere absurdity, a shallow subterfuge and pretense. The magic virtues attributed to the so-called sign of the cross, the worship bestowed on it, never came from such a source.”
“The same sign of the cross that Rome now worships was used in the Babylonian Mysteries, was applied by paganism to the same magic purposes, was honored with the same honors. That which is now called the Christian cross was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was the mystic Tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians—the true original form of the letter T, the initial of the name of Tammuz—which, in Hebrew, radically the same as ancient Chaldee, as found on coins, was formed as in No. 1 of the accompanying woodcut (below), and in Etrurian and Coptic, as in No’s. 2 and 3. That mystic Tau was marked in baptism on the foreheads of those initiated in the Mysteries, and was used in every variety of way as a most sacred symbol. To identify Tammuz with the sun, it was joined sometimes to the circle of the sun, as in No. 4; sometimes it was inserted in the circle, as in No. 5.” (The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop, page 197).
There is an enormous body of evidence proving that the cross is not a Christian symbol but has its roots in rank paganism. Some will argue, however, that we may use the sign of the cross because it represents the manner in which Jesus Christ died, or that they are not using it today to worship a pagan deity. However, using it as a Christian symbol is a product of syncretism, (the blending of pagan traditions and methods of worship with the true worship of God), something God strongly condemns.
Before entering the land of Canaan, God told the Israelites,
. . . take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, “How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.” You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. (Deuteronomy 12:30-31)
Does the cross even represent the manner in which Jesus Christ died? I have argued against this in another article on this blog. The Bible does not specifically state which method the Romans used in the crucifixion of Christ, and as far as I can tell, no one has yet conclusively proven on what shape of instrument of torture Christ was crucified. Does it even matter? We have to consider if it is even appropriate to use the very tool that was used to kill our Savior as an emblem of our faith. If Jesus Christ had been killed by hanging, would we use a gallows or a noose as a symbol of our faith? If He had been beheaded, would we use a guillotine? It makes no sense to parade the instrument of shame and death before the world and be proud of it.
Satan the devil knew long before Jesus was born that Christ would die by crucifixion (Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14; Psalm 22:16). He has deceived the entire world (Rev. 12:9) into worshipping a false Christ by making the cross a popular symbol of worship.
Most importantly, God forbids the use of any item that takes the place of faith. He instructs His true followers to worship Him in Spirit and in truth (John 4:23), and forsake all of this world’s false religions, rituals and pagan symbols of worship. This includes the cross, which assists only to add to a dead, empty faith. As the apostle Paul exhorted, Christ’s true followers walk by faith, not by sight (II Cor. 5:7).
March 3, 2009
The Cross Versus The Stake, Which One Is Correct?
Many have tackled the subject of whether Christ died on the cross or stake, yet as far as I can tell, there is still no conclusive answer among debaters. To say that it is assumed that the instrument of torture was a cross is a gross understatement. The vast majority believe this fact, but we have to remember that the majority is not always right.
When Christ came to earth as a human being, it was NOT the majority which believed what He said, but the minority. Remember, there were only 120 disciples at the time of Pentecost (Acts 1:15), even after Jesus Christ preached to multiple thousands and had the disciples teach far and wide. Then, as now, the vast majority is WRONG . The teaching about Jesus Christ as the central figure of the gospel is incorrect and glosses over the fact that Christ said he came to tell the world about the gospel, or message, from the Father. He, unlike Christian religions today, did not glorify himself.
The doctrine of the cross has been carefully cultivated from that ancient Babylonian Mystery religion furthered by a particular church at Rome. Anything coming from this paganised denomination masquerading as a religion is not something God would ever associate with his Son, or His true Church. This is the subject we will discuss now.
Different views on form of wood
The New Testament does not specifically describe the instrument upon which Christ died. Writers hold various views on the form of the device used in the public execution of Jesus, and differ about the meaning of the Greek word “stauros” (σταυρός) and xylon (ξύλον). Though these words do not indicate the precise shape of the instrument, they give us vital clues.
The following accounts use the Greek word xulon which, when translated “tree,” can also mean “a stick, club…or other wooden articles” (Strong’s).
“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree” (Acts 5:30).
“And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree” (Acts 10:39).
“And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre” (Acts 13:28-29).
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal. 3:13).
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (I Pet. 2:24).
Stauros defined
The word Xulon is unlike dendron which is used of a living, or green tree, as in Matthew 21:8; Revelation 7:1, 3; 8:7; 9:4 etc. Stauros (an upright stake) can also be used in place of the word Xulon, the instrument to which criminals were nailed for execution.
A lot of the confusion arises from the English word cross, which believers try to forcefully insert into scripture.This word is “the translation of the Latin crux; but the Greek stauros no more means a crux than the word ‘stick’ means a ‘crutch’…. It never means two pieces of timber placed across one another at any angle, but always of one piece alone…. There is nothing in the Greek of the N.T. even to imply two pieces of timber.” (The Companion Bible)
The Imperial Bible Dictionary also denies the connection to the cross: “The Greek word for cross, stauros’, properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling [fencing in] a piece of ground…. Even amongst the Romans the crux (from which our cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole, and this always remained the more prominent part.”
In his book, “The Non-Christian Cross,” John Denham Parsons wrote: “There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross.”
Hermann Fulda, another author, agrees in his own writings, “The Cross and Crucifixion”: “Jesus died on a simple death-stake: In support of this there speak (a) the then customary usage of this means of execution in the Orient, (b) indirectly the history itself of Jesus’ sufferings and (c) many expressions of the early church fathers.” Fulda also points out that some of the oldest illustrations of Jesus impaled depict him on a simple pole.
Pagan sources
It is the Catholic church which later capitalized on the imagery of the cross, and blatantly used it as a symbol of their faith contrary to the Ten Commandments they profess to keep. To the Catholic church, the sign and image of the cross are all in all. No prayer can be said, no worship engaged in, no step can be taken without the frequent use of the sign of the cross. It is looked upon as a refuge from all dangers and the infallible protection from all powers of darkness. It is adored with all the homage due only to the Most High, which makes it such an abomination to God.
“To say that such superstitious feelings and worship for the cross ever grew out of the saying of Paul, ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’ is absolute absurdity, a shallow subterfuge and a foolish pretence.” Those fully indoctrinated by that Romish Pagan (Catholic) mother church now support the use of the cross with relatively recent (though debatable in their connection) archeological findings and historical accounts, while wholly ignoring “the ancient Babylonian Mysteries which were applied by paganism to the same magic purposes, honoured with the same honours as the Catholic church gives it today. That which is now called the Christian cross was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was the mystic Tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians – the true original form of the letter T – the initial of the name of Tammuz.” (The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop)
The cross had further uses especially in Egypt. It represents the Tree of Life, the age-old fertility symbol, combining the vertical male and horizontal female principles, either as an ordinary cross, or better known in the form of the crus ansata, the Egyptian ankh (sometimes called: the Tau cross), which had been carried over into our modern-day symbol of the female, well known in biology.
Questions and Answers
There are some incidental arguements (parodied the same way) all over the internet which some state as proof of a cross over a stake, yet they can easily be explained.
1. Question: If Jesus was crucified on an upright stake, then why does John 20:25 say that “nails” were used as opposed to a single “nail”? And why did both hands of Christ show holes?
Answer: One nail through both hands leaves a hole in both the left and right hand. Though the word “nails” is used, [ἧλος or hēlos] implies the singular — “of uncertain affinity; a stud, that is, spike: – nail.”
John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible states: “That nails were used in the crucifixion of Christ, is certain …How many were used, whether three, as some, or four, as others, or more, as were sometimes used, is not certain, nor material to know. The Alexandrian copy, and some others, and the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Persic versions read, “the place of the nails”; that is, the place where the nails were drove.”
2. Question: In view of John 21:18-19, how can a crucifixion be on an upright stake if the hands are outstretched?
Answer: Outstretched simply means fully extended especially in length. Hands can be outstretched up or sideways.
3. Question: If Jesus was crucified on an upright stake, then why does Matthew 27:37 say a sign was put above Jesus’ head instead of above His hands?
Answer: Whether a sign is put above his head or above his hands, it would still constitute being above His head. This arguement is an agonizing way of splitting hairs.
4. Question: The sign should have fitted three rows of properly readable letters from a distance. Could such a sign have fit in between the head and the points where the hands where pierced by either a ‘nail’ or ‘nails’.
Answer: The answer to this requires a small degree of common sense. Please reread the answer to the previous question.
5. Question: The thieves that died with Him were described as being on the right hand and the left, as opposed to “at the side of” or “at His left and right”
Answer: This is merely colourful use of verbiage. “Right hand” is Strong’s # 1188 (δεξιός or dexios); meaning the right side or (feminine) hand (as that which usually takes): – right (hand, side). For example, Jesus who sits on the right hand (side) of God – I Pet. 3:22.
Some state that only Christ’s sacrifice for us — not the exact shape of the wood on which He died — is important. But I am not persuaded that the relative lack of detail on the subject in the Bible is proof that we should take this approach. I Thess. 5:21 admonishes us to prove all things.
Others say that the cross was used as a means to an end — the punishment or death of a criminal — therefore Jesus Christ did not choose his instrument of death. But didn’t He? Only people thinking carnally (without the Holy Spirit), would utter such a statement. Do not various prophecies of old (such as Psalm 22) point to the instrument of death before the event happened? Or do we simply ignore Old Testament prophecies because some erroneously believe they are no longer in effect?
We must remember that God is a God of miracles. He foretold the method of His death and would certainly know in advance that the symbolism of this pagan sign would be (and was) appropriated for the use by religion today. This does not however in any way mean that God would allow the physical use of the pagan cross in the death of His Son. Any student of the Bible who has even a rudimentary understanding of the loathing God has for anything pagan, will know this is a ludicrous assertion.
So the mere fact that the traditional cross figures so prominently in pagan religious custom today (which includes mainstream religion), ought to give serious pause for thought. The symbol, and the supposed means, were later substituted by a church which impersonated the “little flock” of Jesus Christ. The Cross was adopted in an attempt to make Christianity more familiar and “friendly” to the pagan converts.
I believe that God purposely left out the information on the shape of the “stake” because He knew pagan counterfeit religions would indeed appropriate the symbol of the cross. Yet lack of Biblical information on this subject is actually a strong indicator of faith needed, as well as vigorous study required, to understand that this symbol is NOT associated in any way with the true Church of God, including its very Head and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, true Christians do not wear crosses, as a mere physical object does not assist in worshipping God. Their use is needed to keep the mind of adherents physically focused on objects, rather than understand that their faith is dead and empty. True Christians deeply appreciate Christ’s sacrifice and God the Father’s eternal love for them in giving up His only Son. They walk by the faith of Christ, not by sight of eyes (II Cor. 5:7). The Bible plainly states that God is Spirit and we are to worship Him in both spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
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