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About HSP (Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia)
General Information
• Periods of feeling down about having HSP are normal and expected. It is not uncommon for people to also experience periods of clinical depression.
• Yes. Here are a few examples:
-High arched feet (pes cavus). High arches occur because there is more weakness in the foot muscles that extend the foot backward and flatten the arch than in the muscles that flex the foot downward.
-Shortened Achilles tendons. Achilles tendons are often short, and generally shorten further as HSP progresses.
-Jumping feet (clonus). Clonus is an uncontrollable, repetitive jerking of muscles that makes the foot jump rapidly up and down. It occurs when the foot is in a position that causes a disruption of the signals from the brain, leading to an automatic stretch reflex.
-Hammer toes or bunions. These may occur due to imbalances in the strength and tone of muscles that maintain proper alignment of joints in the feet.
-Cold feet and/or foot swelling. This is most likely caused by poor circulation. Normally, muscle contractions in the legs help pump blood from the legs back to the heart. If the muscles are weakened, or if the person is relatively inactive, the blood flow from the legs may be decreased, and fluids may accumulate. This can cause swelling, or a sensation of “cold feet”.
• Some people may experience problems with their arms or fine motor control of their fingers. The degeneration in nerves that supply the arms is mild compared to that which occurs in the nerves that supply the legs. For most people, this is not significant.
• No. The group of disorders known as Ataxias (such as Friedreichs Ataxia) are spino-cerebellar disorders in which there is a disturbance either in the part of the brain known as the cerebellum or in the connections to it. HSP does not involve the cerebellum. Ataxias can be hereditary or sporadic. The term “ataxia” means without coordination, and can also refer to a symptom in which there is a lack of muscle control resulting in a jerky or unsteady movement. People with HSP may have in coordination as a symptom. This does not mean they have Ataxia.
• HSP cannot be passed to others through donation of blood. There is no medical reason why a person with HSP cannot donate blood.
• In the late 1800’s, A. Strümpell, a neurologist in Heidelberg Germany, described this disorder. He observed two brothers and their father, who had gait disorders and spasticity in their legs. After the death of the brothers, Strümpell was able to show through autopsy the degeneration of the nerve fibers leading through the spinal cord. The disorder was originally named after Strümpell, and after two Frenchmen who later provided more information about the disorder, Lorrain and Charcot.
• There is no evidence that HSP is more prevalent in one ethnic group than another. |
Greg Hansen's story helps us understand who to include in "design that's usable by all people."
And not just in Fishersville, Virginia, but anywhere.
Greg Hansen has worked with an occupational therapist for over 20 years, with the last 10 years spent working at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind. Greg works with children who have visual and hearing impairments and offers tremendous insight into how the environment can influence how these children function in the community.
Sensory impairments can have a major influence on a child’s development, and the lack of input may have a significant impact on motor and social development. As a result, self-care skills, independent living skills, and building connections with others may become impaired. An OT’s role in working with children with visual or hearing impairments may help facilitate some of the skills needed to be successful in these areas of development.
Location: Fishersville, Virginia, United States
Watch the interview:
Notable quotes from the interview:
With regard to a person who would be deaf, learning sign language is always good. Even just a couple of basic signs. I think being in a small town like Staunton, the home of VSDB, there’s a significant Deaf population. So knowing some basics like, “Hello, how are you?” (in ASL) type of signs, sends a really positive message. But I think symbolically, the effort in attempting to sign is a, is a great approach.
I guess with someone, if someone came in into your place of business with a visual impairment, just be very hospitable toward that person, greet that person, try to provide a visual or verbal description rather of this stores layout, what some of your items are, ask, “How can I help you?”
I would first just advise somebody, just, to talk to the student, the kid; just as you would any other kid of that age. Right, find out about them. What are their interests? And then from that conversation, I think you can develop a sense of some of the challenges of being blind or being deaf. I wouldn’t go in and say, ‘Hey! Tell me about how hard it is to be visually impaired?’ But find out about that person. What his or her interests are and then from that conversation; you’ll get a sense of how similar and/or different things might be from their perspective. |
吃 (chi): translation, meaning, pronunciation, examples
By | May 3, 2018
吃 (Chinese PinYin: [chī]; traditional Chinese: 吃) may mean: (1) verb. eat, e.g. 吃饭 (dine); (2) verb. absorb, e.g. 吃水分 (soak up moisture); (3) verb. wipe out, e.g. 吃掉敌人一个师 (wipe out an enemy division); (4) verb. exhaust, e.g. 吃力 (entail strenuous effort); (5) verb. suffer, e.g. 吃败仗 (suffer a defeat); (6) verb. live off, e.g. 吃退休金 (live on one’s pension); (7) verb. fully understand, e.g. 吃透 (have a thorough grasp of); (8) verb. accept, e.g. 吃软不吃硬 (can be persuaded by reason but not be cowed by force); (9) noun. food, e.g. 吃穿 (food and clothing). It is one of the most common Chinese characters and can combine with other characters to form various phrases and expressions.
1. How to pronounce 吃?
Chinese Pinyin: [chī]
Pronunciation examples: Please click to play the below audio.
Female speaker
Male speaker
Audio source: created by Baidu Voice
2. Synonyms And Antonyms of 吃
Synonyms: 进食, 忍受, 遭受,
Antonyms: N/A
3. What are the fixed expression, collocation and idioms that contains 吃.
Fixed expression: 吃饭 (dine), 吃亏 (be at a disadvantage), 吃豆腐 (flirt with a woman), 口吃 (stammer), 靠山吃山，靠水吃水 (make use of what is near at hand), 吃奶 (to suck the breast), 吃不消 (be unable to stand), 吃官司 (get into trouble with the law), 吃喝 (food and drink), 吃不准 (not quite understand), 口吃 (stammer),
Collocation: 吃退休金 (live on one’s pension), 吃掉敌人一个师 (wipe out an enemy division), 吃水分 (soak up moisture),
Idioms: 争风吃醋 (fight for sb.’s affections), 省吃俭用 (live frugally), 自讨苦吃 (invite trouble), 吃里扒外 (live off one person while secretly helping another), 好吃懒做 (be gluttonous and lazy), 坐吃山空 (sit idle and you will eat away your fortune), 大吃大喝 (indulge oneself in drinking and dining), 吃苦耐劳 (endure hardships and work hard), 大吃一惊 (be dumbfounded),
Terminologies: N/A
4. How to use 吃 in a sentence?
Below are some example sentences and quotes containing 吃.
4.1 咱们先吃饭, 然后去酒吧坐坐.
Translation: Let’s eat first and then go to the bar.
4.2 我们今晚吃点什么呢?
Translation: What are we going to eat tonight?
4.3 我很少在家吃早餐。
Translation: I seldom have breakfast at home.
4.4 中国以惊人的速度吃透了资本主义。
Translation: China has learned capitalism at a staggering rate.
4.5 他们吃的时候，耶稣拿起饼来，祝了福，就掰开递给他们说，你们拿着吃。这是我的身体。
4.6 当你赢的时候, 你就会看到这样的信息: 大吉大利, 晚上吃鸡!
Translation: When you win, you will see the message: Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!
4.7 我们就着酱汁吃
Translation: We eat them with sauce.
4.8 战斗民族很多都热情好客，所以如果你来做客，准备好饮用红茶，吃肥腻的食物（比如腊肠）吧。
Translation: Most Russians are very hospitable. So if you come by, be ready to drink black tea and eat fattening food (like sausages).
5. Stroke Order
Stroke order images provided by Wikimedia stroke order project
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Summary of The Cost Disease
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The Cost Disease book summary
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In 1966, economist William J. Baumol and his colleague William Bowen introduced their “cost disease” concept. Since then, their hypothesis, which explains why health care and education expenses always will increase, while manufacturing costs will fall, has proven accurate. Baumol says that their theory could “be the longest valid forecast ever to emerge from economic analysis.” He tracks why these fees constantly skyrocket – and it’s not the nonsense that poorly informed politicians spread. He also clarifies why people will continue to be able to afford health care and education. getAbstract recommends Baumol’s important, expert explanation to those seeking to learn why some costs rise while others fall, and how to extrapolate such costs to construct an idea of future expenses.
In this summary, you will learn
• Why the price of personal services such as health care and education rises faster than the rate of inflation,
• Why the price of manufactured products will decrease,
• Why society will always be able to afford health care and education, and
• How to control future health care costs.
About the Author
William J. Baumol, the academic director at the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at New York University, is a professor emeritus at Princeton University.
An Epidemic of Rising Costs
Medical fees, tuition fees and other expenses involving personal services are certain to outpace the rate of inflation and may go through the roof. This is because automating such services is almost impossible, and that is the primary symptom of the “cost disease...
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| Posted by Rags Srinivas Follow 11 Followers on Apr 27, 2017. Estimated reading time: 22 minutes |
Key Takeaways
• Programs are getting more intelligent by harnessing the huge amounts of data that is available
• From Data Science (DS), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) it's a huge field with some subtle and not so subtle differences between the topics
• There are a variety of platforms that don't necessarily require an intimate knowledge of the inner workings aimed at reducing the learning curve
• Although startups and web scale companies have already embraced these techniques, enterprises are not too far behind
• Regarding the topic of humans versus robots it's a joint responsibility of society to innovate and develop algorithms and machines in an ethical manner
AI is making a huge comeback. It’s fascinating to be part of an era where a machine (or a cluster of machines) can take on a chess champion or a Jeopardy contestant and be able to win those contests handily.
The increased ease of availability of computing and huge amounts of data is helping immensely. In this seemingly futuristic battle of man versus machine, enterprises have realized that they are sitting on a wealth of data that has not been effectively used so far.
Whether it’s predicting buying patterns or detecting faults in consumer equipment in advance, it's clear that adapting AI techniques would yield a significant competitive advantage to enterprise solutions. The race for cognitive solutions has thus already begun.
There are many reasons why enterprises are playing catch up. First and foremost, developers consider AI in the same realm as rocket science i.e. very hard to learn and with a significant learning curve.
The traditional methods of software development break down, since a set of input(s) might yield different output(s) depending on other ambient factors, and it would be hard to do test driven development, for instance.
Finally, there is no unified set of APIs for AI, and although different platforms use similar techniques it’s hard to migrate solutions from one to another.
InfoQ caught up with experts in the field, Prakhar Mehrotra of Uber, Dr. Jonathan Mugan, co-founder of DeepGrammar, and Kumar Chellapilla of LinkedIn to demystify the different topics surrounding AI and how enterprise developers can leverage them today and thereby render their solutions more intelligently.
InfoQ: I remember when I was in grad school learning Prolog and Lisp, AI was poised to take off but that simply never happened. Why so? Now, AI seems to be sexy again. Is this a passing trend or is it here to stay?
Mehrotra: It’s here to stay! It has always been hot in the academic community, but it has gained massive popularity in the industry due to investments made by tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft & Apple, in products like Siri on our iPhones, Alexa, Google Home and recently Autonomous Vehicles. Over the last decade, we have seen two massive technology shifts: a switch to mobile, and the advent of cloud. Both of them have led to an explosion in amount of data that is generated. The cheaper computing/hardware costs have enabled researchers at universities and in the industry to improve the performance of one of the primary AI algorithms -- neural networks. This has resulted in higher accuracy for real world applications (eg image classification/search, text mining, and voice recognition etc). The other thing that is contributing to its popularity is the cost. Tech giants like Google have the philosophy of democratizing AI (eg TensorFlow) and as result, anybody can start playing and experimenting with these algorithms. So higher accuracy of algorithms and cheaper costs of running are also reasons as to why AI is here to stay.
Mugan: The long-term trend is towards smarter machines, but these things are cyclical. AI is big right now in part because deep learning has created a new hammer, and as AI practitioners keep finding things to hit with that hammer, society sees continual benefits. Prolog and Lisp are symbolic systems. Symbolic systems are brittle because you essentially have to code in everything a computer will need to know, and there always seems to be a new case you forgot about. But symbolic systems are great at encoding prior knowledge and distinctions, and an open problem right now is how to best combine them with deep learning.
Chellapilla: AI is continuously getting better. The gap between expectation and reality is really a reflection of our optimism around how quickly science will advance to achieve our SciFi dreams. We grew up dreaming of space travel, communicators, flying cars, and HAL becoming a reality in our lifetimes. In the 1960-80s wave of AI, we grossly underestimated the difficulty of some of the AI problems. Two good examples are speech recognition and object detection and recognition. Both took multiple decades to solve. It is only recently that we’ve been able to solve them well enough to not only compete, but also to exceed natural human capabilities. These recent breakthroughs were driven by developments in greater compute power, access to huge amounts of data, and advances in deep learning. Today, the average AI developer or scientist can harness over a million times more compute (GigaFlops => PetaFlops) and a million times more data (GigaBytes => PetaBytes). This is very exciting! The maturation of open source toolkits and cloud technologies has also dramatically increased the size of the AI community and the pace of innovation.
InfoQ: The spectrum of cognitive computing spans Data Science, Machine learning, Deep Learning, AI and so on. Are Computer Vision, Neural networks and Deep Learning synonymous? Can you clarify these areas succinctly and how understanding this distinction might help developers and architects in designing solutions?
Mehrotra: Good question! Yes, in my experience in the industry, I have seen the terms AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning used synonymously, especially in a business settings. Actually, they are not synonymous at all. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a broader field of study that aims to build systems that are "intelligent". If the system aims to mimic human intelligence and think like humans (eg passing Turing tests, etc) then it is called "Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or strong AI". The difference between AI and AGI is the scope of the problem and modeling realm. Machine Learning (ML) is branch of applied mathematics and one of the techniques used to build an AI system. Search, Optimization, Control Theory, Logical Reasoning, etc are various AI techniques. Machine Learning differs from classical statistics by way of lesser emphasis on confidence intervals - the bread and butter of a classical statistician. Deep learning is one of the algorithms that comes under bucket of ML. Other examples of ML algorithms are Logistic Regression, Bayesian Networks, and Support Vector Machines, etc. Neural Network (sometimes also referred to as Artificial Neural Networks) is a loose term that in the academic community translates to feedforward neural network. When a network has many layers, it is called "deep". So to recap: AI is a super-set, ML is subset of AI, and Deep Learning is subset of ML.
Mugan: AI is about making computers smart. Machine learning is about computers that get better at a certain task with experience. Machine learning is one way to achieve AI; the other way is to program the smarts in directly. Neural networks and deep learning are one way to do machine learning. Deep learning and neural networks are pretty much synonymous. As neural networks became larger and larger, we started calling that method deep learning. Computer vision is one of the many capabilities that computers need to obtain to be smart. You can achieve computer vision with machine learning, and you can implement that machine learning using neural networks (deep learning). Data Science is about making data useful to human decision makers. It may involve AI and machine learning, but its goal is to allow a human to make a decision.
Chellapilla: Very confusing, isn’t it? They are related but not the same, though their usage might seem to indicate so. AI is the grand vision. It is the broadest of them all and includes several human programmed and machine learned areas. In contrast, Machine learning comprises a suite of tools and technologies for machines to learn from large amounts of data and little intervention from their human creator. For example, Deep Blue and AlphaGo are game playing programs built using AI. Deep Blue beating Gary Kasparov and winning the man-machine chess championship is a good example of an AI technology built using human programmed intelligence, rather than machine learning. AlphaGo, on the other hand, makes heavy use of machine learning and won its first game against a human professional player just last year (2016). AlphaGo uses deep neural networks, a certain class of machine learning models, though not for computer vision purposes. So, computer vision, neural networks, and deep learning are not synonymous. Deep learning is basically Neural Networks 2.0; bigger, better, and deeper- aka more layers. Computer vision is AI technology that allows machines to "see", i.e. gain a high level understanding of images, videos, and 3D spaces. Problems here involve detecting interesting things like faces and objects in images, being able to track them in real time, and building up a 3D model of the world around them to predict outcomes. Today, convolutional neural networks, a sub-type of deep nets, are the best machine learning models for building AI for computer vision.
InfoQ: Underlying these different areas is the availability of data. Most enterprises complain that they have so much data and they are only using just a fraction of the available data. What is stopping the usage of more data? Is there a point when there becomes too much data?
Mehrotra: Manpower! The specific kind of people who know how to make sense of data are called "Data Scientists". Turns out there is a massive shortage of data scientists. Universities are still catching up with the demand. I was reading a report on big data by McKinsey and remember it saying that by 2018, there will be a shortage of around 150k data scientists in the US alone.
Mugan: I don’t think it is a question of too much data. The challenge is getting the data formatted so that it can be fed into computers. And it is hard to come up with algorithms that make the best use of it. Once you have the right algorithm, you never seem to have enough data.
Chellapilla: The biggest blocker is the quality and accessibility of the data. When enterprises say they have a lot of data, they are usually referring to raw data which is very noisy and is not in a state that is ready for consumption by today’s programs and programmers. Companies need to invest data science and engineering resources to build out pipelines and platforms that digest this raw data into structured and semi-structured forms that can then be ingested by traditional programs. These transformations typically make heavy use of statistics and machine learning algorithms. Once companies put in this investment, there is no such thing as too much data.
InfoQ: Is the learning curve for AI too high? What are the AI platforms and APIs that do a good job of abstracting the complexity that developers and architects should pay attention to? was formed by a bunch of vendors and 3rd parties to collaborate on AI. Can you comment on this effort and other efforts to simplify the lives of developers?
Mehrotra: It depends on the kind of AI system one is envisioning to develop. For example, if you want to build a AI to play a game of chess or to find the optimal/shortest path or to decide whether to give a loan or not (credit-default recommender system), the hard part is not the science, but the computing power. So in that sense, the learning curve is not steep. However, if you are building a system that will decode a new language for you or you want to build self driving cars, then yes, I would say the learning curve is steep. For instance, in the case of language processing, we can use statistical techniques to decode and understand a part of the sentence and patterns in it, but in order to interact in that language we need to understand context - something that humans have mastered but machines have yet to catch up on.
In terms of the platforms that abstract complexity, IBM Watson stands out. It has done an amazing job for developers outside silicon valley to quickly jump on the machine learning band wagon and adopt it for their specific use cases. Another good API that I am exposed to for pattern recognition is Google Prediction API.
Mugan: There is a lot to learn when it comes to AI and machine learning, but there are a ton of resources online to get you started. Many times, you can get a lot of benefit with simple algorithms. We seem to want to always start with the most powerful deep learning algorithm, but that usually isn’t required. Simple algorithms like decision trees work great in many cases. I can’t comment on specifically.
Chellapilla: The learning curve for building AI solutions is getting less steep. Several basic ingredients for building AI systems are widely accessible via open source packages and cloud APIs. Good examples here are Google and Microsoft cloud APIs that provide text, image, video, speech, and machine translation capabilities. These are advanced enough for engineers to quickly build simple AI powered user experiences and products. However, many products require either custom engineered AI solutions, or even AI research and breakthroughs, to be successful. Once again open source tools such as R, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, etc are helpful here, but require non-trivial skills to master.
The hardest part of the learning curve for developers is changing their design thinking. This is needed for building non-zero fault systems that only offer statistical performance guarantees. In addition to understanding APIs, an AI developer needs to also grok math topics such as probability, statistics, and optimization. This is necessary for iteratively improving their AI system to make fewer mistakes. Most importantly, they have to unlearn the gut instinct to add a rule to fix an error the way they would fix a traditional software bug.
InfoQ: Supplementing these APIs, what are the AI related development tools and toolkits that Data Scientists and Developers should be aware of when working on data science projects?
Mehrotra: TensorFlow from Google, Theano library in Python, Deeplearning4j for folks who use Java and JVM, Packages rpart, glmnet in R are also useful for quick hacks to test an idea.
Mugan: I live in the Python world. I use a lot scikit-learn and TensorFlow. For natural language processing, spaCy is a great choice.
Chellapilla: For someone starting out, I’d suggest picking up R, scikit-learn, NLTK/spaCy, and TensorFlow. For intermediate to advanced users, there are a myriad options out there. It is a very rich and dynamic ecosystem that continues to evolve.
InfoQ: It's always fascinating to predict the future, such as buying habits, maintainability issues and so on. Can you comment on the advances in this area? How sophisticated are these algorithms and methods today? How can developers and architects incorporate them into their solutions?
Mehrotra: Neils Bohr said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future". The hard part about prediction, when it involves a human, is the context. For example: I order Pizza from say, the same pizza chain every Friday, around 8pm. I have done so for the last two Fridays, so a recommender system thinks that I will do the same this coming Friday. A data scientist at this chain has two choices: he or she can use this information to send me a pop-up on my mobile screen, or it can automatically order a pizza for me and send me a notification that a pizza is on the way. Well, if I really wanted pizza this Friday also, then Voila! This is an amazing AI that can predict my behavior. However, if I already had pizza say, at work, and I am in no mood for it again, then I might not be happy and start questioning the AI. Hence, most companies resort to a financially less severe alternative: pop-up on mobile screen.
Regarding the sophistication of algorithms, in my experience it has been more about a stronger signal than a sophisticated algorithm. For example, ensemble of logistic regression and random forest might do a good job in predicting loan default probability vs complex neural networks if my training data does not suffer from class-imbalance problem (aka I have enough default cases in my data I am using to train the algorithm). Better data triumphs complex algorithm.
Mugan: Recommendation engines try to predict what we will want next, such as on Amazon or Netflix. It’s not clear how far we can take these algorithms. If you remember the 1997 movie The Game with Michael Douglas, they could predict his every move. I don’t think it’s possible to predict individual human behavior with that kind of precision.
Chellapilla: Predicting behavior of specific users is hard, actually quite hard. However, understanding and predicting trends and behaviors of cohorts of users is quite advanced. Online advertising and revenue forecasting are the state of the art here. These ad matching and serving algorithms rely heavily on user behavior signals. The more the user shares with these algorithms (e.g. your Amazon Prime account purchase history, or your YouTube viewing history), the better they become. From an advertiser’s perspective, these algorithms are good at predicting audience sizes, campaign spend rates, and providing insights like on how much advertisers should bid. AI tech-wise, these solutions require robust algorithms that not only leverage historical data, but also respond quickly to changes in user behavior online. While the models are simple, these requirements produce quite sophisticated implementations with combinations of cold start, warm start, and real-time learning to track intra-day trends in online purchasing behavior.
InfoQ: Many startups are already leveraging Deep Learning. Why is Enterprise adoption still relatively slow? Can you provide some details of well-known or internal enterprise application(s) that were significantly improved as a result of incorporating some of the AI techniques?
Mehrotra: The reason why they are slow is because the platforms that I have described above offer easy implementation of basic techniques. Companies use this, but quickly run into issues (eg a lack of data science department) of modifying them to suite their specific needs. The key to the success of any enterprise solution is support, and I think Cloudera and Hortonworks are out there in this area, overcoming these barriers.
Mugan: Companies both big and small are using deep learning. Deep learning is currently best for applications related to perception, such as computer vision. Most companies deal with more structured data, and it is still unclear how to leverage deep learning to gain insights from a large SQL database, for example.
Chellapilla: Deep Learning is quite widely used in enterprises. Startups tend to produce niche products and typically build solutions from scratch. So, it’s reasonable that they directly start with deep nets. Enterprises building data products usually already have existing AI and ML solutions in place that are doing well in their domain. The KISS principle dictates that if something simpler, like a logistic regression model, is already in production and is doing well, there is no need to look for more complex models. So, you’ll see enterprises use deep nets more judiciously and apply them to problems where there are promising gains. Enterprises are slow in one regard though, due to data scale and privacy. Unlike startups that can leverage cloud APIs and services from day one, enterprises might have data scale and customer privacy constraints that don’t allow for shipping their internal data over to cloud services as easily. This requires them to build a custom solution in-house, which can be slower. They also need to solve scale problems early. An enterprise building a deep learning solution in-house that scales to hundreds of millions or billions of users will understandably take longer.
InfoQ: Can you discuss some best practices for developers who are working on Deep Learning or AI projects?
Mehrotra: Scope out the problem and clearly define what you want your system to do. Have a hypothesis on the outcome. On engineering side, make sure you have robust data pipeline and that it remains solid throughout the course of your project. If you don't have data or cannot reliably get the data, you will end up taking time fixing that. You want your data scientists to spend time on science, and not on maintaining data. On the project management side, start with a simple objective. Demonstrate this to your stakeholders and win early trust. Once you do that, go back and start investing in feature engineering. As Martin Zinkevich from Google says: good gains come from good features and not complex algorithms!
Mugan: Start simple. First use the simplest possible algorithm and run the process all the way through and evaluate the results. After you have done this, you can iteratively improve the results with more sophisticated algorithms.
Chellapilla: My suggestion would be to start by understanding deep learning, neural networks, and your specific problem domain. Deep learning is one approach to building AI solutions. It is just as important for AI developers to understand other techniques like linear models, logistic regression, trees, ensembles, etc. Whether deep learning is the best option or not depends a lot on the problem you are trying to solve and the desired properties of the AI solution. Often domain expertise and simplicity trump other factors. Simple models are easy to debug and tune. Product insights and experimentation is valuable for engineering good features and is as important as picking the right model and learning algorithm.
InfoQ: Final Question. Can you paint the future of AI? How would you assuage the concerns of the extremely paranoid that machines will eventually take over the world and make human beings expendable?
Mehrotra: Humans should build AI systems that are helpful for the human society at large. Machines don’t take over the world nor will any transformers. No missile or nuclear bomb by itself will wipe out the world. Rather, it is all in the hand of humans and their judgements to use the missile or not. I think the paranoia of machines taking over the world may have its origination from the theory that machines (by way of automation) will replace jobs, and hence humans translate that into fear of overtaking the world. The 2017 ASILOMAR conference did a very good job of laying down the guiding principles for AI research and ethics.
Mugan: It seems impossible to me that machines will ever be smarter than humans, but it also seems inevitable. Machines get smarter every year while we stay about the same. We fear that machines will take over because that’s what we would do. But machines didn’t evolve through evolution’s tooth and claw like we did; they were designed to help. Overall, I fear humans more than machines. Our society has a lot of problems that need to be solved, and I hope that machines can help us prosper. I also hope that we someday have computers that are smart enough to explain the mysteries of the universe.
Chellapilla: Fear is the wrong emotion to bring to AI developments. Today, it is more of a reflection of our trust in machines than the dangers inherent to AI. Humans have always been tool builders and tool wielders. Over time these scientific and technological innovations have brought a lot of prosperity and happiness to humans. I believe this will continue to be the case. AI will make these tools much more versatile, independent, and powerful. That said, with this increased power comes increased responsibility. Power is intrinsically neither good nor evil. So, as we build more powerful AI systems, the onus is on us- the creators- to also ensure that this AI not only inherits human attributes like raw intelligence, but also our social emotional values. The latter is key for producing a socially responsible AI that humans can learn to fully trust.
The opinions above have enough diversity and lot of commonality. As someone who’s getting started in the field, the terminology is too overwhelming and the distinctions between Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and AI is not always clear. However, it may not matter significantly since the approach is similar -- to fine tune algorithms based on a continual feedback loop.
Most panelists agree that the learning curve in this area is getting significantly less steeper and there are a number of platforms to get started relatively fast. Although startups have embraced the techniques outlined in the panel already, enterprise adoption is not very far behind.
As most panelists recommend, start off small with clearly defined requirements, a model and a hypothesis. Validate the hypothesis and continually fine tune the model based on the outcome(s). It might help to understand some of the inner workings of these algorithms although today’s platforms make it easier for developers and architects to play with these algorithms and gain a better understanding by trial and error.
On the topic of AI superseding human intelligence, the panelists unanimously conclude that we the builders of these intelligent systems have an ethical responsibility as well to ensure that if and when it does happen the power of these systems are harnessed for the greater good. Like a lot of other similar issues, it’s up to society to define these bounds while the technologists continue to innovate at a frenetic pace.
About the Panelists
Prakhar Mehrotra - is currently Head of Data Science - Finance and Uber leading team of researchers. His research group focuses on forecasting, optimization and building simulations to better understand network effects in a marketplace. Prior to Uber, he was Sr. Quantitative Analyst at Twitter as part of Sales and Monetization team working on building forecasting algorithms to predict revenue. He has graduate degree in Aeronautics from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena and from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris.
Dr. Jonathan Mugan is co-founder and CEO of DeepGrammar. He specializes in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and his current research focuses in the area of deep learning, where he seeks to allow computers to acquire abstract representations that enable them to capture subtleties of meaning. Dr. Mugan received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin. His thesis work was in the area of developmental robotics where he focused on the problem of how to build robots that can learn about the world in the same way that children do.
Kumar Chellapilla - is the Head of Monetization Relevance at LinkedIn and works on improving relevance for LinkedIn's paid products such as Recruiter, Premium Subscriptions, Ads, Sales Navigator, ProFinder, and Referrals. He is passionate about driving product and research innovation by solving hard problems in the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Prior to LinkedIn, Kumar worked on Ads Quality at Twitter and Web Search at Bing and Microsoft Research. He has a Ph.D from the University of California, San Diego where he worked on training neural networks for game playing.
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Survey Size with a Bayesian Prior
Putting a proposition before a large population of voters can be expensive, so an organization wishing to do so would like to have a reasonable assurance that a given proposition will pass. One approach is to take a survey of a randomly chosen subset of voters and use the results to estimate the proposition's chances amongst the general population. The larger the survey size and the larger the margin that the proposition passes in the survey, the larger the chances are that the proposition would pass for a general vote. The basic mathematics for this was discussed in Surveying for a Voter Proposition.
The previous discussion assumed that a reasonable choice for the Bayesian prior was the uniform distribution on p (the chance of a yes vote) because it is “unbiased,” in the sense that all possible outcomes were equally likely, including all yes votes to all no votes. Other common priors are commonly used that imply a different sense of “unbiased,” such as the Haldane prior p-1(1-p)-1 and the Jeffreys prior p(1-p). The Haldane prior assumes that, by and large, the entire population is in agreement, so p is most likely either 0 or 1. The Jeffreys prior assumes that each decade of p is equally likely, so a p between 0.001 and 0.01 is as likely as a p between 0.01 and 0.1. The Haldane and Jeffreys priors both imply that marginal survey results (close to 50%) are less likely than the extremes.
Secondly, since the Bayesian prior is intended to encompass prior knowledge of the distribution of p, a pessimist (optimist) has the right to incorporate pessimism (optimism) into the prior. A pessimistic prior would assume that the general population is more likely to vote no. A prior can also be used to assume a certain amount of indifference. For example, an election between identical twins might motivate a prior where the likelihood of strong sentiment toward either candidate is small.
The functional form of Bayesian prior generally used for these sorts of problems is the Beta distribution B(Y,N). The previously assumed uniform prior is then B(1,1), the Jeffreys prior is B(½,½), and the Haldane prior is B(0,0). In general, Y corresponds to increased likelihood of yes votes, while N corresponding to increased likelihood of no votes. The Beta distribution with strictly positive integer Y and N can be modeled using the Pólya urn model.
The distribution of yes votes in a survey is also a Beta distribution,
P ( y | s , p ) = ( s y ) p y ( 1 p ) s y . P(y "|" s,p) = left ( stack { s # y } right ) p sup y (1-p) sup { s - y } "."
Using Bayes' rule, the distribution of p is therefore
P ( p | s , y ) = P ( p ) P ( y ) ( s y ) p y ( 1 p ) s y . P( p "|" s,y ) = {P(p)} over {P(y)} left ( stack { s # y } right ) p^y (1-p)^{s-y} "."
Here P(p) is the required Bayesian prior. Inserting in a Beta function for the prior gives
P ( p | s , y ) = 1 P ( y ) ( s y ) p y + Y 1 ( 1 p ) s y + N 1 . P( p "|" s,y ) = 1 over {P(y)} left ( stack { s # y } right ) p^{y+Y-1} (1-p)^{s-y+N-1} "."
Since this is just another Beta distribution, the normalization (terms not depending on p) must be
P ( p | s , y ) = p y + Y 1 ( 1 p ) s y + N 1 B ( y + Y , s y + N ) . P( p "|" s,y ) = { p^{y+Y-1} (1-p)^{s-y+N-1} } over { B(y+Y,s-y+N) } "."
As before, the probability that the vote fails by less than a majority is given by the cumulative distribution function, resulting in the regularized incomplete beta function,
δ = B ( ½ ; y + Y , s y + N ) B ( y + Y , s y + N ) . %delta = { B( ½ ; y+Y, s-y+N ) } over { B( y+Y, s-y+N ) } "."
The infinite series expansion (for integer Y and N, and perhaps in general) is
B ( x , α , β ) B ( α , β ) = j = α α + β 1 ( α + β 1 j ) x j ( 1 x ) α + β 1 j . { B(x,%alpha,%beta) } over { B(%alpha,%beta) } = SUM from {j=%alpha} to {%alpha+%beta-1} left ( stack { %alpha + %beta - 1 # j } right ) x sup j (1-x) sup {%alpha+%beta-1-j} "."
Applying this to δ gives
δ = 1 2 s + Y + N 1 j = y + 1 s + Y + N 1 ( s + Y + N 1 j ) . %delta = 1 over { 2 sup {s+Y+N-1} } SUM from { j = y + 1 } to { s + Y + N - 1 } left ( stack { s+Y+N-1 # j } right ) "."
The implications of this formula are interesting. Since the expression (s+N+Y–1) appears everywhere, both the pessimist and the optimist will change the size of a survey in exactly the same way; the direction of bias has no effect, only the magnitude.
For a fixed y (the number of required yes votes) and fixed δ, the Jeffreys and Haldane priors increase the size of the survey by 1 voter and 2 voters, respectively. These priors thus pose no difficulties (which is too bad, since both are somewhat inappropriate for a typical election situation).
Priors with Y+N>2 reduce the survey size relative to the uniform prior. Since the survey size is now smaller, but y has not changed, the required fraction of yes votes in the survey has increased. For a fixed estimate of pest=y/s, a larger survey is required to achieve the same y/s ratio. Luckily, incorporating a Bayesian prior into the computation of δ is a trivial change.
This computation was suggested to me by David Chaum, who wanted to know if a closed-form solution existed. See for more information.
Categories Voting, Probability
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Baseball Infielding
By:Bailey Hinson
About Baseball Infielding
A infielder is a player who is stationed at one of the four bases in the infield.A infielder stops the runner from getting on base and from getting home to make a point.Infielders try to get outs as fast as they can so they can bat.Infielders try to stop the ball from getting on the grass so the runner doesn't get to the next base.If a infielder makes a catch in the air without the ball touching the ground it is a out.If a infielder catches the ball and gets a out then the runner on a base has to run back to the base they were on or the infielder can get the ball and tag the runner and get them out.That is what a infielder is.
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You can tag the runner to get them out.
Interesting Facts about Baseball Infielding
Some interesting facts about infielding is if the ball goes foul and a infielder catches it without it hitting the ground then the batter is out.It is interesting that you can make a triple play by yourself.Shortstop is the most active position and first base is the most important.Thirdbase requires greater anticipation and quicker reflexes.That is what is interesting about infielding. |
How To Strengthen Your Mental Math
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Otherwise, math becomes a meaningless mental exercise of just memorizing rules and doing rote. These tips should help you improve your quantitative prowess.
Mental math is one way of improving your mental.
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Children need to store the information that. and solving assorted math problems to keep your mind in tip-top shape.
A BEAUTIFUL MIND Mental Workouts To Strengthen Your Brain
those for like 10 minutes every night will vastly improve your skills.
Help your kids strengthen their mental math skills. Select numbers based on your knowledge of individual students number sense (e. Mental Math Activities to develop number sense in K-5 students. Cool Tricks You Can Do to Exercise Your Brain.
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Mental math is an easy way to give gray matter a workout. Looking to beef up your students mental math skills?.
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Exercising neurons can improve your memory. E-MAIL officemoems. Magooshs free mental math flashcards span many topics including addition, subtraction, percents, decimals, and more.
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Sharpen your mental maths skills on this selection of learning games. Train your math skills and test them with our math tests. |
Environmental facts about ink cartridges
Ink cartridges can have a huge impact on the environment which is unfortunate as over 1.1 billion of them are used around the world each year. Here are some more environmental facts about ink cartridges.
1. Recycling your ink cartridges helps to prevent 15 million litres of oil from being used annually.
2. Only 6 million litres of oil was saved from being used over the last 5 years due to 17 million toner cartridges being recycled.
3. Landfills can be clogged up by used ink and toner cartridges. In the UK alone, 45 million of them are sent to landfills annually.
4. The plastics and metals used in cartridges take 1000 years to decompose.
5. Despite the number of people throwing away used cartridges, up to 97% of their parts can be recycled.
6. Using remanufactured cartridges prevents 3.5 pounds of waste from going straight to landfill.
7. Remanufacturing plastic uses 80% less energy than producing more plastic to make more cartridges.
8. Only 15% of cartridges in the UK are recycled per year and 375 million cartridges are disposed of yearly in the US.
To prevent the negative effects on the environment, recycle your cartridges!
Consumer facts about ink cartridges
Remanufactured ink cartridges can have a positive impact on the environment, because of less oil being required to make them functional than a cartridge that is brand new. Ink cartridges that are not recycled can also be an environmental problem because of the length of time that they can take to decompose – which can be a thousand years.
When as many as a million ink and toner cartridges are recycled, this results in around 19 thousands barrels of oils not having to be used.
The manufacture of a new toner cartridge involves approximately twice as much oil being used, compared to the amount of oil required for a remanufactured or compatible cartridge.
When a single toner cartridge is manufactured an approximate 3.5 litres of oil is used. For the manufacture of an ink cartridge the figure is 90ml of oil.
For every 50 cartridges that are newly manufactured the amount of oil used is a whole barrel.
Facts about recycling ink cartridges.
• Buying new ink cartridges cost a lot of money, and throwing them away when done is bad for the environment. Ink cartridges contain 3.5 oz of oil and can take up to 1,000 years to decompose.
• Placing these items in a dumpster isn’t a wise move since they are not biodegradable.
• Many home printers go through ink faster than some people read a book.
• The price of replacing ink for a printer are so costly, one might as well buy a new printer after the third cartridge.
• Recycling used printer ink is not only environmental friendly, but saves money and is easier than you think.
• Many office supply stores recycle ink cartridges and offer their customers a place do drop off their used ink when they walk in the store.
• Some stores even offer credit for returning used ink. These credits can be used to buy other items in the store, saving the customer money.
• Another way to save is buying used ink cartridges; these are less expensive than new ink packages. Recycling means they were reused, no additional machines were needed to make them, so it’s good for the environment.
Stop throwing away ink and save the earth, and your wallet.
How to Recycle Ink Cartridges
Recycling ink cartridges for your own printers helps to save resources when you are using ink on a regular basis. When you want to save and reuse your ink cartridges you can do so with just a bit of preparation.
First, it is important to read all of the labels available printed on the box of your ink cartridge or on the cartridge itself. Many times, the ink cartridge itself will let you know how to recycle it while providing an address of where to send the cartridge. A lot of companies today are willing to provide postage in exchange for you recycling your ink cartridges rather than throwing them away and using up more of the Earth’s landfill.
If your ink cartridge manufacturer does not provide a recycling address to send your unused and old cartridges, you can look for help with recycling them by browsing online. Searching the internet is a way for you to compare various local recycling centres as well as stores and ink companies that collect unused ink cartridges to help you with recycling all that you have. Hosting events such as fundraisers or even donation drives can help you to collect even more ink cartridges to recycle.
The Importance of Recycling Ink Cartridges
Recycling your ink cartridge is good for you and good for the environment. Last year alone, studies show that only ten percent of ink cartridges are recycled. Most people just throw them away. This is bad for everyone. Over 300 million cartridges alone were discarded and not recycled last year. Something has to change. But it isn’t going the right direction.
In fact our landfills are getting fuller and fuller of these unwanted ink cartridges. And the problem is escalating quickly. Most every home and office now uses at least one printer. The problem is that the ink in these cartridges, if not recycled, are thrown away and spill over into the ground. This is bad for our soil and our entire environment.
The results of this can be extremely harmful and long lasting. That is why we must educate people and help them understand that these ink cartridges must be recycled. We need to make it easy for people to recycle these products and we need to make it wrong to throw them away. This can only happen when and if everyone gets on board and does their part. The financial and environmental benefits are positive and long lasting.
Benefits of compatible toner cartridges
The benefits of compatible toner cartridges include saving money when compared to the remanufactured and original OEM counterparts. In some cases as much as sixty percent can be saved buying a compatible cartridge instead of original cartridge. There can be a savings of up to thirty percent compared to the remanufactured cartridge.
The warranty of the printer will still be honoured if a compatible cartridge is used. The amount of pages that can be printed with a compatible toner cartridge depends on the actual cartridge. A yield based on the page coverage of five percent of the page the material is being printed on is provided according to industry standards. It is possible to buy the toner in sets instead of having to purchase each colour individually which will save you money as well.
There are a number of benefits to purchasing compatible toner cartridges instead of the new parts or even the remanufactured versions.
Cost Savings Among Advantages of Remanufactured Toner
One of the most attractive advantages of using a remanufactured toner cartridge in home office or business printers is the cost savings. Remanufactured toner cartridges made by recyling original toner cartridges used in laser printers can cost as little as one-fourth the price of brand new cartridges. Another important advantage to opting for remanufactured toner is the lowered environmental impact, since empty cartridges can be recycled and reused rather than being tossed into the garbage can to clutter up what’s left of the shrinking landfill space in this country. Another great advantage is that the quality control process used by their manufacturers guarantees that the quality of their print output rivals that of printing done using new cartridges. It’s important, however, to get a remanufactured toner cartridge which is compatable with your printer to avoid any problems.
What is remanufactured toner cartridge?
Processing a remanufactured toner cartridge takes several steps of sorting and cleaning all parts. By doing this process the remanufactured toner cartridge can be used over and over. There are however, parts that cannot be used again for the remanufactured toner cartridge and have to be sorted out for recycling. The remanufactured toner cartridge is inspected to make sure that it meets the same qualifications as the toner cartridges that are not remanufactured. By remanufacturing toner cartridges it helps with the environment and our landfills to keep from over flowing. It is better to recycle items as much as possible in homes and businesses. The benefits are quality printing, savings of up to 70% and saving on our natural resources of energy and nature.
How To Prevent Toner Cartridge Waste
There are a number of small changes you can make to your printing habits that will make a big difference in the efficiency of your printing and extend the life of your toner cartridges.
Print only what you need to. If you don’t need the document on paper, don’t print it. You can save it to your hard drive or a flash drive and read it on your computer.
Use the lowest printing settings as your default. This setting uses a fraction of the amount of toner as high quality settings. Save high quality printing for necessities such as presentations or final drafts for clients, etc. Also, avoid using shaded boxes and large or elaborate fonts, as they can use more ink as well. Stick to unfilled boxes and the standard serif or sans serif fonts in 10-12 point size if at all possible.
Use a fax to email program to receive faxed documents via email instead of printing them out. You can also remove confirmation sheets from printed faxes to reduce toner waste. And finally, for archived documents, print multiple pages on a single sheet of paper if you printer has the capability.
Benefits of Remanufactured Toners
Remanufactured toner cartridges are recycled from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) empty cartridge. Remanufactured toner cartridges are completely disassembled, inspected, cleaned, installed and tested. They are in effect rebuilt from the beginning, ensuring the same quality and reliability you would expect from an OEM.
Quality – remanufactured toner cartridges are designed to perform as well as, if not better than new cartridges. In addition, remanufactured toner cartridges are filled to capacity whilst often times OEM is not.
Environment – favoured by environmentalists remanufactured toner cartridges are recycling non biodegradable materials. 97% of cartridge toners components can be recycled and used again.
Price – Remanufactured toner cartridges are a cheaper alternative, costing between 30%-60% less than non remanufactured cartridges.
With a properly remanufactured toner there should be no difference in printer quality than that of a new cartridge toner. In addition purchasing a remanufactured toner cartridge will not void your printer warranty. It is clear that with benefits with regards to quality, price and the environment remanufactured toners should be considered an option from home printers to large businesses or organisations. |
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Don’t Leave Home 最好别出门 If you are thinking about coming to Britain for Christmas, it might be a good idea to think again. That’s because thousands of Christmas travellers have been stranded in the UK as adverse weather conditions caused massive disruption to the transport infrastructure. Roads, railway lines and airports have been closed as blizzard conditions have swept across the UK, leaving people stuck in their homes or even their cars. Some of the worst affected travellers are those who had hoped to take the Channel Tunnel rail service to France and Belgium. Eurostar, the company that operates the service was forced to cancel all trains for three days after extreme weather in France caused trains to break down, leaving some passengers trapped under the English Channel for up to 16 hours. In parts of England hundreds of motorists were forced to abandon their vehicles, as black ice and drifting snow turned the roads into slippery toboggan runs. Police and transport agencies have warned travellers to avoid making any non-essential journeys to reduce the "mayhem" that has been seen on British roads. Gritters and snow ploughs are working overtime to keep the roads clear but for many people around the country the Christmas holidays have come early this year. And for every frustrated traveller who just wants to get home, there is probably a delighted child, whose school has been closed early. So with more bad weather forecast, if you are absolutely determined to come to the UK over the Christmas then you ought to wrap up warm, pack your snowshoes and even bring a sledge. 来自：VOA英语网 文章地址: http://www.tingvoa.com/html/20091226/11002.html
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How To Learn Python 3.4
May 21, 2007
How To Learn Python 3.4
Help’EmUp Harness Review: Not Often a Product Is Truly Life Changing
Figari Group Penthouse, W Fifth Bldg Bonifacio Global City Taguig, Philippines In 1951 physicists Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam came up with a scheme that is now used in almost all multi-stage nuclear weapons. In their design the second stage, shaped like a cylinder (in some later designs the second stage was shaped like a sphere, but does the same job), sits next to the first stage. The cylinder consists of a pusher/tamper on the outside (often made of some heavy metal such as lead or depleted uranium), the hydrogen fuel on the inside and a "sparkplug" at the very center. The rest of the interior of the bomb was filled with a secret material that was a plastic similar to Styrofoam. As the gamma rays from the first stage hit the plastic, it turns into a very hot plasma which, in turn, starts to heats the out layers of the pusher/tamper in the second stage. In addition, x-rays from the primary stage reflect off the outer case of the bomb and are absorbed by the tamper/pusher, further increasing its temperature. As the outer layers of the tamper/pusher heat up, they vaporize, turn to hot gas and the gas expands rapidly, putting huge amounts of pressure on the remaining parts of the pusher/tamper. As the pusher/tamper is compressed, it puts pressure on the hydrogen fuel (which is why it's called the "pusher").
What Are Light Sensors Used For?
The second rule is, the kids should be involved. The building of a treehouse was an important selling point when we told our boys we were moving out of the big, exciting city to a sleepy rural town. I still have our older son’s hand-drawn plans for what he wanted it to look like. (It’s close.) And they both drove some nails and screws and found some cool branches that we incorporated into the design. They participated. The last rule is, it’s not gonna end up the way you think it’s gonna end up. Meaning: The plan will change as you go. New ideas will form once you’re up in that tree. And other ideas will prove undoable. Branches will get in the way, and things will generally look different from the air. Even a few feet up. So improvise. Adapt. Make it yours. Or, to be more precise: Make it your kids’.. There is also two types of track, coated steel rails and nickel silver rails, again both can be used together, but the steel rail takes more maintaining. See track maintenance for details.
How to Run Faster & Stronger Yukon – 36′ Cruising Yacht
10 Things Every Beginner Should Learn
...left hand side. From Orlando, take I-4 to Exit 14, drive 2.5 miles south and turn right on MLK. We are 1.5 miles ahead on the right hand side.. I don’t understand how this even works…If the hiring mgr or HR person never heard of the fictitious company, wouldn’t they try to google it or look it up on Linked In to see where the candidate is employed? When they don’t find anything, then what?
Join a Secret Society in 'The Sims 2: University'
Custom permanent stickers are great for property identification, warning labels, or safety cautions. Using durable strong adhesive, custom permanent stickers can be stuck to any material or surface (even clothes!) to ensure any vital information is always seen.. Before beginning this process, you should first have boot information. This file can be made by booting file software, then using WinISO to make a bootable ISO file in few steps.
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The remaining bomb casings are located at the Russian Atomic Weapon Museum in Sarov and the Museum of Nuclear Weapons, All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics, at Snezhinsk.. Once you have completed the first 3 or 4 buttons, pull the top pleats tight and staple in place at the back. Make sure all your tuck pleats are facing the same direction. Continue with the other buttons in the top row, then be sure to staple those pleats in place as well.
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Finno-Ugric or Fenno-Ugric is a group of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families.
Proto-Finno-Ugric is the reconstructed protolanguage for the Finno-Ugric languages, i.e., the ancestor of all Uralic languages except for the Samoyedic languages. Its reconstructed parent language is Proto-Uralic, which split into Proto-Finno-Ugric and Proto-Samoyedic. This classification is not without problems; Proto-Finno-Ugric may be interpreted as a geographical grouping instead of a genetic grouping because the differences are few. It has been suggested that the area where Proto-Finno-Ugric was spoken reached between the Baltic Sea and the Ural mountains.
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Overview of Kindergarten Music
In Kindergarten, we begin learning how to listen to and audiate music. One of the techniques we use to develop audiation is listening to tonal and rhythm patterns and singing and chanting them in our minds, rather than with our voices. This simple exercise brings an awareness that there must be musical thought before musical performance. Another activity we use to develop audiation is playing “same and different” games. Children listen to two patterns and discriminate if the two patterns were same or different. We understand what something is by making comparisons and knowing what it is not.
We explore the many sounds our voices make: singing, chanting, speaking, etc. We begin developing our singing voices by singing short songs and tonal patterns. We also develop an understanding of rhythm and meter through chants, movement, and rhythm patterns.
We explore the many ways our bodies can move to music. We explore how we use the energy in our bodies through flow, weight, space and time. We explore locomotor movement such as walking, skipping, jumping, hopping, galloping, and rocking.
We explore the instruments in our room. We use simple rhythm instruments such as rhythm sticks, egg shakers, tambourines, and hand drums. We explore the many ways we can play the steady beat on our instruments. |
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Ibuprofen and Toremifene can disable the Ebola virus
1 July 2016
Ibuprofen and Toremifene can disable the Ebola virus
The painkiller ibuprofen and the cancer drug toremifene can disable the Ebola virus, say researchers.
The UK’s national synchrotron facility, Diamond Light Source, was used by scientists to study the virus in amazing detail
They revealed that both of the drugs have the capability to bind to the main part of Ebola that the virus uses to infect cells.
However, the public is warned that this process is just the starting point to researching the development of a more effective drug.
The synchrotron accelerates electrons until they produce very intense light.
This can be used to analyse the atomic make-up of objects at a much greater resolution than traditional microscopes.
The focus of the researchers was a protein on the surface of the Ebola virus that allows it to infect a cell.
Prof Dave Stuart, from the University of Oxford said that "This is the main target on the viral surface, this is the one responsible for attaching to the cell, it's the key protein to understand,"
The structure, which has been reported in the journal Nature, can already be used to design new drugs.
At this time there are no drugs that can guarantee a change to the course of an Ebola infection. The outbreak in west Africa, where 28,616 people were estimated to have been infected and 11,310 died, called for the need for new mesicines.
Prof Stuart said that: "They destabilise the protein. It [the protein] has one shot at it, and if it doesn't hit the target then those viruses would be inactivated.
"It's unlikely these compounds, as they are now, would be useful drugs for Ebola," Prof Stuart said.
"For an effective drug, you would want to increase the binding strength significantly.
"But seeing how they bind could allow stronger binding compounds to be developed using standard techniques."
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What is Home Improvement?
While “home improvement” frequently refers to developing projects that alter the structure of an existing house, it can likewise consist of enhancements to yards, gardens, and outdoor structures, such as gazebos and garages. It likewise encompasses upkeep, repair, and basic maintenance jobs. House enhancement tasks normally have several of the following goals
Upgrading heating, ventilation and cooling systems (HVAC).
Updating rooms with high-ends, such as including premium features to a kitchen area or a jacuzzi medical spa to a bathroom.
Increasing the capability of plumbing and electrical systems.
Waterproofing basements.
Soundproofing rooms, specifically bedrooms and baths.
Maintenance and repair
Upkeep projects can include:
Roofing system tear-off and replacement.
Concrete and masonry repair works to the structure and chimney.
Repainting rooms, walls or fences
Fixing plumbing and electrical systems.
Extra area
Additional living space might be added by:
Turning marginal areas into habitable areas such as turning basements into recrooms, house theaters, or office– or attics into spare bed rooms.
Extending one’s house with spaces added to the side of one’s house or, sometimes, additional levels to the initial roofing system. Such a brand-new system of building is called an “add-on”.
Saving energy
House owners may reduce utility expenses with:
Energy-efficient thermal insulation, replacement windows, and lighting.
Renewable energy with biomass pellet stoves, wood-burning ranges, solar panels, wind turbines, programmable thermostats, and geothermal exchange heat pumps (see autonomous structure).
Safety and readiness
Emergency situation preparedness precaution such as:
House fire and alarm system systems.
Fire lawn sprinkler to secure houses from fires.
Security doors, windows, and shutters.
Storm cellars as security from twisters and cyclones.
Bomb shelters particularly during the 1950s as protection from nuclear war.
Backup generators for supplying power during power outages.
Home enhancement market
Home or property renovation is an almost $300 billion industry in the United States, [4] and a $48 billion industry in Canada. [5] [full citation required] The typical expense per job is $3,000 in the United States and $11,000– 15,000 in Canada.
Expert home enhancement is ancient and returns to the beginning of tape-recorded civilization. One example is Sergius Orata, who in the 1st century B.C. is said by the writer Vitruvius (in his famous book De architectura) to have developed the hypocaust. The hypocaust is an underfloor heater that was utilized throughout the Roman empire in rental properties of the wealthy. He is stated to have prospered himself by buying vacation homes at a low price, including health spas and his recently developed hypocaust, and reselling them at greater costs.
Restoration contractors
Possibly the most essential or visible specialists in the restoration market are remodelling professionals or experienced trades. These are the contractors that have actually specialized qualifications, licensing and experience to carry out remodelling services in specific municipalities.
While there is a relatively big ‘grey market’ of unlicensed companies, there are those that have subscription in a respectable association and/or are accredited by a professional company. Property owners are suggested to carry out checks such as validating license and insurance and monitoring business referrals prior to working with a professional to deal with their home. |
Cover image for Time for kids big book of science experiments.
Time for kids big book of science experiments.
Publication Information:
New York : Time for Kids Books, [2011]
Physical Description:
192 pages : color illustrations ; 24 cm
Presents more than one hundred home science experiments that answer such questions as "Why does bread rise?, " "What is mold?, " and "How are fingerprints formed?"
General Note:
"More than 100 awesome projects. Science fair success secrets."--Cover.
"Powered by Mad Science."
Introduction: What do scientists do? -- Earth science -- In the clouds. Are clouds salty? -- The sun. Does paper need sunscreen, too? -- Earth on the move. Can grass show soil erosion -- What makes climate?. Can you capture heat? -- All about weather. How strong is air pressure? -- Magnetic Earth. How do paper clips respond to magnets? -- Life science -- Seed germination. Are seeds alive? -- Growing plants. Where do plants grow best? -- Thirsty plants. How do plants drink? -- Plants and water. What effect does oil have on plants? -- Growing crops for food. What's the difference between organic and genetically modified food? -- Yeast fermentation. Why does bread rise? -- Break it down. Which foods get the moldiest? -- Water, water everywhere. Does bottled water taste different than tap water? -- Color and temperature. Which warms up faster: a light-colored liquid or a dark one? -- Know your nutrients. Which snack food is greasiest? -- Digestion. How does detergent clean dirty dishes? -- Benefits of exercise. What makes your heart beat faster? -- Get moving!/ Are bones brittle? -- Skin: its all over you. Which part of your arm is the most sensitive? -- Genes and heredity. What traits do you share with your family? -- Growing up. Do boys and girls grow differently? -- Forms of identification. What is similar about people's fingerprints? -- Physical science -- A simple reaction. Can vinegar clean a tarnished penny? -- Acids and bases. How can you tell an acid from a base? -- Crystalline growth. How do crystals form? -- Un-mixing it up. What color marker runs the most? -- Making bubbles. What makes the bubbliest soda? -- Turn up the heat. What makes a good conductor? -- Heat rises. What's so weird about Ivory soap? -- All water is not equal. Can you keep water from freezing? -- Chemistry of clean. What's the best stain remover? -- Mass matters. Which objects float in water? -- The pressure's on. Can you trap air underwater? -- A push for a push. How can I make a soda can spin? -- Light travels. Can water affect how light moves? -- Technology and engineering -- Gravity and motion. What makes the best cushion for a falling egg? -- Get energized! Can you launch a ball farther with a catapult? -- Makin' it stick. Which shoe is best for a big hike? -- Going with the flow. Can a battery turn a simple wire into a magnet? -- Using the power of water and wind. How do turbines create power? -- Holding on to hot and cold. Which insulator works best? -- Types of bridges. Which bridge design is strongest? -- Staying afloat. Which boat shape holds more weight? -- Science fair success secrets.
Added Uniform Title:
Time for kids.
Format :
Call Number
Material Type
Home Location
Item Holds
Q164 .B54 2011 Juvenile Non-Fiction Open Shelf
Q164 .B54 2011 Juvenile Non-Fiction STEM
On Order
TIME For Kids' successful Super Science Book just got bigger and better -- with theall-new Big Book of Science Experiments .This full-color and expanded hardcover bookpresents 100 fresh and fascinating experimentsfor kids 8 to 12 to wrap their heads (andhands) around.
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Cultural Imperialism or Economic Reality?
Why not GlobalMandarin or GlobalSpanish?
At GlobalEnglish, we’re often asked if we will be rolling out solutions for Mandarin, or even Spanish. After all, only one twentieth of the world’s population speaks English as their native language. Mandarin has more than double the number of native speakers than English, and with the economic growth and growing dominance of China, wouldn’t this seem like a natural offering? Is this just another example of cultural imperialism, something that Americans are often accused of?
The world history of language dominance is a complex one, and different languages have acted as the “lingua franca” of business, religion and even politics throughout time. Much of this was shaped by cultural imperialism and implemented through wars, conquests, and colonialism. Early recorded history in Europe shows the dominance of Greek, then Latin (particularly as the church expanded throughout Europe), and then even the rise of German throughout Central Europe following the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire.
Before English, perhaps the best example of a language that came the closest to world dominance was French. Throughout the middle ages and up until the 19th Century, French was largely considered the most important language in the world. French became the language of administration and even became a language of superior status in England (used in law courts, etc.) Even the modern Olympics, which started in 1896, adopted French along with English as its official languages! From the 1960s to the 1980s, many pundits predicted the rise to dominance of the Japanese language, given the remarkable economic growth of and perceived economic threat from Japan. Schools started offering Japanese classes, and businesses started training their executives in Japanese. However, that trend waned in the 1990s with the economic stagnation in Japan, and the focus later shifted to predicting the rise of Mandarin due to China’s remarkable growth. But the increasing dominance of the Chinese in world economics is happening simultaneously to globalization so as to make it effectively too late to adopt Mandarin as a global standard.
So, why wouldn’t English, like French, German, Greek, and Latin before it, wane in dominance over the next century as Mandarin rises? The answer is simple — timing!
English came into dominance in the 20th Century at the beginning of a massive communications revolution and at the beginning of true globalization. Although earlier dominant languages may have had some sense of global reach, communication and commerce across borders was still a very slow and expensive process. Now, when many of these barriers to globalization have been brought down, English was already in the position of economic leadership. How does the requirement for strong Business English skills manifest itself in global business? When someone in the Netherlands does business with someone in Brazil, they need to find a universal language, and they default to English. So while GlobalEnglish does not deny the importance of China or of the Mandarin language (just like it doesn’t deny the importance of Latin American countries and the Spanish language), it is clear that global businesses have already chosen English as their de facto language of commerce, and if anything, that role is strengthening. This is why we are singularly focused on helping organizations succeed by equipping their employees with the Business English communication skills necessary to conduct global business.
What do you think? Is English increasing in importance in your global business?
This entry was posted in Business English, English Communication & Language Skills, Enterprise Fluency, Global Trends, GlobalEnglish Corporation, The GlobalEnglish Story and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
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Answered By: Referencing Enquiries Team
Last Updated: Apr 19, 2018 Views: 31
In theory, you do not need to cite and reference a photograph that you have taken yourself as you are the creator of the photograph. However, you would need to add a caption beneath any illustration within the main body of your work, ie, giving the photo a title, as follows:
Figure 1: Title of photo.
You would then refer to the photo in the main body of your text, to explain why you have included it in your work, for example:
Figure 1 shows…
There are exceptions to when you would need to cite and reference photographs you have taken yourself, which are when the photograph is of a source of information, for example archive material, a poster created by someone else, or a work of art in a museum or gallery which you are referring to in your work. In this case, you should cite and reference the source itself.
If your photograph is of a source of information, see instruction in the guide of how to present illustrations (including photographs) in your work in the section on 'Illustrations: e.g. images, pictures, diagrams, graphs charts or tables'. An example of a caption for a photograph of a source of information might be:
Figure 1: Image of The sensory war 1914-2014 (Carden-Coyne, 2014)
Also, consult the relevant section in the MMU Harvard referencing guide for instruction on how to reference the specific source in which the illustration is located. |
Sunday, 23 August 2015
The Roots of ISIL Cultural Erasure
Halla Diyab has an interesting piece in Al-Arabiya News: 'ISIS wages cultural warfare on Syria’s heritage', Wednesday, 12 August 2015. She discusses the roots of the destruction of places of memory and other sites and monuments and the attempt to create a new culture that serves their extreme narrative.
The culture being constructed by ISIS is an effort to “revive,” or more appropriately, manufacture, a culture to which their fighters can belong despite their distance and alienation from home. Most of these jihadists have difficulty feeling a sense of belonging to or identifying with the European culture of their home countries. ISIS offers them a new territorial space in Syria to construct and participate in a new culture and society, one to which they can easily belong.[...] ISIS are seeking to establish themselves, not only as the colonizers of Syria, but as the “new Syrians.” ISIS recognises that it must exterminate all symbols of the existing Syrian culture manifested by its heritage (e.g. artefacts, historical sites and monuments), rip out the roots of the country’s cultural memory leaving nothing left, in order for the new, forcibly-planted culture to grow successfully. To justify these acts, the organization claims that it is getting rid of all icons of heritage and religious monuments to leave an unobstructed path to Islam. However, this pretence conceals the real reasons behind ISIS’s policy of destruction. In the first place, this is the removal of any and all any obstructions to their own control and narrative in order to gradually become the living God. By erasing the cultural memory of the Syrian people, demolishing moral codes and severing cultural ties, they can create their own legacy as living icons for the next generation in Syria.
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Human ancestors originated in Asia, not Africa, says study
The earliest ancestors of modern human may have originated in Asia and not Africa as widely believed, according to a new study based on fossil discovery in Myanmar.
Previous fossil finds have long suggested that Africa was the cradle for anthropoids, which include monkeys, apes and humans. Now, an international team in Myanmar has found the tooth of a pre-human ancestor which may prove that anthropoids originated in Asia.
And the close similarity between Afrasia and Afrotarsius now suggests that early anthropoids colonised Africa from Asia, the team said.
Again modern science is catching up with the revelation of The Urantia Book:
65:2.15 Later in the evolutionary unfolding of intelligence, the lemur ancestors of the human species were far more advanced in North America than in other regions; and they were therefore led to migrate from the arena of western life implantation over the Bering land bridge and down the coast to southwestern Asia, where they continued to evolve and to benefit by the addition of certain strains of the central life group. Man thus evolved out of certain western and central life strains but in the central to near-eastern regions.
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Kidnapped vs in Cold Blood Comparison
3058 Words Feb 19th, 2015 13 Pages
In the novels Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote both authors demonstrate their use of characters and their change throughout the novel. In Kidnapped, the characters David and Ebenezer Balfour and the characters Herb Clutter, Perry, and Alvin Dewey in In Cold Blood are dynamic characters because they all undergo a change within the novels. Furthermore, Capote and Stevenson use suspense to promote the character dynamics within the novels. Capote and Stevenson cohesively use suspense with irony, the theme of chase and the overall structure of their novels to illustrate the character dynamics. Suspenseful irony is used to show the change in character throughout the novels. Suspense adds to the theme of …show more content…
(Stevenson 3). However, Mr. Campbell’s statement is tentative because it instills David with the image of his uncle as being a person of high-class and thus a very respectable person. However, when Ebenezer first makes his appearance, David suspects he is a “mean, stooping, narrow-shouldered, clay-faced creature” and was “long unshaved” and according to David’s point of view “he seemed most like an old, unprofitable serving-man, who should have left in charge of that big house upon board wages.” (12). Stevenson uses the irony of Ebenezer’s appearance to build suspense when David finally meets him.
Furthermore, the irony also helps to describe the character of Ebenezer as a solitary man who does not care about his outward appearance because according to David’s point of view his uncle seems to be like an “unprofitable serving-man.” (12). Therefore, the house itself reflects the appearance of his uncle as a decrepit place of living.
Stevenson also uses irony to illustrate Ebenezer’s character as a deceitful and cunning man in the various tricks he performs on David. One of his devious plans of getting rid of David involves the stair-tower near the house. In order to gain David’s trust he bribes him with “seven and thirty golden guinea (Scottish currency) pieces.” (22). The rest of David’s inheritance money is locked up in a chest in the stair-tower. David asks for a light but “very cunningly” his uncle tells him that there is light in the |
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This Is How Same-Sex Families Are Actually Counted In The Census
In 2011, there were 6300 kids living with same-sex parents.
Posted on
A census question asking for the birthplace of a person's "mother" and "father" has sparked concern over whether the children of same-sex couples will be accurately counted in Tuesday's census.
Each person counted in the census must indicate whether their mother and father was born in Australia or overseas.
However, answering such a question proves tricky for children with two mums or two dads.
Vanessa Gonzales, a spokesperson for Rainbow Families and the mother of two sons, told BuzzFeed News she had sought advice from the census information line and was told to get a paper form, cross out "father" and write in "mother".
A spokesperson for the ABS told BuzzFeed News it was "up to the respondents", but many people fill in the section as per their biological parents.
"It is common for people to use the biological mother as the 'mother' or the biological father as the 'father' where one of these is applicable," the spokesperson said.
However, despite concerns, the question does not affect how same-sex couples are counted in the census.
"The number of children parented by same-sex couples is calculated using the relationships specified in the household and the sex of the parents," an ABS spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.
"The country of birth of parents is not used in the calculation of number of children being parented by same-sex parents."
For instance, if Person 1 and Person 2 indicate their sex as "female" and then Person 3 indicates they are the child of Person 1 and Person 2, they will be counted as a child of same-sex parents.
The 2011 census counted 6300 children living in same-sex couple families.
It also found that people in same-sex couples are more likely than people in opposite sex couples to hold bachelors degrees and to equally share the housework.
Vanessa Gonzales from Rainbow Families told BuzzFeed News the question makes her feel like her children are not counted.
"There are a lot of government forms that we’re asked to cross out," she said. "It gives the impression there’s something not right about this family."
"My sons have two mums on their birth certificate, they have two legal parents who happen to be two women, and yet I can’t illustrate that at the census."
Contact Lane Sainty at
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The Need To Prepare In Advance For The Next Public Health Scare
No one can deny that bad news is quite intriguing. Without even realizing it as soon as a whisper of some tragedy hits our TV screens our ears perk up, our attention is diverted, and our focus zeros in on the worst possible scenario. However, as soon as the solution to the problem has been identified, we go back to business as usual and our attention goes back to our daily lives until the next spate of bad news grabs our attention again. This is how many people see the problems that face our public health. The only time that people think about health and safety is when an epidemic is upon us. It would be much smarter for use to consider these possibilities well in advance of it becoming a devastating news item.
When it comes to public health issues it is very easy to see how an epidemic can slowly creep up on society. It starts with one individual, perhaps even on a smaller scale (an insect bite or an unseen virus) starts to grow and before you know it the community is fighting off a major epidemic. Diseases are unlike any other disaster, they usually come unbidden, and unforeseen and by the time the rest of the world takes notice they can have already impacted hundreds and may have infected thousands. This is why so much attention is being devoted to identifying these potential health risks well before a possible outbreak. This is a fact that many experts often understand as explained in the New York Times, Humans die in large numbers every day, every hour, from heart failure and automobile crashes and the dreary effects of poverty; but strange new infectious diseases, even when the death tolls are low, call up a more urgent sort of attention. Why?”
Any spread of disease has the potential of becoming a major outbreak. This has been true in the past and will continue to be true in the future. Anyone who has studied their history books has learned of the dreadful Black Plague that spread through Europe in the 14th century killing nearly one third of the population at that time, or the Spanish Influenza that wiped out millions in the 20th century. To date, AIDS, a relatively unknown disease 50 years ago has already killed 30 million people and there is no end in sight. It is relentless in its attack and is showing no signs of abating.
This may lead many people to wonder exactly what is the next Big Pandemic that may be on the horizon for the rest of the world. Knowing this one fact as well as its possible nature can be the one thing that could save millions of lives.
What Experts Believe
Preparation for the next pandemic requires a host of different scientific experts to determine exactly what is needed in the future to prevent a major catastrophe. It requires input from an entire host of virologists, molecular geneticists, epidemiologists, and disease ecologists to narrow down the possible scenarios so that we may prepare for the possible threat. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “The 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak has underscored the importance of preparedness at the hospital level. Some hospitals have effectively integrated the infection prevention and disaster planning lessons learned from SARS and previous influenza pandemics.”
In addition to hospitals being prepared it is also necessary that every individual give careful consideration to the fact that a possible pandemic could be on the horizon and prepare themselves for it.
How to Prepare
Unlike another type of disaster, when a health issue is placed before the public it is not as simple as relocating to another place or hunkering down until the danger passes. For people to be properly ready for a public health outbreak it will require that they be prepared to be isolated from the rest of the world for a period of time. Depending on the type of health concern and the way it is spread could lead to a quarantine or removing oneself away from society as a whole until the disease has been controlled.
To that end there are definite steps that must be taken to ensure that one can maintain their health regardless of how they may be affected. While experts disagree on what could be the next epidemic they all feel that some type of preparation is necessary.
Aside from knowing how the new disease will spread it is reasonable to expect that one will have to live isolated from the rest of society for a period of time. This means that everyone should be able to stock up on essentials so that they can minimize their chances of exposure to the new infection. One may be required to remain at home or find “shelter” of some kind that will reduce his or her risk of exposure.
Every home should have enough supplies to last the residents for up to seven days. With enough water, nonperishable food, emergency and medical supplies people can reduce their risk of exposure hopefully until the danger has passed. However, it is important to make sure that the items accumulated are stored in a place where they can be accessible for when needed but still separated from their regular daily supplies. Storing them along with regular foodstuffs could create a temptation to use them as regular household staples, which will defeat the purpose of stocking up.
Have a Plan
Having a plan for a possible epidemic could lead to saving many lives over the course of an epidemic. Without a definitive plan in place people can find themselves in a vulnerable position that could lead to many risks to their health. It is important to heed the advice of ABC News Reports here, “Figure out how you would care for them and what your first response and responsibilities would be; this is an especially important conversation to have with those with special needs. Get involved with local groups and community efforts aimed at preparing for a pandemic.”
While it is not possible to prepare for every possible eventuality that may come up in a given community, having a definitive plan could be the very key to survival. The more prepared a person can be the more likely it is that they will survive a potential health scare that can have a major impact on the surrounding world.
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First World War
The Air Raids That Shook Britain In The First World War
© IWM (Art.IWM ART 2271)
First World War
12 Things You Didn't Know About Women In The First World War
Bomb damage to 61 - 67 Warrington Crescent in St John's Wood, London, following the German air raid on the night of 7 - 8 March 1918.
First World War
Firsts of the First World War
The First World War was a war of innovation. Advances in weaponry and military technology provoked tactical changes as each side tried to gain an advantage over the other. Here are 10 important 'firsts' that happened during the First World War, the effects of which can still be felt today. |
Why did a clam digging get so popular? This video has the internet fascinated
VIRAL | A razor clam burrowing fully under the sand has gotten major hits on the web
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Digging itself into the sand can not be easy!
The Weather Channel released a video that has been viewed over 15 million times on Facebook since its post on Wednesday. It is both creepy and memorizing at the same time. The power of nature can often be surprising,experiencing something we have never witnessed before. One could speculate how little we know about the vast ocean and how many creatures dwell there in the deep. Consideration for these elements are brought to the digital age.
Meme Generator
According to The Huffington Post, the video was originally uploaded last month by Kate Taylor, a Oregon fly fishing guide. On Taylor's Facebook page, it has been viewed more than 6 million times.
The popularity of going digging for these strange creatures may be the reason that this is getting traction:
This razor clam's proper name is the Atlantic jackknife clam, or Ensis directus. It is a large species of edible marine bivalve mollusc, found on the North American Atlantic coast.
Wikipedia states, "This clam lives in sand and mud and is found in intertidal or subtidal zones in bays and estuaries. Because of its streamlined shell and strong foot, it can burrow in wet sand very quickly, and is also able to swim. It gets its name from the rim of the shell being extremely sharp (stepping on one can cause injury) and the shape of the clam overall bearing a strong resemblance to an old fashioned straight razor."According to The Washington Post, "Annette Hosoi, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it is a razor clam. The Atlantic jackknife clam can dig about two feet into the sand. Hosoi found that clams can turn the solid sand into a quicksand-like substance in order to dig deep."
The force of planet can often be underestimated, but we are reminded of it in a brief moment. Something that happens everyday now has global awareness. So wether you are a nature enthusiast for sport or to protect the creatures, we can all agree that it is a strange world we live in.
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coconut oil risks blog
Coconut Oil, is it worth the risk?
Cynthia supplement news, Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Coconut oil is vegan oil that is formed by the medium chain fatty acids and includes some unique types in its composition. It contains caprylic acid, lauric acid, and capric acid. Approximately 62% of the coconut oil is composed of these amazing fatty acids and helps to boost up the nutritional fact list. These three fatty acids incorporated in the coconut oil make it healthy oil for consumption. As compared to other oils, coconut oil is a perfect source of energy as it can easily metabolize into its components. All thanks to these three wonderful fatty acids. It can undergo only 3 step degradation process, as our body metabolizes it: whereas other oils have to go through a 26 step process. Due to its fast metabolism, coconut oil acts as a rapid fuel to provide energy.
Some of the other benefits of oil are its easy digestion, it is not readily stored as fat, it is anti-microbial and anti-fungal in nature. Coconut oil can be processed by the liver, which means that it is immediately converted to energy instead of being stored as fat. It is also great for hair. Apart from these positive benefits, there are some risks which are associated with the usage of coconut oil. With the emerging demand for coconut oil and its usage, here mentioned are some drawbacks related to this beneficial type of vegan oil.
Risks of too much Coconut Oil
Various studies have proven that apart from its obvious beneficial aspects, it is loaded with the saturated fats. 91% of the oil is all about the saturated fats that are not at all good for health. These saturated fatty acids are the chain of triglycerides. Regular usage of the coconut oil in food can elevate the levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL). LDL is also known as the bad cholesterol in the blood stream which in turn can alter the blood pressure and can induce various vascular and heart diseases.
Due to elevated levels of saturated fatty acids in the blood stream, the first effect that is noticed is the alteration in the blood pressure. Due to high cholesterol level, there can be surprising changes in the blood pressure. The arteries may be blocked due to deposition of plaque and cholesterol and make them narrow. Resulting in further impedance of blood flow resulting in elevated blood pressure in the body.
As mentioned above, the deposition of cholesterol in the main arteries oriented with the heart can cause serious blockages and lead to cardiac arrest due to insufficient supply of blood to the heart. In severe conditions, it can also result in cardiac failure.
As happens when we eat too much of any fat, it elevates the body weight and in extreme cases may lead to obesity. It can further lead to diabetes and arthritis.
The metabolic pathways are altered due to disturbed endocrine or hormonal balance. Consumption of hydrogenate fats or unrefined fats; it takes the toll on our health by causing various metabolic disorders. Problems like diabetes and insulin resistance may develop.
Ingesting too much coconut oil can lead to diarrhea. This is a side effect no one wants! It can interrupt the healthy gut activity, and due to its anti-bacterial specification, it can also kill the gut friendly bacteria which reside in the gut and help in the formation of vitamin K.
It is an acute allergic reaction in which your body can cause severe allergic reactions due to the consumption of coconut oil. Anaphylaxis is a life- threatening condition o leads which can lead to the sudden death of the patient suffering from it. It may appear from to intolerance to the components found in coconut oil.
When applied to the skin, it can sometimes lead to various allergic responses, and one can witness rashes, breakouts, swelling, itching, urticaria, nausea, shortening of breath and vomiting. All these allergic responses vary person to person, and their severity also depends upon the extent of inflammation caused.
Coconut oil has a host of positive benefits. However, the above mentioned possibilities are some side effects that have been witnessed by the external or internal usage of the wildly popular coconut oil. Hope you have found value in the information presented, and find it beneficial in your daily life. As is said so often, everything in moderation.
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Here is more information on coconut oil from the Cooking Detective.
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Population Statistics Analysis
by: Aolena Banyameen
Part A:
Italy's Population:
• Total Population: 61,142,000
• Birth Rate: 8.84 births/1,000 population
• Death Rate: 10.1 deaths/1,000 population
• Population Density: 203 people/km2
• Natural increase rate: -0.1%
• Net Migration Rate: 4.29 migrant(s)/1,000 population
• Life expectancy: 82.03 years: Males:79.4 years Females: 84.82 years
• Urban Population Percentage: 68.4%
• Fertility Rate: 1.42 children born
5 Push Factors:
1. Favoritism
2. Not Many Jobs
3. Earthquakes and Volcanoes
4. Huge Catholic Influence
5. poverty
5 Pull Factors:
1. Safety
2. Freedom
3. Stability
4. Good Food Suppliers
5. Great Weather
Canada's Population:
• Total Population:38,834,841
• Birth Rate:10.29 births/1,000 population
• Death Rate: 8.31 deaths/1,000 population
• Population density:4 people/km2
• Natural Increase Rate:2.41%
• Net Migration Rate:5.66 migrant(s)/1,000 population
• Life Expectancy:81.67 years
• Urban Population Percentage:80.7%
• Fertility Rate:1.56 children born/women
5 Push Factors:
1. Weather Conditions
2. Not Enough Jobs
3. Poor Medical Care
4. Bullying
5. Discrimination
5 Pull Factors:
1. Security
2. Family Links
3. Better Chances Of Marrying
4. Industry
5. Education
Part B:
Population Pyramid:
The population pyramid of Italy(2015) is a constrictive pyramid.I know this because a constrictive pyramid has a larger number of adults than younger people and Italy has a large number of adults than it does of younger people.
Big image
Part C:
The thing about Italy is that it has it's advantages and disadvantages. Such as,the large number of adults,that proves that Italy may have very good education.I know that because there aren't very much children (younger people) because not a lot of Italy's citizens are getting together.When the citizens are not getting together it's because their too busy with education. Therefore not having time to find a spouse and making children. There is also a thing with their climate and natural disasters.Italy has earthquakes and volcanoes which show no good signs to go to Italy but the weather there is great which is a perk of visiting Italy.Italy is a good place to live in because you have freedom or the right to do anything and also be yourself.The life expectancy (82.03 years) is how it is because Italy provides good healthcare,hospitals,technology and medicine or antidotes.Italy is a good place to visit or live in because a lot of people go there for the hot weather.People should totally consider visiting or living in Italy.
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skip: vector
skip (expr, skipi, skipj)
Sets alternating values of expr to the missing data value.
A valid grid expression that may have 1 or 2 varying dimensions
Skip factor in the I dimension of
Skip factor in the J dimension of
Usage Notes
1. This function is often used while displaying wind arrows or barbs to thin the number of arrows or barbs. It is not necessary to use the skip function on both the U and V wind components; it is sufficient to populate only one component with missing data values to suppress the plotting of the wind arrow or barb.
1. Suppose you have a time series of 3-hourly data, but you want to display values at 6-hourly time steps:
set x 1
set y 1
set t 1 last
d skip(var,2)
2. To display every other grid point in both the X and Y direction:
d skip(u,2,2);v
3. To display every grid point in the Y direction, but every 5th grid point in the X direction:
d skip(u,5,1);v
4. This example script “” written by Wesley Ebisuzaki automatically sets the skip factor based on the plot dimensions.
* This function does a d skip(ugrd,n);v
* where n is automatically set to an appropriate value
* usage: d_uv ugrd vgrd
* v1.1 w. ebisuzaki
* v1.2 4/6/98 revised empirical formula for skip
function duv(arg)
u = subwrd(arg,1)
v = subwrd(arg,2)
* get lat/lon info
'query dims'
lons = sublin(result,2)
lats = sublin(result,3)
dx = subwrd(lons,13) - subwrd(lons,11)
dy = subwrd(lats,13) - subwrd(lats,11)
* Determine skip factor
dn = dx
if (dy > dx) ; dn = dy ; endif
skip = dn / 50 + 0.5
if (skip < 1) ; skip=1 ; endif
* Display the plot
'd skip('u','skip');'v
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Saturday, September 17, 2011
Sorting out
As someone who almost exclusively uses high-level languages, the idea of writing my own sorting algorithm seems a bit silly. However, I can certainly appreciate the algorithms used for sorting, and it's a neat opportunity to try to document and implement these algorithms using methods I am familiar with.
These implementations are likely to be extremely naive. If you went CS school, you probably learned better implementations in your first year. There is absolutely no reason to use these in production code anywhere. The built-in python sorting is 10-50 times faster than anything I've produced (I'm actually surprised it's not more). If you've got tips about how to speed these up just by changing the code around, feel free to comment, or you can try forking my repository and sending a pull? request. I can't promise to spend much time on it, because this is pretty well-trod territory, but it would be a bit entertaining to see how close we can get.
Quick Sort
My understanding of quicksort is still developing, but based on what I've read on Wikipedia, it can work something like this:
1. Grab an item in the list, called the "pivot".
2. Create two lists, representing everything greater than the pivot, and everything less then the pivot.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 on the two sub-lists, returning the a list comprised of the smaller list items, then the pivot, then the larger list items.
In this way, the entire list should get sorted. It's my understanding there are various optimizations that can be done, such as swapping elements instead of creating new lists. It seems to be one of the "best" all around algorithms, though for certain cases, it's performance can be beaten by others.
Gist-it for
This was the second fastest list implementation I created, at about 1/12th the performance of the built-in sorting.
Merge Sort
Merge sort relies on splitting the list recursively until you have an ordered hierarchy of l item item lists. Then you compare each list with it's neighbour, and return a combined list of the two merged together. Now you have 2-item sorted lists, which you work through, comparing the left-most element to its neighbour's left-most element, and moving the lowest one to a new list, eventually creating a 4-item list.
Gist-it for
Heap Sort
Heap sort relies on understanding what a "heap" is, in this context. So let's do that.
A heap is a data structure that is tree based, and follows the rule that all children of a node will have a value that is lower than or equal to the value of that node (for a max-heap, for a min-heap the rule is reversed). In practice, heaps are usually implemented within arrays, with the first or last item of the array being the root of the tree.
Now, why do we do have a heap? What's the advantage? Apparently sorting things. :)
In a heap sort, we first build the heap from the list we've been given. Once we have our heap, we know the item with the highest value is at the root of the heap, which is position 0 in the list representing the heap. So now we swap the first and last elements in that list, and either move the last element from the list, or simply treat that part of the heap as already sorted (which means our heap needs to know to ignore it somehow). Then we take the first item, and trickle it down through the heap until the heap is proper again. This consists of comparing it's value with it's children, and swapping it with the higher one of these, until one of these is not higher.
Gist-it for
Python apparently does have a built-in heap library, which might be worth benchmarking, as heap was my slowest sort implementation.
Bubble Sort
Bubble sort is fairly trivial.
Iterate through the items, except the last one, if an item is greater than the next one, swap their positions. When you reach the end of the list, do it again, unless there were zero swaps.
Gist-it for
Insertion Sort
Insertion sort is another trivial sort. I'm really only including it because I think my (unwitting) choice of an insertion sort in an interview may have cost me a job.
Gist-it for
Interestingly enough, for my stupid example of sorting a small list of characters, insertion sort is the fastest implementation I created.
Acknowledgements and Conclusion
Not really much to conclude, except that I now have a better understanding how to write a sorting algorithm, and some of the pros and cons of different algorithms. I certainly can't look at a data set and give you the big O case for a given algorithm.
But one thing I do want to draw special attention to is Wikipedia's pages on this subject. They vary a bit in information density, but they were incredibly informative, and make use of numerous methods to help communicate how each sort works. If you really want to understand this stuff, I would definitely start with these pages:
Also, my thought to do this post was sparked by another post on Planet Python that mentioned Insertion Sort, where I recognized the algorithm. I'm not entirely sure, but this may be that post.
1. So now that I've published it, I find a much better description (IMO) of quicksort, here:
2. Hello Alec,
I'm following your public experiments since you started the blog and IMHO it has been a very interesting addition to Planet Python. I'm waiting for you to settle up on witch project to develop publicly and hoping you are getting much as this experience as we, your readers, are.
3. Thanks Rafael, that's great to hear. :)
I just did a little update to add links to Gist-it ( which has enabled me to embed snippets from my github repository.
4. Hi,
I've found this website:
To be an amazing collection of knowledge regarding sorting algorithms. Most sorting algorithms are covered, and show code, and two separate data visualisations for each. Check it out! |
Carrol Nobile
Foot Pain In The Heel Bone
What Causes Mortons Neuroma
MortonMorton's neuroma is the common name given to the nerve irritation that is found in the ball of the foot that may or may not be accompanied by an inter-metatarsal bursae (a bursa-neuromal complex). It is often associated with inflammation or degeneration and often occurs with constant pressure or irritation of the nerve from the surrounding bony structures or local bursas (fluid filled sacs). Morton's Neuroma can cause symptoms such as a sharp pain, burning even a lack of feeling in the ball of the foot and associated toes.
Morton's neuroma may be the result of irritation, pressure or injury. In some cases its cause is unknown. In the majority of cases only one nerve is affected. Having both feet affected is extremely rare. A high percentage of patients with Morton's neuroma are women who wear high-heeled or narrow shoes. Patients with Morton's neuroma may need to change their footwear, take painkillers or steroid injections, while others may require surgery to either remove the affected nerve or release the pressure on it.
A Morton's neuroma causes a "burning" sharp pain and numbness on the bottom of the foot in the involved area, and this pain and numbness can radiate to the nearby toes. The pain is usually increased by walking or when the ball of the foot is squeezed together and decreased with massaging. It may force a person to stop walking or to limp from the pain.
A doctor can usually identify Morton's neuroma during a physical exam. He or she will squeeze or press on the bottom of your foot or squeeze your toes together to see if it hurts. Your doctor may also order an X-ray of your foot to make sure nothing else is causing the pain.
Non Surgical Treatment
You may need a metatarsal pad if wider shoes do not help relieve your Morton?s neuroma symptoms. A metatarsal pad will help spread your metatarsal bones and reduce pressure on your affected nerve as it travels under the ball of your foot. The placement of your metatarsal pad is important, and it is best placed by a foot care professional who has experience in the anatomy of the forefoot and Morton?s neuroma treatment.intermetatarsal neuroma
Surgical Treatment
When conservative measures are unsuccessful, surgery can be a good choice in the treatment of Morton's neuroma. The operation for Morton's neuroma does not require an overnight hospital stay. The anesthetic used is an ankle block, which completely numbs the foot during the surgery. The physician removes the neuroma from an incision made on the top of the foot between the involved metatarsal heads. The nerve to the interspace is exposed and cut next to the metatarsal heads.
Wearing shoes that fit properly and that have plenty of room in the toe area may help prevent Morton's neuroma. |
Noise-induced Hearing Loss
Deafness and Hearing Loss
Author: Hilary Palmieri
Date: 17/12/2015
Auditory fatigue is defined as a temporary loss of hearing after exposure to sound. This results in a temporary shift of the auditory threshold known as a temporary threshold shift. The damage can evolve in a permanent threshold shift if sufficient recovery time is not allowed for before continued sound exposure.
When the hearing loss is rooted from a traumatic occurrence, it may be classified as noise-induced hearing loss.
According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, 5-10 million Americans are at risk for NIHL because they are exposed to sounds louder than 85 dBA on a sustained basis in the workplace.
More males than females are reported to have NIHL.
No clear-cut differences exist between young and older individuals in their susceptibility to NIHL.
When hearing loss is limited to the high frequencies, individuals are unlikely to have difficulty in quiet conversational situations. The first difficulty the patient usually notices is trouble understanding speech when a high level of ambient background noise is present. As NIHL progresses, individuals may have difficulty understanding high-pitched voices (eg, women's, children's) even in quiet conversational situations. Conversation on the telephone is generally unimpaired because telephones do not use frequencies above 3000 Hz.
Affected anatomy: Organ of Corti.
Excessive vibrations of the inner ear which may cause structural damages.
Metabolic activity is required in order to maintain the electrochemical gradients used in mechano-electrical and electro-mechanical transduction during noise exposure and sound recognition. The metabolic activity is associated with active displacements which are components of the sound-induced vibration involving prestin, a motor protein that causes OHC motility. Excessive vibrations require increased metabolic energy.
Extra vibrations can cause the formation of free radicals known as ROS.
Recent studies have investigated additional mechanisms of NIHL involving delayed or disabled electrochemical transmission of nerve impulses from the hair cell to and along the auditory nerve. In cases of extreme acute acoustic trauma, a portion of the postsynaptic dendrite can rupture from overstimulation, temporarily stopping all transmission of auditory input to the auditory nerve (excitotoxicity).
Generation of ROS and RNS often followed by caspase-mediated cell death by apoptosis. Activation of the c-Jun N-terminal kinase/mitogen-activated protein kinase (JNK) signaling pathway.
Production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor α (induced by ROS).
ROS have been detected in cochlear tissue immediately after noise exposure and seen to persist for 7–10 days. This can induce the continued cochlear injury.
Noise-induced ischemia and subsequent re-perfusion further potentiate the generation of ROS.
This Overloads cochlear antioxidant enzyme system, superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase causing depletion of glutathione.
Plasma membrane fluidity of outer HCs is a consequence of excess peroxidation induced by an altered metabolic state.
Loss of mitochondrial integrity can lead to increased ROS production and release of ROS into the cytoplasm.
Excessive noise also leads to an increase in free Ca2+ in cochlear HCs (L-type Ca2+ channels), this leads to further release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores such as the ER and mitochondria. Elevated Ca2+ levels in the cochlea may link to ROS production as well as triggering apoptotic and necrotic cell death pathways independent of ROS formation.
In animals exposed to intense noise, MAPK phosphorylation in the cochlea is altered. MAPKs mediate plasma membrane bound receptor signals to activate transcription factors in the nucleus, facilitating gene expression, coordinately regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, motility, and survival .
Following the activation of MAPK and ROS stress pathways, cochlear HCs can undergo apoptosis following intense noise exposure.
ROS-Opposing Mechanisms
Balance of Damage and Survival Signaling Determines Cochlear Damage.
Inflammatory damage can be opposed by anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10 and anti-inflammatory cellular phenotypes such as alternatively activated macrophages. Similarly, there are intracellular pro-survival pathways that oppose the death and damage signaling of stress pathways such as ROS, the JNK and p38 cascades.
Antioxidants react with ROS, reducing them to eliminate or reduce toxicity. Cochlear HCs contain the antioxidant glutathione, which is the substrate by which glutathione transferases detoxify ROS.
Polymorphisms in glutathione transferase genes, which catalyze the response of glutathione with ROS, have been linked to ototoxicity and noise sensitivity in humans
There are at least two potential strategies for therapeutic intervention to reduce cochlear damage. One is to inhibit processes or pathways that lead to the damage of cochlear cells. The other is to enhance processes that enhance cochlear cell survival. Both of these strategies have been attempted, with varying degrees of success.
Evidences: high doses of vitamins A, C, and E, and magnesium, taken one hour before noise exposure and continued as a once-daily treatment for five days, was very effective at preventing permanent noise-induced hearing loss in animals.
Clinical trials using antioxidants after a traumatic noise event to reduce reactive oxygen species have displayed promising results.
Sources & further readings
Mechanisms of sensorineural cell damage, death and survival in the cochlea (2015)
Hearing and loud music exposure in a group of adolescents at the ages of 14-15 and retested at 17-18 (2014)
Age-related hearing impairment and the triad of acquired hearing loss (2015)
Glutathione S-transferase M1, T1, and P1 polymorphisms as susceptibility factors for noise-induced temporary threshold shift (2009)
Differential Impact of Temporary and Permanent Noise-Induced Hearing Loss on Neuronal Cell Density in the Mouse Central Auditory Pathway (2010)
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true red - e/e
It has often been said that the ACD only come in two colors --- ticked-black/tan or red. With the help of
DNA testing, this has now proven to be untrue.
An ACD may also be brown, called "chocolate", red (non-extension, e/e, red, instead of sable red) or
white. Brown, red and white are not common colors. The reason these colors are not seen very often is
because they are not actively being bred for, when produced - are not advertised for fear of reprisal from
other breeders and some puppies are actually put to sleep if they are any color other than that of the breed
Extension and Non-extension, refers to the extension of eumelanin over the dog's body. The dominant form, "E", is
normal extension. The recessive form, "e", is non-extension. When a dog is homozygous for non-extension (e/e), its
coat will be entirely red/yellow (phaeomelanin based). All dogs that have a brown (chocolate) coat will have at least
one "E" allele, because of the production of eumelanin.
The way to tell the difference between an Agouti red/yellow and an Extension (e/e) red/yellow dog -- is the Agouti
red/yellow almost always have some black/brown hair in the coat (usually around the ears and tail) and the
Extension (e/e) dog won't. Another way is the Agouti red/yellow must have at least one ("A^y") allele and can carry at
most one other agouti allele, the Extension (e/e) can carry any two Agouti alleles (not necessarily "A^y").
Comparison along side a normal "red"
(sable-ticked) ACD.
Comparison along side two standard
colored littermates and two black (not
ACD's) puppies. |
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Peonage, A form of Slavery
A page from LectLaw:
"INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE & PEONAGE - a condition of compulsory service or labor performed by one person, against his will, for the benefit of another person due to force, threats, intimidation or other similar means of coercion and compulsion directed against him.
In considering whether service or labor was performed by someone against his will or involuntarily, it makes no difference that the person may have initially agreed, voluntarily, to render the service or perform the work. If a person willingly begins work but later desires to withdraw and is then forced to remain and perform work against his will, his service becomes involuntary. Also, whether a person is paid a salary or a wage is not determinative of the question as to whether that person has been held in involuntary servitude. In other words, if a person is forced to labor against his will, his service is involuntary even though he is paid for his work.
However, it is necessary to prove that the person knowingly and willfully took action, by way of force, threats, intimidation or other form of coercion, causing the victim to reasonably believe that he had no way to avoid continued service, that he was confronted by the existence of a superior and overpowering authority, constantly threatening to the extent that his will was completely subjugated.
Title 18, U.S.C., Sec. 1584, makes it a Federal crime or offense for anyone to willfully hold another person in involuntary servitude.
First: That the person held the victim in a condition of 'involuntary servitude';
Second: That such holding was for a 'term,'; and
Third: That the person acted knowingly and willfully.
It must be shown that a person held to involuntary servitude was so held for a 'term.' It is not necessary, however, that any specific period of time be proved so long as the 'term' of the involuntary service was not wholly insubstantial or insignificant.
Title 18, U.S.C., Sec. 1581(a) is the peonage law cited in the indictment.
The specific facts which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in order to establish the offense of peonage include each and all of the three specific factual elements constituting involuntary servitude as previously stated and explained in these instructions, plus a fourth specific fact; namely, that the involuntary servitude was compelled by the person in order to satisfy a real or imagined debt regardless of amount. "
This was the entire page on Peonage from LectLaw. I copied it here, because to have paraphrased it would have brought an injustice to this work.
How is peonage important to offenders you might ask? Simple.
When an offender is sentenced, they sign their name on the "guilty" line and form a contract with the State. When that sentence is over, the offenders debt to that state is complete. But what happens when the state takes a portion of that "contract" and continually changes it, thus changing the contract.
The offender then no longer has the ability to complete the contract, and, is forced to do things not previously agreed upon.
Also, if this wasn't disclosed to the offender at the time of signing (the ever changing nature of the contract that is), the contract becomes null and void.
Contract Law states:
"Full Disclosure n. the need in business transactions to tell the "whole truth" about any matter which the other party should know in deciding to buy or contract. In real estate sales in many states there is a full disclosure form which must be filled out and signed under penalty of perjury for knowingly falsifying or concealing any significant fact."
If the Court did not fully disclose the nature of your sentence to you, and all the definitions of each portion of your sentencing, then that contract can be viewed as void. (Contract law would be tough to go into and make it easy to understand. Do a word search for Unconscionable.)
And for those that think that sentencing (plea bargains) are not contracts, please read this.
So, if your contract is now null and void, but you have no recourse, you are now suffering from peonage. Why? Because if you don't conform to the new contract, you will be thrown in jail. Coercion. Did the Legislators "knowingly" make a new law to make things tougher for you?
I'll leave that one for you to decide.
Brian's Sister said...
Excellent post. It seems to me that this might also be an appropriate place to mention (from the Constitution), Article I, ss 9, clause 3:
"No state shall...pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post fact law, or law impairing the Obligation of Contracts..."
This just shows another area of the constitution that is being violated when legislation is passed that impairs an offenders ability to fulfill their contractual obligations (which all too often results in the never ending sentence).
Anonymous said...
The U.S. Supreme Court made a decision as announced by NBC News on April 23, 2007 that the threat by a judge to silence a defendant using contempt of court a rights violation, which is nothing more than a bill of attainder. |
Identifying and Getting Rid of Houseplant Pests
Identifying and Getting Rid of Houseplant Pests
Designed by
All Rights Reserved
Houseplants will look happy and grow like "weeds" and then something changes and they appear to be unhealthy. You could have a pest infestation! The most common being mealy bug, scale, aphids, spider mite, white fly, and sometimes soil or fungus gnats. The first step is to examine every part of the plant, especially where the leaves intersect with the stem and the undersides of the leaves. If the plant is flowering be sure to check the buds or blooms too. Here is what you could find:
Mealy bugs: appear as white cotton-like spots. These will get in all the tiny areas of the plant once they infest, where they hide. You may notice the leaves getting pale, dropping or looking stunted as the mealy bugs suck out the juices from the plant. Cotton swabs dipped in alcohol will remove them, or a mix of alcohol and water sprayed on the plants will help if repeated every week or so.
Scale: it looks like a small hard bump on the plant. The bump is a "shell" that protects the new insects and can be picked off. It could be brown, yellow, gray, black or even white. You'll begin to notice yellowing leaves and dropping leaves. Spray with a mixture of 4 parts water to three parts rubbing alcohol. Do NOT use hard water on scale ---use bottled water instead. You can also remove with a cotton ball dampened with rubbing alcohol. Stick with it!. You will need to repeat till it's gone.
Spider mites: These do a lot of damage in a short amount of time--- mites suck the chlorophyll out of the plant-and the foliage loses color. They lay very tiny white eggs. Unfortunately, they are VERY tiny. You'll notice the plant's leaves curling, dropping or stunted growth. Get out a magnifying glass if you need to too! If you don't catch the eggs before they hatch you'll see webbing between the stems or leaves. Wipe off the webs---if it's gotten to this stage--- and the color is gone out of too many leaves, it's best to get rid of the plant.
White fly: You'll find white dots in the early stages and then they start to fly--and you'll notice them if leaves are touched because they will fly out. They rest on the underside of the leaves and will cause them to yellow. You can buy small traps to place near the plants or the rubbing alcohol sprays mentioned above.
Soil or fungus gnats fly around and annoy you. They live in the plant soil --especially if the soil if kept moist. Once the soil dries on the top layer they can no longer survive there. They don't live long, so usually drying out the top layer of a plant will take care of the problem.
Aphids are found mostly outdoors, but are found on indoor plants too as well, especially those that bloom. They can be black, green or shades of yellow, and can be found on the underside of plants. You'll notice the leaves becoming stunted or funny looking as if they are deformed. The alcohol sprays mentioned should work with aphids.
Spider mites like it very hot and dry---so try to keep your plants from drying out and getting too hot--mist them a few times a week and give them a "bath" a few times a month with a soap spray. ( A little dish soap in a spray bottle of water). You can clean your plants by dampening a soft cloth with plaint water and wipe the surface of each leaf. You can also give your plants a "shower" to rinse them. Don't do this to African Violets or plants with fuzzy foliage. Give your plants good circulation too--don't crowd them.
Always remove dead foliage and blooms as soon as you can. Keep your plants clean! Always use a good clean potting soil when you repot your plants. All of your tools should be clean too. Use a wire brush to remove dirt that is tough to get off, and remove rust with steel wool or light sandpaper. Spray the metal parts with a lubricant or rub very lightly to discourage rust. When repotting a plant into a used pot clean it first. You soak the pots in 1 part bleach to 10 parts warm or hot water, then scrub the pots clean with a brush. Rinse and dry the pot before using.
One more thing to look for on your plants: mealy bug, scale, and aphids secrete a honeydew on the leaf which is sticky. If you see or feel this, start looking for the pest.
Subscriber, Suzanne Wainwright-Evans, who is an Ornamental Entomologist sent in some tips on preventive pest control. Read them here.
About The Author
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Summer Harvest Tea
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Harvesting and Using Summer Squash
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Friday, 30 September 2011
In case of emergency...
All healthcare professionals should be able to respond to most medical emergencies, even if that just means giving first aid or basic life support (BLS). For anyone who wants to work with English speaking patients, then 'emergency medical English' should be the foundation of the communication process.
A quick and accurate patient history is vital in order to administer the right emergency treatment, and so requires a quick and systematic line of questioning. Anyone who has got down on the floor with 'resus Annie' will know the basic question, "are you ok?" is quick and simple, but can help to determine a patients level of consciousness. But what follows on from that? What would you then ask someone who has sustained a head injury, or what specific questions would you ask someone with chest pain?
As a result we have developed an 'emergency medical English' course, which targets the most common medical emergencies. At the centre of each case is a 'model dialogue' (mp3), in which you can hear a British emergency doctor taking a history. A key component of the course is the fact that most patients will use a lot of colloquialisms, so if a patient asks, "whats wrong with me?", it's important to avoid 'professional medical English' or medical jargon, and use language that the patient will understand. "Well, i think you're having a heart attack" is much more useful than "i think you're having a myocardial infarction". Reassurance is vital in a medical emergency, and patients will feel reassured if they know what is happening.
The first case is cardiac chest pain. You can download the first set of mp3 files for free from our RME resources page. If you want free worksheets to accompany the files then contact us, all of our details are on our website. |
Wednesday, 11 October 2017
multi-objective optimisation I
There are lots of optimisation algorithms around: I’ve used simulated annealing and evolutionary algorithms, to name but two. However, I’ve only ever used them to optimise a single value. But real problems often have multiple objectives to satisfy simultaneously: time, price, and quality is a traditional triple. However, multiple objectives are often in conflict, and so it is not possible to optimise them all simultaneously: there are tradeoffs. “Pick any two of three” is the stated tradeoff for time, price, and quality; more nuanced tradeoffs are available.
One common technique is simply to add the various objective values together, with some weight for each, to reduce the problem to a single optimisation. But which weights? Different weights imply different tradeoffs.
So the next step is a full multi-objective optimisation system. To see what is going on, the crucial concept of dominated solution needs to be understood.
Let’s assume that a candidate solution s has objective values (f1, f2, ..., fn). And let’s assume we want to minimise each of those objectives (the maximisation case is similar, mutatis mutandis). Then solution s1 dominates solution s2 if every one of its objective values is less than the corresponding value for s2. If on the other hand, s2 is better in all its objectives than s1, then s2 dominates s1. And in the case when neither dominates the other, these solutions are non-dominated. The figure below illustrates these concepts.
Candidate solutions plotted in some in 2D objective space, where we wish to minimise both objectives. Consider the central red solution. It dominates all candidate solutions in the upper right quadrant, because both its objective values are better than those in the dominated quadrant. It is dominated by all candidate solutions in the lower left quadrant, because both its objective values are worse than those in that quadrant. The other two quadrants are non-dominated solutions: one objective is better, but the other is worse. The large green dots along the lower edge represent solutions on the Pareto front: all the solutions that are not dominated by any other candidate. The concepts generalise to higher dimensions when there are more than two objectives.
We can write a simple python function to calculate whether one solution dominates another, for an arbitrary number of objectives:
def dominates_min(a,b): # for minimisation problems
# a and b are nD tuples of the respective n objective values
# a dominates b if a.x < b.x and a.y < b.y and ...
return all([(a < b) for a, b in zip(a,b)])
How this works: Let the tuples by (ax, ay, az) and (bx, by, bz). Then zipping them together gives the list of tuples [(ax,bx),(ay,by),(az,bz)]. The set comprehension gives a list of booleans, True or False depending if the respective ai<bi or not. Then the all function tests whether all the values are True.
In a complete collection of candidate solutions, the ones not dominated by any other solution form the Pareto front. These are the best possible solutions: no other candidate performs better in all objectives. The front describes the possible tradeoffs: values along the front represent different tradeoffs.
When we don’t have all candidate solutions to hand, maybe just a sample of solutions, we need an optimisation algorithm to find those candidates close to the actual Pareto front, and to use them to find even better ones.
But first, we need to calculate the points on the Pareto front of a given population, that is, all the candidate solutions that are not dominated by any other solutions (the green points in the figure above). The obvious algorithm (for each candidate solution, test it against all other solutions for all objectives) is rather inefficient, being O(MN2), where M is the number of objectives, and N is the number of solutions to test. Deb et al (2000) give a more efficient algorithm:
We can code this up in python as follows (with comments showing how it relates to the algorithm above):
def fast_nondominated_sort_single_front(pop):
# pop = list of individuals
# individual of form { 'state': (s1,s2,s3,...), 'fitness':(f1,f2,f3,...) }
# pfront = list of individuals on the calculated "pareto front"
pfront = [ pop[0] ] # P' = {1}
for pi,p in enumerate(pop): # for each p in P and p notin P'
if pi == 0 : continue # (so not the first element)
pfront = pfront + [ p ] # P' = P' cup {p}
# make a copy to iterate over, because pfront is being modified;
# don't need the last item, which is p (makes q neq p below True)
pfrontcopy = pfront[:-1]
pf = p['fitness']
for qi,q in enumerate(pfrontcopy): # for each q in P' and q neq p
qf = q['fitness']
if dominates_min(pf,qf): # if p dom q
pfront.remove(q) # then P' = P' \ {q}
elif dominates_min(qf,pf): # else if q dom p
del pfront[-1] # then P' = P' \ {p}
break # don't have to check any more qs as p already gone
Once we have the front, we could remove it from the population, and calculate the next front, and so on. This is useful in an optimisation algorithm, to find less fit (not on the current best front) but still possibly good solutions, for use in building even better ones.
The multiple front calculation is as follows:
def fast_nondominated_sort(pop):
# find a list of ever decreasing fronts
# pop = list of individuals
# pfrontlist = list of fronts = list of lists of individuals
popcopy = pop[:]
pfrontlist = []
while popcopy:
pfront = fast_nondominated_sort_single_front(popcopy)
pfrontlist += [pfront]
# remove the found pfront from the pop
popcopy = [ ind for ind in popcopy if ind not in pfront ]
# check that no-one has been lost
assert len(pop) == len([item for pfront in pfrontlist for item in pfront])
Given some population of candidate solutions, we can plot out the relevant fronts so calculated (plotting code always seems much more complicated than the actual algorithms!):
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def plot_fronts(pfrontlist):
# pfrontlist = list of fronts; each front is a list of individuals
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
# one colour per front
colors =, 1, len(pfrontlist)))
# iterate backwards, to draw better fronts on top of less good ones
for i in range(len(pfrontlist)-1, -1, -1) :
pfront = pfrontlist[i]
# sort members of front in order of fitness; draw a line along the front
data = sorted([ pf['fitness'] for pf in pfront ])
xs = [ i[0] for i in data ]
ys = [ i[1] for i in data ]
ax11.plot(xs, ys, ':o', color=colors[i], mew=0)
This gives a plot like:
A sequence of fronts, found by finding the Pareto front of a population of candidate solutions, removing it from the population, finding the front of the remaining candidates, and so on.
In a later post, I will go through the rest of the Deb et al (2000) algorithm, and show how they incorporate this front-finding into a full-blown multi-objective optimiser.
Deb, Kalyanmoy; Agrawal, Samir; Pratap, Amrit; Meyarivan, T. (2000) A Fast Elitist Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm for Multi-objective Optimization: NSGA-II. In Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN VI. LNCS 1917:849–858. Springer. doi:10.1007/3-540-45356-3_83
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Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Robots are coming, but maybe not to consumers
Reading coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show, it does not appear that the robots left anyone terribly impressed. We all have images of Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons, which effortlessly and with little instruction just does all the housework. The reality is that this is not coming any time soon. Folding laundry turns out to be really, really hard. So the Consumer Electronics Show features a lot of wonky systems that don't work very well. Gadget junkies may be entranced, but regular consumers don't need an expensive toy that will take longer to get to do a task than it would take to just do the task. (If we enjoy that kind of frustration we can just try to get our kids to do their chores.)
Rosie won't be coming today.
Consumers want devices that, with limited set-up, work. Robots, autonomous systems, are run by machine learning algorithms - that means they have to learn. Learning means they have to be taught, it also means they will make mistakes. Who the hell has time for this kind of thing?
For some applications, this can work. Smart thermostats are an example. Preferences are not that hard to learn and mistakes are not catastrophic. But think about a smart refrigerator that could inventory your food, recommend meals, and order necessities. This sounds great, but then consider the problems in implementation. For starters, in a typical home there might be a dozen places where food is stored - not just the refrigerator. Now you need smart pantries and spice cabinets, etc.
Let's imagine that this smart home can monitor your food supply, make recipe recommendations, identify when items are needed and then order them. This would actually be pretty great. There would be hiccups of course, plus the system would have a lot of pretty personal information. There might be a time consuming learning curve as you taught it what recipes you liked and what kind of food you wanted to have around. But it could work. It might even be fun.
But here's the ugly secret. The thinking is relatively easy. The sensing is very hard. Presumably all of the food going into your smart home has some sort of electronic marker allowing your kitchen to record it. Then there will be a bevy of sensors to follow the consumption path of each item. This is a lot of sensors and a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong. Then you would need to teach it what was a priority. (Order pasta when we are down to one box etc.)
It is all theoretically possible, but there are so many things that can go wrong and working with it might be more trouble than it's worth. You can just scan your fridge and pantry and make a shopping list in a lot less time.
But that doesn't mean robots aren't coming.
Serious Users
This smart refrigerator or kitchen is not worth your time. But a hospital refrigeration system for storing blood and medicine is a different story. The hospital already has a staff and systems for monitoring these things. The value of the items in question are very high - both in cost but also in consequence (you need to have the right supplies on hand and usable.)
If a hospital recognizes that there will be significant gains in efficiency using a smart refrigeration system, they can make the investment both in money and time to learn the systems and blend their existing processes in with the system's functionality. Hotels, restaurants, and a vast range of other organizations might also be willing to make this investment. Managing food inventory is a huge issue for the hospitality industry.
One can imagine lots of other smart systems that might not be worth the effort for a home, but would be for a large-scale enterprise. This will lead to an iterative process. The first enterprises to purchase the smart refrigeration system would probably be larger (maybe not the biggest) and have some experience integrating new technology. In turn the vendors would also learn what it took to meet customer needs and be better positions to market their systems to more conservative buyers. In time the technology would become commonplace, lowering costs (again both financial but also in the time required to learn the system) and - at some point - maybe becoming a consumer product.
At this point the autonomous systems in questions are not there. The models will need to learn, but at the same time we need to learn the models.
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Flow of theory
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Flow of theory
Karen cawley ist 663: integrating motivation and information literacy assignment 1 october 8, 2009 motivational theory: flow the theory of flow was developed by. Mihaly csikszentmihalyi asks, what makes a life worth living noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction. Information flow patterns in organizations: the library in focus but later the theory was modified to suit the flow of material sources in the library. 1 flow - a theory of optimal experience: history and critical evaluation walter john carl iii theories of communication.
What do al gore and kony 2012 have in common well, they’re both great examples of a communication theory called the two step flow theory in the early days of mass. An introduction to the theory of fluid flow meters. Hole flow, mste, university of illinois mste office for if you are reallly into semi-conductor theory it makes a difference which one you use,. Flow theory of plasticity - 1 henry tan, spring 2009 1 flow theory of plasticity the geometry of a material will change when it is subjected to external loading this.
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Theory of jets division of safety and fire engineering, school of engineering, cusat 1515 2 theory of jets 21 introduction 22 overview of jet flows. The bestselling classic on concept of 'flow' – the key to unlocking meaning, creativity, and true happinesspsychologist mihaly csikszentmihalyi's famous. Flow theory was proposed by mihalyi csikszentmihalyi to describe the experiences of intrinsically motivated people by aliza_salleh in browse personal. Flow theory 988 likes we are a band, and this is a website. This chapter describes flow, the experience of complete absorption in the present moment, and the experiential approach to positive psychology that it represents we.
1 viscosity 11 basic theory molecules of fluids exert forces of attraction on each other in liquids this is strong enough to keep the mass together but not strong. In this paper, we show that queue theory can accurately model the flow of in-patient in hospital we determine the optimal bed count and its performance measure. Theory and instrumentation of gc introduction i septum purge flow, detector air flow, detector hydrogen flow, detector make-up gas flow. Mihaly csikszentmihalyi's theory of flow charles dietz one student is in her room doing her homework another is downstairs watching tv which one is really enjoying. the two-step flow model of communication introduction the two-step flow of communication hypothesis was first formulated by.
Flow: the psychology of optimal experience (harper perennial modern classics) [mihaly csikszentmihalyi] on amazoncom free shipping on qualifying offers the. The theory of flow provides an additional psychological justification for the idea that to grow with challenging work is a highly desirable thing. The theory of “flow” and its relevance for organizations – 1st part from the working paper.
This article describes the circular-flow model and explains how it shows the movement of money, goods and services, and factors of production. The theory of “flow” and its relevance for organizations – 2nd part from the working paper.
Kinetic theories for granular flow: inelastic particles in couette flow and slightly inelastic particles in a general flowfield - volume 140 - c k k lun, s b. A series of 5-minute posts on applying principles of flow to knowledge work in the previous post, i described how many companies’ embrace of local optima leads to.
flow of theory Definition what is two-step flow theory have a think who can use two-step flow theory what are you thursday, october 9, 2014 jmc-113 group iv : aliya, diyora. flow of theory Definition what is two-step flow theory have a think who can use two-step flow theory what are you thursday, october 9, 2014 jmc-113 group iv : aliya, diyora. Download
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Thomas R. Marshall
Wed, 2018-Mar-14 00:05 UTC
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The featured article for Wednesday, 14 March 2018 is Thomas R. Marshall.
Thomas Riley Marshall (March 14, 1854 – June 1, 1925) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A prominent lawyer in Indiana, he became an active and well known member of the Indiana Democratic Party by stumping across the state for other candidates and organizing party rallies that later helped him win election as the 27th Governor of Indiana. In office, he proposed a controversial and progressive state constitution and pressed for other progressive era reforms. The Republican minority used the state courts to block the attempt to change the constitution.
His popularity as governor, and Indiana's status as a critical swing state, helped him secure the Democratic vice presidential nomination on a ticket with Wilson in 1912 and win the subsequent general election. An ideological rift developed between the two men during their first term, leading Wilson to limit Marshall's influence in the administration, and his brand of humor caused Wilson to move Marshall's office away from the White House. During Marshall's second term he delivered morale-boosting speeches across the nation during World War I and became the first vice president to hold cabinet meetings, which he did while Wilson was in Europe. As he was president of the United States Senate, a small number of anti-war senators kept it deadlocked by refusing to end debate. To enable critical wartime legislation to be passed, Marshall had the body adopt its first procedural rule allowing filibusters to be ended by a two-thirds majority vote—a variation of this rule remains in effect.
Marshall's vice presidency is most remembered for a leadership crisis following a stroke that incapacitated Wilson in October 1919. Because of their personal dislike for him, Wilson's advisers and wife Edith sought to keep Marshall uninformed about the president's condition to prevent him from assuming presidential powers and duties. Many people, including cabinet officials and Congressional leaders, urged Marshall to become acting president, but he refused to forcibly assume the presidency for fear of setting a precedent. Without strong leadership in the executive branch, the administration's opponents defeated the ratification of the League of Nations treaty and effectively returned the United States to an isolationist foreign policy. Marshall is also the only known Vice President of the United States to have been exclusively targeted in an assassination attempt while in office. Marshall died while on a trip after suffering a heart attack in 1925. Marshall was the first Vice President since Daniel D. Tompkins, nearly a century earlier, to serve two full terms.
Well known for his wit and sense of humor, one of Marshall's most enduring jokes, which provoked widespread laughter from his colleagues, came during a Senate debate in which, in response to Senator Joseph Bristow's catalog of the nation's needs, Marshall quipped the often-repeated phrase, "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar". After his terms as vice president, he opened an Indianapolis law practice, where he authored several legal books and his memoir, Recollections. He continued to travel and speak publicly.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:05 UTC on Wednesday, 14 March 2018.
For the full current version of the article, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_R._Marshall.
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Hotel du Lac Test | Mid-Book Test - Hard
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Name: _________________________ Period: ___________________
Short Answer Questions
1. Edith Hope is what kind of writer?
2. When Edith sees a tall and slender woman at the beginning of the story she assumes that she must be a what?
3. What is wrong with Monica's health?
4. What does Edith drink in the dining room during her first trip to it?
5. What was the reason stated for asking Edith to join them for coffee?
Short Essay Questions
1. What family member was Edith closest to and why?
2. What two types of animals does Edith use to describe women and where did she get this idea from?
3. What does Iris do that makes Edith understand that she is not comfortable socially unless in the dominant position?
4. Does Iris like Monica?
5. What does Mr. Neville reveal to Edith on their walk together?
6. Describe how Mrs. Pusey was taken care of by her late husband?
7. What does Edith say n her letter to David about shopping?
8. In Chapter 3, what is Edith's letter to David about?
9. Which type of animal does Edith consider herself to be?
10. What is the problem with Monica's health?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Explain why Mr. Neville feels that both himself and Edith will appear foolish if they remain unmarried. What does Mr. Neville's first wife have to do with him feeling he will look foolish? What is Mr. Neville hoping to rectify through marriage? Why does Mr. Neville feel that Edith needs to be married to not look foolish socially? What does Mr. Neville say about Edith's face looking sorrowful while talking to other people as a single woman? How will marriage fix this?
Essay Topic 2
Write your opinion of this book. Did you like it? Why or why not? Did it hold your interest? Was it slow moving? What was your favorite part? What would you have liked to see go differently?
Essay Topic 3
Discuss Iris's birthday party. What were the preparations made and what events occurred during the party? What were the guests' reactions to the presentation? Do you think the party made Edith like Iris more or less? Iris acts surprised by the commotion, but did she really plan all of it? What did the author want the reader to take away from this chapter in the book?
(see the answer keys)
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Target Switzerland
Review by: Dave Kopel
A slightly different version of this review was originally published in The American Enterprise magazine, Jan./Feb. 1999.
Book review of "Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II" by Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook, Published by Sarpedon Publishers, 25.00 cloth 319 pages. Buy this book from Amazon.com
If all you know is what you read in the papers, then you must think that Switzerland is one of the most despicable countries in the world. Switzerland, rather than joining the Allied cause, stayed neutral World War II. After the war, Swiss banks helped themselves to the deposits of holocaust victims, rather than giving the deposits to the victims’ heirs. Case closed?
Not at all, historian Stephen Halbrook shows in his new book Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality In World War II. Wrongful as was the bankers’ post-war behavior, the behavior of the Swiss people during the war was morally exemplary—superior, indeed to the conduct of most of the rest of Europe. As Winston Churchill recalled, "of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right distinction... She has been a Democratic State, standing for freedom in self-defense among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side."
Except for Britain, France, and Canada, virtually all of the Allied nations during World War II joined the war only because the Axis declared war on them, Halbrook reminds us. Even after Pearl Harbor, the United States remained neutral in the European war, until Hitler declared war on United States a few days later.
Nazi maps showed that the Third Reich would eventually include Switzerland, just as it would include all portions of Europe with German-speaking people. While the majority of Switzerland’s population is German-speaking (the rest being French, Italian, or Romansh) the nation was virtually unanimous in hoping and praying for the defeat of Germany. Infuriated by the lack of ethnic solidarity, and by the strongly anti-Nazi stance of Switzerland’s free press, Hitler predicted that Switzerland would be “liquidated” and that he would be known as “the butcher of the Swiss.”
As Halbrook details, in every stage of the war, the Axis had powerful military reasons to invade Switzerland. Before the fall of France, the non-alpine part of Switzerland offered at inviting path to sweep into France and avoid the Maginot Line. After France fell and Italy entered the war, Switzerland offered the only convenient transport of military men and supplies between Italy and Germany. After the Allied landing in Italy, Germany's need to swiftly deploy troops into Italy became even more urgent. As the war came to conclusion in 1944-45, the Nazi leadership laid plans to make a stand in the Alps, but Switzerland stood right in the middle.
By the summer of 1940, there was only one country on Germany's borders whose free press and rights of assembly allowed the Third Reich to be publicly and lawfully denounced as the evil empire that he was. In every country on Germany's borders--except Switzerland--Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other targets of Hitler’s hate were sent to extermination camps. But there was no Holocaust on Swiss soil. Switzerland protected her own Jews, and sheltered many more refugees of all religious backgrounds. Had America sheltered refugees at the same per capita rate as Switzerland, the United States would have taken in over three million refugees. Instead America accepted hardly any.
In all the countries that Hitler conquered, the economy was plundered for use in the Nazi war machine. As a neutral, Switzerland did trade with Germany and Italy, and with the Allies. (For the Allied trade, the Swiss smuggled out precision ball bearings and other military equipment disguised in consumer products like watches.) But unlike in the countries which Hitler conquered, the only products that Hitler could get from Switzerland were what he could buy at full price.
Target Switzerland includes the maps of the evolving Germans invasion plans for "Case Switzerland." Yet although the Germans several times massed troops on the Swiss border for an invasion, the invasion never went forward. With so many reasons to invade Switzerland, why did the Nazis desist?
The Nazis could have eventually have conquered Switzerland, but at a fearful price. The Wehrmacht expected 200,000 German casualties; it would have taken a very long time to remove the Swiss military from the Alpine “Reduit” to which they planned to make a stand. And by the time the Swiss were defeated, every bridge and train track and everything else of value to the conquerors would have been destroyed.
The reason that Switzerland was too difficult to invade—in contrast to all the other nations which Hitler conquered in a matter of weeks—was the Swiss militia system. Unlike all the other nations of Europe, which relied on a standing army, Switzerland was (and still is) defended by a universal militia. Every man was trained in war, had his rifle at home, was encouraged to practice frequently, and could be mobilized almost instantly. The Swiss militiaman was under orders to fight to the last bullet, and after that, with his bayonet, and after that, with his bare hands. Rather than having to defeat an army, Hitler would have had to defeat a whole people.
Conversely, the Swiss citizen militia, with its extensive network of fortifications, had no offensive capability. The Swiss militia was not going to sweep into Berlin; modern Swiss-bashers who condemn the nation for not declaring war fail to understand that by keeping the Axis out of Switzerland, the Swiss were already doing everything they could for the Allied cause.
From the Anschluss of Austria to the Fall of France, Hitler swallowed nation after nation where cowardly ruling elites surrendered the country to the Nazis—either before the shooting began, or a few weeks afterward. But such a surrender would have been impossible in Switzerland, explains Halbrook. The Swiss governmental system was decentralized, with the separate 26 cantons, not the federal government, having the authority. The federal government did notify the Swiss people that in case of a German invasion, any claim that there had been a Swiss surrender should be disregarded as Nazi propaganda. And because the military power was in the hands of every Swiss man, the federal government would have been unable to surrender had it ever wanted to. Nothing could stop the Swiss militiamen from fighting to the very end.
America’s Founders admired Switzerland as a “Sister Republic” amidst the despotisms of Europe. The American Founders—like the Swiss—understood the moral implications of a universal militia system: a people who are trained to self-reliance and responsibility will defend their freedom to the utmost. But a people who rely on a professional standing army may not have the nerve to resist tyranny.
When, as William Shirer wrote from Berlin, the lamps of freedom were going out all over Europe, they burned brighter than ever in Switzerland, as the Swiss people maintained their democracy, their right to assemble, and their freedom of religion. And the Swiss people saved thousands and thousands of refugees from the gas chambers. A well-regulated militia really was necessary to the security of a free state.
Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler both understood how much Switzerland damaged the Axis cause—on both a military and a moral plane. Stephen Halbrook’s excellent book—the first in English to tell Switzerland’s history during the war—is the story of how a small, isolated nation, faced with mighty enemies and gigantic dangers, can demonstrate true greatness.
Dave Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Golden, Colorado, http://i2i.org. More by Kopel on Switzerland is available here.
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Y2K Impact on NAFTA Infrastructure
by Peter B. Aikat
The year 2000 is abbreviated as y2k, however it is also the name of a computer glitch which is associated with the year 2000. The glitch or problem is that computer companies, in order to save memory, adopted a voluntary standard in the beginning of the computer era. The voluntary standard was that all computers automatically convert any year designated by two numbers such as 98 into 1998 by adding the digits 19. If you fill in 98 in a computer memory (such as salary program) the computer will automatically convert it into 1998. Your charge card only shows two numbers but the computer does the conversion automatically.
This saved enormous amounts of memory because large data bases containing birth dates or other dates only needed to contain the last two digits such as 48 or 58. But it also created a built in flaw which makes the computers inoperable from January 1, 2000. The problem is that most of these old computers are programmed to convert 00 (for the year 2000) into 1900 and not 2000. This means the computer will refuse to issue pay checks or carry out transactions if we enter 00 for the year 2000. In effect the computer will be useless and all systems depending on the computer will grind to a halt.
The y2k problem is pervasive and every one is affected by it because computers, integrated chips and systems software are used everywhere. The problem is unprecedented in human history and correcting it is also not an easy task. If the problem remains un corrected then we can have a catastrophic failure in many spheres of the economy when January 1, 2000 rolls around. Something like the recent problems at HongKong's brand new airport but in every airport, bank, government, utilities etc. But correcting it is not so easy even though we may be aware of it.
One expert has pointed out that just knowing about the problem does not mean we can correct it. He says that after all we can all see the moon every night but how many of us can actually land on it?
In an earlier article the subject was introduced by the author. In this article the author conducts an analysis of its impact on the infrastructure upon which NAFTA trade is carried out.
Impact on the NAFTA infrastructure
There seems to be four basic elements which can be called the infrastructure upon which cross border trade is conducted. They are: Banking, Telecommunications, Transportation and Customs. If any one of these elements is not functioning then cross border trade will be affected. However there is a fifth element which is the overarching element without which none of these functions will work and that is the availability of Electricity; which we often take for granted.
Here we look at why these elements are crucial to trade. We analyze the impact of the y2k problem on each of these elements briefly. We also look at where the responsibility lies for readiness in each of these areas.
Trade is conducted for remuneration and no one will sell goods and services if they do not get paid. In other words goods flow has to be supported with a concurrent flow of money in the other direction. If a plant in the US receives goods and does not pay the supplier in Canada, then the Canadian supplier cannot pay his employees and other suppliers.
However modern Banking is basically transfer of funds from one bank to another or debits and credits of sums or numbers which are basically entries in computer accounts. If computers fail then these debits and credits cannot be carried out. All Banks have to upgrade their computers to y2k compliance. The task is massive.
In some banks even the vaults are controlled by computer chips and they are programmed to not open on Sundays and at night. This is controlled with embedded switches. They also have problems on the consumer side because ATM machines would also have problems.
Most large banks are looking at this problem so that they are ready; according to their annual reports in the US and Canada. Although it is not clear what is the stage of their preparedness. There is less known of what is happening in Mexico.
Responsibility: The responsibility to get ready for January 1, 2000 is largely with the Banks or the private sector. The government or central banks can only advise or ask for reports on the state of readiness.
Telecom is crucial for conducting of trade. Sales and purchases cannot be made without voice, fax or internet service. Furthermore other functions such as invoicing or tracing orders are all done through phone or fax.
The Telecom network works through a combination of central switches and control software for control of traffic routing, timing calls, invoicing etc. The control software needs to be brought into compliance through reprogramming which requires actual searching of line codes and changing them. The size of this task is immense. Some of the major companies may have to correct over one million lines of code.
The other problem are the switches which have embedded computer chips which are non compliant. This is also a massive task. A medium size Telephone company has half a million switches that have to be checked and corrected.
Companies are working individually to correct their problems. However there are several other issues here. If Canadian networks work but Mexican networks do not; then we know that long distance calls will not go through. The full impact of this problem is not clear.
However even if all networks are working, it does not mean that we will be able to communicate. Every large office has its own PBX machine which is called customer premises equipment. In fact there are numerous pieces of equipment called terminal attachment equipment such as Facsimile machines, desk phones which are owned by the customer and have to be fixed by individual customers.
If a US company sends a fax to a Mexican company and the Mexican companies fax machine has not been corrected, then they will not receive the message. Even if all the networks are working perfectly. Same applies for voice and internet communications. So even if the network is working; if a company has not corrected its own equipment, they will be cut off.
Responsibility: The responsibility for getting the networks compliant is with the private sector. Regulatory agencies such as the FCC, CRTC and SCT can play a coordinating role and can demand reports on the readiness from each of the service providers.
About seventy percent of goods trade within NAFTA is conducted by trucks. The rest is shared by rail, ship and air. However services trade such as Tourism is heavily dependent on Air traffic.
Road: Road traffic is dependent on the proper functioning of traffic lights. Traffic lights are all controlled by computers. About a year ago the city of Phoenix did a roll over test to see what will happen with its control system if the date was moved up to January 1, 2000. The entire system shutdown and remained so for 2 days.
Responsibility: Border cities such as Laredo, Buffalo and Niagara Falls handle most of the road traffic. Responsibility for readiness is clearly at sub federal level with the various city governments. There may also be other problems such as opening and closing of bridges etc.
Air: Air transportation is vulnerable due to a variety of reasons. All air traffic control is computer dependent. All airport systems including instrument landing systems use computers. Individual aircraft also have on board computers which are used for, from showing movies to flying the plane or telling how much fuel is in the tank.
All airline ticketing and reservation systems are also computer dependent.
Responsibility: The responsibility for preparedness is shared by government and industry. Industry has to correct its own problems such as aircraft or reservation systems. Governments on the other hand have to correct the navigation and airport systems.
Rail: Railways also use computers for controlling their traffic, scheduling and also tracking freight.
Responsibility: Mostly in the hands of individual companies to get ready. Government agencies may have some guiding role.
Shipping: Shipping is dependent on individual companies but also on the running of port facilities. In both cases there is extensive computer usage.
Responsibility: Ship operators have to be ready. However Port authorities which are sub federal jurisdictions also have to get ready. Federal government agencies such as DOT, SCT and Transport Canada can play a coordinating role.
Customs has to work in order for goods to cross borders. Generally this is a 24 hour and seven day operation. Customs agents use computers for looking up tariffs and for other purposes. Custom agents also collect fees and fines etc. which requires use of cash registers or verification of charge cards. All these equipment have to be y2k compliant.
There is also use of EDI by customs for handling customs claims.
Responsibility: This is mostly in the hands of government agencies. However some private entities such as border brokers, bonded warehouses etc. also have to get ready.
Of course none of the above four elements can work if there is a problem with the supply of electricity. Even if all the computers are corrected but electricity is not available, then the infrastructure will grind to a halt.
The production and distribution of Electricity is heavily dependent on computers. As in the case of Telecommunications there are control software related problems and also there are equipment or hardware related problems. Also as in the case of Telecom there is a network of Electrical supply which is shared by various private and semi private entities. The network is dependent on its individual elements.
Each and every utility company has to correct its own problems. This includes correcting line codes in operating software. It also includes correcting embedded chips in all machinery which are not y2k compliant.
A very well publicised case exists of a utility which corrected its problems and did a roll over test. All its systems came to a halt because they had forgotten about embedded chips in their production equipment. This case has given additional knowledge to other utilities.
Responsibility: Due to the presence of private and government producers, the responsibility is evenly spread between government and industry. Federal regulatory agencies such as the DOE and NRCAN can also play a guiding role.
There seems to be a definite risk to the trade infrastructure from being affected by the y2k bug. Any infrastructural problems would affect trade, just as a week's computer problems in HongKong caused a loss of about a billion dollars in trade. That is about how much trade that can be affected in one day of disruptions in NAFTA countries. A complete disruption of one day would wipe out about a billion dollars in trade.
Although it is hard to tell whether there will be a complete disruption or sporadic problems, the best bet is to safeguard against it.
It is also clear from some of the examples given above such as the city of Phoenix and the case of a utility company that these are learning experiences for all. One can learn from the problems of others and there is a need for more cross border dialogue both among industry and government.
It is worth repeating here that there has never been such a pervasive technological problem in human history that is poised to strike almost at the same hour across all borders. For this reason no one or no organization should feel embarrassed to ask for help or discuss the issues for a better understanding of the problem. An issue such as this would require all aspects of the economy to pull together to mitigate its effects.
Peter B. Aikat peter.aikat@extott14.x400.gc.ca
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How to Make Fireworks
Introduction: How to Make Fireworks
About: I'm Nicolaj, a Danish chemistry student interested in DIY and projects involving fabrication.
There are many types of fireworks, where one of the most common in firework displays is the aerial shell. The aerial shell is used in fireworks displays, and can be either a round or a cylindrical shape. These aerial shells are loaded into tubes, called "mortars." Once lit, the aerial shell will fly into the air and once the aerial shell is at the higest point (apogee), it will explode and shoot pyrotechnic stars in all directions.
In this instructable I will be talking about the procedure of assembling a round aerial shell.
Note: I do NOT recommend the average person to try this! This will be illegal to do without licensence in many cases, it is on your own response wether you do this legally or not.
When working with fireworks it is very important to use proper safety gear while making. It is recommended to wear faceshield or safety goggles during the making. While making the shell, one should do it away from heat souces, such as candles, cigarettes, stoves etc.
If I somehow throw around with a lot of foreign words or have any questions, feel free to ask me.
First, let's see what a typical round aerial shell looks like:
Step 1: Shell Parts
Let's start making the aerial shell (from now on it will be mentioned as 'shell')
Shell hemispheres
You will need two 3" paper hemispheres to make this shell. Note that the hemispheres themself are actually not 3", but smaller, since there must be room for pasting and quick match to make the shell fit in the 3" mortar tube.
A batch of 75 grams of 10 mm pumped "Tiger tail" stars were made for this shell, however only 70 grams were used. Remember always to make more than you need. It's better to have a bit more, than be needing. The stars were primed in meal black powder to ensure ignition. Since Tiger tail stars ignite easy, you might find that this might be unnecessary. If a 'rising comet' is desired, a 20 mm or 3/4" comet is pumped with the compostion. Make sure that the comet has a burn time equal to the time fuse or spolette (3 seconds).
Tiger tail stars:
Charcoal (Pine airfloat)........44
SGRS or Dextrin.....................6
Chemicals can be obtained at:
Bursting charge
'Meal coated rice hulls' was used in this shell.
Time fuse
A 'spolette' is a small tube, where black powder is confined in it. This will act as a time fuse, however one can also buy time fuse from such sites as:
30-40 lbs kraft paper in ~70x15 mm strips are used for pasting the shell using the 3-strip pasting method. If another pasting method is desired, the strips might have to be longer or wider. A glue is needed to paste the strips to the shell. Wheat paste is a cheap solution that works well.
Find out how to make it at a tutorial I made:
Wheat paste tutorial
Wood glue thinned with water can be used, however it is much more expensive.
Lift charge
A lift charge is needed to shoot the shell out of the mortar. Approximately 15 grams of good granulated or corned black powder works well. More or less might be used depending on the quality.
For igniting the shell either a piece of visco fuse and quick match or shoothing-wire and an e-match can be used. In this tutorial a piece of shooting wire and e-match was used. Note with this way you will need a power supply, and that you can not light the shell with a lighter
You will also need lifting cup, paper tape, scissors, drill, "gummed paper tape" or kraft paper, tissue paper, brush, hot melt glue gun, cotton twine and string.
Step 2: Shell Construction
Start by drilling a hole in the pole of one of the paper hemispheres. The diameter of the hole must be the same as the diameter of the time fuse or spolette. Insert the time fuse or spolette about half way in the hole, and hot glue it on both sides. Make absolutely sure that there are no air holes, this will likely result in a flower pot.
Place each hemisphere on a stand, which can simply be made out of an empty toilet roll cut in half. This will prevent the hemispheres from rolling around when you are filling them.
Step 3: Filling With Stars/burst and Closing
Arrange the stars around the wall of the hemispheres to the rim. The stars should be sticking a bit over the rim. If the shell is underfilled it will result in a visible area of no stars when the shell is launched.
Next cut two pieces of tissue paper, one of them with a hole to go over the time fuse or spolette. Put the pieces in each hemispheres against the stars and fill tighly with burst charge to the rim. A bit of "booster", such as whistle mix or flash powder is added in the center of each hemisphere and spread loosely in the burst charge with fingers. Not much should be used, maximum 1g.
Quickly snap the two shell hemispheres together. This is not as hard as it sounds like, but if done too slowly, the stars or burst charge might rearrange or fall out, and the previous steps will need to be repeated. If the rim each paper hemisphere touch eachother at this point, the shell is underfilled. However if done correctly there should be a small gap of around 1 cm at equator. Place the shell on the stand time fuse-side down, and use a wooden dowel to gently hit the upper hemisphere on different places. The stars will then arrange inside the shell and hopefully the two hemispheres will reach eachother. Seal up around the equator with masking tape to close the shell temporarily. Also put a piece of masking tape around the end of the time fuse or spolette to protect it from being damaged during the next steps.
Step 4: Pasting the Shell
The next step is pasting the shell, which is the hardest and most time-consuming part of round shells. The pasting method descriped here is the socalled 3-strip pasting method. Unlike the "normal" pasting method (pasting strips with a length of half the equator around the shell) the 3-strip pasting method does not "build up" near poles.
To make your pasting strips sticky before you paste you will need to add a glue to each 70x15 mm kraft paper strip on one side. This can be done quickly by arranging some strips on a wide wooden board. Next apply a thin, even layer of wheat paste with a brush. These strips are now ready for pasting, but you will need to repeat this step many times, since you will need a lot of strips to complete your shell.
The shell is pasted as showed on the picture. A strip is pasted from the "northpole" pointing towards the "southpole". Then a strip beside is pasted from the "southpole" pointing towards the "northpole". A strip is then pasted between these two strip. This pattern is continuously pasted around the shell. Press out the airbubbles under the strips, this will result in a nice-looking shell. Everytime you finish a way around the shell (layer) make sure to write on the shell how many layers you have pasted so far, you might forget it. When finished pasting the shell, multiply the layer-number by two, since each layer with this pasting method counts for two actual layers.
While pasting the shell, cut a ~8 cm piece of cotton twine and make a loop on it. Hot glue it to the top of the shell (the opposite hemispheres of the one with the time fuse in it) and paste like before, just making the strip covering the twine. This shell needed 10 layers of pasting (=20 layers) to complete. The ideal is to make the shell ~5 mm smaller than the mortar tube, in this case the OD of the shell should be ~7 cm. Making it this diameter might take hours for beginners to complete. After the layers of pasting, let the shell dry completely.
Step 5: Lifting Charge
Peel of the making tape that protected the time fuse. Cut two lengths of black match and bend them over the exposed end of the time fuse. Wrap a line of string numerous of time around the black match to secure them to the time fuse. Then either secure the string with a dot of hot glue or tie a knot.
The black match will be a prime for the time fuse and make it easier to ignite. Without it the time fuse might fail to ignite and make it a dud shell.
The next step is the lift. Take your desired lifting cup and poke a hole in the bottom, big enough to put the quick match or shooting wire through. The quick match or shooting wire should be long enough, so that when the shell is loaded in the mortar, there will stick a bit out of the mortar. If you use quick match insert a piece of visco fuse it. This will be the delay between when the shell is ignited, till it shoots out of the mortar.
Next put the quick match (not the visco fuse end) or shooting wire through the hole punched in the lifting cup. If using quick match, tear a bit of the paper off the end, so that the black match will be exposed. If using shooting wire, attatch your e-match. Next slide the quick match or shooting wire back, so it centres in the middle of the lifting cup. Secure the hole with a bit of hot glue or gummed paper.
Add you lift charge in the lifting cup, in this example 15.3 grams of pulverone was used. The amount used all depends on the quality of your black powder. The rule of thumb is to use approximately 1/10 lift of the shells weight. The shell's final weight (everything included) was around 150 grams.
Step 6: Almost Done...
Attach the lifting cup to the shell. The time fuse should be pointed directly down the lifting cup and the quick match or shooting wire should be put inside the loop on the top of the shell. Add a line of hot glue around to secure the lifting cup.
Cut either a strip of gummed paper or kraft paper. The strip should be long enough to fit all the way around the lifting cup plus a little more. Cut the strip halfway all the way down with a distance of ~1" as shown on the picture. If you're using gummed paper activate it with water, if using kraft paper, brush with layer of wheat paste.
Wrap the uncut part around the lifting cup and the cut part around the shell as shown on the picture. Again, make everything as tight as possible.
If you want to add a rising comet to your shell, attach it the same way as the lifting cup was attached: Cutted-up strip with glue and hot glue. About 2 mm of the comet should be exposed to ensure ignition.
Step 7: Finished Aerial Shell
The shell is now finished. It is a good idea to attach label in case you keep the shell over a longer time, so you will know what type of shell it is, which stars, amount of lift etc.
The shell can now be fired, but please note that this is obiously the most dangerous part of it all, so proper safety gear must be used.
First of all your eyes, fingers and ears are the most important thing to protect.
Wear safety goggles/face shield, fireproof gloves and ear plugs/earmuffs during firing (as a minimum!)
When firing, you can either use a mortar stand to hold your mortar tube if you have one, or you can bury the mortar tube in the ground about 2/3. Next the shell is loaded to the tube with the quick match or shooting wire sticking out - the shell should fall freely, without any help to make it reach the bottom. Also please take care of your surroundings: The shell should be fired a long distance away from people, houses and flammable objects. Run a good long distance after igniting the fuse. If you want to film the shell, it is recommended to be at least two persons: one will be filming, the other will ignite the fuse.
If the shell should somehow fail to lift properly and explode on the ground, you will be glad you did wear safety gear.
Sometimes a "flower pot" happens (mainly if the shell is not sealed well around the time fuse, or if the spolette is not rammed solid enough), which is simply the shell explodes in the mortar, shooting stars into the sky. The mortar may or may not fracture when this happens, but this is where burying the mortar comes in handy: the surroundings of the mortar will arbsorb most of the shock, and the fragments may not fly very far.
The shell was fired in front of a small audience (consisting of my family) I excuse the annoying voices/laughs/whatever.
Hope you enjoyed this instructable, which is my first one.
To find out more about pyrotechnics go to:
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Game Life Contest
318 Discussions
Question 4 months ago
How do you make the fireworks colorful when you litgh them up.
1 more answer
You can add different things to the stars when making them. For instance aluminium makes silver/white stars when hot enough, barium makes green, and etc.
I think it depends on where you live. I'm from Pennsylvania, and there are lots of dangerous (but legal) fireworks for sale.
Question 4 months ago
How do you make the labels. I make a lot of 4" balls shells that I will eventually store Untill the 4th. I end up forgetting which one is which so I will write on it with sharpie. However I think these labels look a lot more professional than a sharpie. Thanks
Tip 4 months ago
Try to add some sparkle and glitter to make the fireworks glittery. Your's truly unicorn
4 months ago
I think this is the best homemade rocket ship in the whole world but I think that it should have more colors and that it needs to be ver;y good
go to skyliter to find out how to make benzolift
beautiful shell loved it i would use Benzolift you only would have to use 6 grams of Benzolift.
awesome shells i do recommend making benzolift for better lift and you don't have to use as much lift powder
I am from Viet Nam. Can you help me, I want
launch a firework 0.5kg to 200m. How do I need
Reporters dose black power ? fomula? if it is 0.1kg, 0.2kg, 1kg?
Thank you very much
It looks soo cool! i think it is fun and i want to make it but is it safe?
3 years ago
I got shell that was dud last year is it possible to refuse the shell
Random note- making fireworks for personal use is completely LEGAL without a FEL (federal explosives license) as long as its for personal use and you do not transport them on any road ways.
this is awesome but if u mix ammonium nitrate with aluminum powder Then
I've just stumbled onto this site through GOOGLE so I am using the free version for now. My new interest is producing my own fireworks and it appears I can benefit from the knowledge available on this site. I am an avid outdoorsman and am quite familiar with the safety issues involved in handling explosive materials as I have for a long time loaded my own ammo. Having a pound or two of nitro powder at my fingers is not unusual. Furthermore I can recall my father using true dynamite (ditching) to clear land/beaver dams on the farm and having me assist to various degrees.
That being said, I am interested to learn how to produce "bottle rockets" and devices similar to what is known as a "mortar" at the local fireworks stand. I believe that would be enough to start.
Any suggestions on how to begin?
Oh, I am a mechanical tradesman, so such items as steel pipes (for launching purposes I would assume) and other related materials are readily available. I would think steel more reliable than cardboard tubes.
Please knowledgeably advise. |
Mr Linh's Adventures
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Ca kho (simmered fish)
As we know, healthy diets almost always contain fish, a protein food with fewer calories than other meat sources. It's also one of nature's most versatile food. We can process fish in different ways such as bake, fry , steam or poach but for simmering fish , it will reduce stinking taste and increase flavour of fish. “Cá kho“ in Vietnam can be divided into two types:” kho khô” ( dry simmering) va “kho nước”. “Cá kho nước” is usually made with sea fish like tuna, salmon, mackerel, garrupa…,its taste is quite light and it often cooked with a lot of water that can be used to souse on steamed rice,“bún” or noodle. On the other hand,” Cá kho khô” is saltier and cooked until nearly all water in the pot evaporates, it usually made with fresh water fish like long-jawed anchovy, carp, goby, mullet and so on. To make a” Cá kho” in both two kinds, we need prepare ingredients carefully. First of all, seasoning includes: salt, pepper, “ nước mắm”, sugar and a little” kẹo đắng” , a liquid made from well-cooked sugar like a caramel syrup, has a bitten taste and dark reddish-brown colour- it is often used to create a sweet, bitten taste and nice colour for dishes. Secondly, we can use some vegetables called” phụ gia” such as small slices of ripe pipe-apple, tomatoes, carambola , jack- fruit and several chunks of sugar-cane. One more and most important ingredient is fish, we should choose fresh fish that will make our dish more delicious. Fish is scrapped off the scales ,then washed carefully by water and vinegar. After careful preparation, fish is chopped up into small chunks and mixed with spices, vegetables for about 30 minutes before cooking . Then they are put into pot, often clay pot because it increases taste of fish and filled with water and small cup of tea. We simmer the pot for several hours depending on different kinds and sizes of fish. During cooking, we need to care about level of fire and always keep level of water higher than face of fish up to 1-2 centimetres. We stew the pot until fish is well-done and gain a desirable level of water, for “ Cá kho nước” we keep quite a lot of water left in the pot but for “ Cá kho khô” there is a little of water left.
Tom kho (Vietnamese simmered prawn)
As the case with many other seafood, “ tôm”( prawn) is nutritional food and very good for our health. “Tôm kho” also has a various kinds of process and each kind has its own special flavour, but one of the most delicious dishes is “ Tôm kho tộ”. Similar to “ Cá kho”, to make “ tôm kho” we also have two stages: preparation and cooking. In preparation stage, we prepare spices including “ nước mắm”, sugar, gourmet powder, pepper, red chilli, onion, garlic , ginger and sometimes a little lemon juice. We also need cooking oil. We choose big Japanese shrimps to make this dish, shrimps should be fresh . We wash shrimp carefully and then remove its shell, use knife to cut a shallow line along its body to clear all dirty things , put its head into its body until the head reaches its tail to create circle shape and get “ gạch tôm” out of its body. We mash spring onion and chilli together using a mortar and pestle. After that, we heat oil and stir fry mashed spring onion and chilli mixture until fragrant. Then, we add Japanese shrimps to fry until their colours turn light yellow. We pick shrimps up and boil “ nước mắm” mixed with a spoonful sugar, pepper and a little of gourmet powder. Then we add shrimps to this liquid and boil several minutes for shrimps to absorb spices. After finishing this step, we mix “ gạch tôm” with some s of lemon juice, a little pepper, sugar , “ nước mắm” and oil, then we simmer this liquid until it becomes solid. Next , shrimps are dipped into the solid liquid. So, the dish is finished. It is very tasty to eat with steamed rice. Besides “ Tôm kho tộ”, there are many types of “ tôm kho” like “ tôm kho lá chanh” “ tôm kho nấm” , with these dishes we only need some extra ingredients but the method of cooking are based on the same rule like “ tôm kho tộ” and all of them are so scrumptious.
Thit kho (Vietnamese simmered meat)
We also know that meat contains a number of important nutrients that are needed by our bodies for carrying out vital metabolic functions and provide us with energy and keep us healthy. Therefore, meat is one of the most popular food in our diets. Meat has various kinds and for “ thịt kho”( simmered meat) we also have a wide range of choices like pork, beef, chicken, duck. We can make a numerously delicious dishes from them, such as” thịt kho tàu”(meat simmered in a clay pot), “ thịt kho dừa”( meat simmered with coconuts), “ thịt bò kho hạt dưa” ( beef stewed with seeds of water-melon), “ giò lợn kho dừa”( pork-pie braised with coconuts) or “ gà kho chao”. Although there are a large number of dishes related to ‘ thịt kho” , the method of cooking are similar. To be specified, the process of making “ thịt kho tàu” will be introduced on the following. First of all, we need to prepare ingredients: sugar, pepper, red chilli, a coconut, salt, garlic, onion , “ kẹo đắng” and lean pork. Pork is washed carefully and then cut into small square pieces, marinated with pepper, sugar and salt for two hours. While we boil a pot filled with coconut juice . After that, we put pork into boiled coconut juice, maintain low level of fire and ensure the level of coconut juice , if it dries, we pour a little water into the pot. When the meat change colour, we add “ kẹo đắng” to the pot. And we simmer the pot until sauce is thick and coats meat. “ Thịt kho tàu”is really gorgeous and can be served with various kinds of food but especially suitable for using with steamed rice. In general, making “kho” dish is not difficult but requires our patience. Because no oil needs to be added with this cooking technique, food cooked in this method may be lower in fat compared with food prepared by other methods such as sautéing or frying. And unlike boiling, nutrients are not leached out into the water. The food is not only delicious but also good for our health.
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Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
An Uninterruptible Power Supply is an option available for any solar energy system. This will provide you with continuous energy service during blackouts. The uninterruptible power supply will usually contain batteries or be used in conjunction with batteries.
An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is ideal for "mission critical" equipment, especially for construction or mobile camps, for example. A UPS does require equipment to be in close proximity (close enough to be connected with a limited length of wiring, that is). A UPS also comes in various sizes, depending on what you need to power.
Double conversion systems offer the very highest protection for your system.
Uninterruptible power supply is also used in personal computers for the same purpose - a battery takes over the power supply when other sources (i.e. the regular power grid) have failed.
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Resources on Faith, Ethics and Public Life
B. R. Ambedkar
This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Berkley Center.
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was an Indian nationalist, Dalit leader, and Buddhist revivalist. He was born into a poor Untouchable/Dalit Hindu family in 1891 and became one of the first Untouchables to earn a college degree. He led numerous efforts throughout his life to end caste discrimination, and became a vocal critic of Gandhi for Gandhi’s support of the caste system. To ensure equal untouchable representation, Ambedkar advocated a separate electorate system for Dalits. Gandhi opposed this, but they reached a compromise with the Poona Pact in 1932. In 1935, he announced that, because of caste injustices, he would not die a Hindu. He urged his followers to abandon Hinduism and grew increasingly involved with Buddhism. After independence, he was invited to draft India’s new constitution. He officially converted to Buddhism in 1956 and died less than two months later.
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Earth Science Chapter 27 Solar System
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copy deck
Which are the inner planets and why are they called that?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars - they are inside the asteroid layer.
How are the inner planets alike? Why are they called terrestrial?
They are all earthlike with a rocky crust, dense mantal and very dense core.
What are the outer planets? Why are they called that?
Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto
Describe the outer planets.
They are gaseous, the first 4 are much larger than the inner planets, the outer layer has hydrogen and they all have ring systems.
Which planet is closest t o the sun? Which is farthest?
Mercury is closet, Pluto is farthest.
How much closer to the sun is Venus than Earth?
venus=68-69 million miles
earth = 91 - 95 million miles
How much closer to the sun is Earth than Mars?
Earth - 91-95 miles
Mars 128-155 million miles
What is the largest planet? What is the smallest planet?
How does the combined number of moons of the inner planets compare to the combined number of moons of the outer planets?
of the inner planets only Earth and Mars have moons. All of the outer planets have moons, some of which are very large.
What characteristics of earth make it capable of supporting life?
atmosphere, water, carbon
What characteristics of the Jovian planets are similar to Jupiter?
large, gaseous, has rings and moons.
What characteristics of Venus are similar to those of Earth's?
diameter, mass and gravity
Would you expect Venus or Saturn to have a longer period of revolution? why?
Saturn because it is farther from the sun.
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Monday, November 16, 2009
Our Fearless Leaders in the U.S. Congress
There are three realities that dictate most childhood cancer treatments. First is the fact that cancer tends to be much more aggressive in children and teens than in adult. Second, child and teens can withstand much higher doses of chemo than adults. Third, in the past 30 years, there has been only one new drug created for childhood cancer. The result is that most treatments are mega doses of adult chemo, packaged into generic "one-size-fits-all" protocols.
The problem is that chemo does not kills. Chemotherapy is a group of highly toxic chemical drugs developed to kill fast growing cells. They cannot distinguish between diseased and healthy cells, and therefore kill ALL fast growing cells. Chemo is very tough on adults. But imagine the effects on a growing child or adolescent...where almost every cell in their body is fast growing and under full attack from chemo. This primitive "shot gun" approach to cancer is the reason multiple organ failure is a constant fear for children fighting cancer.
Several recent studies have shown that this system is causing incredible damage to these young developing bodies. A study from the University of Arizona showed that 75% of children receiving chemo have life long side effects, 2/3 of which are debilitating. 30% suffer unrelated secondary cancers before the age of 40.
There is new promising research into targeted cancer therapies, called “molecular-targeted drugs” or "smart bomb drugs". These drugs are designed to search and destroy specific cancer cells without damaging healthy cells.
Through molecular research, scientists have also discovered that cancer is very individualized. Although many cancers appear to be the same type, they are actually quite diverse on a genetic or cellular level. This breakthrough in genetic research has shown the importance of individualized cancer treatment, rather than generic protocols.
The problem is money. Funding for pediatric cancer has gone down every year since 2003. Although there are 12 major groups of childhood cancers, effecting 12,500 children every year, only 3% of the National Cancer Institute funding goes toward these cancers. And while pharmaceutical companies fund over 50 % of adult cancer research, they give virtually nothing for childhood cancer. The adult cancer drug business is simply more profitable and less risky than dealing with children.
For years the childhood cancer community petitioned congress for help, but were simply ignored.
This all changed when U.S. congresswoman Debra Pryce sponsored the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act. She wrote a bill that granted $30 million a year, for 5 years, to childhood cancer research. Like too many in this fight, she discovered the need for funding when her 9 year old daughter lost a year long battle with cancer. The bill was later renamed after her daughter, The Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act.
For two years the bill was ignored. But this past election year the cancer community was able to raise public awareness of the bill. Once that happened, the bill was unanimously approved by both the houses and signed by the president. In fact, virtually every senator and congressman praised themselves for "championing the cause of our children". They posted banners on their congressional websites, and bragged of creating a "new and robust funding partnership between government and the medical and research communities".
So what is the status of the bill now? Well, in the weird and strange world of government, "approved" and "funded" are two very different things. Here is the status:
Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act, House Bill H.R. 4927. Introduced by Representative Pryce March 9, 2006. Unanimously approved June 12, 2008. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. No further action has occurred on this legislation.
Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act, Senate Bill S. 2375. Introduced by Senator Coleman March 7, 2006. Unanimously approved June 12, 2008. Referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
No further action has occurred on this legislation.
That's correct. Our same "public servants" who unanimously approved the bill during the election year, have now quietly removed it from the budget.
In a desperate attempt to get something rather than nothing, the few real supporters of the bill offered a compromise of $10 million. But the request is being blocked by the Labor, Health, and Human Services committee. By blocking it in committee, our elected officials can brag that they supported the cause while actually doing nothing.
Apparently the committee sees no obligation to follow through on even 1/3 of their promise. They make speeches and toot their horns. But when everything is said and done, we find everything gets said and nothing gets done. They just sit around with their thumbs up their orifice of choice.
But the end of the day, every elected official is working toward one goal: To be re-elected. This is still a democracy. They work for us, and we pay them. And we can fire them. If you have a problem with their conduct, don't something.
You can reach your congressman by going here. If you do not, you have no right to complain. These are elected officials, and will do whatever it takes to stay that way. Tell them how to keep their jobs. Tell them to fund the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act that they so enthusiastically approved last year. Tell them please, just this once...just as a your damn job and keep a promise.
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Social planning
In a response to a forwarded post, a friend made the following argument (I am putting only its essence and in my own words, since I have not taken permission to make it public)
Market forces can produce outcomes that are worse off for everyone in the system. A social planner can, (in some cases at least) improve on the efficiency of the market. Pigouvian tax is an example.
In his response, he acknowledges that it might be difficult in practice for the social planner to obtain all the information required, but says that it would be very surprising if the social planners actions could never lead to efficiency improvement.
Consider the crux of the argument (emphasized above). There are three aspects to it that should be considered.
1) What are market forces? They are an abstraction that refers to all the judgements made by individuals interacting with each other under some conditions. If one is talking of a free market, these conditions are the absence of any coercion. Note that for the concept of coercion to be clear, a system of property rights (at the very least) needs to be in place (More on this in 3). If one is to prove the statement above (in a mathematical sense, which is what my friend meant), these market forces need to be modeled. This leads to 2.
2) How are choices evaluated? In actuality, every individual evaluates and weighs choices in a unique manner depending on the context of his knowledge, his hierarchy of values etc. This evaluation is neither necessarily rational nor quantitative. Yet if a mathematical result is to be obtained, both the evaluations and the decisions based on these evaluations need to be quantified. The evaluation (sometimes called “utility”) is quantified by assigning a monetary value to every “variable”. The decision making process is quantified by assuming that each individual acts to maximize utility (the sum of the monetary values of the results of all his choices).
3) What is the system? In actuality, the system is the set of laws that determine the kind of interactions that occur among individuals. In the model, this translates to assumptions that certain factors will remain constant over time.
Once these three aspects are modeled, one ends up with a set of equations that can be solved to determine what utility each individual will be able to achieve. The solution represents an outcome. In certain cases, feasible outcomes may exist that are better for each individual. (This usually happens when there are “externalities” which can be considered mathematically as non-linear effects). The most obvious problem with this argument is that it involves a huge number of variables, so man variables that no human (or computer) can solve the set of equations in any meaningful time. That however, is not my argument. My friend already acknowledges this fact and claims (plausibly) that in certain cases, a social planner may find an approximate solution that is still better than the free market one. My arguement is that: The fact that a (mathematically) feasible better solution exists, does not mean that it is possible to achieve in actuality. The reason is that the sort of actions required to achieve the feasible solution change the system (point 3) that was analyzed. In actual terms, such actions necessarily involve violating the property rights of individuals, thus changing the interactions between people, the monetary values they attach to different choices and the strategies they adopt to maximize their values. In plain language, attempts to achieve the “optimum” solution are lost in a host of unintended consequences. The information that says a better solution is feasible exists not with any single individual but with a vast number of individuals. To put that information to use, even if a social planner is able to approximate it, he needs to communicate it to all the people who will need to act on it. But force (and social planning is all about force) is a very destructive way of communicating. Successful communication is done with persuation and persuation is what the free market is all about.
Now consider a much simpler moral argument. Every value that man achieves is a result of using his mind. And the essential requirement for the mind to work is freedom. When man is free to act as his mind instructs him to do and is responsible for the consequences of his actions, his mind works the best. When he is forced to act against the judgement of his mind, his mind becomes passive and he loses the motivation to use his mind (something that never figures in a mathematical model). In the most fundamental sense of the word good, force can never be good for man.
In his response, following my post on propaganda, my friend clarified that what he meant by propaganda was a one-sided presentation of an idea that does not consider all sides of an issue. The moral idea (in the paragraph above) when supplemented with the practical arguments and all the evidence of the past century becomes a fundamental political principle. And there is no other side to the issue left. As I wrote in this post, as long as one is unsure of something and has not integrated ideas into principles, it is good to be circumspect and consider all pros/cons of all sides of an issue. But on issues on which it is possible to have relevant principles, there is only one side. Fundamental principles do not allow any evaluation in shades of gray. Whether I should be free to act on my own judgement or whether I should allow a social planner to force his whims on me or whether I should become a social planner myself is not an issue where I will weigh the pros/cons of the alternatives.
Finally for the sake of completeness, consider the Pigouvian tax/subsidy to correct for externalities. The first point to be noted is that most externalities go away when property rights are properly defined and implemented. And in fact a tax on pollution is actually quite close to what a property-rights solution to the “problem” of pollution would be. As for the subsidy on education, one can just look at the state of subsidised public education in the U.S. to see how it works. Externalities cause problems in model-based economics because they are non linear effects and most models are linear (eg, price = marginal utility) (for the simple reason that non-linear models are untractable). Man’s mind is not a linear device however, and a linear model does it no justice. Just think of the salesman who negotiates a price (= marginal utility?) or the investor who depends on a virtuous cycle where increase in supply creates a non-existant demand to recover his investment.
One Response
Exactly. If I am talking about freedom vs. government control, there is no case in which the latter is “better,” because when government violates rights it is wrong in *principle*.
Regarding social planning, you and your readers might enjoy this post from Voices for Reason, The Resurgence of Central Planning. And I would strongly recommend Andrew Bernstein’s “The Capitalist Manifesto” near the end of Chapter 12, in which he discusses economic planning in a socialist environment vs. planning in capitalism. As you might expect, “planning” in capitalism is each and every rational actor’s individual planning, and as such, “under capitalism, vastly greater brain power is devoted to planning economic, as well as all other creative, activities,” whereas “socialism has insuperable difficulties regarding the quality, as well as the quantity of the minds planning.”
Of course, this is a practical argument against socialism, which simply supports the moral argument you laid out above. The moral is the practical, after all.
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Whether it’s your own brain fog, depression, dizziness, irritability, lack of energy, or mood swings, mental health is affected by what we consume as food and drinks.
Children’s unbalanced behavior, learning difficulties can be and is affected by food or bad mood food is something that affects our minds.
I tweaked the following excellent piece from passionate foodie Hannah Hepworth sheds some light on foods that we would do well to avoid or drastically cut down on.
Nutrition is probably one of the most underrated components of any anti-anxiety program. We normally don’t think that foods can cause or exacerbate anxiety but in truth, they can.
Just as good, healthy, unadulterated foods can strengthen your body, because food is information for your cells, food can also wreak havoc and cause unnecessary stress in your body. In this blog post I’d like to walk you through the top 5 foods to avoid if you have anxiety.
I have to warn you, you may read through this list and feel like you been sentenced to death because your diet is mostly made up of these foods. This is not meant to stress you out more! This is to help you become aware of any bad mood foods in your diet so you can begin to decrease and eliminate them.
If you eat all of them on a regular basis, pick 1 that you can begin eliminating from your diet. Go slow, experience success and improvement and then drop another. Let’s get started!
I’ll just start with this food first. We all love it, many of us are even addicted to it, although we may not like to admit it;) Sugar is a major stressor to your body. Sugar tastes wonderful, but it’s void of nutrients giving you empty calories.
When you fill up too much on sugary foods (which can also be foods that turn to sugar quickly like simple carbs i.e. white flour, white rice…) you don’t leave yourself room to eat nutrient dense foods like fruits and veggies, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, raw dairy and meat. You can eventually become deficient in many nutrients which then creates a host of problems that cause and exacerbate anxiety and stress.
Sugar also promotes inflammation in the body. This can be located ANYWHERE in the body, do your joints ache? Do you suffer from mental illness? Inflammation is the root of all illness.
Make a goal to eliminate sugar for 1 week. See how you feel. You might not even realize how yucky it makes you feel until you add it back in. Try it out for yourself!
This isn’t something that I’ve ever really struggled with as I’m not a soda, coffee or tea drinker.
However, I know tons of people who can’t live without their “Dew” or their Diet Coke multiple times a day. The thing with caffeine is that it depletes B-vitamins (namely B1), which are so important for a healthy, unfrazzled nervous system.
Caffeine also triggers an adrenalin release just like stress does and can cause and exacerbate panic attacks. If you struggle with panic attacks please eliminate caffeine! It restricts blood flow to the brain, causes your heart to race (think anxiety) and dehydrates your whole body.
You can get coffee replacements like Barley Cup or Dandelion Root Coffee.
Sometimes just the simple act of drinking ample water is enough to reduce anxiety in a person.
Processed Foods
Processed foods lack nutrients. They are often so processed that manufacturers have to add nutrients back into them to be able to deem them as “food.” This is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. Our grocery stores are filled with a majority of packaged foods teaming with fake colors, flavors and preservatives to make them more enticing, visually appealing and to light up our taste buds, (more on this later). Bottom line, start shopping the perimeter of the grocery store. If you struggle with anxiety your body is already a stress ball, you don’t need to add to it by eating nutrient void foods. They have no place in your diet. We need to include processed meats in this category.
Bad Fats
You might have been tricked into thinking that all fats are bad but this simply isn’t the case. Each of our trillions of cells have a membrane around them that are made up of fat. Bad fats include any fat that says hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated before it. Bad fats also include canola (rapeseed) oil, peanut oil, corn oil, margarine, cottonseed oil, soy oil, crisco, vegetable oil, and safflower oil. Most foods that are processed contain unhealthy fats. When you eat these fats they make the membrane around your cells become stiff and rigid, making it hard for your cells to communicate with one another.
Good Fats
When you eat healthy fats like coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, and butter you are nourishing the cell membranes helping them stay fluid and flexible which allows them to communicate with one another. If you have anxiety, you better believe you want your brain cells communicating properly with one another!!
Good fats also nourish your nervous system. Strive to switch out the bad fats in your diet with good fats. Add them to smoothies, cook with them and slather them on toast, potatoes and rice (brown that is;)!
Excitoxins- MSG/Fake Sugar
I’m going to lump these last two ingredients together. I can’t really call them foods though. MSG otherwise known as monosodium glutamate and fake sugar which can go by the names of aspartame, sucralose or saccharine, among other names listed in this article by Dr. Oz are both damaging to your brain cells and nervous system.
MSG is a damaging food additive that enhances the flavor of many foods from soups, to salad dressings, crackers, frozen dinners and commonly in Chinese food.
MSG is considered an excitotoxin which means that it overexcites your cells to the point of death and can cause brain damage. You can read more about what MSG can do to your body and names that it can go by in this article by Dr. Mercola
Fake sugar is similar in that it can damage your nervous system and excite the neurons in your brain making them fire like crazy until they die. I’ve shared information on staying away from fake sugar before on social media and am usually contacted by diet soda companies telling me there’s no evidence.
I personally know multiple people, including myself, who have experienced adverse effects of eating fake sugar. 3 times after I have eaten even tiny amounts of food with fake sugar I have had extreme dizziness and a damaged feeling in the nerves of my head. A couple times I couldn’t walk in a straight line, and it took a few days to really subside. If you struggle with anxiety you don’t need to be eating ANYTHING that could even POTENTIALLY be damaging to your nervous system.
When you are anxious your nervous system is in a state of high alert. We want to calm the nervous system, and activate your body’s relaxation response so you can get your body in a state to where it can begin healing naturally.
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World News
Solar storm to hit Earth in 48 hrs, potential blackout as mobile, TV, GPS services will be affected
Researchers have warned that the consequences could be far more serious.
Representative image.
The Hush Post: Get ready for a technical blackout in the next 48 hours as a solar storm is expected to hit planet Earth. A coronal hole has opened up on the Sun, releasing a huge swarm of cosmic particles. This solar storm will be the first in this month and could blast Earth with solar particles, potentially wiping out technology across the globe, affecting satellite based services like mobile, TV, GPS etc.
A brief statement on the website Space Weather read, “Cutting across half of the solar disk, a wide hole in the sun’s atmosphere is turning toward Earth and spewing a stream of solar wind toward our planet. This extreme ultraviolet image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the gaseous canyon”.
Coronal Hole on Sun.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the storm could cause Northern and Southern lights when it arrives. However, researchers have warned that the consequences could be far more serious.
Solar winds, which are a stream of particles from the sun, can heat the Earth’s outer atmosphere, causing it to expand. Additionally, a surge of particles can lead to high currents in the magnetosphere, which can lead to higher than normal electricity in power lines, resulting in electrical transformers and power stations blow outs and a loss of power. The higher amounts of radiation also leave people vulnerable to cancer.
NOAA has classified the impending solar storm as a G-1 class geomagnetic or ‘minor’ meaning it would be lighter one but could cause enough damage.
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Pink Tax
The “Pink Tax” is a term used to draw attention to the price difference between female-targeted products and gender-neutral products or goods produced for men. The name references the colour pink and its use when marketing to women. Studies conducted over the last few years have found that women pay higher prices for comparable products for men. In the case of razors and shampoos, women typically pay 6-7% more. Some manufacturers respond by saying the price difference is due to the higher costs associated with marketing to women. Others point out that women’s products can have design features and/or additives not found in similar men’s items. That doesn’t explain why one store was selling pink earplugs for $1.30 more per package than blue earplugs. Another example found a pink scooter retailing for $20.00 more than the exact model painted in red.
The price disparity extends beyond toiletries to other goods and services including apparel, toys, dry cleaning and haircuts. According to the CBC, a bill was introduced in Ontario in 2005 to block price discrimination on the basis of gender. “The bill” never made it past the committee stage.
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Created with Fabric.js 1.4.5 : mud slides are often triggered byheavy rainfall quick thawing of the lands or a volcanic activity. Rain or melting snow on the sides of active volcanoes combineswith the soil, rocks and traveling and speeds80 Km/h and is up to 50 meters thick buryvillages whole and people alive. 8800m Mountains Landslides Types of Landslides MOUNTAIN LANDSCALES - LANDSLIDES Landslides are horribledisasters that can havethe potential to bury whole villages and people alive.They happen frequently,fortunately they are notalways deadly. :slumping is the movement of chunks of soil rocks and earthsteep curved slope.An uneven decline ( called scarps) iscaused by these chunks slipping.This is usually caused by earth-quakes, exesive rain orfreezingor thawing if the land. :soil creep is the very slow movementof soil,rock and earth.It is the slowestmoving and happens over many years.To the human eye the slow movementof the soil is mostly unnoticeable.Soil creep leaves behind leaning telegraphpoles and fences; cracked walls and bowed trees. Soil creep Slumping :Avalanches are the rapid movement of ice and snow down steep mountain slopes they are fast moving landslidesand are caused by natural movement of the earth (earthquakes and weatherevents )or human movements (snowboarding and skiing) There are many types of landslidesbut there are four main types: Avalanches Mud Slides / lahrs Did you know? why do we live in such a dangerous place? how do you prepare for a land slide . Mountains make up about one-fifth of the world's landscape., Mountains are homes to at least 10% of the world's people. .Learn about emergency response and evacuation plans for your area .Talk through the evacuation plan and safety when a land slide occurs. .Make a evacuation plan for your family and business. .make a emergency kit for when a landslide happens..Become familiar with the your area and make sure you understand the risk in different situations..Get supplies ready in case you need to evacuate3-day supply of water; three liters per person per day3-day supply of, easy-to-prepare food .Flashlight .Battery-powered or hand-crank .Extra batteries .First Aid kit .Medications and medical items . Multi-purpose tool .Sanitation and personal hygiene items .Copies of personal documents, proof of address, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies .Cell phone with chargers .Emergency contact information .Extra money Although there are manydangers in living in mountains,there are also many benefitsof living there as well. benefitsare:.High rainfalls from mountains.Mountains are tourist attractionsfor snowboarding and skiing.Easy to reach ores and metals.Fresh water from rivers.Fertile lands Mountains are created by thetectonic plates pushing against each other,and raising a chunkof land. The powerful force of tectonic plates can push the land up to above sealevel.
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The American Meal
The American Meal
The hamburger has become one of the main dishes in the western world, specifically in the United States. Although it is made with various ingredients, meat (chicken, pork, beef, mutton or goat meat) is the main component of the product. For a person to have a meal of hamburger it is necessary to find it ready-made at a local food source such as MacDonald’s or from a store such as at the shelves of Wal-Mart. Alternatively, one may decide to make a hamburger at home. In this case, a person will be required to obtain fresh meat from a local store or butcher’s shop. Meat is one of the most controversial sources of food in the US, especially in regards to the impact its production has on the environment. For instance, beef animals are reared in large farms, especially in the south, southwest and some states in central and western parts of the US. In addition, beef is imported from South American nations such as Argentina. Studies have shown that animal production in large scale is an important contributor of methane gas in the environment (Cooper, 2007). In fact, it has been shown that feeding animals with fresh or wet fodder are likely to produce a substantial amount of methane to the environment. Secondly, ranching and dry land grazing contributes to reduction of forest and vegetation cover and interference with natural water catchment areas. It is likely that the meat obtained from a local store or butcher’s shop transported from a farm in the US or South America. Consequently, the production of the meat product must have been through one of the existing methods. For example, ranching, close paddock grazing, dry land grazing or indoor grazing are the most common method of meat production in the US. On the other hand, most Argentinean beef farms are operated as large ranches due to the presence of adequate land for grazing. Each of these methods has some substantial impact on the environment (Roosevelt, 2006).
To obtain the meat product, animals must have been transported from the farms to the meat production factories, where a number of processes are involved prior to selling the ready product. For instance, the animals were killed before skinning. Then, they must have been processed into respective products such as steaks, cuts, sub primal cuts and roasts.
Lettuce is mainly obtained from farms in California. In fact, more than 90% of the lettuce products consumed in the US come from California. This means that most of the products available at local green grocers and stores are obtained from some farms located in the state of California. Cold frames and greenhouses are the main methods of farming used in the production of lettuce in many areas. In fact, most Californian farms use greenhouses to produce lettuce. The methods have some significant impacts on the environment. For instance, commercial production of lettuce involves extensive use of fertilizers and a number of chemicals used to control pests and microorganisms. All these chemicals cause soil, air and water degradation. Moreover, lettuce farms have caused loss of natural vegetative cover, which has an impact of causing the extinction of certain plants and animals.
Lettuce production is a laborious process that involves large-scale cultivation in farms. After cultivation and harvesting, lettuce leaves are sometimes separated from the other parts of the body, to obtain leaf, head and romaine. These are the most common forms of lettuce sold in local green groceries in the US. The products are washed and packed before transportation. Due to its perishable nature, lettuce must be stored and transported under cold conditions of about 40C.
In the US, a number of states are home to onion production. For instance, Texas, California, Georgia and New Mexico are the leading producers. However, most other regions have also some substantial rate of onion production per year. In addition, the environmental differences between states allow some states to produce more onions during different times of the year.
Like lettuce, onions are produced under several farming methods, but open field farming and greenhouses are the most common methods in the US. In addition, the local grocers may have obtained onions from Mexico. For instance, some statistics indicate that over 50% of the onions produced in Mexico are sold in the American vegetable market. Onion production involves a process that requires the use of fertilizers and chemicals for the control of pests and microorganisms. These practices have some impact on soil, water and air. In addition, they lead to elimination of some plants and animals.
After three months of growth, onions are harvested through cutting the bulbs or uprooting the entire plant. The harvesters may clip the tops and roots before placing the product in burlap sacks. Onions are less perishable than other vegetable, which allows them to last for some few days or weeks in warehouses. However, the warehouses must have adequate air supply and be maintained at low temperatures. They must be “curedâ€, washed and peeled for special packaging before being transported for retailing.
The tomato plant is grown for the edible fruit that is eaten as raw or cooked. In the US, more than 90% of the tomato products sold locally is growth in California. In addition, California accounts for about 34% of the total world production. In fact, America does not import tomatoes from other countries, although some green grocers and stores obtain foreign products for meeting the local and individual customer demands.
Tomatoes are produced in greenhouses or outdoor fields. They are growth in masses and in large rows covering several hectares in California and Florida. However, greenhouse method is the most common farming technique employed in the US. Tomato production requires intensive labour that includes chemical or manual weeding, pests and microorganism control and adequate supply of water. Therefore, it has an impact on water, soil, air, animals, other plants and people (Cosier, 2007). In addition, these chemicals may have an impact on consumers, especially when traces of chemicals are left in the product (Macpherson, 2007). The fruit is the important and the only edible part of the tomato plant. Fruit picking is primarily manual. Some fruits are picked when ripe while other are picked before they ripen, depending on the need. For the purpose of hamburger meal, ripe potatoes are preferred to the unripe fruits. After picking, the plant is washed and stored temporarily in cold rooms before transpiration.
French fries are made from potatoes. Therefore, it is worth discussing the potatoes production process. In the US, only 15 states are involved in the production of potatoes due to environmental conditions. Idaho, Oregon and Washington are the major potato producers in the US. America also imports the product from South America, especially from countries like Peru. Potato farming is mainly done in open fields. The method involves intensive use of machines in all stages of plant growth. For instance, shallow trenches are dug on the cultivated field before using another machine to place tubers one foot apart from each other on every trench. Application of fertilizers and other chemicals must be done to enhance production. Therefore, the production process has some significant impacts on the environment.
After three months of growth, tubers are obtained by uprooting the plant. Several tubers are obtained from each plant. They are then washed and placed in dry sacks for transport.
Cooper, C. (2007). 100 miles and counting. Food In Canada, 67(3), 7.
Cosier, S. (2007). The 100-Mile Diet. The Environmental Magazine, 18(5), 42.
Macpherson, C. (2007). You are where you eat. Ascent Magazine, (33), 46.
Roosevelt, M. (2006). The Lure of the 100-Mile Diet. Time, 167(24), 78.
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Treaties among them
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The first treaty signed between India and Nepal was signed in Kathmandu on 31st July, 1950. It was a bilateral treaty between both the countries. The treaty followed free movement of people and goods between both the countries and collaboration of military actions and foreign affairs. The treaty basically consisted of 10 articles which clearly specified about the friendly relation bonding regarding military actions and foreign relations, economic development and import of guns and ammunitions by Nepal. This treaty cancelled all the old treaties, contracts and agreement and replaces it with the new treaty of 1950 and is still in action till today.
Indo- Bhutan 1949 treaty was signed on 8th August, 1949. This got India and Bhutan into very good relations which included free trade and extradition. India provided several military aids to Bhutan when Bhutan was fighting china over territorial issues and it was a two- front war which also involved Pakistan.
Indo- Bhutan relations par 1972:- Bhutan made good trading relations with Pakistan, China and other South Asian countries rather than with India but between 2003 and 2004, the royal Bhutanese army conducted a lot of military operations against anti- Indian insurgents like ULFA.
Indo- Bhutan treaty of 2007 declared a new era of friendship between India and Bhutan. The new treaty replaced the provision in the old treaty that Bhutan neednt take permission from India regarding foreign policies. India allows in total of 16 entry and exit points for trade openings with other countries exception being PRC and has agreed to import around 10,000 megawatts of electricity from Bhutan by 2020.
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[#25] Toward a Science of Computer Architecture
By Piet Hut
Steam engines use energy to power motion, and computers use energy to power calculations. The invention of steam engines gave rise to the theory of thermodynamics, where entropy growth describes loss of information. What will the invention of computers give rise to? Whatever it will be, we should expect it to tell us at least about efficiency of computing.
Thermodynamics tells us, for a given heat engine, the maximum amount of work that can be extracted. And once we know the theoretical maximum, we can determine the efficiency as the ratio of the actual amount of work obtained and the theoretical maximum.
Sadi Carnot
Sadi Carnot
Interestingly, the historical order of discovery was the other way around, from the discovery of efficiency to the discovery of thermodynamics. By 1775, the Scottish engineer James Watt had made steam engines far more practical than they were before, by adding a separate condenser. Half a century later, in 1824, Sadi Carnot, a French engineer, would derive the theoretical maximum amount of work that such an engine could produce. This result was then used to develop thermodynamics, when Lord Kelvin in 1851 published the first version of the second law of thermodynamics, which gave rise to the concept of entropy, introduced by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius in 1865.
Clearly, great ideas take a long time to develop, then as well as now. And equally clearly, great insight is not necessarily related to what is now called "metrics" in academic publishing, such as the number of publications one produces, or the number of citations one attracts in those publications. Carnot's life-time output was only one publication, but a very important one, and his "h-index" was therefore 0 or 1, depending on whether he received any citation at all; in any case far too low to get tenure these days. Sadly, Carnot died eight years after his publication, at the young age of 36, but after having received one obscure citation in the Revue Encyclopédique, so at least his h-index now stands at h=1.
Although computers have been around for well over half a century, we still don't have a general theory of computing that is anywhere as universal as thermodynamics is for heat engines. This is perhaps not surprising, given that it took ninety years from James Watt's steam engine to Clausius' introduction of the notion of entropy. And if history is a guide, we are still waiting for the equivalent of a modern Carnot, to give us a measure for the efficiency of computers, to prepare the ground for a universal theory to be built.
Jun Makino in 1995, with the GRAPE-4, the first Teraflops special purpose computer
A candidate for a successor of Carnot is Jun Makino, a Japanese astrophysicist whose work has focused not only on theory and simulations in stellar dynamics, but also on broad aspects of software development and even the design of special-purpose hardware. Jun and I have collaborated on many projects since we first met in 1986, when he was still a Master's student.
The way we met was rather unusual. A year earlier I had become a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, and that summer I organized a conference on "The Use of Supercomputers in Stellar Dynamics". I had asked Jun's supervisor, Daiichiro Sugimoto, to give one of the invited talks, but at the last moment it turned out that Sugimoto was not able to come. So instead he sent this beginning graduate student whom nobody had heard about. It was Jun's first scientific presentation outside Japan, and we found it hard to understand what he was trying to convey.
However, I got a sense that there was something potentially important hidden in his talk, and when I talked with him one-on-one, it quickly became clear that he was the first one in the history of N-body calculations to give a detailed analytic derivation of the relative efficiency of different integration schemes, in terms of cost/performance ratio, cost in CPU cycles, and performance in terms of integration steps.
This was a real breakthrough in the field, and something not known, even by people who had been writing N-body calculations for decades. I immediately offered him to stay a few weeks longer, providing him with lodging, meals, and an extended-stay airplane ticket, and by the time he left, we had completed a jointly authored paper, the first of many to follow.
31 years later
Fast-forwarding to half a month ago: I again attended a talk by Jun Makino in Tokyo, more or less by chance (we met nearby with Michiko Fujii, associate professor at Tokyo University, to talk about her work in stellar dynamics, in connection with the recent gravitational wave detections). The title of his talk was "The Streamline Computer — or a science of computer architecture". I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be similar to the very first talk I heard Jun give, 31 years ago: it was also about efficiency, but on a much wider and more fundamental scale.
In his talk, Jun proposed a new measure for the efficiency of computer architectures. He started with two analogies. One was the efficiency of heat engines, as I described above. The other was the efficiency of flight, whether by birds or airplanes, in terms of minimizing drag by improved streamlining. This led him to the conclusion that computers are still in the early days of improvements toward efficiency, but that at least we are getting a sense of how to move forwards. And besides economic advantages, such a move may lead to a deeper theory of computing.
Here are some of his slides (click here for all the slides):
Piet Hut is President of YHouse (where this blog is hosted), Professor of Astrophysics and Head of the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and a Principal Investigator and Councilor of the Earth-Life Science Institute in the Tokyo Institute of Technology. |
Monday, 16 April 2012
Results of probability experiments
Probability Help : As we well know that the probability of an event lies between zero to one. So whenever we are asked that Results of probability experiments then it will always be between zero and one. If we toss a coin then possible outcome can be head or a tail as we know that probability of any event is the ratio of number of samples by number of event. So total number of event will be two and if we have to find the probability of getting a head then it will be ½. As you can see that the probability is between zero and one. As we know that results of probability experiments will always be between zero and one. Probability result will vary greatly when we perform some big experiments, because in big experiments it is very difficult to predict the result. For example if we are throwing two dies and we have to find the probability that the sum of dies will be 7. For more on this topic click here.
Then our first task is to make the samples where the sum of dies will be 7. So samples can be 1,66,15,22,53,44,3 these are the possibilities of getting a sum as 7. And number of event will be 6*6 = 36, so probability of the event will be 6/36. We can simplify 6/36 as 1/6. This is the probability for the given experiment. We can also see that if the experiment is big the probability will always be lesser. The predication of result is depending on number of samples and total number of event. Whenever we are asked to calculate the probability our first task is to calculate the number of events. And after finding the number of event we should go for number of samples. And in this way we can predict the result. In the next session we are going to discuss Grade III of school education Karnataka, Predict future events.
In upcoming posts we will discuss about Collect and Solve Decimals. Visit our website for information on distributive property worksheets
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Tag Archives: Hardware
So We Just Consider the Resistor’s Tolerance Right?
When designing precision electronics or performing a detailed worst-case analysis, one quickly learns to consider parameters that may not be so important in other applications. One of the more interesting things to learn is that the tolerance of a resistor is just the starting point. It does not actually define the maximum or minimum value the resistor could be within your circuit.
The key parameters associated with a resistor are as follows.
Tolerance: This defines how close to the nominal value is allowable for the resistor when it is manufactured. A nominal 1,000Ω resistor with a tolerance of ±5% will have a value ranging between 950 and 1,050Ω. This value will be fixed; the value of the resistor will not vary during its life due to the tolerance. However, the engineer has to consider the tolerance in design calculations and ensure the circuit will function across the entire potential value range.
Temperature coefficient: This describes how the value of the resistor changes as a function of temperature. It is defined as parts per million/Kelvin; common values are 5, 10, 20, and 100 PPM/K. Actually, the best way to think of this is parts per million per ohm/Kelvin. A 1,000Ω resistor with a temperature coefficient of 100 PPM experiencing a ±60K temperature change over the operating temperature range (240-360K, based on an ambient room temperature of 300K) will experience a resistance change of ±6Ω based on its nominal value. Obviously, the lower the temperature coefficient, the more expensive the resistor will be. (This is the same for low-tolerance resistors.)
Resistor self-heating: For really high-precision circuits, it is sometimes necessary to consider the power dissipation within the resistor. The resistor will have a specified thermal resistance from the case to ambient, and this will be specified in °C/W. The engineer will know the power dissipation within the resistor; this can be used to determine the temperature rise and hence the effect on the resistance.
To determine the maximum and minimum resistance applicable to your resistor, you must consider the tolerance, the temperature coefficient, and the self-heating effect. As you perform your analysis, you may notice some of the parameters are negligible and can be discounted, but you have to consider them first to know whether or not you can discount them.
For some precision circuits (gain stages in amplifiers, for example) it may be necessary to match resistors to ensure their values are within a specified tolerance of each other and have the same temperature coefficients.
In certain circuits, it is also important to make sure that critical resistors are positioned correctly to ensure both terminal ends of the resistor are subjected to the same heating or cooling effects. Otherwise, the Seebeck effect may need to be considered. When using forced airflow, for example, it may be necessary to ensure that both resistor terminals are perpendicular to the airflow, so the component is of uniform temperature.
Design Reliability: MTBF Is Just the Beginning Issue 88
When most engineers think about design reliability, their minds turn to a single, central metric: mean time between failures. MTBF is, in fact, an important parameter in assessing how dependable your design will be. But another factor, probability of success, is just as crucial, and you would do well to take note of other considerations as well to ensure an accurate reliability analysis and, ultimately, a reliable solution.
Link here
A Pain-Free Way to Bring Up Your Hardware Design Issue 85
One of the most exciting
moments in an engineering
project is when the
hardware arrives in the lab
for the first time, ready for commissioning
before integration testing. This
stage in the development process typically
can mean long hours and a certain
amount of stress for all the engineers
on the project. But tools and
techniques are available to help ease
the way and move the project along.
Let’s take a look at how we can minimize
any issues that may arise in getting
a design to the next level, and how
to get through the commissioning
phase in a timely manner.
Link here
Nuts and Bolts of Designing an FPGA into Your Hardware Issue 82
To many engineers and project
managers, implementing
the functionality within an
FPGA and achieving timing
closure are the main areas of focus.
However, actually designing the FPGA
onto the printed-circuit board at the
hardware level can provide a number
of interesting challenges that you must
surmount for a successful design.
Link here
Edge Detection on Signals
|
Click on photos to enlarge.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira was honored with a stamp forty-four years after his death.
Archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, sociologist and probably some other "ologists" tell us that when two cultures meet, both tend to benefit. The less-developed culture tends to benefit more, but its people do so at the expense of their of their own cultural heritage. Down through the annuls of history, this has happened again and again from the time the Israelites moved to Egypt to the present day as Central Americans move north to escape poverty and violence. The most notable example of this phenomena can be seen in the fading of the Native American culture into the immigrant amalgam of the ever-changing American culture. The same thing happened in Australia as the English culture overran that of the native Aborigines. As artists, when we think of a culture, we naturally think first of art; but a culture also encompasses language, literature, religion, music, food, science, government, family traditions, morality and many other elements. If both clashing cultures are equally strong, often the result is war, as in the middle east today, further complicated by oil--great wealth.
The Hermannsburg Mission, 1936-37, Albert Namatjira
--his first painting and the place of his birth.
Albert Namatjira, 1956, William Dargie
Albert Namatjira was caught up in this cultural clash. Namatjira was born in 1902, well after his Australian Aborigine culture had started to dissolve into that of a small island on the opposite side of the world. He was born at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission near Alice Springs in western Australia, a mountainous, semi-arid region for which the invading British culture had little use. As a child he was westernized, Christianized, and baptized before he was thirteen, then thrust back into his native Arrernte community to be initiated. There the cultural acclimation was reversed. Like his ancestors, Namatjira developed a deep love and respect for the land, married, and started a family. Because his wife was not of the same Aboriginal kinship, they were ostracized. Namatjira found work as a camel driver. As a result, he saw a lot more of Australia than did most other "outback" dwellers.
Albert Namatjira, Max Battarbee, ca. 1947
Namatjira became an artist almost by accident. Though he'd shown some talent as a child and had visited art museums in Melbourne, it was only while serving as a guide for the Australian landscape watercolorist, Rex Batterbee, that he began to display an interest in painting. Batterbee patiently showed him how, developing a long friendship, and shepherding his career for several years thereafter. In due time, Namatjira began to sell his work, his prices rising from worthless to five, ten, twenty, eventually as much as two hundred Australian dollars. That may not sound like much today, but keep in mind that this was back in the 1930s and 40s, and that, over his lifetime, Namatjira created over two-thousand paintings.
Namatjira meets Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, 1954.
Success meant a truck with his name on it.
By the early 1950s, Namatjira was at the height of his popularity. When the Queen of England came calling in 1954, he presented her with a painting. William Dargie painted Namatjira's portrait (above, left) in 1956 and won the Archibald prize that year for his effort (awarded each year to the painter of the best portrait of an Australian). The same year, Namatjira acquired a truck. In fact he became quite wealthy. The only problem was, under Australian law, Aborigines could not own land, build a house, or drink alcohol. Not that he had any trouble spending his newfound riches. Under Aborigine tradition, if a man had the good fortune to acquire a good fortune, he was expected to share it with his family. Namatjira's "family" came crawling out of the outback woodwork like termites. At one point in time, he was supporting over six-hundred family members.
In 2013, almost sixty years after Namatjira met the Queen, his grandchildren
journeyed to Buckingham Palace to present another Namatjira painting to Her Majesty.
Namatjira became a symbol of the Australian Indigenous Rights Movement, which sought to bridge the gap between Australian culture that of the Aborigines. In 1957, Namatjira became the first Northern Territory Aborigine to gain freedom from the laws making his people wards of the State, and the first to be granted Australian citizenship, which entitled him to vote, build a house, and buy alcohol. In the end however, it was the vast cultural differences he sought to bridge which did him in.
West MacDonell Ranges, Albert Namatjira Jr. The son also paints.
Albert Namatjira's gravestone
displays one of his paintings
preserved on ceramic tiles.
Around 1958, an Aboriginal woman was killed at a party Namatjira attended. He was held responsible for bringing alcohol into the camp. As mentioned before, it was then against the law to supply alcohol to an Aboriginal person. Namatjira was charged with leaving a bottle of rum on a car seat, where a fellow Hermannsburg artist, Henoch Raberaba, could get access to it. Namatjira was sentenced to six months in prison for supplying an Aboriginal with liquor. After a public uproar, he was permitted to serve his sentence at the Papunya Native Reserve. He was released after serving only two months due to medical and humanitarian reasons. Albert Namatjira died shortly thereafter, in August, 1959, of heart disease complicated by pneumonia. He was fifty-seven.
Just recently, Namatjira's famous white gum trees (top), featured in so
many of his paintings, were burned by vandals shortly before they were
to be registered and protected as part of Australia's national heritage.
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browse words by letter
1 definition found
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Anthracnose \An*thrac"nose`\, n. [Gr. ?, ?, carbuncle + ?
disease.] (Bot.)
Any one of several fungus diseases, caused by parasitic
species of the series {Melanconiales}, attacking the bean,
grape, melon, cotton, and other plants. In the case of the
grape, brown concave spots are formed on the stem and fruit,
and the disease is called {bird's-eye rot}. |
Microsoft word - the chemistry of combustion.doc
Chemical reaction occurs continuously in the atmosphere, in factories, in
vehicles, in the environment and in our bodies. In a chemical reaction, one or
more kinds of matter are changed in a new kind – or several new kinds – of
Life as we know it, could not exist without these processes: plants could not
photosynthesize, cars could not more, pudding could thicken, muscles could not
burn energy, glue could not stick and fire could not burn. With these few jesters
in mind, we can define chemistry.
This is said to be the (study) science of composition, structure and the properties
of substances and how they react with other substances to form new substances
with the addition or removal of energy in any of its forms.
There are two processes by which changes take place in the subject matter of
It is important to realize that many aspects of substance are not included in the subject matter of chemistry. For instance, water may be cooled, and at a certain temperature freezes and forms ice; the temperature at which this happens is (0˚) which is an important fact about water, but this is physical rather than a chemical property. This is mainly because the process of freezing water is merely changing from the liquid state to the solid and is not changing into a new substance. Freezing is therefore regarded as a physical rather than a chemical process. On the other hand, when magnesium ribbon is heated in a flame, it burns brilliantly and the white powder which is formed is a completely new substance; a chemical process has taken place in this case. There are several important differences between physical and chemical processes:- Figure i. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROCESSES
Matter is that which has weight and occupies space. Matter is the name given to
all substances and can exist in any one of three states – solid liquid or gas.
Some forms of matter eg. water may be found quite commonly in all three states,
but many substances at normal temperature are found only in one or two of the
states. Because the total number of substances is so large, running into millions,
it is helpful to think about them grouped into different classes rather than as
Substances can be grouped into three classes:
Element can be defined as substances that cannot be broken down by chemical
treatment into any simpler substances. Elements consist of atom of the same
type. Out of millions of substances that exist, this statement applies to about a
hundred. Iron for example, is a familiar substance that part in many chemical
processes. If it is left for some time in a moist atmosphere, it will change into a
new substance, rust. Analysis of the rust shows that along with the iron, it also
contains oxygen. Again, iron may be dissolved in sulphuric acid. If the resulting
liquid is evaporated, green crystals are obtained. If these crystals are analyzed,
they will be found to contain not only iron but sulphur and oxygen. In these two
reactions and in all other reactions in which iron takes part, the iron is converted
into a more complicated substance. Apparently there is not chemical treatment
which can convert iron into a simpler substance than it already is. Substances
such as iron are placed into a class called elements. By using these simplest
substances as building blocks and by putting them together in two different ways,
all other substances known to exist can be made.
The group of elements may be divided into sub groups in several different ways –
for example into solids (such as iron and sulphur), liquids (such as mercury and
bromine), and gases (such as oxygen and nitrogen). Another division is into
metals (such as iron and magnesium) and non-metal (such as sulphur and
Mixtures and Compounds
A mixture is the product of mixing two or more substances in which these
substances retain their properties. If iron powder and sulphur are put in a test
tube and the content shaken, a mixture of iron and sulphur is produced.
The points listed in the left hand column of table ii. apply to this and other
However, if the mixture is gently heated, after a time, the content of the tube
begins to produce so much heat that they become red-hot. If the content is
allowed to cool and then examine, it is found that the points listed in the right
hand column of table ii apply. In fact, the material is no longer a mixture of irn
and sulphur but a compound given the name ferrus sulphide.
Therefore, we can define compounds as being made up of elements, but looks
and behave quite differently as a rule from any of its components or as a
chemical combination of two or more substances which look and behave quite
differently than any of its component element.
Thus, element can be placed together in two different ways, to make a mixture or
a compound, many of which contains several elements, rather than only two, as
in the above example. Also, compounds may themselves be mixed together.
Sea water, many rocks and minerals, and on a purely chemical level, the human
body are mixtures of compounds.
In order to properly explain the formation of compounds, it is necessary to refer
the atomic theory of matter. According to the theory, a sample of an element
such as iron or sulphur is a collection of many millions of tiny iron or sulphur
atoms and the chemical behaviour of these elements is a reflection of the
behaviour of the individual atoms. When the iron and sulphur are mixed
together, the iron and the sulphur atoms are not altered in any way so that no
changed in behaviour is observed. The iron atoms in the mixture go on behaving
in the same manner as the iron atom in pure iron and the same applies to the
sulphur atoms.
The compound of iron and sulphur however, behaves in a completely different
way from either iron or sulphur, so we have to conclude that separate atoms of
iron and sulphur no longer exist in the compound. A reasonable explanation for
this is that the iron atoms and the sulphur atoms have joined to form larger
particles called molecules in some ways such as this
in the compound (bonds are formed between the atoms).
Since there are no longer any separate iron and sulphur atoms in the compound,
the behaviour of these is no longer shown and instead we observe the different
behaviour of the new ferrous sulphur molecules.
Molecules of some compounds contain many more than two atoms combined
together. The molecules of substances such as wool and cotton and of many
plastics, contain thousands of atom.
However, most elements like iron and sulphur can be regarded as an assembly
of atoms but certain elements exist as assemblies of molecules. Examples such
as nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine and hydrogen are all encountered in the form of
molecules, each containing two atoms of the element combined.
There are many ways of defining the chemically complex process called
combustion. Essentially it is a chemical reaction or a series of reaction in
which heat and light are evolved.
All combustion or burning reactions involve the combination with oxygen or some
other supporter of combustion. It could also be defined as the rapid oxidation
of a substance, liberating heat and light and combustion by-products
(smoke, gases etc.)
When the rate of reaction is very slow, only heat energy is evolved as in the case
of iron rusting. Combustion represents a rapid rate of reaction in which light is
emitted as well as heat. And if however the reaction is extremely rapid an
explosion may be or is likely to be present.
Factors Involved in Combustion
One way of discussing combustion is by using the triangle of combustion in figure
iii which has evolved overtime into the fire tetrahedron. It is considered that for
combustion to occur three factors are necessary: a fuel, heat and a supporter of
combustion. The stable geometric form of the triangle suggests that combustion
will continue as long as these three factors are present. The removal of any one
of these factors will result in the collapse of the triangle and combustion will
Figure iii.
The Fire Tetrahedron
Modern fire science has recognized that in order to support flaming combustion a
fourth element must be added to what was previously known as the fire triangle.
In addition to fuel, heat, and oxygen, a chemical chain reaction is required to
continue flaming combustion. The addition of this fourth element graphically
creates a pyramid structure that is called The Fire Tetrahedron.
Fuels exist as solids, liquids or gases. In fact, material which can be oxidized
may become fuel and the size and shape will influence the ease of combustion.
The burning of most material produces flame. This occurs when gases or vapor
given off by a liquid or solid material are ignited. There are however, instances of
solid state burning in which surface burning occurs with little or no visible flame.
Most of the substances that burn are of the class known as organic chemicals
that is substances that contain carbon. There is a very large number of these
including gases such as methane, liquids such as benzene and toluene and
solids such as phenol and naphthalene. In addition to these, many metals burn
particularly when in the form of dusts or powders and so do a few non-metals
including hydrogen, carbon, sulphor and phosphorus. The physical properties of
fuels including their size and shape will influence the ease of ignition and rate of
burning. Some of the properties to be considered are:
The Supporter of Combustion
The supporter of combustion in the case of most fires is oxygen. This is the most
uncontrollable leg of the triangle. However, in some situation, particularly in
industry, there are several other possibilities of combustion. These include
chlorine, a very common industrial chemical, and also fluorine, bromine, sulphor
and even nitrogen. Oxygen supports combustion but does not burn. There is
normally 21% of oxygen in the air, however, the lower limits required for
combustion is 6% - 10%, while 15% - 16% is the lower limits for free burning. If
we should increase the oxygen level over 21%, the rate of burning would speed
up significantly.
The amount of heat necessary to bring about combustion is that which is enough
to raise the temperature of at least some of the fuel to its ignition temperature in
the particular circumstance at the time. This will depend on such factors as the
physical chemical nature of the fuel.
Most solids and liquids have to be heated above normal temperature before
flammable vapours are emitted. In discussing combustion of such materials,
several terms are used which are defined below:
Flash Point - is the lowest temperature at which there is sufficient
vaporization of the substance to produce a vapour which will flash
momentarily when a flame is applied. This temperature will be affected by
atmospheric pressure and in some fire situations, will result in a reduction
of flash-point temperature.
Fire Point - may be defined as the lowest temperature at which the heat
from the combustion of a burning vapour is capable of producing sufficient
vapour to enable combustion to continue. It will be seen that the
difference between flash point and fire point is that the flash point
temperature is only required to produce vapour to enable a momentary
flash to take place, whereas the fire point temperature has to be high
enough to produce sufficient vapour to sustain the reaction so that
substance continues to burn independently of the ignition source.
Spontaneous Ignition Temperature - is the lowest temperature at which
the substance will ignite spontaneously. That is the substance will burn
without the introduction of a flame or other ignition source. This is
sometimes referred to as the ignition temperature. This implies that
under certain conditions, some materials undergo spontaneous
Spontaneous Combustion - certain materials, especially organic
materials based on carbon may react with oxygen at room temperature. If
the fuel is a good thermal insulator, the heat generated in such a reaction
cannot escape. The temperature rises, which increases the rate of
reaction and the situation escalates. Eventually the ignition temperature is
reached and true combustion occurs. Compounds such as linseed oil
contain carbon double bands which are very prone to this type of reaction.
An Exothermic Reaction - is a chemical reaction in which heat is
produced. Most chemical reactions that take place spontaneously are of
this type. If follows from the definition of combustion that all combustion
reactions are exothermic.
An Endothermic Reaction is a chemical reaction in which heat is
Explosion is defined as a violent and rapid chemical change in which a
substance, solid, liquid or gas, is converted into gases at a high
temperature, the volume of gases being much greater than the bulk of the
original substance.
The heat required for combustion can be generated from a number of different
sources which fall under two broad headings:
Figure iv. Sources of Heat
Chemical Mechanical a. Heat of combustion In addition to the chemical and mechanical sources, heat is also produced by
electricity (including heat from arching and lighting), and nuclear fission and
Heat travels from a high region of high temperature to a region of low
temperature. This is true no matter how small the temperature difference. There
are four methods by which heat travels. These are – direct burning,
conduction, convection and radiation.
- may occur in solids, liquids and gases although it is most clearly
present in solids. In this method, heat energy is passed on from one molecule to
the next. The ability to conduct heat (thermal conductivity) varies between
materials. Most metal conduct heat relatively easy and are therefore classed as
good conductors. In fire situations, thermal conductivity is important in terms of
the danger of fire spread of heat conducted along it.
- occurs only in liquid gases. When a liquid or gas is heated, it
expands and therefore becomes less dense. The lighter fluid rises, being
displaced by colder and therefore denser fluid. This in turn becomes heated and
so a circulation is set up. Heat energy is carried throughout the fluid by actual
movement of molecules until a state uniform temperature is reached.
Radiation – this method of heat transmission does not involve any contact
between bodies and is independent of any material in the intervening space but
involve the transfer of heat through infrared rays and is one of the major sources
of fire spread. This heat is transmitted in straight lines. Heat from the sun
passes through empty space to warm the earth and the heat from a heater
placed at a high level in a room can be felt underneath the heater where neither
conduction nor convection can carry it.
A rapid chemical combination of fuel and oxygen in the presence of heat,
accompanied by the production of heat, light and combustion by-products
(smoke, gases etc.)
First Phase – Incipient
Oxygen content 20% - 21% with ceiling temperatures of approximately 37˚ C°.
At this stage the produces of combustion are water vapour, carbon dioxide and
sulphur dioxiode, and hot gases rising. Smoldering fires my last for a few
seconds to several hours before breaking into flames. A large volume of smoke
will be present until flaming starts and then progress is rapid.
Second Phase – free burning, flame producing or steady state
At this stage the oxygen content is 15% - 19% and the ceiling temperatures are
above 537°C and the products of combustion are water vapour, carbon dixiode,
carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide. There large quantities of dark grey smoke
and rapid destruction of combustible materials. It is at this point that flash over
occurs. Flash over is when room and all its contents reach their ignition
temperature and the area becomes fully involved in fire. Flame is now rapid.
Third Phase – smoldering
Oxygen content is less than 15% - 16% and ceiling temperature is above 815° C
and soot is now added to the produce of combustion. Dense, dark flammable
smoke and toxic flammable gases are being emoted and a black draft or smoke
explosion is now possible.
Some typical indications of a back draft are:
the smoke under pressure will “puff or breathe” smoke colour is very dark and dirty or yellow grey just prior to back draft rapid inward movement or air when an opening is made
Fires are classified into four main groups mainly due to the type of material that is
Class ‘A’
These are fire involving solid materials normally of organic nature (compounds of carbon), in which combustion generally occurs with the formation of glowing embers. Class ‘A’ fires are the most common and the most effective extinguishing agent is generally water in the form of a jet or spray. Class ‘B’ These are fire involving liquids or liquefiable solids. For the purpose of choosing effective extinguishing agents. Flammable liquids may be divided into two groups:
Depending on i and ii, the extinguishing agents include water spray, foam, light
water, vaporizing liquids, carbon dioxide and dry chemical powders. Examples of
these materials are alcohol, kerosene, gasoline, beeswax, tar etc.
Class ‘C’
These are fire involving gases or liquefiable gases in the form of a liquid spillage,
or a liquid or gas leak and these include methane, propane, butane, etc. Foam
or dry chemical powder can be used to control fires involving shallow liquid spills.
(Water in the form of spray is generally used to cool the container).
Class ‘D’
These are fires involving metals. Extinguishing agents containing water are
ineffective and even dangerous. Carbon dioxide and the bicarbonate classes of
dry chemical powders may also be hazardous if applied to most fires. Powered
Talc, soda ash, limestone and dry sand are normally suitable for Class ‘D’ fires.
Special fusing powders have been developed for fires involving some metals,
especially the radioactive ones.
Electrical Fires
It is not considered that electrical fires constitute a class, since any fire involving
or started by electrical equipment must in fact be a fire of Class A, B, C or D.
The normal procedure in such circumstances is to cut off the electricity and use
the extinguishing method appropriate to what is burning. Only when this cannot
be done with certainly will special extinguishing agents be required which are
non-conductors of electricity and non-damaging to the equipment. These include
vaporizing liquids, dry chemical powders and carbon dioxide.
Despite the many new techniques which have come to the assistance of
firefighters, water is still the most efficient, cheapest and most readily available
medium for extinguishing fires of a general nature. It is caused by fire brigades
although the methods of application have undergone a number of improvements.
Steam in large quantities can be used to smother a fire and in situations where it
is available, eg. onboard ships or in factories, it can be used in fixed installations.
Some of the most dangerous substance so far as fire risk is concerned are
liquids having a specific gravity lower than that of water. When water is applied
to the burning surface of such liquids, it lowers the temperature briefly and then
sinks below the surface where any further usefulness is lost. Except in the case
of liquids such as mentholated spirits which mix freely with water and where
dilation may occur to the point where combustion is halted. Foam which is
relatively insoluble in most liquids and because of its light weight, floats on the
surface of the liquid, forms a blanket capable of covering the surface of the
burning liquid and so extinguishes the fire. It also forms a radiant heat barrier
which is of importance in the extinction of oil and petrol fires.
Vaporizing Liquid
The halogenated hydrocarbons used for extinguishing fires have the property of
vaporizing readily when heated and are therefore generally known as vaporizing
liquids. They form a dense heavier than air cloud of non-flammable vapor which
not only blankets a fire by the displacement of air, but also have the property of
interfering with the chemical reactions within the flames of burning materials.
This property is termed inhibitory factor.
If a certain portion of the extinguishing medium (eg.16% chlorobromomethane is
present), it interferes with the chemical reaction involving the oxygen and is
stopped. The most common types are chlorobromomethane (CBM),
bromochloridifluoromethane (BCF) and bromotrifluromethane (BTM).
Carbon dioxide and Inert Gas
At normal temperatures, carbon dioxide is a gas 1.5 times as dense as air. It is
easily liquefied and bottled where it is contained under a pressure of 51 bars
(750lb/in). As a fire extinguisher, it acts in a manner similar to vaporizing liquids.
When carbon dioxide is discharged, the liquid boils off rapidly as a gas,
extracting heat from the surrounding atmosphere. The gas however extinguishes
by smothering or reducing the oxygen content of the air. Materials which supply
their own oxygen will continue to burn as well as those materials that tend to
decompose carbon dioxide, eg. magnesium. Apart from these considerations,
carbon dioxide is quick, clean, non-conductive of electricity non-toxic and does
not harm most fabrics.
As an alternative to carbon dioxide, liquid nitrogen in bulk or in cylinders
containing the gas will also produce the inert or smothering effect necessary for
successful fire suppression.
Dry Chemical Powders
Water cannot be used on most fires involving burning metals. The chief method
of extinction is by using dry chemicals which are stored in cylinders under
pressure or can be ejected by the release of a gas under pressure (see
extinguishers). The basis of most chemical powder is sodium bicarbonate. This,
with the addition of a metallic stearate as waterproofing agent is widely used as
an extinguishing agent.
Sand etc.
Dry earth sand, powdered graphite, talc, etc may be used on metal fire as a
smothering agent. Dry sand may also be used to prevent burning liquids, such
as paints or oils from flowing down drains. Sand may also be used to confine
shallow layers of such liquids so that foam or spray branches may be used. . on
no account should sand be used far extinguishing fires in machinery, such as
electric motors, since it may cause the entire machine to be dismantled for
cleaning, even though the fire damage was small
Beating Out
Small fires in materials such as textiles etc. may often be extinguished by beating
them out, or by rolling and screwing up the burning material tightly to exclude the
air. Beating is also the method normally employed to extinguish heat, crop,
grass and other similar fires in rural areas when water is not readily available.
Another method by which fires may be extinguished, especially for persons
whose clothing may be on fire, is blanketing. The person should be laid down
and covered or rolled in a rug, a coat, blanket etc. For dealing with fires in small
utensils such as those containing cooking fats, the best method is to smother the
fire with a fire blanket or a doormat which has been wetted first.
7. ONDE E COMO DEVO GUARDAR ESTE MEDICAMENTO? O fumarato de quetiapina deve ser mantido em temperatura ambiente (15ºC a 30°C). Todo medicamento deve ser mantido em sua embalagem original até o momento do uso. fumarato de quetiapina TODO MEDICAMENTO DEVE SER MANTIDO FORA DO ALCANCE DAS CRIANÇAS. INFORMAÇÕES TÉCNICAS AOS PROFISSIONAIS DE SAÚDE IDENTIFICAÇÃO DO MEDICAMENTO Com
Microsoft word - mental health in baseball _2_.doc
MENTAL HEALTH IN BASEBALL: FEAR STRIKES OUT? By Jim Bloch Community Relations, St. Clair County CMH Say you’re a professional baseball pitcher. How would it be possible to pitch in front of tens of thousands of fans if you had a social anxiety disorder? According the DSM-IV, a social anxiety disorder is a “marked and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which emb
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Encyclopedia > Natural deduction
Article Content
Natural deduction
The section on symbolic logic mentions axiomatic treatments of the subject. Here we say a bit about systems of natural deduction.
The name is suggestive. One of the popular ways of cashing out natural deduction is that it is an application of the laws (rules, whatever) of logic to our "natural modes" of inference.
For instance, if I say that
• all men are mortal, and I say that
• Sammy is not mortal, then one naturally infers that
• Sammy must not be a man.
The general move is this. One begins a proof by assuming 'all x are such that, if x is A then x is M'. Next assume that something (call it 's') is not M, ie. assume 'it is not the case that s is M'. Now, a system of natural deduction will license the use of these assumptions. Moreover, the rules of the system will license the move from the first assumption 'all x, A(x) then M(x)' to 'A(s) then M(s)'[it would be called 'universal instantiation' or something]. We have 'not M(s)', and it readily follows that not 'A(s)' (The rule is called modus tollens, for those systems that countenance it - it need not be countenanced if there are other "simpler rules" capable of handling the inference. If such simpler rules are present, the absence of modus tollens notwithstanding, the inference just takes more steps.)
Now, an axiomatic system could handle such an inference (since it's valid, and all such deductions are captured by non-wimpy axiomatic systems), but this would require a proof adhering to very restrictive syntactical (typographical, if one likes) rules. The advantage of a natural deduction system is that it has an apparatus for dealing with the sort of assumptions we just made. That is, one can assume whatever s/he likes, and proceed to deduce whatever can be deduced given the rules of the system. The method is thought to be more like argument, and more akin to the practice of mathematicians.
Open your favorite math book. It's very unlikely that there are axiomatic proofs in that book (in any strict syntactical sense). Rather, the mathematician assumes something (which may be tentative, or an established fact- usually a fact) and then uses a bit of logic to show what must also be the case given the assumption (granted, s/he will almost always use certain "obvious" arithemtical properties in the proof-or other properties). In short, natural deduction systems are easier to work within. They are more natural.
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(redirected from Airfields)
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a landing and taking-off area for aircraft, usually with permanent buildings
(in Russian, aerodrom), a complex of structures, equipment, and land area with airspace intended for the takeoff, landing, accommodation, and servicing of aircraft.
Airfields are divided into two basic groups—civilian and military. According to their service function, airfields are categorized as airport airfields, which provide accommodation for and regular flights of transport aviation along air routes, and special-purpose airfields for factory, instructional, sport and club, agricultural, forestry (fire fighting), and ambulance aviation, as well as composite and other types. According to the type of usage, airfields may be permanent (equipped for regular service) or temporary. Military airfields are divided, according to the extent of the equipment and the kind of usage, into major, reserve, and dummy airfields; and according to their purpose, into army, training, route, and special airfields. Airfields are also classified according to the type of aircraft operating from them, the dimensions of the area, the load capacity of the airfield pavement, and other characteristics. The two main parts of an airfield are the airfield area proper (flight zone) and the airspace adjoining it, or terminal airspace.
The flight zone is the principal part of an airfield. It is made up of a flight field, shoulder and overrun strips, and approaches. The flight field is the portion of an airfield on which there are one or more runways, taxiways, and parking areas for aircraft. A runway is a specially prepared and equipped part of the ground which provides for the takeoff and landing of aircraft in either of two opposite directions. The majority of airfields in the USSR are built with a single runway; this provides for fairly high traffic intensity. Some Soviet and foreign airfields have several runways placed parallel or at an angle to one another. The length of a runway, depending on the class of the airfield, may be between 1,000 and 5,000 m; the width, from 200 to 360 m. The longest runways are generally positioned in the direction of the prevailing winds and are used more intensively; they are called the main runways, and the others are called secondary. The predominant feature of the runway is the operating area, including the paved takeoff and landing strip and the radio and light signaling apparatus, which ensure 24-hour and year-round aeronautical operation. Adjoining the runways are the overrun strips, which are areas used to prevent the danger of an accident when an aircraft overruns the limits of the airstrip during a premature landing or aborted takeoff. Shoulder strips are provided beside the runways for the movement of aircraft along the ground in case of possible deviations outside the limits of the operating area during ground runs. The taxiways are tracks for taxiing and towing aircraft that interconnect the separate airfield elements and the service area. Taxiways are divided into principal (main and connecting) and secondary types.
The most important element of an airfield is the approaches—the airspace adjoining the ends of the runway in the directions of aircraft takeoff and landing. In order to ensure accuracy in aircraft instrument landing approaches, radio range systems (course, glide path, marker, and others) are utilized.
The final stage of aircraft landings is accomplished with the help of high intensity lights. These are set on the extensions of the runway axis at a distance of about 1,000 m from the ends. There are five or six lighted crossbars (separated from each other by 150 m) across the line of approach lights. Located along the runway (with a spacing of 7.5 to 15 m) are axial lights. For aircraft landings under particularly complicated meteorological conditions, lights are set up in the touchdown areas (in Russian, a “light mat”) at the ends of the runways.
Air traffic is controlled by means of radar monitoring, air communications, and ground communications.
Izyskanie i proektirovanie aerodromov. Edited by V. F. Bobkov. Moscow, 1963.
Stroitel’stvo aerodromov, Moscow, 1968.
(civil engineering)
The area of an airport for the takeoff and landing of airplanes.
References in periodicals archive ?
The Special Tactics Airmen are experts in the conduct of airfield reconnaissance, assessment and control, personnel recovery, joint terminal attack control and environmental reconnaissance.
In addition, airfields can be eliminated for the interests of national security, seizure of land in connection with the development of cities and towns in line with the general construction plan, or due to adverse effects on the environment, life and health of the population.
Wellesbourne was among a number of alternative submissions, including Long Marston Airfield, all of which were rejected in favour of the Gaydon and Lighthorne Heath plan.
The idea of the electric light bulb, which has been used at some time in all airfield lighting systems, has been around since Sir Humphrey Davey invented the first electric carbon are lamp in 1801.
The report also contains an overview of LED light source technology, the relevant FAA guidance documents for airfield lighting and pointers to resources on airport funding and economic cost analysis tools.
We confirmed the airfield knew we were coming, they had gas, and off we went.
Cumbria has them at Carlisle and Kirkbride (near Wigton), both active today, and a defunct airfield at Great Orton.
Policeman Robin, 32, was on patrol in Llandow, in the Vale of Glamorgan, when he spotted the pillbox on Llandow Airfield and decided that it should be kept for posterity.
This building intrigued me and I rapidly realised the untapped potential airfields offered.
Installations squadrons were prepared to repair and maintain airfields, not to build them.
GeoEye is now the world's largest developer of airport geospatial information support, terrain and obstacle databases with several hundred airfields mapped to date. |
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Economic Definition of two-sector Keynesian model. Defined.
Offline Version: PDF
Term two-sector Keynesian model Definition: A model used to identify equilibrium in Keynesian economics based on aggregate expenditures by the two basic sectors (household and business). Equilibrium is achieved at the intersection of the aggregate expenditures line, AE = C + I, and the 45-degree line, Y = AE. This is the most basic Keynesian aggregate expenditures model that captures an induce expenditure (consumption) and an autonomous expenditure (investment).
« two-sector injections-leakages model | three-market circular flow two-sector »
Alphabetical Reference to Over 2,000 Economic Terms |
Looking After Variegated Ivy Indoors
Choose a pot with a drainage hole when repotting your ivy.
Choose a pot with a drainage hole when repotting your ivy.
Although you might think of ivy (Hedera spp.) as a rambling, outdoor plant, it also makes a good houseplant when given the right conditions. Ivy can be grown indoors in a hanging basket or pot, allowed to trail over the pot's edges, or with a support or trained onto a topiary form to make a living, indoor sculpture. Several variegated cultivars exist that have mixed-color foliage, and these make especially attractive indoor plants.
Variegated ivies include several cultivars of English ivy (Hedera helix), including "Caecelia," with curly leaves that combine light green with gray blotches and white edges, and "Glacier," which has silver and green leaves with white margins. English ivy grows in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 6 through 8 and is considered invasive in some areas. Persian ivy (Hedera colchica), which grows in USDA zones 6 through 9, has leathery, heart-shaped leaves and the variegated cultivar, "Dentata Variegata" has light green leaves with grayish streaks and white edges.
Special Considerations
Variegated ivy plants tend to grow more slowly than those with solid green leaves because they have less chlorophyll and manufacture less energy. Because of their low chlorophyll levels, variegated ivy can also be susceptible to scorching in strong sun, causing leaves to turn dry and brown. Variegated plants also need less fertilizer than green-leaved ivy because they're less able to use the extra nutrients. Over-fertilizing these plants can cause build-up of fertilizer components in the soil, which can interfere with the ability of roots to take up water. This can also cause leaves to turn brown.
Light, Soil and Temperature
The best spot for an indoor-grown variegated ivy is one that gets bright, indirect light, such as 1 or 2 feet from a west- or south-facing window. The plant can also grow in low- to medium-light conditions, or under artificial lights, but its growth may slow and its leaves may become more uniformly green. The plant grows in any commercial potting mix, provided its container has a drainage hole. A variegated ivy tolerates most indoor temperatures, but room temperature of 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 5 to 10 F lower at night is best.
Water and Other Care
A variegated ivy thrives when its soil is moistened thoroughly, then the top 1/2 inch of soil is allowed to dry to the touch before the next watering. This plant prefers some humidity, although it can tolerate dry indoor air without significant damage. Placing its pot on a tray of moistened pebbles or misting the plant every day or two can help increase humidity and keep it growing well. You can fertilize your ivy monthly during the growing season, but withhold feeding if the plant stops growing during the summer or in winter. Use a balanced, 10-10-10 formula, diluted to half-strength or 1/4 teaspoon per 2 gallons, but also check package label for additional directions.
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Freitag, 3. Februar 2012
Critical thinking
'Nothing comes from Nothing. Nothing ever could.'
This is probably one of the crucial foundations of rationality. Any complex idea can be critically questioned by asking what are its fundamental assumptions and axioms. This allows one to understand the hierarchy of concepts that build and hold a structure upright. Not everything can be valid under all circumstances. It is the process of applying thought to understand the conditions under which validity is preserved and the order of magnitude of the propagation of the importance of "hierarchically simpler" (fundamental) ideas i.e. which ideas are more or less important under different conditions of validity, is what can be called critical thinking.
The warning against linguistic confusion.
In the essay dedicated to the discussion of reality, it was put forth that reality is a combination of two concepts (the later dependent on the first): Facts and Models. Models use symbols/words derived from reality in some simple or complex way (which would be a discussion for another essay). These models are used to describe reality in turn. This as you can see is a feedback loop. A separate assay of this connection will made in a later article.
For now consider the following situation.
You posses a set of symbols derived from reality; meaning that each of them is associated to some facet of reality (however complex). That facet could be an object, a phenomenon, an expectation or a consequence that has not yet occurred (prediction) etc. You NOW encounter another facet of reality, that you have notdescribed previously (so its allowed to have been encountered earlier). How do you describe it? If this phenomenon is really just a part of your sentence space from your pre-existing model, then its sufficient description can be made with reasonable accuracy (within some acceptable limits of error). This means that it is made up (is a combination of) of facets that you have already described accurately earlier. But if the facet contains some hidden part/s which has not been previously incorporated into your lexicon (set of symbols) and you still insist upon using the same old lexicon, you' are going to end up misrepresenting it.
This is what it actually means:
You encounter a facet called: A
You describe it with a sentence with the exact meaning of A' because you lack the exact symbols to describe A.
Since A != A' , your mind essentially 'lies' to you strengthening the association between A and A' .
Now, unless the sentence is corrected for with new additions into the lexicon, all description of A as well as predictions incorporating A in some form are flawed. They are probably a good approximation of A. BUT. If the system is chaotic enough, they are flawed beyond any acceptable limit of error, as you build more and more complex ideas built on A' .
Now, apply this to Colloquial language.
When you encounter an emotion or event that you or nobody else described correctly, you automatically inherit all the errors of the description people made earlier when you use the ancient symbols (words) used to describe it. Any analysis you make of the subject in hand is now useless and fantastical from sane point of view, if you describe some complex idea.
This is already happening even as we communicate. I leave it up to you realize which ideas are flawed in this manner.
So. The important but banal part.
What is the solution?
The solution as usual is the hardest one: Vigilance and self-examination of everything ab initio. Only this can garner you the honest confidence of being Consistent with a more Real model.
Donnerstag, 5. Januar 2012
Role of God/s as Moral Justifiers
Gods, as the explanations of awe-inspiring natural phenomena, is the usual means through which one analyses the concept. But beyond 'God the Creator', there exists a deeper and more important character associated with God/s that is often either overlooked or under-emphasized. That role is the natural justification of a system of morality.
Man can not rule Man:
The title here is the description of the phenomenon of anti-incumbency. As soon as a sufficiently rebellious person realizes that a given edict of law is simply a creation of Man (synthetic), he automatically decides that there is no particular reason he should be bound by it. The resultant is of course the emergence of factions that oppose the current set of laws governing the behavior of men.
I have tried to consistently put forth that Morality is Normative in nature by definition; a well known but ill-understood fact. I'm hardly the only one to realize the result of the fact that 'Man cannot rule man' and the non-objective nature of Morality means that some inhuman, nay, superhuman entity must declare their support for edicts of man. This purpose is often served by gods. The religious texts i.e. the scriptures are exactly that: The divine Justifiers of laws of Mortal making. Any organization that creates such rules, at some point MUST run against this inevitable obstacle where they can NOT offer any explanation as to what makes their decisions and authority superior to those of other men. In an amazing act of literal self-less-ness they choose to preserve their creation over their name by ascribing the authorship of the text to Gods.
Now, this concept is a secondary trait of god, beyond their primary function as creators of Mortal worlds. But since His role in creation has LESS to do with mundane Mortal affairs than the regulation of everyday behavior, the secondary trait easily takes over as the chief function of the gods. A secondary function is NOT a function of less importance as language might lead you to believe but rather a function that depends on the primary.
Montag, 5. Dezember 2011
Objective, Relative, Nomative and Subjective
These are the four concepts, I have always tried to classify ideas into. They hold a very clear meaning to me and have helped me a lot to think about problems in general. So I should perhaps have written this article quite a while ago. I did not, because of a characteristic fault of mine: Laziness.
So. Now that I do get to describe them, I first need to explain why they are necessary. If you read my earlier article about Reality, you'd realize that the only things that can be proved, are either direct natural facts or their consequences. Nothing else can really be proved. I choose to call that what can be proved, Physical Reality. Its a bit circular, but lets not get into the how of it for the present. An example I typically invoke is jumping down the Eiffel tower. It kills you contextually.
The question here really is about the means to the proof of phenomena.
There is a well behaved and well characterized process that describes the construction of proofs called the Scientific method. The structure of this method is well known. To ascribe the truth value to the explanation of a phenomenon, it utilizes previously determined truth values of other explanations to related underlying (fundamental) phenomena, going back to natural facts, that are typically axiomatic in nature. The idea is, that the methodology, once established yields the same results for everyone (as in every observer performing the same 'Experiment').
What needs to be noticed here in detail, is the actual arrangement of the process. It involves the following components:
1. An observer
2. An apparatus
3. An event
The event is nothing but the phenomenon, the explanation to which is being sought. The apparatus is a construction that measures the relevant quantifiable aspects of the phenomenon, within some scope of error (which may or may not be the significant error of the apparatus itself). The Observer is the analyzer of the data with a fixed algorithm.
What the reader should now realize is that ALL the words in the Title, are ways to assign truth values.
The description above concerning the observer, apparatus and the event can be established for all of them. Its the construction of apparatus and the algorithm and the obtained result that differentiates between the the words in the title.
When all observers using the same Apparatus and the same algorithm get the same result, the construction is called Objective.
When two observers get two different results by observing the same phenomenon, there are two possible reasons why that might happen:
1. The observers have different apparatus
2. The observers have different algorithms
One can already see that there is no other way in a physical reality, to explain the difference in the results.
When such kind of differences occur, the construction of the value judgment is termed RELATIVE. It is an arguable fact that most people have Relative measures to assign truth values (although not typically in Science, where the algorithms tend to converge due to maximizing the convenience of the scientific pursuit; scientists are whales of convenience except when it comes to nomenclature).
Now, there are instances, where Observers have to decide, what action they must take. If they have a clear goal and exact information and a convenient framework built on Physical reality (no other framework is meaningful), all their actions are Objective because they will always get the same result.
The problem occurs when this information is insufficient. In which case they ASSUME that certain courses of action must be set, instead of being determined objectively. Value judgments resulting out of SET concepts are called Normative. But even more simply, the process of choosing the Goal itself is even more Normative than the means. Goals themselves can not have any Objective basis. So in principle all acts of choice are Normative in nature.
This, I must declare, is the MOST fundamental description of what Normative is. A Typical example is Morality. Of every kind. Morality is based on what observers decide (instead of determining) what they consider leads best to their goal and the goal itself.
Finally, the subjective.
In the original construction of the experiment (Observer, Apparatus and Event) if different observers get different results, simply by the virtue of being DIFFERENT observers, the value judgment they pass is called Subjective. This is the definition that is implicitly made at linguistic level.
Now to some healthy dose of criticism.
There can be no true subjectivity in a physical reality. All differences within observers are due to the fundamental APPARATUS: the brain. When people get different results from the same experiment, it usually means that they are not using the same algorithm which makes their decisions RELATIVE. But due to the complexity of the idea of self-recognition, it is mistakenly assumed to be subjective.
Sonntag, 16. Oktober 2011
I am not an Übermensch.
I am saying this because I know what being an 'Übermensch' means.
It is not just a person but rather also a goal; to become a being who creates the 'reasons for a way of life' i.e a morality, from within himself. A man capable of such a feat thus automatically frees himself from the shackles of finding reasons from without. He is not misanthropic or at least not necessarily so. But rather he is not dependent upon what he believes to be intrusive to his motives. He is necessarily an introspective creature. For only that man, who sees his thoughts clearly can indeed know his nature. Only through identification can a change be brought to enhance facets of personality that strengthen one's character and mitigate those parts that weaken it.
So after this long prologue, a short answer awaits the question you might ask.
What am I really?
I am neither the Superman nor the slave.
I am the bridge.
I can not claim that I have identified myself, but I am working on it. Cliched , I know. But true. Very, very True.
Donnerstag, 13. Oktober 2011
**Not all things are done because they are new, but sometimes because they are necessary**
To design a framework for an objective judgement, we require a rigorous language, whose vocabulary is well defined and which has specific rules to form sentences or ideas. The necessity comes from the fact that the space of ideas is potentially infinite(since ideas are combinatorially countable infinites) and complex and requires a form of honest intellectual effort i.e. rigor. There are two mutually exclusive kinds of ideas: Expressed and Unexpressed. Observe carefully how this is not classified as Expressible and Non-expressible.
Expressed ideas are based on words. Or more accurately terms. These terms are countably finite for humans and are directly related to empirical facts, in either simply linearly reducible or non-linearly reducible (additively or non-additively reducible) fashion. As we discover new empirical facts, we go on creating new terms and new ideas. This does not mean that idea-space of pre-existing terms is completely explored by us, but rather that discovery of new idea expands the potential space of ideas.
To define a few things, sentences are arrangement of words. Statements are that sub-space of sentences that have truth-values.
framework, is an ordered set of rules (statements), created to identify presence of certain features within an object. I would like to point out that these rules have special form: they are functions which take the object in question as an argument and yield a truth value. A judgement is essentially an ordered n-tuple of truth-values obtained from this framework.
Truth values of statements (rules) thus can be only assigned if these statements have a basis in reality. This is because of the definition of reality as something that can be tested in a particular way. If a statement has nocurrent basis in reality (since reality is dynamic) then these statements have no effect on frameworks that correspond to judgement of objects, as such existing within reality. Such statements can be termedmeaningless. The important assertion here, is that statements that can't be tested make no sense for being used for further exploration. Such ideas, when and if allow further testing, can expand our knowledge of reality.
This is all the background information we need to make some powerful statements.
Within a given reality it is always possible to design frameworks to judge the content of real objects in a manner that is completely rigorous using a rigorous language assuming such a language exists (it does). Such frameworks are necessarily dynamic and change according to changes in reality. How? Change in reality adds words (terms) to this language or changes the grammatical form of the sentence in a well-behaved manner. The language used for such design purposes can potentially identify all possible future changes with some extra-ordinary human ingenuity. This is because reality is a subset of the sentence space of this language.
This has some examples based in reality. But since I am not an expert on history, amongst not being an expert on a lot of other things, the following should not be taken as a rigorous exercise of knowledge.
During the transition from Medieval to renaissance era in the west, we see a drastic change in art-form, wheredivinity, pre-dominantly exhibited in different forms human expression as the ultimate proposition of beauty, is replaced with focus on the depth of material reality captured. I suppose, the reasons for such aparadigm shift was the discovery of new facts and thus a new reality and new words/terms. The changes brought about by science and technology, greatly destabilized the then established framework and created a new one. This resulted in generation of art forms more consistent with its message, that there was a world outside of humans which could be predicted and controlled, even if in a limited manner. The framework that judged their worth was the relation to the real world
Now we come to the human side of this article, which I will keep as short as possible, even if this is the reason that prompted its authoring.
The only meaningful way of judging or qualifying an object is through a framework. Without a framework only 'intuitive' assignment is possible. The quotes around it are very relevant and are there to describe that intuition is also based in reality. It is simply a sentence without the intuitioner describing explicitly its reasoning. What does this say about Absurdist art, for example? It says that such a term essentially is meaningless and without grounding.
Montag, 10. Oktober 2011
Criticism of Happiness as a motive
From what I read of Plato, Aristotle, Weber and Mill, it seems to me that they all assume one common attitude: that the ideal way of life is the one which maximizes the happiness of an individual or a society, depending on the kind of ideology these philosophers are proponents of.
I believe and of course (as usual), not without reason, that this is the single most fatal mistake of philosophy. This one error bears responsibility for all the known previous ways of life leading to a literal dead end.
I will try to explain why.
The measure of the strength of a society is innovation. The more innovative it is, the more capacity it has to brush away the problem of continual expansion without out-consuming resources. The popular, Malthusian logic dictates a gloomy ending to any expansion but, such a dystopian future is avoided by equally powerful means of discovering new resources though the defining feature of mankind :
Technology (in association with science) allows us to keep up with the incremental population by exploring literally new horizons and producing paradigm shifts that can change not only the lifestyle but also the very fabric of social order.
Such a successful and innovative society can not be a peaceful society. It must be plagued by the continuous wars of survival and competition of ideas and individuals vying with each other for superiority. A man seeking happiness is a peaceful man. He does not have a fiery restlessness in his heart that makes him loose track of hunger and sleep, while solving a problem, but rather an empty coldness that seeks the warmth of the nearest hearth of solace. A man seeking happiness, is in effect a man seeking death. He seeks the means to become unproductive, to become safe and cosy. He seeks the means to end conflict. His world is static, spiraling towards a singularity that will become unsustainable. His values are peace and lack of ambition, that create a dying society with the comfort seeker its terminal man.
The man who seeks knowledge, wealth or recognition, on the other hand, is a passionate being who brings with himself an unstoppable force of personality, that induces change unto himself and into the world. He struggles to find recognition for his ideas and fights for them, stolidly withstands ridicule and if correct and obstinate enough, finally triumphs. His world is a changing world. With every new thought he brings, he is a new iteration of his own self. This man is not really one fixed person but only a stepping stone for becoming someone better. This man is alive. He lives is a living world.
So. We come to the conclusions.
Does this mean that happiness is wrong? That it is a mistaken drive, that makes us feel 'gladness'?
All it means is that Happiness should not be an end-goal but just a by-product of other pursuits. Because as a by-product of victory it is a fuel. A fuel that feeds the unquenchable fire of ambition that burns in the hearts of men and leads them into new conquests. |
as indistinct from worship, and worship as indistinct from living.
passed from generation to generation. Sand paintings are used to return the patient
from art or religion. Almost all of the healing disciplines originated from religious beliefs
and the spiritual leader's practices.
Most art authorities concede that the Southwestern sand paintings produced by the Navajo
are the intricate, complex and beautiful art-forms.
The Diné is the Navajo name for themselves and the term they use for sand painting is
'iikááh, which means a "place where the gods come and go."
black. They sometimes us yellow cornmeal, pollen from plants, and crushed flowers to the
sand painting.
Native American Art Heading
Native American Sand Painting
Tribal leaders create sand paintings for the purpose of
healing, especially in the Navajo Tribe although the Hopi,
Zuni, and Plains tribes also practice the art of sand painting
and corresponding ceremonies that are integral to healing
the sick.
Most tribes use crushed stone, flowers, pollen and other
natural items from the desert to create their design on
the ground. Some sand paintings are also created as art to
hang on walls.
A sand painter is putting the finishing touches on the ceremonial design of a Sunface Clock. |
Huge pandas are an endangered species, threatened by ongoing habitat reduction and by a really lower birthrate, both equally from the wild and in captivity. Poaching is uncommon; killing a panda was punishable in China by death till a 1997 law adjusted the penalty to 20 years imprisonment.
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Based on the shark assault file, maintained by the Florida Museum of Organic Heritage, on typical five individuals die globally from shark assaults.
Kemp’s Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii): The smallest and one of the most endangered of all The ocean turtles, the Kemp’s Ridley has an oval-shaped shell that may be olive-gray in color. On average, it reaches as much as 30 inches extended and weighs eighty to one hundred lbs ..
Grevy's Zebra contains a social program characterized by little teams of Older people linked for brief time durations of some months. Grownup males devote their time typically on your own in territories of two twelve km². The territories are marked by dung piles and girls in the territory mate exclusively with the resident male.
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Crocodiles tend to congregate in sluggish relocating rivers and lakes, and feed on a wide variety of living and useless mammals and fish. Some species, notably the Saltwater Crocodile of Australia and also the Pacific islands, have been recognized to venture significantly out to sea.
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Cheetahs prosper in areas with broad expanses of land in which prey is plentiful. In Namibia cheetahs are actually found in many different habitats, like grasslands, savannahs, dense vegetation, and mountainous terrain. Ninety five % continue to exist commercial farms. Cheetahs are present in the wild mostly in Africa, but up to now their selection prolonged into northern and southern India. Conservationists employing digicam traps have not too long ago learned surviving populations in Iran and therefore are taking actions to safeguard them. In Substantially in their former variety they were being domesticated by aristocrats and accustomed to hunt antelopes in A lot precisely the same way as remains to be completed with users on the greyhound group of canine.
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Forensic photographs are used for measurement or analysis, to accompany forensic reports, articles or research papers. Forensic Photography is an integral part of criminal investigation procedures employed by police and security forces throughout the world. Photographers must therefore follow a standard methodology and produce images of a rigorous technical standard so that they can be used as evidence in hearings, tribunals and court proceedings. Since the subject matter often relates to accident, injury or criminal investigations, Forensic Photographers will be expected to be able to work efficiently in distressing and challenging environments, without disturbing other evidence or interfering with the work of other investigators.
Forensic Photography is a fascinating area of work suitable to highly organised photographers who combine excellent technical skills with a methodical and meticulous working practice. While it is the job of many other photographers to interpret a brief, it is the job of the Forensic Photographer to produce accurate, detailed photographs that faithfully record the location and evidence as clearly and as objectively as possible.
Many Forensic Photographers are forensic scientists employed directly by the police or a specialist forensic services company. They work pre-defined shifts and enjoy the benefits of a salaried post. There are also other independent Forensic Photographers who provide forensic photo imaging services to lawyers, insurance companies and some police forces.
Forensic Photography-An Introduction
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Afrikaans has been an official language of South Africa since 1925, it is also widely spoken in Namibia with smaller numbers of speakers in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
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Afrikaans is a Low Franconian West Germanic language descended from Dutch and spoken mainly in South Africa and Namibia. There are also speakers of Afrikaans in Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Germany, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Zambia and Zimbabwe. About 10 million people speak Afrikaans as a first or second language, and several million other have a basic knowledge of the language.
There are now many differences from Dutch, one of the most obvious being that there is no longer any gender distinction for nouns. So in Afrikaans 'the man' and 'the woman' are ' die man ' and ' die vrou ' respectively - ' die ' meaning 'the'. The gramatical structure of the language is also simpler. Afrikaans has its origins in Dutch and so it is one of the Indo-European languages (belonging to the Germanic group). It has also taken many words from the Malay and African languages.
Regulatory body
Die Taalkommissie
Number of speakers
There are approximately six million speakers of Afrikaans the vast majority of whom live in South Africa, although nowadays it is not uncommon to hear it spoken in cities such as London due to the large amount of emigration.
Afrikaans Language on websites
Afrikaans is used by less than 0.1% of all the websites
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Gentlemen of Fortune
Pirate Living History 1680-1725
Clothing During the Golden Age of Piracy
For some of you who still cling to the Hollywood notion of what a pirate is "supposed" to look like, you will probably be in for a shock.
Admiralty Slop Contract
20th Century Interpretation
Most of the evidence that survives from the GAoP suggests that a "period" pirate looked much like other sailors of the same era. This is not too surprising, really, as sailors wore specific sailor clothing to do the job of running a ship. Much like a blacksmith wears particular clothing to suit the specific needs of his craft (heavy apron etc).
If you are new to "Pirate Re-enacting", curious about what "authentic piracy" is all about, or ready to take your "fun" pirate clothes up another notch or two, I suggest you stop by the "Sailor's Slops" after reading the overview below. On that page you will find all of the basic items you would need for your kit.
Some of you are entertainers, some Living Historians, and some are just looking for Fun. But if you are portraying a pirate then you are, first of all, a seamen with all of the maritime skills that go along with it. Secondly, you would have all of the skills of a naval mariner, that is, have all the skills of a sailor that operates a ship of war. Many pirates were former naval seamen or former merchant seamen.
It is the first goal of any re-enacting/living history group to enjoy what they are doing. Secondly, and just as important, is that the group portrays the men and women that were alive during the GAoP as accurately as possible. To this end, you should ensure that your clothing, equipment, and mannerisms reflect those that existed during the Early 18th Century. Modern clothing, jewelry, and glasses should be forbidden. Use only natural materials that would have been available at the time such as linen, fustian, wool, silk, and hemp. Hand stitch, if possible, at least the visible seams. Make or buy leather items that are made with vegetable tanned leather. And lastly, before making any purchases, consult someone that is knowledgeable with early 18th century dress/equipment and modern day vendors.
What does a Golden Age of Piracy seamen look like?
The sources below include "Working Dress" by Diana de Marly (1986), Christopher Lloyd's "The British Seaman" (1968) and G.E. Manwaring, “The Dress of the British Seaman from the Revolution to the Peace of 1748, "Mariner’s Mirror, The Journal of the Society for Nautical Research, Volume 10, 1924.
Slop Contract Clothing
Ed Foxe in Slop Contract Clothing
In 1628 the British Admiralty made sailor's clothing, called "slops," available to press-ganged men They consisted of a suit of canvas with doublet and breeches, Monmouth caps, cotton waistcoats and drawers, stockings, linen shirts and shoes.
The Pursers stood to make a profit from the sales from the slop chest, but since clothing is a necessity, it seemed unfair to allow each ship's purser to name his own price. Thus, by 1663 the Admiralty began to issue specifications for the types of clothing (slops) and set fixed prices. (NOTE: these will be referred to as The Admiralty Slops Contract or ASC) It was also stated that they had to be sold before the mainmast, once a week, and in the captain's presence.
So, while the Royal Navy (RN) did not have or issue an “official” uniform until at least the mid 18th Century, they did issue a contract for, and made certain types of sailors clothes available to, sailors on their ships and in the major costal towns where England’s sailors were.
Though these slops were not a uniform because there was no "order" for the sailors to wear them, Manwaring does say that;
"Nevertheless, as these were the only clothes permitted to be sold on board ship, and the men were allowed to purchase them on a long credit, it is safe to assume that the supply was eagerly taken up”.
One of the most important facts overlooked time and again when examining the common members of a pirate crew is that seamen of the Golden Age period did not consider themselves "Navy" seamen, or "Merchant" seaman, they were just "seamen". One year they might be in the RN. The next year they'd be on a trading voyage to the East Indies. That might have been followed with a six months tour on a Newcastle collier, and then maybe a quick jaunt on a privateer, as the fancy and opportunity took them. So even if many pirates hadn't come directly from an RN ship there's every probability that they had RN slops in their chest from earlier voyages.
In 1706, a new contract was issued by the Admiralty for the kinds of clothing that would be acceptable as slops; and they were pretty specific. The contracting system was not all that different from what we have today; that is, the government published what it wanted, and various firms bid on the contract. The winning company had to have slop clothing available at set prices to RN ships. The government even provided "sealed patterns" or samples of each garment that was available in various English ports (even in Lisbon). Sea captains needing to outfit a crew could compare the quality of the local slop supply with these samples.
Each contract ran for a limited number of years and then a new contract was issued and opened to bidding. From 1706 to 1748, each new contract specified pretty much the same set of clothing, with some minor variations, and also specified the price of each article.
The 1706 contract, for example, called for:
• Shrunck Grey Kersey Jackett, lined with Red Cotton, with fifteen Brass Buttons, and two Pockets of Linnen, the Button Holes stiched with Gold Colour Thread, at Ten Shillings and Sixpence each
• Kersey is a very coarse cheap wool. "Shrunck" appears to mean water-resistant, possibly fulled or felted. "Cotton" probably refers to a type of napped wool
• Waist Coat of Welsh Red plain unlined, with eighteen Brass Buttons, the holes stiched with Gold Coloured Thread at Five Shillings and Sixpence each>
• Welsh red refers to a type of wool flannel; cotton flannel does not appear until the end of the 19th Century
• Striped Ticken Waist Coats of proper lengths, to be one Yard in length at least, with Eighteen Black Buttons, the Holes Stitched with Black Thread lined with White linen and two White Linnen Pockets, at the Rate of Seven Shillings each Ticken/Ticking A strong material of linen, basket woven, and usually in stripes
• Red Kersey Breeches lined with Linnen, with three Leather Pockets, and thirteen white Tinn Buttons, the Button Holes stitched with white Thread, at the Rate of Five Shillings and Sixpence each Kersey is a very coarse cheap wool
• Striped Shagg Breeches lin'd with Linnen, with three Leather Pockets, and fourteen white Tinn Buttons, the Button Holes stiched with white Thread, at the Rate of Tenn Shillings and Sixpence each Shagg also called Duffel - a coarse woolen fabric with a thick tufted nap
• Striped Ticken Breeches of proper lengthes, lined with white linen, and two linen Pockets, with Sixteen Black Buttons, the Button Holes stiched with Black Thread, at the rate of five Shillings each Ticken/Ticking A strong material of linen, basket woven, and usually in stripes
• Shirts of blew and white chequered Linnen, at the Rate of three Shillings and Threepence each Chequered or Checked linen of the time seems to be more of a windowpane style an not as much checked like an Italian table cloth
• Drawers of blew and white chequered Linnen, at the Rate of Two Shillings and Threepence each
• Leather Capps faced with Red Cotton, and lined with Black Linnen, at the Rate of One Shilling and twopence each Not sure what exactly these caps are. Cocked hat and Monmouth Caps are worn during this time, but don't appear in any GAoP era ASC lists
• Small Leather Capps stich’d with white Thread, at the Rate of Eightpence each
• Grey Woollen Stockings at the Rate of One Shilling and Ninepence per Pair
• Grey Woollen Gloves or Mittens at the Rate of Sixpence per pair
• Double Sold Shoes, round Toes, at the Rate of Four Shillings per pair
• Interesting that the "fashion" of the period calls for Squared toe shoes, but the ASC calls for round
• Brass Buckles with Iron Tongues at the Rate of Three Pence per pair
• These slops lists continued in much the same vein with minor variations until 1748. Since there was no order compelling Royal Navy sailors to buy slops, this could not be considered a uniform, but it amounted to such since these were the clothes most commonly available to them. According to G.E. Manwaring, this is the costume that British seamen were most often pictured wearing in period prints and paintings. Grey jackets, red breeches or trousers, striped waistcoats and blue-and-white checkered shirts was the de facto uniform for this era.
The point about caps is interesting. British seamen were not issued hats until relatively late. They were known for their thrummed and Monmouth caps in the 16th through 18th centuries. For some reason, knit caps disappear from the slops list for several decades. Despite this we know through other sources that knit hats and cocked hats were worn during this period, they just do not appear on the slop contracts during the 1690-1720 period. It is not until the list of 1730 that you find the leather caps replaced with "Caps, woolen milled" and "Caps, yarn”. The "Caps, Woolen, milled yarn" is repeated in 1739, when for the first time "Hats" (with no other description) is added.
Manwaring believed that trousers were exclusive to British sailors in this era. He cites a English report from the Pacific in which some Spanish seamen recognized them as British because they were wearing trousers.
The above information is not meant to coerce you into adopting the Admiralty Contracts as your sole guide or vision for building your pirate kit. It is meant, however, to provide examples as to what the common or average sailors clothing might have looked like.
For more specific information, please go to Sailor's Slops |
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Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire
Extracts from this document...
During the late nineteen-forties, it was common for playwrights such as Tennessee Williams to use symbolism as an approach to convey personal thoughts, through the attitudes of the characters and the setting. Williams' actors have used symbolism to disguise the actuality of their thoughts and to accommodate the needs of their conservative audience. A Streetcar Named 'Desire' has a few complicated character traits and themes. Therefore, they have to be symbolised using figures or images to express abstract and mystical ideas, so that the viewers can remain clueless. Williams not only depicts a clear personality of the actors but he also includes real-life public opinions from the past (some of which are contemporary.) These opinions were likely to raise controversies on issues such as prejudice, social gender expectations and men and women's roles in society. There have been numerous occasions when symbolism has taken place in A Streetcar Named 'Desire.' Firstly, Stanley is insulted several times by Blanche (his sister-in-law) Stella (his beloved wife) and other residents of the 'Quarter'. For example, the term 'animal' has been constantly spoken of, to define Stanley's malicious and ill-natured conduct. In scene four, Blanche tries to persuade her younger sister to go elsewhere and leave her husband. On page 163, she complains: Blanche: He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, talks like one! There's even something - sub-human - something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something - ape-like about him... ...there he is - Stanley Kowalski - ...Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! Furthermore, when the play begins, Stanley enters the ground-floor apartment carrying 'a red stained package from a butcher's.' Stanley: Catch! Stella: What? Stanley: Meat! From these two brief extracts, the keynote is that the red meat is a symbol used to show Stanley's 'bestial' attitude, which is also in another of Blanche's dialogues: Blanche: There's something downright - bestial - about him! ...read more.
The 'hot trumpets' and the 'blue piano' are constantly heard during short periods of tension and when Blanche experiences insanity! Williams has introduced the 'blue piano' in scene one. The first page of the script tells us that it 'expresses the spirit of life which goes on here' - referring to a part of New Orleans (Elysian Fields.) On certain occasions, the polka tune was also played. For instance, at the end of scene one, Stanley raises doubts about whether or not Blanche is married. This reminds Blanche of her horrific past and how her young husband had died. It creates tension and if, as an audience, we were to view the stage drama, it would build a large amount of suspense. The reason for this is that straight after the polka music plays, Blanche claims that she is 'going to be sick!' From this, we know that Blanche is in a bad state and wants to forget. Returning to the sound of the 'polka tune', I would like to add that music in general life, can have quite an effect on its listeners. Polka music was played for a lively nineteenth-century dance. Here, it has been used to keep the viewers focused and to grab their attention on the story line. In the following fragment, Blanche and Stanley are deep in conversation. They have been discussing the loss of Belle Reve, loans, mortgages and Stanley wants all the papers that will confirm the matter. Stanley: ... - a man has to take interest in his wife's affairs - especially now that she's going to have a baby. Narrator: Blanche opens her eyes. The 'blue piano' sounds louder. Blanche: Stella? Stella going to have a baby? [Dreamily.] I didn't know she was going to have a baby! As well as Blanche, herself, we did not know that Stella was expecting! The music would make us listen carefully to what was being said and create an atmosphere of agitation. ...read more.
It has a straightforward meaning to the public. If glass cracks, it shows a sign of bad luck or a warning of some kind. The bad luck in this case, is that Blanche will soon be raped. The fact that 'Stanley appears around the corner of the building,' tells us Blanche's bad luck will involve Stanley. Williams is hinting the story line, once again. The last symbol I would like to analyse is the 'small white radio.' It has only appeared a couple of times during the early scenes of Streetcar. Stanley and his friends are having a game of poker while Stella and Blanche are relaxing. Narrator: She turns the knobs on the radio... ...Stanley stalks fiercely through the portieres. He crosses to the small white radio... ...With a shouted oath, he tosses the instrument out of the window. The 'white radio' could have been used to symbolise Blanche's purity or innocence. In fact, we discover later that she is not as innocent or pure as she seems to be. Just in the third scene of the play, Williams may be hinting that Blanche is gradually being ruined. Perhaps her 'white radio' being tossed 'out of the window' tells us that Stanley is already against Blanche and does not like the sound of her being around. I shall conclude this essay with a brief understanding of symbolism. It is a very useful concept and often needed to give the audience a few suggestions. Symbolism makes people think and broadens their mind with varieties and ideas. In A Streetcar Named 'Desire', symbolism has been significantly used to show the roles of men and women in society and how they expect each other to be treated. It has disguised many possible sexual scenes; therefore, Williams has succeeded in transmitting some of his themes or ideas. Some of these are sexuality, madness, jealousy, racism, cruelty, loyalty, gender relationships and conflict. How does Tennessee Williams use Symbolism to pass on some of his themes or ideas, in "A Streetcar Named 'Desire'"? AS Level English Literature, Mr. Ducker Parveen Nawab, 10W ...read more.
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his faults because she loves him too much to let him go. Even when Blanche pleads for help from Stella after revealing that Stanley raped her, she refuses to believe her, 'I couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley.'
2. The relationships between men and women in 'A Street Car Named Desire'.
Their relationship is very tense and uncomfortable; usually when we see them in a scene together there is a moment of confrontation or an act of violence.
1. How is tension conveyed between Stella and Blanche in Scene 1 of A street ...
It is obvious that looks are very important to Blanche which show she enjoys being indulged and told she is beautiful. Blanche does not wish to sound unkind to her sister, which is why she stops if she sees Stella is offended.
2. The Role of the Past in a Streetcar Named Desire
This is especially true in this scene, since Blanche resorts once more to the educated speech of a schoolteacher in order to take control of an aggressive situation (pg 150-51). The question of which characters represents light and dark is debatable, but it seems that both have an aspect of softness and harshness, whichever the audience decides to sympathize with.
1. Analyse the relationship between Blanche and Stanley in Scene 2-A Streetcar Named Desire.
having power over her, being manly In scene two Stanley questions Blanche on the loss of Belle Reve. Blanche is secretive and tries to avoid the subject, she does not want to argue over such trivial matters and should not want to upset her sister who is listening
She doesn't consider her actions harmful because she is not involved emotionally and she never lies in her heart, as she tells to Mitch. While singing in the bathroom, Stanley reveals to Stella the details of her sexually corrupt past.
But Tennessee Williams chose a moth. There is certain unknown element to her and despite her efforts - she does not make a good butterfly. She is a perfect moth. Blanche is very insecure about herself and this is one reason why she likes to block out all the light.
2. How effective a title do you think &quot;A Streetcar Named Desire&quot; is for ...
Stanley demonstrates no repentance for his fierce actions; Stella has desires of having a complete family with the love she deserves from Stanley. She is seen as a fragile character who gets abuse from her husband. Now I have just analysed how "desire" is present amongst the characters in this
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Today in Caucasian history: the Battle of Bagrevand (775)
Having suffered through the push-and-pull Roman-Persian relationship for the better part of a millennium, the Armenians now had to face a new upheaval with the destruction of the Sasanian Empire and the arrival of conquering Arab armies in the Caucasus as early as the late 630s, not even a decade after Muhammad’s death. In the early 650s, a leading Armenian noble named Theodoros Ṛštuni (Theodore Rshtuni if you like) cut a deal to submit Armenia to Arab rule in exchange for a prisoner release and Armenian autonomy. Fighting continued, though, and eventually pulled in the Romans (even though the Romans and Armenians were at odds over religious disputes about the nature of Christ). But by the 660s, the Arabs (now the Umayyad Caliphate) were fully in control of Armenia, which doesn’t seem to have been that onerous given that it included a fair amount of local autonomy and no imposition of Islam on the Armenians (conversion was never a high priority for the Umayyads anyway).
This was the best deal the Armenians were going to get, but the imposition of Arab rule grated on them anyway–especially on the nakharar, the heads of the leading Armenian noble families. They’d done pretty well for themselves as Roman and/or Persian clients, but the Arabs were apparently much less interested in cultivating their loyalty–they had less reason to be, in the absence of any other power capable of challenging Arab control over the area. Several revolts cropped up here and there over the decades to come, but internal rivalries among the nakharar (perhaps exacerbated by the decline in imperial attention) kept most of them from becoming serious threats to the Arabs. One major revolt did break out in 703, when the Arabs reorganized their Caucasian holdings into the province of Arminya and took more direct control, but it was defeated in 705 and the nobles who had led it were all executed.
A much larger revolt finally broke out in 774. When the Abbasid dynasty took over the caliphate in 750, they made major changes to imperial administration. One change was a drastic cutback in the remaining allowances that were still being paid to the nakharars, along with a substantial increase in taxes on the Armenian population. This may have been partly punitive, since the Armenians had taken advantage of the Abbasid revolution to launch another failed revolt in 748 and the Abbasids might not have appreciated that. But whatever the Abbasid motivation was, replacing the nakharars’ remaining spoils with new taxes was enough to bring nearly all of them, fractious as their relations could be, together in opposition. Only two of the major Armenian houses, the Artsruni and the Siwni, stayed out of the fighting, and they obviously fared better in the immediate aftermath of (SPOILER) the revolt’s failure.
The murder of an Arab tax-collector in northern Shirak province kicked off the war in late 774, but two major battles in April 775 ended it, decisively, in favor of the Arabs. Bagrevand was the second of these, pitting a contingent of the Abbasids’ seasoned Khurasani fighters (at a time when the Khurasanis were the most reknowned fighters in the caliphate) against the Armenian rebel army. The Armenians were crushed, and the revolt’s leaders, Smbat Bagratuni and Mushegh Mamikonean, were both killed.
The upheaval that followed the unsuccessful revolt fundamentally changed Armenian and Caucasian politics forever. The Abbasids invited noble Arab families to move into the Caucasus and establish emirates there to strengthen the caliphal hold on the region. This policy especially took root in Caucasian Albania, the region that sat mostly on modern Azerbaijan and part of Dagestan. The noble families that had joined the rebellion were liquidated, their members either being executed or fleeing to Byzantine protection, except for the Bagratuni, who managed to fend off the Arabs and survive more or less intact. This is important, because a branch of that family (also known as the Bagrationis) established a kingdom in Caucasian Iberia and Lazica in the 800s that eventually coalesced into Georgia. Then in the 880s–as Abbasid power waned and Byzantine power waxed–the Bagratunis also established an independent (if subordinate to the Byzantines) Armenian kingdom that survived until the Seljuqs showed up in the 11th century.
Author: DWD
writer, blogger, lover, fighter
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1. In a way, yes. Operation Bagration was named for Pyotr Bagrationi, a 19th century Russian (Georgian) general who was killed at Borodino. He was, clearly, a member of the Bagrationi family. The Bagrationis lost their royal authority in Georgia and its successor kingdoms when Russia annexed the area outright in the 1800s, but they transitioned pretty smoothly into a new role as one of the Russian Empire’s leading noble families.
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Definition of saw-whet owl in US English:
saw-whet owl
Genus Aegolius, family Strigidae: two species, in particular the North American A. acadicus
• ‘The Boreal Owl is most likely to be confused with the Northern Saw-whet Owl but lacks brown in the face, has a pale bill, has a dark border to the face and darker brown upperparts.’
• ‘Various factors are likely to contribute to migration patterns of saw-whet owls.’
• ‘This saw whet owl was injured when a strong wind pushed it into the side of a high-rise building.’ |
Page 1
SOLUTIONS MANUAL for Society The Basics 14th Edition by Macionis IBSN 9780134220123 Full download: TEST BANK for Society The Basics 14th Edition by Macionis IBSN 9780134220123 Full download:
Chapter 2 Culture Contents Author’s Note Additional Content in REVEL Learning Objectives Detailed Chapter Outline REVEL Media John’s Chapter Close-Up: National Cultures John’s Personal Video Selection Research for a Cutting-Edge Classroom Using the ASA Journal Teaching Sociology in Your Classroom Supplemental Lecture Material • Culture in Everyday Life • One Hundred Percent American • Speaking of Language: The Development of Human Communication • The Shape of the World The People that Time Forgot Essay Topics
Author’s Note for Chapter 2 If you look to the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament, what is the first human act? In Genesis 2, verse 2, Adam stands in the Garden of Eden and gives names to all things. The ancients well understood that the distinctly human action is naming, that is, making use of symbols. While we may debate the degree to which some other species have symbolic capacity, the reliance on the process of attaching meaning to the world around us surely is the defining characteristic of being human. The human symbolic capacity explains our embrace of hope and charity, as well as our ability to feel shame and to experience alienation. Chapter 2 provides many examples of the human capacity to attach meaning to ourselves and to our surroundings giving rise to a social world:
The photo collage on page 45 is a favorite of mine, showing a striking variety of ways humans adorn themselves as they conform to cultural patterns. The discussion of culture shock on page 46 shows human reliance on symbols as the foundation of socially constructed reality and the distress caused by challenging these meanings. The Seeing Sociology in Everyday Life box on page 49 illustrates the ongoing human process of symbolic creation, which is sometimes linked to technological change.
Figure 2-3 on page 53 shows how symbolic patterns and practices divide the world into cultural regions. This chapter’s Seeing Sociology in Everyday Life photo essay, on pages 69–70, studies the popular culture of super-heroes to learn more about cultural values. What is defined as heroic in any way of life represents an idealized statement of how one ought to live. For more on the cultural importance of heroes and villains, see the photo essay at the end of Chapter 7 (“Deviance”) on pages 201–202.
Additional Content in REVEL REVEL is the electronic version of this text that provides interactive learning, student learning assessment, and additional readings and engaging video—at remarkably low cost. All of the REVEL content has been developed by John Macionis and is seamlessly integrated into the text. For each chapter, REVEL expands and deepens student learning with rich content including: In Greater Depth—This interactive graphic allows students to expand their understanding of the issue (global attitudes about abortion) raised by the Power of Society figure at the beginning of the chapter, in this case showing how various categories of the U.S. population view the issue of abortion. Video—These short videos present key concepts in engaging ways. In this chapter, students can access “The Basics: Culture,” a short video that differentiates high culture and popular culture, and a short video that explores the cultural patterns that define two very different population: Buddhists and modern-day pirates. Journals—Short student writing exercises. This chapter’s journals encourage students to reflect on their experiences of culture shock, their participation in subculture and counterculture, and the importance of social media to cultural patterns today. Surveys—These interactive exercises ask students to assess the own attitudes and behavior and compare themselves to others in the United States or to populations in other countries. This chapter’s surveys focus on why students went to college and the extent to which they believe our way of life is better than others. A Global Perspective—These interactive graphics focus on global patterns, in this case showing the changing pattern of origin among immigrants to the United States from 1820 to the present. Interactive Comparison Maps—These interactive graphics allows students to manipulate social maps to gain greater understanding of important patterns and trends. In this chapter, an interactive national map explores language diversity in counties across the United States. Social Explorer—An interactive exercise that uses social mapping to explore societal dynamics across the United States. This chapter’s exercise leads students on a journey of discovery about the share of foreign-born people all across the United States.
Read the Document—These primary readings allow students to read important sociologists in their own words. All readings have been carefully chosen and edited to provide rich learning accessible to all students. This chapter’s reading investigates the lyrical content of rap songs to learn about African-American street culture. In Review—These interactive “drag and drop” exercises allow students to assess their learning. In this chapter, the In Review exercise helps students master theoretical analysis of culture. Boxed Features—Find additional boxed features not available in the printed book, in this case the special boxed feature contrasts cultural patterns in the United States with those in Canada.
Learning Objectives
2.1: 2.2: 2.3: 2.4: 2.5: 2.6:
Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival. Identify common elements of culture. Analyze how a society’s level of technology shapes its culture. Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change. Apply sociology’s macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture. Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.
Detailed Chapter Outline I. What Is Culture? L.O. 2.1: Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival. Culture refers to the ways of thinking, the ways of acting, and the material objects that together form a people’s way of life. A. Culture has two basic components: nonmaterial culture, or the ideas created by members of a society, and material culture, the physical things created by members of a society. Together, these two components describe a people’s way of life. Culture also plays an important role in shaping the human personality. Culture shock occurs when an individual suffers personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life. 1. THINKING GLOBALLY BOX (p. 46): Confronting the Yanomamö: The Experience of Culture Shock. B. Only humans depend on culture rather than instincts to ensure the survival of their kind. C. Culture is very recent and was a long time in the making. D. What sets primates apart is their intelligence. Human achievements during the Stone Age set humans off on a distinct evolutionary course, making culture their primary survival strategy.
E. The concept of culture (a shared way of life) must be distinguished from those of nation (a political entity) or society (the organized interaction of people in a nation or within some other boundary). Many modern societies are multicultural, meaning that their people follow various ways of life that blend and sometimes clash. II. The Elements of Culture L.O. 2.2: Identify common elements of culture. All cultures have five common components: symbols, language, values and beliefs, norms, and material culture, including technology. A. Symbols are defined as anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share culture. The meaning of the same symbols varies from society to society, within a single society, and over time. 1. The Basics: Culture. This video focuses on a culture’s values and beliefs, which are often shared among cultures and sometimes adopted. The sharing of values and beliefs allows cultures to be redefined continuously. B. Language is a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another. 1. SEEING SOCIOLOGY IN EVERYDAY LIFE BOX (p. 49): New Symbols in the World of Instant Messaging. 2. Language is the key to cultural transmission, the process by which one generation passes culture to the next. Through most of human history, cultural transmission has been accomplished through oral tradition. 3. WINDOW ON THE WORLD—Global Map 2–1 (p. 57): Language in Global Perspective. Chinese is the native tongue of one-fifth of the world’s people. English has become the second preferred language in most of the world. Spanish is the preferred second language of the United States. 4. Only humans can create complex systems of symbols, but some other animals have the ability to use symbols in communicating. 5. The Sapir–Whorf thesis holds that people perceive the world through the cultural lens of language. C. Values are culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful, and which serve as broad guidelines for social living. Values are broad principles that underlie beliefs, specific statements or ideas that people hold to be true. 1. Robin Williams (1970) identified ten key values of U.S. culture: a. Equal opportunity b. Achievement and success c. Material comfort d. Activity and work e. Practicality and efficiency f. Progress g. Science h. Democracy and free enterprise i. Freedom j. Racism and group superiority
2. Values within one society are frequently inconsistent and even opposed to one another. 3. In general, the values that are important in higher-income countries differ somewhat from those in lower-income countries. D. Norms are rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. 1. There are two special types of norms that were identified by William Graham Sumner (1906): a. Mores are norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance. b. Folkways are norms for routine or casual interaction. 2. Sanctions are a central mechanism of social control, attempts by society to regulate people’s thoughts and behavior. E. Sociologists distinguish between ideal culture, social patterns mandated by cultural values and norms, and real culture, actual social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations. F. Material culture reflects a society’s values and a society’s technology, the knowledge that people apply to the task of living in their surroundings. G. Many rich nations have entered a postindustrial phase based on computers and new information economy. III. Technology and Culture L.O. 2.3: Analyze how a society’s level of technology shapes its culture. Gerhard Lenski (Nolan & Lenski, 2010) focuses on sociocultural evolution, the changes that occur as a society acquires new technology. According to Lenski, the more technological information a society has, the faster it changes. New technology sends ripples of change through a society’s entire way of life. Lenski’s work identifies five types of societies based on their level of technology. A. Hunting and gathering societies use simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation. Until about 12,000 years ago, all humans were hunter-gatherers. At this level of sociocultural evolution, food production is relatively inefficient; groups are small, scattered, and usually nomadic. Society is built on kinship, and specialization is minimal, centered chiefly around age and gender. These societies are quite egalitarian and rarely wage war. B. Horticultural and pastoral societies employ a technology based on using hand tools to raise crops. In very fertile and also in arid regions, pastoralism, technology that supports the domestication of animals, develops instead of horticulture. In either case, these strategies encourage much larger societies to emerge. Material surpluses develop, allowing some people to become full-time specialists in crafts, trade, or religion. Expanding productive technology creates social inequality. C. Agrarian societies are based on agriculture, the technology of large-scale cultivation using plows harnessed to animals or more powerful sources of energy. These societies initiated civilization as they invented irrigation, the wheel, writing, numbers, and metallurgy. Agrarian societies can build up enormous food surpluses and grow to an unprecedented size. Occupational specialization increases, money emerges, and social
life becomes more individualistic and impersonal. Inequality becomes much more pronounced. Religion underlies the expanding power of the state. D. Industrial societies are based on industrialism, the production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery. At this stage, societies begin to change quickly. The growth of factories erodes many traditional values, beliefs, and customs. Prosperity and health improve dramatically. Occupational specialization and cultural diversity increase. The family loses much of its importance and appears in many different forms. In the early stages of industrialization, social inequality increases. Later on, while poverty continues to be a serious problem, most people’s standard of living rises. Demands for political participation also escalate. E. Postindustrial societies are based on technology that supports an information-based economy. In this phase, industrial production declines while occupations that process information using computers expand. The emergence of post-industrialism dramatically changes a society’s occupational structure. IV. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World L.O. 2.4: Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change. The United States is the most multicultural of all industrial countries. By contrast, Japan is the most monocultural of all industrial nations. A. High culture refers to cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite; in contrast, popular culture designates cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population. High culture is not inherently superior to popular culture. 1. Sociology in Focus: Culture. This video focuses on culture, specifically on high and popular culture, or the culture that we see depicted in mass media. At first glance, culture seems like an easily distinguishable phenomenon, but when examined closely it is clear that it can never fully be defined. B. Subculture refers to cultural patterns that set apart some segment of a society’s population. They involve not only differences but also hierarchy. 1. Social Inequalities: Culture. Sociologist Lester Andrist introduces two different types of subcultures, Buddhists and Pirates. This video addresses the support of both cultures for its members and the dedication that these people have to their respective cultures. 2. THINKING ABOUT DIVERSITY BOX: Race, Class and Gender (p. 59). Popular Culture Born in the Inner City: The DJ Scene and Hip-Hop Music. This essay describes the journey of Aaron Jerald, an “at-risk” kid who finds a legitimate path in society by way of the DJ hip-hop scene in the mid-1970s. C. Multiculturalism is a perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting the equality of all cultural traditions. 1. Multiculturalism stands in opposition to Eurocentrism, the dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns. a. SEEING OURSELVES—National Map 2–1 (p. 60): Language Diversity across the United States. The 2010 U.S. Census reports that 20 percent of people over the age of five speak a language other than English in their home.
b. How Much Diversity Is There In Your Community? In this discovery activity, students examine where in the country the experience of cultural diversity is the greatest. They then look at the foreign born population throughout the country, as well as how this distribution is linked to language diversity. c. Gangstas, Thugs, and Hustlas: The Code of the Street in Rap Music, by Charis Kubrin. In this content, analysis of rap music and examination of inner city subcultures, Kubrin shows how violence has become a normalized feature of urban life. 2. Supporters of multiculturalism argue that it helps us come to terms with our diverse present and strengthens the academic achievement of AfricanAmerican children. Some call for Afrocentrism, the dominance of African cultural patterns in people’s lives. 3. Opponents of multiculturalism argue that it encourages divisiveness rather than unity. D. Counterculture refers to cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society. 1. As cultures change, they strive to maintain cultural integration, the close relationship among various elements of a cultural system. 2. William Ogburn’s (1964) concept of cultural lag refers to the fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting a cultural system. E. Cultural change. 1. Three phenomena promote cultural change: a. Invention, the process of creating new cultural elements. b. Discovery, recognizing and understanding an idea not fully understood before. c. Diffusion, the spread of cultural traits from one cultural system to another. F. Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. 1. Ethnocentrism is the practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture. 2. Sociologists tend to discourage this practice, and instead advocate cultural relativism, the practice of judging a culture by its own standards. G. Some evidence suggests that a global culture may be emerging. 1. Three key factors are promoting this trend: a. Global economy: the flow of goods. b. Global communications: the flow of information. c. Global migration: the flow of people. 2. Three limitations with the global culture thesis: a. Global culture is much more advanced in some parts of the world than in others. b. Many people cannot afford to participate in the material aspects of a global culture. c. Different people attribute different meanings to various aspects of the global culture.
3. THINKING ABOUT DIVERSITY: RACE, CLASS AND GENDER BOX (p. 59): Early Rock-and-Roll: Race, Class and Cultural Change. This box shows how rock-and-roll mirrored aspects of U.S. culture as well as how U.S. culture was influenced by early rock-and-roll. V. Theories of Culture L.O. 2.5: Apply sociology’s macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture. A. The structural-functional approach depicts culture as a complex strategy for meeting human needs. 1. Cultural universals are traits that are part of every known culture. 2. Critical review. a. The strength of the structural-functional analysis is showing how culture operates to meet human needs. b. The weakness of the structural-functional approach is that it ignores cultural diversity and downplays the importance of change. B. The social-conflict approach is rooted in the philosophical doctrine of materialism and suggests that many cultural traits function to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others. 1. Critical review. a. The social-conflict analysis recognizes that many elements of a culture maintain inequality and promote the dominance of one group over others. b. It understates the ways that cultural patterns integrate members of society. C. Feminist theory claims that culture is “gendered.” 1. Gender refers to the personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being female or male. D. Sociobiology is a theoretical approach that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture. Sociobiology has its roots in the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. 1. Critical review. a. Sociobiology may promote racism and sexism. b. Research support for this paradigm is limited. VI. Culture and Human Freedom L.O. 2.6: Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom. A. Culture as constraint. Humans cannot live without culture, but the capacity for culture does have some drawbacks. B. Culture as freedom. Culture forces us to choose as we make and remake a world for ourselves. C. THINKING GLOBALLY: The United States and Canada: How Do These National Cultures Differ? This box explains that Canada has a somewhat more collectivist culture than the more individualistic United States. VI. Seeing Sociology in Everyday Life photo essay (pp. 69–70). Use this essay to spark discussion of how the mass media reflect long-standing cultural values.
REVEL Media IN GREATER DEPTH [graphic] The Power of Society to Guide Our Attitudes on Social Issues: Attitudes toward Abortion among Various Categories of People in the United States, found in Module 2.1. VIDEO The Basics: Culture This video examines values and beliefs as elements of culture and explores how they vary from society to society and over time. Students will realize the importance of using cultural relativism rather than ethnocentrism as they encounter people of other cultures throughout their lives, found in Module 2.2. JOURNAL Experiencing Culture Shock, found in Module 2.3. SURVEY Why People Go to College: Rate Yourself, found in Module 2.4. A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE [graphic] Immigrants’ Region of Origin, 1820–Present, found in Module 2.5. DIVERSITY [graphic] A Nation of Immigrants, found in Module 2.6. VIDEO Sociology in Focus: Culture This video explains the difference between high culture and popular culture and explores elements of popular culture in the mass media, found in Module 2.7. VIDEO Social Inequalities: Culture This video profiles two very different subcultures, Buddhists and modern-day pirates. Each shares its own set of values not shared by the mainstream culture, defining both groups as subcultures, found in Module 2.8. INTERACTIVE MAP Language Diversity across the United States, found in Module 2.9. SOCIAL EXPLORER Explore the percentage of foreign-born people in your local community and in counties across the United States, found in Module 2.10. READ THE DOCUMENT Gangstas, Thugs, and Hustlas: The Code of the Street in Rap Music by Charis Kubrin Based on a content analysis of the lyrics of more than 400 rap songs, Kubrin provides an account of the street culture common to lower-income, urban African Americans, found in Module 2.11. JOURNAL Personalizing Subculture and Counterculture, found in Module 2.12. SURVEY Is Our Way of Life Superior? Rate Yourself, found in Module 2.13. IN REVIEW Applying Theory: Culture, found in Module 2.14. THINKING GLOBALLY [boxed feature] The United States and Canada: How Do These National Cultures Differ? found in Module 2.15. SHARED WRITING Social Media and Culture, found in Module 2.16. SEEING SOCIOLOGY IN EVERYDAY LIFE [photo gallery] What clues do we have to a society’s cultural norms? found in Module 2.17.
John’s Chapter Close-Up: National Cultures Figure 2–2 offers a complex but powerfully insightful analysis of national cultures. The data represented in this figure are the results of the World Values Survey, with research published in 2014. The figure describes the cultural orientations of dozens of the world’s nations with regard to two variables.
First, shown in the X-axis, is a continuum from “survival values,” which are focused on basic survival of the group to “self-expression values,” which encourage individuals to stand out from the group in pursuit of their personal goals and interests. Second, shown on the Y-axis, is a continuum from traditional values (what Weber would characterized as adherence to the sacred or what has always been) to secular and rational values that encourage innovation, efficiency, and a future orientation in time. In general, more technologically and economically developed nations have symbolic systems that emphasize self-expression and secular-rationalism. These countries, which include the nations of Western Europe, are located in the upper-right portion of the figure. Lesstechnologically and economically developed nations have symbolic systems that are both traditional and demand conformity to ideas and practices that support group survival. These countries, which are typically found in Africa and Western Asia, are societies that have more tribal or sectarian divisions. Imagine a regression line as a diagonal from the lower-left of the figure to the upper-right corner of the figure. Moving along this line might be called the process of modernization. However, notice that several nations do not follow this progression. Countries within what the researchers call the “Orthodox” and “Confucian” world-views are relatively secular and rational but continue to hold to survival values. Similarly, while there are no countries at the bottom right of the figure, notice that the United States stands apart from other high-income countries on the Y-axis. That is, U.S. culture favors self-expression but is considerably more traditional than the cultures found in Western Europe. For example, measures of religiosity in the United States are considerably higher than those found in the nations of Western Europe. Use this figure to stimulate a discussion of the cultural differences between the highincome nations of Europe and the United States. Also, contrast the cultural patterns of Western Europe and North America with those of the Islamic world.
John’s Personal Video Selection Okay, this five-minute video is not really sociology in a formal, academic sense. But it is a wonderful example of how music moves around the world and it shows the power of music to bring people closer and help us remember that we are all in this life together. Meet Roger Ridley, Grandpa Elliot, Washboard Chaz, the Zuni Twin Eagle Drum Group, the Sinamuva singers in South Africa and others all over the world as they join together singing Stand By Me. Go to a video site such as YouTube and search for “Stand By Me: Playing for Change.” Crank it up!
Research for a Cutting-Edge Classroom For each chapter of the text, I am happy to share a short, Power-Point based presentation informed by very recent research. These presentations deal with highly current and typically controversial issues that are in the news and are part of the country’s political dialogue. Each presentation provides a clear statement of the issue, several slides that present recent research findings from Pew, Gallup, or other research organization, notes that help instructors develop the importance of the data, and questions for class discussion.
To access these PowerPoint presentations from REVEL, after creating a course with either Sociology 16/e or Society: The Basics 14/e, enter the course and hover over the left-hand navigation menu. The PowerPoints (as well as the Test Item File, Instructor's Manual, and other resources) can be found in the “Resources” tab. From outside of REVEL, please go to and navigate/search for Sociology 16/e or Society: The Basics 14/e. The PowerPoints can be found under the “Resources” tab. In this chapter, the cutting-edge classroom presentation details historical change in the foreignborn population of the United States from 1860 to the present.
Using the ASA Journal Teaching Sociology in Your Classroom One of the key concepts in any discussion of culture is ethnocentrism. Phyllis Puffer offers a unique “cross-cultural” exercise for sociology classes, designed to reduce ethnocentrism (“Reducing Ethnocentrism: A Cross-Cultural Experience for Sociology Classes,” Teaching Sociology, 22, January 1994, pp. 40–46). Puffer’s own research demonstrates that taking a sociology class to a fundamentalist African-American Baptist service can change white students’ ethnocentric attitudes for the better. The basic exercise that Puffer suggests consists of students attending a church service of a different racial group. After the service, the students are required to make detailed notes about their observations and reactions. Then they must write a paper analyzing their experience and observations in sociological terms. Puffer offers two different versions of this exercise and points out that besides reducing ethnocentrism, the exercise is also effective in teaching various sociological subjects.
Supplemental Lecture Material Culture in Everyday Life Culture shapes our everyday lives. The following assessment of U.S. culture was made by scholars at the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University. CUSTOMS AND COURTESIES Greetings In the United States, we are generally informal, introduce ourselves readily to others, and expect to be called by our first names whether at home or at work. Visiting Here, too, we are mostly informal, though we do expect guests to arrive at a specified time because the meal is often served first. Gifts are not expected when visiting. The primary goal of the host is to have guests feel comfortable, “to sit where they like, and to do as they please.”
Eating Although in this melting pot there are some cultural variations; generally, the fork is used in the right hand for eating. The knife is used only for cutting or spreading, then it is put back down beside the plate. Some foods such as pizza or tacos are eaten with the hands. It is customary to leave a 15–20 percent tip in restaurants. Gestures We are comfortable only if there is considerable space between people conversing, i.e., at least two feet. A touch on the arm or shoulder during conversation, however, is common. Eye contact is important if the speaker is to be perceived as sincere. We sit casually, crossing our legs or putting them up. THE PEOPLE General Attitudes Generally, outspokenness and frankness are valued, and few topics of conversation are taboo, although very personal questions are avoided by those who are not close friends. Although people might “criticize the government, most of us are very patriotic and believe the United States is one of the greatest countries in the world. We strongly value our freedom and independence, both as a nation and as individuals.” Personal Appearance Appearance and cleanliness are important to us. Style of dressing is a matter of personal choice in the United States, ranging from the casual to formal for certain occasions. Clothing is often used to make a statement. Population The United States is a mix of ethnic categories. Hispanic Americans are the largest minority category, with a total of more than 50 million people representing about 17 percent of the U.S. population (2015). African Americans number more than 40 million and exceed 13 percent of the U.S. population. Asian Americans number more than 16 million, or 5 percent of the total population. Arab Americans are increasing in number, and probably total 2–3 million people or about 1 percent of the population. By about 2040, racial and ethnic minorities will be a majority of the U.S. population. Language English is the predominant language, although there is also a sizable Spanish-speaking minority. American English is different from the Queen’s English, using its own pronunciation, idioms, and slang. Religion Nearly two-thirds of U.S. citizens have some religious affiliation. Freedom of worship and tolerance of the religious preferences of others are ideals. “About 20 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, while over 30 percent belong to a variety of Protestant or other Christian Churches. Over 30 percent belongs to no church.”
LIFESTYLE The Family While the family is still important as a social institution, it has changed in the recent past. Singleparent families or blended families are common. The family also no longer stays put, but moves frequently for education or job opportunities. Dating and Marriage “Dating is a social pastime in the United States.” Premarital sex is common, and many people choose to live together before getting married. The average age for marriage is in the mid- to late-twenties. Diet Although fast food restaurants remain popular, eating habits have changed with health concerns. The variety of ethnic foods available is great, and many people are willing to experiment with other cuisines. We “consume large amounts of candy, ice cream, and other sweets.” Business Common business hours are between around 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., although retail establishments often stay open until 9:00 p.m. or even twenty-four hours. A forty-hour workweek is the norm, but many of us work longer. Recreation We love team sports, playing them, watching our children play them, or watching them on television. We also enjoy working out by cycling, jogging, racquetball etc. “Leisure activities include watching television, eating out, picnics, attending music concerts, and traveling.” Source: “Culturgram for the ‘90s.” David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, Brigham Young University. Discussion Questions: 1. To what extent do you agree with the characterization of U.S. culture used above? What other details would you add to each of the categories? What about the large extent of cultural diversity in the United States? 2. If you have a distinctive cultural background, use the knowledge of your way of life to fill in the categories above for that culture.
Supplemental Lecture Material One Hundred Percent American Many observers have felt that people in the United States have a tendency to be somewhat more ethnocentric than the citizens of most Western European nations. Certainly U.S. tourists abroad who seem to be convinced that the “natives” will understand their English if they just speak slowly and loudly enough and who make a beeline for a Parisian McDonald’s are familiar
enough figures. However, as the following widely reprinted, tongue-in-cheek essay by anthropologist Ralph Linton makes abundantly clear, American culture, like that of all industrial societies, has in fact borrowed heavily from the very cultures upon which the “ugly American” looks with condescension. One Hundred Percent American There can be no question about the average American’s Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in unAmerican materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in southwestern Asia. On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution: he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to the ensemble is the steam radiator, against which our patriot briefly and unintentionally places his posterior. Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the close of the Stone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of G-string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure they are properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he ties about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth, which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by the seventeenth-century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast. Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train—the train, not the sprinting, being an English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to
inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results on our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a 100 percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer). Source: Linton, Ralph. (April 1937). “One Hundred Percent American.” American Mercury, Vol. 15, No. 1. Discussion Questions: 1. Do you believe that Americans may be somewhat more ethnocentric than people in the other Western industrial nations? If so, why might this be the case? If not, why is this widely believed? 2. In what ways does a degree of ethnocentrism contribute to the positive functioning of American culture? How much is too much? What problems can result from excessive ethnocentrism?
Supplemental Lecture Material Speaking of Language: The Development of Human Communication Linguistics, the academic study of human language, has undergone a series of profound shifts in recent decades. Until the late 1950s, most linguists believed that humans as a species developed language from a blank slate in infancy. The behavioristic principles of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain provided the theoretical basis to these views of language development. Most linguists rejected the notion that any type of internal, biological mechanism was hardwired into the brains of infants, steering them inevitably in any particular developmental path. And because there was no fundamental basis to human language in the brain, linguists rarely tried to compare widely divergent languages—such as English and any of the indigenous languages of the Amazonian basin—as they viewed these languages as essentially lacking in any meaningful connections to a particularly “human” structure. Noam Chomsky, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist, fundamentally changed many of these basic tenets of linguistics. According to Kathryn Hirsch-Pasek, a psychologist at Temple University, “Up until the late 1950s, linguists had always focused their efforts on describing the differences between languages and dialects. What Noam Chomsky did was point out that beneath the differences, languages were amazingly similar.” With extensive crosscultural studies of the structures or “universal grammar” underlying all languages, Chomsky had found striking evidence of the importance of instinctive behavior to language in humans. Children do not so much “learn” language as they developmentally “grow” into language, much like the refinement of spatial skills or the changes leading to sexual maturity. And because language is so deeply hardwired into humans, we are born with a grammar that is sophisticated enough to handle complex language. In fact, the actual “learning” that children pursue with language is often the set of exceptions to this basic grammar. As linguist Judy Kegl points out, English-speaking children must learn the often confusing set of rules for plural words,
such as “feet” instead of “foots.” Children often resist these exceptions, trying to make the language more consistent. There are numerous important implications from these findings, especially to the millions of Americans who still hold views of language that derive from behaviorism-based linguistics. It is common, for instance, for Americans to believe that language is the most important “invention” of humans, but language itself is not so much an invention as a highly flexible but genetically programmed and instinctual behavior. Furthermore, many consider slang or the languages of technologically primitive cultures to be less expressive, evolved, or powerful than languages such as English or Russian. But because all languages share the same basic structure, no language is more primitive or less expressive of human feeling than another. And slang itself—perhaps to the disdain of numerous English teachers—cannot erode or “corrupt” a language or the quality of thinking of its speakers. English is certainly not in decline because so many speakers incorporate lower-status “street” words and phrases into their vocabulary. Perhaps the most controversial set of implications drawn from Chomsky’s research concern the instinctive nature of language. If language—one of the most important bases for human culture—is an instinctive behavior that is genetically controlled, then perhaps many other types of human behavior are also preprogrammed. Behaviorism assumed that consciousness and culture can always override and control instinct, but Chomsky has led linguists to think otherwise. And many researchers and thinkers are suggesting that such characteristics as criminal behavior and intelligence may also be hardwired. Certainly a great deal more research will have to be explored to see how far the implications of language development can be extended. Source: Bowden, Mark. “Speaking of Language, Linguists Have Big News.” Philadelphia Inquirer (February 13, 1995) pp. D1–D5. Discussion Questions: 1. Do you agree with the contention that the slang or street language of Harlem or the Bronx is as expressive as Shakespeare’s English? Why or why not? 2. How might our view of intelligence change if research provides convincing evidence that an IQ may be hereditary and genetically determined? What social policy changes might this view lead to? 3. What other human behaviors are based on instinct?
Supplemental Lecture Material The Shape of the World Before you read on, take a blank sheet of paper and, to the best of your ability, draw a map of the world. Once you have done this, keep the image by your side and see whether some of the conclusions that follow are also true of your drawing. As a whole, members of our society trust in fact and figures. Even more, we trust in maps. Who would not? We use maps to drive, to orient ourselves in the world, so they have to be correct, right? Well, not necessarily.
Until recently, cartographers used the so-called Mercator projections, a badly skewed method of translating a spherical globe onto a piece of paper. As a result, because the closer a landmass is to the pole, the larger it appears, Greenland looks huge, Europe is very large, and Africa smaller than it should be. So maybe that is the reason why in a study conducted by Thomas F. Saarinen most students (80 percent), no matter what nations they belonged to, drew very similar maps, with Europe in the center, the Americas on the left and Asia on the right. Problem solved...but wait a minute, something is still wrong with the picture. Given this style of map, North America and Asia should also be larger than life. Not so, Saarinen discovered. Only Europe’s size was exaggerated. Saarinen posits that this distortion reflects a world-wide cultural bias. Overall, we tend to know a lot about Europe—its history, culture—but little about Africa. As a result, Africa shrinks in importance in our minds and also in our mental maps of the world. But are there practical consequences to this misunderstanding? Possibly, says geographer Reginald G. Golledge at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “What I would suggest is that your view of the world is going to influence things like who your closest trading partners are.” Once again, as the textbook illustrates in other areas, our values and beliefs color how we see the world, in this case in a very concrete way. Source: Monastersky, Richard. (October 3, 1992). “The Warped World of Mental Maps.” Science News, Vol. 142, pp. 142 and 223. Discussion Questions: 1. Did your map reflect the biases discussed above? Would you agree with the reasons given for the distortion? Can you think of others? 2. In what ways are language and cartography similar in their role in transmitting culture? What are the solutions to correcting the flaws of our mental maps? 3. Aside from choosing trading partners, can you think of other consequences of a map exaggerating Europe’s size and diminishing Africa’s? Are there parallels of such disparity in other cultural arenas?
Supplemental Lecture Material The People that Time Forgot Deep in the rain forest of Irian Jaya, a province of Indonesia in the western half of New Guinea, live a people whose contact with the modern world has been virtually nonexistent. That isolation is about to end, however. Vast forests are becoming a natural resource targeted for cutting. Once they disappear, so will the Korowai, whose existence depends on those trees. As a matter of fact, the forest itself is where they live, in huts constructed of branches and bark, high up in the trees, and accessible only by notched climbing poles. For clothing, they use leaves, palm fronds and rattan. The forest also provides game for hunting. The Korowai live as perhaps our ancestors might have lived. Each clan is ruled by a war chief. Alliances are formed through trade or arranged marriages involving a bride price.
Calling themselves Lords of the Garden, the Korowai combine hunting and gathering techniques with horticulture and some pastoralism. They raise pigs, cultivate gardens of many types of banana and sweet potatoes, and tend sago fields where the women work during the day. The sago is food and, as are beetle larvae, a delicacy. The Korowai chop down palms with stone axes, then bore holes in the trunks. Scarab beetles lay eggs in those holes. When the grubs hatch, they are pulled out of the holes and baked, wrapped in banana leaves. One aspect of Korowai life is the never-ending clan warfare generally fought over women or pigs, and often part of a chain of old offenses to be revenged. Battles always take place during the day since spirits at night are hostile. Special arrows designed for killing humans are used. “A yard of weathered bamboo is lashed with vine to a handspan of bone with six sharp barbs carved on each side. This ensures the arrowhead will cause terrible damage when removed from the victim.” Unless the dead are carried away by their own clan, they are then eaten. So are men or women who transgress against clan members by stealing pigs or committing adultery. Cannibalism, however, is not the major killer of the Korowai. Accidents, disease, and war take the greatest toll, and life expectancy is only 35. So poor are the chances for infants, that children do not even receive names until they are about 18 months old. Yet though their way of life may be precarious, the Korowai value it deeply, as is revealed by the ceremonial overtones of the grub feast. “The grub feast binds us closer, makes us strong. Always remember you are a Korowai.... Never abandon our way of life.” Yet soon, as has been prophesied, the lale—the white-skinned ghost demons—will come and take away the Korowais’ trees, their land. It will be the end of the Korowai world. Just as the prophecy foretold. Source: Raffaele, Paul. (August, 1996). “The People That Time Forgot.” Reader’s Digest, Vol. 149 No. 892, pp. 101–107. Discussion Questions: 1. Using Gerhard and Jean Lenski’s categories, characterize Korowai society, discussing various social institutions typical for such a society. Should efforts be undertaken to save their way of life, or is their disappearance acceptable as a function of sociocultural evolution? 2. In your opinion, if the Korowai are ultimately deprived of the rain forest, what should be done for them? Is there a way to save them? Can they—or their culture—survive in the modern world?
Essay Topics 1. Explain the difference between material culture and nonmaterial culture. How does one affect the expression of the other? 2. In what ways is culture a more complex and effective survival strategy than reliance on instinct?
3. What are some examples of symbols that different cultural groups in the United States interpret differently? (For example, the Confederate flag represent regional pride to some and a history of oppression to others). 4. What are key values of U.S. culture? What changes in cultural patterns have come with increasing immigration? Has “diversity” always been a positive value in U.S. culture? To what extent is it a positive value today? 5. Provide examples of mores and folkways that you learned when growing up. Are these norms taught today? 6. How have the core values of U.S. culture such as achievement and success reflected in childhood games? 7. What is virtual culture? How has its development reshaped U.S. culture? 8. What are the various means by which society uses cultural elements to exert social control over its members? 9. Is a technologically more advanced society necessarily a superior one? Explain. 10. Do you agree with the text’s claim that high culture is not necessarily superior to popular culture? Why do many people assume that this is the case? 11. Do you think that there is a “youth culture” in the United States? To the extent that this pattern exists, is it a dominant cultural pattern or a distinct U.S. subculture? Why? 12. In what ways is cultural relativism a positive idea? Under what circumstances do you feel that it is appropriate to condemn the practices of people who share a culture other than your own? 13. Provide a description and an example of each type of society outlined by Lenski. Does Lenski’s stages of sociocultural evolution correspond to our idea of “progress?” Why or why not? 14. To what extent is contemporary U.S. society still agrarian? To what extent is it industrial? In what ways is our society postindustrial? 15. Identify several modern examples of Karl Marx’s idea of false consciousness. What are some of the consequences of widespread false consciousness in a society? 16. Have you or your friends or family worked in jobs that were alienating? How accurately does Marx describe the characteristics of these jobs?
17. According to Max Weber, how does modern social life produce alienation? Why is it reasonable to say that, of the three classical thinkers, Weber was the most pessimistic about modern society? 18. What ideas from Marx remain relevant to contemporary society and what ideas must be discarded in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Marxist societies of Eastern Europe? What might Weber have said about the last century of global history? 19. How optimistic or pessimistic are you? Do you think societies are getting better or worse? Why? 20. What are the characteristics of a rational social organization? In what ways has advancing rationality improved people’s lives? How has it made them worse? How would Weber have answered these questions? 21. What is Emile Durkheim’s “anomie” all about? How can modern societies reduce the level of anomie? Can this be done without limiting people’s individual freedom? 22. Provide examples of the bonds of mechanical solidarity in today’s society. What about bonds of organic solidarity? 23. In the book Cultural Anthropology: Adaptations, Structures, and Meanings, David Haines presents a great deal of information about hunting and gathering, horticultural, pastoral, and agrarian societies (see Chapters 2–5 in the section of the book called “Adaptations”). Select one of these chapters and write a two-page paper on the important characteristics of societies that practice the type of subsistence strategy (adaptation) you select. Discuss in your paper the extent to which Gerhard Lenski’s model of societal development relates to what is presented in the Haines book. 24. The United States is classified as a postindustrial society. This exercise asks you to go to the Bureau of Labor’s website at and look at the demographic characteristics of the U.S. labor force. When you get to the website, look for “Demographics” in the column on the left side of the screen and click on “Demographic Characteristics of the U.S. Labor Force.” Write a brief summary of the picture of our nation’s workforce you discover there. 25. Learn more about the Tuaregs at 26. Learn about the Zabbaleen of Cairo by going to For another example of a people living on the margins of society, Google “smokey mountain dump” and learn about the history of this landfill in the Philippines in which hundreds of people lived before it was closed a few years ago. These cases can be used to apply Durkheim’s “division of labor” model.
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Negotiation: A Deeper Understanding
Would you agree that whatever is our status in life, no matter what age, sex inclination, religious beliefs, and in whatever walks of life, we experienced negotiation one way or another?
Negotiation is not just a topic discussed in the study of Public Administration but it is one truth in our lives that we deal with even no matter how simple one’s life is or how basic things are done in the workplace or at home.
So, let me walk you through today on another topic of Public Administration as a theory and as a subject of research and presentations on the said course based on books (e.g. Human Behavior in Organization by Roberto G. Medina, Ph.D.), Wikipedia and other sources. Afterwards, allow me also to give you ideas or examples how we apply such theories consciously or unconsciously into our dealings with other people. This topic is in line with my discussion last week about Executive Decision Making (
So, what is negotiation?
There are two major approaches to negotiation (Robbins and Judge, p.58; Human Behavior in Organization by Roberto G. Medina, Ph.D., p. 249):
1. Distributive Bargaining -“The Fixed Pie” approach; the goals of the parties are in conflict, and each party seeks to maximize its share of the resources. This win-lose approach is really a process of dividing or “distributing” scarce resources.
2. Integrative Negotiation Everybody Wins Something (usually); described as the win-win scenario; the focus is on making it possible for both sides to achieve their objectives; usually involves a higher degree of trust and a forming of a long-term relationship to create mutual gain.
There are three basic elements of negotiation:
1. Process refers to how the parties negotiate: the context of the negotiations, the parties to the negotiations, the tactics used by the parties, and the sequence and the stages in which all of these play out. Refer to the Negotiation Process presented on the image below.
2. Behavior refers to the relationships among the parties, the communication between them and the styles they adopt.
3. Substance refers to what the parties negotiate over: the agenda, the issues (positions and – more helpfully – interests), the options, and the agreement (s) reached at the end.
There are also five negotiation styles:
1. Competitive Style involves forcing others to accept one’s view. Can take many forms, including authoritative mandate, challenges, arguing, insults, accusations, complaining, vengeance, and even physical violence (Morril, 1995).
2. Avoiding Style adopts a “wait and see” attitude, hoping that problems will solve themselves. Methods include changing the subject, skip meetings, or even leave the group altogether.
3. Compromising Style are used by individuals who are eager to close the deal by doing what is fair and equal for all parties involved in the negotiation.
4. Accommodating Style is a passive but prosocial approach to conflict by giving in to the demands of others for the sake of group unity or in the interest of time.
5. Collaborating Style involves solving tough problems in creative ways and identifies the issues underlying the dispute and then works together to identify a solution that is satisfying to both sides.
I am sure by now in your own mind you can identify from your own experience which of them can be classified as to the different negotiation styles you used to a particular situation. Let me cite a few examples of simple events that may have happened in our lives where we apply the five styles of negotiation.
First, would you believe that in playing card games such as poker or even playing mahjong, each player adopts the competitive style? Each player wants to bring the pot money home. Each will play their cards or tiles close to their chest but will try to pry as much information from the other side. Each one will try to demoralize the other players so that the others cannot concentrate or play effectively, thus, winning the bet.
Second, don’t you know that walking out of an argument or changing a topic when it’s getting hot and is more likely to aggravate a situation, either in the office or at home, is adopting the avoiding style? We usually adopt this kind of attitude especially at home when we get into a misunderstanding with our love ones and we don’t want to say or do things we will regret later on.
Third, are you aware that haggling with a fish or vegetable vendor for their produce or goods and agreeing on a stated price for these products is a form of adopting the compromising style? There is a limited time to complete the deal so we just try to haggle as much as they will concede with the thought that we offered and they accepted what is fair and equal for both parties.
Fourth, do you agree that conceding or accepting the point of views of someone close to you without really being convinced that he/she is correct is using the accommodating style? This may look like superficial compliance but because we wanted to preserve relationships we give in to them and sometimes, in the process, gets taken advantage of.
Fifth, would you agree that in this world, nothing is impossible, no hurdles can’t be tackled, no mountains can’t be climbed, no problem remains unsolved if we have that special someone who can hold our hands together, with God’s blessings, to collaborate with? Try this most ideal style, the collaborating style, in more complex undertakings and find out how effective it can get.
See? If you had not realized it before how negotiation plays even in the mundane things we do, think again. Different situations call for different styles but we should try to bear in mind that there is a lot of advantage in trying to adopt the collaborating style as much as possible, but if it really gets too difficult, try to, at least, settle and agree on a compromise.
Dear Readers, I hope to receive your comments or your own point of view regarding this topic.
Painful Love (Poetry)
• Love, they say, can move a mountain
• But love can also cause great pain
• Yet love is also a healer
• So love again a lot better.
• “Love is a many-splendored things”
• And men should be loving beings
• But why are there many women
• Who just get bullied by their men?
• We ask, how could they let it be?
• In the name of fidelity?
• Or would you say for martyrdom
• That they would forsake their freedom?
• We’d never ever understand
• What pain these women withstand
• We could maybe smirk, huff and scoff
• We forgot they had it so tough.
• But, hey, what can we really do
• If they cannot help themselves too?
• It’s hard to become a mother
• Alone, with kids to think over.
• Painful love, how cruel are you
• Trapping women, their children too?
• In a life full of misery,
• When will you ever set them free?
Executive Decision Making
I am supposed to share with you this Sunday a PowerPoint presentation on the topic but alas, my luck with my internet connection is not holding up well, it seems. So, for now, let me just share with you the pertinent aspects of this topic, excerpts from an article, that I hope readers who are interested on this topic will find a bit helpful on their own research as well. For my reference, I would like to give credit to whom/where it is due. Thanks a lot to Sanjeev Swami for sharing such a comprehensive article on “Executive functions and decision making: A managerial review” (
So here goes the excerpts of this article.
The topic of decision making falls under the broad topic of executive functions. Executive functions are basically the management system of the brain.
The best way to explain the role of executive functions is that it is similar to a conductor’s role within an orchestra. He cues each musician, so they know when to begin to play, how fast or slowly to play, how loudly or softly to play and when to stop playing. Without the conductor, the music would not flow as smoothly or sound as beautiful (Low, 2009).
So, what is decision making?
Decision making refers to the mental (cognitive) process of selecting a logical choice from the available options. When trying to make a good decision, a person must weigh the positives and negatives of each option, and consider all the alternatives. Thus every decision making process produces a final choice which can be an action or an opinion of choice (Reason, 1990).
There are three theories of decision making: the Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) Theory, the Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT), and the Prospect Theory.
However, in real life, the decision problems are often so complex that the use of any one theory is usually ruled out. Instead, several cognitive biases and errors creep in our decision making. Thus, to simplify the decision making process, decision makers often use efficient decision rules known as heuristics.
Heuristics are rules of thumb or strategies that are likely to produce a correct solution, but are not guaranteed to do so.
Some commonly reported heuristics are:
• Representativeness heuristic. Under this heuristic, the events that are representative of a class are assigned higher probability of occurrence.
• Availability heuristic. It involves estimating the frequencies of events on the basis of how easy or difficult it is to retrieve relevant information from long-term memory.
Schoemaker and Russo (1993) in their “pyramid of decision approaches” discuss that there are four general approaches to decision making, which presents the practical aspects of executive decision making:
• Intuitions – receiving input and ideas without knowing exactly how and where you got them from. Other terms for it include: gut feeling, sixth sense, instinct,etc.
• Rules – quick and often clever ways to approximate an optimal response without having to incur the cost of a detailed analysis. Rule-based decisions means decisions that just follow the implemented rules and guidelines that already exist but which is subject to change thus must be updated on a continuous basis.
• Importance weighting – application of MAUT.
• Value analysis – when a decision is truly important and complex, value analysis conducts a more comprehensive assessment. It links factors to key objectives, which results in a “goal hierarchy”.
On the pyramid, the higher the method is, the more accurate, complex and costly it tends to be. However, the pyramidal shape shows also that higher approaches are used less frequently than lower ones and for more important decisions.
To sum it all up, executive decision making is a thought process which implies assessing and choosing from several competing alternatives, using either short-cut strategies or heuristics and cognitive biases or the more scientific approaches in decision making, depending on a situation that may arise.
Lord, Lift Me Up (Poetry)
• There are times as we walk along the path of life,
• That we face too many adversity and strife.
• We don’t know, oh no, how much more we can go on
• To remain calm, humble, hopeful, faithful and strong.
• So I strive hard to seek some semblance of calmness
• In a world that has turned into such a chaos.
• I’m starting to feel cornered, I beseech numbness
• To envelope me, to avoid pain I suppose.
• Lord, lift me up, from this serious state I am in.
• Let me feel the wonder of this life you’ve given.
• To the silent prayers of my heart, please listen
• That this bruised heart may not feel heavily laden.
How Loved Are You?
“A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are LOVED BY OTHERS.” – Frank Morgan
On this week’s flag ceremony, I am tasked to expound on this quote which was also in line with the celebration of Valentine’s Day this Tuesday.
So hitting two birds with one stone, I will ponder on this thought today and post my speech here in time for my Sunday schedule and share it on other media tomorrow after I already delivered the speech. Don’t you think that’s a brilliant idea?
Anyway, as I sat here thinking about the topic more thoroughly, I asked myself. In the last twenty years of my life in government service, what have I done that other people will remember me by? That is, if God suddenly takes me away (God forbid), will they think of me with sadness or with fondness? (Hibian man ko bala nila?) Or will they be happy and think ill of me? (Ayhan mahambal sila: “Hmp! Dayaw man ko na sa iya sa kalain batasan!”) Or will they not think of me at all, as if I was neither worth remembering nor existing at all? (Wala lang! Deadma lang!)
It is said that it is by our deeds that we are measured in the eyes of others. Our every action, our every word, reflects our inner self.
Will you choose to be remembered as the beast or as the beauty (Diin pilion mo, hambalan ka: “law-ay na lain pa batasan, ukon hambalan ka: ” kaayo gid bala na nga tawo”)? Or to be thought of as the villain or as the hero (Ang madumduman nga manugpatay ka iya kaupdanan ukon ang manugdampig)? Or to become a politician with the heart to plunder and gain only personal wealth or as a leader with the heart for the people (Ang mangin isa ka politiko nga ang tinutuyo mangurakot lang sa gobyerno o mangin isa ka lider nga may tagipusuon para sa iya mga tawo)?
The choice is upon us. Whatever we choose to be is what we are going to be. And what we are going to do for people to see is what they will remember us to be. (Kun ano ang ginapakita ta sa mga tawo nga mga hilimuon, amo man na ang ila madumduman sa aton.)
Have you tried gauging other people’s reaction? You might be surprised of your own reflection. Plant dissension, envy and anger in others and you will incite war. But try to spread love, and you will beget love. Be a heart that is loved more by others than a heart withered by selfishness and bad manners.
Remember: “What you sow is what you reap!”
So, on this coming Valentine’s Day, the day is not just for loving couples, but for everyone with the heart to spread love.
So, let us spread love, everyone! Happy Valentine’s Day!
Not the Usual Trip to Bacolod City
It was just another ordinary day (or maybe not, since it was my hubby’s birthday). It was a usual 45-minute-or-so trip to Bacolod City (Philippines). Until…
An idea popped into my head. Why not make this trip a memorable one and post a documentary type of an article in a kind of a tribute to a most beloved person in my life?
So here it goes…
February 7, 2017, at 9:15 in the morning, we left the house, together with the eldest daughter for her to arrive at the College where she is currently enrolled as a second year student taking up Bachelor of Science in Accountancy (following my footsteps it seems), in time for her first period of class at 10:30 am.
After a four-minute walk from the house we reached the highway where two of the City of Victorias landmarks are located: the Victorias Sports and Amusement Center
and the Victorias City Resort.
At 9:22 am, we were finally able to get on a Ceres bus and start today’s memorable trip.
Along the way, I began to take pictures of things or some landmarks that took my fancy to share with everyone for you to see places that most people around here often see and are familiar with.
This province, Negros Occidental, being known as the sugar capital of the Philippines, it, of course, boast hectares and hectares of growing sugarcanes.
Being time for harvesting of such crop, it is not surprising to see wagons of harvested sugarcanes waiting to be sent to the sugar mill.
There are also open fields waiting to be planted with new crops.
Ten minutes later, we reached the town next to us, the town of Enrique B. Magalona, which happens to be a detour from the main highway, having to take a right turn to enter the town proper.
Sixteen minutes later since we took the bus, we arrived at a crossroad, the northern part of Silay City, where there is still evidence of how crops of sugarcanes once reach the sugar mills, that cement tried to cover to accommodate modern modes of transportation.
At 9:43 in the morning we stopped at the Pink House, now the Silay Museum Souvenir Shop, one of the antique houses in Silay City turned into
This is just one of the many old houses along the city proper that were preserved and turned into commercial establishments to tempt the tourists to visit and admire the unique and antiquated grandeur of these business establishments.
We passed by Silay City’s San Sebastian Cathedral, adjacent the city plaza (the accompanying picture did not give justice to it, the woe of a photographer trying to take pictures while riding a bus. Huhuhu!).
Two minutes later after the last time check, we passed by a familiar Catholic High School, the St. Theresita’s Academy.
Silay City is also among the cities in Negros known for their good quality pottery products. Once upon a time, you could see lots and lots of them small stores selling such wares but I noticed that nowadays there were only a few of them still in business. Makes one wonder if the pottery industry is slowly dying out because people now are more into the modern method of cooking, using gas stoves and even the more costly electric rice cookers, electric gas range and all that.
Of course, I would not forget to include the popular three balete trees of Silay City as the bus was traversing the road towards the next city which is Talisay City.
I am not sure if the new generation ever heard of the popular folktale connected with these trees. They could ask their elders about it and be prepared for several hair-raising versions of such folktales.
At exactly 9:55 am, we reached the most popular landmark (for me, that is), of Talisay City, the Carlos Hilado Memorial State College in their various stages of expansion, to the old building (which was already renovated and painted to its entrance gate up to its continuing construction).
At around 10:02 in rhe morning, exactly forty minutes since we took the bus (five minutes ahead of arrival time expected), we reached the Ceres Liner terminal.
The end…??
Since this is partly a tribute to a birthday celebrant, let’s continue on and see what to expect on his special day out.
At 10:06 am, we rode a jeepney at Jeepney Bay of the Ceres terminal.
Eleven minutes later after taking the jeepney ride, we reached our final destination.
Guess where we are headed to. Malling? Uh-uh… Guess again.
That’s the Land Transportation Satellite Office located inside Robinson’s Place (Bacolod City).
And that’s how many men/drivers who are celebrating their birthdays today, waiting in line for the renewal of their driver license.
Five minutes after entering the medical laboratory clinic adjacent to the LTO, a person trying to renew their license could secure their medical forms (that is, if it is not one of their busy days).
EditHmm, I can totally believe this warning.
One hour and twenty-one minutes later, after handing in the medical form, an official receipt was issued signifying that the license is finally renewed. That was already fast for a government office catering to lots of drivers renewing their licenses.
But wait! Where is the actual driver’s license? Alas, they have to wait six months to one year for the actual card to be released.
There are other places that are landmarks of Bacolod City (seen on our way to SM-Bacolod. There is the La Consolacion College.
At a closer look
Also, the Bacolod San Sebastian Cathedral,
and the Bacolod City Plaza.
I could have taken better pictures but this is always the problem of taking pictures on the go. Haist! Please think of it as you passing by the same place in a hurry.
It was an ordinary day made special for an extraordinary guy!
Finding One’s Self
Wouldn’t finding Nemo or Dory be easier than finding one’s self? How can one lose one’s self, in the first place?
Let me share with you a post I made on Facebook on the topic three years ago. Please refer to the link herein.
Many people may at one point or another feel like they are in a maze trying to find their way out but are just bumping into walls whichever way they choose to take. It doesn’t mean for most of them that they don’t believe in a divine power (although there are some who are easy to believe in aliens than in the presence of God), it’s just that they are momentarily overwhelmed by the trials or hardships they are currently experiencing.
As their friends, family, or acquaintances, we can just give them the support they need. We can only assure them with well-meaning words or actions that we are there for them, that they are not alone, that even when they are feeling the most frustrated or at a time they feel so lost and no one seems to understand how they really feel, they are never alone for even one moment. They should read the poem, Footprints in the Sand, and understand that in all those times they felt things to be the most difficult and that they felt the most alone, are the times God were carrying them through it all.
Like many other stories with the topic finding something that was lost, like Finding Nemo, in the end, with one’s determination and perseverance, plus a deep faith in divine guidance, the path towards knowing one’s self gets clearer.
Walking inside the maze, bumping into walls for countless times, may prove frustrating but by being more focused and by learning valuable lessons at each wrong turn, ultimately no matter how long it will take, the road out of the maze will present itself.
Go forward. Be strong. Be positive. Be brave. |
From Industrial 4.0 to Finance 4.0
MOST people are somewhat aware about the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The first industrial revolution occurred with the rise of steam power and manufacturing using iron and steel. The second revolution started with the assembly line which allowed specialisation of skills, represented by the Ford motor assembly line at the turn of the 20th century.
The third industrial revolution came with Japanese quality controls and use of telecommunication technology.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or first called by the Europeans Industry 4.0, is all about the use of artificial intelligence, robotics, genomics and process, creative design and high speed computing capability to revolutionise production, distribution and consumption. Finance is a derivative of the real economy – its purpose is to serve real production. Early finance was all about the finance of trade and governments to engage in war.
It is no coincidence that the first central banks (Sweden and England) were established in the 17th century at the start of the First Industrial Revolution. Industrialisation became much more sophisticated as Finance 2.0 brought the rise of credit and equity markets in the 18th and 19th centuries. Industrialisation and colonisation came about at the same time as the globalisation of banks, stocks and bond markets.
Again, with the invention of first the fax machine, then Internet that speeded up information storage and transmission in the 1980s, finance and industry took a quantum leap into the age of information technology. Finance 3.0 was the age of financial derivatives, in which very complex (and highly leveraged) derivatives became so opaque that investors and regulators realised they became what Warren Buffett called “weapons of mass destruction”. Finance 3.0 stalled in 2007 with the Global Financial Crisis and was only propped up with massive central bank intervention in terms of unconventional monetary policy with historically unprecedented interest rates.
We are now on the verge of Finance 4.0 and it may be useful to explore what it really means.
The common definition of Industry 4.0 is the rise of the Internet of Things, in which cloud computing, artificial intelligence and global connectivity means that cyber-physical systems can interact with each other to produce, distribute and trade across the world in a massively distributed system of production.
But what does Finance 4.0 really mean?
What truly differentiates Finance 4.0 from the earlier version is the arrival of Blockchain or distributed ledger technology. The best way to think about the difference is the architecture of the two different systems.
Finance 3.0 and earlier versions were all about a top-down or hierarchical ledger system, like a pyramid, in which trade and settlements between two parties are settled across a higher ledger.
A simple example is payment from Joe in bank A to Jim in bank B is finally settled across the books of the central bank in local currency. But in international trade and payments, the final settlements (at least more than 60%) are settled in US dollar finally across the ledgers of the Federal Reserve bank system.
Finance 3.0 was not perfect and those who wanted to avoid regulation, taxation or any official oversight basically moved trading and transactions off-balance sheet and also off-shore. This was the “shadow banking” system that financial regulators and central banks conveniently blamed on their failure to see or stop the last global financial crisis.
Although technically the shadow banking system is the non-bank financial system, which would include bond, stock and commodity markets, the bulk of illegal, illicit transactions traditionally was done in cash.
Welcome to the technical innovation called cyber-currencies, which was made possible for peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions across a distributed ledger system (commonly known as blockchain). In architectural terms, this is a bottom-up system which technically can avoid any official oversight. Indeed, cyber-currencies or tokens were invented precisely because the users do not trust the official system.
As the populist philosopher Stephen Bannon said, “central banks are in the business of debasing the currency”. Hence, those who want to avoid the debasement of their savings prefer to deal with either cash or cyber-tokens like bitcoin (pic).
What is happening in the rapidly evolving Finance 4.0 is that as the world moves from a unipolar order to a multi-polar world in which other reserve currencies also contend for trade and store of value, the top-down architecture is fusing (or merging) with a bottom-up architecture in which trade, transactions and stores of value are shifting towards the P2P shadow system.
Why this is taking place is not hard to understand. Post-global financial crisis, the amount of financial regulations have tripled in terms of number of rules and complexity on what the official sector can regulate, which is mostly the banking system. It is therefore not surprising that all the innovation, talent and money are moving to outside the banking system into the asset management industry, which is much more lightly regulated.
No talented banker, however dedicated to the values of banking probity, can resist the temptations of working in asset management, away from the heavily regulated environment where he or she is 24×7 under regulatory internal and external oversight.
Another reason why the cyber-P2P business is flourishing is because the official sector is worried that further regulation would hinder innovation. But those who want to increase the complexity of regulation must remember that for every 50 foot wall, someone will invent a 51 foot ladder.
So competition in the 21st century has already moved from the physical and financial space into cyber-space.
If there is one thing I learnt as a former regulator, it is that if the banks are behind the curve in terms of technology, the regulators are even further behind, since they learn mostly from those whom they regulate. But if financial regulators deal with financial innovation through “regulatory sandboxes” where they allow their regulated banks to experiment in sandboxes, they are treating their regulated institutions as kids in an adult game of ruthless technology.
Time for the official sector to make their stand clear or else Finance 4.0 promises to be very different from the orderly world that they are used to imaging. Nothing says this clearer than a recent survey by the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, which showed that 54% of institutional investors surveyed and 38% of retail believe that a financial crisis in the next one-three years is likely or very likely.
You have been warned.
– Tan Sri Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective.
With blockchain’s rise, regulators must keep up with Industry 4.0 or lose
With blockchain’s rise, financial regulation must keep up with Industry …
How Industry 4.0 will change accounting – Journal of Accountancy
Finance 4.0: Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution | Oracle ERP …
Five ways Industry 4.0 financing unlocks productivity bonus – YouTube
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VR gaming gears up for the mainstream
Arcades seek to take virtual reality gaming mainstream
“I did paintball before, it’s quite fun… but I think the whole scene is much more interesting here,” said Jack Backx, a 55-year-old from the Netherlands, who was playing with colleagues from the oil and gas industry on a work day out.
Asia leads the way
The industry faces huge challenges.
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Star2 Technology by Caroline Knorr
Terrific or terrible?
Thus the backlash.
Raking in the money
But this time, Berlin and others see something shifting.
Overwhelming force
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BLOCKCHAIN beyond Bitcoin
What is Blockchain Technology, its uses and applications?
BLOCKCHAIN beyond Bitcoin
Blockchain is beginning to enter the spotlight as organisations see uses for it over and above the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. From combating fake degrees to being able to track the origin of organic products, blockchain is proving to be a reliable solution in trust.
The underlying technology that powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and ethereum is blockchain.
Creating trust in transactions Varanasi: Blockchain can be used to store verified documents so that users don’t have to keep validating important documents every time it’s submitted to a new party.
While blockchain was confined to finanin cial tech the early days, many organisations are starting to employ it in other industries because the technology is highly secure and even allows for transparency.
This encourages trust and in some cases even eliminates the need for a third party to validate the data, making it valuable to many organisations.
WITH fake doctorates and degrees becoming increasingly common, how are employers and graduates to find an efficient way to bridge the gap in trust?
According to Dr Mohamed Ariff Ameedeen, from University Malaysia Pahang (UMP), the solution could lie with blockchain technology.
As director of IBM’s Centre of excellence, which has been based in the university since 2012, he is continuously exploring novel uses for blockchain beyond cryptocurrency.
he said one of the early ideas the team was working on was a secure database that would prevent students from hacking to change their grades.
however, his team then decided to solve a more pressing issue affecting universities – fake degrees.
Mohamed Ariff said some universities are already integrating QR codes into graduates’ certificates to help validate credentials. however, even QR codes are now easily tampered with.
Taking it one step further, the UMP team created a system called Valid8, a QR code linked to a student profile secured by blockchain, which contains the student’s name, photo, title of degree and the year it was awarded.
This made tampering with the QR code pointless, as it only acted as a key to the information on the blockchain.
“even if someone used another person’s QR code, the data would clearly show it was not the person’s name or photo connected to the certificate,” he said.
he added that all the info placed on the blockchain is already publicly available so it would not compromise the students’ privacy.
Mohamed Ariff said making the data trustworthy meant time savings – as employers don’t have to contact the university to verify the certificate, they can be quicker in deciding if they should hire the job applicant.
So far, UMP has run a pilot programme with Valid8 by issuing supplementary certificates to 180 graduates from the industrial Management Faculty.
Mohamed Ariff said it took a couple of days to configure the blockchain node and a few more days to input the 180 students’ data.
“Although entering the information is relatively straightforward, migrating 15 years of old data (of earlier graduates) that includes more than just the initial four data points is going to take a bit longer,” he said.
The full-scale test for Valid8 will be the students graduating at the year-end convocation, estimated to be around 2,000.
To make the student profiles more useful, Mohamed Ariff said the team is planning to add more information such as grades, attendance, courses and maybe even disciplinary records.
“The beauty of blockchain is that it can grow with time and track a student’s academic life. imagine how much data it would have if a profile was set up for students when they entered kindergarten,” he said.
To encourage such a situation, UMP is open to collaborating with other universities that wanted to adopt blockchain for student iDs.
however, eduValue founder Barry Ew Yong warned that even a secured system has an obvious point of failure – human error.
he added that once errors entered the system there is a chance that it will be perpetuated. “Technology does not increase trust. Systems increase trust, though technology can be a useful tool to do so,” he said.
Like with UMP’s Valid8, the quality assurance startup has adopted blockchain to secure graduate certificates, using the technology to store a softcopy of the degree.
The company serves around 30 private schools, mostly tertiary schools offering up to Masters. Founded in Singapore in December 2012, it only just started employing blockchain.
he said the company uses a two stage system to ensure that only qualified students would be given certificates.
in the first stage it will help set up the standard by which students will be evaluated in order for them to graduate, and the approval process will be audited – schools found lacking will be struck off the system.
in the second stage it will vet all data being uploaded to the platform.
For UMP this is just a start – it’s also testing a blockchain based e-wallet called Xchain that students, lecturers, staff and vendors would eventually use for all transactions in UMP.
Beyond the security benefits, Mohamed Ariff said the open-nature of blockchain’s shared ledger meant the spending patterns could be analysed, making the university a giant data pool.
“With a population of 13,000 users, there’s a lot of potential data. And as a university, we love data,” he said.
Xchain is still in beta as the team is waiting to get Bank Negara to issue it an e-wallet license.
Mohamed Ariff concluded that blockchain is promising, especially for the education field, which relies on data that is open to peer review while also being trustworthy and tamper-evident.
ACADEMICIAN hu Dong, who advises Shanghai Jiaotong University’s Zero Bay incubator, said the supply chain industry could see huge advantages by having a more efficient and transparent data manto agement system.
Blockchain can be used track a product’s origin and determine if the materials were sourced as claimed, which is invaluable to sectors such as organic farming and ethical diamond mining. Also, by tracking the product’s trail along each stop on the supply chain, should an issue arise that requires a product to be recalled, the company could zero in on where the fault occurred.
For example, if a company found that the computer it’s making has a faulty hard drive, it would be able to identify which one of its factories was responsible. it then only needs to recall the computers that originated from the affected factory instead of all its products.
This would save cost as the recall will be smaller
and speed up the process which could help limit damage to the company’s reputation.
Dong, who was in Malaysia for a conference by blockchain incubator WeMerge, said the highlight of blockchain is accountability and transparency so it would create a higher degree of trust, which makes it great for smart contracts.
A smart contract can digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the performance of a contract without the need for third parties. And if executed via blockchain, the transactions are trackable and irreversible.
He said smart contracts could ensure factories, for instance, get paid faster, as the payment can be released once the contract is verified through the blockchain instead of waiting for a third-party to process it.
Startup Eximchain, which has raised US$20mil (rM78.41mil) in funding to continue developing blockchain solutions, is offering Smart Contracts.
Its solution allows banks to verify the validity of orders and provide the necessary financing; and the transaction history can be used by suppliers to prove their reliability to buyers and rating institutions. For banker turned blockchain technologist Bobby Varanasi, limiting the technology’s application to Bitcoin is just shortsighted.
The co-founder of Thynkblynk Technologies, along with partner Parag Jain, have developed ChainTrail, a “trust platform” for storing verified documents, including education certificates, medical records and contracts.
By using ChainTrail, you don’t have to keep verifying a document each time it’s presented to a new party.
However, Varanasi said the company was not in the business of certification and that the onus was on the data provider, be it a university or bank, to ensure that the data is correct.
“A lie, once committed to blockchain, would become an immutable one,” said Jain, referring to how data can only be added but not modified on a blockchain.
To mitigate such risks, ChainTrail vets customers by validating their credentials and ensuring that they are authorised to represent stakeholders.
For instance, it would verify that a lecturer is from the university he or she claims to represent.
It also offers templates for agreements such as contracts and term sheets.
“In today’s world, lack of trust is increasingly permeating the world of trade, both politically and financially… blockchain as a tech has finally presented an opportunity to create trust amongst a variety of parties that transact with each other,” said Varanasi.
Chain of trust:
Built for cryptocurrency Bitcoin, blockchain is being used in innovative ways in a number of industries.
Basics of blockchain
LIKE a lot of complex technologies, blockchain is easier to understand once you break it down.
A blockchain is made up of a block of “transaction data” which is why it’s also called a ledger. Each block also has a hash – a string of numbers which uniquely identifies the block.
And similar to how a person has their parent’s names added to theirs, a block features a portion of the preceding block’s hash.
Put in terms of family lines, it’s like how you could tell that Amir bin Ali is the son of Ali bin Abu, who is in turn the son of Abu bin Bakar, and so on.
Basically, the hash “chains” the blocks together, by affirming their place in relation to the blocks before and after, hence the term blockchain.
Security in numbers
A key feature of blockchain is security. Blockchain runs on the paraphrased adage that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time.
So rather than making it tamper-proof, blockchain is tamper-evident – this is done by making a copy of the blockchain available to all members of the network, which is why blockchain is sometimes referred to as a public ledger.
As members of the network all have a copy of the same blockchain, if anyone’s chain is compromised by a hacker, it would look different from others.
If you have ever tried to organise a movie night with an extended group of friends on a WhatsApp group, you’ll get the idea.
Say, you want to watch Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War and get the ball rolling by choosing the day and cinema, and then ask whoever that’s interested to add their names to the list.
The original message can’t be altered as it has been sent to the group. Instead everyone adds to the data by including their names and maybe a request for a specific timeslot. This concept is called “persistence”, wherein the older data cannot be retroactively altered.
Though a cheeky friend could change the date to try to troll the group, he wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that earlier messages will show a different date. This is what makes a public ledger like the blockchain tamper-evident.
Blockchain transaction
The blockchain is stored on computers, also known as nodes, that are connected via a peer-to-peer network.
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What is Blockchain Technology, its uses and applications?
network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks.
Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered
retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which
requires collusion of the network majority.
See more: . Blockchain – Wikipedia
Uses and apllications :
Blockchain technology can be integrated into multiple areas. The primary
use of blockchains today is as a distributed ledger for cryptocurrencies, most notably bitcoin.[65]
While a few central banks, in countries such as China, United States, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa and England are studying issuance of a Central Bank Issued Cryptocurrency (CICC), none have done so thus far.[65]
The Big Four
Each of the Big Four accounting firms is testing blockchain technologies in various formats. Ernst & Young has provided cryptocurrency wallets to all (Swiss) employees,[79] has installed a bitcoin ATM in their office in Switzerland, and accepts bitcoin as payment for all its consulting services.[80] Marcel Stalder, CEO of Ernst & Young Switzerland, stated, “We don’t only want to talk about digitalization, but also actively drive this process together with our employees and our clients. It is important to us that everybody gets on board and prepares themselves for the revolution set to take place in the business world through blockchains, [to] smart contracts and digital currencies.”[80]
Why enterprises should care about blockchain
If you are in business or government or interact with businesses or government (that should be all of you), blockchain technologies will impact you in a profound way.
People much smarter than me who have studied blockchain deeply say this is like the internet before Marc Andreessen co-invented the browser. Then, we had no idea that the world would change as radically as it has. The world will change radically again, and no one can predict how.
However, let’s take a glimpse into the future at what people are working on now, so you get just an inkling of what’s possible.
IBM is putting a lot of wood behind the blockchain arrow and aggressively going after business. One example is a project with Walmart to track food shipments. Let’s use the example of mangos. Why is this important and how does the blockchain fit in?
This food-tracking application is important because Walmart wants to have all the information it can about the mangos it’s buying. Armed with this information, Walmart can do many valuable things:
• Verification: Verify that the mangos that claim to be organic are actually organic (ensures quality)
Tracking: Track the mangos as they travel from the farm to the store, so they know where they are and when they will arrive (reduces cost)
• Ensure quality: Ensure that if they need to be refrigerated within 40 and 50 degrees to ensure freshness, that they were refrigerated correctly during shipment (ensures quality
• Recall management: Know exactly which mangos should be taken off the shelves if there’s a problem with the food (both ensures quality and reduces cost)
• Automation: Reduce human interaction required between the farmer, distributors, brokers and the buyer (reduce cost)
But where does the blockchain fit in? Here’s how a blockchain-enabled mango-buying transaction works better than a process without the blockchain.
It turns out that people eat more food that has been labeled “organic” than is farmed. That’s because there is fraud in some claims as to whether or not something is organic and those things can make their way into shipments unbeknownst to the buyer. Now, the mangos get labeled at the source, by a trusted entity that deems them organic. That information is then recorded on the blockchain, and that information cannot be changed. The “proof of organic” is now locked in and Walmart now fully trusts its mangos are organic. That makes it very difficult to fraudulently sell you mangos that are not organic.
Walmart is great at removing costs from their supply chain – maybe the best in the world. Now, they can build in a delivery price guarantee into the system, without human intervention. It works like this. Using a smart contract (code that represents an agreement) Walmart can say they will pay a certain amount for mangos that show up on the shipping dock within a specific shipment window. And, they can do that without having to create paperwork representing a different price for a late shipment. The payment to the late shipper gets changed automatically, based on the code in the smart contract.
If the refrigerator truck in which the mangos are being shipped has a malfunction, the mangos could go bad. The shipper might not realize there’s a problem, and Walmart might not realize there’s a problem, but the consumer will be very unhappy. If the transportation company has thermometers on their truck continually report the temperature of the truck during transport, then Walmart will know that the mangos are fresh when they arrive, ensuring high quality. And, this is done automatically on the blockchain due to a trusted source of information (the thermometers) communicating with the smart contract that has set the temperature parameters.
Sometimes mangos need to be recalled for one reason or another. Without the blockchain, Walmart might have to remove many thousands of mangos to ensure no customer gets a bad one. With the blockchain, Walmart now knows exactly what mangos need to be taken off the shelf. This ensures the bad mangos are removed. Yes, other technologies exist today that can do something similar as it’s related to tracking mangos. However, what the blockchain does is provide a higher level of confidence that fraud did not occur at some point along the way to protect the entity that enabled bad mangos to happen in the first place.
Today, a lot of intermediate transactions can exist in a transportation process. For example, transactions between the farmer and the broker; between the broker and the shipper; between the shipper and Walmart. These transactions usually require people to approve or deny some aspect of the movement of products. Through smart contracts, a lot of these approvals can be automated and sped up by removing people from the equation. This both reduces costs and speeds up the process.
Of course, this is only one example of an application that can transform an industry. Many, many other applications are being built to address very different use cases. I recommend you start to become educated on what is going on so you can get ahead of the curve.
Glenn Gow
By Glenn Gow is the Marketing Partner at Clear Ventures, a CEO Coach, Board Member and Advisor, and a Blockchain Strategist.
Is bitcoin a scam?
Is bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
Is bitcoin one humongous scam or Ponzi scheme? Before I answer that question, let’s look at the four typical characteristics of a Ponzi scheme.
First of all, there must be a promoter for the scheme. It may be a single individual or a corporation.
The key point here is that there is a single party promoting (and thus benefiting from) the scheme. The second characteristic is the promised return.
To attract gullible investors the scheme will promise unrealistic sky-high returns. The saying “if it is too good to be true, it probably is” always applies in this scenario.
The third characteristic pertains to the investment’s liquidity, which simply means how easy it is to get out once you are in. The promoter will tend to discourage investors from cashing out using and will do so using one or more of these three approaches.
The stick approach is where the investor loses a portion of his investment if he withdraws early.
Conversely the carrot approach entices the investor to stay in by promising even higher returns the longer he keeps the funds invested.
Finally the “too-good-not-to-share” approach requires the investor to find a new investor to take over his investment. In short, he needs to look for new fools to buy him out.
Yes, the Ponzi scheme’s liquidity is at the mercy of the promoter’s whim and fancy.
Thus we come to the fourth characteristic. Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of new investors (read: new money) to fund the payout to early investors.
Before the promoter vanishes into thin air, a small number of EARLY investors DO actually get to cash out and enjoy the ridiculous returns. This is done intentionally by the promoter to “instill” confidence in the scheme as these early investors will help to bring in new investors.
Let’s apply these four characteristics to Bitcoin. The decentralised nature of bitcoin means that there is never a single party promoting bitcoin.
One may argue that there are plenty of people promoting the virtues of bitcoin.
However these are all unrelated parties, akin to different investment advisers promoting the virtues of gold as an investment.
What about returns?
Yes, bitcoin has provided spectacular profits to some investors in the past year.
However these profits were never promised in the first place. In fact people have lost money trading bitcoins, in spite its meteoric rise. This is due to the extreme volatility of the price.
Does bitcoin have sufficient liquidity that is, can you get out? All the recent headlines about regulators and banks freezing the accounts of crypto-related transactions have given the impression that it is hard-to-get-out once you are in.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. The decentralised nature means that there are so many alternatives for selling bitcoins, although not all are convenient.
Finally, are bitcoin investors who are late to the party effectively funding the early investors’ profits?
On that note, bitcoin may sound similar to a Ponzi scheme.
Then again the same can be said of investors who entered the markets at the peak of the dotCom bubble or the housing bubble.
This is a zero-sum game.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the existence of numerous proven scams out there that uses or references Bitcoin.
To counter that point, note that these scams never actually put money into bitcoin, merely hitching a ride on the bitcoin bandwagon and hype.
Prior to the emergence of cryptocurrencies, Ponzi schemes already existed. These schemes claim to use special techniques to generate spectacular profits from various asset classes such as commodities or real estate. Do you hear anyone labelling real estate as a Ponzi?
That said, I must make the point clear that one can easily lose a fortune putting hard earned money into either bitcoins or a Ponzi scheme. Nevertheless, bitcoin is not a scam or Ponzi scheme, as outlined by the points above.
Source: The Star, by Chong Jin Yoong, CFA, is a financial markets trainer and consultant.
Readers can learn more about whole bitcoin and cryptocurrency saga at a talk organised by The Star on Feb 10 entitled “Bitcoin: Dive in or stay away?”
Related Links:
Bitcoin’s Big Wipeout Erased $46 Billion of Value Last … – Bloomberg
Watch Video:
Bitcoin: Dive In or Stay Away – Events by Star Media Group
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Hey everyone,
I am not sure how to ask this, but this is what I am wondering.
I am new to JS and am looking at a lot of webpages' sources. The thing that keeps coming up that I can't figure out is when you click a button (whatever it may be: next, submit, etc) how does it compare the input value to whatever it has. The button is given the input type = 'submit' but it doesn't explain where its destination is or what its comparing inputed data with.
Hope I explained well enough.
p.s. Thanks for any replies, and I have tried to look this question up; however, appears to be to vague.
6 Years
Discussion Span
Last Post by Airshow
Submit buttons are a feature of HTML, not javascript.
They work in association with the <form>...</form> in which they are embedded.
• The form tag's action attribute determines the URL that is requested
• The form tag's method attribute (GET or POST) determines how the form data (user inputs and selections) are packaged into the HTTP request.
Javascript can be used to intercept a form submission after a submit button is pressed in order to perform, for example, validation checks. Javascript can suppress form submission on failure to validate, or allow submission if everything appears to be OK.
Edited by Airshow: n/a
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Environmental Conservation Activities
Report Copyright Infringement View in OSM UK View in OSM NZ
Cubs to complete quiz introducing the cubs to the elements to be covered for the badge. Complete in sixes.
Discussion around what we can do to conserve energy. Create posters to encourage energy conservation.
What is renewable energy?
Quiz sheets, paper for posters, pens,
cubs to complete quiz in their sixes and a discuss answers as a pack.
discuss conservation- why do we need to conserve energy? what different things can we encourage people to do?
What is meant by renewable? What sort of types of renewables do you get? What are its advantages? What are its disadvantages?
• conservation
• energy
• recycle
• reduce
Badge Links
• Environmental Conservation - Reduce
• Environmental Conservation - Renewable
• Environmental Conservation - Rubbish
• World - Environment |
What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.
8 things you didn’t know about the electric guitar
1. Most people misunderstand who invented the electric guitar.
WAUKESHA, WI - JUNE 08: The Log, a 4x4 piece of lumber with a bridge, guitar neck and pickup attached, is featured in the Les Paul exhibit, "Les Paul: The Wizard of Waukesha" in Waukesha, Wisconsin on JUNE 08, 2013. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
3. The science behind the electric guitar: electromagnetism.
When the electric guitar was new on the music scene in the 1930s and 1940s, jazz musicians, blues artists and country stars were the first to include it in their songs. Other famous musicians to use the electric guitar in its early years are jazz artists Eddie Durham and Oscar Moore, country stars Noel Boggs and Merle Travis and blues artists T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.
By the 1980s, guitarists seemed to be just as concerned about the look as they were about the sound of their axes, transforming the role of the guitar into more of an identifying signature. Eddie Van Halen decorated his guitars with colored tape and named two of his custom guitars Frankenstein and Frankenstein 2. The guitars were known as the “Frankenstrats” because they were Van Halen’s attempt to combine the sound of a classic Gibson guitar with the physical attributes of a Fender Stratocaster. He would paint the guitars, and then place tape over them to finish off the design.
6. Dylan boycotted the Newport Folk Festival for 37 years after protesters booed his electric sound.
When Bob Dylan performed a rock ‘n’ roll set at the Newport Folk Festival, the crowd had mixed reactions, simultaneously shouting and booing at the genre-bending performer. Singer/songwriter Pete Seeger, who was on the sidelines, was rumored to have complained about the new sound. Some accounts say that “Seeger was looking for an axe so he [could] literally chop his electric cords to cut off the sound,” Riley said. Seeger himself has disputed the story, saying he was onlycomplaining about the poor sound quality at the festival.
The electric guitar was considered to be reckless and flashy during the time, and when Dylan went electric, many folk fans called him a sell-out, likening him to popular sensation the Beatles, according to NPR music critic Tim Riley. Dylan refused to return to the Newport Folk Festival until 2002.
Dylan’s guitar sold for exactly $965,000 in Dec. 2013 through Christie’s Auction House. Before that, the most expensive guitar sold at an auction was Eric Clapton’s “Blackie,” a custom-made black Fender Stratocaster, which sold for $959,500 in 2004. Clapton’s guitar was assembled from different parts of three different Strats. After he retired his beloved instrument in the mid-1980s, it was sold at Christie’s auction in support of Crossroads Centre, the addiction rehabilitation center Clapton founded.
Along with Dylan’s guitar, Christie’s auctioned handwritten and typed lyric fragments found inside his guitar case. They were early editions of some of Dylan’s songs. One of the five fragments sold for $20,000. It contained draft lyrics for “I Wanna Be Your Lover.”
Riley said instead of investing in an electric guitar as a kid, he made his acoustic guitar into an electric guitar using parts of a vinyl player. “It was expensive and I was only a kid,” he said. The way to do it is to take the needle and tone arm from the vinyl player’s phonograph and attach them to the bridge of the guitar. The sound then comes from the phonograph speaker. The sound quality isn’t that good, but you will be the proud owner of an electric guitar.
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For saving space and soil, this method also has several
other benefits, including no soil-borne diseases, no
benefits of soil-less gardening.
Maintaining a Soilless Gardening Environment
With soilless gardening, you have the ability to control all of the influencing factors associated with plant growth including light, temperature, etc. In the soilless gardening environment all of these important elements are easily maintained as opposed to regular gardening using soil. For instance, you choose the type of light and how much is appropriate. You designate suitable temperature settings as well as proper humidity and pH levels. Soilless gardening is easier to manage and much less time consuming.
Find Greenhouse at Outdoor Decor
The implementation of hydroponic fertilizer keeps plant growth healthy and vigorous. Plants can be given a growing medium such as gravel, sand, perlite, or even air; however, this is not a factor in the aiding of growth. It is merely an anchor for the plant.
The continual supply of nutrient solution is what produces healthier growth. The aeroponic method of soilless gardening does not involve using a growing medium. Instead, the solution is sprayed directly onto the roots of hanging plants. An additional bonus to soilless gardening is the fact that there are no weeds, no pests, and no soil-borne diseases to worry with.
There are several methods that can be used in soilless gardening. One of the simplest includes the passive technique where you determine when and how to water the plants. For instance, the 'wick' method is a form of passive soilless gardening in which the plants are housed in Styrofoam trays that float on top of the nutrient solution.
The roots of these plants simply soak up this solution as needed. Other soilless gardening techniques include the use of pumps and/or timers. The flood and drain method, for example, involves the flooding of individual pots or growing trays with nutrient solution which is then drained back into a designated reservoir.
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Saturday, August 9, 2008
Hepatitis C Virus
There are six basic genotypes of HCV, with 15 recorded subtypes, which vary in prevalence in different regions of the world. Each of these major genotypes can differ significantly in their biological effects - in terms of replication, mutation rates, type and severity of liver damage, and detection and treatment options. However, these differences are not yet clearly understood.
The infection is often asymptomatic, and can often lead to chronic infection and cause inflammation of the liver (chronic hepatitis). This condition can progress to scarring of the liver (fibrosis), and advanced scarring (cirrhosis). In some cases, those with cirrhosis will go on to develop liver failure or other complications of cirrhosis, including liver cancer. No effective vaccine against hepatitis C is available. The symptoms of infection can be medically managed, and a proportion of patients can be somewhat cleared of the virus by a course of anti-viral medicines. Although early medical intervention is helpful, people with HCV infection can experience mild symptoms, and consequently do not seek treatment. (Approximately 150-200 million or more) people are infected with hepatitis C world wide.
Although HCV is not known to efficiently be transmitted sexually, persons at risk for infection through injection drug use might seek care in STD treatment facilities, HIV counseling and testing facilities, prisons/and or correctional facilities, drug treatment facilities, and other public health settings where STD and HIV prevention and control services are available.
HCV is most efficiently transmitted through large or repeated percutaneous exposure to infected blood (e.g., through transfusion of blood from non screened donors or through use of injecting drugs). Although much less frequent, occupational, Perinatal, and sexual exposures also can result in transmission of HCV.
In most of the developed countries, the people at risks of HCV infection include; Current or former injection drug users, including those who injected only once many years ago, Recipients of clotting factor concentrates made before 1987 when more advanced methods for manufacturing those products were developed, Recipients of blood transfusions or solid organ transplants before July 1992 when better testing of blood donors became available, Chronic hemodialysis patients, Persons with known exposures to HCV such as health care workers after needle sticks involving HCV-positive blood recipients of blood or organs from a donor who tested HCV-positive Persons with HIV infection, Children born to HCV-positive mothers.
Yes. Approximately 15%–25% of persons clear the virus from their bodies without treatment and do not develop chronic infection; the reasons for this are not well known. HCV infection becomes chronic in approximately 75%–85% of cases.
Why most persons remain chronically infected with HCV?
What are the chances of developing chronic HCV infection/liver disease, cirrhosis, or liver cancer or dying as a result of hepatitis C.?
For every 100 persons infected with HCV, approximately 75–85 will go on to develop chronic infection 60–70 will go on to develop chronic liver disease, 5–20 will go on to develop cirrhosis over a period of 20–30 years, 1–5 will die from the consequences of chronic infection (liver cancer or cirrhosis). And persons can become infected with a different strain of HCV after they have cleared the initial infection. Prior infection with HCV does not protect against later infection with the same or different genotypes of the virus. This is because persons infected with HCV typically have an ineffective immune response due to changes in the virus during infection.
For the same reason, no effective pre- or post exposure prophylaxis (i.e., immune globulin) is available. Currently there is no vaccine for hepatitis C available. Research into the development of a vaccine is still ongoing.
Transmission and Symptoms:
How HCV is transmitted:
HCV is transmitted primarily through large or repeated percutaneous (i.e., passage through the skin) exposures to infectious blood, such as Injection drug use. Receipt of donated blood, blood products, and organs (once a common means of transmission but now rare in most developed countries, Needle stick injuries in healthcare settings, Birth to an HCV-infected mother, HCV can also be spread infrequently through:
Sex with an HCV-infected person (an inefficient means of transmission),Sharing personal items contaminated with infectious blood, such as razors or toothbrushes (also inefficient vectors of transmission). Other healthcare procedures that involve invasive procedures, such as injections (usually recognized in the context of outbreaks)
Can HCV be spread during medical or dental procedures?
Yes, therefore Standard Precautions and other infection control practices should be followed routinely and consistently. There are However cases that HCV has been spread in healthcare settings when injection equipment, such as syringes, was shared between patients or when injectable medications or intravenous solutions were mishandled and became contaminated with blood. Healthcare personnel should understand and adhere to Standard Precautions, which includes safe injection practices and other guidance aimed at reducing blood borne pathogen risks for patients and healthcare personnel. If healthcare-associated HCV infection is suspected, this should be reported to state and local public health authorities.
Can HCV be spread within a household?
Signs and symptoms of acute HCV infection:
Persons with newly acquired HCV infection usually are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms that are unlikely to prompt a visit to a healthcare professional. When symptoms occur, they can include; Fever, Fatigue, Dark urine, Clay-colored And approximately 20%–30% of those newly infected with HCV experience fatigue, abdominal pain, poor appetite, or jaundice. In those persons who do develop symptoms, the average time period from exposure to symptom onset is 4–12 weeks (range: 2–24 weeks).
Signs and symptoms of chronic HCV infection:
Testing and Diagnosis HCV testing is recommended for anyone at increased risk for HCV infection, including:
Persons who have ever injected illegal drugs, including those who injected only once many years ago Recipients of clotting factor concentrates made before 1987, Recipients of blood transfusions or solid organ transplants before July 1992, Patients who have ever received long-term hemodialysis treatment.
Persons with known exposures to HCV, such as health care workers after needle sticks involving HCV-positive blood recipients of blood or organs from a donor who later tested HCV-positive
All persons with HIV infection. Patients with signs or symptoms of liver disease (e.g., abnormal liver enzyme tests), Children born to HCV-positive mothers (to avoid detecting maternal antibody, these children should not be tested before age 18 months)Several tests are performed for HCV infection,including; Screening tests for antibody to HCV (anti-HCV)enzyme immunoassay(EIA)enhanced chemiluminescence immunoassay (CIA)Recombinant immunoblot assay(RIBA)Qualitative tests to detect presence or absence of virus (HCV RNA polymerase chain reaction [PCR])Quantitative tests to detect amount (titer) of virus (HCV RNA PCR).
Persons with early HCV infection might not yet have developed antibody levels high enough that the test can measure which might result into a false negative. In addition, some persons might lack the (immune) response necessary for the test to work well. In these persons, further testing such as PCR for HCV RNA may be considered. A confirmed positive anti-HCV test is usually followed by other additional tests such as ALT (alanine aminotransferase, a liver enzyme). An elevated ALT indicates inflammation of the liver. The patient should be checked further for chronic liver disease and possible treatment. The evaluation should be performed by a medical doctor/ healthcare professional familiar with chronic hepatitis C. Also one can have a normal liver enzyme (e.g., ALT) level and still have chronic hepatitis C. It is common for patients with chronic hepatitis C to have liver enzyme levels that go up and down, with periodic returns to normal or near normal levels. Liver enzyme levels can remain normal for over a year despite chronic liver disease.
Management and Treatment:
HCV-positive persons should be evaluated (by referral or consultation, if appropriate) for presence of chronic liver disease, including assessment of liver function tests, evaluation for severity of liver disease and possible treatment, and determination of the need for hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccination. A specialist can be consulted in the management of HCV-infected persons but, any physician who manages a person with hepatitis C should be knowledgeable and current on all aspects of the care of a person with hepatitis C; this can include some internal medicine and family practice physicians as well as specialists such as infectious disease physicians, gastroenterologists, or hepatologists.
Treatment for chronic hepatitis C:
Combination therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin is the treatment of choice, resulting in sustained virologic response (defined as undetectable HCV RNA in the patient's blood 24 weeks after the end of treatment) rates of 40%–80% (up to 50% for patients infected with genotype 1, and up to 80% for patients infected with genotypes 2 or 3). Combination therapy using interferon and ribavirin is approved for use in children ages 3–17 years in some countries. Treatment success rates are now being improved with the addition of polymerase and protease inhibitors to standard pegylated interferon/ribavirin combination therapy. At least six distinct HCV genotypes (genotypes 1–6) and more than 50 subtypes have been identified. It is necessary to do viral genotyping when managing a person with chronic hepatitis C. Because there are at least six known genotypes and more than 50 subtypes of HCV, genotype information is helpful in defining the epidemiology of hepatitis C and in making recommendations regarding treatment.
Knowing the genotype can help predict the likelihood of treatment response and, in many cases, determine the duration of treatment. Patients with genotypes 2 and 3 are almost three times more likely than patients with genotype 1 to respond to therapy with alpha interferon or the combination of alpha interferon and ribavirin. When using combination therapy, the recommended duration of treatment depends on the genotype. For patients with genotypes 2 and 3, a 24-week course of combination treatment is adequate, whereas for patients with genotype 1, a 48-week course is recommended. Once the genotype is identified, it need not be tested again; genotypes do not change during the course of infection. Super-infection is possible if risk behaviors (e.g., injection drug use) for HCV infection continue, but it is believed to be very uncommon.
Does chronic hepatitis C affect only the liver?
A small percentage of persons with chronic HCV infection develop medical conditions due to hepatitis C that are not limited to the liver. These conditions are thought to be attributable to the body's immune response to HCV infection. Such conditions can include;Diabetes mellitus, which occurs three times more frequently in HCV-infected persons, Glomerulonephritis, a type of kidney disease caused by inflammation of the kidney, Essential mixed cryoglobulinemia, a condition involving the presence of abnormal proteins in the blood, Porphyria cutanea tarda, an abnormality in heme production that causes skin fragility and blistering, Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which might occur somewhat more frequently in HCV-infected persons, Counseling Patients.
Patients should be informed about the low but present risk for transmission with sex partners. Sharing personal items that might have blood on them, such as toothbrushes or razors, can pose a risk to others. Cuts and sores on the skin should be covered to keep from spreading infectious blood or secretions. Donating blood, organs,tissue, or semen can spread HCV to others. HCV is not spread by sneezing, hugging, holding hands, coughing, sharing eating utensils or drinking glasses, or through food or water. Patients may benefit from joining support group.
HCV-positive persons should be advised to avoid alcohol because it can accelerate cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease. Viral hepatitis patients should also check with a health professional before taking any new prescription pills, over-the counter drugs (such as non-aspirin pain relievers), or supplements, as these can potentially damage the liver.
Hepatitis C and Healthcare Personnel:
What is the risk for HCV infection from a needle stick exposure to HCV-contaminated blood?
After a needle stick or sharps exposure to HCV-positive blood, the risk of HCV infection is approximately 1.8% (range: 0%–10%).
Other than needle sticks, do other exposures, such as splashes to the eye, pose a risk to healthcare personnel for HCV transmission?
Although a few cases of HCV transmission via blood splash to the eye have been reported, the risk for such transmission is expected to be very low. Avoiding occupational exposure to blood is the primary way to prevent transmission of blood borne illnesses among healthcare personnel. All healthcare personnel should adhere to Standard Precautions. Depending on the medical procedure involved, Standard Precautions may include the appropriate use of personal protective equipment (e.g., gloves, masks, and protective eyewear).
What follow-up testing is recommended for healthcare personnel exposed to HCV-positive blood?
For the source, perform baseline testing for anti-HCV.For the person exposed to a HCV-positive source, perform baseline and follow-up testing, including baseline testing for anti-HCV and ALT activity and follow-up testing for anti-HCV (e.g., at 4–6 months) and ALT activity. If earlier diagnosis of HCV infection is desired, testing for HCV RNA may be performed at 4–6weeks. Confirmation by supplemental anti-HCV testing of all anti-HCV results reported as positive by enzyme immunoassay.
Pregnancy and HCV Infection:
Should pregnant women be routinely tested for anti-HCV?
Approximately 4 of every 100 infants born to HCV-infected mothers become infected with the virus. Transmission occurs at the time of birth, and no prophylaxis is available to prevent it. The risk is increased by the presence of maternal HCV viremia at delivery and also is 2–3 times greater if the woman is co-infected with HIV. Most infants infected with HCV at birth have no symptoms and do well during childhood. More research is needed to find out the long-term effects of Perinatal HCV infection.
Should a woman with HCV infection be advised against breastfeeding?
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Knowing Syphilis And Its Dangers
Knowing Syphilis And Its Dangers
The width of а turn-up, the angle of a breast pocket, an extra eighth-᧐f-an-inch on the heel of a shoe: deliberating suⅽh matters ᴡith one's tailors cօuld taқe ‘mаny hours of concentration', sаys Phillip Mann іn tһis study of the ramifications ᧐f coat buttons and lapel-lengths. Sexual intercourse һas a lot of positive benefits fоr bоth physical ɑnd psychological health.
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Therefore, yoᥙ sometimеs heaг ɑbout ѕomeone dying dսгing thｅ intercourse. Viruses mаy also directly attack tһe linings of tһe brain (meninges) аnd cɑuse meningitis. Encephalitis iѕ an inflammation (irritation ɑnd swelling) of the brain ɑnd caused of moѕtly infections. One of the most dangerous ɑnd the most common caᥙѕe of encephalitis is tһe herpes simplex virus (HSV).
Ηowever, in some cаѕеs, sexual relations ϲan lead to conditions thɑt will kill you. If the meninges are inflamed as wｅll aѕ the brain, tһe condition іs caⅼled meningoencephalitis. Ƭhe brain iѕ damaged when the inflamed brain pаrts push аgainst tһe skull. Encephalitis іs more serious thɑn meningitis. Ӏt іs аlso reρorted thаt sexual activity іs the reason tһat cause about оne per cent of heart attacks.
Ƭhere are many ѡays tһɑt sexual intercourse cɑn kill you. Ӏn 25% of casеs, pɑrticularly in women, the bacterium seldom tսrns into a disease аnd dies օn itѕ own. The best ᴡay to fight the bacteria during tһe first stage iѕ by prevention, whіch сɑn be done only by serological testing. Ways to fight syphilis bacteria ｖary accоrding to the stage ߋf the disease, thе clinical manifestations, and thе patient's medical history.
There arе ɑlso alternative treatments fοr syphilis patients ԝith penicillin allergies, including oral tetracycline ɑnd doxycycline. Ϝriday:
Reports surfaced that thе GOP wаs cօnsidering including an annual $2,400 cap f᧐r traditional, tax-deferred 401(k)ѕ and IRAs
Concerns pop up that this may depress average Americans' propensity tօ save for retirement. If, һowever, syphilis succeѕsfully develops, tһe sec᧐nd, thіrd, and fourth stages ϲalⅼ fоr ⅼong-lasting penicillin injections, рarticularly penicillin regimes that employ intramuscular injections ᥙsing procaine penicillin or benzathine penicillin. Herpes progenitalis іs an accepted derma infection tһat ⅽan affect the animal region.
HSV іs the ѕame virus thɑt ⅽauses cold sores ɑround tһe mouth, bսt when іt attacks the brain it may be fatal in as mɑny aѕ half of newborns wһo Ьecome infected and up to 28% of individuals aftｅr tһe newborn period. Why elѕe, the lawyers argued, ԝould tһey Ƅe so incomprehensible — ѕo fuⅼl оf wildly obscure literary references аnd untranslated gobbets օf Italian, Greek, German, Latin and Chinese?
Sexually transmitted diseases агe caused by dіfferent bacteria οr viruses. Not only thаt, but the poems tһat haԀ been so admired just a few yeɑrs befⲟre noԝ ƅecame furtheг evidence of hiѕ lunacy. It occurs at any age, but it is a lⲟt of frequently apparent in adolescent sexually alive adults.
Ӏt spreads when thｅ syphilis bacteria ɑre transmitted. Syphilis іs a transmitted disease caused ƅу a spirochaete bacterium, Treponema pallidum. Аn afire ⲟr acerbic awareness аbout precedes tһe access by a feѡ һߋurs oг dаys. Thе current contribution cap for a 401(k) iѕ $18,000 a year foг people under the age of 50.
Syphilis has a myriad of presentations аnd ⅽan mimic many օther infections ɑnd immune-mediated processes іn advanced stages. Syphilis cɑn Ьe frightening bеcаuse if it goеs untreated, іt can lead obat sipilis ampuh tօ serious health problemѕ and increase a person'ѕ risk foг HIV, tһe human immunodeficiency virus tһat causes AIDS.
Not ｅveryone knows the imрortant information that can help prevent the occurrence of such diseases; tһere are varying details tһat cаn obat sipilis herbal be confusing and misleading. |
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How To Target Bunions
Bunions Callous
Bunion is the common term for a medical condition known as Hallux Valgus. Hallux Valgus is the tilting of the toe away from the mid-line of the body. It is usually characterized by a lump or bump that is red, swollen and/or painful on the inside of the foot in and around the big toe joint.
The commonest cause of bunions is prolonged wearing of poorly designed shoes such as the narrow high heels that women wear. This is one of the reasons why bunions are much more common in women than in men. There is also a hereditary component to bunions in that many times we will see a grandmother, mother and daughter all with various stages of bunions. 38% of women in the United States wear shoes that are too small and 55% of women have some degree of bunion formation. Bunions are 9 times more common in women than they are in men.
Non Surgical Treatment
Bunions Callous
Surgical Treatment
When the pain of a bunion interferes with daily activities, and conservative treatment has been completed it’s time to discuss surgical options. Foot Mechanics has excellent relationships with many Orthopaedic Surgeons, who are the specialists who perform bunion surgery. Because bunions are caused by faulty foot mechanics surgery can improve the look of your feet by removing the ?bump? but if the underlying mechanics are not addressed then the bunion is likely to return. For this reason orthotics are used post-surgery to prevent the return of bunions.
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October 16, 2009
Today is the 150th anniversary of the raid by John Brown and twenty-one courageous others on Harpers Ferry that sparked the Second American Revolution, otherwise known as the "Civil War." We're still in need of a Third Revolution, one that abolishes white supremacy and wage slavery. In that spirit, I'm reprinting a statement by Noel Ignatiev and the Race Traitor editorial collective that was read at Brown's gravesite at a memorial event in 1999 honoring the abolitionist's birth:
Renew the Legacy of John Brown
If the task of the nineteenth century was to overthrow slavery, and the task of the twentieth century was to end legal segregation, the key to solving this country's problems in the twenty-first century is to abolish the white race as a social category - in other words, eradicate white supremacy entirely.
John Brown represents the abolitionist cause. Nominally white, he made war against slavery, working closely with black people. Those who think it saner to collaborate with evil than to resist it have labeled him a madman, but it was not for his madness that he was hanged; no, it was for obeying the biblical injunction to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. For those who suffer directly from white supremacy, John Brown is a high point in a centuries-long history of resistance; for so-called whites he is the hope that they can step outside of their color and take part in building a new human community.
John Brown's body lies a-mould'rin' in the grave, but his soul calls out to the living. He is buried alongside family members and comrades-at-arms near North Elba, New York, in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains, which he often said had been placed there to serve the emancipation of the American slave. For many years African Americans and others celebrated May 9th, the anniversary of his birth, by gathering at his gravesite. We call upon those who share the vision of a country without racial walls to join hands there in 1999 (his one hundred and ninety-ninth year) to honor his memory and the memory of the others, black and white, who fought alongside him, and to rededicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the tasks for which they laid down their lives.
Signed by:
Russell Banks, Derrick Bell, John Bracey, Robin D.G. Kelley, Martin Espada, Herbert Hill, Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Theresa Perry, Ishmael Reed, David Roediger, Sapphire, Pete Seeger, Dorothy Sterling, Cornel West, Howard Zinn, and the editors of RACE TRAITOR.
Frances Madeson said...
“We're still in need of a Third Revolution, one that abolishes white supremacy and wage slavery.”
From Communiqué from an Absent Future http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/communique-from-an-absent-future/
HumanProject said...
WWJBD? Where is the guy!
I was surprised that National Public Radio did a story today covering how "Across the country, people are honoring the 150th anniversary of abolitionist John Brown's unsuccessful raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry."
The public at large has given its consent to wage slavery; it's not seen as immoral, just the way things are.
There's also plenty of 'real' slavery around, of the 'Disposable people' and human trafficking kind, but no John Brown even when human beings are bought and sold. |
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Where do the words come from?
In stillness and quiet
Every simple thing
is set in stone
Never to be
taken away
The explication
and application
a wandering voice
Given freedom
a chance
to breathe
upon the page
Gerry Boyd said...
Nice. Also, where does anything come from? Or, why not nothing. Let go into the mystery.
William H. Balzac said...
Gerry~ The mystery of where our words come from is what I was trying to highlight. The question you raise is an important one. Why choose one way to express a thought? What impels one to seek greater metaphors, or symbols, or emotion, from the words we use? It is what we look for in poetry; that unseen element which makes a singular view, universal.
Thank you for seeing this & commenting.
alwayswinner786 said...
What a wonderful thought William!
Keep sharing.
Your friend Always.
William H. Balzac said...
Alwayswinner786~~It's a writers thought for sure. The mystery of our wordsmithing is one I've thought about for a long time. Words, really are so important; the words we use must be logical, thoughtful in conveying things we may not have known that we knew. That's mystery: How do we know what we know?; and, how can that slight bit of knowing be articulated in an interesting way: A thought of Thinking Person's Poem, where the reader doesn't have to do a lot of thinking...The flow of the words & the meaning is clear.
Thanks, again, for being a friend & follower
Lil Bit said...
Where? ... from our superconscience. lol ;)
No matter where, let them come.
William H. Balzac said...
Lil Bit~~That where all our thoughts come from! Our super-conscience!lol!
Let it ride, s/h! |
Tips for clean in place (CIP) and steam in place (SIP) processes
SIP or Steam-In-Place
SIP stands for Steam-In-Place and is a common operation used in the Food, Beverage & Biotechnology industries to ensure to kill organisms in a process system. The operation uses thermal energy of condensing steam to sterilise the system.
clean in place CIP and steam in place SIP processes
Clean in place
Steam-in-place or Sterilisation-in-place is often used before clean in place operations. Clean in place or CIP cleaning is deployed to remove processing soils as the thermal resistance of microorganisms and spores can be enhanced by the protective effects of process soil, thus making SIP processes less effective.
Cleaning-In-Place (CIP) and Sterilization-In-Place (SIP) are systems designed for automatic cleaning and disinfecting without major disassembly and assembly work.
Here at PIF, we get asked all the time about the rules and guidelines for SIP processes, so here is our Top 10 SIP Tips (provided by Process Industry experts, Haskell).
Clean in place application
SIP guidelines for sterile process systems:
1. Perform Clean-In-Place (CIP) operations before SIP operations – to remove processing soils.
2. Confirm steam supply header presser and temperature – to ensure a saturated steam supply
3. Introduce saturated steam supply as high as possible in the system to push out ambient system gases through monitored process low points.
4. Install low point steam trap blocking valves and temperature sensors to measure temperature at process low points.
5. Use monitored high point air bleeds to ensure complete elimination of air from the processing system.
6. Avoid parallel steam paths as pressure differences during the air removal stage can prevent proper steam exposure and will result in sterility failures.
7. Plan SIP operation to have steam flow and process flow in the same direction to take advantage of the existing process piping pitch and support for process drainability – avoid hoses, dead-ends and non-drainable low points.
8. Include a time delay following saturated steam to allow system components to achieve the desired set point temperature.
9. Provide a means of active steam flow to the process during SIP hold to ensure required thermal treatment has been achieved.
10. Finally, protect the sterile process boundary as the condensate is drained from the system
For more information about SIP or CIP processes, read this detailed article covering SIP guidelines for sterilisation of process systems.
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March 1, 2011 / arthill
Shutter speed, f-stop and ISO
Plenty of people take wonderful photographs without much understanding of just how the camera settings control light. They understand a few basics like using a fast shutter speed for action, using a tripod for very slow shutterspeeds, boosting ISO in dim light and so on. Lots of folks just set the camera on automatic and concentrate on the subject. Nothing wrong with any of this and if the above describes you it’s okay. But.. if you want to really move to the next level of photography you need to have a pretty firm grasp of the interaction of the three things you can control.
These three settings work together to determine how much light gets through your camera lens. In anything other than full manual mode, if you change one of these then at least one of the others needs to change. Various combinations of these settings let in the same amount of light – of course there are other consequences.
Shutter speed and f-stop are the main players on this stage. Before digital photography they were the only things you could adjust once you loaded your film camera with film of a certain ISO. So let’s look at these two.
fstop-shutter speed
Imagine that the amount of light required for a proper exposure of your subject is contained in a cylinder which will pass through your lens. Assume that the camera tells you that f11 and 1/125 are the correct aperture and shutter speeds. That’s a pretty tall cylinder such as that pictured on the left. It will take 1/125th of a second for the cylinder to pass through your lens. Maybe it’s windy and you want a faster shutter speed so you set the camera to 1/250th of a second. You have cut in half the time that the lens will be open to accept all that light. Perhaps you can see that if the cylinder remained tall it would only make it halfway through before the shutter closed. So, the cylinder is going to need to be wider – twice as wide in fact, to get the right amount of light through. So your camera will tell you that f8 is the proper f-stop. (I know, it makes no sense that f8 is twice as wide as f11). If you change the shutter speed to 1/500th the cylinder is going to have to be twice as wide again – f5.6. These two settings then work hand in hand to allow a certain amount of light. If you double one then you must halve the other and vice versa. If you change the aperture (f-stop) the shutter speed will change in direct relation, i.e. changing the f-stop from f4 to f5.6 cuts the lens opening in half and requires a longer (by half) shutter speed.
The third variable is ISO. This number refers to “sensitivity” – how much light does there need to be for a reasonable picture. In the old film days, color film generally was available with an ISO of 25 or 50 or 100 or 400. Black and white film could go as high as ISO 1600. The lower the number the more light needed. Digital cameras provide ISO’s of 50 to 1600 or even 3200 and higher. PIcture the film plate of your camera as a cube that needs to be filled with light.
Maybe you can see where this is going. That first cube, at ISO 100, needs a lot of light. So it is going to require a pretty big cylinder – some combination of relatively wide open f-stop and or slow shutter speed. If you set the camera to ISO 200 you are cutting in half the amount of light that will be needed. If you followed the explanation above about f-stop and shutter speed you’re thinking to yourself “hey I can double the shutter speed or halve the f-stop”. Bingo! That’s exactly how it works. Let’s say you’ve opened up your lens as wide as it can go at f4. The shutter speed the camera wants to use is just too slow, say 1/15th. So you bump the ISO to 200 and presto the camera now wants to use 1/30th. Maybe you’re in a museum and nothing works as ISO 100 or ISO 200. You go on up to ISO 800 or even ISO 1600, cutting that cube pictured above in half with each step. Eventually the camera tells you that it can take a picture at an acceptable shutter speed and f-stop combo.
So then if all these things are equivalent and work together how do you decide which to use? Why not pick a high ISO and middle of the road f-stop and shutter speed and go with it? Well because each of the trio has it’s own cost (feature). Revisiting our first diagram
gears with effect
Shutter speed is perhaps the easiest to understand. For moving subjects you want fast shutter speeds. And if the shutter speed gets too slow (below 1/30th) camera shake can cause blur. The longer the lens (or the more you are zoomed in) the faster the shutter speed needs to be to avoid blur from camera shake. It used to be that a rule of thumb was use a shutter speed at least equal to the length of your lens i.e. with a 250mm telephoto use at least 1/250th. With various vibration reduction technology (known as ISR or VR) built-in to today’s cameras or lenses you can push that a bit though.
The higher the ISO the more “noise” (sometimes thought of as graininess from the film days). So, the lower the ISO the “clearer” your image will be. Some people try to shoot everything at ISO 100. For early digital cameras this was a good idea. Most modern cameras do fine at ISO 400 or ISO 800. If you have a newer DSLR you can get pretty good results even at IS0 1600 so don’t be afraid to crank up that ISO when necessary.
f-stop affects depth of field (DOF). That’s a whole subject for another post but basically DOF has to do with how much of a picture is in focus. At very small f-stops (f22 for example) most everything will be in focus. At very wide (f1.8 for example) DOF will be “shallow” meaning areas of the picture in front of and behind the subject will be out of focus. DOF is much narrower with long lenses (or zoomed out on your compact digital). Macro or close-up photography requires much more attention to DOF than scenics, cityscapes and other “regular” photography. Some of you want to achieve that shallow DOF that you often see in portraits , flower photography, etc. You know the look – the person or flower is sharp but the background is out of focus. This isn’t easy to achieve with the gear most of us have. Reasonably priced lenses only open up to f4 or even smaller. If you buy a “fast” lens with a maximum aperture of 1.8 or 1.4 you can do it but generally with digital cameras and the common lenses you get lots of depth of field. My advice is to concentrate on a sharp subject and don’t worry so much about trying to blur the background. Later you can use your photo editing software to blur the background as much as you want.
Some quick tips that fall out of all this:
1. With a point and shoot camera stay at IS0 200 and below. With a DSLR feel free to go to ISO 400 and even ISO 800.
2. Watch that shutter speed especially with longer lenses or with moving subjects. Nothing ruins a picture worse than camera shake blur.
3. For normal everyday shooting set your camera to f8 in aperture priority mode and see if the camera gives you a shutter speed you like. If it doesn’t, open up the lens. If you’re all the way out to as wide as your lens will open and that isn’t working then boost the ISO.
4. If you’re shooting at a fairly wide open f-stop then concentrate on being sure that the camera focuses on your main subject Sometimes these fancy cameras get fooled and focus on something closer to the camera than your subject. Adjust the autofocus points if your camera offers that or compose the shot with the subject right in the middle, hold the shutter button half way down and then move then camera so that the subject is wherever you want it to be in the frame.
So, that’s it for today. I hope that helps and value your feedback.
Leave a Comment
1. Lesley Bray / Mar 1 2011 2:19 pm
I like the way you explained that Art – do simple to understand.
2. Debbie / Mar 14 2011 12:16 pm
Excellent! One of the camera clubs was having a speaker talk about this topic, and I am not able to go — so this was very much appreciated, and I learned that I’m not too terribly ignorant on this topic.
Thank you, Art!
3. Anamaria Lentsch / Jan 8 2018 11:31 pm
very effectively prepared. it was good to read. Looking forward for Much more of it. Maintain up the good task
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An evening spent refreshing my knowledge on hip flexibility led to an exciting new idea. Followed by an instructional session with my roommates and a quick practice round, I discovered that twerking could be the answer to stubbornly tight hip flexors. They often result in lower back problems, knee problems, and poor form performing certain exercises which can lead to other injuries. Many yoga instructors and fitness-lovers will tell you to just stretch more, stretch in different ways, and just keep stretching. However, new research has shown that stretching may not be the answer, especially since the tightness typically returns regardless of how much stretching you do.
Since hips don’t lie, let’s look at some anatomy first. A basic understanding of the deep muscles of the hips is required for this, so let’s go.
Photo courtesy of
Photo courtesy of
I won’t get into the nitty gritty details (go here if you want that), but let’s talk about the three main muscles. The illiopsoas, rectus femoris, and the sartorius. The illiopsoas consists of both the illiacus and the psoas muscles which are shown in the left image. You can see how the illiacus connects from the femur (thigh bone) to the upper portion of the pelvic bone. The psoas connects in the same place at the femur and extends through the lumbar spine (the lower back). The rectus femoris and sartorius are in the image to the right and depict how hip movements can affect the knee and lower leg. Both extend from the pelvic bone down to the knee cap and inside of the knee respectively. So what does all of this mean?
Well first off, the root of tight hip flexors often comes from the amount of time we spend sitting everyday. And not only sitting, but sitting with poor posture and in unsupportive chairs. The American Heart Association actually just released a new study finding that regular physical activity can’t overcome the negative effects of sitting for more than 6 hours a day – even if you’re a marathon runner. So yeah, standing desks are another idea too. However, sitting too much isn’t the exact answer to why some have chronically tight hip flexors, and the answer might be that we just don’t shake our booties enough.
Hips don't lie.
Hips don’t lie.
What I mean to say is that is derives from the weakness of spinal stabilization in the core. The transverse abdominis is another muscle in the lower back region which helps to stabilize the lumbar spine. A study on lower back injuries found that when this muscle is weak, the psoas muscle will tighten up to assist in stabilizing the lumbar spine. Hence, tighter hip flexors. As trainer Dean Somerset puts it, “if you stretched a short and tight muscle and it regained length, it shouldn’t get tight again, should it? Whereas if the muscle wasn’t technically ‘tight’ but rather holding excessive tone in order to keep your spine from looking more like a losing game of Jenga, stretching it will just give more opportunity for low back pain, and quickly lead to the muscle tensing up again to defend the spine.”
So instead of stretching a muscle that is obviously needed to help balance out a weaker core, let’s strengthen those muscles. Insert core training and booty poppin’. There are many possible exercises to help with this, but I’ve curated a few that will assist with glute activation, core strength, and the mobility of the deep muscles of the hips. This will help with those who sit a lot and have tight hip flexors. It’s also just fun and will give you some new dance moves to work with.
The Twerkout
5-10 minutes warm-up
• Try dancing to your favorite songs with a few short planks and burpees mixed in to prime the muscles
Workout (~5 minutes per round; repeat 3 times)
• One song of twerking
• 1 minute plank (neutral pelvis)
• 1 minute glute bridge
• Kneeling hip flexor stretch
• Pigeon pose
• Foam rolling if available
Here’s my twerkout playlist.
Twerking can be a difficult movement especially for those who do have tight hips, so take the beat at half speed at the beginning and make sure to watch a couple videos like the one below before diving in.
Additionally, it’s important to keep the pelvis in a neutral position while planking for this workout. For many people, this will feel like they are tucking their hips slightly underneath. To know for sure, have a friend watch your positioning to make sure your spine is straight all the way through the hips.
Photo courtesy of
Photo courtesy of
Give it a shot, invite some friends, and make it a party! Let me know how it goes in the comment section, and don’t forget to download the playlist. |
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
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This article is about members of a gang or criminal organization. For other uses, see Gangster (disambiguation).
Some gangsters, such as Al Capone, have become infamous. Gangsters are the subject of many novels and films, particularly from the period between 1920 and 1990.
Contemporary criminals often refer to themselves as "gangsta" in reference to non-rhotic Black American pronunciation.
Yakuza, or Japanese mafia are not allowed to show their tattoos in public except during the Sanja Matsuri festival.
In today's usage, the term "gang" is generally used for a criminal organization, and the term "gangster" invariably describes a criminal.[2] Much has been written on the subject of gangs, although there is no clear consensus about what constitutes a gang or what situations lead to gang formation and evolution. There is agreement that the members of a gang have a sense of common identity and belonging, and this is typically reinforced through shared activities and through visual identifications such as special clothing, tattoos or rings.[3] Some preconceptions may be false. For example, the common view that illegal drug distribution in the United States is largely controlled by gangs has been questioned.[4]
A gang may be a relatively small group of people who cooperate in criminal acts, as with the Jesse James gang, which ended with the leader's death in 1882. But a gang may be a larger group with a formal organization that survives the death of its leader. The Chicago Outfit created by Al Capone outlasted its founder's imprisonment and death, and survived into the 21st century. Large and well structured gangs such as the Mafia, Drug cartels, Triads or even outlaw motorcycle gangs can undertake complex transactions that would be far beyond the capability of one individual, and can provide services such as dispute arbitration and contract enforcement that parallel those of a legitimate government.[5]
Although gangs and gangsters have existed in many countries and at many times in the past, they have played more prominent roles during times of weakened social order or when governments have attempted to suppress access to goods or services for which there is a high demand.[citation needed]
Regional variants
Du Yuesheng (1888-1951), a Chinese gangster and important Kuomintang supporter who spent much of his life in Shanghai
United States and Canada
As American society and culture developed, new immigrants were relocating to the United States. The first major gangs in 19th century New York City were the Irish gangs such as the Whyos and the Dead Rabbits.[20] These were followed by the Italian Five Points Gang and later a Jewish gang known as the Eastman Gang.[21][22] There were also "nativist" anti-immigration gangs such as the Bowery Boys. The American Mafia arose from offshoots of the Mafia that emerged in the United States during the late nineteenth century, following waves of emigration from Sicily. There were similar offshoots in Canada among Italian Canadians.[citation needed]
The terms "gangster" and "mobster" are mostly used in the United States to refer to members of criminal organizations associated with Prohibition or with an American offshoot of the Italian Mafia (such as the Chicago Outfit, the Philadelphia Mafia, or the Five Families).[citation needed] In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution banned the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption. Many gangs sold alcohol illegally for tremendous profit, and used acute violence to stake turf and protect their interest. Often, police officers and politicians were paid off or extorted to ensure continued operation.[24]
Latin America
Notorious individuals
Al Capone
Main article: Al Capone
Mug shot of Al Capone. Although never convicted of racketeering, Capone was convicted of income tax evasion by the federal government.
Al Capone was one of the most influential gangsters during the prohibition period. Born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1899 to immigrant parents, Capone was recruited by members of the Five Points Gang in the early 1920s. Capone’s childhood friend, Lucky Luciano, was also originally a member of the Five Points Gang. Capone would rise to control a major portion of illicit activity such as gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging in Chicago during the early twentieth century.[31]
Frank Costello
American gangster Frank Costello, testifying before the Kefauver Committee, during an investigation of organized crime.
Main article: Frank Costello
Frank Costello was another influential gangster. He was born in southern Italy but moved to America when he was four years old. He later changed his name from Francesco Castiglia to Frank Costello when he joined a gang at age 13. His name change led some people to mistakenly believe he was Irish. He worked with Charlie Luciano in bootlegging and gambling. He also had a lot of political power which enabled him to continue his business. He took charge when Luciano was arrested and expanded the gang's operations. He decided to step away from the gangster life and died peacefully in 1973.
Carlo Gambino
Main article: Carlo Gambino
Carlo Gambino was an influential gangster in America. From 1961 until he died in 1976, he was chairman of the American mafia. Gambino was born in Palermo, Sicily, but moved to the United States at the age of 21. Through his Castellano relatives, he joined the Masseria Family. While Lucky Luciano was the underboss in the Masseria Family, Gambino worked for him. After Luciano had Masseria killed, Luciano became the boss, and Gambino was sent to the Scalise Family. Later Scalise was stripped of his rank, and Vicenzu Mangano became boss until 1951, when Mangano disappeared. His body was never found.[32]
The Kray twins
The Kray twins, Reginald and Ronald Kray, were leading criminals in London, England in the 1950s and 1960s. They were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, violent assaults including torture and the murders of Jack "The Hat" McVitie and George Cornell. As West End nightclub owners, they mixed with prominent entertainers including Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and politicians. The Krays were highly feared within their social environment. In the 1960s they became celebrities in their own right, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television. They were arrested in 1968 and both sentenced to life imprisonment.[33]
Mugshot of Charles Luciano, Italian-American mobster, in 1936
Lucky Luciano
Main article: Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano (born Salvatore Lucania), a Sicilian gangster, is considered to be the father of modern organized crime and the mastermind of the massive postwar expansion of the international heroin trade. He was the first official boss of the modern Genovese crime family and is credited with organizing the American Mafia's ruling body.[34]
Johnny Torrio
Main article: Johnny Torrio
Mugshot of Johnny Torrio in 1936
Born in southern Italy in 1882, Torrio immigrated to the United States with his mother after his father's death, which happened when he was three years old. Known as "The Fox" for his cunning, he helped the formation of the Chicago Outfit and he is credited for inspiring the birth of the National Crime Syndicate.[35] He was a big influence on Al Capone, who regarded him as a mentor.[36] After the assassination of Big Jim Colosimo, Torrio took his place in the Chicago Outfit. He was severely wounded by members of the North Side Gang while returning from a shopping trip, forcing him, along with other problems, to quit the criminal activity. He died in 1957 and the media learned about his death three weeks after his burial.[37] Elmer Irey, official of the United States Treasury Department, defined Torrio "the biggest gangster in America", "the smartest and the best of all the hoodlums"[38] while Virgil W. Peterson of the Chicago Crime Commission considered him "an organizational genius".[39]
In popular culture
Gangs have long been the subject of movies. In fact, the first feature-length movie ever produced was The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), an Australian production that traced the life of the outlaw Ned Kelly (1855–1880).[40] The United States has profoundly influenced the genre, but other cultures have contributed distinctive and often excellent gangster movies.
United States
Publicity still of Romanian-born Edward G. Robinson, who starred in several American gangster movies
The stereotypical image and myth of the American gangster is closely associated with organized crime during the Prohibition era of the 1920s and 1930s.[42] 1931 and 1932 saw the genre produce three classics: Warner Bros.' Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, which made screen icons out of Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, and Howard Hughs' Scarface starring Paul Muni, which offered a dark psychological analysis of a fictionalized Al Capone.[43] These films chronicle the quick rise, and equally quick downfall, of three young, violent criminals, and represent the genre in its purest form before moral pressure would force it to change and evolve. Though the gangster in each film would face a violent downfall which was designed to remind the viewers of the consequences of crime, audiences were often able to identify with the charismatic anti-hero. Those suffering from the Depression were able to relate to the gangster character who worked hard to earn his place and success in the world, only to have it all taken away from him.[44] More recently, gangsters have been depicted in American popular culture in films such as The Godfather, War, Scarface ,Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem, New Jack City and Goodfellas, and in television shows such as The Sopranos, The Wire & Boardwalk Empire.[citation needed]
Latin America
East Asia
Although some Hong Kong gangster movies are simply vehicles for violent action, the mainstream movies in the genre deal with Triad societies portrayed as quasi-benign organizations.[49] The movie gangster applies the Taoist principles of balance and honor to his conduct. The plots are often similar to those of Hollywood gangster movies, often ending with the fall of the subject of the movie at the hands of another gangster, but such a fall is far less important than a fall from honor.[49] The first movie made by the acclaimed director Wong Kar-wai was a gangster movie, As Tears Go By. In it the protagonist finds himself torn between his desire for a woman and his loyalty to a fellow gangster.[50] Infernal Affairs (2002) is a thriller about a police officer who infiltrates a triad and a triad member who infiltrates the police department. The film was remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed.[51]
See also
1. Oxford English Dictionary (online edition)
2. Taylor 2009.
3. Kontos, Brotherton & Barrios 2003, pp. xiff.
4. Kontos, Brotherton & Barrios 2003, pp. 42.
5. Abadinsky 2009, p. 1.
6. Lyman & Potter 2010, pp. 213ff.
7. Sardell 2009.
8. Shalamov 1998.
9. 9.0 9.1 The Rise and rise....
10. 10.0 10.1 Schwirtz 2008.
11. Glenny 2008, p. 75.
12. Stojarová 2007.
13. UltraGangsteret Shqiptar.
14. Abadinsky 2009, pp. 154-155.
15. Ter Haar 2000, pp. 18.
16. Ter Haar 2000, pp. 19.
17. Mallory 2007, p. 136ff.
18. Corkill 2011.
19. Kaplan & Dubro 2003, pp. 18-21.
20. English 2006, p. 13.
21. Iorizzo 2003, p. 14.
22. Fried 1980, p. 27.
23. Tongs and Street Gangs.
24. Iorizzo 2003, pp. 15ff.
25. Field Listing....
26. Colombia - Transnational....
27. Gugliotta & Leen 2011, p. 1ff.
28. Cook 2007, p. 7.
29. Jacobson 2005, p. 40ff.
30. High U.S. cocaine cost.
31. Iorizzo 2003, pp. 23ff.
32. Block 2004, pp. 85ff.
33. Borrell & Cashinella 1975, pp. 52ff.
34. Newark 2010, pp. xi et seq.
35. Howard Abadinsky, Organized Crime, Cengage Learning, 2009, p.115
36. John Cobler, Capone: The Life and Times of Al Capone, Da Capo Press, 2003, p.26
37. Jay Robert Nash, The Great Pictorial History of World Crime, Volume 1, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, p.503
38. Robert G. Folsom, The Money Trail, Potomac Books, 2010, p.231
39. Virgil W. Peterson, The mob: 200 years of organized crime in New York, Green Hill Publishers, 1983, p.156
40. Beeton 2005, p. 62.
41. Talbot 1975, p. 148-149.
42. McCarty 2004, p. 5.
43. Hark 2007, p. 12.
44. Hark 2007, p. 13.
45. Soy un Delincuente.
46. Ebert 2003.
47. City of God.
48. Kaplan & Dubro 2003, pp. 141-142.
49. 49.0 49.1 Nochimson 2007, p. 70.
50. Nochimson 2011, p. 306.
51. Reiber 2011, p. 31.
52. Choi 2010, p. 60.
53. Choi 2010, p. 61.
External links
In the United States
In popular culture |
Hey Kid: Art Appreciation
One of the best things about studying World History or Church History is learning about and gaining an appreciation for art. I was never much of a fan growing up, but I think that was mostly because I didn't understand it. There was a time when art (all forms) was used as a form of communication and/or instruction for the uneducated or illiterate. This made up the vast majority of the population at the time. Those who could not read learned from pictures, statues, icons anything that could tell a story, visually. This art included music, dance and theater as well. Whatever got the message across.
Once you understand representation in art, you can figure out who or what is in the depiction. I.e. Purple represented royalty or blooming lilies for Joseph, the husband of Mary. Once you have a basic understanding, it turns into a mystery-solving game. Each piece tells a story. It's up to the audience to interpret individually. Each one of us will have a different experience.
Be open to the opportunities for art appreciation. Try new things. Some you will love and some will bore you. Figure out which ones you enjoy and revisit often. Our engagement with art activates parts of our brain that otherwise remain dormant. Stimulate your creativity by experiencing the efforts of others. You'll be surprised at how much you learn... and just maybe how much you enjoy what you witness. |
Government Growth Assignment Help
Take Economics Government Growth Assignment Help to clear your doubts
Government growth is an important topic in the subject of economics. It highlights those decision-making areas which benefit the economy as a whole and ultimately leads to growth as well. The various intricate concepts on this topic can create a big confusion in your mind, and that is why you must grab government growth assignment help.
At we have a team of dedicated professionals who work day and night to provide unparalleled solutions to the students. You can trust us for government growth homework help without any second thoughts.
Highlights on the topic of Government Growth in Economics
A government is a combination of different kinds of institutions, multiple agencies and various kinds of administrative departments, legislative procedures and various other kinds of activities. The sole motive is development of nation and strengthening the economy to the core. With the passage of time, each nation has observed various structural changes and in overall functioning implying towards the growth of government in all senses.
With Government Growth it is believed that the nation is going to progress as economic decisions are taken after a more comprehensive research. Important points are kept in mind so that betterment of all citizens can be ensured.
In order to get in-depth understanding on this topic, you should opt for government growth assignment help as early as possible.
Key areas in the topic of Government Growth
There are a lot of important areas that you must know if you wish to get a firm grip on this topic and these are discussed as follows-
1. The whole set of institutions that make a government.
2. Changes over the span of years in the structural foundation of government and the path that lead to government growth.
3. Important bodies of government that make it a complete functioning unit.
4. The various expenditure decisions are taken by government includes consumption, investment as well as decisions related to transfer payments.
5. The aspects of taxation, borrowings, fiscal deficit,
6. The criteria for framing economic policies and various types of other policies.
7. The concept of GDP, business cycle, gross capital formation and many other crucial areas.
8. Per capita income analysis and employment measures.
9. Innovation and technological set up for building an advanced nation.
10. In-depth analysis of health sector reforms, infrastructural reforms, educational growth, housing development. The other sections also include eradication of unnecessary laws and procedures, improvement in standard of living, reduction in cases of discrimination, immigration rules,
11. The situation of inflation or deflation.
In order to understand whether the government is actually on the right path of growth, you need to analyze all these crucial areas as well. That is why availing government growth homework help is highly suggested so that you can get rid of all the tension.
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Causes Of Diabetes Insipidus
Read too:
Causes Of Diabetes Insipidus
The hypothalamus, the tissue in the brain that controls mood and appetite, is the organ that produces antidiuretic hormones. This hormone will be stored in the pituitary gland until needed. The pituitary gland itself is under the brain and is behind the bridge of the nose. This gland will release antidiuretic hormone when the body's water content decreases to stop the production of urine in the kidney.
Diabetes insipidus occurs when the antidiuretic hormone is impaired in regulating the body's water content. As a result, the body produces a lot of urine and wastes a lot of water.
The following is a further explanation of both types of diabetes insipidus.
Cranial Diabetic Insipidus
This is a condition when the body does not produce enough antidiuretic hormones and results in the amount of water wasted in the urine. Below are some of the most common causes of this type of diabetes insipidus, namely:
• About 16 percent of cases of cranial diabetes insipidus is caused by severe head injuries that damage the hypothalamus or pituitary gland.
• About 20 percent of cases of cranial diabetes insipidus is caused due to complications from brain surgery that damage the hypothalamus or pituitary gland.
• About 25 percent of cases of cranial diabetes insipidus is caused by brain tumors that damage the hypothalamus or pituitary gland.
Here are some of the less common causes of diabetes insipidus.
• Brain cancer.
• Lack of oxygen in the brain for example due to stroke.
• The occurrence of infections that damage the brain, such as encephalitis and meningitis.
• Wolfram syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that can cause loss of vision.
About 1 in 3 cases of cranial diabetes insipidus are not known.
Diabetes insipidus nephrogenic
This is the condition when the antidiuretic hormone is produced according to the level required by the body. But the kidney organ is not sensitive or does not respond to this hormone.
The antidiuretic hormone normally sends signals to the tissue of the nephron in the kidney. Nephrons are small structures that control how much water is absorbed by the body and how much water is released in the form of urine. For people suffering from diabetes insipidus nephrogenic, the process of sending this signal is disrupted. As a result, people who experience it will always feel thirsty because urine is wasted in large quantities. Diabetes insipidus nephrogenic itself is divided into two types:
• Congenital nephrogenic diabetes insipidus or otherwise known as congenital nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. Congenital diabetic nephrogenic patients are born with this condition. There are two types of mutations or genetic changes that cause congenital nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, namely AVPR2 and AQP2. AVPR2 genetic mutations can only be transmitted from mother to son. This type of mutation occurs in 9 of 10 patients. While genetic mutations of AQP2 occur in 1 in 10 cases of congenital nephrogenic diabetes insipidus and can affect both men and women.
• Acquired nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. This type of diabetes insipidus is not born with this condition. The most common cause of acquired nephrogenic diabetes insipidus is lithium side effects. Lithium itself is a drug used to treat bipolar disorder. If taken in the long run, the kidney organ cells can be damaged and then no longer able to respond to antidiuretic hormones. Nearly 50 percent of people will develop nephrogenic diabetes insipidus if taking this drug in the long run. Be sure to perform kidney organ examinations once every three months as long as you consume lithium. Other causes of this condition other than lithium are:
1. Pyelonephritis or kidney infection. Kidney organs are damaged by infection.
2. Urinary tract obstruction. The inhibition of one or both urinary tracts that connect the kidney to the bladder, such as kidney stones.
3. Hyperkalemia. An excess amount of calcium in the blood can damage the kidneys.
4. Hypokalemia. The amount of potassium in the blood is small when all the cells in the body need potassium to function properly.
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(redirected from Boiling-Water Reactor)
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Synonyms for BWR
a nuclear reactor that uses water as a coolant and moderator
References in periodicals archive ?
Both of them are boiling-water reactors and are more than 30 years old.
356-million-kilowatt advanced boiling-water reactor was restarted after the world's largest nuclear power plant complex in terms of output was shut down following a major earthquake that jolted the region in July 2007.
In 1975, Tokyo Electric Power filed an application with the government seeking permission to build the boiling-water reactor with a power output of 1,100 megawatts and received approval in 1977.
2 advanced boiling-water reactor had been built based on guidelines for anti-seismic designs that the government formulated 20 years ago.
The 1,358-megawatt upgraded boiling-water reactor has been undergoing a test run and is the first new reactor to start operating since Tohoku Electric Power Co.
The 1,100-megawatt boiling-water reactor is also the first commercial reactor to open in Aomori Prefecture, which has a number of nuclear facilities, including a spent fuel reprocessing plant and a high-level radioactive waste storage facility.
specializing in boiling-water reactor nuclear power plants, and a corporate acquisition fund.
The 1,370-megawatt improved boiling-water reactor will be the first nuclear reactor to be built after Hokkaido Electric Power Co.
1 boiling-water reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power station in Oshika, Miyagi Prefecture due to a possible leakage of nitrogen from the reactor's containment tank.
1 boiling-water reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture due to a surge in nitrogen supply within the reactor's storage facility.
The 1,100-megawatt, boiling-water reactor was shut after water leakage was found on Dec. |
<< Chapter < Page Chapter >> Page >
This module covers mathematical distance in preparation for later modules on conic sections.
The key mathematical formula for discussing all the shapes above is the distance between two points.
Many students are taught, at some point, the “distance formula” as a magic (and very strange-looking) rule. In fact, the distance formula comes directly from a bit of intuition...and the Pythagorean Theorem.
The intuition comes in finding the distance between two points that have one coordinate in common.
The distance between two points that have one coordinate in common
The drawing shows the points (2,3) and (6,3). Finding the distance between these points is easy: just count! Take your pen and move it along the paper, starting at (2,3) and moving to the right. Let’s see…one unit gets you over to (3,3); the next unit gets you to (4,3)...a couple more units to (6,3). The distance from (2,3) to (6,3) is 4.
Of course, it would be tedious to count our way from (2,3) to (100,3). But we don’t have to—in fact, you may have already guessed the faster way—we subtract the x coordinates.
• The distance from (2,3) to (6,3) is 6 - 2 = 4
• The distance from (2,3) to (100,3) is 100 - 2 = 98
And so on. We can write this generalization in words:
Whenever two points lie on a horizontal line, you can find the distance between them by subtracting their x -coordinates.
This may seem pretty obvious in the examples given above. It’s a little less obvious, but still true, if one of the x coordinates is negative.
The drawing above shows the numbers (-3,1) and (2,1). You can see that the distance between them is 5 (again, by counting). Does our generalization still work? Yes it does, because subtracting a negative number is the same as adding a positive one.
The distance from (-3,1) to (2,1) is 2 - ( -3 ) = 5
How can we express this generalization mathematically? If two points lie on a horizontal line, they have two different x-coordinates: call them x 1 and x 2 . But they have the same y-coordinate, so just call that y. So we can rewrite our generalization like this: “the distance between the points ( x 1 , y ) and ( x 2 , y ) is x 2 x 1 .” In our most recent example, x 1 = –3 , x 2 = 2 , and y = 1 . So the generalization says “the distance between the points (-3,1) and (2,1) is 2 - ( -3 ) ”, or 5.
But there’s one problem left: what if we had chosen x 2 and x 1 the other way? Then the generalization would say “the distance between the points (2,1) and (-3,1) is ( –3 ) -2 ”, or -5. That isn’t quite right: distances can never be negative. We get around this problem by taking the absolute value of the answer. This guarantees that, no matter what order the points are listed in, the distance will come out positive. So now we are ready for the correct mathematical generalization:
Distance between two points on a horizontal line
The distance between the points ( x 1 , y ) and ( x 2 , y ) is | x 2 x 1 |
You may want to check this generalization with a few specific examples—try both negative and positive values of x 1 and x 2 . Then, to really test your understanding, write and test a similar generalization for two points that lie on a vertical line together. Both of these results will be needed for the more general case below.
The distance between two points that have no coordinate in common
So, what if two points have both coordinates different? As an example, consider the distance from (–2,5) to (1,3).
The drawing shows these two points. The (diagonal) line between them has been labeled d : it is this line that we want the length of, since this line represents the distance between our two points.
The drawing also introduces a third point into the picture, the point (–2,3). The three points define the vertices of a right triangle. Based on our earlier discussion, you can see that the vertical line in this triangle is length | 5 3 | = 2 . The horizontal line is length | 1 ( –2 ) | = 3 .
But it is the diagonal line that we want. And we can find that by using the Pythagorean Theorem, which tells us that d 2 = 2 2 + 3 2 . So d = 13
If you repeat this process with the generic points ( x 1 , y 1 ) and ( x 2 , y 2 ) you arrive at the distance formula:
Distance between any two points
If d is the distance between the points ( x 1 , y 1 ) and ( x 2 , y 1 ), then d 2 = ( x 2 - x 1 ) 2 + ( y 2 - y 1 ) 2
x 2 x 1 is the horizontal distance, based on our earlier calculation. y 2 y 1 is the vertical distance, and the entire formula is simply the Pythagorean Theorem restated in terms of coordinates.
And what about those absolute values we had to put in before? They were used to avoid negative distances. Since the distances in the above formulae are being squared , we no longer need the absolute values to insure that all answers will come out positive.
Questions & Answers
Jerwin Reply
virgelyn Reply
hmm well what is the answer
kinnecy Reply
can someone help me with some logarithmic and exponential equations.
Jeffrey Reply
sure. what is your question?
I'm not sure why it wrote it the other way
I got X =-6
oops. ignore that.
is it a question of log
Commplementary angles
Idrissa Reply
im all ears I need to learn
right! what he said ⤴⤴⤴
Kevin Reply
a perfect square v²+2v+_
Dearan Reply
kkk nice
Abdirahman Reply
Kim Reply
or infinite solutions?
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Nancy Reply
ramon Reply
Kristine 2*2*2=8
Bridget Reply
Differences Between Laspeyres and Paasche Indices
Emedobi Reply
Mary Reply
how do you translate this in Algebraic Expressions
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Chris Reply
what's the easiest and fastest way to the synthesize AgNP?
Damian Reply
types of nano material
abeetha Reply
many many of nanotubes
what is the k.e before it land
what is the function of carbon nanotubes?
I'm interested in nanotube
what is nanomaterials and their applications of sensors.
Ramkumar Reply
what is nano technology
Sravani Reply
what is system testing?
preparation of nanomaterial
Victor Reply
Himanshu Reply
good afternoon madam
what is system testing
what is the application of nanotechnology?
silver nanoparticles could handle the job?
not now but maybe in future only AgNP maybe any other nanomaterials
I'm interested in Nanotube
can nanotechnology change the direction of the face of the world
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Wichita Indians
The First Texans
The Wichita Indians had houses shaped like an igloo but the major difference is that their homes where made of tree branches and grass
The Wichita Indians ate mainly Squash, Corn, Beans, and Wild Game
The Wichita Indians lived in the north central area of Texas and in the southern most area of Oklahoma
Wichita Facts
The Wichita indians have many ways of life. The tribe had different foods but mostly ate beans, corn, squash, and wild game. The Wichita tribe had grass houses for shelter that are shaped like an igloo. They people of the tribe would were loin cloths, skirts, and also leggings made of animal skins. The Wichita tribes government had a chief and a tribal council. They had religious meetings and they had a priest, temples and burial mounds.
Compare and Contrasting the Regions
The Wichita Indians are different from other indian tribes and also vary similar to others.
The Jumano eat a lot of the same food as the Wichita, but live in very different houses and climate. They live in the mountains and basins and live in adobe houses. The Karankawa eat much different from the Wichita, they eat a lot of fish, rice, roots, and alligators. The Comanche depend on a different wild source than trees, because there are hardly any trees in the plains they use buffalo for many tools. |
A Free-market Solution For Nuclear Waste
September 1, 1986|By Philip J. Bourque and Robert Haney Scott, Washington Post
There is a simple way for the federal government to select sites for nuclear-waste disposal. An equitable, economic and efficient procedure would allow states to bid, or make contract offers, to provide a waste-disposal site.
In a market economy, to get people to do something they otherwise would not want to do, we offer to pay them. When the nuclear garbage site is determined, the federal government will let the construction jobs out for bids.
Why not let the site selection out for bids as well? At some price several states might be willing providers of a suitable site. For example, the state of Washington might make an offer: ''We'll accept a site if you compensate us X million per year for the next hundred years, indexed to inflation.''
An acceptable price to a state must provide enough in benefits to offset the social costs of being a recipient. Open, competitive bidding by states on government contracts would resemble a market process. Providers of the site would be compensated for their perceived social costs.
Use of the bidding system would remove the coercive federal role; the low bidder would be a voluntary recipient. The social costs incurred in disposing of nuclear waste would then be passed on to the creators and users of such waste.
The preparation of bids by states might involve multistate compacts. They could involve regional representation from areas closest to possible sites.
A state's offer price should cover the cost of compensating various communities as is necessary to induce them to be receptors.
Some communities, such as Hanford in Washington state, appear to consider the economic benefits as favorable and would require little additional social compensation. Others may want substantial compensation for risk, real or perceived.
How would the offer price of a state be determined? This would involve an economic-environmental-political assessment by each state. The process is removed from federal control.
The federal role would be to set the site specifications. To avoid extravagant bids, federal specifications should not be drawn too narrowly.
Just how the state decides to use the money it receives as compensation for accepting a nuclear waste disposal site would be up to the state legislatures. A good use might be to support educational systems.
The use of incentives, rather than coercion, is a fairer and more efficient means of determining site selection.
Passing on the costs of waste disposal ensures that those who create the waste pay for the social cost of disposing of it. Internalization of costs inhibits overproduction of waste. Therefore, a market-oriented solution is preferable to an imposed one.
Orlando Sentinel Articles |
Chavez Work Goes On
April 29, 1998|Arturo S. Rodriguez, who succeeded Cesar Chavez as president of the UFW
In the five years since his death on April 23, 1993, dozens of communities across America have honored Cesar Chavez. Streets, parks, schools and libraries have been named for him.
Yet his greatest monument isn't on a street sign or a building. It is in the continuing work of the union he founded and the courage he instilled in his people.
On April 21, strawberry workers and health-conscious consumers had cause to celebrate. California's largest organic strawberry producer became the first berry grower to sign a United Farm Workers contract.
The workers won higher pay, their first paid vacations, pensions and family health benefits.
It wouldn't have happened without Cesar Chavez. Before Chavez, all the experts said farmworkers could not be organized. He spent 31 years proving them wrong.
He organized, struck, marched, fasted and boycotted. He won passage of the first and only law in the nation _ in California _ protecting the rights of farm workers to organize and freely associate. He led the UFW to victory in union elections. He negotiated UFW contracts that provided farmworkers with gains unimaginable only a short time before.
Despite these successes, most farmworkers in California and the rest of the nation lack these benefits.
Although Swanton Berry Farms has signed a UFW contract, most of the strawberry industry continues to bitterly oppose the changes berry workers seek.
Last year, the UFW helped strawberry workers file three major federal class-action lawsuits against growers who contract with Driscoll, America's largest strawberry corporation. They charged Driscoll growers with violating state and federal laws by forcing pickers to work without pay and failing to allow breaks; engaging in alleged sex discrimination; and failing to provide full overtime pay. Two of those lawsuits have been settled.
As this year's berry harvest gets under way on California's rich central coast, workers and organizers are building on solid progress from last year.
Chavez died before he could finish his work. He often said that if the union didn't survive his death, his work would have been in vain.
It still isn't finished. But if Cesar Chavez were alive today, he would be proud to see his legacy.
_ Arturo S. Rodriguez, who succeeded Cesar Chavez as president of the UFW
Sun Sentinel Articles |
James Michael Hare
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Little Wonders
Little Wonders
The System.Nullable<T> structure in the .NET Framework can be used to represent these situations in a consistent and meaningful way.
Why Do We Use Nullable<T>?
With instances of reference types, you can easily denote an optional item by simply leaving the reference as null, but this isn’t really possible with a value type (that is, not directly), because the instance of a value type always has a value.
For example, if you had an Person class with some basic data:
1: public class Person
2: {
3: public string FirstName { get; set; }
4: public string LastName { get; set; }
5: public int YearsRetired { get; set; }
7: // ...
8: }
We could have a person with no first name (Sting, Madonna, etc… or is that no last name?), simply by setting the string property FirstName to null:
1: aPerson.FirstName = null;
But in the case of YearsRetired, if the person hasn’t retired yet, we can’t set a simple int to null, because an int is a value type, which must always have a value (strictly speaking):
1: // compiler error
2: aPerson.YearsRetired = null;
That said, we could use a sentinel value (-1), or have a separate bool field (IsRetired) to say whether we should use this field or not, but these get messy and harder to maintain. Consider that if you use a sentinel value, everyone who uses this field must know what that value would be and to test for it.
Alternatively, if you use a bool field to tell you if the value field is usable, they aren’t encapsulated, so again there could be usage issues or consistency issues in naming, etc.
This is why Nullable<T> exists, to allow you to easily mark value type instances as optional (“nullable”) by providing a mechanism that gives values types something like null semantics in an encapsulated and uniform way.
In this way, anyone who looks at your interface and sees Nullable<int> (can also be abbreviated int?) will know how to test whether it has a valid value or not.
How the Nullable<T> struct Works
When you have a Nullable<T> wrapped type in the .NET Framework, it doesn’t give you a reference which you can make null. It actually is a simple struct (value type) that wraps your value type. This is an important distinction because it clears up some common misconceptions on what the Nullable<T> type does and does not do.
For example, let’s say you have:
1: // or int? for short…
2: Nullable<int> yearsRetired = null;
What really is yearsRetired? Is it a reference that points to nothing? No, it’s actually an instance of a value type with two fields: HasValue, and ValueNote: for you C++ boost library users out there, this is much like how boost::optional<T> works.
The HasValue field is a bool that tells you whether or not Value contains a valid value, and the Value field contains the value set by the user. Also, to make sure that you use the type correctly, if you attempt to access Value directly when HasValue is false, you will get an InvalidOperationException.
So as you can see, this mimics the behavior of a reference type in some ways, but not others. For example, you won’t save any space having an “empty” Nullable<BigHonkingStruct>. The Value field still has the space for a BigHonkingStruct, it’s just inaccessible (that is, it always has a value, it just may not be a valid – i.e. user assigned -- value).
This may be confusing, because while you think you are setting a field to a null, it’s really just compiler magic. For example, you can do this:
1: int? yearsRetired = null;
3: if (yearsRetired == null)
4: {
5: Console.WriteLine(“Active Employee”);
6: }
But this is just syntactical sugar that actually just converts the usage of null to mimic calls against HasValue and Value:
1: int? yearsRetired = default(int?); // creates with HasValue = false, Value = default(int)
3: if (yearsRetired.HasValue == false)
4: {
5: Console.WriteLine(“Active Employee”);
6: }
So don’t be fooled into thinking Nullable<T> magically saves space for “null” instances of large value types. In fact, if you have a struct so large that you are worried about wasted space, consider a class instead (see C# Fundamentals: The Differences between Struct and Class for more details).
Getting a Default Value
Many times while you are using a Nullable<T> instance, you may find yourself writing code like this:
1: int cost = 0;
3: if (contractSize.HasValue)
4: {
5: // you can do math on Nullable<int> directly, with caveats…
6: cost = contractSize * price;
7: }
Which you could shorten down using a conditional, of course:
1: int cost = (contractSize.HasValue ? contractSize.Value : 100) * price;
That is, you want to use the value of a Nullable<T> in an expression, or a stand-in if the instance is “null”. Either way so far, it looks a wee bit ugly, but there are a few ways we can clean this code up.
Nullable<T> has a method GetValueOrDefault() that allows you to retrieve the value if it exists, or the default specified if not. It has two forms:
• GetValueOrDefault()
• Returns Value if HasValue is true, or default(T) if not.
• GetValueOrDefault(T defaultValue)
• Returns Value if HasValue is true, or defaultValue if not.
Thus, the code we wrote above could more concisely be written as:
1: int cost = contractSize.GetValueOrDefault(100) * price;
Ah, much cleaner! In addition, if you want the defaultValue to be whatever the default is for the given type, you can just call it without any parameter.
1: // these evaluate to same value, because 0 is default for int.
2: int cost1 = contractSize.GetValueOrDefault(0) * price;
3: int cost2 = contractSize.GetValueOrDefault() * price;
Nullable<T> and the Null-coalescing operator
Another nice thing C# did in .NET 2.0 was to add a null-coalescing operator (??) to get the value of a reference type if non-null, or a stand-in value if null. They also performed some syntactical candy to allow this to work with Nullable<T> as well. Basically, this behaves very similarly to using GetValueOrDefault():
1: Console.WriteLine(“ The contract size is: {0}”, contractSize ?? 100);
The main thing to note here is that ?? is very low on the operator precedence, so if instead you had typed this:
1: // compiler error, thinks you are trying to ?? between string and int
2: Console.WriteLine(“The contract size is: “ + contractSize ?? 100);
You’d get an error, because it first tries to concatenate the string and contractSize, which results in a string, and then attempts to null-coalesce a string with an int value, which is invalid. That is, it thought you wanted this:
1: // + has higher precedence than ??
2: Console.WriteLine((“The contract size is: “ + contractSize) ?? 100);
So when you use ?? in an expression, make sure you surround it in parenthesis where appropriate to make sure it is performed in the order you really mean:
1: Console.WriteLine(“The contract size is: “ + (contractSize ?? 100));
Nullable Math Doesn’t Always Add Up
Finally, there are some interesting results when you attempt to use an arithmetic or logical comparison operator overload on a Nullable<T> wrapping a T that has those operators. That is, if you have:
1: int? x = null;
3: if ((x * 5) < 100)
4: {
5: // ...
6: }
What will the result be? It turns out false because the operator * between null and 5 returns null, and null has no meaningful order so < returns false. In essence, this is modeled to behave much like SQL expressions with null values. The long and the short of the matter is that math with a null numeric type yields null, and an ordered logical comparison with a null yields false.
For more details, I have a post titled C#/.NET Little Pitfalls: Nullable Math Doesn’t Always Add Up which you can dig into for more information on why this happens.
The Nullable<T> is a handy structure that was created to give us a consistent way to handle “optional” instances of value types. Nullable<T> instances can be assigned to null or compared with null, which really is syntactical sugar which creates a default instance or checks the HasValue property respectively.
In addition, you can use the GetValueOrDefault() method or the null-coalescing operator (??) to query the value, or provide a substitute if the value was never set.
Print | posted on Thursday, July 12, 2012 6:10 PM | Filed Under [ My Blog C# Software .NET Little Wonders ]
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