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Philadelphia in the American Civil War
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Hermon Atkins MacNeil's Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia during the American Civil War was an important source of troops, money, weapons, medical care, and supplies for the Union.
Before the Civil War, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's economic connections with the South made much of the city sympathetic to South's grievances with the North. Once the war began, many Philadelphians' opinion shifted in support for the Union and the war against the Confederate States of America. More than 50 infantry and cavalry regiments were recruited fully or in part in Philadelphia. The city, was the main source for uniforms for the Union Army, also manufactured weapons and built warships. Philadelphia was also the location of the two largest military hospitals in the United States: Satterlee Hospital and Mower Hospital.
In 1863, Philadelphia was threatened by Confederate invasion during the Gettysburg Campaign. Entrenchments were built to defend the city but the Confederate Army was turned back at Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, and at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Civil War's main legacy in Philadelphia was the rise of the Republican Party. Despised before the war because of its anti-slavery position, the party created a political machine that would dominate Philadelphia politics for almost a century.
Before the war[edit]
In antebellum days, Philadelphia, the United States' second-largest city, had strong economic ties with to the South. This fostered political sympathy; for example, political leaders in the city called for the repeal of laws that might be considered unfriendly to South. Meetings led to calls for Pennsylvania to decide which side the state was on in the case of Southern succession. Many blamed the abolitionist movement for the crisis and abolitionists in the city were harassed and threatened.[1]
In the 1860 mayoral election the Democratic Party candidate John Robbins challenged People's Party candidate and incumbent mayor Alexander Henry.[2] The People's Party in Pennsylvania was aligned with the national Republican Party, but downplayed the issue of slavery and made tariff protection their main issue in the state. During the election the Democrat's attacked Alexander Henry's moderate position on slavery as virtual abolitionism. Alexander Henry was reelected, but vote tampering was alleged. In the election for governor Philadelphia gave Democrats 51 percent of the vote and in the U.S. presidential election Republican Abraham Lincoln won 52 percent of the city's vote.[1]
Philadelphia during the war[edit]
After the American Civil War officially began with the attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina popular opinion in Philadelphia shifted. American flags and bunting appeared all over the city as Philadelphians moved their anger from abolitionists to southern sympathizers. A mob threatened the home of the Palmetto Flag, a secessionist newspaper. The police and Mayor Alexander Henry were able to prevent the mob from causing damage, but the newspaper shutdown shortly after. Other newspapers which also had a pro-southern slant also suffered from dwindling circulation.[3] When The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Union lost the First Battle of Bull Run, which contradicted initial government reports, a mob threatened to burn The Inquirer's office down.[4] Another personal appearance by Mayor Henry prevented a riot at the home of prominent Democrat and grandson of Joseph Reed, William B. Reed. Other people with suspected pro-southern ties displayed American flags to avoid trouble.[3]
The initial enthusiasm at the beginning of the war soon diminished, but critics were still targeted. Around August 1861 federal authorities arrested eight people for expressing pro-southern sympathies. Most of the people were released soon after, but one, the son of William H. Winder, was held for more than a year. Authorities also shutdown a pro-southern weekly newspaper called the Christian Observer.[5] In 1862, after expressing anti-war sentiments, former Democratic congressman Charles Ingersoll was arrested for discouraging enlistments. The arrest of the well respected politician caused local Republicans embarrassment and he was released after direct orders from the federal government.[6]
City Democrats used Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, and the Emancipation Proclamation as ammunition against Republicans. However many in Philadelphia felt similar to The Philadelphia Inquirer which said in a July 1862 article "in this war there can be but two parties, patriots and traitors."[6] Democrats did poorly in the 1862 election with Democratic Congressman Charles John Biddle losing to Charles O'Neill leaving only one Democrat from Philadelphia in Congress. To the his fellow Democrats Samuel J. Randall, the only Democrat from Philadelphia in Congress, was closer to Republicans than his own party.[7] Alexander Henry, running on the National Union Party ticket, was elected to a third term as Philadelphia mayor.[6]
Invasion threat[edit]
In June 1863 General Robert E. Lee invaded Pennsylvania in the Gettysburg Campaign. As word reached Philadelphia of the Confederate army marching on Harrisburg, Philadelphians felt no urgency to prepare the city in case of an attack. Major-General Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana took command of the military district of Philadelphia on June 26. With Mayor Henry finding volunteers Dana organized the construction of entrenchments to defend the city. Pennsylvania governor Andrew Gregg Curtin arrived in the city at the beginning of July hoping to rally the city out its lack of urgency.[8]
Philadelphia's Twentieth Pennsylvania Emergency Regiment and First City Troop were among the militia involved with preventing the Confederate crossing the Susquehanna River at Wrightsville, by burning the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge. The threat of invasion ended at the Battle of Gettysburg where the Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was defeated by the Army of the Potomac commanded by George Meade.[8]
After Gettysburg[edit]
After the Gettysburg Campaign support for the war grew and hope for war opponents to make headway within the city diminished. After the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, patriotic feelings grew, more people enlisted in the army and Philadelphia voted for the reelection of Republican Governor Curtin over Peace Democrat George Washington Woodward. In July 1863 the draft began to be enforced in the city. Mayor Henry and General George Cadwalader, who replaced Major-General Dana as commander of Philadelphia military district, quietly suppressed any disturbances to prevent riots similar to the Draft Riots in New York City.[9]
Great Central Fair, Logan Square, Philadelphia, June 1864.
In June 1864, the Philadelphia division of the United States Sanitary Commission organized a large fair to raise money to buy bandages and medicine. The Great Central Fair lasted two weeks, and was held in temporary buildings covering several acres of Logan Square. Thousands of works of art were lent for display, many donated for auction. Among the visitors was President Lincoln.[9] The Sanitary Fair raised $1,046,859.[10]
In the 1864 election, the majority of Philadelphians voted to reelect Abraham Lincoln and the four congressmen from Philadelphia. The National Union Party also gained majority in both houses of the Philadelphia City Council.[7]
In December 1864 Philadelphia's streetcar companies began allowing African Americans on the streetcars or running streetcars specifically for African Americans. The companies capitulated after African Americans and others put pressure on the companies because African American soldiers were reporting late for duty and soldiers wives experienced trouble visiting their wounded husbands in the hospitals. The city's streetcars were not fully integrated until 1867 when the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a law requiring it.[11]
Military contribution[edit]
Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, created to provide refreshments to soldiers arriving in Philadelphia.
Many soldiers from New England and New Jersey came through Philadelphia heading south.[12] Many soldiers moved through New Jersey via the Camden and Amboy Railroad and then the Delaware River by ferry. The ferry would drop them off at Washington Avenue where they would march to waiting trains of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. Local residents formed two organizations, the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon and the Cooper Shop Refreshment Saloon, to greet arriving soldiers with refreshments and letter-writing materials.[13]
The first Philadelphia regiment sent out of the city was a volunteer formation, the Washington Grays, which was dispatched to help defend Washington, D.C.. The unit made it to Baltimore, Maryland, where it was attacked by a secessionist mob in the Baltimore riot of 1861. The brigade retreated to Philadelphia, where George Leisenring, a German-born private, died, becoming Philadelphia's first war casualty.
The first Philadelphians to encounter Confederate forces were the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment and the First City Troop at the Battle of Hoke's Run in West Virginia. More than 50 infantry and cavalry regiments were eventually recruited fully or in part in Philadelphia.[12] These included the Philadelphia Brigade and the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry, recruited and sponsored by the Philadelphia Corn Exchange.[14] In addition, 11 United States Colored Troops were organized in Philadelphia. During the war, between 89,000 and 90,000 Philadelphians were on enlistment rolls. This number includes reenlistments and does not include African American soldiers from Philadelphia, whose enlistment numbers are unknown.[12]
Philadelphia's Schuylkill Arsenal was the U.S. Army's main source for uniforms. Hundreds of workers in Philadelphia made parts of the uniforms in their homes to be assembled at the Arsenal.[12] The Frankford Arsenal manufactured munitions and the Sharp and Rankin's factory made breech-loading rifles. The Philadelphia Navy Yard, employing 3,000 people, built 11 warships and outfitted many more. Philadelphia's private shipyards, including William Cramp and Sons, also constructed many ships, such as the USS New Ironsides.[13]
Mower Hospital, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 1863.
Over the course of the war, Philadelphia was the site of 24 military hospitals. Philadelphia had as many as 10,000 beds for soldiers, not including the beds in the twenty-two civilian hospitals which sometimes cared for soldiers. The Union Refreshment Saloon created the first military hospital in the city. Its hospital had 15 beds for sick soldiers passing through the city. Smaller hospitals such as the Haddington Hospital and Citizens' Volunteer Hospital both with 400 beds were the among the earliest set up. These were eventually closed to allow more focus on Philadelphia's largest military hospitals. The hospitals, the largest military hospitals in the United States, were Satterlee Hospital with 3,124 beds and Mower Hospital with 4,000 beds. In total, around 157,000 soldiers and sailors were treated in Philadelphia hospitals.[13][15]
Union League of Philadelphia.
The Civil War led to decades of Republican Party dominance in city politics. Antebellum Republicans held little support in the city, mainly for the party's anti-slavery position. But the Democrats' opposition to the war transferred much popular support to Republicans during and after the war, enough to allow the creation of a powerful and eventually corrupt political machine that would dominate city politics for almost a century.[7][16]
In 1861, a group of prominent Philadelphians founded the Union Club in response to pro-southern support in another social club, the Wistar Club. The Union Club became the Union League in 1863 and abolished its membership limit of 50. With 1,000 members by the end of the war, the Union League became a center of Republican politics and still exists as one of Philadelphia's largest and most prestigious social clubs.[17][18]
The Civil War also helped create some of Philadelphia's upper class. Philadelphia banker Jay Cooke made a fortune selling Union war bonds worth roughly $1 billion. Future streetcar magnate Peter Widener amassed his initial wealth by supplying meat to the Union Army; John and James Dobson made their fortune manufacturing blankets.[19]
Smith Memorial Arch, West Fairmount Park, Philadelphia (1898-1912).
The Civil War Library and Museum, now the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia, was founded in 1888. The oldest chartered American Civil War institution, the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia, was founded by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; it collects records, artifacts and other items related to the American Civil War and the Underground Railroad .[20]
On the Benjamin Franklin Parkway is the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial. Designed by Hermon Atkins MacNeil and completed in 1927, the memorial comprises two 40 ft (12 m) pylons sitting on each side of the parkway.[21][22]
Across 20th Street, is the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors (1934) by J. Otto Schweizer. Originally erected in West Fairmount Park, it was moved to Logan Circle in 1994.[23]
Philadelphia's largest Civil War monument is the Smith Memorial Arch, built on the former grounds of the 1876 Centennial Exposition in West Fairmount Park. Designed by James H. Windrim, and completed in 1912, it includes sculptures by Herbert Adams, George Bissell, Alexander Stirling Calder, Daniel Chester French, Charles Grafly, Samuel Murray, Edward Clark Potter, John Massey Rhind, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, and John Quincy Adams Ward.[24]
Notable people from Philadelphia[edit]
Major General George G. Meade.
The Philadelphia area was the birthplace or long-time residence of several Union army generals and naval admirals. The city's most celebrated war hero was Major General George G. Meade, whose fame in the city came from his success at the Battle of Gettysburg and as commander of the Army of the Potomac.[8][19] Philadelphia celebrated returning war heroes and Civil War veterans with parades. On June 10, 1865 the city held a grand review with Meade leading veteran soldiers through the city in to a dinner at a volunteer refreshment saloon. Another grand review of Civil War veterans was held as part of the Independence Day celebration in 1866. This parade was led by another Philadelphian war hero, Winfield Scott Hancock.[25]
Others generals from Philadelphia include:
Fifty-four soldiers and sailors from Philadelphia received the Medal of Honor. Among them were Sergeant Richard Binder, Captain Henry H. Bingham, Captain John Gregory Bourke, Captain Cecil Clay, Private Richard Conner, Quartermaster Thomas Cripps, Captain Frank Furness, Sailor Richard Hamilton, Coal Heaver William Jackson Palmer, Captain Forrester L. Taylor, and Fireman Joseph E. Vantine.[26]
1. ^ a b Weigley RF et al (eds): (1982). Philadelphia: A 300-Year History. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 391–393. ISBN 0-393-01610-2.
2. ^ "Mayors of the City of Philadelphia". The Philadelphia Information Locator System. City of Philadelphia. 1998-01-13. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
3. ^ a b Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, pages 384, 394
4. ^ Williams, Edgar (June 20, 2003). "A history of The Inquirer". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on 2007-02-19. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
5. ^ Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, page 403
6. ^ a b c Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, page 405
7. ^ a b c Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, page 413
8. ^ a b c Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, pages 408 - 410
9. ^ a b c Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, pages 411 - 412
10. ^ Frank H. Taylor, Philadelphia in the Civil War (Philadelphia: Dunlap Prining Co., 1913), p. 264.
11. ^ Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, pages 415 - 416
12. ^ a b c d Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, pages 395 - 396
13. ^ a b c Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, pages 398 - 399
14. ^ Gayley, Alice J. "118th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers". Pennsylvania in the Civil War. Alice J. Gayley. Retrieved 2008-08-10.
15. ^ Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, page 402
16. ^ Avery, Ron (1999). A Concise History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Otis Books. pp. 66–68. ISBN 0-9658825-1-9.
17. ^ Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, page 407
18. ^ A Concise History of Philadelphia, page 60
19. ^ a b A Concise History of Philadelphia, page 61
20. ^ "About Us". The Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
21. ^ Brookes, Karin; John Gattuso; Lou Harry; Edward Jardim; Donald Kraybill; Susan Lewis; Dave Nelson; Carol Turkington (2005). Zoë Ross, ed. Insight Guides: Philadelphia and Surroundings (Second Edition (Updated) ed.). APA Publications. p. 178. ISBN 1585730262.
22. ^ "Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial". Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
23. ^ All Wars Memorial
24. ^ Smith Memorial Arch from Philadelphia Public Art.
25. ^ Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, page 418
26. ^ "PA Civil War Medal of Honor Recipients". Pennsylvania Civil War Volunteers. Retrieved 2008-08-16.
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Domestic violence and abuse
Domestic violence is where one person harms another person with whom they have (or have had) some sort of relationship. Both women and men can experience domestic violence.
Domestic violence can be where one person physically attacks the other or it may be another form of abuse such as emotional, sexual or financial abuse.
Domestic violence is a particular type of abuse, but there are also many other different types including harassment and stalking, rape and sexual assault, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, honour-based abuse and trafficking. All such abuse is also known as gender violence.
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Researchers develop technique for measuring stressed molecules in cells
May 3, 2011
Biophysicists at the University of Pennsylvania have helped develop a new technique for studying how proteins respond to physical stress and have applied it to better understand the stability-granting structures in normal and mutated red blood cells.
The research was conducted by Dennis Discher and Christine Krieger in the Molecular and Cell Biophysics Lab in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science, along with researchers from the New York Blood Center and the Wistar Institute.
Discher's research was published online in the journal .
In stark contrast with much of the architecture people interact with every day, the internal architecture of the human body is predominantly soft. Other than bones, all of the organs, tissues and structures in the body are pliable and flexible and need to be that way in order to work.
The Discher lab's research aims to understand what keeps these flexible structures stable, especially when they are under constant . Discher selected as a model for this stress, as they make a complete lap of the turbulent every few minutes but survive for months.
"Red blood cells are disks, and they have proteins right below the membrane that give it resilience, like a car tire," Discher said. "The cells are filled with like the tires are filled with air, but where the rubber meets the road is the exterior."
To measure stress in that membrane on an , the Discher team needed a way to track changes to the shape of those supporting proteins. They found an ideal proxy for that stress in the amino acid cysteine.
Proteins are long chain of that are tightly folded in on themselves. The order and chemical properties of the acids determine the locations of the folds, which in turn determine the function of the protein. Cysteine is "hydrophobic"; it interacts poorly with water and so it is usually on the inside of a protein. And because stress changes the shape of these folded proteins, Discher reasoned that measuring the degree to which cysteine is exposed would in effect measure how stressed the protein and cells containing it are.
Discher's team simulated the shear forces originating from the beating heart, which forcefully pumps blood and ultimately pulls apart the folds that keep cysteine on the inside of proteins at the red blood cell membrane, allowing it to bind with a fluorescent marker dye. The team could visually confirm that more stressed cells were more fluorescent under the microscope but actually tested the levels of marked cysteine using mass spectrometry.
"Just like a polymer engineer designing a tire, we're looking at the relationship between the chemical makeup and the physical stability of the structure and how it performs," Discher said. "We can use this technique to look at the relationship between structure, flexibility and function."
Investigating the structural elements of blood cells could pave the way to breakthroughs for human health.
"How long can blood be stored? Why are there no good blood substitutes? There are a lot of things we don't understand about the forces cells can sustain before fragmenting and falling apart, especially when we consider age and mutations," he said.
The Discher team studied the mutated blood cells that result in disorders known as elliptocytosis; cells are elliptical, rather than round, and therefore have shorter functional lifespans. These elliptical cells are often missing a chemical "rivet" that anchors the support proteins to the outer membrane, which means that stress causes them to "disassociate," or disconnect, rather than unfold.
That kind of structural change is crippling to the function of anatomical structures like blood cells. The flexibility provided by unfolding is therefore key to their overall stability.
"At least for this cell, the first mechanism of response is to unfold proteins and keep the interactions between proteins the same," Discher said. "That constant back and forth with unfolding within these cells as the cells flow and distort while in the blood stream, allows their architecture to be maintained."
Discher and his colleagues plan to use their cysteine-mass-spectometry technique to investigate the role of softness and flexibility in responding to stress in other biological systems, particularly stem cells, and to better understand why those traits are intrinsic to life on this planet.
Explore further: Cell Structures Exhibit Novel Behaviors, Mimic Red Blood Cells and Liquid Crystals
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Importance and uses of contrastive linguistics Essay
Custom Student Mr. Teacher ENG 1001-04 8 March 2016
Importance and uses of contrastive linguistics
Contrastive Linguistics, roughly defined as a subdiscipline of linguistics which is concerned with the comparison of two or more (subsystems of) languages, has long been associated primarily with language teaching. Apart from this applied aspect, however, it also has a strong theoretical purpose, contributing to our understanding of language typology and language universals. The study of two languages in contrast, here called contrastive analysis, has been referred to by a variety of names, not all of which mean the same to all writers. One can find the following terms used: contrastive studies, contrastive language studies, contrastive linguistics, applied contrastive studies, contrastive description and others. contrastive analysis investigates the differences between pairs (or small sets) of languages against the background of similarities and with the purpose of providing input to applied disciplines such as foreign language teaching and translation studies. With its largely descriptive focus contrastive linguistics provides an interface between theory and application. It makes use of theoretical findings and models of language description but is driven by the objective of applicability. Contrastive studies mostly deal with the comparison of languages that are ‘socio-culturally linked’, i.e. languages whose speech communities overlap in some way, typically through (natural or instructed) bilingualism . Much progress has been made in classifying the languages of the earth into genetic families, each having descent from a single precursor, and in tracing such developments through time. The result is called “comparative linguistics.” Of even greater importance for the future technology of thought is what might be called “contrastive linguistics.” This plots the outstanding differences among tongues – in grammar, logic, and general analysis of experience.A major influence on the development of the contrastive analysis approach has been the interest shown in it by language teachers and learners, and much CA has been undertaken with language teaching rather than translation in mind. One can prevent development of errors through a prior contrastive analysis and error analysis, leading to the development of appropriate teaching materials to reinforce correct language learning.
Relevance and uses of contrastive linguistics:
The relevance of CL to translation:
The emphasis of much of the work on CL on teaching and language learning raises questions about its relevance to translators. At a practical level, it is probably most useful in pointing out areas where direct translation of a term or phrase will not convey accurately in the second language the intended meaning of the first. At a global level, it leads the translator to look at broader issues such as whether the structure of the discourse for a given text-type is the same in both languages. Furthermore, although Contrastive Analysis is widely practised, there are a number of theoretical and practical problems in its application, all of which must affect judgements as to its usefulness in preparing or evaluating translations. There is some overlap between these problems, but they can nevertheless be related to specific difficulties of identifying a common ground for comparison, comparing descriptions of different languages, taking account of psycholinguistic and sociocultural factors, and taking account of extratextual and intertextual factors. Identifying a common ground for comparison
All comparisons require that there be a common ground against which variation may be noted, a constant that underlies and makes possible the variables that are identified. Fonnal similarity is unreliable for several reasons. In the first place, a particular grammatical structure in one language may be a requirement while in another it may be one choice amongst several; in the second place, the choice represented by a grammatical structure in one language may have a different significance in that language from the choice represented by an apparently equivalent structure in another language .in the third place, in one language a particular structure may be unmarked while in another it may be marked. A pair of sentences might be semantically and/or pragmatically equivalent but have widely varying likelihoods of occurrence in the languages from which they are drawn. A simple example of all these points is that of the Portuguese expression “muito obrigado/a and the English expression much obliged. These are syntactically and semantically comparable but have a different likelihood of occurrence, muito obrigado/a being the normal way of thanking in Portuguese and much obliged being a rare and more restricted usage than thanks a lot (and other related expressions) in English. Comparing descriptions of different languages
Apart from the real but unavoidable problems arising out of comparisons of descriptions that utilize different linguistic models, there are problems that arise even between descriptions that utilize the same categories and theoretical framework.Understanding between and among disparate cultures has challenged mankind throughout history; and clearly, communication, intercultural communication, is a key element in achieving understanding. We believe a disciplined, linguistic approach to the study of intercultural communication, an approach that includes the building of linguistic corpora, research in contrastive rhetoric, and practical, real life application of the best practices learned, can provide valuable insights toward achieving understanding among cultures The relationship between contrastive analysis and translation The relationship between CL and translation is bidirectional. On the one hand, the translation of specific pieces of text may provide the data for CL On the other, CL may provide explanations of difficulties encountered in translation.The crucial factors here are what size of language sample has been chosen for translation, whether it is naturally occurring or fabricated for the purpose, and whether the translation is the analyst’s own. Though the focus of CL may continue to shift towards pragmatics and discourse analysis, its use in translation is not inevitable. It is however unlikely that it can be dispensed with completely either in the training of translators or in the assessment of translations, even in its more traditional lexico-grammatical manifestations; CL has arisen as a result of the needs of the language teaching profession and this project is no exception in that one of its major objectives is to provide teachers with assistance in the use of parallel concordancing in the classroom.It gives valuable evidence for translators on the transferability of certain collocations and colligations from one language to another. The future of CL’s use in translation may well lie in projects such as this, which are capable of providing with equal facility explanations of past translating decisions and guidance as to prospective ones.
As a useful learning tool:
Knowledge and understanding of languages is increasingly important, and this course focuses on how such knowledge can be applied. It helps learners know more clearly and finding similarities and differences between them, thereby detecting errors, which bilingual learners often make, and how to fix. This assignment is based on contrastive linguistics. It uses many methods, especially contrastive method and surveys on grammatical aspect of these words. This study uses one-way transfer. We find a lot of two languages’ differences which may be make errors in structure and semantics. It is useful for bilingual learners to find mistakes which they can meet. Contrastive linguistic gives a comparative method to translate a learner’s thinking in an informed way. Giving structure to his/her intuitive relationship to the language. This bilingual approach in cl saves the students’ infinite time and labour. It has been proven that students learn faster and more effectively using it.Since it is our nature to compare, Contrastive Linguistics is the technique that clarifies our understanding of the language. For learners, similarities between languages cause no difficulties, while differences cause interference to learning. Through Contrastive Linguistics we can target and resolve the typical difficulties and Common Mistakes of our students. We can examine aspects that would not normally be noticed without such comparison. Bi-lingual comparative courses overlap in fruitful collaboration with other approaches. They clear away students’ deep-rooted mistakes and empower teachers with the answers to many of their students’ doubts.
In Language Teaching:
The change that has to take place in the language behavior of a foreign language student can be equated with the differences between the structure of the student’s native language and culture and that of the target language and culture. The task of the linguist is to identify these differences. The task of the writer of a foreign language teaching program is to develop materials which will be based on a statement of these differences; the task of the foreign language teacher is to be aware of these differences and to be prepared to teach them; the task of the student is to learn them.
Importance of CL due to growing demand:
There is a growing demand from both public and private sectors for professionals combining excellent language skills and sound linguistic theory and methodology. You study linguistic theory, description and methodology with a particular focus on corpus approaches and a strong multilingual component with high relevance for language professionals, especially in the field of foreign/second language learning, teaching (and testing), linguistics focusing on usage-based models and methods in language research and their applications, especially in multilingual contexts. It help students acquire the ability to read, write, speak, and understand world languages reach maximum capability with respect to communications, effective reasoning, and analytical thinking; to educate students for living and working in a competitive global society.. As the field of linguistics became more accepted as a discipline, other scholars from different fields began to incorporate language-related topics into their work. Contrative Linguistics found its way into sociology, anthropology, language arts, foreign language learning and teaching. It helps the translators to analyse the basic meaning and gist of the second language giving them an edge in interpretation jobs .
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Oklahoma astronomers see themselves in a faraway nebula
Feb 10, 2017
The Rosette Nebula
Credit Dick Locke
A group of stargazers in the Sooner State are hoping to pass a law that would grant Oklahoma an official state astronomical object.
As the Enid News reports, amateur astronomers would like to officially name the Rosette Nebula as Oklahoma’s very own astronomical object. Their reasons? Oklahoma has long held pride over rose-colored objects. The state flower is the Oklahoma rose. And the state rock is the rose rock. So, the astronomers believe, the Rosette Nebula, with its warm rosy glow fits right in.
In an era of tense political divisions, this is one measure that’s expected to pass the state legislature without much debate. However, there is a history of controversy over the naming of objects in Oklahoma. A few years ago, a heated debate arose on the floor of the state congress about a lawmaker’s wish to re-designate the state vegetable, the watermelon, as the state vegetable. But the state already had a state fruit, the strawberry. So the measure failed, and the watermelon remains Oklahoma’s state vegetable. |
There are about 50 or more data types in Scholar. Here are some:
• A computer suggestion, such as a writing suggestion that includes an explanation of the reason for that suggestion.
• One peer idea against a review criterion.
• One coded self-annotation.
• One comment in a virtual class discussion.
• A response to a question that has a right or wrong answer.
Big data means a lot of little data. Thousands of datapoints can become as many as a million:
• In one student’s high school or middle school experience, or college degree experience, using Scholar for most of their subjects or courses.
• In one teacher’s year, across all their classes.
• In one school’s week, across all students. |
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Wikipedia has more on Aviophobia
Aviophobia (from Greek avio, meaning "air"), or aviatophobia, is the fear of flying or being on an airplane and other flying vehicles. Also known as pteromerhanophobia (from Greek ptero, "wing", and merhano, "shake"), this fear is commonly triggered by learning on the news or history about airplane crashes that kill everyone aboard, including terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Other triggers for aviophobia include other phobias like acrophobia (fear of heights as airplanes fly high up), agoraphobia (fear of having no escape as being on an airplane can pose danger), and claustrophobia (fear of being in small space like an airplane cabin).
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The march of the flag
1898-09-01 - Albert J. Beveridge
It is a mighty people that He has planted on this soil; a people sprung from the most masterful blood of history; a people perpetually revitalized by the virile, man-producing working-folk of all the earth; a people imperial by virtue of their power, by right of their institutions, by authority of their Heaven-directed purposes--the propagandists and not the misers of liberty.
Have we no mission to perform, no duty to discharge to our fellow-man? Has God endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to rot in our own selfishness, as men and nations must, who take cowardice for their companion and self for their deity--as China has, as India has, as Egypt has?
Will you say by your vote that American ability to [50] govern has decayed; that a century's experience in self-rule has failed of a result? Will you affirm by your vote that you are an infidel to American power and practical sense? Or will you say that ours is the blood of government; ours the heart of dominion; ours the brain and genius of administration? Will you remember that we do but what our fathers did--we but pitch the tents of liberty farther westward, farther southward--we only continue the march of the flag?
The march of the flag! In 1789 the flag of the Republic waved over 4,000,000 souls in thirteen states, and their savage territory which stretched to the Mississippi, to Canada, to the Floridas. The timid minds of that day said that no new territory was needed, and, for the hour, they were right. But Jefferson, through whose intellect the centuries marched; Jefferson, who dreamed of Cuba as an American state; Jefferson, the first Imperialist of the Republic--Jefferson acquired that imperial territory which swept from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas to the British possessions, and the march of the flag began!
The infidels to the gospel of liberty raved, but the flag swept on! The title to that noble land out of which Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana have been carved was uncertain; Jefferson, strict constructionist of constitutional power though he was, obeyed the Anglo-Saxon impulse within him, whose watchword then and whose watchword throughout the world to-day is, "Forward!": another empire was added to the Republic, and the march of the flag went on!
Those who deny the power of free institutions to expand urged every argument, and more, that we hear, to-day; [51] but the people's judgment approved the command of their blood, and the march of the flag went on!
And, now, obeying the same voice that Jefferson heard and obeyed, that Jackson heard and obeyed, that Monroe heard and obeyed, that Seward heard and obeyed, that Grant heard and obeyed, that Harrison heard and obeyed, our President to-day plants the flag over the islands of the seas, outposts of commerce, citadels of national security, and the march of the flag goes on!
Distance and oceans are no arguments. The fact that all the territory our fathers bought and seized is contiguous, is no argument. In 1819 Florida was farther from New York than Porto Rico is from Chicago to-day; Texas, farther from Washington in 1845 than Hawaii is from Boston in 1898; California, more inaccessible in 1847 than the Philippines are now. Gibraltar is farther from London than Havana is from [52] Washington; Melbourne is farther from Liverpool than Manila is from San Francisco.
The ocean does not separate us from lands of our duty and desire--the oceans join us, rivers never to be dredged, canals never to be repaired. Steam joins us; electricity joins us--the Very elements are in league with our destiny. Cuba not contiguous! Porto Rico not contiguous! Hawaii and the Philippines not contiguous! The oceans make them contiguous. And our navy will make them contiguous.
But the Opposition is right--there is a difference. We did not need the western Mississippi Valley when we acquired it, nor Florida, nor Texas, nor California, nor the royal provinces of the far northwest. We had no emigrants to people this imperial wilderness, no money to develop it, even no highways to cover it. No trade awaited us in its savage fastnesses. Our productions were not greater than our trade. There was not one reason for the land-lust of our statesmen from Jefferson to Grant, other than the prophet and the Saxon within them. But, to-day, we are raising more than we can consume, making more than we can use. Therefore we must find new markets for our produce.
And so, while we did not need the territory taken during the past century at the time it was acquired, we do need what we have taken in 1898, and we need it now. The resources and the commerce of these immensely rich dominions will be increased as much as American energy is greater than Spanish sloth. In Cuba, alone, there are 15,000,000 acres of forest unacquainted with the ax, exhaustless mines of iron, priceless deposits of manganese, millions of dollars' worth of which we [53] must buy, to-day, from the Black Sea districts. There are millions of acres yet unexplored.
The resources of Porto Rico have only been trifled with. The riches of the Philippines have hardly been touched by the fingertips of modern methods. And they produce what we consume, and consume what we produce--the very predestination of reciprocity--a reciprocity "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." They sell hemp, sugar, cocoanuts, fruits of the tropics, timber of price like mahogany; they buy flour, clothing, tools, implements, machinery and all that we can raise and make. Their trade will be ours in time. Do you indorse that policy with your vote?
Our trade with Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines must be as free as between the states of the Union, because they are American territory, while every other nation on earth must pay our tariff before they can compete with us. Until Cuba shall ask for annexation, our trade with her will, at the very least, be like the preferential trade of Canada with England. That, and the excellence [54] of our goods and products; that, and the convenience of traffic; that, and the kinship of interests and destiny, will give the monopoly of these markets to the American people.
The commercial supremacy of the Republic means that this Nation is to be the sovereign factor in the peace of the world. For the conflicts of the future are to be conflicts of trade--struggles for markets--commercial wars for existence. And the golden rule of peace is impregnability of position and invincibility of preparedness. So, we see England, the greatest strategist of history, plant her flag and her cannon on Gibraltar, at Quebec, in the Bermudas, at Vancouver, everywhere.
No wonder that, in the shadows of coming events so great, free-silver is already a memory. The current of history has swept past that episode. Men understand, to-day, that the greatest commerce of the world must be conducted with the steadiest standard of value and most convenient medium of exchange human ingenuity can devise. Time, that unerring reasoner, has settled the silver question. The American people are tired of talking [55] about money--they want to make it. Why should the farmer get a half-measure dollar of money any more that he should give a half-measure bushel of grain?
Why should not the proposition for the free coinage of silver be as dead as the proposition of irredeemable paper money? It is the same proposition in a different form. If the Government stamp can make a piece of silver, which you can buy for 45 cents, pass for 100 cents, the Government stamp can make a piece of pewter, worth one cent, pass for 100 cents, and a piece of paper, worth a fraction of a cent, pass for 100 cents. Free-silver is the principle of fiat money applied to metal. If you favor fiat silver, you necessarily favor fiat paper.
And if it is not the stamp of the Government that raises the value, but the demand which free coinage creates, why has the value of silver gone down at a time when more silver was bought and coined by the Government than ever before? Again, if the people want more silver, why do they refuse what we already have? And if free silver makes money more plentiful, how will you get any of it? Will the silver-mine owner give it to you? Will he loan it to you? Will the Government give or loan it to you?, Where do you or I come in on this free-silver proposition?
The American people want this money question settled for ever. They want a uniform currency, a convenient currency, a currency that grows as business grows, a currency based on science and not on chance. [56]
And now, on the threshold of our new and great career, is the time permanently to adjust our system of finance. The American people have the mightiest commerce of the world to conduct. They can not halt to unsettle their money system every time some ardent imagination sees a vision and dreams a dream. Think of Great Britain becoming the commercial monarch of the world with her financial system periodically assailed! Think of Holland or Germany or France bearing their burdens, and, yet, sending their flag to every sea, with their money at the mercy of politicians-out-of-an-issue. Let us settle the whole financial system on principles so sound that no agitation can shake it. And then, like men and not like children, let us on to our tasks, our mission and our destiny.
There are so many real things to be done--canals to be dug, railways to be laid, forests to be felled, cities to be builded, fields to be tilled, markets to be won, ships to be launched, peoples to be saved, civilization to be proclaimed and the flag of liberty flung to the eager air of every sea. Is this an hour to waste upon triflers with nature's laws? Is this a season to give our destiny over to word-mongers and prosperity-wreckers? No! It is an hour to remember our duty to our homes. It is a moment to realize the opportunities fate has opened to us. And so it is an hour for us to stand by the Government.
Wonderfully has God guided us. Yonder at Bunker Hill and Yorktown His providence was above us. At New Orleans and on ensanguined seas His hand sustained us. Abraham Lincoln was His minister and His was the altar of freedom the Nation's soldiers set up on a hundred battle-fields. His power directed Dewey in [57] the East and delivered the Spanish fleet into our hands, as He delivered the elder Armada into the hands of our English sires two centuries ago. The American people can not use a dishonest medium of exchange; it is ours to set the world its example of right and honor. We can not fly from our world duties; it is ours to execute the purpose of a fate that has driven us to be greater than our small intentions. We can not retreat from any soil where Providence has unfurled our banner; it is ours to save that soil for liberty and civilization. |
Several definitions: 1) In terms of corporations, a shareholder is an individual who owns shares (of stock) in a company. Ownership of shares of stock comes with the right to dividends when it is declared and voting rights in certain company matters (e.g., board of directors). (2) May also be an individual who owns shares in a mutual fund. Both my also be known as stockholder.
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What is the difference between vb.net and c#?, DOT NET Programming
Difference between VB.NET and C#
This is the main debatable issue in .NET community and everyone treat their languages like religion.
It is a very important matter which language is the best. Some preferred VB.NET's naturally and some Like professional style and the rest C# syntax. Both languages use the same framework and speed is Also very much equivalents. But still let's list down some major differences b/w them:-
Advantages of VB.NET :-
1)Has support for the optional parameters which makes COM interoperability very easy.With Option Strict off late bindings are supported.Legacy VB functionality can be used by using Microsoft.Visual Basic namespace.
2) Has the WITH construct which is not present in C#.
3) The VB.NET part of Visual Studio .NET compiles your code in background. While this is considered an advantage for all small projects, people creating very large projects have found that the IDE slows down considerably as the project gets larger.
Advantages of C#
1)XML documentation is generated from the source code but this is now incorporated in the Whidbey.
2)Operator overloading which is not present in current VB.NET but is been introduced in the Whidbey.
3)Use of the statement makes unmanaged resource disposal simple.
4)Access to Unsafe code. This allow the pointer arithmetic etc, and can improve the performance in some situations. However, not to be used lightly, as a lot of the normal safety of C# are lost (as the name implies). These are some major differences that you can access unmanaged code in C# and not in VB.NET.
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Location: Southern: Côte d'Ivoire, Southern Ghana in West Africa
Population: 40,000
Language: Aowin (Akan cluster of Twi)
Neighbouring Peoples: Anyi, Asante, Fante
Types of Art: Woodcarving includes stools, which are recognized as "seats" of power, and wooden dolls (akua ba) that are associated with fertility. There are also extensive traditions of pottery and weaving throughout Akan territory. Kente cloth, woven on behalf of royalty, has come to symbolize African power throughout the world.
The Asante confederacy was dissolved by the British in 1900 and colonized in 1901. Although there is no longer a centralized confederacy, Akan peoples maintain a powerful political and economic presence.
Early Akan economics revolved primarily around the trade of gold and enslaved peoples to Mande and Hausa traders within Africa and later to Europeans along the coast. This trade was dominated by the Asante who received firearms in return for their role as middlemen in the slave trade. These were used to increase their already dominant power. Local agriculture includes cocoa cultivation for export, while yams and taro serve as the main staples. Along the coast, fishing is very important.
The depleted forests provide little opportunity for hunting. Extensive markets are run primarily by women who maintain considerable economic power, while men engage in fishing, hunting, and clearing land. Both sexes participate in agricultural endeavours.
Political Systems:
Royal membership among Akan is determined through connection to the land. Anyone who traces descend from a founding member of a village or town may be considered royal. Each family is responsible for maintaining political and social order within its confines. In the past, there was a hierarchy of leadership that extended beyond the family, first to the village headman, then to a territorial chief, then to the paramount chief of each division within the Asante confederacy.
The highest level of power is reserved for the Asanthene, who inherited his position along matrilineal lines. The Asantahene still plays an important role in Ghana today, symbolically linking the past with current Ghanaian politics.
Akan believe in a supreme god who takes on various names depending upon the particular region of worship. Akan mythology claims that at one time the god freely interacted with man, but that after being continually struck by the pestle of an old woman pounding fufu, he moved far up into the sky. There are no priests that serve him directly, and people believe that they may make direct contact with him. There are also numerous gods (abosom), who receive their power from the supreme god and are most often connected to the natural world. These include ocean and river spirits and various local deities.
Credits: Christopher D. Roy. Professor History of Art - The University of Iowa. |
Deductive Essay
A deductive essay is a precise procedure of analyzing the academic achievements of students in lots of several subjects. The key peculiarity of the deductive essay is the fact it have got to exhibit the power of the writer to implement the presented data to come back into a reasonable summary, that will symbolize a total piece of advice.
The essay of this style has to be structured from the way it reflects the entire process of deductive reasoning:
• Introduction states the subject and thesis, attracting the reader??™s attention.
• The first paragraph of your principal entire body describes the set of premises (the original normally approved data or clues, that are further utilised for a foundation for reasoning).
• The next paragraph focuses on the proof, the bit of important information that you’re analyzing as a way to correlate it with premises.
• The analysis last of all outcomes in a deductive summary, that is a stability of the proof in opposition to the premises.
• The ultimate paragraph within the essay features the restated thesis and also the deductive summary.
An relevant function within the deductive essay is its sharp target and clarity. The paragraphs will have to be truly obviously organized, speaking about a person unique dilemma and supplying examples, points and rationalization why the deductive summary is since it is. The aid has to be extremely sturdy and well-organized, as the failure to deliver crystal clear supporting arguments can make the summary take a look far-fetched and unrealistic.
Topics for deductive essays routinely manage to include things like comparison (Fancy vs. Pattern, Democracy vs. Totalitarism), but, a particular must be careful in order to not confuse the 2 different types of producing, as being the query here’s not in the problem of whether enjoy and habits are identical or distinctive, but on the deduction of why fancy can not be a pattern or vice versa.
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The Russian Forest
Forest, Near the Bay of Finland, Russian Federation, 2008
European Russian is a geographically divided country. In the south stretches the grassy steppe, the territory of ancient Rus and the birthplace of the Russian state. In the north stretches great forests, the place of refuge for the Slavs from the invasion into the steppe by the Golden Horde in the 13th century. In these forests later arose the princedoms of the Golden Ring, Muscovy, and finally modern Russia.
Even today in busy Moscow the forest is seemingly ubiquitous. Not only in the parks, monastery grounds, and pedestrian walkways, but also along the city streets and in the residential areas. When one sees the great trees stretching up to the sky between the narrow spaces between apartment blocks, one gets the sense that it is the forest that is lasting, and that the stone and concrete buildings of the modern city are no more permanent than the old wooden izbas of yesteryear. In the end, one feels, the forest is biding its time to prevail.
I think recognizing the importance of the forest is essential to understanding Russians. I like the following passage from The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture by James H. Billington.
It is probably not too much to say that the wooded plain shaped the life of Christian Muscovy as profoundly as the desert plain that of Moslem Arabia. In both areas food and friendship were often hard to find, and the Slavic like the Semitic peoples developed warm compensating traditions of hospitality. At the lowest level, peasants presented the ritual bread and salt to all arrivals; at the highest level, princes welcomed visitors with the elaborate banquets and toasts that have remained characteristic of official Russian hospitality.
If life in the scorching desert was built around the dwelling in the oasis and its source of water, life in the frozen forest was built around the dwelling in the clearing and its source of heat. From the many words used for “dwelling place” in Kievan Russia, only izba, meaning “heated building,” came into general use in Muscovy. Being permitted to sit on or over the earthenware stove in a Russian dwelling was the ultimate in peasant hospitality–the equivalent of giving a man something to drink in the desert. The hot communal bath had a semi-religious significance, still evident today in some Russian public baths and Finnish saunas and analogous in some ways to the ritual ablutions of desert regions.
Unlike the desert nomad, however, the typical Muscovite was sedentary, for he was surrounded not by barren sand by by rich woods. From the forest he could extract not only logs for his hut but wax for his candles, bark for his shoes and primitive records, fur for his clothing, moss for his floors, and pine boughs for his bed. For those who knew its secret hiding places, the forest could also provide meat, mushrooms, wild berries, and–as its greatest culinary prize–sweet honey.
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#Aging Or #Alzheimer's: The Signs You Need To Know. #Dementia #caregiver
How do you know if that forgetfulness you’ve had is an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease, or just normal aging?
You may forget the occasional name or sometimes have trouble thinking of the right word to use. Maybe you walk into another room and wonder what you were looking for. Is it Alzheimer’s, aging, or just plain being distracted, doing one thing while you’re thinking of another?
There are signs to look out for, signs that tell you it’s time to get to the specialist and get checked out. Treatments for Alzheimer’s disease work best in the early stages so it’s vitally important to get an early diagnosis. An early diagnosis and early treatment can give you more years of normal functioning, and save you and your family tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Warning Signs
Memory Loss: We all forget things like appointments, names, and phone numbers occasionally, and that’s normal. Forgetting freshly learned information more often can be a warning sign though.
Communication Problems: Having trouble finding the right word is not unusual, but the Alzheimer’s sufferer often forgets simple words and may use unusual words or strange descriptions. A camera may become “that box that makes pictures”.
Problems with everyday tasks: A person with Alzheimer’s disease can start having trouble doing jobs or hobbies that they’ve had many years of experience with. For example, they may be halfway through their favourite recipe and forget how to finish it though they’ve done it many times before.
Misplacing Things: This isn’t the normal losing the car keys, but more like putting things in unusual places such as the ice-cream in the oven, or clothes in the dishwasher.
Trouble with Complex Tasks: Having trouble with tasks that require abstract thinking like balancing a check book or playing a favourite game can be difficult for the Alzheimer’s sufferer.
Mood Swings, and Personality Changes: Mood changes for no apparent reason can be another symptom. The sufferer could be happy and cheerful one minute, and then suddenly become extremely angry over something that is quite trivial, or that they have imagined. They can become clingy with a family member, or suspicious of the neighbours.
Loss of Initiative: We can all get tired of housework or our business activities sometimes. But someone suffering from Alzheimer’s disease can become quite passive, watching television for hours, not wanting to do their normal activities, or spending more time sleeping.
Many more people are worried that they may have Alzheimer’s disease than actually get the disease. However, if you are suffering from these symptoms, see a specialist.
#Diabetics: #Diabetic Control avoid: white flour, white Salt, tea and coffee
Wheat is usually ground into flour for use as food. However refined wheat flour constitutes a serious health hazard of the various processed foods being used today for their delicious taste, white flour (maida) is especially harmful. The colossal loss of vitamins and mineral in refined wheat flour has led to widespread prevalence of constipation and other related disgestine disturbance and nutritional disorders, particularly diabetes. The consumption of white flour is thus an important contributory cause of diabetes, and its aggravation, if the disease has already developed.
White Salt
Common salt or sodium chloride is a major factor in maintaining the acid base equilibrium of the body. It is also essential for the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Thus, while a certain amount of salt essential for the body system, it is required in very small quantities, ranging from 10 to 15 g per day.
Excessive use of salt puts extra burden on the kidneys, may cause high blood pressure, which is closely linked with diabetes. Excessive intake of salt promotes water retention in the body, which in due course may lead to obesity, which is a potent cause of diabetes. Too much salt is thus harmful and may promote or hasten the onset of diabetes.
Salt (sodium chloride) and sodium preservatives are added to most processed foods. A sodium-controlled diet must avoid or limit salted snacks; pickles and many others processed convenience foods.
Tea and Coffee
Drinking tea and coffee is a serious health hazard for the diabetic. The most alkaloid principle in both tea and coffee is caffeine. Caffeine is an addictive drug similar to cocaine in as much as it stimulates the central nervous system. While these effects are short-lived, it has been observed that they lead to withdrawal symptoms of irritability, lethargy, headaches and anxiety. The daily intake of tea and coffee causes indigestion and gas formation, diarrhea, and constipation. They also increase the blood sugar level, which may lead to diabetes or aggravate its symptoms where the disease is already present.
#Prostate #Health , What YOU Don't Know Could Kill You!
"Prostate cancer is a major killer of men!" How is it then that in a poll 96% of men knew nothing at all about the prostate gland.
Prostate Cancer is the most common diagnosed cancer in the USA and UK. Next to lung cancer it is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the USA."
Women know more about men's health than men do themselves and that's a fact. Why is that? Is it because we find it hard to discuss these things? Is it because it's not macho! From the time that we are young, we are taught that boys have to act tough and shouldn't cry. You must have heard the saying "Big Boys don't cry!"
I know when my prostate troubles began, I knew absolutely nothing about the prostate. I was one of the 96%. Mainly because it didn't cross my mind that I'd ever have any problems.
In addition, the prostate is in a "private" area, and it wasn't something I wanted to examine. Many people, including myself, feel uncomfortable talking about the prostate, since the gland plays a role in both sex and urination.
I got so frustrated having to get up every night 3-4 times due to my prostate troubles and then finding I couldn't get back to sleep.
What is prostate cancer?
Warning Signs
A need to urinate frequently, especially at night; Difficulty starting urination or holding back urine; Inability to urinate; Weak or interrupted flow of urine; Painful or burning urination; Painful ejaculation; Blood in urine or semen; and/or Frequent pain or stiffness in the lower back, hips, or upper thighs.
These are two other main prostate problems
Treatment for Prostate Cancer
Without #Zinc You Are Headed Towards #Dementia Or #Alzheimer's #brain
Zinc is one of those minerals that have been discovered necessary to hold off the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s. Most older people and those with dementia and other mental disorders have been found to be deficient in zinc. In most studies zinc has been shown to improve mental capacity in elders.
To get zinc into your blood stream you need to have a specific acid that is excreted by the pancreas. This acid is called “picolinic acid” When food containing zinc or zinc supplements reaches the small intestine, duodenum, the pancreas excretes picolinic acid. This acid binds with zinc and moves it across your intestine wall and into the blood stream.
Picolinic acid is created in the liver and kidneys from the amino acid tryptoph. This amino acid then moves into the pancreas. If you have diabetes or if your pancreas is overworked or weak, you will not be excreting enough picolinic acid and will not be providing enough zinc to your brain. You will need to supplement your diet with zinc.
The type of zinc you need is one that is bound with picolinic acid. This type is called “zinc picolinate.” There are other type of zinc supplements such as zinc citrate and zinc gluconate, but there are not absorb as good as zinc picolinate. If you cannot get zinc picolinate then the next best is zinc gluconate.
The body has many uses for zinc and this can contribute to a deficiency of zinc in the blood for the brain. The body uses zinc for helping,
* in chemical reactions with enzymes
* with antioxidants to prevent arteriosclerosis
* with DNA to prevent dementia or Alzheimer’
* with cells activity
* kidneys to maintain acid base balance.
* with carbon dioxide removal
* make pancreatic enzymes
* your liver to detoxify alcohols
* and the list goes on and on.
Here are some of the foods to add to your diet to get more zinc.
beef, lamb, cheese, yeasts, oysters, Shrimp, herring, sunflower seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Sesame Seeds, wheat germ & bran, Mushrooms, Spinach, Squash, Asparagus, Collard Greens, Broccoli ,Chard, Miso, Maple Syrup
Zinc can be toxic in excessive amounts. A safe amount to take is 20 – 25 mg per day. Do not take more than 40 mg per day. Toxic effects are stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, cramps, and diarrhea.
Add these foods and zinc picolinate to your diet in an effort to starve off dementia and Alzheimer’s. There are a few more special nutrients that you should include in your diet to prevent degradation of your mental thinking.
#Alzheimers:You Need To Know About Senior #Health.#dementia #brain
But the fact is that health is wealth at every stage of life. It is more crucial when one enters into the senior citizens category because there are few caretakers in those times. So, the elderly should concentrate on fitness as much as possible. There are quite a few ways in which the aged can enjoy a good physical and mental health.
1. Health Insurance- it is the first and foremost requirement of every senior citizen. A medical insurance is the greatest friend in the time of need. It can provide you and your family the financial aid in worst times of your life.
But one should be pretty careful in purchasing a health care policy. The plan that facilitates maximum benefits should be taken up.
2. Diet and Exercise- the diet of individual varies with the age along with other factors. But at an older age, a person should be extra careful in matters of eating. This is because, the antibodies or the immunity system receives a setback in this age and one becomes more prone to all sorts of illnesses. The diet therefore should be thriving in vitamins, minerals, proteins and carbohydrates. Fats should be strictly avoided as they make one susceptible to numerous diseases particularly heart problems. There must be an extra intake of calcium to support the diluting bones.
But a rich diet is not enough. Some exercises should be a part of daily routine in this age. Individuals need to be extra cautious about movements of their limbs for the natural strength and the disease fighting ability of the body keeps on retiring in older ages.
3. Those who have a family history of ailments like prostrate and colon cancer, the diseases that most likely hit men in fifties and above, should get regular medical check ups done. They must follow the doctor’s advice and all the injunctions and prohibitions.
4. Women are more likely to be affected by breast cancer. They also are vulnerable to other diseases due to menopause. Though the course of destiny can never be averted yet prevention should never be ignored. There are some medicines that women should take after menopause in order to minimize the risk factor.
5. Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia are even threatening for women. The former is a fall in certain cognitive brain functions. It is a type of dementia. Dementia impedes an individual’s intellectual functioning and capability to work. These diseases mostly affect women in sixties and above that. Such women gradually become forgetful and incompetent in doing skilful work.
As soon as some of these symptoms are evident, doctor should be consulted without delay. Drugs at early stage might stop the situation from worsening.
6. Avoid stress. Stress is as harmful as any other contagious disease. Don’t stoop to drugs so called stress busters. Consult a psychiatrist if conditions run out of control.
Men: Fight #Prostate #Cancer and Win.
Next #Epidemic: #Alzheimer's! #Caregiver, #Dementia #Brain
Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that strikes terror into many of us, especially as we get older.
Alzheimer’s is a very serious brain disease that attacks the parts of the brain responsible for the creation of memory and for thinking.
As the disease progresses, more and more parts of the brain become affected. The patient loses the ability to live independently, and the sense of self and identity disappears. Eventually the patient dies.
Alzheimer’s is not the only disease that causes dementia, but it is probably the best known to the general public.
When Alzheimer’s strikes someone, we watch as the person afflicted slowly fades away in front of us, and eventually disappears to a place where they can’t be reached.
We may personally know people, who have been afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease. We may have visited a nursing home where many of the elderly residents sat staring blankly and unaware. We shuddered inwardly, thinking, “I hope that never happens to me.”
Part of the reason we fear this disease so much is because it is so mysterious. We don’t know what causes Alzheimer’s. We don’t know how to cure it. We don’t even have a surefire test to diagnose Alzheimer’s while the victim is still alive.
The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease tends to get higher as the population ages. In the age group 65-75, approximately four per cent of the population may be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In the age group of 85 years or older, about 50% of the population has Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is a growing problem all over the world because the population in most countries is growing older and older on average. In many countries, more and more people are surviving to the age where the incidence of the disease becomes more common.
At the present time, up to four million North Americans are believed to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease. In twenty years, that number may go up to ten million. India has the some of the lowest rates of Alzheimer’s in the world, but scientists don’t know why the rate of the disease in India is so low.
Alzheimer’s disease is named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer who studied and described this disease in Germany in the early years of the twentieth century. Dr. Alzheimer was the first to discover and analyze the massive destruction of brain cells in a middle-aged woman who had been stricken with dementia and eventually died from it.
When Dr. Alzheimer studied this woman’s brain after she died, he noticed that her brain was filled with microscopic plaques and tangles. These plaques and tangles had killed her brain cells.
The disease starts out with small lapses in the ability to make and retrieve short-term memories. With this comes a decline in the ability to reason and the ability to concentrate. The person affected may forget the names of familiar objects, or get lost in a familiar place. Personality changes may become apparent.
This decline in mental processing happens because of the destruction of brain cells that are needed to form and retrieve memories. At the same time, there is a progressive decline in the the brain’s supply of neurotransmitters required to carry messages from one brain cell to another.
In the initial stages, it is very hard to differentiate Alzheimer’s disease from other types of memory loss.
As the disease progresses, more and more brain cells die. Memory test scores may decline by 10 to 15% each year. Eventually, the patient will have difficulty performing the simplest actions required for daily living. The vocabulary dwindles to a few dozen words, then disappears altogether. Friends and family will not be recognized. The “self” fades away.
In the final stages, the patient will be completely unable to look after herself, unable to feed, walk or control the bladder and bowel. Death often occurs from pneumonia or infection.
Alzheimer’s may strike people in their twenties, but is very rare in that age group. It becomes increasingly common with advanced aging. As women tend to live longer than men by several years, they are more likely to live long enough to be afflicted with Alzheimer’s.
From the initial diagnosis to the time of death may be a period of seven to twenty years. The toll of the disease on the family and on society is very high.
Unless a cure is found soon, the costs of institutionalizing those millions who will fall victim to Alzheimer’s in the coming decades will consume many billions of dollars.
The toll on the families of those afflicted is very high. For the person who is afflicted with this disease, the loss of memory, of thinking ability, of the personal sense of self is the greatest tragedy of all.
What is the cause of Alzheimer’s disease? Is the cause genetic? Is it environmental? Is Alzheimer’s caused by a virus? Does Alzheimer’s have only one cause, or are there many contributing factors? Will a cure for Alzheimer’s be discovered?
These are questions that scientists are racing to answer.
#Dementia: Can #Alzheimer's Be Prevented? #caregiver #brain
The now famous, groundbreaking “nun study” went a long way toward identifying characteristics that would indicate the likelihood of Alzheimer’s onset later in life. 100 nuns have been studied over a period of fifteen years, beginning in 1991. Over the course of those years, their genes have been tested and analyzed, physical balance and strength charted, and cognitive tests run to determine how many words the women could remember several minutes after reading them, how many animals they could name in a minute, and if they could correctly count coins. The research shows that people who scored lower on cognitive ability tests when young were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s later in life. Early cognitive ability was measured based on writings done by the nuns while in their early 20’s. Those showing more “idea density” – the number of ideas expressed in the fewest number of words – and better linguistic and grammar skills had a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s later in life. Scientists are of the opinion that good cognitive skills early on creates a sort of “neurocognitive reserve” which will be drawn on later, effectively preventing Alzheimer’s. Exercising and improving cognitive skills via writing, reading and learning – anything that stimulates the brain – may go a long way toward active, clearheaded and graceful aging.
There are a number of other things, as well, that you can do to help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s. Many of these prevention techniques involve limbering the mind and working on memory skills long before Alzheimer’s onset is a danger. Just having a mentally stimulating job that involves creative thinking or manipulation of data is shown to have a connection to lower incidence of Alzheimer’s later in life. Doing crossword puzzles and playing card games were found to have a significant positive impact on later mental dexterity. Employ memorization techniques used by actors. Actors don’t merely memorize a series of words. They also combine appropriate movements, and evaluate the intent behind the words to be delivered. This “active-experiencing” method of memorization was shown to also improve the memory and cognitive skills in older people who were taught the technique. Limbering your mind now may promote a limber mind in your latter years.
Proper diet and exercise promote good health in general and may ward off countless problems including Alzheimer’s onset. The addition of fish oils, Vitamin E, and Vitamin C to the diet have all shown to contribute to a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s. Keeping cholesterol at a healthy level prevents build-up of amyloid plaques in the brain – a characteristic in Alzheimer’s. Finally, physical activity has been shown to prevent deposits in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
#Longevity: Primary Carer For A Relative With #Alzheimer's #dementia, #brain Disease
By: Alane Brown
“I am a Carer”. There you go, “straight off the bat” as they say, I write this article (the first in a series) in my role as a Primary Carer first and author second. At present I am the primary carer for my elderly mother who is suffering from the advance stages of Alzheimer’s disease. It is desperately cruel disease (most are, I know) in that it robs people (by and large) of their dignity and their independence at a stage in life when they need it most.
In the United Kingdom, the Alzheimer’s Society claimed in a recent survey that over 750,000 people suffered from Alzheimer’s and related dementia problems. In the United States it is calculated that an estimated 4.5 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s and that this figure has doubled since 1980.
Further alarming statistics highlight the fact that it is possible that in the US alone, the number of people suffering from Alzheimer’s could more than double to between 11.5 and 13 million sufferers by 2050.
Alzheimer’s disease is what is described as a progressive disorder of the brain that gradually destroys a persons’ memory, ability to learn, reason, make judgements, communicate and carry out daily activities. As the disease progresses, sufferers may also experience changes in their personality and display such behavioural changes ranging from anxiety, agitation or suspicion right up to and / or including delusions and hallucinations
Considering the long term implications for Alzheimer’s sufferers, the hidden sociological impact will in reality be born on the shoulders of those who will be caring for the sufferers for it is indeed a bittersweet irony that those who care for the sufferers in reality suffer more than the sufferers do themselves.
This fact in itself has been largely responsible for another survey finding recently and that was the fact that Americans are equally afraid of caring for someone who has Alzheimer’s as much as they are of developing the disease themselves. Approximately 1 in 2 American adults are more apprehensive of caring for partner or loved one who has developed Alzheimer’s. Just less than 1 in 5 American adults have indicated that they are more afraid of getting the disease themselves (17%).
The real problem from a carer’s perspective is that no two people experience Alzheimer’s disease in the same way. As a result, there’s no one approach to care giving. Your care giving responsibilities can range from making financial decisions, managing changes in behaviour, to helping a loved one get dressed in the morning.
Handling these duties is hard work. But by learning care giving skills, you can make sure that your loved one feels supported and is living a full life. You can also ensure that you are taking steps to preserve your own well-being.
Caring for someone who has Alzheimer’s disease or another illness involving dementia can be very difficult, time-consuming, and stressful – (serious understatement here). Here are some more things a care giver can do to help the person with Alzheimer’s disease while also reducing the substantial burden that comes with care giving:
* Stay Informed – Knowledge equals power. The more you know about Alzheimer’s disease or any other signs of dementia, the better you can prepare yourself to deal with problems that may arise.
* Share concerns with the person – A person who is mildly to moderately impaired can assist in his/her own care. Memory aides and other strategies can be created by the person with dementia and the caregiver together. This is easier said than done I know but you have to give it a try. But, and this is a big but (no laughs here please) it is essential that you realise that you are probably dealing with a person who if they have any cognisance at all, will be in denial.
* Solve problems one at a time – A multitude of problems may occur that may seem insurmountable at the time. Work on one specific problem at a time — you do not have to solve every problem all at once. As the saying goes “Success by the inch is a cinch, by the yard it’s hard” and in this case this has never been more true.
* Use your imagination – One of the keys to handling this disease is your ability to adapt. If something can’t be done one way, try another. For example, if the person only uses his or her fingers for eating, do not keep fighting; just serve as many finger foods as possible!
* Establish an environment that encourages freedom and activity within limits Try to create a stable, balanced schedule for meals, medication, etc. but also encourage activities that the patient can handle such as taking a walk or visiting an old friend. Remember, the person with AD is not the only one whose needs must be taken into consideration. You as a caregiver have needs and desires that must also be met. First, try and find some time for yourself. Even though this suggestion may seem like an impossibility, find some time during the week where you can have someone else watch the patient — be it a relative, friend, or neighbour — and do something for yourself.
* Avoid social isolation – Keep up contacts with friends and relatives. It’s easy to get burned out when it seems like you have no one to turn to. Another way to establish contacts is by joining the Alzheimer’s Association or other such support groups. Talking with other families who share many of the very same problems can be reassuring as it helps you know you are not alone in your round-the-clock struggles.
#Pandemic: #Alzheimer’s #Disease. #dementia #brain
Alzheimer’s disease causes more worry for people over 55 than any other condition. Suspecting you or a loved one may be exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s can be a stressful and emotional experience.
Just because you forget things, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have Alzheimer's. Even when you fear the worst, the earlier you seek help, the better your chances of getting the care you need and maximizing your quality of life.
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
What else can cause Alzheimer’s symptoms?
Significant cognitive and memory loss are not symptoms of normal aging. However, these symptoms do not always indicate Alzheimer’s disease. Other conditions can also cause mental decline.
Symptoms that mimic early Alzheimer’s disease may result from:
• Central nervous system and other degenerative disorders, including head injuries, brain tumors, stroke, epilepsy, Pick’s Disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease.
• Metabolic ailments, such as hypothyroidism, hypoglycemia, malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, dehydration, kidney or liver failure.
• Substance-induced conditions, such as drug interactions, medication side-effects, alcohol and drug abuse.
• Psychological factors, such as dementia syndrome, depression, emotional trauma, chronic stress, psychosis, chronic sleep deprivation, delirium.
• Infections, such as meningitis, encephalitis, and syphilis.
Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease
Since there is no single definitive medical test for identifying Alzheimer’s disease, arriving at the correct diagnosis can take time and patience. Diagnosing Alzheimer's requires a detailed evaluation, including:
• A thorough history of symptoms from the patient and spouse or family, including past and present functioning. Determining classic patterns can help your doctor eliminate other causes of Alzheimer’s symptoms, and also distinguish Alzheimer’s from other forms of dementia.
• A physical and neurological exam, including cognitive tests to assess such things as orientation (ability to recall details about self, place, and time), attention span, speed of information processing, working memory, and mood and personality.
• Other tests, such as brain imaging and blood tests, to rule out other medical causes.
To diagnose Alzheimer's disease from your symptoms, a doctor will look for:
• Significant memory problems in immediate recall, short-term, or long-term memory.
• Significant thinking deficits in at least one of four areas: expressing or comprehending language; identifying familiar objects through the senses; poor coordination, gait, or muscle function; and the executive functions of planning, ordering, and making judgments.
• Decline severe enough to interfere with relationships and/or work performance.
• Symptoms that appear gradually and become steadily worse over time.
• Other causes to be ruled out to ensure memory and cognitive symptoms are not the result of another medical condition or disease, such as mild cognitive impairment.
How is Mild Cognitive Impairment different from Alzheimer’s?
Recent research examining mild cognitive impairment (MCI) reveals biological changes identical to those seen in an Alzheimer’s brain. Considered by some to be an intermediate stage between normal aging and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, MCI is characterized by persistent forgetfulness, but lacks many of the more debilitating symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
MCI often precedes the early stages of Alzheimer’s. In other cases, patients plateau at a relatively milder stage of decline, and are able to live independently with little help from others. Understanding how these conditions progress to dramatically different outcomes continues to be a source of scrutiny and study.
#Diabetics: A Glossary of Key #Diabetic, #T1D Terms
Confused by words like glucagon and diabetic retinopathy? Cut through the medical jargon with these easily understandable definitions of diabetes-related terms.
Learning that you have diabetes can be overwhelming — with lifestyle changes, new medications, and the variety of tests needed to stay healthy. One stumbling block for anybody managing a chronic condition can be the vocabulary of medical terms. Here's a glossary of some of the most common diabetes terms you need to know.
A1C: a test that reveals exactly how well your blood sugar (glucose) has been controlled over the previous three months.
Beta cells: cells found in the pancreas that make insulin.
Blood glucose: also known as blood sugar, glucose comes from food and is then carried through the blood to deliver energy to cells.
Blood glucose meter: a small medical device used to check blood glucose levels.
Blood glucose monitoring: the simple blood test used to check the amount of glucose in the blood; a tiny drop of blood, taken by pricking a finger, is placed on a test strip and inserted in the meter for reading.
Diabetes: the shortened name for diabetes mellitus, the condition in which the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin or your body is unable to use insulin to move glucose into cells of the body.
Diabetic retinopathy: the eye disease that occurs in someone with diabetes when the small blood vessels of the retina become swollen and leak liquid into the retina, blurring vision; it can sometimes lead to blindness.
Gestational diabetes: the diabetes some women develop during pregnancy; it typically subsides after the baby is delivered, but many women who have had gestational diabetes may develop type 2 diabetes later in life.
Glucagon: the hormone that is injected into a person with diabetes to raise their blood glucose level when it's very low (hypoglycemia).
Glucose: blood sugar that gives energy to cells.
Hyperglycemia: also known as high blood glucose, this condition occurs when your blood glucose level is too high; weight loss, thirstiness, and frequent urination are typical symptoms.
Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic nonketotic syndrome: a condition usually caused by an infection or illness that results in blood sugar levels rising to dangerously high levels; HHNS can lead to seizures, coma, and death.
Hypoglycemia: also known as low blood sugar, severe hypoglycemia can cause a variety of symptoms ranging from dizziness to seizures.
Insulin: a hormone made by the pancreas that assists in the use of glucose for energy; people with diabetes who don't make enough insulin will inject it.
Ketoacidosis: a condition often caused by an infection or other illness like dehydration, or from taking too little insulin; when the body begins to break down muscle and fat for needed energy, ketones are released into the urine and blood, leading to diabetic ketoacidosis.
Ketones: the chemical substance made by your body when there isn't enough insulin in your blood; a build-up of ketones can lead to serious illness or coma.
Nephropathy: a diabetic kidney disease in which protein is spilled into the urine; it can progress over time and result in significant kidney damage.
Neuropathy: diabetes-caused nerve damage, typically in the feet and hands; major organs can also be affected.
Pancreas: the organ that makes insulin, needed to convert glucose to energy.
Type 1 diabetes: insulin-dependent diabetes that requires life-long insulin treatment; type 1 occurs when the pancreas doesn't make enough insulin, preventing your body from properly using blood glucose as energy.
Type 2 diabetes: non-insulin-dependent diabetes, a condition in which your body either doesn't make enough insulin or doesn't use it properly and can't properly use blood glucose as energy; type 2 may be treated with oral medication, but could eventually require insulin.
B. Smith, #Model And Restaurant Entrepreneur, Battling #Alzheimer’s. #Dementia
For decades the “B” was for beautiful — now it’s also for brave.
Legendary model and entrepreneur B. Smith — one of the first black faces to grace the cover of “Mademoiselle” — has gone public with her fight with Alzheimer’s disease.
Her husband had noticed something was a little off, too. "You know, going from being a multitask person to more of a sequential person, which was different, or doing things that were a little out of the ordinary, sort of like, "'Well, what was that?,'" said Dan Gasby.
When Smith, iconic model, restaurateur and effervescent host of the popular TV show "B. Smith with Style" took her concerns to the doctor, the diagnosis was heart-breaking: it was Alzheimer's disease.
The willowy former model is battling the progressive condition that affects the brain and brings on gradual dementia that can become severe.
“It meant something bad, really bad,” she said, when asked if she knew what Alzheimer’s meant.
Later, asked if she knows the date, Smith struggled and failed to name the day, month or year.
“Things like that make me very sad,” Smith said, tears welling in her eyes.
Four years ago the successful businesswoman — who parlayed her fresh-faced good looks into a chain of restaurants and lucrative design career — went to her doctor to discuss some disturbing symptoms.
That message may be especially important for African Americans and Hispanics. According to the Alzheimer's Association, African-Americans are twice as likely as Whites to develop the disease, while Hispanics are one-and-a-half times as likely as Whites to develop it.
#Aging, #Alzheimer’s and #Dementia Prevention
How to Reduce Your Risk and Protect Your Brain as You Age
For many years, we've been told that there's little we can do to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia but hope for the best and wait for a pharmaceutical cure. But the truth is you can reduce your risk by eating right, exercising, staying mentally and socially active, and keeping stress in check. By leading a brain-healthy lifestyle, you may be able to prevent Alzheimer’s symptoms and slow down, or even reverse, the process of deterioration.
Alzheimer’s & dementia prevention pillar #2: Healthy diet
Just like the rest of your body, your brain needs a nutritious diet to operate at its best. Focus on eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats.
Eating habits that reduce inflammation and provide a steady supply of fuel are best. These food tips will keep you protected:
• Follow a Mediterranean diet. Eating a heart-healthy Mediterranean diet rich in fish, nuts, whole grains, olive oil, and abundant fresh produce. Treat yourself to the occasional glass of red wine and square of dark chocolate.
• Avoid trans fats and saturated fats. Reduce your consumption by avoiding full-fat dairy products, red meat, fast food, fried foods, and packaged and processed foods.
• Eat a heart-healthy diet. What’s good for the heart is also good for the brain, so by reducing your risk of heart disease, you also lower your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
• Get plenty of omega-3 fats. Evidence suggests that omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Food sources include cold-water fish such as salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel, and sardines. You can also supplement with fish oil.
• Eat 4-6 small meals throughout the day, rather than 3 large meals. Eating at regular intervals helps to maintain consistent blood sugar levels. Also avoid refined carbohydrates high in sugar and white flour, which rapidly spike glucose levels and inflame your brain.
• Eat across the rainbow. Emphasize fruits and vegetables across the color spectrum to maximize protective antioxidants and vitamins. Daily servings of berries and green leafy vegetables should be part of your brain-protective regimen.
Eat to protect glial cells
Researchers believe that glial cells may help remove debris and toxins from the brain that can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. Consuming foods such as ginger, green tea, fatty fish, soy products, blueberries, and other dark berries may protect these important cells from damage.
What about supplements?
Folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D, magnesium, and fish oil are believed to preserve and improve brain health. Studies of vitamin E, ginkgo biloba, coenzyme Q10, and turmeric have yielded less conclusive results, but may also be beneficial in the prevention or delay of Alzheimer’s and dementia symptoms.
Talk to your doctor about medication interactions, and review current literature to make a personal decision about the costs and benefits of dietary supplements.
Give up smoking and drink in moderation
Smoking and heavy drinking are two of the most preventable risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. Not only does smoking increase the odds for those over 65 by nearly 79 percent, researchers at Miami’s Mt. Sinai Medical Center warn that a combination of these two behaviors reduces the age of Alzheimer’s onset by six to seven years.
When you stop smoking, the brain benefits from improved circulation almost immediately, no matter your age. However, brain changes from alcohol abuse can only be reversed in their early stages.
Alzheimer’s & dementia prevention pillar #3: Mental stimulation
Those who continue learning new things throughout life and challenging their brains are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, so make it a point to stay mentally active. In essence, you need to “use it or lose it.”
Activities involving multiple tasks or requiring communication, interaction, and organization offer the greatest protection. Set aside time each day to stimulate your brain. Cross-training with these brain-boosting activities will help keep you mentally sharp:
• Learn something new. Study a foreign language, learn sign language, practice a musical instrument, read the newspaper or a good book, or take up a new hobby. The greater the novelty and challenge, the larger the deposit in your brain reserves.
• Practice memorization. Start with something short, progressing to something a little more involved, such as the 50 U.S. state capitals. Create rhymes and patterns to strengthen your memory connections.
• Enjoy strategy games, puzzles, and riddles. Brain teasers and strategy games provide a great mental workout and build your capacity to form and retain cognitive associations. Do a crossword puzzle, play board games or cards, or work word and number games, such as Scrabble or Sudoku.
• Practice the 5 W’s. Observe and report like a crime detective. Keep a “Who, What, Where, When, and Why” list of your daily experiences. Capturing visual details keeps your neurons firing.
• Follow the road less traveled. Take a new route, eat with your non-dominant hand, rearrange your computer file system. Vary your habits regularly to create new brain pathways.
Mental exercises have long-lasting benefits for seniors
In a groundbreaking study, older adults who received as few as 10 sessions of mental training not only improved their cognitive functioning in daily activities in the months after the training, but continued to show long-lasting improvements 10 years later.
The ACTIVE study of 2,832 seniors involved 60-75 minute training sessions in memory, reasoning, or speed of processing, using exercises such as memorizing lists, detecting patterns in number series, and operating a touch-screen program.
Ten years after the training, nearly three-quarters of the participants who received reasoning training and over 70 percent of speed-trained participants were still performing tasks above their pre-trial baseline level, compared to about 62 and 49 percent of control participants.
While there was not the same improvement in memory performance, the results highlight the importance of mental training in delaying the onset of functional symptoms of dementia. |
The Origins of the Bullwhip.
While there no doubt where whip designs that looked exactly like the bullwhip through out history, the term "bullwhip" is unique to the cowboys and buckaroos of the old west. As you can see just like whip enthusiasts of today they loved to show off their whips. The bullwhip was introduced to the United States by the Spanish Vaqueros. The vaqueros where the original cowboys. They where also expert raw hide braiders. A talent they learned from the Moors after they invaded Spain. The Spanish in turn migrated into mexico and taught the talent to the Mexicans and they also taught it to the ranch hands of the old west.
Braiding horse tack lariats or raitas and whips was a much needed past time in the old west. As well as a way to pass the time away while watching over the herd. It didn't take long for the cowboys to match the expertise of the Spanish vaqueros. You can see from the picture that they made some very nice bullwhips. That whip looks as good if not better than some I see being sold now days. I wonder how it cracked? I bet it was a joy. I mean just look at it .The plaiting is smooth and it doesn't look like it was made of latigo.Most likely it was made out of raw hide. It looks like the junction between the handle and the thong is very stable. From where I sit it looks like a pretty sweet whip. You can also tell that the handle was made out of wood. While this is not true of all bullwhips it was and still is very common. The reason being that it is much faster to make than if you have to braid the handle. The other reason this was a practical design is that small steel rods like those used in fully plaited handles where very difficult to come by in the old west. It was much easier to find a piece of wood you could shape into a handle.
The bullwhip was designed expressly for driving cattle. As such it was designed to be a long whip because it was generally used on horse back so length was needed to get close enough to the cattle to have the desired effect while still keeping the Cowboy and his horse safe. I don't know if you have ever been charged by a bull, but I have and let me tell you having a long whip is a good thing. Now that being said cattle generally move quite easily when they hear a loud crack like that from a whip. But bulls on the other hand can be a bit tenacious when they have a mind to. Hence the term "Bull Headed" So the bullwhip was really designed specifically to deal with bulls. Go figure, I mean a BULLwhip was made to deal with bulls? Who would have thunk it? Why no one ever mentions that little factoid in their definition of a bullwhip is beyond me. One trick the Cowboys used the bullwhip for was to get a bulls attention. Bulls get very territorial when they have a harem of cows to protect. Then again so do Momma cows when they have a calf to protect. In some cases the cows are a lot meaner than the bull. Anyway the cowboys at times would use the sound of the whip to keep the bull distracted while they rounded up the cattle. Once the herd was on it's way the bull would peacefully take it's place among them.
There is also some misconception that cowboys didn't actually hit the animals with the whip because they didn't want to injure the animal. Well given what they did to cows by branding them do you think they really would have been worried about hitting a bull if he was charging at them? I doubt it.
© 2006 Victor Tella
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The Secret of our Success
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Researchers have worked out the unique secret to human success. The secret formula, according to new research led by scientists at the University of St Andrews, is largely due to the human ability to work together. The new study outlines the critical social and cognitive capabilities possessed by humans, but not other animals, that explain our success as a species. The research, published in the journal Science today, suggests that working as a team and sharing rewards is rare in nature but a key characteristic of humans. The work was carried out by St Andrews researcher Dr Lewis Dean and a team of biologists and psychologists from Texas, Strasbourg and the University of Durham. Dr Dean set out to establish what sets humans apart from non-human primates in the ability to build on existing knowledge. He explained, “Humans can fashion ever more efficient, complex and diverse solutions to life’s challenges, building on the knowledge and technology of previous generations. “However, other animals, despite being able to learn from one another, never seem to build on that knowledge. “Our
study proves that it is our social skills and, in particular, the human ability to cooperate that explains our successes and achievements in a fast-moving technological age.” The report describes how children were able to use social skills to solve a series of problems, while chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys were not. The researchers set the same series of puzzles for groups of capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees, and nursery school children – each puzzle built upon the previous one, to retrieve rewards of increasing desirability – better and better foods for the animals and more and more desirable stickers for the children. The children, but not the chimpanzees or capuchins, were able to reach higher-level solutions, largely because they helped each other. While the chimpanzees and monkeys tried to solve the task alone, the children worked as teams, teaching others how to retrieve the rewards, giving advice, copying each other, and sharing their coveted rewards. The researchers found that the more a child was taught, received spontaneous gifts of retrieved stickers from other children, or imitated others, the better they did in the task.The five year study was conducted by Dr Dean under the supervision of biologist Professor Kevin Laland (St Andrews) and anthropologist Dr Rachel Kendal (U. of Durham). Professor Laland commented, “Humans have evolved to be suited to a culturally constructed world. In contrast, other animals, even chimpanzees, probably don’t have the right kind of minds to devise solutions to problems that ratchet up in complexity.” Dr Kendal added, “Our findings demonstrate that humans possess ways of thinking and interacting socially that leaves us uniquely well qualified to build on our successes.” The international team also included leading experts on chimpanzee and capuchin behaviour, Professor Steven Schapiro (U. of Texas) and Professor Bernard Thierry (U. of Strasbourg). News from: University of St Andrews
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Friday, August 17, 2007
Onam ( Malayalam: ഓണം) is an annual harvest festival, celebrated mainly in the Indian state of Kerala. It is the foremost festival among the cultural repertoire of Malayalees, and falls during the month of Chingam (August-September as per the Gregorian calendar), the first month of the Malayalam calendar and lasts for ten days. Though it is essentially a harvest festival of Malayalees, mythologically it is linked to Malayalee-Hindu folktales. Like many other religious festivals in India, Onam is celebrated by people of all religions .
1 Significance
3 Legend
4 The Temple
5Atham pathinu ponnonam
6 Onam activities
Onam is the one of the most beautiful and meaningful festival in the World. Onam has been part of Malayalee psyche for centuries. There are records of Onam being celebrated during the Sangam Age. The earliest record of Onam is found during time of Kulasekhara Perumals around A.D 800, soon after the Kalabhra Interregnum of Kerala History. Until the eighth century the political history is mostly unknown and is usually known as the Kalabhra Interregnum. Kalabhras were supposed to have been ruling Kerala until at least the sixth century. Kalabhras probably refers to Keralaputras. Who were they?. It was most probably the people of Mahabali. Onam has two specific significance.First it is the communal memory and celebration of past history as ennunciated in the Mahabali Legend. A story of how paradise was lost.Second it is the celebration of the harvest tied with the memory of the golden age of prosperity. It is believed that during those days the whole of Chingam was celebrated as Onam season.After the rain drenched month of Karkidakam with its privations, Chingam is a welcome month for people in the state of Kerala. The festival is the harbinger of spring — signalling the start of the harvest season. Onam epitomizes the newfound vigour and enthusiasm of the season, and is celebrated with traditional fervour with visit to temples, family get-togethers, gifting each other clothes called Onakkodi and lots of merry making.
Pookalam is an intricate and colourful arrangement of flowers laid on the floor. Tradition of decorating Pookalam is extremely popular in Kerala and is followed as a ritual in every household during ten-day-long Onam celebrations.'Pookhalam' consists of two words, 'poov' meaning flower and 'kalam' means colour sketches on the ground. It is considered auspicious to prepare Pookalam, also known as 'Aththa-Poo' during the festival of Onam. People believe the spirit of their dear King Mahabali visits Kerala at the time of Onam. Besides making several other arrangements, people, especially adolescent girls prepare elaborate Pookalams to welcome their most loved King.
Making of a Pookalam Kilo and kilos of flowers, lot of dedication, creativity, technique and team effort are the basic essential of an eye catching Pookkalam.Athapoovu are usually circular in shape and multi-tiered colourful arrangements of flowers, petals and leaves. Use of powder colours, desiccated coconut or artificial flowers is prohibited. Pookalams are normally laid on the front court yard of the house. Idols of Mahabali and Vishnu are placed in the center of the Pookalam and worshiped. Diameter of a Pookalam normally ranges from four to five meters. Ritual of making the flower mats continues for all ten days of Onam. Designing starts from the day of Atham and is made ready by Thiruvonam day.
Basic design is prepared on the first day. Size of a Pookalam is increased by adding more to it on every passing day hence a massive Pookalam gets ready for the main day of the occasion. Its a big creative task, as designers have to think of a new design ever day. Various flowers are used on each day as a specific flower is dedicated to each day of Onam. Commonly used flowers include Thumba (Lucas Aspera), Kakka Poovu, Thechipoovu, Mukkutti (little tree plant), Chemparathy (shoe flower), Aripoo or Konginipoo (Lantana), Hanuman Kireedom (Red pagoda plant) and Chethi (Ixora). Of all these flowers, Thumba flowers are given more importance in Pookalam as they are small in size and glitter in the the soft rays of the sun. 'Thumba Poo' is also considered to be the favourite flower of Lord Shiva and King Mahabali was a devout worshipper of Shiva.On the next day of Onam, Thumba flowers are used to decorate Onapookalam. The arrangement is not touched for the next 15 days.
On the 15 th day, called 'Ayilyam', Pookalam is decorated again. On the next day, called Magam, Pookalam is given a cut in its four corners with a knife. This marks the end of Pookalam decorations for the year. Some also follow the tradition of erecting a small pandal over the completed flower carpet and decorating it with colourful festoons.Making of Pookalam is itself a colourful and joyous event. Being a team effort it helps to generate feeling of togetherness and goodwill amongst the people. It is animating to watch women as they prepare Pookalam while singing traditional songs. Giggling and sharing jokes between the thought provoking and back breaking job.
Trends Earlier, people used to make efforts to collect flowers for designing a Pookalam. Children used to get up early in the morning and gather flowers in their small 'Pookuda' (basket) from the village gardens. These days, the trend has changed and people have the option of buying flowers from the market in the shape and colour of their choice. Pookalam decoration competitions are organised by various societies and groups all over the state on the day of Onam.
They have become extremely popular and witness huge public participations. Big prizes are also kept in these contests as they have turned up to be extremely competitive events. A large number of people assemble just to have a look at the innovative and meticulously prepared art pieces. A beautiful design, though it is said, is created in the heart, use of technology is also in vogue in designing of a Pookalam. People prepare design first on computer and then implement it on floor. This saves a lot of time and energy and helps the designers to come up with stunning Pookalams.
Kashyapa had two wives, Diti and Aditi, who were the parents of demons and demigods (Asuras and Devas) respectively. As the common practice in those days, for a King invading another kingdom to acquire additional territory, Indra, the king of demigods went on war with the king of Asuras. Mahabali, the King of Asuras defeated Indra and proceed to occupy Indra's territory. Kashyapa, who had gone to the Himalayas to do penance, on his return, found Aditi weeping over the defeat of her son, Indra. By divine insight, Kashyapa recognised the cause of grief. Kashyapa tried to console Aditi who was wailing in grief, saying that nothing happens in the world without God's will and people should go on doing their duties. Kashyapa asked Aditi to pray to Lord Narayana and taught her Payovrata, ritual that has to be observed from the twelfth day of the bright half Karthika (Sukla-paksha Dwaadasi). Since Aditi carried out the Vrata with a pious heart, Lord Narayana appeared before her and informed her that he would himself take birth in her womb and help Indra. Later, on the twelfth day of the bright half of the month of Bhadrapada,Aditi gave birth to a son of uncommon effulgence. That child, "Vamana-murti", demonstrated His divine powers by doing marvelous deeds even when he was a child.
Balichakravarthi (Bali, The Emperor) or Mahabali, was the grandson of Prahlad, the son of Hiranyakasipu who was slayed by Vishnu in his Narasimha Avatar. Hiranyksha the brother of Hiranya Kasipu was slayed by Vishnu in his Varaha Avatar earlier. Prahalad being an Asura had great faith in Vishnu but his father, who was a devotee of Lord Brahma was very angry and hated all other devas but Lord Brahma. One cannot miss the series of warfare between Vishnu and the Asuras - those born of the breath of God.[citation needed] Asuras did not acknowledge Vishnu as God. Bali Maharaj, sat in Prahlad's lap as a child and learnt love and devotion of Lord Vishnu from Prahlad. As a result the Hindus of Kerala, are very devoted to Lord Vishnu to this day and Vishnu in turn is said to love the Keralites very much. The Keralites perform the Mohiniattam Dance, a dance dedicated to the female form of Vishnu, Mohini. There is also the dance Krishnanaattam. Many Keralites also worship Narayani. Sri Narayani Peedam and Sri Bangaru Adigalar of Kerala and their followers claim that these two figures are a forms or avatars of the goddess Sri Narayani.
Mahabali's rule was the golden era of India. The celebration of Onam resounds and chants the following song all over Kerala:
' When Maveli, our King, ruled the land,All the people were as One.And people live joyful and merry;They were all free from harm.There was neither anxiety nor sickness,Death of the children were never even heard of,There were no lies,There is neither theft nor deceit,And no one is false in speech either.Measures and weights were right;No one cheated or wronged their neighbor.When Maveli, our King, ruled the land,All the peoples formed one casteless race.'
Mahabali who was performing the sacrificial rite of Viswajith at the banks of Narmada River, (Central India) and declared that he would give anything that anyone sought from him during this Yagna. At this the gods were very annoyed. Bali was the ruler of all the three worlds having defeated the devas. The gods approached Vishnu and asked for his help to dethrone Mahabali. Vishnu, incarnated in the form of Vamana, a dwarf to defeat the Daityas.
Vamana came to the Yaga-shala. As he was approaching them, the sages assembled there perceived the extraordinary effulgence form of the young lad. Mahabali went forth to receive the Brahmin boy with all traditional honours and gave him an eminent seat befitting the status of a holy person. Bali with the usual courtesy given to the people who come to ask for help told him Master! It is my good fortune that you have chosen to honour me with your presence. Whatever you desire, I am here ready to fulfil the same. Vamana smiled and said: "You need not give me anything great. It is enough if you give me that extend of land covered by three footsteps of mine".
On hearing him, Bali's preceptor, Shukracharya a Daitya priest, who could have vision of the future told Bali that the one, who had come to seed a gift from Bali was not an ordinary Brahmin but Lord Narayana Himself who had assumed this form. He advised Bali not to promise the lad anything. But Bali was a king who would never go back on his word and told his Guru that he would never break his promise. He was determined to give Vamana whatever he wanted since breaking one's word was a sin and he had to keep his pledge Shukracharya insisted that he should not fulfil the demand of Vamana as he had come to deprive Bali of all His possessions.
Bali, however, was determined to honour the word given to Vamana, begged pardon of his Guru for disregarding his advice. Earlier, while Bali was embarking on the war with Indra, he had prostrated at the feet of his preceptor, Shukracharya, and on his advice he performed the Vishwajit Yagna from which he secured very powerful weapons. It was only because of Shukracharya's help that he was able to conquer Indra. On this occasion, Bali was not prepared to heed the advice of the same preceptor. Shukracharya cursed Bali, saying: 'As you have not heeded your Guru's words, you will be reduced to ashes'. Bali was firm and replied: 'I am prepared to face any consequence but will not go back on my word'.
Saying so, he asked Vamana to measure the three feet of land as desired by him. All attempts of Shukracharya to dissuade Bali from offering the land desired by Vamana proved futile. Bali considered everyone who came to him as god himself and never refused anyone anything that they have asked. Bali told his Guru: "Prana (life) and Maana (honour) are the two eyes of a person. Even if life goes, honour should be protected. Granting that the person that has come now is the Lord Himself, I should be the most fortunate one as the Lord, who gives everything to mankind, is seeking something from me."
Vamana grew in size until he towered above the heavens. With one foot, he measured all of the earth. With the other, he claimed all of heaven. There was still one foot of territory that Bali owed him. Bali offered his head to be measured as the third step of land which Lord Vamana had asked for as alms. For the devotion of this Daitya Mahabali, Lord Vishnu (Vamana) granted him rule over Patala. Vamana aka Vishnu granted Bali the boon that he would hold the position of Indra for one Manvantara , thus fulfilling his devotee's desire ( the office of Indra being a rotating position , changing every Manvantara ) .
As a last wish Mahabali was granted the permission to visit his subjects once a year. Thus, Keralites celebrate Onam festival to commemorate the memory of a Great King Mahabali who would keep his promise. Mahabali fulfilled his name as the great martyr for the sake of Truth ("Satya"). The name "Mahabali" itself means Great Sacrifice. Thus Onam celebrates a series of martyrdom of the devoted Daityas.
During Onam, the feast and festive mood of the people, dressed in their best, is considered reminiscent of the prosperous and truthful life of the subjects during Bali's flawless reign. People wear new clothes (Vastra) during Onam. The 'Vastra' also stands for heart. Thus the significance of wearing new clothes is about making the heart new by removing all bad thoughts and feelings. People forgetting their sectarian outlooks, join together to welcome the auspicious 'Thiruvonam' day.
This is the only festival which is celebrated by the Thomas Christians of Kerala along with the Hindus.
The Temple
It is said that a temple was erected around the location where this incident took place. This temple stands over a large area in Thrikkakara, Ernakulam, in Kerala. Onam is celebrated here with great fanfare every year, and concludes with a well-known fireworks show. HI
Atham pathinu ponnonam
The ten-day celebrations of Onam start on Atham day. Earthen mounds, which look somewhat like square pyramids, representing Mahabali and Vishnu are placed in the dung-plastered courtyards in front of the house and beautifully decorated with flowers. Known as ‘Onapookkalam’, it is a carpet made out of the gathered blossoms with one or two varieties of foliage of differing tints pinched up into little pieces to serve the decorator's purpose. It is a beautiful work of art accomplished with a delicate touch and a highly artistic sense of tone and blending. (In a similar manner North Indians make something called "Rangoli" which is made of powders of various colors.) When completed, a miniature pandal, hung with little festoons is erected over it.
The important part of the festival opens in some localities on Thiruvonam day and in others on the previous day known as Utradam. On Thiruvonam day, King Mahabali is believed to visit every Malayalee home and meet his people. Houses are cleaned and decorated with flowers and traditional lamps. A fabulous display of fireworks turns the capital Thiruvananthapuram into a veritable fairyland. Sumptuous feasts are prepared in every household. The eldest member of each family presents clothes to all the members of the family. Even the poorest of the poor manage to find something for himself to celebrate the national festival in his own humble way.
Thiruvathira kali
Onam comes in the month of "Chingam" according to the Malayalam calendar. People put flower mats in front of their houses, to welcome King Mahabali. There will be competition for the laying of flower mats; Keralites all over the world will be celebrating this ten days will pomp and gaiety. They will wear new dresses, will be visiting almost all temples which they can, they will be performing lot of dances like Thiruvathira kali Thumbi Tullal etc. to name a few and the most important thing is the grant lunch they will be having on the Thiuruvonam day. Which is also called the Fourth Onam. Whatever may happen they will not miss the Grant lunch (sadhya). There is a saying in Malayalam that "Kanam Vittum Onam Unnanam" which means "We should have the Thiruonam lunch even if we have to sell all our properties" which shows the importance of the grand lunch on the Thiruvonam day.
Onam is celebrated with focus on different cultural aspects in each place. Athachamayam- a cultural procession takes place in the royal town of Tripunithura near Ernakulam-Kochi, on the Atham day of Chingam, which also marks the beginning of Onam celebrations. At the Vamanamoorthy temple in Thrikkakara, the annual temple festival coincides with Onam. The temple is dedicated to Lord Vamana and is directly linked to the mythological background of Onam.
At Shornur, Kathakali dancers in gorgeous costumes enact the legends. A strikingly impressive procession of caparisoned elephants is taken out at Thrissur.
The celebrations begin within a fortnight of the Malayalam New Year and go on for ten days. The last day called the Thiruvonam is the most important. All over the state, rituals along with new clothes, traditional cuisine, dance, and music mark this harvest festival.
In Thrissur, a vibrant procession with resplendently caparisoned elephants is taken out while at Cheruthuruthy, people gather to watch Kathakali performers enact scenes from epics and folk tales. Pulikali, also known as Kaduvakali is a common sight during Onam season. Performers painted like tigers in bright yellow, red and black, dance to the beats of instruments like Udukku and thakil.
At Aranmula, during Onam days the famous Aranmula Vallam Kali is conducted.
The swing is another integral part of Onam, especially in the rural areas. Young men and women, decked in their best, sing Onappaattu, or Onam songs, and rock one another on swings slung from high branches.
Onam activities
A typical onam sadhya
The most important things about Onam are the onakkodi, the new dress worn on this day and onam sadhya, a feast which is quite elaborate. This is usually a feast served on banana leaves and serves rice along with at least an array of 4 dishes. Traditional pickles and papadam are also served . Dessert - is usually 'payasam ' a sweet dish made of milk, sugar and other traditional Indian savories.
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Thursday, September 10, 2015
Getting Intermediate with Arduino
There's a wealth of information out there on getting started with the Arduino microcontroller, development environment, and basic electronics. So you've interfaced with LEDs, sensors, and modules. You've written sketches to do digital input and output, analog input, and maybe a bit with async serial, SPI, and I2C interfacing. Now you're ready for the next step. Maybe you have a project in mind that needs to make that transition from prototype to something that can survive real world conditions.
Now's the time to roll up your sleeves and yank that AVR controller IC, design a custom board, and start developing directly with the avr-gcc toolchain. Wait... what?
This is a fundamental problem with the beginning hobbyist and rapid prototyping nature of Arduino. There are obvious transition paths when you simply need more hardware resources. The Mega 2560, with its abundant I/O, RAM, and flash is clearly more capable than an Uno. The Arduino Due is fast, but may not be worth the loss of compatibility and ubiquity. Once you start exploring the world of custom and specialized 'duinos it's easy to become overwhelmed by the choices. There's no obvious path from beginning experimenter to serious project builder.
Hardware Selection
As I've progressed with Arduino, I've learned which boards to buy by making wrong choices and wasting money. Maybe you won't have to. Here are some general recommendations:
• Avoid prototyping boards with custom I/O.
That 'duino with built in Bluetooth or Ethernet may be tempting, but adding I/O modules to standard boards is more flexible and provides useful experience.
• Choose modules over shields.
Using multiple shields will eventually lead to pin conflicts. Shields are also constrained by the Uno form factor. Modules can be more easily moved between different types and sizes of controller.
• Build out your own proto shields or boards.
Perma-proto shields can be useful to consolidate modules, connectors, and small circuits as you progress from prototyping toward deployment. At some point you'll need to get that tangled mess of prototyping wires, modules, and components into a more compact, organized, and ruggedized form factor. Perma-proto shields are a decent way to customize interfacing for your project.
• Plan your prototyping and deployment requirements.
Determine early your physical requirements and controller specifications for both prototyping and deployment. That Uno or Mega might be great for prototyping, but not quite cut it for deployment in tight spaces or harsh conditions.
• Select boards in pairs.
To progress from prototyping to deployment you're better off with two (or more) controller boards. I'm currently liking the compatibility of prototyping on the Uno and deploying on the Adafruit Pro Trinket. You can build your own little shields to stack on the Trinkets.
A sampling of prototyping boards.
Software Development
The Arduino development app is great for beginners. For actual software development it's extremely limited. Yet again the intermediate developers are left to fend for themselves. All the thirdparty libraries and examples are written to be used from the standard IDE and runtime that are borderline unusable for production software.
I probably don't need to explain what's wrong with the Arduino IDE. It's simply extremely limited when compared to environments like Eclipse. That said, it's not unbearable to continue using the Arduino IDE for your .ino projects and use a better editor or complete IDE to organize most of your functionality into libraries.
The real problem with Arduino development is that the libraries and runtime are awful. The AVR microcontroller underlying most 'duinos doesn't typically run an operating system with processes and threads as you would find on a single board computer like the Raspberry Pi. Your Arduino project and supporting runtime library are your operating system!
The standard runtime works if you're only trying to do a very limited number of things and don't require fast real-time response. The fundamental problem is the linear nature of the standard runtime and libraries and the acceptance of millisecond level delays. It's simply unacceptable that library routines block the execution of other code for many thousands of instructions. What is needed is an asynchronous programming approach with asynchronous I/O, events/callbacks, and timers. This approach can prevent missed I/O events, allow events to happen at predictable times, and still allow the controller's processor to sleep when it's not needed.
The frustrating nature of standard Arduino development almost caused this experienced software developer to abandon Arduino entirely. Fortunately someone else who had experienced these same problems made the effort to do something about the situation. Enter Cosa, "An Object Oriented Platform for Arduino Programming."
Getting into Cosa takes a bit of time, but I strongly recommend taken the plunge as early as possible. Dive in there and start converting libraries to fit the framework of Cosa helper classes. Arduino was screaming out for asynchronous OO development and Cosa is what exists and works.
Furure Directions
So where does the intermediate developer with a couple projects under the belt go next? I can only speak from my own experience. With the availability of tiny 'duino boards, I don't feel a strong impulse to design custom controller PCBs when I can stack or socket existing boards. With Cosa I don't currently feel the need to develop directly with the avr-gcc toolchain. I've found an environment where I can get things done.
Would I step up to the ARM-based Arduino Due for more demanding projects? Probably not as things currently sit. Either,, or Adafruit would do well to negotiate with Mikael Patel to embrace and enhance the Cosa environment while extending it to the Due board. Without a solid software ecosystem that can work for beginning, intermediate, and advanced developers, Arduino seems destined to become yet another legacy embedded platform. Tick, tock, Arduino. The TI LaunchPad is looking really tempting right now... |
By launched an interactive map showing how much of the world's electricity is still reliant on coal, oil and gas, and who's using renewable energy to keep the lights.
Check out the interactive map here:
Despite increasing evidence of climate change and the pressure imposed by inter-governmental conventions, two thirds (67 percent) of the electricity in the world is produced from fossil fuels. There are as many as 14 countries who exclusively use fossil fuels to generate their electricity. Most of them are oil-rich states in the Middle East and Asia, Trinidad and Tobago who also have rich oil fields, and Botswana which is struggling to shake off its coal dependency.
Fossil fuels hold a 68 percent share of the United Kingdom's energy mix as coal and natural gas continue to be used to produce electricity, which is 23 percent higher than the EU average of 45 percent. George Osborne's recent move to cut the oil and gas levy is likely to increase extraction of fossil fuels in Britain.
Only seven countries in the world use renewable energy to produce all of their electricity. Leading the charge among them is Iceland, which makes the most of its geothermal energy. Other, perhaps unexpected entrants on that list are Ethiopia, Albania and Zambia—countries which draw power from their rivers to keep the lights on. Norway, which is the biggest exporter of oil in the EU, gets as little as 2 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels with the other 98 percent coming from renewable sources.
Britain's use of renewable energy in the production of electricity is as low as 16 percent. That is almost exactly on par with India (17 percent) and China (14 percent), countries which have been investing heavily in renewable energy but continue to rely on fossil fuels. The U.S. is further behind with as little as 13 percent of its electricity derived from replenishable sources, despite developing some of the world's largest wind farms in recent years.
Of the 30 countries who use nuclear reactors to generate electricity, 19 are in Europe. France derives as much as 74 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, while Belgium, Slovakia and Hungary all depend on it for over 50 percent of their electricity supply.
Japan, which prior to the Fukushima tragedy of 2011 drew 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, has reduced that useage to just 1 percent. Nuclear power continues to remain a no-go area for most countries, as even Kazakhstan and Australia—the world's biggest uranium producers—elect not to develop nuclear power at all.
Ben Wilson, energy spokesperson at, said:
“What we've tried to highlight through this research is just how reliant so much of the world still is on fossil fuels and nuclear power. It's clear that a lot work needs to be done, in the future, to keep the lights on without further damage being done to the environment. However, it was also encouraging to find out that some countries have managed to significantly reduce their reliance on non-renewable electricity generation."
U.S. Coal Use Falls 29 Percent
The Beginning of the End of the Old Oil Order
New Report Shows 'Natural Gas Increasingly Becoming an Unnecessary Bridge to Nowhere'
10 States Blocking the Power of the Sun |
Egg - synergids, Biology
Egg - Synergids
The three cells of the egg apparatus are arranged in triangular fashion with the egg sharing a common wall with the two synergids and the central cell. In the egg the wall is thicker at the micropylar end and is absent at the chalazal end. At this end the lateral walls of the egg cell appear to join the central cell wall. The egg cell wall is traversed by plasmodesmata on the sides of the two synergids and the central cell but not at its outer face. The egg cell becomes highly polarized early in its development. Polarity is expressed by the aggregation of cytoplasmic elements at the chalazal end of the cell. The micropylar end of the cell is occupied by a large vacuole. Thus, the distribution of the vacuole and cytoplasm in the egg cell is just the opposite of that in the synergids.
The ultra structure of the egg cytoplasm indicates that it is inactive. The mitochondria show only a few cristae. But for Zea mays, dictyosomes are either absent (Epidendrum) or are only a few in numbers. Where present, the dictyosomes exhibit an inactive state. Plastids are present in the egg; they often contain a striking difference from the male gametes. The egg cytoplasm is rich in ribosomes. In Plumbago capensis where the embryo sac lacks synergids. However many finger- like wall projections arise at the micropylar end of the egg cell. They resemble the filiform apparatus of the synergids. In this plant the egg cell seems to have taken over the role of synergids in addition to its own gametic function.
Posted Date: 1/23/2013 2:00:41 AM | Location : United States
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Fermentation is the heart of crafting any home brew whether it’s wine, beer or even root beer. Fermentation is the step where the yeast gets to be in the spotlight and turns all the brewers work into something … well, more exciting!
Yeast is responsible for creating the alcohol and the carbonation (CO2). It does this by eating sugars in the brew which are in there from the malts. When yeast eats the sugars the byproduct is CO2 and alcohol. Both of which make for an excellent brew.
In the video I point out the bubbling snake shaped thing on the top of my carboy. This is an airlock. At this point in the beer crafting process the yeast is still producing CO2 and alcohol but we are really only interested in creating the alcohol right now. We do not want to carbonate the beer at this point. The airlock’s purpose is to let out the CO2 created by the yeast without letting any of the unsanitary air in. If the carboy was simply plugged the beer would carbonate and there’s also a chance that the carboy could explode… which would make for a cool story but nasty beer.
The length of time the fermentation takes depends on a couple things. One thing being the amount of sugar in the batch. But basically once the bubbling in the airlock stops, it’s done. The yeast has run out of sugars to eat. In some easier brews this takes about a week.
Another variable that affects the length of time is the temperature. Usually the target temperature is around 70°F/21°C, but this depends on the type of beer you are making. Also, if the temperature is too cold the yeast will become inactive and wont eat the sugar, warming it back up to the target temperature can fix this. However, if it’s too hot you can kill the yeast.
Once the fermentation is complete it’s then onto the bottling stage. Before we put the beer in the bottles we need to add a little more sugar to the now alcohol infused brew, this gives the yeast just what it needs in order to carbonate the beer. We then put the beer in the bottles, seal them up and the carbonation will happen in the bottles which will usually take a week or two.
I hope that this explains some of the process a little better. I think it’s pretty cool to start from scratch and finish a brew and then be able to share that with family and friends. If you haven’t yet please feel free to watch the video above and drop me a line if this has helped you understand it a little better.
Gregory Strike
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Special Delivery
Gil Williamson
Is handwritten evidence reliable?
May 2373 - Account from Professor Mrs Kerstin Johansson, (semi-retired) of the University of Uppsala
In my job, I see a lot of writing, not just on paper, but carved into stone, metal or wood. As an archaeologist at the University of Uppsala, ancient writing is one of the basic data sources for my science. In particular, handwriting is one of my specialities, which, I suppose, is one of the reasons why Olaf Ekman's Book arrived at my workstation, eleven years ago.
Writing by hand is a rarity these days. We see any amount of printed paper, and lots of tablet notes in a variety of font styles, but beyond that... what? People sometimes sketch preliminary ideas on paper. Shopping lists, score cards, yellow sticky notes. The majority of paper manufactured today is used in an absorbent form to soak up or wipe up spills or bodily exudations. You can't write on a nose tissue. I've tried.
Writing being such a rarity, I was surprised that the book was accompanied in its mailpouch by a handwritten note on a plain sheet of heavy paper, signed by the Dean himself. It said, in essence:
1. Do not disclose anything connected with this book to anyone other than me. Do not file any data connected with this project on any computer database. Use only a secure, non-networked computer for your report.
2. You are required to analyse the attached book for authenticity of origin and language, both in its basic form and, as far as possible, with reference to the handwritten additions. Pay particular attention to dates.
3. Transcribe into English the handwritten additions to the text.
4. Submit a single printed report of your conclusions to me in person.
I was not permitted to retain a copy of the report I submitted, but the task was so unusual that I still clearly remember almost everything about it.
Ekman's 'Book' was actually an old bible. We see a lot of bibles, q'rans, little red books and other religious and political tracts in the archaeology business. During most of the history of printing, religious books in particular were produced in huge quantity, so it is not surprising. Besides, in historical times, superstition made people reluctant to destroy holy books, which often survived for many years after their original publication.
This bible was a dog-eared volume some one hundred and forty millimetres tall, ninety-five millimetres wide and forty millimetres thick, as I remember. It had a soft cover of black imitation leather, torn and scuffed. It was grubby and it smelled strangely musty, as though it had been in close contact with animals.
The paper was extremely thin, presumably to make the volume as physically small as possible. Each sheet was only 0.05 millimetres thick, so that 1000 pages (500 sheets) measured only 25 mm.
Bibles were traditionally divided into major sections called 'books', subsections called 'chapters', and short passages called 'verses'. The print was small, in two columns per page, with each Book named, and each Chapter and Verse numbered.
The publication date of this Holy Bible was 2145, over 200 years old when I first saw it. It was in English, published in London at the Hackney University Press, and must have been one of the last so-called King James versions published, the earliest examples of which date from the 1600s. By 2145, the 17th century language used was unfamiliar to nearly all speakers of English, and the bible in use was commonly rendered in contemporary language, just as on-line versions are today.
I sent samples of the cover, paper and ink of the bible for analysis, without revealing their source. The plastic cover and the paper were the right age, the printing ink correct. I was able to borrow another copy of exactly the same edition from Stockholm University library, and it was identical, other than wear and tear; the physical appearance, the pagination, font, printer's marks, even the few accidental flecks that always used to appear on a printing plate. On balance, forgery of the book itself was very unlikely.
However, what made this bible interesting was that almost every blank space - end-papers, margins and chapter breaks - was filled with handwriting in ballpoint pen, whose ink was initially consistent with the age of the entries. Later entries were in a more primitive ink which later turned out to be coffee. The book, or diary, was, in fact, a palimpsest. The original meaning of the bible text apparently meant nothing to the writer.
I remember that, at first, I didn't even realise that the handwriting was in Swedish. Swedish is theoretically my native language, but here in the twenty-fourth century, there are few daily speakers of the language. It was hard to recognise, because the handwriting was atrocious. Even after a lifetime of deciphering ancient documents, I found it extremely difficult to read, and the writer, in search of writing space, had filled all the big areas before resorting to margins and column gutters, and the whole narrative was therefore out of sequence, and the writer clearly lost track of dates very early in his account.
In my opinion, the language and handwriting style used were consistent with a Swedish male educated within rural Sweden in the early part of the twenty-second century, about two hundred years ago. For the language, I based my assessment on similar documents of comparable age: the vocabulary (especially the paucity of imported English and other foreign words); punctuation; grammar; and sentence structure used. For the handwriting, my clues were letter shapes and connectors, and, particularly, accents and diacritical marks.
As to content, the writer calls himself Olaf Ekman. There was no immediate way to verify this. He was unclear where he was living, lacked company, was unclear about his situation but had adjusted to it. The account was long, repetitive and tedious. It also lacked biographical detail.
Using parish and census records, I was able to identify more than two hundred possible Olaf Ekmans living in Sweden at the approximate period, but there was insufficient supporting historical data in his written account for a positive identification. Certainly, several of these Ekmans lacked information on date and place of death, but emigration to other countries typically interrupts the life records of individuals living at that time.
In conclusion, while I was unable to comment on any possible delusion on the part of Olaf Ekman, the physical book appeared entirely authentic, and the style of the palimpsest content was entirely consistent with Ekman's assertions as to year of writing.
Prof. Kerstin Johansson. May 2373.
Some extracts from Olaf Ekman's writings. As I state in the body of this account, the whole is both boring and baffling. Part of the confusion results from the fact that Ekman does not initially reveal that he is living in a supermarket delivery van. Late in the account, he reveals that the bible, which some other driver had left in the cab, was not the only paper available to him, but that he valued the other paper for lighting fires. He would never burn a bible, apparently. However, the ball-point pen he had in his pocket was the only writing implement available. The pen ran out before the available paper in the bible and the last entries are laboriously scratched with something dipped in a dye made from coffee. The van load, luckily for Ekman, was mostly preserved foodstuffs with a few other everyday items and some women's clothing.
1 June 2151: My name is Olaf Ekman. I have been here for about a month, but I do not remember how I came. The last date I clearly remember is 3 May 2151, so I shall call today 1 June. I have shelter, there is more than enough to eat and drink, but my life is empty. I have not seen another person, bird or animal since I arrived. The van is completely out of fuel and the GPS and radio light up but appear to be broken. The solar panels collect a little energy, but not enough to drive the van any distance. Tomorrow I shall walk to the west (the position of the setting sun) in the hope of encountering a neighbour or a road.
12 June 2151: Ten days and I was lucky to get home. The terrain is flat and almost treeless in all directions from here. After two days pushing through alternate stony desert and ankle-deep, flat-leaved vegetation, I came to a low hill, but the view from the top, in all directions, was exactly the same. I had taken enough food for seven days, turned back after three, and missed the van on the way back. It took three days to find it. Perhaps this is Canada. Are there volcanoes in Canada?
20 June 2151: I managed to cut down one of the tall plants, about ten metres high, with a kitchen knife from the van. The wood is soft like a cactus, and very light. There was a box of balls of string in the delivery. I tied a very bright yellow frock to the top of the pole, and managed to fix it to the van as a flagstaff. I will not miss the van next time I explore. I have decided to climb the volcano. I will see more from there.
It appeared to take Ekman several months to achieve this objective. The volcano was so far away that he was forced make huge numbers of part trips to set up supply caches en route because he could not carry enough food and water for the complete journey. In turn, this meant that he needed to signpost the route from cache to cache.
20 October 2151: So, in summary, the trip to the volcano was not a total waste of time. From near the top, it was clear that I am on an island, and it appears uninhabited. Although I never see any aircraft, I am building a sign to attract attention and will keep a fire burning day and night in hope of rescue.
25 October 2151: It rains a lot here, with remarkable thunder and lightning. It is difficult to keep the fire lit. It is good that the load includes a whole case of gas lighters.
6 November 2151: The moon looks smaller from here. Maybe it is the flatness of the land.
There follow twenty-two years' worth of increasingly sporadic entries, most may be summarised by 'got up, ate tinned stew, it rained, collected fuel for the fire, went to sleep', a pattern which must be a feature of the life of any castaway. The constant fire was abandoned when it took nearly a day to collect a day's fuel. Every so often, when the solar panels had accumulated a little energy, he moved the van a few hundred yards to another area with more fuel. Eventually, he was only a day's walk from the sea, but his attempts to catch fish were unsuccessful. He never saw another living creature on land or in the sea. Latterly, entries were interspersed by occasional complaints of this type:
12 September 2166: Becoming worried that the tins of food will only last a few more years. I have finally tasted the red bush fruit that look like little jugs that I always thought would be poisonous. I was right. They were almost tasteless, but caused terrible stomach pain. So far, there is nothing at all on this island that I can eat except the tomatoes and grapes that still sprout on my dungheap, and I think I brought these here myself! Happily, the rain water, though it tasted strange at first, has always been OK.
It should have been a soul-destroying existence, very much like a life sentence in solitary confinement, yet Ekman appears to have accepted it without either complaint or curiosity. There is no self-pity even in the last entry of all:
1 January 2173: Happy New Year. I opened the last tin today - one I have been keeping for a final treat - peaches. I hate to think how much I owe DK-Mart Supermarkets - a whole delivery! I estimate 20000 kg of tinned and packet food alone, not counting the soft drinks, beer and vodka. And all these ladies' dresses and sandals I used when my overalls and boots wore out! There is no more food, so when I get hungry I will eat as many painkillers as I can and fall asleep. I am sorry, DK-Mart, you will never be paid. Let us say that I have taken my salary in kind. Goodbye.
Ekman's death occurred two hundred years ago this year. We still do not know how he came to be marooned.
Kerstin showed her unexpected visitor into her kitchen. The man had arrived unannounced, presented his identity badge to her entry scanner, and been admitted without delay and without requiring Professor Kerstin Johansson's permission. This was the sign of a very important person.
"Coffee?" she offered.
"No, thank you. This is your report, recorded recently, is it, Professor?"
Kerstin Johansson regarded the rather pale young man with rising suspicion. He had a friendly face, but that meant little these days. He had unrolled a flekskreen, and passed it across the kitchen table. She recognised the article she had posted on the net the previous day. "Who did you say you were?" She had been so surprised at his arrival that she had not read the admission read-out on her entry screen.
"Anders Lidén, UN Truth Commission. Your article, is it?"
"Yes, but I fail to see the problem."
"You are aware that your work on this project was highly confidential." It was a statement, not a question.
She suddenly perceived that Lidén's blue eyes were acutely piercing. Her stomach sank. The UN Truth Commission had a reputation for ruthlessness in the pursuit of academics who crossed the line. "Confidential, yes, but eleven years downstream? And it's a sad story, someone marooned for so long, but it can hardly be important. It happened so long ago - two hundred years this year. That's why I wrote the memoir."
"And you were given leave to publish by whom?"
"No-one. But this is not my original report, which I agreed to keep confidential, just a memoir."
He pursed his lips. "Hmm.. A prevarication. And the quotes from your transcript of Ekman's journal?"
"They were not quotes! You will probably see differences from the original transcript... I... er... kept images of a few pages and re-translated them."
Lidén rolled up the flekskreen and returned it to his hip bag. "A memoir, you say. Could your memory be faulty, do you think?" He was watching her carefully.
"I don't believe so. I was careful not to guess anything that I could not clearly remember."
"Such as?"
"Lab results. Number of journal entries. I don't know. How long the investigation took."
"I see."
"Look. If the information is still secret, then I'll withdraw the net release."
"Oh, it was withdrawn this morning, and cleared from all public caches. There may be a few copies in private hands, but without the original, they lack substance. We can handle that sort of thing."
"So, will I be prosecuted for breach of confidentiality?"
"Oh, I hardly think so. A prosecution would be too noticeable. No, we want you to publish, but with certain small changes."
Kerstin could feel her hackles rising at the prospect of being forced to publish a lie at the request of the Truth Commission. She knew it happened, but not, surely, to archaeologists. "I don't understand. Was this Ekman important?"
"You were never told where the book was found?" It was clearly Lidén's turn to be surprised. He immediately appeared less menacing.
"No. I wondered at the time, but I wasn't asked to speculate. It seemed shocking that he was never found, but I suppose there are still remote places like that, even today."
Lidén deployed his flekskreen again and opened a form. "As things stand, your report is suppressed. If you endorse this official security form, I will give you some information. The form is specific to this information and does not constrain you in any general fashion. If we later discover that you have revealed that information, you will be sanctioned. On the basis of the information I give you, you may decide to publish your report with changes we suggest. Otherwise, it remains suppressed."
"In short, I have nothing to lose, but not a lot to gain, either."
"True. But you are now fascinated to discover the secret. That's a gain."
"All right. I am fascinated."
"OK. Look at the screen until the retinal scan clicks, and then say 'I endorse form number ' and read the number on the screen."
The familiar formality complete, Lidén began. "The book and Ekman's remains were found in 2268."
"But that was, what, nearly a hundred years before it came to me. Yet I remember a sense of urgency."
"That is because, even with the fastest transport available, it took nearly a hundred years to get to you."
"I don't understand."
"Yes you do."
"Of course. A space colony."
"Pacifica, formerly called HD69830-4. The starship UNSS Shardik was launched in 2080, when it was feared that our planet might soon become uninhabitable. Like the other starships launched in the late 21st, Shardik carried a population of 50000 crew, a self-sustained town. Travelling at an average of approximately one quarter light speed, Shardik arrived in orbit around Pacifica a hundred and eighty-eight years later. A few of the older travellers could remember their grandfathers telling them about Earth, but none had known any environment but Shardik. Most had been Shardik natives for six or seven generations. As you know, a number of starships have failed as a result of accident, breakdown or civil anarchy, but Shardik was a great success."
"Yes. I've read about it."
"During computer analysis of the aerial survey on the planet Pacifica, shape anomalies were identified. Most anomalies in the survey turned out, on closer inspection, to be unusually regular natural features. However, telescopic images revealed that one island had on it," he consulted his screen, "a rectangular structure some fifteen metres in length and three in width, and, nearby, some arrays of rocks, hundreds of metres in extent and partially obscured by low vegetation, reading 'SOS', a traditional distress signal. A landing vehicle was immediately deployed to the site, and it was revealed that the rectangular object was an antique road vehicle containing the remains of a human being. The human remains and a few personal effects were returned to UNSS Shardik, where they were subject to analysis in their laboratory." He looked up.
Kerstin grimaced. "They couldn't read Ekman's journal."
"They could read the dates, though. The publication date of the bible. And the expiry dates on Ekman's cans and bottles. And they were not pleased."
"I'm beginning to see why."
"You and your family for several generations travel for a hundred and eighty-eight years, only to discover that a supermarket delivery vehicle has beaten you to your destination by one hundred and seventeen years."
"I see. So Shardik's crew theorised that we, on Earth, had developed a much faster transport system, making their marathon journey and lost generations a bit meaningless."
"Exactly. Radio messages to and from Pacifica take forty-six and a bit years each way, so a lively exchange of views is impossible. But we received images of the bible about sixty years ago. Travelling by very fast unmanned capsule, the bible itself arrived together with soil samples and other physical artifacts from Pacifica just eleven years ago, when you saw it."
"Presumably, then, UNSA have, indeed, developed a much faster space drive, but do not want to talk about it."
"In point of fact, no. UNSA has achieved marginal improvements in ram ion drives, but nothing that would transport Ekman and his truck almost instantaneously. It was concluded at this end that since it was impossible, the crew of Shardik must have contrived an incomprehensible elaborate practical joke, mocking up photographs of the bible, the truck, the food cans."
"And then I certified Ekman's book as real."
"So how did Ekman get to Pacifica?"
"That's just it. It can't possibly have happened. Therefore, it did not happen. Therefore, the whole tale must be a clever fake, and your report must make that clear."
Kerstin stared at, or, rather, through Lidén for a few seconds. "No. I don't believe it. Disregarding the fact that a joke like that is highly unlikely, the bible is genuine. I'm sure of it."
"Yes, I'm sure it is." said Lidén, "But if the real truth got out, it would have the most depressing effect on morale. Asking you to put a little doubt into the situation is much preferred."
"The real truth? All I can imagine is that it was all faked at this end and Shardik's crew made no such discovery."
"Not at all. As far as the inhabitants of Pacifica are concerned, it's a historical fact, and the truck is on view there for anyone to see, as you can confirm with your own eyes if you have a couple of centuries to spare."
"Are you saying you know how it happened?"
"Not in detail, but it is simply another confirmation of a phenomenon that has been happening since the mid twentieth century. The vast majority of these incidents are virtually dismissed. Anyone pursuing them is regarded as a crank, Ekman's case is embarrassing because he turned up a long way from home with supporting physical evidence."
Lidén displayed an image of a piece of yellowed paper, printed in Swedish.
"What's this?" asked Kerstin, but went on translating aloud, " 'Bureå Weekly News 5 May 2151'. It's one of those local newspapers from country backwaters that survived net news because local events were never reported on the net. The date. It's something to do with Ekman, isn't it?"
"This may explain why we have no wish to provide confirmation of the likely explanation." Lidén enlarged a small paragraph at the foot of the page.
Kerstin read the brief article quickly. "Ah, small and green, are they?"
"Allegedly. We've never caught them in the act."
"I can see why me making a mistake is preferable to this."
"We hoped you'd see it that way."
Googlefish translation follows:
On Wednesday night several inhabitants of Skellefteå reported seeing strange lights travelling across the sky from west to east at remarkable speed, making sharp changes of direction and changing colour from white to pink and back again. Some witnesses reported strange noises. A farmworker, Karin Lindemann (42), alleged that she was 'bombarded with live frogs'. A huge cylindrical depression was found in an oilseed rape field, surrounded by burn marks.
The local UN radar base at Pitea reported that nothing was seen on their screens, and a spokesman confided that the villagers had most probably observed the aurora borealis. Electricity worker Frederik Hansen (55) dismissed this suggestion, as all local people at this latitude are familiar with the northern lights. He said this was not the first time that unusual lights had appeared in the night sky (see Bureå Weekly News 14 Mar 2150), and that a UN soldier from the radar installation had revealed that the lights did in fact appear on radar, but were denied by the authorities.
In a possibly connected incident on the same evening, a DK-Mart delivery truck disappeared on the coast road between Yttervik and Skelleftehamn It is feared that the driver, Olaf Ekman, may have been distracted by the strange lights and plunged into the sea. Coastguards and police have so far failed to establish the truth of this theory.
© Gil Williamson 2011 All Rights Reserved
Date and time of last update 15:25 Wed 06 Jul 2011
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Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Basket Star
Image: Nick Hobgood
What on Earth is going on here? There must be a million creatures in there! Or at least one of those crazy corals that are actually composed of millions of creatures.
Nope. This is one, solitary Basket Star. She looks hungry!
Image: Derek Keats via Flickr
Basket Stars are a group of exceedingly peculiar Brittle Stars. If you thought Brittle Stars were like strange starfish, well... it only gets stranger.
Image: NOAA
You get your colours where you can in the deep sea
They're found all over the world, but most of them live in the deep sea. The world's biggest Brittle Star is actually a Basket Star. It reaches 70 cm across when you include the arms, 14 cm if you only count the central disc.
They're in the order Euryalida, same as the Snake Stars we saw before. It's up to you whether Snakes are simplified Baskets or Baskets are complicated Snakes. Either way it all looks pretty complicated, so what's actually going on here?
Image: Ria Tan,
Basket Star have 5 arms sprouting from their central disc, same as any Brittle Star. But madness immediately ensues. Each arm branches out over and over and over again until you end up with a kind of mesh, the basket. These are incredibly flexible tendrils, just like the Snake Star's unbranched arms.
One interesting thing is that Basket Stars have a covering of leathery skin on their arms. If you happen to be a heartless monster, you could tear it off and expose the vertebrae-like ossicles beneath.
Image: NOAA
Hanging out on a good ol' Sea Fan
So they crawl up a sponge or coral, or maybe just rest on the ground. Whatever they need to get an adequate current.
Image: Derek Keats via Flickr
Unfurling that ridiculous kerfuffle of arms forms the basket so they can catch their prey. Some of them eat plankton, others will grab hold of small crustaceans and coil their tendrils around them in a horror movie sort of way.
Image: Ed Bierman via Flickr
Look closely and you can see the tiny hooks
The arms are... armed... with spines and hooks which look seriously nasty close up. Along with the tube feet and mucus (nature's WD-40), they ferry food along to the mouth in the central disc. Still a horror movie.
If the current is too much for them they'll curl up to avoid getting swept away. The ones that live in shallower depths also do that during the day, because they only come out at night. Just like a horror movie. Also...
Image: prilfish via Flickr
Sometimes they look like a pile of unwanted viscera as they snooze their coiled and curled days away. It's just like a horror movie!
Image: owenwangensteen via Flickr
Searching for the stars
But then you see them in a different light and leathery skin turns to silk and the arms become ivy and ferns in the darkness of night. These creatures are an amazing mixture of delicate beauty and obnoxious fleshiness. Just like humans, it all depends on what time of day you find them.
TexWisGirl said...
like a mass of roots on a vegetable. :)
Emily said...
I love Ernst Haeckel's illustration of a basket star-- it really captures both their beauty and their grotesquery:
Comment1 said...
@TexWisGirl: They're amazing! It's true they don't look like something from the sea. Until you see them properly and then they couldn't come from anywhere else.
@Emily: That's fantastic! With Haekel's stuff around, surely monster concept artists have half their work done for them. Also I shall have to start using the word "grotesquery"!
Crunchy said...
What a mess! Looks like you ought to store these guys in a basket CASE! Eh? Eh?
Comment1 said...
Hahaha! You're worse than me!
Keiki4Kupuna said...
The wonders of our beautiful oceans...
Joseph Jameson-Gould said...
So true!
Melanie Aicher said...
this is so cool most people just over look the star fish but when you look at them up close there amazing. and i love your pun lol.
Joseph Jameson-Gould said...
A lot of things are amazing when you look up close! Even amazing things are even more amazing when you really look!
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North American Folk Religions
North American Folk Religions are presented as native religions, as they were before the “white” European arrived. In this section I will not discuss “black” folk religions as this is discussed in the section African Traditional Religions.
When north America was discovered in 1492 by Columbus they brought with them Christianity, which was thrust upon the native Americans. They also brought disease and higher technology ie guns which devastated the native population.
It is a sad fact that during history of north american folk religions whenever a higher technology society meets a lower technology society this devastation always happens.
When Columbus arrived there were a little more than 800 native tribes across what is now the United States and Canada. Each tribe had it’s own religious beliefs that were somewhat similar. Native traditions and history was being wiped out by the European invasion, and lost to history as the native peoples did not have the written word to rely on put rather just the oral.
Although there are differences in much of the north american folk native religious belief, there is much that is the same. Mr David Ruvolo, in his paper “A Summary of Native American Religions” reduces it to three indian nations for simplicity as will I.
These nations are, the Iroquois nation of the eastern woodlands, the Dakota tribes of the central plains and the Apache tribes of the southwestern desert.
Iroquois Nation North American Folk Religion
The Iroquois were the most advanced and well organized of the North American tribes whose society evolved around the wilderness that surrounded them. The fact that their area was very fertile allowed them the luxury of time after the food gathering process.
They believed in a monotheistic all powerful creator known as the “Great Spirit” or “Ha-wen-ne-yu” who was for the most part considered above their comprehension. The Great Spirit wishes were communicated to the world by a lower class known as “Invisible Agents” or “Ho-no-che-no-keh”.
The Iroquois also believed in the concept of evil in the world who was represented by the brother of the Great Spirit and was known as the “Evil Minded” or “Ha-ne-go-ate-geh”. This evil spirit also had it’s lower class of spirits to serve it.
The Iroquois did believe in the existence of an immortal soul and upon the death of the mortal body this soul was judged by the Great Spirit.
The Iroquois did practice seasonal systematic worship and were led by men known as “Keepers of the Faith” or “Ho-nun-den-ont”. The belief system of the Iroquois was not completely unlike the belief systems of the Europeans, therefore integration of the religions was possible.
Dakota or Sioux Nation North American Folk Religion
The Dakota nation was much less organized and more spread out than the Iroquois nation and their society was based on the hunting of buffalo. As such they lived a nomadic life style. The Dakota nation was more spread out and much less organized than the Iroquois nation.
According to Raymond J. DeMallie, the Dakota world was “characterized by it’s oneness, it’s unity.” There was no separation between the natural and supernatural worlds and was shared in by the practice of rituals. The common denominator of these two worlds was known as “Wakan Tanka”.
In the Dakota world nothing was real it just had the appearance of being real. Wakan Tanka used inferior people known as “Wakan people” to interact with the material world and control the lives of men. The Wakan people were worshipped and praised by mortal man. Most religious ritual centered around their interaction with the buffalo.
The belief system of the Dakota was completely unlike the belief systems of the Europeans, therefore the integration of the religions was not possible and ir for the most part has become extinct.
Apache Nation North American Folk Religion
There is not much known of the Apache tribes as their desert existence kept them as rather elusive. Survival was very difficult and forwarded them little time to cultivate religious beliefs.
Their religion concentrated on spiritual cultural figures that were responsible for the Apache lifestyle but who seldom interfered in the daily activities.
To the Apache death was the ultimate foe and was not to be celebrated. The lands they lived on where sparse and it took most of their time simply to survive. The individual was encouraged to establish his own relationship with the spiritual world.
The Apache religion was headed by leaders known as “shaman” and their power was in their ability to heal.
The belief system of the Apache was not compatible with Christianity and they did not embrace it.
Folk Religions
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The way we were: the 1948 London Olympics
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The Evening Standard
The 1948 London Olympics were the first post-war games. Almost bankrupt after the war, Britain nearly handed the project to the US, until King George VI intervened.
A record 59 countries competed across 19 sporting disciplines over two weeks. Germany and Japan were not invited (although Italy was), and Russia did not attend.
Since food and clothes rationing were still in force, these became the "Austerity Games".
Competitors were asked to bring their own towels and, where possible, food, and many made their own sports clothes.
The running track at Wembley was a dog track converted with cinders from coal fires and when a cycle race over-ran, cars had to illuminate the track with headlights.
There were no events on Sundays, which were reserved for church-going. Less thought was given to Muslim competitors: the Games took place during Ramadan, as they will in 2012.
The entertainment guide for foreign competitors warned that "no visitor in his right mind comes to London expecting to be able to wallow in the kind of gay nightlife so familiar in Paris, New York and other cities".
The US (fortified by imported steaks) won the most medals (84) and golds (38). Alice Coachman became the first black woman to win an Olympic gold, in the high jump.
The UK team won 23 medals including three golds — two in rowing and one in sailing.
British weightlifter Jim Haldaway, liberated from a Japanese prisoner of war camp weighing just four and a half stone, went on to win a bronze medal in the lightweight class.
The games were opened by George VI and Queen Elizabeth. For the opening ceremony 2,500 pigeons were released, the Olympic flag was raised, and the Royal Horse Artillery fired a 21-gun salute. |
Eco 561
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What kinds of changes in underlying conditions can cause the supply and demand curves to shift? Give examples and explain the direction in which the curves shift. There are some detailed determinants that are actually associated with the supply or “shifts in supply” can be recognized to the following alterations as well as modifications: 1.Resource prices. If the cost prices of the reserve of iron ore and coke are higher than it enhance the rate of producing steel, grasp earnings as well as shrink supply. Then the supply curve will move to the left. Inferior reserve prices of sand, gravel and limestone condense the cost of assembly of concrete, increase the profits in addition to enlarge concrete supply. As a result of which the supply curve will move to the right side. 2.Technology. For instance, the technology plays a very effective role and helps to increase the work efficiency. So added valuable GPS equipment boost the contribution of GPS devices. As a result of which the supply curve will swing to the right side. 3.Taxes and subsidies. For illustration, the ever-increasing taxes on cars lead to the cut down of bring in of cars. Therefore the supply curve will move to the left. 4.Prices of other goods. For pattern, if we enhance the cost of carrots it definitely diminishes the supply of potatoes. The supply curve will reallocate to the left. 5.Expectations. Expectations are actually a belief that may increase or decrease the price. The expectation that the cost of paper will do up in the future may reduces the supply of paper these days. The supply curve then swing to the left. 6.Number of suppliers. Enlargement in the amount of surfboard shops may amplify the supply of surfboards. The supply curve will reallocate to the right. As the determinants related to the supply are already being discussed, so lets have a look on the precise determinants that are really associated with that of the demand. So some of the exact determinants of demand or a...
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Carpenter's rule problem
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The carpenter's rule problem is a discrete geometry problem, which can be stated in the following manner: Can a simple planar polygon be moved continuously to a position where all its vertices are in convex position, so that the edge lengths and simplicity are preserved along the way? A closely related problem is to show that any non-self-crossing polygonal chain can be straightened, again by a continuous transformation that preserves edge distances and avoids crossings.
Both problems were successfully solved by Connelly, Demaine & Rote (2003).
Combinatorial proof[edit]
Subsequently to their work, Ileana Streinu provided a simplified combinatorial proof formulated in the terminology of robot arm motion planning. Both the original proof and Streinu's proof work by finding non-expansive motions of the input, continuous transformations such that no two points ever move towards each other. Streinu's version of the proof adds edges to the input to form a pointed pseudotriangulation, removes one added convex hull edge from this graph, and shows that the remaining graph has a one-parameter family of motions in which all distances are nondecreasing. By repeatedly applying such motions, one eventually reaches a state in which no further expansive motions are possible, which can only happen when the input has been straightened or convexified.
Streinu & Whiteley (2005) provide an application of this result to the mathematics of paper folding: they describe how to fold any single-vertex origami shape using only simple non-self-intersecting motions of the paper. Essentially, this folding process is a time-reversed version of the problem of convexifying a polygon of length smaller than π, but on the surface of a sphere rather than in the Euclidean plane. This result was extended by Panina & Streinu (2010) for spherical polygons of edge length smaller than 2π.
John Pardon (2009) generalized the Carpenter's rule problem to rectifiable curves. He showed that every rectifiable Jordan curve can be made convex, without increasing its length and without decreasing the distance between any pair of points. This research, performed while he was still a high school student, won the second-place prize for Pardon in the 2007 Intel Science Talent Search (Cunningham 2007).
See also[edit]
• Curve-shortening flow, a continuous transformation of a closed curve in the plane that eventually convexifies it |
Susceptibility to smoking by province
Youth Smoking Survey, 2012-13. See data table with 95% confidence intervals below.The percentage of students in Grades 6-9 who were susceptible to smoking varied significantly by province 73 (Figure 7.6). For example, just 26.5% of students in Newfoundland and Labrador were susceptible to smoking, while 34.2% of students in Saskatchewan were susceptible. |
Why is the period from 480 BCE to 380 BCE called the golden age of Classical Greece?
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pohnpei397 | College Teacher | (Level 3) Distinguished Educator
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The period you are asking about is known as the golden age of Ancient Greece because it was a period in which Greek civilization achieved many important things. Much of this achievement is associated with the Athenians.
This golden age in Greece was a period when the Greek world experienced a great deal of cultural growth. This was the time when Herodotus and Thucydides essentially invented the modern practice of writing history. It was a time when theater was flowering with playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes. The golden age also saw other kinds of achievements. It was a time when philosophers such as Socrates and Plato were alive. It was a time when Greeks were able to achieve such architectural marvels as the Parthenon. It was also a time when Greek sculpture was becoming more lifelike and beautiful. Perhaps of greatest importance to us today, however, is the fact that this was the time in which Athenian democracy was at its peak.
For all of these reasons, this time period in Ancient Greece is seen as a golden age.
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he case against red meat continues to build: A new study reports that a nutrient found in steaks, egg yolks, and other animal products can activate certain microbes in the gut, spurring physiological changes that increase the danger of blood clots and heart attacks.
The nitty-gritty:
The research, published Thursday in Cell, drew on clinical studies of more than 4,000 patients as well as animal studies. It found that microbes in the gut use a nutrient called choline, which is found in high-cholesterol foods, to produce a compound known as trimethylamine N-oxide, or TMAO. The compound hyperactivates blood platelets and alters arterial walls, increasing the risk of the blood clots and blockages that cause strokes and heart attacks.
Why it matters:
The study follows up on previous work that found an association between increased TMAO in blood plasma and the incidence of cardiovascular events. This new information strengthens evidence of a link between consumption of red meat and other cholesterol-rich foods and the risk of heart attack or stroke.
But keep in mind:
The microbes involved may sound like “bad” bacteria, but you can’t oust them from your gut by gobbling down supplements filled with “good” bacteria. “I don’t think people need to go to the store and just take anything that says ‘probiotics,’” said Dr. Stanley Hazen, a molecular biologist at the Cleveland Clinic who led the study. “Even if you are the most ardent vegan eating a cucumber, you’ll still have these bacteria. They’re just suppressed until you feed them choline.”
Also, it’s not as though choline is a villain. “We need it for brain and liver function,” said Carolyn Slupsky, a professor of nutrition and food science at the University of California-Davis who was not involved in the research.
Her takeaway from this study? “We still don’t understand food very well.”
Next steps:
This research opens up the possibility for new heart disease treatments. “If we can develop a drug that blocks the bacteria’s ability to use choline to make TMAO,” said Hazen, “we might be able to use a drug like this for heart disease.”
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Museo Galileo - Gaspar Schott
Museo Galileo
Virtual Museum
Gaspar Schott
Gaspar Schott
Nothing is known of Schott's origins and childhood except for his date and place of birth (Königshofen, near Würzburg). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1627 and studied at the University of Würzburg under the tutorship of Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). He left Germany in 1631 and, after some travel, settled in Palermo for 20 years. In 1652, he was sent to Rome and was able to revive his scientific partnership with his master, Kircher. Three years later, he moved back to Germany, first to Mainz, then to Würzburg, where he taught mathematics and physics until his death.
Schott is particularly famous as the author of the Mechanica hydraulico-pneumatica (1657), which contains some of the earliest descriptions of experiments on the vacuum - including von Guericke's celebrated experiment. Through intensive correspondence and other means, Schott compiled reports and opinions from the most important savants - such as Otto von Guericke (1602-1686), Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), and Robert Boyle (1627-1691). In so doing, he contributed significantly to the diffusion of the latest developments in pneumatics. He was, for example, the first in Germany to report Boyle's studies on the air pump. At the theoretical level, Schott claimed that the experiments by von Guericke, Torricelli (1608-1647), and Boyle had not produced real vacuums, because the space freed from air was in fact filled with ether, a more impalpable and refined matter. Nevertheless, he recognized that the effects traditionally ascribed to the horror vacui were in fact produced by the pressure and elasticity of air. |
Heredity or Environment?
In years past, it was believed that children were born with their personalities like blank slates, a formless piece of clay, waiting to be molded by their parents and their environment. Because of the legacy of eugenics from World War II, people were reluctant to consider that psychological traits and behavior disorders might be genetically rooted. Political activists in the 60's and 70's feared that any theories that intelligence or other personality traits were genetically based might be used to justify social inequality, racism and discrimination. It was not considered politically correct to believe that there were limits beyond which a person could not go or that certain abilities and skills were inherited, not learned. According to this thinking, all aspects of personality were learned and everyone had the same underlying potential, if placed in the right environment.
Genes and Nurturing:
New research is now proving what had long been suspected, that many behaviors and most personality traits are genetically controlled and are inherited from our parents. Recent research on mice by Jennifer Brown and Dr. Michael Greenberg has shown that when a certain gene, named fosB was inactivated, that mothers never nurture their young, but leave them to die. The fosB gene is active in the part of the brain that controls nurturing. It is also present in humans, although its role has not been studied. The important thing is, that a behavior such as caring for the young, which some might think is a learned behavior, is in fact controlled by a genetic program in the brains of mice, and possibly humans.
Many studies done in the 1950's focused on the parents of schizophrenics. The mothers were depicted as being rejecting, dominating, cold, overprotective and impervious to the feelings of others. She was said to depend on the child rather than the father for her emotional satisfactions and feelings of completeness as a woman. She was said to dominate, possessively overprotect and smother the child, keeping him dependent and arresting his growth as a person. This was combined with rigid, moralistic attitudes towards sexual behavior which make her overreact with horror to any evidence of sexual impulses on the part of the child. The mother is also seen as overtly seductive in her physical contacts with her son, thus augmenting his sexual conflicts.
The fathers are depicted as being inadequate, indifferent and passive as well as detached and humorless. He was said to be insensitive to the feelings of others, rejecting towards his son and seductive towards his daughter. In short, much of the blame for the schizophrenic's condition was placed on the parents and the home environment.
Today, studies suggest that there is a genetic link to most forms of schizophrenia. The liklihood that a child or sibling of someone with schizophrenia will develop the disease is about 12%, compared to 1% for everyone else. In identical twins, the chances are 50% that the other twin will develop the disease. Researchers suspect that a constellation of genes, working in combination with environmental forces, triggers the disease. There's a lot of information on the web about schizophrenia, but you might want to look at "A Doctor's Guide To Schizophrenia" as a starting place.
The notion that we would all have the same IQ if raised in the same environment has pretty much been debunked. Ongoing major studies are showing clearly that genetics are 50% to 70% responsible for intelligence. There's no question that other factors, such as malnutrition, lead poisoning and physical abuse can lead to a lowering of intelligence. But there has been no convincing evidence that there is any way to raise a person's IQ above what they are born with. Unfortunately, many schools still cling to the myth that all students have an equal ability to learn. They insist on putting lesser gifted students in rigorous academic tracks where they are doomed to failure. They believe that homogeneous grouping is some form of discrimination that must be eliminated at any cost. I refer back to the work of A.S. Neill, who believes that children will rise to their full potential if left alone, and that those who have the desire and ability to become scholars will do so. But those who lack the ability and the motivation will become street sweepers, and that's all right. Our society seems reluctant to give up the Forrest Gump myth that any 75 IQ person can go to college, run a business and become a millionaire. By telling a person they can be anything they want to be is nothing more than selling them a bill of goods. It leads to disappointment, frustration and anger.
For more information on intelligence, check out the Intelligence Page, sponsored by MENSA.
What's It All Mean??
Well, people in this country spend billions of dollars on diets and weight loss programs, much of it going to waste. After all, genes control your body features for the most part, so why bother? If people refuse to believe that their physical appearance is out of their control, how are they going to feel about their personalities being out of their control? Not good, I think And what about the issue of free will? People would like to believe that they have free will and that they have absolute control over their destiny. But if most of human behavior is predicated on our inherited genetic constitution, where does that leave free will? Are we just little automatons, little biochemical machines controlled by a resident computer algorithm which we cannot change? What the heck is going on here? I surely don't know, do you?
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Saturday, October 29, 2016
TED - How computers are learning to be creative (by Blaise Agüera)
Aunque no pudieron emitir por falta de tiempo, en el evento TEDxBarcelona del pasado 7/10/2016 se incluía en el programa la siguiente charla: How computers are learning to be creative de Blaise Agüera.
How computers are learning to be creative | Blaise Agüera y Arcas
We're on the edge of a new frontier in art and creativity — and it's not human. Blaise Agüera y Arcas, principal scientist at Google, works with deep neural networks for machine perception and distributed learning. In this captivating demo, he shows how neural nets trained to recognize images can be run in reverse, to generate them. The results: spectacular, hallucinatory collages (and poems!) that defy categorization. "Perception and creativity are very intimately connected," Agüera y Arcas says. "Any creature, any being that is able to do perceptual acts is also able to create."
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QUESTION: I think I saw two different models for a Geocentric universe. Then there's the heliocentric.
Isn't there a "fool proof" "absolute way" to determine which is correct via the different orbital VIEWS from earth ? ?
None of these models is correct. The Universe really has to no center, and the Earth orbits around an insignificant star that lies from the center of its own galaxy...but you may be thinking of the Solar System, rather than the Universe.
The original system had the Earth at the center, and the sun and planets all orbiting around Earth. Once more accurate measurements were made, the Ptolemaic system assigned a series of ellipses inside ellipses to explain why the motion of the planets did not fit the earlier model. But thne Galileo saw two things through his telescope that immediately let him know that the planets orbit the sun:
1. He saw the moons of Jupiter and noted how the smaller moons orbited around that massive planet.
2. He saw the phases of Venus, showing that it clearly orbited around the sun.
Is that what you were looking for?
Paul Wagner
QUESTION: Thanks Paul,
These models;
and the Heliocentric, would sure have DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT views "from earth" over the period of 5 years, wouldn't they ? ?
Thus leading to an absolute reality of which is true.
Hence wouldn't that silence the Geocentrics forever ? ?
Actually, if you look at these models, they are pretty much the same--a modified Geocentric Solar System with everything but Earth orbiting around the Sun...and the whole Solar System orbiting around Earth. One moves faster than the other and is on a larger scale, that's the main difference here.
Neither shows the more complicated Ptolemaic system, which involved a series of ellipses to explain why the planets apparent motion was so odd if they were supposed to be orbiting the Earth. That's shown here:
Without understanding the physics involved there is no obvious visual difference between depicting the Solar System orbiting around Earth, and our current version, where all of the planets, including Earth, orbit around the Sun. It's just a question of perspective. It's a bit like floating down a river, and describing the shore as moving past you. But from shore, it looks as if the water is moving. Who's right?
But once astronomers began to see the small perturbations in orbits caused by the mass of the Sun (and later, Jupiter) and they began to realize how big the Sun must be, then the idea that the Solar System might orbit around Earth became outdated.
Paul Wagner
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Tax System and Its Resources
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As we all know that a mandatory contribution to state revenue, imposed by the government on workers’ income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions. An inability to pay, or avoidance of or imperviousness to tax assessment is typically deserving of law. Charges comprise of immediate or aberrant duties and might be paid in cash or as its work proportionate. Most nations have a duty framework set up to pay for open/normal/concurred national needs and government works: some demand a level rate of tax assessment on individual yearly wage, some on a scale in view of yearly salary sums, and a few nations force no tax collection by any means, or a low expense rate for a specific region of tax assessment. A few nations additionally charge an assessment on corporate pay, profits, or disseminations – this is frequently alluded to as twofold tax collection as the individual shareholder accepting this installment from the organization will likewise be exacted some expense on that individual wage.
The collecting of duties means to raise income to store overseeing or potentially to modify costs with a specific end goal to influence request. Applykaroo will help its users to know every point and condition related to various types of taxes. States and their practical counterparts all through history have utilized cash gave by tax assessment to do many capacities. Some of these incorporate consumptions on financial foundation (streets, open transportation, sanitation, lawful frameworks, open wellbeing, training, human services frameworks), military, logical research, culture and expressions of the human experience, open works, appropriation, information gathering and scattering, open protection, and the operation of government itself. An administration’s capacity to raise expenses is called its monetary limit.
At the point when consumptions surpass assess income, an administration gathers obligation. A bit of duties might be utilized to benefit past obligations. Governments additionally utilize charges to store welfare and open administrations. These administrations can incorporate training frameworks, annuities for the elderly, unemployment advantages, and open transportation. Sometimes people apply for loan to form their specific tasks and it will help them to get exemption from tax. Vitality, water and waste administration frameworks are additionally basic open utilities.
A property assess is a promotion valorem charge exact on the estimation of property that the proprietor of the property is required to pay to a legislature in which the property is arranged. Different locales may impose a similar property. There are three general assortments of property: land, upgrades to land (steady man-made things, e.g. structures) and individual property (versatile things). Land or realty is the mix of land and enhancements to arrive. Property assessments are typically charged on an intermittent premise (e.g., yearly). A typical sort of property duty is a yearly charge on the responsibility for domain, where the expense base is the assessed estimation of the property. A comparative duty on hearths existed in France and somewhere else, with comparable outcomes. The two most normal sorts of occasion driven property assessments are stamp obligation, endless supply of possession, and legacy charge, which is forced in numerous nations on the bequests of the perished. |
Route of a message through the system
In the case of a message sent from user A to user B, both of whom are served by the same domain, the flow of the message through the system is as described below.
Note that hooks are called at various stages of routing - they perform many tasks, in fact, a lot of functionality in MongooseIM is implemented through hooks & handlers. For a general introduction to hooks, see Hooks and Handlers; for details of the some most important hooks, see hooks description.
1. Receiving the stanza
User A's ejabberd_receiver receives the stanza and passes it to ejabberd_c2s.
2. Call to user_send_packet
Upon some minimal validation of the stanza a hook user_send_packet is called. This is handled by a couple of modules which subscribe to this hook. Those modules do various complementary tasks, like storing the message in an archive, sending carbon copies, etc.
3. Privacy lists and ejabberd_router:route/3
The stanza is checked against any privacy lists in use and, in the case of being allowed, it will be routed by ejabberd_router:route/3. This also takes into account "blocking commands", which are part of the privacy system.
4. Chain of routing
Further on, behaviour is configurable: ejabberd_router:route/3 passes the stanza through a chain of routing modules and applying Mod:filter/3 and Mod:route/3 from each of them. Each of those modules has to implement xmpp_router behaviour.
A module can choose to either:
• drop the stanza, or route the stanza
• pass the stanza on unchanged, or modify the stanza and pass the result on
The set of routing modules can be set in configuration as routing_modules. The default behaviour is the following:
• mongoose_router_global: runs a global filter_packet hook
• mongoose_router_external_local: checks if there is an external component registered for the destination domain on the node we are on now, possibly routes the stanza to it
• mongoose_router_external: checks if there is an external component registered for the destination domain on any node in the cluster, possibly routes the stanza to it
• mongoose_router_localdomain: checks if there is a local route registered for the destination domain (i.e. there is an entry in mnesia route table), possibly routes the stanza to it
• ejabberd_s2s: tries to find or establish a connection to another server and send the stanza there
You should see an image here; if you don't, use plantuml to generate it from routing.uml
5. Look up external_component and route
An external component or local route is obtained by looking up external_component and route mnesia tables, respectively. Whats in there is either a fun to call or an MF to apply:
(ejabberd@localhost)2> ets:tab2list(route).
Here we see that for domain "localhost" the action to take is to call ejabberd_local:route(). Routing the stanza there means calling mongoose_local_delivery:do_route/5, which calls filter_local_packet hook and, if passed, runs the fun or applies the handler. In most cases, the handler is ejabberd_local:route/3.
6. ejabberd_local to ejabberd_sm
ejabberd_local routes the stanza to ejabberd_sm given it's got at least a bare JID as the recipient.
7. ejabberd_sm
ejabberd_sm determines the available resources of User B, takes into account their priorities and whether the message is addressed to a particular resource or a bare JID and appropriately replicates (or not) the message and sends it to the recipient's ejabberd_c2s process(es).
In case no resources are available for delivery (hence no ejabberd_c2s processes to pass the message to), offline_message_hook is run.
8. ejabberd_c2s
ejabberd_c2s verifies the stanza against any relevant privacy lists and sends it one the socket. user_receive_packet hook is run to notify the rest of the system about stanza delivery to User B. |
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Earth is the third planet from the Sun. It is also the planet we inhabit. The Earth is made up of several layers, the most prominent among them being the crust, the mantle, and the core. The core is made up of two layers, the inner core and the outer core. Between the crust and the mantel is the Mohorovic discontinuity, or Moho zone. The Earth hosts all known life forms within our current range of knowledge.
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Information page Eurhythmy
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What it is
Eurhythmy is part of the system of Anthroposophical medicine. It was put together by the Austrian philosopher, artist and scientist Rudolf Steiner, in the late 1800's
How does it Work?
It is also known as Visible speech due to it's system of rhythmical body movements and because it is performed in harmony with the rhythm of the spoken word. The vowel and consonant sounds each have their own type of movement.
Who can Benefit?
The aim of eurhythmic exercises is to make the body an instrument for revealing the rhythms and tones of speech and music through movement. The body movements are believed to be very good for children as they help in developing suppleness and rhythmic sense. It is also believed to help people with problems as diverse as epilepsy and Down's syndrome, by working on Body awareness, rhythm, concentration and co-ordination.
Researched By Body and Mind.
Author - Body and Mind
Published - 2013-01-21 |
The Affordable Care Act's Youth Problem
That doesn't have to be the case. Lawmakers can make health coverage more affordable by relaxing restrictions on what insurers can charge young adults -- thus allowing them to offer lower premiums.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) regulates the health insurance market in three main ways. First, all Americans -- with a few exceptions -- must secure health coverage.
Second, because everyone must carry coverage, the law requires insurers to sell policies to whoever wants to buy them. They can't deny coverage because of health status or history -- a reform called "guaranteed issue."
Third, in an attempt to control the cost of coverage, the law prevents insurers from charging older individuals more than three times what they charge younger beneficiaries -- a rule called "community rating."
The community rating rules were created to ensure that insurance companies don't exclude sick people or those with pre-existing conditions by only offering them policies with sky-high premiums. They were also designed to ensure that coverage for older Americans not yet eligible for Medicare would be affordable.
64-year-old as it does an 18-year-old. While we might like to think that we can cap a 64-year-old's costs at three times the level of an 18-year-old's, the math just doesn't work. In the end, younger, healthier people will subsidize insurance for those who are older and sicker.
To make matters worse, community rating-fueled premium hikes won't just affect young people - by 2014, small businesses with up to 50 workers will face them, too. And by 2016, the hikes will hit all companies with less than 100 workers.
This will represent a dramatic rating shift for small employers in the 42 states where rates are based on a number of factors including broad age differentials. In 49 states, employers with between 50 and 100 employees don't have to shop in the small-group market but rather in a mid-market akin to the way larger groups purchase coverage. That grants them greater choice of health plans and more rate flexibility.
If premiums spiral upward, millions of young people will choose not to buy coverage -- whether on their own or through their employers -- and instead pay fines the law prescribes for being uninsured. If there aren't enough young people paying into the insurance pool to subsidize coverage for older Americans, premiums will shoot up even further.
This process can repeat itself again and again, resulting in what actuaries call a "death spiral" of higher and higher premiums -- and lower and lower coverage rates.
Federal lawmakers should learn from these state experiments and relax PPACA's community-rating requirements, too.
Lawmakers must do everything they can to ensure that the "Affordable Care Act" actually makes insurance more affordable. Revising the community-rating rules is an effective way to do so. |
우물 안 개구리
Market economy and exchange in ancient Korea
Filed under: — noja @ 10:52 pm Print
9 Responses to “Market economy and exchange in ancient Korea”
1. John Sanders says:
Dr. Kaplan has a decent webpage with his lectures on Chinese Economic History (I beleive that Dr. Kaplan has just passed away). He has indicated that China developed a market economy during the Spring Autumn period. There is no indication that Korea developed a market economy, but that it retained the political dsitribution system. Even during the colonial period there is no real support for a market economy, that only occurred in the South after the civil war. An interesting question is why? Especially since both China and Japan carried on very active market economies.
2. K. M. Lawson says:
John, are you talking about Ed Kaplan at WWU: http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~kaplan/ ? He was one of my undergraduate professors and I took several of my first courses on East Asia with him. I hope it isn’t the same Kaplan, but he is also a scholar of Chinese economic history (especially coins) and a hard anti-Marxist historian.
3. Remco Breuker says:
Due to the fact that most of the pre-modern sources we still have have been compiled by the state or by people closely associated with the central bureaucracy, it is tempting to base our explanations of society solely on those sources. But at least for the Koryŏ period, the occurrence of private trade and barter, outside of the government controlled institutes, is well-attested. The frontier markets in the North for example played a large role in early to middle Koryŏ. Traders from this period, also, seem to have been perhaps not completely free in what they did or did not do, but there was much international traffic and trade conducted from Koryŏ’s capital of Kaegyŏng, activities which were only nominally under control of the state. The same goes for the large Buddhist monastic complexes and the large landed estates of the elite. These also functioned as alternative places of economic activity, only barely touched by state regulations. As for the absence of a market economy in Korea before the Korean war: the example of Kaesŏng under the Chosŏn dynasty proves otherwise. Kaesŏng (or Kaegyŏng) was virtually excluded from the Chosŏn state in terms of its inhabitants reaching positions of authority and influence, since it had been the capital of Koryŏ for 500 years. As a result, Kaesŏng literati were forced to either concentrate on innovative ways of interpreting Neo-Confucian doctrine (e.g. Ch’oe Han’gi) or contribute to the economic development of the city by closely working with the commoners. This approach resulted in the emergence of Kaesŏng as a place of economic importance and most surely a place where something closely resembling a market economy was to be found. Apart from this, what to think of complaints recorded in pre-modern sources of prices of commodities having risen if there was no market economy at all? I guess I would suggest that a market economy can be present in all kinds of degrees. I do not think that either Choson or Koryo can or should be characterized as societies with an extensive market economy, but I do think that some caution is needed when talking about modes of production, because it is easy to gloss over alternative forms of production that may have existed alongside the dominant mode of production. Apart from this, it is easy to overestimate the authority of the capital in Chosŏn and in particular in Koryŏ. The main sources have literally been written from the capital and as such reflect a view of Koryŏ and Chosŏn that privileges the ideas, activities and desires of the capital elite. In this respect, they should not be taken at face value and nor should the popular idea that Confucian scholars necessarily scorned trade. To some extent this was true, but there is little enough of it found in Koryŏ and in Chosŏn it was balanced by the presence of Neo-Confucian scholars who argued that increased consumption by the people would contribute to the health and wealth of the state!
Summing up, my take on it is that we should be careful not to undervalue economic diversity even in Koryŏ and Chosŏn and that the power of the capital often was significantly less than its sources reflect.
On a related note, I think that the idea of a market economy as being something modern and new is completely wrong. The work of James Lewis (Oxford) on Chosŏn economy is fascinating in this respect, showing the complexities of pre-modern economy and also demonstrating that Chosŏn was in many ways economically speaking a country much closer to the ideal of Adam Smith than its contemporaries in Europe. Perhaps research such as this may give us reason to rethink that ugly pre-modern/modern dichotomy…
If anything, modern South Korea for instance has known only a very limited market economy for a long time, because state interference was absolutely decisive. Policy took precedence over the market economy and the organization of the South Korean economy rivaled the planned economy of the Soviet Union.
4. John Sanders says:
KM Larson: Unfortuately, it is the same Dr. Kaplan. I never met Dr. Kaplan, to my regret. After I read his lecture notes, I wrote him, etc. His wife replied by email and told me that he was gravely ill. That was perhaps six months ago. The fact that he identified with the Austrian Economic School is a great credit to him, in my book. It shows that he had a very rational mind, etc. etc.
R. Bruekder: Those points I fully agree with you, but there existence does not make pre-modern Korean economicy society a market society. The State, either directly or indirectly, controlled the significant part of the economy.
You wrote “…what to think of complaints recorded in pre-modern sources of prices of commodities having risen if there was no market economy at all?” I am not quite certain why one would think that economic relationships will not exist in a state economy and only in a market economy. As an example, after the Chinese communists acquired control of the country, they began certain economic programs to reign in the serious problem of inflation, after that they started their economic program of consolidating wealth within the state. The result was a massive economic contraction. But there was no large unemployment lines, but the economic contraction was real and was manifest throught the population by large numbers of malnourished individuals and mass starvation. “Economic laws” are valid, whether the system is a market economy or a state economy.
I would totally agree with you about the idea that a market economy is not the product of “modern society”. Late Spring-Autumn China, and definitely the “Warring States” period indicate a significant and vibrant market economy. The state quickly muscled in on this activity, taxing it, putting social controls, etc. The first proto-industrial society was Song China,followed by a couple or three centuries later by Belgium and the Netherlands, followed by three or four centuries later by the first industrialized society, the English. There is nothing “Western” nor “Modern” about a market economy.
5. noja says:
Yes, I fully agree with the thesis that the long-distance trade always meant more to the Korean society than the (state/
literati-compiled) sources may suggest – after all, it very much predates the very ancient statehood on the Korean
Peninsula, as Chinese traders were already active in contacts with Chinhan or Mahan communities around 1-2nd C. A.D.
But it looks as if the long-distance trade was placed under the state control in Silla when the statehood matured,
and then the state was rivalled at some points only by private quasi-states (like that of Chang Pogo) in its capasity
of the foreign trade-controlling entity. Smuggling and the private trade by state officials (yOkkwan interpreters) not being counted, the controls seemingly remained in place until the inclusion of Korea into the modern world-system, I
guess. Then, the trade in luxury goods under Silla and KoryO must have been affected by the sumptuary laws, which are
described in details in Samguk sagi, for example – your status limited your level of conspicuous consumption, at least in
theory. And the trade in daily necessities was seemingly limited by the levels of taxation, which severely curtailed the tradeble surpluses. So, Yi YOnghun thinks, for example, that the monetarized internal exchange became an important
feature of the Korean society only by 17th C. – and I wonder whether we shouldn’t concede that this interpretation
has some good grounds?
6. owen says:
By coincidence, I’m preparing a post for the site on the theory of combined and uneven development and its possible to application to Korean history, which I think could overlap significantly with Noja’s thought-provoking post. I’ll save most of that for later though.
I would like to pick up a couple of things here. First, I get a bit worried when people use terms like ‘market society’ and ‘mode of production’ in what seems to be a highly descriptive and non-analytical way. As Eric Wolf pointed out, there have been almost no states in human history in which market exchange has not existed and merchants have not played an intermediary role in the distribution of surpluses. So what do we mean by ‘market society’? It reminds me of the common usage by Korean historians of the term ‘commodity-currency economy’ (상품화폐경제): does this mean an economy with some commodities and some usage of currency, or does it mean something closer to our modern society in which (at least in most parts of the world) these things dominate our economic life. I’m also suspicious of associating markets too closely with modern society or capitalism – to me, as a Marxist, capitalism has very little to do with markets, it is the capital-labour relationship which is central. (This is why, for example, I think that those Marxists like Paul Sweezy or the world system theorists who trace capitalism in Europe back to 15th and 16th century mercantilism, are on the wrong track. On this basis you might just as well say that Song China was a capitalist society).
I’m also worried by the Soviet M-L idea of ‘early feudalism’ and the somewhat teleological implications that this seems to have, as though the politically decentralised feudalism of medieval Europe was more advanced than the centralised bureaucratic states of Chosŏn or Qing. To my mind you could just as well argue that the centralised bureaucracies were more advanced within the pre-capitalist logic of political accumulation. Of course, the insight that these bureaucratic states have less space for markets still stands.
To add to what Remco said, I think you could say similar things about Seoul as well as Kaesŏng, at least from the 18th century onwards. Not only did the official market system within Seoul (the sijŏn) expand massively during this period, there was also the appearance of very significant markets outside the city’s jurisdiction which could circumvent the licensing system within the city. Until fairly recently, Korean historians tended to see this as evidence of development toward capitalism, but really it seems that Chosŏn was just beginning to catch up with the level of market development in contemporary China and Japan. My hypothesis would be that centralised bureaucratic states have a sort of ‘lifespan’ (organic metaphors are not always good I know) in that they start out with strong regulation of economic activities, strong centralisation of surplus and a relatively uncorrupt bureaucracy (ie minimal ‘skimming’ of surplus by officials). But they tend to deteriorate over time in all these areas and allow more space for independent economic actors and hence also markets. In Korean history this never seems to have led to economic actors who were able to gain independent political power. Rather, as Noja points out, people like Chang Pogo sought to consolidate their power within a centralised framework or, as in the 19th century the relationship was reversed and merchants had to rely heavily on powerful people in the bureaucracy.
I’ll stop there. Apologies for the overlong comment, but this is an area I think about quite a bit.
7. yuna says:
Korea’s Monetary economy was very late. It is ture. In 壬辰倭亂, Lee Dukhyung insisted on using coin(1). It showed Chosun’s economy status. He was diplomat of Choson, contact with China(Ming) army for supply of goods, operations. So he would know china’s coin use and it’s value. But using Chosontongbo was failure, because of war(丙子胡亂).
It is wonder that Korean monetary economy is very late, in spite of their economy scale, population. During Koryo and Chosun, discussion about using coin was allways refered to lack of silver, copper, iron(2). And using coin was always promote by nation, and it became dead when nation lost interest in that. It means, using coin was artificial decision, not natural growth. In the other hand, in spite of many inconveniences, barter system was valuable in ancient Korea.
(1) 漢陰先生文稿卷之九 獻議 用錢事議, It must be recording in 實錄.
(2) 練藜室記述 別集 11券 政敎典故 錢貨綿布
8. [...] Foreign Dispatch has written a posting on The Korean Economy Under Japanese Rule, challenging some of the more dismal characterizations in the historiography of the colonial period. The post prompted extensive debate in the comments. Mike at Histor¥, who is an expert on financial reforms in Meiji Japan has expressed some doubts about the entire approach of the article. Other recent postings on Korean economics include one by Owen at Frog in a Well – Korea about the theory of uneven and combined development and Pak Noja’s discussion of the late development of market exchange and use of coinage in ancient Korea. [...]
9. I was looking for notes on ancient Korean economy and trade for a school project, and this site popped up. I was disappointed because the title lead me to think that many notes could be found here, but I only got one.
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Three Person Babies: Who Do We Recognise As Parents And Why?
16/12/2016 16:26
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's (HFEA) decision to permit the licencing of fertility treatment involving genetic information from three people has sparked a renewed debate about who should be recognised as the parents of a child. The HFEA's decision does not alter the legal position, but society's perceptions of who is a parent remain in a state of flux.
English law provides that the person who gives birth to the child is automatically the legal mother, and the man who undergoes fertility treatment with that woman is the legal father regardless of whether it was his sperm that was used to create the child. This approach was followed when Parliament introduced provisions for same-sex partners and so both people undergoing fertility treatment together may be recognised as the legal parents of the child. Parliament stopped short of allowing two women both to be classed as mothers and two men as fathers. Instead it introduced the concept of "second legal parent" to cover same-sex couples. In these instances, a child will either have a legal mother or a legal father and the other parent will be termed their second legal parent. In reality, families choose to use whatever terminology they wish to describe their roles in day-to-day life, and so the 'second legal parent' concept has not made it into mainstream usage.
The law only permits two people to be classified as the legal parents and yesterday's decision does nothing to alter that. In some respects, it is now less important in legal, if not symbolic, terms to be regarded as the legal parent, as the law has uncoupled the automatic link between parenthood and the powers and duties of a parent. The Children Act 1989 allows for multiple people to have parental responsibility for a child even if not as a legal parent. Parental responsibility recognises the social relationship between the adult and the child rather than any genetic connection between them. As parental responsibility recognises the ongoing role that an adult plays in the upbringing of a child, it would not be accorded to a woman involved in assisting a couple to have a healthy child under the terms announced by the HFEA.
Legal motherhood is still firmly grounded in biology, however. But it is pregnancy rather than the origin of the egg that determines who is recognised as the mother. Consequently, a woman acting as a surrogate is regarded as the legal mother, not the woman who provided the egg. This remains the case even if the egg donor is the person who entered into the surrogacy arrangement with the surrogate and is the intended mother of the child. In rare cases this may create difficulties as surrogacy agreements are not legally enforceable in Britain for making a surrogate give up the child to the intending parents. The intending parents may both be the biological parents of the child but only one of them, the man, may be regarded as the legal father and only then if the surrogate is not already married or civil partnered and her spouse did not consent to the fertility treatment.
Biological origin still holds some sway when legal fatherhood is determined, but this too has been modified over time and legal fatherhood is by far the more challenging legal parental status to determine. Sometimes the man who is the biological father of the child will be regarded as the legal father, for example the man undergoing fertility treatment which used his sperm with the intention of him becoming the father. But generally, a sperm donor at a licensed clinic will not be classed as the legal father. Biology is important when a man provides sperm on an informal basis outside a clinic setting to a female same-sex couple who are cohabitees - he would be the legal father in that situation. But if they were married or civil partnered then he would not be the legal father. The couple's relationship determines whether it is biology or their legally registered union that makes the difference.
Regardless, society still holds a strong association between biology and notions of parenthood even though Parliament broke this link in 1990 when the first Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was introduced. Arguably, the link had already been severed centuries ago when adoption legislation permitted an adult to be recognised as the legal parent of a child who was not their biological offspring. But some attitudes towards adoptive parents suggest that there are still some who consider biology to be at the heart of who is 'the real' parent of a child. Advances in reproductive technologies seem to have done little to dislodge those views, nor have changes to the law. |
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Indigenous Peoples' Literature
Kip a ta ki (Old Woman)
Great-grandma: ca. 1850-1950
by Hugh Welch
Awa chopsi pono Ka me ta (Horse Crazy)
My Grandmother (Great-grandmother) was born some time in the late 1840's. She worked as a House Girl (servant) for the wife of the Factor of Ft. Benton, Montana when she was a little girl. She saw the first Steam Boat come up the Missouri River to the fort (Ft. Benton Montana). Two years later she made an overnight ride (horseback) to warn of an impending Indian attack. This journey covered over 100 miles, using two horses, from Ft. Benton to Shonkin and back. Years later (aproximately two years) she married Henry "Butch" Henkel, a Civil War Veteran who came to Ft. Benton to trap beaver and hunt buffalo, but also to set up a butcher shop at Ft. Benton.
They had five children before moving to the newly established Blackfoot Reservation in Northen Montana, ca. the 1880's. There they established a ranch in the St.Marys/Babb area where they raised their children. Grandma and all her children were enrolled as Blackfoot, taking their allottments of 400 acres each, in the Babb area.
My great-grandmother's Indian name was "Stove Woman" as she cooked on a stove (fed travelers in the Babb area as a half-way house for stages and such). Later in life she was referred to as Kip a ta ki (Blackfoot for "Old Woman" or "Old Lady". This is not a derogatory name, but a name of respect for an Elder)
Grandma's Stories
These stories were told to me when I was 2-9 years old circa 1937-46 and put down 50 some odd years later to the best of my recollection):
Grandma's Mother was called "Black Bear Woman":
earning the name by holding a Black Bear by the tongue until the braves came and killed it. The story goes like this:
They were picking berries and a Black Bear attacked the girls who were picking. The bear charged her and she somehow grabbed the tongue of the bear apparently disabling him somewhat. The men seeing the comotion arrived and killed the bear giving her the hide, thus name of Black Bear Woman - as told to me and told to her by her Mother.
How the Blackfoot Obtained the Spotted Horses (Pintos)
Two young men, who hadn't earned their place in council, needed to do something daring to gain this distinction by proving themselves. They left the camp early in the Spring, going South and not returning until just before the Sun Dance. They arrived at Two Medicine Lake, riding on two pinto horses, a stallion and a mare, both having wooden saddles with big horns and a lot of silver on them. The bridles, as well as the boys, had big hats (sombreros) with silver and other decorations of ribbons, never seen before by any of the Blackfoot.
Their story, as related to me from Grandma via her mother:
They left the camp and followed the mountains (Rocky Mountains) until they started seeing these people with big hats working in fields and others herding cattle and horses. They planned to steal some horses and try to get back home with them as soon as possible as they were two full moons from home. Their opportunity finally came after watching for five Suns, that only two men were herding the horses: one on a fine spotted Stallion. Both had fancy saddles. The boys dispached the two guards and took their clothes and started driving the horse herd North, over the trail they had come down on. It proved to be too hard to drive horses in the mountains, so they went out on the plains.
Ultimately they had to flee from other hunting parties and lost most of the horses. Deciding to keep the spotted stallion and spotted mare with the saddles and two other mares to lead, they went back to the mountain trail they had come down on. Riding by night and hiding by day they made it to the Yellowstone where they met a Crow raiding party. They had to flee for their lives abandoning the two other mares to slow up the raiding party so they could get away. One boy was wounded and the stallion also had a slight bullet wound. The boys offered their big hats to the Sun at the Sun Dance for their good luck and were considered Braves by the council.
Indian Girl Makes Overnite Ride to Warn Settlers
Grandma had been at the fort for a little over two years when word was recieved that a band of Indians were on the "War Path". They were expected to pass through the Ft. Benton area. The Factor gave Grandma one of his "Race Horses" and told her to leave at dark to warn her Family at Shonkin, aproximately 50 miles away at the North edge of the Highwood Mountains. She was to warn as many settlers as she could on the way. Since she had travelled the area before, and being an Indian girl, they felt she would have the best chance. She could speak English and French, so she could communicate the warning to the settlers.
She left following the North bank of the Missouri River, warning three families, until she came to the stream that came out of the Highwoods. She crossed the Missouri and followed it to two other families, coming into view of her families place, around midnight. Before she could reach there her horse fell and died. She had to walk and run the rest of the way to Cobell's. After a short rest and food Cobell gave her a horse to travel on and warn the other settlers on the South bank of the Missouri. On her way back, which she did arriving in view of the fort at sunup. She had to lead her horse as he was played out. Grandma didn't want to lose another horse. The attack didn't materalize, but the Factor gave her one of his best horses and another to Cobell for the one Grandma "spent" on her return to the fort. She was much more accepted at the fort after this experience.
As the Teepee Turns
(An Indian soap opera, based on a true story)
Two boys who grew up together and fell in love with a girl from another enemy tribe.
Eagle Shoe and Shadow Boy grew up together in the same lodge and shared adventures together into Manhood. While out hunting, a long way from home they encountered another youth about their age who was hurt from a buffalo goring his horse and injuring him. Athough he was an enemy (Cree), there was no honor in counting coup or killing him so they agreed to take him back to his band, which was camped somewhere around the Cypress Hills.(Blackfoot Hunting Grounds).
Upon entering the enemy camp with their companion, who was a son of an important warrior in the band, they were given good treatment and invited to many lodges to feast and tell stories. In one lodge there was a young lady of great beauty, who caught the eye of both boys. She seemed interested also.
After visiting for many days and being well treated, the boys were requested to return to their own band with a message that the Crees wanted a peace treaty and sent gifts back with the boys.
Upon returning to their own band they relayed the message to the band council with the gifts sent. The band council agreed to talk to the Cree's and sent the boys back with gifts to show their good intent. At the Cree camp they were well recieved as friends and invited to stay for as long as they wanted, but one had to return to the Blackfoot to make a time for the peace treaty meeting and to let them know that the boys were alright and had been well-treated by the Crees. Since both wanted to stay to be around the girl (Shadow in the Night), they shot arrows to see who would return. Shadow Boy lost and returned to the Blackfoot with the messages and gifts.
Shadow Boy told his father about the Cree girl and his liking for her and also that Eagle Shoe liked her too. His father told him this story:
While returning home from stealing horses from the Crows they ran onto a band of Crees (their enemies) and the great warrior Shadow was their leader. Shadow was defending this little clump of brush where his wife was giving birth to a son. Shadow was killed and the woman died in child-birth, but the baby lived. He brought the baby home to be raised as his own and felt Shadow in the Night might be a relative. It wouldn't be possible for them to marry. He (Shadow Boy) wasn't Blackfoot but Cree. His father thought the band they visited might be the same band Shadow (his father) was from and thus were his relatives. Upon returning to the Cree band it was revealed that he did have relatives there and Shadow in the Night was his older sister. By Eagle Shoe and Shadow in the Night being married the two enemy bands made peace.
Many names have been misinterpreted such as The Cree Chief "Stone Child" came out "Rocky Boy" and a whole Reservation was named after him in this name!
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Chemical Pre-treatments
There are several methods for preparing food products for home drying that include chemicals. I do not under any circumstances suggest these methods, and, have only included this chapter because I have noticed that I have had some searches to this site specifically looking for these methods.
One of the major drawbacks of using these chemicals is that, if the weather changes, and your produce is not dry, you cannot bring it indoors to finish the drying process in your oven, as the heat could cause lye or sulfur fumes to build up in your house. Also, since putting produce away can be a family activity, your children should NOT be exposed to these fumes or the splashing that might be caused by dropping the produce into the solutions.
Disposal of the chemicals is another issue. All of the reference materials I used in the writing of this site suggest that you slowly pour the chemicals down your drain when the drying process is complete. If you have a well and septic system, this could be a huge problem, which could potentially pollute your water. And, dumping large amounts of sulfur or lye into the public water system is not advised either, so the disposal of these chemicals poses an environmental problem which is unnecessary, especially when organic alternatives are available.
NEVER do this process indoors, under any circumstances!
2 level tablespoons of lye
1 gallon COLD water
Some food products, such as prunes, are routinely dipped in a lye solution to aid in the peeling of these foods and to make them dry faster. When using lye, care must be taken to use only stainless steel or enamel pots for preparing the solution. Make sure that, if enamel pots are used, that there are no cracks or chips, as the lye will react with the metal, causing the fruit to loose its colour and imparting an unpleasant taste. Never use metal spoons or utensils for stirring the solution for the same reasons. Always use wooden spoons or a clean wooden paint stirrer for this process. This process recommends that you bring the water and lye mixture to a boil and dip the food product in the solution for 5 to 30 seconds, until lots of small cracks appear on the skin of the produce. Produce treated in this way MUST be rinsed thoroughly to remove as much of the lye as possible before laying out to dry, and is recommended to be done, again, out doors. Because lye is so toxic, it is recommended that you wear rubber gloves and take special care not to splash the solution onto your skin or clothes. Protective goggles will help protect your eyes from any splashes. NEVER add hot water to a lye solution, as the fumes created are toxic. If you do get any of the solution on your skin or clothes it is recommended that you rinse the area with COLD water thoroughly. To dispose of this lye solution, you should, again, SLOWLY pour the solution down the kitchen sink, followed by a 5 minute flushing of the sink and pipes to remove as much of the lye as possible.
It is also recommended that the complete drying process should be done out doors in the open air to reduce the chances of lye fumes building up in your kitchen.
I, again, do not recommend this method for drying home food products. The reasons should be quite obvious...lye is toxic and adding toxic chemicals is counter productive to preparing wholesome foods for your pantry.
The World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary defines lye as "1. any strong alkaline solution: Lye is used in making soap and in cleaning. Sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide are kinds of lye. 2. (formerly) an alkaline solution made by leaching wood or other vegetable ashes: soap lye, soda lye. 3. a crude or impure caustic soda, used for scouring, etc."
NEVER do this procedure indoors, under any circumstances!
1 1/2 to 3 1/2 Tablespoons of sodium bisulfite, sodium sulfite or sodium metabisulfite
1 gallon of water
Many commercially dried food products have been pre-soaked in a sulfur solution to aid in the retention of colour and texture of the foods. It allows more of the natural vitamins and minerals to stay in the food product by reducing the drying time. The sulfur used is called "Flowers of Sulfur" and can be obtained from most pharmacies.
Some manufacturers either soak the food products in a sulfur solution or, to me, even worse, they fume the products over a burning sulfur solution to infuse the produce with the sulfur smoke. Although this method preserves most of the vitamins A and C, it destroys the vitamin B1 (thiamine) and leaves sulfur residue and taste on the food products.
This method is so toxic that it is recommended that you not bring the sulfured products into the house to finish drying in your oven as the heat will produce sulfur fumes, which are quite irritating to the mucus membranes of your nose and eyes. When sulfuring your product, it must be done outside in the open air. The produce is put onto racks under a box of some sort to keep the sulfur fumes around the produce as it burns. After the sulfuring process, it is recommended that you burn the box! When using this process, you must dry the produce outside until completely dry to avoid fumes from leeching into the air of your enclosed house.
If a dipping solution is made of the sulfur, sodium bisulfite, sodium sulfite, or sodium metabisulfite are used. NEVER confuse sodium bisultite with sodium bisultate, as sodium bisultate is even more TOXIC than the other sulfurs! If using a solution of sodium bisulfite (or the other two chemicals) it is recommended that, once the process is concluded, that you slowly pour the solution down the kitchen drain and rinse thoroughly with cold water to clear out the drain and the residue in the sink.
I do not recommend this process for any reason...why add chemicals to your organic produce? If you don't mind the chemicals, you can save yourself a lot of time by just buying the dried products at the grocery store. To me, the whole point of preserving your own foods is to have control over the additives and other harmful products added to our food constantly to improve the shelf life or flavor of certain foods. However, if you are determined to use this process, there are several books available which outline the procedures required.
Special Note:
If you are a compulsive label reader, like I am, some of these chemical names will be familiar to you. Sodium sulfite is a common food additive listed on the labels of many food products. You might think it is a salt, but, instead, it is sulfur.
The World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary defines sulfur as "a light-yellow, non-metallic chemical element, found abundantly in volcanic regions, and occurring free in nature as a brittle, crystalline solid. It is widely distributed in combination with metals and other substances, and is also present in proteins. Sulfur is highly in-flammable and burns in the air with a blue flame and a stifling odor. It is used in making matches and gunpowder, for vulcanizing rubber, in bleaching, in medicine as a laxative and diaphoretic, in ointments for the skin, etc."
I feel, personally, that this chemical has no business being used in food products, but, because of the "Veggie Liable Laws" as they are known in the US, I can not disparage ANY product by name, or even company that produces it without risking being sued by these companies for "loss of business" and "damages to product name".
If you get nothing else from this website, PLEASE learn to read the labels of the products you buy. If you are unsure of a certain chemical name, Google it! It will take you less than 15 minutes to find the pros and cons of almost any of the chemicals listed on the ingredients labels of the food you buy. If you cannot find it, chances are good that the product is new and little is known, yet, about it. Also, consider the sponsors of the tests as you read. You will be surprised to find that there are large corporations and lobbyists whose sole purposes are to promote these food additives, and, they, of course, have web sites promoting the wonders of these "harmless" additives. Then other sites, such as, outline possible side effects of these chemicals on animals and humans. You, at least, have information which you can choose to use in making intelligent choices when you buy for you and your family.
You will also, probably, be surprised to learn that most of the studies challenging the safety of many of these additives are done overseas in university and laboratory tests all over the world. My congratulations and a heart felt "Thank You" to these testers, for, without them, little would be known about the adverse effects of these additives on both animals and humans. |
Modern Banking
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1.1. Introduction1
The term ‘‘banking’’ can be applied to a large range of financial institutions, from savings and loans organisations to the large money-centre commercial banks in the USA, or from the smallest mutually owned building society to the ‘‘big four’’ shareholder owned banks in the UK. Many European countries have large regional/cooperative banks in addition to three to five universal banks. In Japan, the bank with the largest retail network is Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation,2 but its main rival for savings deposits is the Post Office. The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of banking and the role played by banks in an increasingly complex financial world. It begins with a review of the meaning of banking, identifying the features of banks that distinguish them from other financial institutions. The most common forms of organisational structure for banks in the developed world are reviewed in section 1.3. Section 1.4 considers the relationship between the central banks and commercial banks, including key debates on the functions and independence of a central bank. The chapter ends with a brief summary of the major theoretical contributions to the banking literature, followed by conclusions.
1.2. The Meaning of Banking
The provision of deposit and loan products normally distinguishes banks from other types of financial firms. Deposit products pay out money on demand or after some notice. Deposits are liabilities for banks, which must be managed if the bank is to maximise profit. Likewise, they manage the assets created by lending. Thus, the core activity is to act as intermediaries between depositors and borrowers. Other financial institutions, such as stockbrokers, are also intermediaries between buyers and sellers of shares, but it is the taking of deposits and the granting of loans that singles out a bank, though many offer other financial services. To illustrate the traditional intermediary function of a bank, consider Figure 1.1, a simple model of the deposit and credit markets. On the vertical axis is the rate of interest (i); 1 2
No part of this chapter is to be copied or quoted without the author’s permission. This banking giant is the result of a merger between Sakura and Sumitomo Mitsui Banks in April 2001.
Figure 1.1 The Banking Firm–Intermediary.
iL i∗
Volume of loans/deposits
i L − i D: bank interest differential between the loan rate (i L) and the deposit rate (i D) which covers the cost of the bank's intermediation S D: supply of deposits curve S L: supply of loans curve D L: demand for loans curve 0T: volume of loans supplied by customers
i ∗: market interest rate in the absence of intermediation costs
the volume of deposits/loans appears on the horizontal axis. Assume the interest rate is exogenously given. In this case, the bank faces an upward-sloping supply of deposits curve (SD ). There is also the bank’s supply of loans curve (SL ), showing that the bank will offer more loans as interest rates rise. In Figure 1.1, DL is the demand for loans, which falls as interest rates increase. In Figure 1.1, i∗ is the market clearing interest rate, that is, the interest rate that would prevail in a perfectly competitive market with no intermediation costs associated with bringing borrower and lender together. The volume of business is shown as 0B. However, there are intermediation costs, including search, verification, monitoring and enforcement costs, incurred by banks looking to establish the creditworthiness of potential borrowers. The lender has to estimate the riskiness of the borrower and charge a premium plus the cost of
W H A T D O T H E Y D O?
the risk assessment. Thus, in equilibrium, the bank pays a deposit rate of iD and charges a loan rate of iL . The volume of deposits is 0T and 0T loans...
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Thursday, March 23, 2017 • Morning Edition • "We put the "O" in OCD."
Written by Jude Terror on Monday, August 26 2013 and posted in News with Benefits
Source: Spinoff
For centuries, philosophers have pondered the age old question: if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? While the question is mainly considered a philosophical thought exercise designed to provoke thinking about observation and the nature of reality, scientists announced the first major breakthrough in over a thousand years after Todd McFarlane made some public statements about a new Spawn movie today.
"The problem was that we had nothing as potentially noiseless to compare the tree in the forest to," explained Professor Thaddeus T. Puffinbottoms, a real scientist The Outhouse consults frequently for our articles. "But when Todd McFarlane started making statements about a new Spawn movie at least fifteen years after everyone in the entire world stopped giving a crap about Spawn, he established a sort of absolute zero for sound, by which all other noises can be judged."
In fact, seemingly as if to prove a point, trees began falling in empty forests immediately after McFarlane began making statements about a new Spawn movie which were met with a complete and utter lack of interest from any living person in the entire world. Though McFarlane promised that the new film would be more horror than superhero and that big name actors were interested in roles, the falling trees clearly made more noise than McFarlane, which made, to make sure we're being clear, absolutely no noise at all.
"The thing that keeps slowing it down is that the negotiation I’ve done is I write, produce, direct, but I’ve got to push a lot of my other endeavors off to the side so I can just get tunnel vision on it, McFarlane said to a completely empty room from which even all of the crickets had fled in boredom. "And so everybody at my company is now going, ‘We’ve got to find Todd the time to finish all this."
"Whump," said a nearby tree as it hit the ground. "Whump, crackle, crackle, skechooooooooooo, crash."
McFarlane opened his mouth to say something else about the movie, but another tree began to fall nearly 200 miles away. "Krrrrrrraaaaacccck," said the tree. "Whoooooooosh, bang, smack."
As of press time, nearly seven thousand trees had committed suicide and crashed to the ground in the Pacific Northwest alone, and every single created more noise than the announcement of the new Spawn film. Meanwhile, a ten second video of Rob Liefeld singing the Game of Thrones theme song on the toilet over the weekend had garnered 90 likes on Instagram.
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About the Author - Jude Terror
More articles from Jude Terror |
In democratic governance techniques, the bulk rules through a well known vote. Usually there are other forms of government that happen to be also practiced in various sections in the entire world. These comprise of units along the lines of dictatorship, monarchical and hereditary governments. Democracy differs from these units by way of the majority rule. Having said that, over the a long time, there happen to be arguments regarding no matter if democracy is the best kind of government. In 11th November 1947, Winston Churchill stated during the Dwelling of Commons that democracy isn’t really one of the best variety of presidency when put next with other types of presidency including dictatorship or hereditary . This assertion may be a subject of debate at an assortment of levels of figuring out as buyers experiment with to determine what shortcomings will be coming with democratic methods of governance. This essay seeks to establish any complications which can be affiliated with new democracy based upon the assertion formed Winston Churchill in 1947 inside the Property of Commons.
Democratic governments are based upon what the the greater part on the men or women resolve. With this regard, it comes out that almost all does not have boundaries about the decisions they make. Guidelines are handed and enforced because of basic bulk rule without having thanks thing to consider for that legal rights with the minority. For that reason, cutting-edge democracy is exercised in whole disregard of the elementary rights of your minority with the inhabitants. The minority is permitted to have their say though the vast majority continuously has their way. Trendy democratic governments do provide you with any guarantee for your just democracy in the least. This method emphasizes quantity instead of outstanding . Vast majority system stands out as the fundamental principle of procedure in such a model of governance. Other techniques including the hereditary solutions are viewed for being higher than democracy. Folks have argued that democratic governments would be the most excellent that ever existed. It’s claimed that democracy ensures incredibly good governance and terrible governance is characterised by a lack of democracy. All the same, as Winston Churchill identified again with the days, this is not one in every of the very best governance methods. Appropriate and just governments are characterised by preservation of basic human legal rights and offering all women and men an equivalent likelihood in societal issues.
In democratic governments, electricity is handed down to people thru an electoral procedure exactly where a poll is executed to find out the winner from a variety of contestants. It is usually likely that individuals elected to ability may well not be developing the tutorial functionality mandated to transform society. One more apparent situation with fashionable democratic methods is usually that not most people participates in voting. Moreover, individuals who participate in voting do not ever vote objectively. They vote dependant on an individual’s temperament as an alternative belonging to the insurance policies which they have for that really good in the public. Fashionable democratic units happen to be a lot of under the technological influence just where complex tools is used in conducting the polls. With these technological developments, folks have taken rigging to an advanced phase. Modern-day democracy will be equated to the reputation contest . Men and women bribe voters in order to make them vote in their favor. This is actually the worst system of electing many people to previously electric power. In such a standpoint, democratic governments are composed of corruptible and corruptive people who can not lead positively towards societal progression.
Winston Churchill was best in his assertion that democracy may be the worst type of government. The bulk is absolutely not invariably most suitable. Legal rights of all many people in society ought to be acknowledged and revered. Modern democratic solutions are devoid of just and appropriate governance. These systems are characterized by vast majority rule whereby views and voices in the minority usually are not viewed as. Consumers are elected to electricity outside of their attractiveness without any concerning the agenda and vision they have with the perfect in the general general public. Critics declare that modern day democratic programs are synonymous to popularity contests in which people are elected depending on how popular they in society as an alternative of focusing on their manifesto for that modern society. It could actually, therefore, be experienced that democracy is considered the worst type of governance that at any time existed. |
A Glimpse of Time
Need more time in your daily life? I know I do…
How do we define “time”? By the little arms on our watches? Or by the digits displayed on our clocks?
We know that “time” can vary from clock to clock. Some are purposely set to be couple minutes ahead, and some just run slow because of the inaccuracy of the clockwork. How do we know which clock is absolutely accurate and is the one that we should be setting all our clocks and watches to? Does an absolutely accurate clock even exist in this world?
note: this post is a continuation of a previous post A Glimpse of History
In 1905, Albert Einstein also pondered about the concept of time in his famous paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” [1]. Not only did he question the simultaneity of any events, he also questioned if the interval of time moves at the same rate depending on if we’re moving or stationary. All of this led to his famous theory of special relativity, which I’m sure we have all heard the term before.
The short version is: Time moves slower at faster speed of travel.
If you’re still interested, the long version is…
Einstein started with the assumption that light emitted or bouncing off a object will travel at a constant speed c regardless of whether the object is stationary or moving at any velocity. Einstein made this assumption based on a thought experiment [2] (note: this thought experiment is explained with a quoted explanation in [2]). This assumption was later shown to be true with theoretical calculation in his 1905 paper [1].
The concept of special relativity is quite difficult to explain/understand, but I’ll try to explain it using a simple example. The basic concept of this example is borrowed from [2] but further modified and illustrated with my beginner-ish animation skills.
Imagine we have a kid on a platform, kicking a little red ball at a wall. He kicks it in a straight line. The ball bounces back in a straight line to his feet.
Scenario 1
If we observed this event with a camera mounted above the platform, we will see:
The path of the ball as captured by the camera will be a straight line to the wall and a straight line back, shown above on the right.
Scenario 2
What if the platform is now moving at a unknown speed, but we will continue to watch from a camera mounted above the platform that is moving with the platform. We will then see:
The path of the ball as observed by us will be a straight line there and a straight line back, as shown above on the right. Exactly the same as if the platform and the camera were both stationary. This is because the camera and the platform is in the same frame of inertia.
Scenario 3
What if the platform is moving, but our camera is in a stationary position relative to the ground instead of the platform. We will then see:
The path of the ball as captured by the camera will be different from the second case. In fact, if we traced the path of the ball as captured by the camera we will find that the path of the ball is actually longer than in scenario 2 above. However in scenario 3, the ball is actually observed to be travelling faster as well along the triangular path (at higher velocity) because of the extra inertia given to the ball by the movement of the platform.
From this we can see that, the same event captured from the ground (in a stationary position like in scenario 3) and captured from the platform (in the same inertia frame as the event as in scenario 2) will make us perceive the event differently, i.e. the ball travels faster and farther in scenario 2.
Actually, it can be shown mathematically that the extra inertia given to the ball from the moving platform (when observed on the ground) cancels out the longer observed path travelled (when observed on the ground), so the two event should take the same length of time to occur to a person on the platform and to a person on the ground.
Now from a deeper physics perspective…
Image the ball is now a photon (i.e. a packet of light). But unlike the ball, the moving platform cannot give a photon extra inertia because of our initial assumption that light travels at the speed c regardless of the velocity of the object. So regardless if the platform is moving or not, the photon will travel at c when observed on either the platform or on the ground.
So what does this all mean?
If we are observers on the ground (i.e. Scenario 3), the photon will take more time to travel the longer path than if we are observers on the moving platform (i.e. Scenario 2). But it’s the exact same event, we are simply looking at it from two different perspectives. How can we perceive the travel of the photon (i.e. path length) to be different from one perspective to the other?
Einstein explained the difference occurs because time travels slower when measured from a moving object compared to a stationary object. For example in the case shown above, the camera mounted on the platform may record that the event took 10 seconds to occur. But on the ground we would see that it took 10.2 seconds to occur.
So, 10 seconds as perceived on the moving platform = 10.2 seconds as perceived on the ground
This would mean that it takes longer for a “second” to occur on the moving platform than it is perceived from the ground. So which perception of time is correct? The answer is neither.
That’s the gist of Special Relativity, the interval of time is relative and not absolute. It depends on the relative difference in speed of the observers.
To boggle your mind some more, remember that the Earth is moving around the sun at phenomenal speed. The sun and the solar system also move at phenomenal speeds around the center of our galaxy, and so on. So there is no such thing as stationary, we are simply stationary with respect to the Earth because we are in the same inertia frame as Earth.
By the way, I actually exaggerated in the above equation. In order to have a 0.2 second difference in the two cases, the platform must be travelling at 0.197c, which is equal to 212,673,664.6 km/hr–which is unrealistically fast.
In everyday life, we barely notice the difference in the interval of time (i.e. the “length” of a second), because the speed we travel at (even on a jet) is so much slower than the speed of light. However, this difference in time increases exponentially as the velocity of the observer reaches closer to the speed of light.
Einstein’s Special Relative theory spurred the famous twin paradox. Imagine a set of twins that is separated at birth, one grows up on earth while the other grows up on a rocket ship that is constantly traveling near the speed of light, let say 0.99c. When they meet again, the twin that grew up on earth is 80 years old, while the twin that’s been travelling near the speed of light this whole time is only about 11 years old!
So if you want to stay younger, then you better start building an engine that can let you travel near the speed of light…
[1]* A. Einstein. (1905). On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. [Online] Available: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
*Originally in German titled “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper”. Annalen der Physik17, pp. 891.
[2] D.M. Harrison. (1999). The Special Theory of Relativity [Online]. Available: http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/SpecRel/SpecRel.html#Constancy
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Prison Terminology
Christopher Zoukis
Contributing Writer
Prisons house people who are convicted of crimes.
Inmates, Prisoners, and Convicts: What's the Difference?
OJ Simpson
OJ Simpson during his 2008 sentencing in Las Vegas. In 1995, Orenthal James O. J. Simpson, born July 9, 1947, was acquitted of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a lengthy, internationally publicized criminal trial – the People v. Simpson. A 1997 judgment for $33 million against Simpson for their wrongful deaths. | Oj Simpson, Murder, Court, Football, Handcuffs,
Inmates, Prisoners, and Convicts: What's the Difference?
Christopher Zoukis
Contributing Writer
[Comments] Prisons are political places. Nothing shows this more than how those in prisons choose to refer to themselves. Some prefer the term prisoner. Others prefer inmate. And still others favor convict. Since prison is such a political environment, it is important to refer to those in the prison context pursuant to their chosen term, whether it is inmate, prisoner, or convict. But how to decide which term to use? What is the significance of each term?
Facts Are Facts: Inmates, Prisoners, and Convicts Are All the Same
Regardless of whether the person in prison prefers to refer to himself as an inmate, a prisoner, or a convict, they are all one in the same, in a general sense of role. Prisons house people who are convicted of crimes. They are incarcerated. And as incarcerated people, they are officially known as inmates, casually referred to as prisoners, and, some, think of themselves as convicts (a very politically loaded term in the prison context). What differs is the way they see themselves and how that personal view determines or directs their interactions with others. As with those on the outside, how these people see themselves influences how they interact with others.
It is important to realize that seemingly insignificant matters can become significant ones in the insular world of prison. In the prison context, calling someone an inmate, for example, can be akin to calling them a "snitch" or an informant. And calling someone a prisoner, when the person feels that they are, in fact, a convict, can be an insult too, though certainly not as bad as calling them an inmate. Prison politics can be messy and, unfortunately, dangerous. As such it is important to understand not only what each of the terms means, but what each symbolizes. By understanding these terms, not only can respect be given where it is due, but the prison culture itself can be better understood and the players involved with it quantified.
Inmate: Official, but Perceived as Being Subservient
Those outside of prison tend to think of those incarcerated as inmates. Many think that the term inmate denotes an incarcerated person, and that by using the clean term of inmate, the derogatory term of prisoner is avoided. It isn't so much a term of respect, but a term of being. That is the view from outside the walls. This is the exact opposite of how those who are in prison view the term of inmate.
Those in prison who have done some time consider the term inmate to be derogatory. They see it as an incarcerated person who does what the administration asks them to do. (Think of someone being patted on the head and told, "Now that is a good inmate," and you'll get the right idea.) Somehow the term inmate is perceived as denoting an obedient dog, and one that is called "Dog," not its actual name. Depending on your perspective, it is sad to see so many "inmates" in American prisons today.
Due to the significance of this term -- a term meant to denote an obedient incarcerated person who probably informs on others in the prison context -- it can be a problem to call someone an inmate who doesn't identify as such. It can be viewed as so disrespectful that the only way to defend one's honor is to engage in acts of violence against the person who inappropriately uses the term. Naturally, we're talking about ideologies and theoretical defenses to insults. While violence is much more prevalent in the prison culture, there is still an impetus for employing it. And this impetus -- risk and potential sanctions -- does dissuade some who would engage in acts of violence, even if the inspiration is a perceived front to one's dignity or respect (i.e., calling someone in prison an "inmate" would probably be one such situation where even if the person was angered by the expression, it just wouldn't be worth it to fight over the term's utilization).
The other side of the coin has to do with those who don't buy into the politics of prison. There are those who either are short timers or those who choose to stay out of prison politics not out of ignorance, but by informed choice. Those who fall into this group don't much care what term is utilized to refer to them. They see themselves as people who are in prison, serving their time, and will one day get out and never again be bothered by American corrections. Whether they are called inmate, prisoner, or convict, they care not. Truth be told, these are probably the more rational ones, but not necessarily the ones best equipped for life in prison, where criminality (and a sense of male bravado) tends to be the central tenet of interpersonal relations.
Prisoner: The Middle of the Road
The term upon which most incarcerated persons can agree is that of prisoner. A prisoner, unlike an inmate, is perceived as being an average incarcerated person. Prisoners do their time. Prisoners keep their business to themselves, and prisoners don't bother themselves with others' business. The term prisoner is neutral since it doesn't denote a willingness to obey the prison administration's desires and whims, but then again, it doesn't denote a drive to disobey the prison administration either.
From the long-term incarcerated person's perspective, the term prisoner expresses a person who is in prison. It doesn't denote someone who's a patsy for the prison administration, as the term inmate does. And it doesn't denote someone who feels as if they run the prison, as the term convict does. It is a middle ground term which the majority of incarcerated persons can agree on, at least tacitly, for prisoners are anything but agreeable, whereas inmates most certainly are (as the politics of prison would assert).
While those outside of prison might think it more respectful to utilize the terminology of inmate, the use of that clean and clinical term backfires, especially in the higher security prisons and with those who have done significant time in them. Best political practice says that calling someone in prison a prisoner will not cause offense, irrespective of whether the person identifies as an inmate, a prisoner, or a convict. While there might be some rub with the latter, the term prisoner will not be deemed an insult as the term inmate would.
Convict: A Tough Outlook On Life
The term convict is a term which all but those who view themselves as convicts can agree has a very negative connotation. In the prison society, convicts are those who feel that they rule the roost. Convicts are the prisoners who are gruff, violent, and demand respect. Convicts feel that they are in charge of whatever goes on inside a certain prison or a certain cellblock. And years ago, convicts used to do just that.
Back in the19 60s through the 1980s, prisons were more than merely prisons, they were dungeons of unimaginable fears. Rapes were commonplace. Murders, too. And to survive in the prisons of those days, one had to, in the words of one old timer, "Drink a lot of water and carry a big stick." You had to be healthy and willing to fight. And fight people did. But as the 90s came around, and significant educational and rehabilitative programming became available to occupy prisoners' time, prisons started to calm down a bit. By the 2000s, they more resembled a chicken coup than a dungeon; a place to be warehoused, not tortured. Sadly, even though the prisons have calmed down, most of the meaningful educational and rehabilitative opportunities have been stripped from them. And this is the age we are currently in.
In this day and age, there are three types of convicts. One, convicts at maximum security prisons, where wanton violence is the order of the day. Two, convicts who lived through prisons of old and have the scars to prove it. And three, those who think they are convicts, but are simply bullies who think they run something, but really don't. The common denominator is that those who identify as convicts are gruffer sorts who, depending on your view point, either cause problems for everyone, or, stay true to the convict code. It is all a matter of perception.
Convicts often speak of a "Convict code," a set of social conventions that are viewed as essential in higher security facilities, where the slightest misstep can be fatal. For example, under the Convict Code, one never, ever reports another convict's business to a guard, even if that convict is dying in his cell and needs medical attention. There are also "hands off" rules, dictating conflicts between races, wherein anyone who has an altercation with a member of another race without consensus agreement will be punished by his own racial group, a policy that reduces the possibility of serious group racial conflicts. It is a convict-run policy that is the product of long, painful experience, as is most of the Convict Code. While much of this code may appear harsh to outsiders, the Convict Code is, at least in the eyes of many who live by it, a method of ensuring survival.
The convict perspective is all about stratification. A convict sees himself or herself as the top dog in the prison social hierarchy. They see normal prisoners as being below them, and inmates below the prisoners. Even less desirable groups would then be placed below the inmates. In direct contrast to this, the educated prisoner would view convicts as being lesser than them, but more than an inmate. And an inmate would view their "civilized" ways to be chief of all. It turns out that those in prison form groups and classify the groups just as those on the outside do; by placing the group they belong to at the top of the social strata, and find reasons to place other groups below their own. No real surprise there.
Inmates, Prisoners, and Convicts: What to Choose?
In every jail, detention center, prison, and other facility of secure holding there is an underground culture at work. This culture comprises of those who reside in the correctional facility and their daily interactions. At the rougher prisons, i.e., maximum security prisons and some medium security prisons, the culture is one influenced by violence and intimidation. At almost all low security prisons and minimum security prisons there is a culture of complacency. The difference between these two cultures is life changing and life altering for those who must live in them. And due to these differences in circumstances, those who reside therein have different self-images and outward expressions thereof. Some feel that they are an inmate. Others feel that they are a prisoner. And still others feel that they are a convict. I would dare to say that the higher the security of the prison, the higher the ratio of self-described "prisoners" and "convicts" would be.
Regardless of whether we call our incarcerated class inmates, prisoners, or convicts, they are in many ways one and the same. The difference has to do with self-perception and how it manifests itself externally. And by understanding the terms of inmate, prisoner, and convict -- and what they symbolize -- we'll better understand those they apply to.
Christopher Zoukis
Christopher Zoukis, Contributing Writer: Christopher Zoukis is the author of Education Behind Bars (Sunbury Press, 2012), a comprehensive guide to prison education. Mr. Zoukis blogs at here and here. He's a PEN American Center award winning writer, legal commentator, and American Bar Association member (Criminal Justice Section/Section of Litigation). See... (more...) |
quinta-feira, 22 de setembro de 2016
Video: Coral Reef Protection Project- Respire fundo e veja a beleza dos recifes de corais.
"Slow" marine animals show their secret life under high magnification. Corals and sponges build coral reefs and play crucial roles in the biosphere, yet we know almost nothing about their daily lives. These animals are actually very mobile creatures. However their motion is only detectable at different time scales compared to ours and requires time lapses to be seen.
Make sure you watch the video on a large screen. This clip is displayed in Full HD, yet the source footage (or the whole clip), is available in UltraHD 4k resolution for media productions.
The answer to a common question: yes, colors are "real" and not exaggerated by digital enhancement. We have only applied basic white balance correction. However, we used specialized lights to mimic the underwater ambient spectrum. When photographers use white light (artificial spectrum) on corals, they simply miss the vast majority of colours. Corals have spectrum-sensitive colouration due to fluorescent pigments.
The duration of sequences varied from 20 minutes to 6+ hours.
=== Technical details ===
To make this little clip we took 150000 shots. Why so many? Because macro photography involves shallow depth of field. To extend it, we used focus stacking and deconvolution algorithms. Each frame of the video is actually a stack that consists of 3-12 shots.
Just the intro and the last scene are regular real-time footage. One frame required about 10 minutes of processing time (raw conversion + stacking + deconvolution in some scenes). Unfortunately, the success rate was very low due to copious technical challenges and we spent almost 9 long months to get it right.
Music: Atmostra III by Cedric Baravaglio, Jonathan Ochmann and Zdravko Djordjevic.
Sem comentários: |
Omission of the uterus: symptoms, causes, treatment
Omission of the uterus - pathology, at which the displacement of the body down into the vagina until its total loss to the outside, and the cervix is left in place.This state - one of the manifestations of the disease, called worldwide "pelvic organ prolapse."Omission of the uterus can be found in women of any age, but more than 50% of this pathology is diagnosed in women older than 50 years.
fixed uterus in the pelvic cavity in the normal position ligamentous apparatus and the muscles and fascia of the pelvic floor, also plays a significant role in the proper tone of the body.As a result, damage to the structures that hold the uterus, its omission occurs.
• 1 reasons for the omission of the uterus
• 2 symptoms of prolapse of the uterus
• 3 treatment of uterine prolapse
• 4 Prevention prolapse of the uterus
• 5 Gymnastics at the omission of the uterus andits prevention
• 5.1 Exercises that strengthen the muscles of the vagina
• 5.2 Exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor an
d abdominal
There are also factors that increase the risk of uterine prolapse:
There are severaldegrees of uterine prolapse:
symptoms of uterine prolapse is quite a lot, and it is impossible not to notice them.A woman worries nagging pain, a feeling of pressure in the abdomen radiating to the sacrum and lower back, constipation, frequent urination.In addition, when the omission of the uterus there is a feeling of a foreign body on the vagina, a woman pays attention to increasing the number of mucous, and sometimes bleeding.There is disruption of the menstrual cycle, menstruation is very painful, and the blood loss can be so abundant that can lead to anemia.Sexual intercourse becomes painful, while largely uterine prolapse - impossible.
With the progression of the disease is the symptoms worsen.Dysuric disorder worse, women may have difficulty urinating or urinary incontinence.Due to violations of the outflow of urine is considerably increased risk of infectious diseases of the genitourinary system (pyelonephritis, cystitis, urethritis, etc.).When uterine prolapse 2-4 degrees woman alone can determine the formation which extends from the genital slit.
In a study about the omission of the uterus are often found the omission of the rectum and bladder.
Many patients are concerned the question: "Is it possible to cure prolapse of the uterus without surgery?" With the progression of the pathology organ back in place without surgical intervention will not succeed.Gymnastics and massage, strengthening the pelvic floor muscles and the abdominals are a method of preventing this condition, but not treatment if the displacement of the body relative to the anatomical and physiological border has already occurred.
currently offers several options for surgical treatment of prolapse of the uterus, so that for each patient the doctor can recommend the best option.It should be understood that any one of the effective operation does not exist in any type of surgical procedure it is probable relapse.
uterus to return to its normal position is performed shortening and strengthening of the round ligaments that support the uterus, followed by fixing them to the wall of the body, or stapling ligaments together.It is also possible fixing of the displaced uterus to the walls of the pelvic floor (pelvic ligaments, pubic or sacral bone).A high probability of relapse after such operations due to the extensibility of ligaments, which are used to secure the body.
In recent years, around the world more and more popular and are popular operation using alloplastic materials, which are synthetic "spider veins".The risk of recurrence after operation of a woman several times lower compared to conventional surgical procedures without the use of the implant.
Normally all operations to strengthen the ligament-muscular system of the pelvic floor are held simultaneously with the plastic sheath.Transactions may or vaginal access through the abdominal wall.
Removal of the uterus (hysterectomy) is performed only in the case of other diseases where necessary removal of an organ.After a hysterectomy often happens omission of other pelvic organs, so the ability and desire to a woman's uterus should be maintained.
Postoperatively, women should avoid heavy lifting, strenuous exercise, to carry out prevention of constipation, perform gymnastics.Implementation of the recommendations of the doctor reduces the risk of recurrence of uterine prolapse.
begin prevention of uterine prolapse is necessary for all the girls in childhood.Useful regular physical exercise to strengthen the abdominal muscles, you also need the treatment and prevention of diseases that lead to chronic constipation.
The law there are specific indications in the field of women's work.Women do not have to do hard physical work, not allowed lift and transport of loads weighing over 10 kg.
in the development of uterine prolapse important role played by the number of births, as well as proper management of pregnancy and childbirth, so during pregnancy should be regularly and promptly attend antenatal clinic doctors.Often omission of the uterus is a consequence of the lack of or improper obstetric benefits during childbirth.Unfortunately, in recent years a growing number of women refuses to skilled obstetric hospitals, resulting in greatly increased the number of cases of birth trauma.
After birth, women should perform regular exercises to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles, should limit heavy exercise.Before you start training, you need to consult a doctor who will give advice on the timing of the training load and intensity.
postmenopausal women should also pay attention to the prevention of uterine prolapse.In addition to preventive and curative gymnastics doctor may recommend hormone replacement therapy, through which improves blood circulation and tone the uterus and its ligamentous apparatus.
classes should begin with repetition exercises 5-7 times, gradually increasing to 15-20 repetitions.Many of the exercises are familiar to us from the lessons of rhythm and physical education in school and do not require special training.
exercises that help strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, perineum and abdominal very much.The above are the most simple ones that can be performed at home.Paying just 30-50 minutes a day a therapeutic and preventive gymnastics, you can greatly reduce the risk of uterine prolapse is not only, but also in other pelvic organs.
On omission of the uterus in the program "Health»: |
Loretta from Barrow, United Kingdom asked:
Is it true that contraceptive implants cause breast cancer?
Contraceptive implants
Is it true that contraceptive implants can cause breast cancer? Why is there no information provided about this risk?
Our answer
Not enough studies have been done to determine the risk of developing breast cancer after using contraceptive implants. Contraceptive implants have been registered for use since the 1980s and are an effective way to prevent pregnancy. The implants are one or more flexible tubes that contain a hormone (progestogen). The tubes are inserted under the skin of the arm and slowly release the hormone over up to five years, depending on the brand. The implants registered for use in Australia are Implanon and Implanon NXT, both of which release hormone for three years. Like other hormonal contraceptives, implants work by inhibiting ovulation and making the mucus in the cervix thicker so that sperm cannot get through. While studies on contraceptive implants are limited, oral contraceptives (‘the pill’) have been well studied. In women who use the pill, the risk of developing breast cancer appears to be slightly higher than for women who have never used the pill, but this is usually still a low risk. The pill can actually help protect women against endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer. These effects may be similar for other hormonal contraceptives, including implants. Oral contraceptives usually combine two hormones (oestrogen and progestogen), whereas contraceptive implants only contain progestogen. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found that there was not enough evidence to tell whether progestogen-only contraceptives could cause cancer. More studies need to be done before any conclusive information can be provided about the risk of developing cancer after using contraceptive implants. Some types of cancer, including breast cancer, can be sensitive to hormones, so women who have breast cancer should not use contraceptive implants. Regular check-ups with your doctor are important for all women who use hormonal contraceptives.
This page was last updated on: June 30, 2014
Similar things people heard |
RWN’s Favorite Quotes From Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”
Thomas Paine was an enormously important figure in American history chiefly because of a pamphlet that he wrote called “Common Sense” which was released in early 1776 and is widely credited with whetting America’s appetite for revolution. Here are some of the best quotes from “Common Sense”…
“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
“This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true that England, that same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.”
“Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation, may be included within the following descriptions. Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who cannot see; prejudiced men, who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves: and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent than all of the other three.”
“It is not in the power of Britain or Europe to conquer America, if she does not conquer herself by delay and timidity.”
“I have heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they dreaded an independence, fearing that it would produce civil wars. It is but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that is the case here; for there is ten times more to dread from a patched up connexion than from independence.”
“But where, say some, is the king of America? I’ll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Britain.”
“To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections, wounded through a thousand pores, instruct us to detest, is madness and folly.”
“Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.”
“Expedience and right are different things.”
“A line of distinction should be drawn between English soldiers taken in battle and inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are prisoners, but the latter traitors. The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head.”
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2 11-1 Intelligent Support Systems Copied from:
3 11-2 Intelligent Systems and Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence and intelligent behavior Comparing artificial and natural intelligence Conventional versus AI computing Commercial artificial intelligence field
4 11-3 Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Behavior Artificial intelligence (AI) is concerned with two basic ideas. First, it involves studying the thought processes of humans; second, it deals with representing those processes via machines (computer, robots, etc.).
5 11-4 Objectives of AI To make machines smarter Understand what intelligence is To make machines more useful
6 11-5 Intelligent Behavior Learning or understanding from experience Making sense of ambiguous or contradictory messages Responding quickly and successfully to new situations Using reason to solve problems and direct actions effectively
7 11-6 Intelligent Behavior Dealing with complex situations Applying knowledge to manipulate the environment Recognizing the relative importance of different elements in a situation
8 11-7 Artificial and Natural Intelligence AI Advantages over Natural Intelligence AI is more permanent AI offers ease of duplication and dissemination AI can be less expensive AI is consistent and thorough AI can be documented
9 11-8 Artificial and Natural Intelligence Natural Intelligence Advantages over AI Natural intelligence is creative Natural intelligence enables people to benefit from and directly use sensory experiences
10 11-9 Artificial and Natural Intelligence Natural Intelligence Advantages over AI Natural intelligence enables people to recognize relationships between things, sense qualities, and spot patterns that explain how various items interrelate Human reasoning is always able to make use of a context of experiences
11 11-10 Commercial AI Field Expert systems (ES) Natural language Robotics and sensory systems Computer vision and scene recognition Intelligent computer-aided instruction (ICAI) Machine learning Handwriting recognizers
12 11-11 Expert System (ES) An ES is decision-making software that can reach a level of performance comparable to - or even exceeding that of - a human expert in some specialized problem area.
13 11-12 Benefits of ES Increased output and productivity Increase quality Capture of scarce expertise and its dissemination Operation in hazardous environments Accessibility to knowledge
14 11-13 Benefits of an ES Reliability Increased capabilities of other computerized systems Ability to work with incomplete or uncertain information Provision of training
15 11-14 Benefits of ES Enhancement of problem solving capabilities Decreased decision making time
16 11-15 Other Intelligent Systems Natural language processing (NLP) and voice technology Neural computing Fuzzy logic Intelligent agents
17 11-16 Natural Language Processing and Voice Technology Applications of natural language processing (NLP) Speech (voice) recognition and understanding Advantages of speech recognition Voice synthesis
18 11-17 Advantages of Speech Recognition Ease of access Speed Manual freedom Remote access Accuracy
19 11-18 Benefits and Applications of Neural Computing Potential to provide some of the human characteristics of problem solving –Recognition of patterns and characteristics Fault-tolerance Generalization Adaptability
20 11-19 Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) - Business Applications Tax fraud Financial services Loan applications evaluation Solvency prediction New product analysis Airline fare management Prediction
21 11-20 Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) - Business Applications Evaluation of personnel and job candidates Resource allocation Data mining Foreign exchange rate Stock, bond, and commodities selection and trading Signature validation
22 11-21 Fuzzy Logic Fuzzy logic is a technique, developed by Zadeh, that deals with uncertainties by simulating the process of human reasoning, allowing the computer to behave less precisely and logically than conventional computers do.
23 11-22 Intelligent Agent (IA) Intelligent agents are software entities that carry out some set of operations on behalf of a user or another program, with some degree of independence and in so doing, employ some knowledge or representation of the user’s goals.
24 11-23 Major Tasks Performed by IA Information access and navigation Decision support and empowerment Repetitive office activity Mundane personal activity Search and retrieval Domain experts
25 11-24 Applications of IA User interface Operating systems agents Spreadsheet agents Workflow and administrative management agents Software development Negotiation in electronic commerce
26 11-25 Emerging Technology: Virtual Reality (VR) How does it work VR and the internet/intranets VR and decision making
27 11-26 How Does VR Work
28 11-27 Managerial Issues Cost-benefit and justification Heightened expectations Acquiring knowledge System acceptance System integration
29 11-28 Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation of this work beyond that permitted in Section 117 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without the express written permission of the copyright owner in unlawful. Request for further information should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Son, Inc. Adopters of the textbook are granted permission to make back-up copies for his/her own use only, to make copies for distribution to student of the course the textbook is used in, and to modify this material to best suit their instructional needs. Under no circumstances can copies be made for resale. The publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or damages, caused by the use of these programs or from the use of the information contained herein.
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The Haunting of Hill House Test | Mid-Book Test - Medium
Buy The Haunting of Hill House Lesson Plans
Name: _________________________ Period: ___________________
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Why does Dr. Montague believe the doors swing shut on their own?
(a) Because every angle in the house is irregular.
(b) Because a ghost is pushing them closed.
(c) Because the doors were hung improperly.
(d) Because the architect was inferior, causing many irregularties in the house's structure.
2. What does Eleanor dislike her sister for?
(a) Not allowing her to take the car
(b) Not helping with her mother
(c) Not allowing her to have a new suitcase
(d) Not giving her a room of her own
3. How does Luke introduce himself?
(a) As the nephew of the house's owner
(b) As a bullfighter
(c) As a specialist in psychic phenomenon
(d) As a lawyer
4. What is Eleanor's prevailing emotion as she is left alone in her room?
(a) Anticipation
(b) Sadness
(c) Happiness
(d) Fear
5. How does Theo introduce herself?
(a) As a lord's daughter masquerading as a commoner
(b) As a professional athlete
(c) As a nightclub singer
(d) As a psychic
Short Answer Questions
1. Why does Luke's aunt send him to stay with Dr. Montague at Hill House?
2. Who lived in Hill House after Hugh Crain's death?
3. What happened to the last person who attempted to leave Hill House after dark?
4. In what house does Eleanor pretend she lives?
5. Who offers to pray for Eleanor?
Short Essay Questions
1. Why does Eleanor get annoyed with her new friends?
2. From whom did Dr. Montague hear about Hill House?
3. How does Luke act when he meets Eleanor and Theo?
4. What does Dr. Montague say he expects of his assistants during the summer?
5. Who is Eleanor Vance? Why is she chosen for Dr. Montague's project?
6. Who are the Dudleys?
7. What does Mrs. Dudley insist she will never do?
8. What did Eleanor purchase specifically for this trip to Hill House?
9. Where do Eleanor and Theo go after Theo unpacks?
10. How does Dr. Montague treat Luke Sanderson?
(see the answer keys)
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La historia de los micro-procesadores
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The microprocessor owes its phenomenal success to a paradox created by the combination of technology and economics. Due to techniques that squeeze roughly twice as many circuits onto silicon every 18 months or so by decreasing line widths, increasing wafer diameters, and adding layers, each new generation eventually comes to market at around the same price asthe last, but with twice the power. More compact circuitry makes microprocessors faster because electrons have less distance to travel. As chips get smaller, more of them can be etched onto the same diameter silicon wafer by improved fabrication equipment that today handles multiple-layer eight-inch wafers as easily as it did two- and three-inch, single-layer wafers ten years ago. Consequently,microprocessors have taken over functions that used to require warehouses of discrete components, whetting a seemingly limitless appetite for increasingly affordable, higher performing chips.
Over the last decade, these advances in pricing and processing power have made the personal computer the largest consumer of microprocessors. At the same time, microprocessors have transformed the ubiquitous PCfrom a stand-alone office workhorse doing word-processing and spreadsheets to a widely connected, information machine that can send faxes and e-mail, access on-line services, or provide a video link for meetings. Today, Pentium processors and clones are driving the PC into untapped, new frontiers of mass-market communications and interactive multimedia home computing. By the turn of the century,when high volume chips are capable of executing more than a billion instructions per second, doors will open to brave new worlds we can only begin to imagine such as holographic videoconferencing and personal digital assistants that beep your cardiologist when your stock portfolio slides.
The Pentium microprocessor (actual size)
Microprocessor---Amicroprocessor, also called a CPU, is a tiny, enormously powerful high speed electronic brain etched on a single silicon semiconductor chip which contains the basic logic, storage and arithmetic functions of a computer. It thinks for the computer and, like a traffic cop, coordinates its operations. It receives and decodes instructions from input devices like keyboards, disks, or cassettes, then sends them overa bus system consisting of microscopic etched conductive "wiring" to be processed by its arithmetic calculator and logic unit. The results are temporarily stored in memory cells and released in a timed sequence through the bus system to output devices such as CRT Screens, networks, or printers.
The first microprocessor, the Intel 4004 4-bit (1971), measured just 1/8" by 1/16" yet was as powerfulas the first electronic computer 25 years earlier (1946), which weighted 30 tons, used 18,000 vacuum tubes, and required so much electricity that the lights of West Philadelphia are said to have dimmed each time it was turned on. Today, DEC's 64-bit Alpha microprocessor is more than 550 times as powerful as the 4004, with speeds comparable to yesterday's mainframes.
Programmability---CPUs can beprogrammed either by the chip manufacturer, distributor, or the computer manufacturer. Those programs for a single purpose product like a calculator or a video game, are generally written by the OEM and entered into memory by the CPU manufacturer or distributor. For PCs, the CPU, which must perform a wide range of tasks, is generally programmed by the computer's manufacturer. The user merelyinserts a prerecorded cassette tape, cartridge, or floppy disk containing instructions for each application into the computer and the CPU performs the instructions.
Key Components---A microprocessor has five key components; an arithmetic and logic unit (ALU), which calculates and thinks logically; registers, which are memory cells that store information temporarily for the ALU; a control unit,...
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Home » Disasters, North America » Japan tsumani and earthquake: America on nuclear accident radiation alert
Japan tsumani and earthquake: America on nuclear accident radiation alert
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Disaster: A satellite picture shows the remains of four reactors. By last night three of them had been hit by explosions while one had caught fire.
-California ‘monitoring situation closely’ amid dramatic escalation of disaster
-Japan’s nuclear crisis now appears worse than the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 – but not yet as bad as Chernobyl in 1986
-Japan PM tells people within 19 miles of plant to stay indoors as radiation reaches levels that could impact human heath
-Radioactive wind could reach Tokyo within hours – and radiation levels are already rising in city
-Nuclear Regulatory Commission admits it is ‘quite possible’ radiation could reach the U.S.
-‘Worst-case scenario’ could see 30,000ft winds sending nuclear cloud across Pacific – possibly hitting by Tuesday night
Fears that America could be hit by the nuclear fallout from the Japan earthquake have dramatically increased as workers prepared to abandon a reactor crippled by the earthquake and tsunami last night in the face of what is set to become the world’s second worst nuclear disaster – topped only by Chernobyl.
Damage at the number two reactor at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex is worse than thought, the Japanese government admitted tonight, sparking fears for human health both in Japan and the U.S.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has admitted it is ‘quite possible’ the fallout could reach America.
The dramatic escalation in the severity of the disaster came after an explosion at the number two reactor at 6am in Japan on Tuesday morning.
Initially authorities downplayed the explosion. However industry executives told the New York Times that the explosion damaged a containment facility – and now the situation has spiralled out of control.
Japan’s prime minister warned those within 19 miles of the plant to stay indoors. ‘It’s way past Three Mile Island already,’ Frank von Hippel, a physicist and professor at Princeton, told the New York Times.
A fire in the plant’s fourth reactor also sparked fears tonight but has since been extinguished, the AP reported.
Scientists in the U.S. warned yesterday of a ‘worst-case scenario’ in which the highly radioactive material could be blasted into the atmosphere and blown towards the West Coast.
They said it could be picked up by powerful 30,000ft winds, carrying the debris across the Pacific and hitting the West Coast. Some estimates claimed the radiation could arrive on America’s shores by Tuesday evening, according to the AFP.
The French Embassy in Tokyo warned tonight that a ‘radioactive wind’ is set to reach the city of more than 13million people by around 8amEST on Tuesday. Radiation levels are already higher than usual this morning.
Meanwhile meteorological agencies warned tonight that winds over the stricken plant are due to shift to the west later Tuesday.
“Right now it’s quite possible that there could be some radiation floating over the United States,’ said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman David McIntyre.
Chaos: The view from a U.S. navy helicopter as it surveys the devastation caused by the tsunami and earthquake in Sendai.
Officials downplayed the danger to humans, saying they did not believe the radiation would be ‘particularly harmful’.
A desperate race against time to avert a nuclear disaster was under way in Japan last night. Officials revealed fuel rods are melting inside three damaged reactors at the Fukushima plant, triggering fears of a serious radiation leak.
Japan has appealed to the U.S. for help to control three overheating reactors crippled by Friday’s devastating earthquake.
The plea came yesterday as a second and third explosion rocked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaging two reactors.
A senior Japanese politician said there were signs that fuel rods were melting in all three reactors. ‘Although we cannot directly check it, it’s highly likely to be happening,’ said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.
Rescuers walk through flattened buildings after the recent tsunami in Natori City, Miyagi prefecture.
Experts said the nightmare scenario was of a meltdown which triggers a massive build-up of pressure inside the containment unit. If the unit cracks, a plume of radioactive dust and gas would spill hundreds of miles into the air.
Fears of that meltdown at a Japanese power plant rose sharply last night after a new explosion was reported in the complex.
It is understood the blast was in the Number 2 reactor, where fuel rods had been in danger of overheating. Explosions have already occurred in the Number 1 and Number 3 reactors.
The new drama occurred because the explosion in the Number 3 reactor had damaged the cooling system in the adjoining reactor, resulting in last night’s third blast.
Others have suggested any radioactive cloud would be likely to blow out east across the Pacific.
‘The wind direction for the time being seems to point the (nuclear) pollution towards the Pacific,’ Andre-Claude Lacoste, of the French Nuclear Safety Authority, told AFP.
The NRC downplayed the threat to Americans, however. Mr McIntyre told the AFP: ‘We don’t think that it would be particularly harmful… even in a worst case scenario.’
‘We see a very low likelihood, a very low probability that there is any possibility of harmful radiation levels in the United States or in Hawaii or in any other U.S. territories,’ added an NRC statement.
And University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Science Dan Jaffe told Q13 Fox earlier: ‘Based on what we’re seeing in terms of the radiation that’s being released now, there is no risk at all.
‘Even in the worst case scenario there is a low likelihood of much risk over the Pacific Northwest.’
Nuclear regulators say the General Electric-designed reactors involved in the emergency are very similar to 23 reactors used in the U.S, reported MSNBC.
‘The worst case scenario is that the fuel rods fuse together,’ nuclear expert Joe Cirincione said.
‘The temperatures get so hot that they melt together into a radioactive molten mass that bursts through the containment mechanisms and it is exposed to the outside so there’s spewed radioactivity into the ground, into the air and into the water,’ he told Fox 43.
‘Some of that radioactivity could carry in the atmosphere to the West Coast of the United States.’
After Japan’s request to the United States for help cooling the reactors, the Commission said it was considering providing technical advice.
President Barack Obama offered any help the U.S. could provide to help recover from its ‘multiple disasters’.
Officials have been struggling to pacify the public’s concerns about radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere.
With serious questions now surrounding the safety of the three crippled reactors, many people believe the chances of the material escaping have increased dramatically.
Workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant fled last night after a third explosion raised serious concerns about a meltdown.
Embarrassed officials of the Tokyo Electric Power company called a hurried news conference in Tokyo to apologise to the public for ‘the inconvenience’.
But they were hesitant in disclosing details about the full extent of the danger to the public.
Leading nuclear expert Dr John Large, who has visited the plant, said he is concerned that where the radiation ends up is ‘in the lap of the gods’.
Devastation: Earthquake followed by tsunami has caused chaos in Japan and there are fears of a radiation leak from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
‘The exclusion zone keeps being raised. First it was 3km, then 10, now 20. This plant has gone through all the steps that occurred at Three Mile Island, and that led to total meltdown.
‘It looks like the reactors automatically shut down following the earthquake, causing a massive collapse of power to the grid,’ he told the Sunday Express.
The U.S. Navy moved ships away from the devastated north-east Japanese coast after a Navy crew delivering aid received almost a month’s worth of radiation in just one hour.
The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan was around 100 miles offshore when low-level radioactive contamination was detected from the stricken Fukushima plant.
Low radiation levels were detected on 17 members of the crew on three helicopters as they returned to the ship after delivering aid to the devastated city of Sendai.
Most of the radiation was found on the clothing of the 17-man crew, but also on one’s skin. The sailors were said to not have experienced ill-effects following the incident.
Contamination was found on the helicopters, which were scrubbed down on landing.
The U.S. Seventh Fleet has moved its ships and aircraft away from the Fukushima plant – hit by two explosions since Friday’s dramatic earthquake and tsunami.
The radiation fears were raised as the helicopters returned after delivering aid.
The helicopters sounded the alert around 60 miles from the coast and the ship’s sensors also sounded when it was 100 miles north east of the plant.
The fleet said the dose was around the same as one month’s normal exposure to the environment’s natural background radiation.
The Reagan and several other Navy ships were later repositioned away from the wind coming from Fukushima as a ‘precautionary’ measure, a U.S. Navy spokesman said.
‘The maximum potential radiation dose received by any ship’s force personnel aboard the ship when it passed through the area was less than the radiation exposure received from about one month of exposure to natural background radiation from sources such as rocks, soil and the sun,’ Navy spokesman Jeff Davis said.
He told ABC News: ‘We remain totally committed to our mission of providing assistance to the people of Japan.’
In a day of worrying developments in Japan:
* The official death toll rose to 2,800 but is expected eventually to exceed 10,000.
* Two thousand bodies were washed up in two towns in the worst affected area in north-east Japan.
* Strong aftershocks persisted in the stricken area, and a 4.1 magnitude earthquake jolted Tokyo at about 4pm EST yesterday.
* About 450,000 people have been evacuated nationwide – plus 180,000 from around the nuclear plant, where 190 have been exposed to some form of radiation.
* Almost 2million households are without power in the freezing north and about1.4million households have been left without running water.
Two other nuclear plants are also thought to be under threat. At Tokai there were also fears of overheating reactors as cooling pumps failed, while high levels of radiation were detected at the nuclear plant at Onagawa.
But the main concern remained the Fukushima plant on the north-east coast, where weary engineers were working around the clock for the fourth day.
Before last night’s third explosion they had been engaged in a last-ditch move to use seawater to cool the overheating core in reactor number two after fuel rods inside it were exposed.
Experts said it was probably the first time in the nuclear industry’s 57-year history that seawater, which is corrosive, has been used to cool fuel rods, a sign of how close Japan may be to a major accident.
Although the plant’s three working reactors shut down automatically when the magnitude nine earthquake struck, the cooling systems which keep the radioactive uranium and plutonium fuel rods cool have been hit by a series of failures.
Earlier yesterday a vast cloud of black smoke erupted from the plant after an explosion – the second in two days – demolished the building housing reactor three.
The explosion was triggered when engineers released steam to prevent a dangerous build-up of pressure inside the sealed reactor. At superheated temperatures inside the core the water vapour had split into hydrogen and oxygen which ignited, destroying the outer building and injuring 11 people, one seriously.
A similar explosion rocked the plant on Saturday when steam was released from another reactor.
Yesterday’s blast left the 80-inch concrete and steel walls which protect the nuclear reactor intact.
However, shortly after the explosion, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said it had lost the ability to cool the neighbouring reactor two – the third reactor to suffer cooling problems.
As the engineers tried to inject seawater using fire pumps the water levels dropped twice unexpectedly, leaving the fuel rods uncovered by cooling water. At one point they were exposed for two and a half hours.
Without coolant, fuel rods can overheat and melt. In a serious meltdown, radioactive molten material falls through the floor of the containment vessel into the ground underneath.
The drama at Fukushima has added to the anxiety for locals shellshocked by the quake and tsunami. Many Japanese are sceptical of assurances given by government officials about nuclear leaks, following at least two cover-ups in the wake of dramas in other plants in recent years.
Men in protective suits continued to sweep Geiger counters over terrified survivors, looking for evidence of radiation exposure.
Tokyo Electric Power conceded that radiation levels around the complex had risen above the safety limit but tried to appease the public by stating that it did not mean an ‘immediate threat’ to human health.
It also emerged yesterday that the government ignored explicit warnings from a Japanese expert on nuclear power more than three years ago.
Professor Ishibashi Katsuhiko, of Kobe University, said the guidelines introduced to protect the nuclear plants were ‘seriously flawed’ and that the plants were vulnerable to major quakes.
‘Unless radical steps are taken now to reduce the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to earthquakes, Japan could experience a true nuclear catastrophe in the near future,’ he warned in 2007.
Scientists say there are serious dangers but little risk of a catastrophe similar to the 1986 blast in Chernobyl, where the reactor did not have a containment shell. Some said the length of time since the crisis began showed the chemical reactions inside the reactor were not moving quickly toward a complete meltdown.
Even so, the nuclear danger has prompted several countries to warn against travelling to and staying in Japan. In Britain, the Foreign Office advised against all non-essential travel to Tokyo and the north-east of Japan.
Obama said he is heartbroken by the events unfolding in Japan and pledged America will support the country.
He told an audience: ‘All of you, young and old, have been watching the full magnitude of this tragedy unfold’ and added that the Japanese are ‘some of our closest friends and allies’.
Disaster shows nuclear should be scrapped, say green groups
Green campaigners wasted no time in exploiting the disaster, claiming it proved nuclear power could never be safe.
Greenpeace warned that Japan faced a nuclear meltdown.
Steve Campbell, of Greenpeace, said: ‘This proves once and for all that nuclear power cannot ever be safe. Japan’s nuclear plants were built with the latest technology, specifically to withstand natural disasters, yet we still face potential meltdown.’
Greenpeace was also concerned about the lack of data on the total amount of radiation already released, and whether the areas where spent radioactive fuel is dumped – outside the containment area of the reactor – were secure.
But nuclear scientists said the earthquake had highlighted how Japan’s power stations were robust.
Professor Paddy Regan, a nuclear physicist at Surrey University, said: ‘We had a doomsday earthquake in a country with 55 nuclear power stations and they all shut down perfectly, although three have had problems since.
‘This was a huge earthquake, and as a test of the resilience and robustness of nuclear plants it seems they have withstood the effects very well.’
Nuclear energy ‘remains a part of the President’s overall energy plan’, despite new concerns about its safety, a White House spokesman said.
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Begin at the Beginning: A Well-founded Marketing Strategy
Posted by SMstudy® on May 16, 2016 | Marketing Strategy (MS)
Keywords: marketing strategy, market opportunity, pricing strategy, distribution strategy
A well-planned, comprehensive marketing strategy for a product or brand is essential to its success. The marketing strategy determines the specific resource allocation and activities involved with all other aspects of marketing. The effects of a well-positioned marketing strategy reverberate throughout the entire spectrum of marketing options and therefore should not be treated lightly or given short shrift.
The SMstudy® Guide notes, “marketing strategy defines a product or brand’s unique value proposition, target markets, and the specific strategies to be used to connect with defined audiences. It also specifies the pricing and distribution strategies for a product or brand and outlines the specific metrics, objectives and budgets for all its marketing activities.”
So, what are the basics of creating a comprehensive marketing strategy?
In essence, there are four main areas of research and analysis that should be addressed during the creation of any marketing strategy. They include:
1. An analysis of market opportunity– this includes a look at both the internal capabilities of a company as well as external factors that may impact a business.
2. Defining the competition, targeting and position– exploring the current competition, understanding industry trends and creating future competitive scenarios helps in selecting target market segments.
3. Determining pricing and distribution strategies– assessing the value of the product based on its features, analyzing the features and price of competitive products and understanding the mindset of the consumer lays the groundwork for a successful distribution strategy, one that ensures that products and services are delivered and sold in the most efficient manner.
4. Determining metrics, objectives, marketing aspects and budget allocation– this includes the selection of metrics such as customer reach, brand perception, product availability and sales and profitability as well as details setting targets and allocating budgets.
The chosen marketing strategy has far-reaching impact on all other aspects of marketing. In addition, other aspects of marketing work synergistically with the marketing strategy. Consider the following:
Digital Marketing
Marketing strategy elements such as product features, target segments, and distribution strategy are key determining factors for a robust digital marketing campaign. Product category and product features determine how suitable a product is to be marketed online. Some products or services are more conducive to online marketing than others. Given that digital marketing activities can be integral to a number of other elements of the marketing strategy, the impact of the marketing strategy may be far greater on digital marketing activities depending on the specific product-market combination.
Marketing Research
Marketing research provides valuable insights on the performance of a marketing strategy and is helpful when companies need to take steps to resolve issues. Many of the research activities carried out for one process in marketing strategy may also be used by other marketing aspects. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind all the processes of marketing strategy while designing a research project to ensure that additional relevant information is also collected if the incremental cost of collecting that information is acceptable.
Corporate Sales
Product features and target markets determine how suitable a product is to be sold through business-to-business channels, and how budget and resources are allocated accordingly for corporate sales efforts. Marketing strategy also provides the corporate sales team with market intelligence related to competitors and industry trends, which helps the company to position itself strategically for each business opportunity.
Branding and Advertising
Branding and advertising build awareness of a product with customers and then ideally transitions them to loyal customers. This evolution of trust is made possible by understanding customers’ needs and ensuring that the company’s marketing activities are oriented towards meeting those needs in the best way possible. Customer profiling is a part of the marketing strategy.
Retail Marketing
Target market segments and product features determine how suitable a product is to be sold through retail channels, thereby determining the budget and resources to be allocated to retail sales. Within retail sales, a company needs to further decide whether to sell directly to the end customer or to use intermediaries such as wholesalers, distributors, and retailers. With the global rise in e-commerce, this decision is generally a complex one and needs to be made in alignment with the marketing strategy where target segments and a distribution strategy have been clearly defined.
For more details on the processes of marketing strategy, visit |
database design, querying, and reporting
Project Description:
database design, querying, and reporting
what is the purpose?
the purpose of this lab is to create a database to provide specific information for managing customer information.
what are the steps?
•task 1: examine database information.
procedure "improving decision making: using database software to design a customer system for auto sales.
3.examine the table information in the database file.
•task 2: conduct an analysis of the case and create database reports.
1.analyze the situation using the questions outlined in the hands-on-mis.
2.create a simple solution using the database software.
did it work?
•in a 1–2 page word document, did you include a systems analysis report with answers to the questions posed in the "hands-on mis" on pages 408–409 in the textbook?
•did you include your database reports demonstrating your solution?
Skills Required:
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Price Type: Negotiable
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Today's Word
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cormorant (KOR-muhr-uhnt) noun
1. Any of the seabirds of the family Phalacrocoracidae, having a hooked bill with a pouch under it, a long neck and webbed feet.
2. A greedy person.
[Middle English cormeraunt, from Middle French cormorant, from Old French cormareng, from corp, raven + marenc, of the sea, from Latin marinus.]
"The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr. Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger.
This week's theme: words from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writings.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
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sam sam - 4 months ago 31
C Question
how to convert 64 bit number to a 8 bit
How would I convert a 64 bit number (
) to an 8 bit number (
). My code:
uint64_t val = 0xffffffffffffff8c;
uint8_t var = (uint8_t) (val & 0x0000FF);
Am I doing it the right way?
uint64_t val = foo();
Consider 4 below methods, all well behaved because assigning a value to an unsigned type is well defined, even if the value is outside the range of the destination. Effectively it is the Euclidean mod of "one plus the max value of the destination type".
Note: The leading 0s in mask constant 0x0000FF are not needed. Use leading zeros as desired to convey clarity. Could use 0xFF or 0x00000000000000FF.
OP's original: No problem, but a bit verbose. As long as val is some integer type, & is allowed.
uint8_t var = (uint8_t) (val & 0x0000FF);
Cast, no mask. Casting to (uint8_t) is a mask of 0xFF. In general, masking should be avoided as it has surprising effects in porting code. Not so when casting to an unsigned fixed width type as in this simply example.
uint8_t var_nm = (uint8_t) val;
Mask, no cast. Like the above. Narrowing of the value is explicitly coded.
uint8_t var_nc = val & 0xFF;
No cast, no mask. This works buts may generate a warning such as below when the pedantic [-Wconversion] or equivalent is used. It is not clear that code expects a narrowing.
// warning: conversion to 'uint8_t {aka unsigned char}' from 'uint64_t
// {aka long long unsigned int}' may alter its value [-Wconversion]
uint8_t var_nc_nm = val;
The goal of coding is to 1) do the function 2) do it reasonable efficient 3) promote clarity of intent both now and in the future. Recommend as it clearly conveys code's intention to narrow the value of the range 0-FF
uint8_t var_nc = val & 0xFF;
As a second choice, go for simply
uint8_t var = val;
Expect the same executable code to be generated.
Minor: the names val and var are too generic. |
Why Kids are At Greater Risk of Atlanta Pedestrian Crash Injuries
The two groups most likely to be injured in pedestrian collisions include children and the elderly. When a child sustains injuries or is killed in a pedestrian crash, a lifetime of potential can be lost. Children could need costly medical care to deal with permanent injuries for the remainder of their life, causing significant strain on families. Even when children recover from pedestrian crash injuries, the medical expenditures can drain a families budget and the child can be left with permanent physical and emotional scarring. pedestrian accident
Prevention of child pedestrian accidents is essential, and new research can help by shedding light on some of the behaviors that promote collisions. While children may engage in activities that make crashes more likely, however, drivers still maintain a responsibility to ensure they operate vehicles safely in a way that does not cause harm to kids. If a collision occurs, an attorney with experience in pedestrian auto accidents should be consulted by the family to get help pursuing a claim for compensation for losses.
Risks of Atlanta Pedestrian Crashes for Children
News Medical reported on the research conducted to determine the behaviors on the part of child pedestrians that promotes accidents. The study included groups of children between the ages of seven and nine; between the ages of nine and 10; and between the ages of 10 and 13. Experienced adult pedestrians were also included as a control group. The researchers simulated typical streets and used eye-tracking devices to determine how both the children and the adults determined when it was safe to cross the road.
Younger children under the age of 10 had the greatest difficulty in making an accurate assessment regarding whether crossing the road was safe or not. Younger children were also least able to recognize hazards which could affect safe crossing, such as a curve in the road that restricted their view of oncoming traffic or a parked vehicle that blocked visibility and made it difficult to see if safe crossing was possible.
While younger children had the most trouble, even older kids did not do much better. Children aged 10 to 13 tended to linger on the curb for a longer period of time than adult pedestrians, which indicated to researchers that children within this age group had a harder time distinguishing between hazardous situations and situations which were safe.
Children of all ages were also interviewed on factors that could affect safe crossing, such as the speed of approaching vehicles and their field of vision. None of the children in any age group expressed a strong understanding of these important concepts.
Because children may not understand as clearly as adults how to cross the road safely, drivers in areas with lots of children such as school zones and pedestrian neighborhoods need to ensure they are driving slowly, paying careful attention, and taking steps to make sure they observe and stop for children.
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Stakeholders In Singapore Education Education Essay
Published: Last Edited:
Education is an area of great importance in Singapore. Thus, most parents have very high expectations of educators. In this essay, I will talk about what are some of these expectations and how I can harness them as a force to enhance students' learning.
The traditional expectation of an educator is that he must be responsible for the academic welfare and/or excellence of the child. Do parents also expect teachers to play a part in developing the whole person, in areas such as character development? Discipline, must then be part of character development. How much do parents agree to the whole person development? To what extent do parents want teachers and schools to discipline their children? What methods are acceptable and which are not?
Recent events shed some light to the amount of expectation there is of schools and teachers and raises some interesting questions too. The Nan Chiau fiasco for example shows the expectation of the public of school discipline and in particular corporal punishment. It is difficult to bridge the gap between those who agree to what the principal did and those who did not. They did however agree to the basic tenet of discipline but not the style. This highlights to us the changes in societal views' on methods of discipline. Do these changes in expectation restrict us in achieving our goal in developing the whole child? How do we work with these changed expectations"
Increasingly, parents are expecting to play a more active role in schools in the form of Parents' Support Groups (PSG). In these committees, they may take on different projects and be in charge of their organisation. These projects can be in the form of enrichment programmes for students which may help in the disciplining if appropriate programmes are organised.
The issues related to increased parental involvement are legion. What are parents' motivations? Will parents expect something in return for their services? What kind of incentives can school offer to encourage parents to participate? Will it lead to inequity? Parents might feel that if they do not contribute as much, their children will be disadvantaged. Will they then see the PSG as an added workload to themselves? Will it disadvantage those students who come from a poor family background"
Methods to harness them as a force
There are some possible solutions in the bid to harness parental support as a force. Schools can 'package' the services that parents can offer. Since parents have different strengths and resources, they can contribute to schools in various ways, such as financial aid, time or talent. When seen in this way, parental support can be of great value to schools.
In order to encourage greater participation in the PSG among parents, schools will need to market them. Schools need to be careful not to promote elitism by valuing certain skills above others. They need to ensure that parents do not feel that their contribution is insignificant. How can these be done? One proposal is that schools first identify the school's and parents' needs and then communicate and match these needs. On a volunteer basis, parents who feel they can help may come forward to contribute.
Schools can also explore the possibility of forming parent-parent groups instead of parent-teacher groups. This is to give greater autonomy to parents and to allow for self-regulation and organisation. It also saves teachers from extra responsibilities.
As for questions pertaining to the organisation of the PSG, it has been suggested that cluster superintendents run them, so that they can come up with a model for the cluster of schools, instead of individual schools coming up with their own models. However, the drawback is that cluster superintendents are not at ground level, they do not really understand the actual situation of each of the individual schools. Different schools might have different needs, strengths and weaknesses with regards to parental support, willingness to be involved and resources that they can contribute. Cluster superintendents may then not be a good person to deal with the PSG.
Principals have also been identified as a possible person to do the organisation. However, constant changes of principals make it difficult to establish a strong PSG. Also, there is the perennial problem of principals being overloaded with work.
Beyond all these issues, we can see that it is important to harness parents' expectation as a force to enhance student learning. In involving parents in school in various enrichment and discipline committees, parents will have some degree of control to meet their own expectations
Teachers are a bridge between students and parents.
We must find a way in which we can harness the negative energy of these parents and use it for beneficent purposes. The challenge for us teachers is to harness them in the correct manner. There are two possibilities to help remedy this. As the world changes, so do the families that make up the smaller blocks of society. Consequently, the second remedy is to heighten the awareness of these parents that the responsibility of their child's development does not fall solely on the shoulders of the teachers' and the education system. We thus agreed that as teachers and educators, we must be acutely aware of these societal changes and react to them accordingly and hence the teacher group decided that teachers should be the bridge between students and parents. This is a relatively new trend in humanity's history. It is a reflection of the system's desire to acknowledge and incorporate parents as stakeholders in the education system, and allow these parents some say in how the school is being run. However, it must be cautioned that parental-teacher-school relationships should form a symbiosis for the benefit of students. Hopefully this will motivate them to create a more conducive environment for their children to develop and excel in. Most often this is due to the fact that parents now are better qualified and thus expect a lot more from teachers the education system and their children themselves. This highlights the issues of single parent families. All these factors play an important part in any child's educational process. The consequence of this is that the children of these dual income families spend less time with parents. In addition, the teacher group took into consideration the ubiquity of Singaporean households, where both parents work at their respective careers to provide for a decent standard of living in an increasingly costly city-state.
Research has shown that parental involvement makes a differences in the future of the child.
"On the other hand, students whose parents are not involved are more likely to drop out of school.
In conclusion, research has shown that the most accurate predictor of a student's achievement in school is not income or social status, but the extent to which the student's parents are able to:
• create a home environment that encourages learning;
• communicate high, yet reasonable, expectations of their child's achievement and future career; and
• become involved in their child's education at school and in the community." |
YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsMission
Third-grader names asteroid that is focus of NASA mission
May 01, 2013|By Deborah Netburn
• A simulated image of the asteroid now known as Bennu.
A simulated image of the asteroid now known as Bennu. (NASA )
Asteroid (101955)1999 RQ36 doesn't really roll off the tongue, but asteroid Bennu? That's an asteroid that a person, a country and the world can get excited about.
This week, NASA announced that 9-year-old Michael Toler Puzio of North Carolina had won an international student contest to name the asteroid that NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission plans to sample in 2019.
The third-grader's entry, Bennu, is the name of an avian deity in ancient Egypt that often takes the form of a blue heron.
"The winged OSIRIS-REx and its heron-like TAGSAM [the mechanism that will collect the sample] also evoke attributes of Bennu, as do the egg shape of the asteroid itself," Toler Puzio said in a statement.
Bruce Betts, one of the judges of the contest, said the name struck a chord right away, not just because of the spacecraft's heron-like appearance. "The parallel with asteroids as both bringers of life and as destructive forces in the solar system also created a great opportunity to teach," he said.
NASA announced the OSIRIS-REx mission in May 2011, describing it as the first U.S. mission to carry samples of an asteroid back to Earth, and a crucial step in meeting President Obama's objectives to extend human space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.
"It's robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep-space destinations," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden at the time.
Scientists selected the asteroid now known as Bennu as the mission's destination because its orbit is relatively accessible, it is large enough to sample and it is carbonaceous and may hold the building blocks of life on Earth. Also, scientists are hoping it will be easy to collect a sample from it.
Bennu is about 1,900 feet in diameter, or about the size of five football fields. As of now, the OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to launch in 2016, meet up with Bennu in 2019, and return a sample of the asteroid to Earth by 2023.
The naming contest was a collaboration between the University of Arizona, which is leading the OSIRIS-REx mission, the Planetary Society and MIT's Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project, which discovered the asteroid.
Los Angeles Times Articles |
Breaking Down Stroke: Practices and Preventions
Dr. Robert Guthrie
Stroke, or cerebrovascular accident as it is properly known, is a common manifestation of the diseases of the arterial system that I have been discussing in previous columns. Stroke involves a blockage in the arterial system that supplies blood to the brain, or a bleeding (hemorrhage) from one of the arteries into the brain tissue itself, with either of these damaging the brain tissue.
In the United States, we have about 800,000 strokes each year, with the majority, around 600,000 of them, being the initial or primary stroke in that patient. The remainders are recurrent or secondary strokes in people with a previous stroke. Stroke is a relatively common disorder, ranking as the third leading cause of death in the United States with about 140,000 per year, behind only heart disease and cancer. Fortunately, the death rate for stroke has dropped dramatically, with a reduction in fatal strokes of about 60%, since 1970. This reduction in stroke mortality parallels the reduction in heart disease mortality seen over the same time period. These changes reflect the progress in treating high blood pressure that began in 1970, along with the other health measures such as cholesterol reduction, the dramatic decrease in smoking, and improvements in diet and exercise seen in the last several decades.
In contrast to heart disease, stroke rates vary between different American ethnic groups. Specifically, the rates of both fatal and not fatal stroke are noticeably higher in African American patients. Most likely, this increase is directly related to the fact that high blood pressure occurs at a younger age and is much more severe in African Americans. This unfortunate medical issue simply means that African American patients and their physicians need to devote special time and attention to controlling blood pressure in their community.
Elevated blood pressure is clearly the most important risk factor for stroke. Fortunately, with the wide variety of medications that control hypertension, this risk is not difficult to control. Advancing age is another risk factor, but that is something we cannot treat. A further risk factor is elevated cholesterol, and studies show that the cholesterol lowering statin medications (simvastatin, Lipitor®, and Crestor® for example) reduce risk of stroke. Other risk factors are more difficult to manage, often requiring significant personal lifestyle improvements. I think we are much better off if we make significant efforts to control these potential problems by aggressive management of these lifestyle issues early in our lives, rather than trying to repair the damage from them after we have developed medical problems. However, this is often easier said than done.
Lifestyle measures to reduce recurrent stroke:
• no smoking
• control of diabetes (if present)
• dietary control and increased physical activity
• limited alcohol consumption
• reduced psychological stress, if possible
Even though stroke has much less impact on society than the various forms of heart disease do, people are usually much more afraid of suffering a stroke than a heart attack. This fear is clearly driven by the fact that most of us have seen the disability caused by strokes, including paralysis and loss of muscle control, the inability to speak or understand speech, and other problems related to brain functioning.
While strokes affect older patients more often, when we do see a stroke in a younger person it is usually due to bleeding (a hemorrhage) from a congenital abnormality, a problem the patient was born with, in the one of the arteries supplying the brain. These defects are so rare that it is not reasonable to look for them until the patient experiences symptoms. Hopefully, symptoms will be mild enough to allow time for a proper diagnosis to be made and for surgery to correct the blood vessel defect before a tragic stroke happens. Symptoms include a dramatic and unusual headache and usually some other signs of brain disturbance.
In our efforts to avoid the initial stroke in any of our patients, the pivotal action patients and physicians can do is diagnose and treat high blood pressure. As I stated in the previous column, as we age nearly everyone develops hypertension. High blood pressure is confirmed by careful blood pressure measurements in the doctor’s office, followed by appropriate medication therapy to reduce and control the blood pressure.
While many of us want to avoid going onto medication treatment for high blood pressure, sometimes delaying therapy, it is wiser to remember the damage that can occur from a stroke as the result of poorly controlled blood pressure. Also, it is important to remember that most high blood pressure patients require multiple medications, often three or four, to properly control it. Therefore, do not hesitate if your physician tells you to begin taking another medication to control it. Remember that all studies have shown that lowering the blood pressure into the normal range clearly reduces stroke.
Whether other medications can reduce the risk of an initial stroke in an otherwise healthy patient is a point of disagreement among physicians. The statins, as the cholesterol lowering drugs are called, have been shown to reduce stroke in patients with existing heart disease. Reduction of stroke in patients without preexisting heart disease or stroke was seen in a study with aggressive cholesterol lowering with rosuvastatin (Crestor®).
Aspirin has drawn much attention as a preventive treatment and a number of studies have shown the use of aspirin, in a variety of doses, to reduce the risk of initial heart attack or stroke. However, recently some have pushed back against the widespread use of aspirin in patients yet to have a stroke or heart attack. They assert that risk of bleeding from the aspirin, mainly in the stomach and digestive system but also as a bleeding stroke in the brain, outweighs the benefit. I personally disagree with that contention. In my opinion, that belief focuses on much older studies that examined the use of much higher doses of aspirin than we use now, and those higher doses produced the bleeding problems. I think that judicious use of aspirin (81 mg dose) is appropriate if the patient is at risk for heart attack or stroke (i.e., someone with hypertension or diabetes) and does not have a history of bleeding problems. Everyone does need to recognize that the bleeding risk is there, and to monitor for it. Also, for reasons that we do not understand, heart attack and stroke reductions from preventive aspirin therapy are more marked in men and less dramatic in women.
Other than controlling blood pressure along with cholesterol reduction using a statin and possibly taking a daily 81 mg aspirin, prevention of a first stroke involves a healthy lifestyle – no tobacco, good exercise habits, and proper diet.
In many patients, the initial presentation of disease in the arteries affecting the brain is a transient ischemic attack (TIA). This involves a loss of some form of neurological or brain function for a brief period of time. Usually this lasts only a few hours but perhaps as long as 24 hours. While this event clears quickly, it can be an indication of potentially severe problems. A patient with a TIA requires an aggressive work- up, with special attention to the arterial system supplying the brain. A CT scan and/or MRI of the brain to determine if a stroke has occurred are essential. In addition, a careful evaluation of the carotid arteries in the neck that supply blood to the bulk of the brain is necessary. Many TIAs occur from small flecks of cholesterol plaque that break loose from partial blockages in the carotid arteries running up the front part of the neck. These flecks travel up to the brain and produce the transient symptoms of the TIA. Partial blockages in the carotid arteries are evaluated by ultrasound tests, or by CT or MRI imaging of the flow in the arteries themselves. If significant blockages in the carotid arteries are discovered, deciding whether they should be managed by medications or by surgery is a complicated question.
If a patient with blockages is not a candidate for surgery, or if no blockages are found, medication therapy for stroke prevention is always indicated. Medication therapy for a TIA is not significantly different than what is used for prevention of a recurrence after the patient has had a completed or actual stroke.
Medication therapy for a TIA or stroke is directed at reducing the stickiness of the platelets, components of the blood responsible for initiating the complex process that leads to clotting. Research has shown there are several mechanisms in the platelets that activate them and start the clotting process. Inhibiting these platelet activation mechanisms reduces the likelihood of a small or even large clot in the artery. Several medications and one combination medication have been shown to significantly reduce this platelet stickiness and reduce further TIA or strokes. These anti-platelet medications are the cornerstone of medication therapy for TIA and stroke.
The initial medication question in a patient with a new TIA or stroke is whether they had been taking a daily aspirin as a preventive. If the patient has not been taking a daily aspirin, then initiating a daily dose of 81 mg is appropriate, assuming that the patient is not allergic or has a history of intestinal bleeding. However, if the patient was already taking a daily aspirin, just continuing the aspirin without alteration is not enough. By having an event like a TIA (or stroke) while taking a daily aspirin, the patient has to be regarded as an aspirin failure. Aside from aspirin, Aggrenox® and clopidogrel (Plavix®), two other anti-platelet medications are used. Aggrenox® is a twice daily combination of low dose aspirin with dipyridamole, a second drug shown to inhibit platelet function. Aggrenox® has been studied in both TIA and stroke patients, so its effectiveness has been proven in both aspects of this disease process. Clopidogrel (Plavix®) inhibits a different mechanism of the activation of the platelets. It has not been studied directly in TIA, but it has been shown to be better than aspirin at reducing recurrent stroke. Therefore, its effectiveness in TIA is presumed because of its effectiveness in reducing recurrent stroke in patients who experienced a stroke while on aspirin. However, research has shown that if a patient has a stroke while already on aspirin, clopidogrel (Plavix®) should be substituted for aspirin, rather than combining them together (like we do in patients with heart attack). Another crucial diagnostic question, seen primarily in patients with completed strokes, is whether the patient has a particular type of abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation requires a different type of medication management.
When a person is afflicted with a stroke, prompt medical attention is indicated. In our present era, about 80% of strokes are ischemic meaning blood flow to a particular part of the brain is blocked by a clot or a fragment of cholesterol from a larger artery. About 15% of strokes are hemorrhagic, caused by the rupture of a blood vessel supplying a particular part of the brain—leaking blood into the surrounding brain tissue. 5% are subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is a different kind of bleeding rupture into a different area of the brain. Of the ischemic strokes seen currently, about 15% are due to atrial fibrillation.
Atrial fibrillation is an abnormal heart rhythm in which two small chambers on the top of the heart ( the left and right atrium) are twitching rather than contracting regularly. This lack of effective contraction causes irregular heartbeat and allows the blood to pool in the twitching (not contracting) atria, allowing clots to form. Periodically, a portion of those clots can break loose and float through the arterial system into the brain, blocking blood supply and producing
an ischemic stroke where it lodges. Therefore, when a new patient presents with a stroke, careful evaluation of their heart rhythm is indicated to see if atrial fibrillation is the cause. This type of heart rhythm can be intermittent, coming and going spontaneously. Thus, its detection often requires intensive monitoring, frequently meaning that the patient will need to wear an electronic monitor for 24 hours or even 30 days.
Like a TIA, a new stroke is an emergency event, usually requiring hospitalization. Some of the more noticeable ischemic strokes require rapid transfer from the Emergency Department to the catheterization lab to inject an anticoagulant, or a clot buster, into the affected artery in the brain. Rapid transportation to the emergency department of a hospital equipped for this type of specialized treatment is required. As mentioned earlier, a new stroke patient needs an MRI of the brain, with a CT scan a less desirable alternative, to identify to presence, type, and location of the stroke. Many patients, particularly those with the typical ischemic stroke, will also need an MRI or CT exam to evaluate the arteries supplying blood to the brain. Frequently called a MR angiogram or CT angiogram, this test will help identify the small number of stroke patients that might benefit from surgery on the arteries supplying blood to the brain as a preventative measure.
For the patient who suffers a stroke (or the transient TIA), the initial symptoms can vary from extremely striking to relatively subtle. The symptoms are, of course, directly related to the area of the brain that is affected by the stroke, and the type of stroke that occurred. Subarachnoid hemorrhage bleeding stroke, the rarer of the two, presents primarily as a severe headache unlike any felt by the patient before. This can be a difficult diagnosis for both the physician and patient, many times requiring a great degree of careful evaluation by the physician. In the more typical stroke presentation, the patient and their family can often recognize the muscle weakness— often arm, leg, or facial, depending on the area of the brain that was damaged. This sudden weakness is usually noticed when the person awakens in the morning, a timing issue for stroke not clearly understood. Certain strokes will affect the special areas on the left side of the brain that control speaking, understanding (recognizing words), or expressing words and speech, such as remembering the words that the person wants to say. Damage to these control areas of the brain can lead to extremely frustrating disabilities.
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking, or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause
From the National Stroke Association
In other strokes, the symptoms can be much more subtle. As we have controlled blood pressure better in recent decades, small or mild strokes are more common than the massive ones we saw 30 years ago. If there is an ischemic (arterial blockage) stroke in the thalamus, a small area of the lower brain that contains the nerve pathways between the brain and the body, even small blockages can produce dramatic symptoms. In contrast, the more primitive parts of the brain stem are supplied by the vertebrobasilar artery going up the back part of the lower brain— separating it from the rest of the brain, which is supplied by the carotid arteries going up the front of the neck. Blockages in the vertebrobasilar artery can present very different symptoms, such as garbled speech, that may not be obvious to the patient or even the physician.
If someone has been unfortunate enough to experience a stroke, after going through the various evaluations discussed earlier, focus then moves to what we need to do to improve and also to avoid another stroke. Starting treatment for specific disabilities, such as physical therapy to improve their walking or strength training for arm weakness, is an initial step. Also, speech therapy can assist in improving speaking and cognitive or thinking skills and occupational therapy can improve a patient’s ability to care for him or herself.
In the long term, proper medication therapy in patients with a previous stroke is extremely important. As with TIA, medication to reduce the stickiness of the blood platelets is vital. If the patient had not been taking a daily aspirin as a preventive treatment, then low dose aspirin is an effective anti-platelet therapy. Studies have shown that two other alternate medication treatments, either clopidogrel (Plavix®) alone or Aggrenox®, as we discussed earlier in the section about TIA.
Beyond the anti-platelet therapy discussed above, several other medication therapies are also mandatory. Proper control of blood pressure is critical. Most stroke patients have a history of high blood pressure, and aggressive control of blood pressure is extremely important in reducing the risk of another stroke. Also, studies have shown that aggressive control of blood cholesterol is also essential. The statins, as the cholesterol lowering drugs (simvastatin, Lipitor®, and Crestor®) are called, are doubly protective in patients with previous stroke. Firstly, the statin drugs reduce the risk of another stroke. Once you have already had a stroke, the risk of a second stroke goes up dramatically. Secondly, it is surprising to many patients and physicians that most patients with a previous stroke die from heart attack, rather than die from a follow up stroke. The statin drugs are extremely effective in reducing heart attack risk. Therefore, I would recommend that the treatment target for the LDL (bad cholesterol) in stroke patients should be less than 70 mg/dl, the same low target level as if the patient had had a previous heart attack.
In my previous column in Colliers, I expressed doubts that the increasingly popular use of fish oils, or Omega-3 supplements, would actually reduce heart attack risk. Just recently, a very large, multi-year study of the use of Omega-3 supplements was released. The Omega-3, or fish oil, supplements were found to be worthless in preventing heart attack, stroke, and death from heart disease. This is a crucial study that supports my contention that these agents are of no value.
In the group of patients that are found to have atrial fibrillation, the treatment is more complex. Research has shown that medications, different from anti-platelet drugs like aspirin, can reduce the formation of clots in the atria at the top of the heart. For a number of years, we have used warfarin (Coumadin®), to reduce the formation of clots and thus the risk of stroke. Warfarin is an old product, developed in the 1950s. It is inexpensive, but difficult to use safely.
I always joke to the patients that it is the same ingredient in rat poison! Warfarin requires very careful monitoring, because too high a dose can lead to dangerous bleeding risks, and too small a dose will not prevent strokes effectively. Patients on warfarin need to have their blood drawn every three or four weeks to monitor and adjust the warfarin dose.
In the last year, newer agents that reduce the risk of forming clots in the atria have been introduced to the market. These new agents, led by PraDaxa® (Dabigatran), with Xarleta® (rivaroxaban) recently joining it on the market, offer a very different choice. Though the new agents are more expensive, they do not require the frequent regular monitoring or repeat blood drawing like warfarin does. PraDaxa® appears to be somewhat more effective in stroke prevention than warfarin with less risk of bleeding problems from the medication. While there is still some debate over when to use PraDaxa® or the other newer agents, it appears to me that the momentum to move away from the difficult to use warfarin and replace it with one of these newer agents will be very powerful.
Stroke, in spite of significant improvements in the last several decades, remains one of the major health problems facing the American public today. Several medications, including those to control blood pressure and cholesterol, possibly aided by taking a low dose aspirin, can reduce our risk of an initial stroke. If you have already had a stroke, additional medications instead of aspirin may be necessary, while complete control of blood pressure and cholesterol are extremely important. In all aspects of stroke prevention, proper lifestyle, including not smoking, proper diet and weight control, and reasonable exercise are the vital first line of defense. Because the damage from stroke can be so severe, realizing this and forming healthy habits prior to problems arising is very important.
Robert Guthrie M.D. is both a family physician and a general internist. He currently serves as Professor Emeritus of Emergency Medicine at the Ohio State University. He has published one book, numerous medical articles, has lectured extensively nationally and internationally, and been a long-term participant on local and national radio broadcasts. His column discusses a wide variety of health topics of interest to the general public. Questions, comments, or topic ideas may be sent in to |
Who Do You Think You Are? #Worthiness #SelfWorth
Who Do You Think You Are?
Do you remember the first time you heard that question? Most likely, we were young, and that question was meant to stop us in our tracks like the ping of a stone flung from a slingshot. How dare you speak your mind! How dare you be so big, so bold, so uninhibited! It was meant as a rebuke or a correction.
Usually the scolding came from someone we respected—a trusted friend, a sibling, a parent, a teacher. And that someone had decided we needed some sort of intervention. However, had we really crossed the line? Or was our light simply shining bright at that moment? Deciphering the difference is so important.
Our sense of worthiness is learned early in life. During childhood, our individuality, that which makes us unique, is all too often discouraged. If we were made to feel self-conscious about our opinions, our thoughts, our dreams, we can develop a sense of shame that makes it difficult for us to see our true selves.
A healthy sense of worthiness allows us to shine; it also helps us to attract and choose good things for ourselves: healthy habits, love, happiness, wonderful relationships. When we feel worthy, outside opinions matter much less and we have a greater possibility of living joyful and enthusiastic lives.
If we’re not careful, we can wear a sense of shame like a wool coat. Slipping out of that heaviness can take a bit of discipline, but it can be done. Here are a few ways we can start to shed the shame and feel more deserving.
· Quell that critical inner voice. Weather that harsh inner coach was developed through a painful childhood or the condemning attitudes of others, we must begin to tame our thoughts and stop judging ourselves if we want to feel worthy of happiness.
· Acknowledge your suffering and the suffering of others. Developing a sense of compassion is crucial.
· Be kind in response to your own suffering and the suffering of others. Kindness is also an important aspect of a healthy sense of worthiness.
· Realize that imperfection is part of everyday life and something all humans share.
Help me add to this list. What other ways can we develop a healthy sense of self-worth? Note your answers in the comment section below.
1 comment:
CJ Smith said...
Dear Ms. Fasano, I am currently writing a talk about bullying that will be given in a church setting. It will be for young women, their mom's and grandmom's. I would love to use part of your post. Of course I will quote your name to give you credit. I will not do so unless you give me permission. You can reach me at lovethatcj@gmail.com or at my blog http://driftinganchorranch@blogspot.com
Do not be confused by the fact that my name is Caroljoy Smith, my pen name is Vivian Varlowe. There are far too many writers by the name of Carol Smith, even Carol Joy Smith is used, and CJ Smith, way, way too many. So I use the pen name my beloved Mom wanted to use. I believe that her passion for reading and writing lives on in me, and she gave me permission to use her chosen pen name. |
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Evolution of the Human Brain
The above link is to an article describing a discovery relating to how the human brain differs from the brains of other mammals and may shed light on how our brains have evolved to allow more complex thought. To quote the article: "Cell adhesion controls many aspects of brain development including growth and structure, and enables neurons to connect with other neurons and supportive proteins. Differences in the molecular connections of human neurons compared to the neurons of chimps, mice and other animals, could help explain why the human brain is capable of far more complex cognitive functions."
This discovery is related to DNA sequences that determine when genes are switched on or off. The effect of DNA is not just to determine the genes and hence the morphology of the organism. The same genes can generate different features in an organism depending on when it is allowed to work and when it is prevented from working. This could explain why humans and chimpanzees share 98 percent of the same genome, yet the end result is quite different. This provides a new avenue for evolution, one that does not change the genes but when they turn on and off. For more on this idea, see the next article.
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Online Google Dictionary
homeland 中文解釋 wordnet sense Collocation Usage
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homelands, plural;
1. A person's or a people's native land
• - I could finally go back to my homeland
2. An autonomous or semiautonomous state occupied by a particular people
• - the group is fighting for a separate homeland
3. Any of ten partially self-governing areas in South Africa designated for particular indigenous African peoples under the former policy of apartheid
1. fatherland: the country where you were born
2. A homeland (rel. country of origin and native land) is the concept of the place (cultural geography) to which an ethnic group holds a long history and a deep cultural association with —the country in which a particular national identity began. ...
3. Homeland is an album by Laurie Anderson, released on June 22, 2010. It is her first album of new material since 2001's Life on a String.
4. Moledet (מולדת, Homeland) is a small right-wing political party in Israel. It advocates the notion of voluntary transfer of the Arab population of the West Bank. ...
5. Homeland is an album by Neal Morse. It is a piece that was written for a musical theater production in the early 1990s. Many of the musical themes from this production would later appear on some of the Spock's Beard albums. This is the twelfth release in the Neal Morse Inner Circle series.
6. The Dark Elf Trilogy is a prequel to the Icewind Dale Trilogy by R. A. Salvatore. Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow, or dark elf, was originally written as a supporting character in the Icewind Dale Trilogy to Wulfgar the barbarian. ...
7. A bantustan (also known as black African homeland or simply homeland) was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as part of the policy of apartheid. ...
8. Homeland is a supermarket chain in the United States. Homeland is currently headquartered in Edmond, Oklahoma. , it operates around 50 supermarkets in Oklahoma and Kansas. Many Homeland supermarkets also include a pharmacy.
9. The Homeland is an album by Chicago-based rocker Bobby Conn and his backing band, the Glass Gypsies released on January 20th 2004 on Thrill Jockey records. ...
10. (Homeland S) The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a Cabinet department of the United States federal government with the primary responsibilities of protecting the territory of the U.S. from terrorist attacks and responding to natural disasters.
11. Homelands was a British music festival which consisted mainly of Dance music, both live acts and famous DJs. The event was held at Cheesefoot Head near Winchester, Hampshire, and was one of the most popular British festivals of this genre. It was run by Live Nation UK.
12. (Homelands (Fables)) The Homelands are the mythical lands from fairy tales, folklore, and nursery rhymes in the comic book series Fables. The majority of those listed have been conquered by the mysterious Adversary, as he has conquered most of the European Fable lands. ...
13. One’s country of residence; One’s country of birth; The traditional territory of an ethnic group; An area set aside for black South Africans under the policy of apartheid
14. (Homelands) The areas known as Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei which were previously part of South Africa, then granted nominal independence and later reincorporated into South Africa.
15. (homelands) Under apartheid, areas in South Africa designated for ethnolinguistic groups within the black African population; such areas tend to be overpopulated and poverty-stricken. (p. 1015)
16. The geographical space to which a national or ethnic group feels that it naturally belongs. Often associated with diasporic groups who long for return to their place of origin. May also be used to denote the family home as a place of safety and retreat.
17. A term successfully used by the Germans and the Soviets in World War II, less successfully (and in the plural) by Apartheid-era South Africa. ...
18. (Kansas, Oklahoma, and formerly Texas) |
Related to civil: Civil services
a civil question deserves a civil answer
If someone asks a reasonable question, then it warrants an answer. Often used as a reprimand. Why won't you answer me, Alice? A civil question deserves a civil answer! All Jim did was ask about your day. Come on, a civil question deserves a civil answer.
keep a civil tongue (in one's head)
Fig. to speak decently and politely. Please, John. Don't talk like that. Keep a civil tongue in your head. John seems unable to keep a civil tongue.
See also: civil, keep, tongue
keep a civil tongue in your head
(slightly formal)
if you tell someone to keep a civil tongue in their head, you are telling them to be polite, especially after they have said something rude (often an order) Try to keep a civil tongue in your head. We want him on our side.
See also: civil, head, keep, tongue
keep a civil tongue in one's head
Speak politely, as in The teacher won't allow swearing; she says we must keep a civil tongue in our heads. This expression uses tongue in the sense of "a manner of speaking," a usage dating from the 1400s. An early cautionary version was "Keep a good tongue in your head, lest it hurt your teeth" (1595).
See also: civil, head, keep, tongue
civil serpent
n. a civil servant. You have no idea the kinds of things “civil serpents” have to put up with.
See also: civil, serpent
References in periodicals archive ?
Addressing the gathering, Minister of State for Home Affairs Shri Kiren Rijiju said Civil Defence is service to the nation and we should improve and strengthen the civil defence concept.
This report from visiongain is a completely fresh market assessment of the civil helicopter sector based upon the latest information.
Is this draft law a step forward for supporters of civil marriage in Lebanon?
The contribution of blacks in several facets of the Civil War is just one topic discussed in the growing compendium of books on the subject.
The horror of battle, however, punctured sailors' naive beliefs that the Civil War would be a grand adventure.
Same-sex marriages and civil unions intersect with some of the more fundamental questions of family life--care of children, the stability of relationships, and family resources.
The psychologically tumultuous postwar lives of Civil War combat veterans strikingly resemble the lives of Vietnam combat veterans, who have high rates of mental disorders, remarks psychiatrist Roger K.
Parks's refusal--50 years ago next month--to comply with city and state segregation laws was a pivotal moment in the civil rights struggle.
Parts of that Act--both permanent provisions and those that are scheduled to sunset later this year--have become lightning rods for debate around balancing civil liberties with homeland security.
As the son of parents active in civil rights and the local NAACP chapter of his hometown of Camden, New Jersey, Gordon is both literally and figuratively a child of the civil rights movement.
The Federal Reserve Board announced on April 21, 2005, the issuance of a consent order of assessment of a civil money penalty against the Irwin Union Bank, Columbus, Indiana, a state member bank.
Spain is just one of a half dozen countries worldwide that have made crucial strides toward marriage rights--or at least civil union-like protections--during the past year.
Faith-based institutions," he told fellow House members, "should be required, like all other recipients of federal funds, to adhere to basic civil rights laws, and I cannot even begin to count the number of institutions that have contacted my office in the last few days asking to be held to those same standards.
A new kind of civil disobedience came to Missoula, Montana, recently. |
Friday, August 7, 2009
Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies: The Temple in Second Temple and Rabbinic Literature
Louis H. FeldmanPhilo’s Attitude toward the Temple in Jerusalem
Despite the fact that Philo was so important in the political life of Alexandria, he says very little about himself. He had a brother, Lysimachus, whose son, Tiberius, left Judaism, become governor of Egypt and was a general in the war against Judea. We have more philosophical writings from Philo than anyone in the period. Josephus mentions him briefly. Jerome refers to him as a Christian monk in Alexandria. There is a legend that Philo met with Peter. In essence Philo was made a Christian in honoris causa.
Philo wanted to be a philosopher and a mystic rather than a communal leader. As a biblical commentator, he criticized both extremes in the literal versus inner meaning debate. This would destroy the sanctity of the Temple to just go with the inner meaning. This was certainly an issue of great importance to Philo as talks about personally going to the Temple. He also prominently discusses the attempt by Caligula to stick a statue of himself in the Temple. In the letter from Agrippa to Caligula, quoted by Philo, Agrippa talks about how the Temple is the most beautiful in the world and that he is proud to have it in his home city. Philo does not mention the temple of the Samaritans. For him the Temple in Jerusalem is the end point of heaven and earth. He is proud of the fact that money collected from Jews around the world goes to the Temple. According to Philo, there are two temples; the one in Jerusalem and that of the rational facilities.
(I asked Dr. Feldman about Philo’s Hebrew. It is generally acknowledge that Philo did not know Hebrew and that he was completely dependent on the Septuagint. If Philo loved the Temple so much why did he not bother to learn the language spoken in it. Feldman suggested that Philo may have been so devoted to the Bible and connecting it to Greek thought that he neglected other issues like the language of the Bible.)
Michael Tuval – From Temple to Torah: On the Development of Josephus’ Religion
Josephus went from Jerusalem to Rome and became a Roman citizenship. He changed as a person from a Jerusalem priest to a Diaspora intellectual. Diaspora Judaism was different in that it downplayed the role of the Temple. Instead it focused on synagogues and other communal institutions. For Jews in the Diaspora biblical heroes were better intercessors in heaven than earthly priests. For Judean Jews, Mosaic Law was the law of the land. For Diaspora Jews, Mosaic Law was something they kept as a matter of choice. Josephus places greater emphasis on Mosaic Law in his later work Antiquities than in the Jewish War. Jewish War can be seen as a theological text. God destroyed the Temple because of the sins of the Judeans. It had nothing to do with the strength of Rome. This is a Temple centered world view. By the time we reach the Antiquities he is a biblical expert. He is also takes a more favorable view of the Pharisees as interpreters of the Law.
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1953 newsreel Changgyeonggung
This Universal Newsreel from 1953 (Narrated by Milton Cross) contains the scenary of Changdeokgung Palace(Korean; 창덕궁), one of the "Five Grand Palaces" built by the kings of the Joseon Dynasty, set within a large park in Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea.
The literal meaning of Changdeokgung(昌德宮) is "Palace of Prospering Virtue".
Construction of Changdeok Palace began in 1405, and was completed in 1412 with the construction of the main gate Donhwamoon(Korean;돈화문) during the reign of King Taejong. King Seonjo expanded the palace grounds by about 500,000 square meters, including Huwon(Korean; 후원), also known as The Secret Garden. The Palace was burnt to the ground during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and reconstructed in 1609 by King Seonjo and King Gwanghaegun. The next arson was in 1623 because of King Injo Political Revolt against Gwanghaegun's tyranny. The palace was also attacked by the Manchu Qing but throughout its history of reconstruction and repair has remained faithful to its original design. Changdeokgung was the site of the royal court and the seat of government until 1872, when the neighboring Gyeongbokgung was rebuilt. Korea's last Emperor, Emperor Sunjong lived here until his death in 1926.
Today there are 13 buildings remaining on the palace grounds and 28 pavilions in the gardens, occupying 110 acres (45 hectares) in all and the area is designated as Historical Site No. 122.
Changdeokgung Palace was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997. The UNESCO committee inscribing the site stated the place was an "outstanding example of Far Eastern palace architecture and garden design" being exceptional because the buildings are "integrated into and harmonized with the natural setting" and adapted "to the topography and retaining indigenous tree cover." |
Tuesday, 14 February 2017
Chemical analysis of milk on a compact disc
We know how much food colouring has been added to a recipe by the intensity of the colour. Food colouring is made of dye molecules which absorb certain colours of light and scatter others. Measuring the concentration of food colouring is easy - all that is needed is a light emitting diode (LED) and a light sensor (link to laser cut detector). But how do we determine the concentration of molecules that are not coloured? One method that has recently gained a lot of attention is Raman spectroscopy. Put simply, a laser is used to excite the molecules, then a camera picks up a characteristic fingerprint derived from the way the molecules jiggle/vibrate due to thermal motion.
Michel Nieuwoudt and others in the Photon Factory have found that Raman spectroscopy can allow for the determination of all of the important components in milk such as protein, fat and health indicators. In a previous post I wrote about measuring the contaminant melamine in milk using gold coated Blu-ray discs which amplified the weak Raman signal to something detectable. This month we published a follow-up work that aimed to integrate milk analysis into a device that could be used in a dairy shed.
Giving milk
CC BY-NC 2.0 Giving Milk by Morton Just
The first challenge was finding a device into which to integrate the analysis. We wanted to make use of microfluidic technology, which uses techniques from the semiconductor industry to make very small fluid channels on the micron scale (your hair is about 100 microns across). Advantages include being able to pack many tests onto a single device and having very precise control over the liquid. Traditional microfluidic requires a lab full of pumps to operate, which is not conducive for analysis in a dairy shed, so we turned to the newer field of centrifugal microfluidics. Combining compact disc technology and microfluidics allows for standalone operation with pumping driven by the centrifugal force as the liquid pipetted into the centre of the disc is spun outwards through microfluidic channels.
CC BY 3.0 LabDisk for SAXS
To make this approach viable we have to use injection-moulded plastic discs to keep the costs down and to allow for large scale production of many discs that can be delivered to the farmer.
The problem with performing Raman analysis in a plastic device is that the plastic has a very strong Raman signal, which drowns out the weak Raman signal from the milk. In order to solve this problem we removed the plastic between the laser and the milk - holding the milk in an open channel using the capillary force. This is the same force that pulls water up the sides of a glass to form a meniscus.
Cross sections of the multilayer disc with the laser cut channel on the bottom, a layer of double sided tape in the middle and a top cover which leaves some of the channel open
The main contribution of the paper was working out how to use the centrifugal force to fill the channel without it overflowing by balancing the centrifugal force (controlled by the disc speed and distance from the centre of the disc) and the capillary force (controlled by the size of the channel). Something else I found quite cool was that the capillary force was enough to hold the liquid upside down in the channel, which means the detection could be done from underneath as in a traditional compact disc player.
Diagram of the device: a) forces involved on the disc, b) liquid in a closed channel being pumped under rotation, c) open channel for spectroscopy, d) pressure due to the centrifugal pumping, e) balance between the capillary force and the pumping pressure.
We made use of this device to detect the contaminant melamine in milk using Raman spectroscopy and were able to detect down to the parts per million range (limit of detection (LOD) of 209 ppm). This is much more sensitive than infrared spectroscopy (LOD of 1300 ppm), but for higher sensitivities, the Blu-ray SERS surface would be needed (LOD of 70 ppb).
The applications for this work go further than just milk analysis. This opens up all sorts of vibrational analysis such as infrared and Raman spectroscopy to the centrifugal platform which could provide disease diagnostics, water analysis and DNA detection using these advanced techniques.
Monday, 5 December 2016
Gasification and carbon capture
In 2006, I became interested in gasification as a way of generating energy from biomass while storing atmospheric carbon in the ground. I thought I would explain some of the experiments I did and some of the interesting things I found out.
What is gasification?
Gasification is the process of turning biomass, such as wood, into a fuel gas that an internal combustion engine can run on. Complete combustion of biomass produces water and carbon dioxide, but by restricting the amount of air allowed into the reactor you can produce an incompletely combusted gas made up of carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen. This can then be piped into a normal spark ignition engine and used similarly to LPG.
There are four steps in gasification:
1. Drying - The fuel is heated and water is removed from the biomass;
2. Pyrolysis - The fuel heated without any oxygen breaks down and forms small volatile compounds (called tar or bio-oil) and solid charcoal;
3. Combustion - The tar and charcoal are burnt in a small amount of oxygen from the air, generating heat for the entire process;
4. Reduction - The amount of oxygen quickly runs out and the water and carbon dioxide are reacted on the hot charcoal surface to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
Photo Credit: GEK
Some of the benefits of gasification, as opposed to combustion on an open fire, includes the increased fuel efficiency, as combustion is much more efficient and clean when using a gas instead of a solid fuel. The conversion of biomass to electricity using simple combustion requires steam turbines which are only economical on a large scale. The ability to power an engine that can drive a generator means it is also a low-cost method to generate small scale power. By adding the charcoal that is generated to the soil, the entire process can be carbon negative by trapping the CO2 the tree took in during its growth and locking it away in a stable form of carbon charcoal.
These types of gasifiers were heavily deployed (in over a million vehicles) in Europe during WWII when fossil fuels were in limited supply. My favourite photo from this time is a picture of a tank powered by a gasifier.
Photo credit
I built two different types of gasifiers - a gasifier stove and a downdraft gasifier, both of which I will outline below.
Gasifier stove
The first gasifier I built was a gasifier stove. The geometry of the gasifier is called a top-lit updraft gasifier (TLUD). This means the fuel is combusted from the top with the air moving up through the fuel. The diagram below shows the working principles.
Photo credit
The fuel is lit from the top and air is supplied from the bottom. A flame front (migrating pyrolytic front) moves down through the fuel. The tar and water are pulled through the hot bed of coals, helping to break down some of the tar. Secondary air is then injected into the top of the reaction chamber which allows the fuel gas to burn cleanly. The stove was built from a computer supply box and used a forced draft from a computer fan which I powered on 12V DC. I mainly ran the stove on wood chips but I also used it to test the heat content of different fuels by heating water placed on top of the stove.
The stoves are not just a curiosity; thousands of them are being built and used in developing countries to improve the air quality for those who rely on solid fuels for cooking. The video below explains.
I also made use of the stove to study the combustion of algae during a summer research project working with Dr Rupert Craggs from National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand. The algae were grown in open raceway ponds which used waste water to feed the algae.
Photo Credit: NIWA
I made use of a non-woven geotextile to dry the algae from the 98% water content down to 7-12 wt% which is suitable for combustion. The higher heating value for the algae was 23.06 MJ/kg compared with wood at 14-17 MJ/kg. The dried algae formed flakes which made for excellent fuel and allowed for combustion in the gasifier stove. One thing I didn't measure was the emissions, as the high nitrogen content would suggest a large amount of nitrous oxide could be generated.
We published the results in a conference proceedings in 2010. https://www.waternz.org.nz/Article?Action=View&Article_id=786. In particular, we looked at the potential for algae to be carbonised to biochar to be a stable carbon sink.
Discovery model gasifier
The discovery model gasifier is a downdraft gasifier. This means the air is injected in the bottom and drawn down. The design of the gasifier is based on the Pacific class gasifier from a New Zealand company called Fluidyne. I scaled it down so that it could power a 660 cc engine at 1500 rpm outputting 3 kW of energy. This required a gas output of 9024 m3/hr of wood gas with a wood consumption of 4.19kg/hr. I initially had a 1kg hopper which allowed for a short test run of around 20 minutes. The design of the gasifier is really quite interesting and was designed to be built at a very low cost (a diagram of the gasifier is shown below). The fuel is loaded into the top and moves down as it is consumed. The fuel is dried and is broken down to tar and charcoal in the pyrolysis zone. Air is then injected through three nozzles and allows for combustion. A tube then comes up through the charcoal into the oxidation zone. Many gasifier designs make use of a metal throat that mechanically constricts the fuel. However, this throat can melt as the high temperatures are hot enough to melt steel. This gasifier makes use of the charcoal itself to act as the throat and the insulation allowing for low-cost materials to be used. As the carbon dioxide and water enter the tube the hot charcoal, in the absence of air, produces carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
The biggest advantage of a downdraft gasifier design is that all of the tar must go through the oxidation zone and then the reduction zone. This makes the fuel gas generated from these types of gasifiers very clean.
Here is picture inside the reactor with the constriction tube and the nozzles (the bolts are being stored there and are not used during operation). You can also see the diesel glow plug I used to start the gasifier in the top right corner.
The fuel I used was mainly wood chips or small wood rounds from the garden. The fuel gas then passed through a series of cleaning stages to prepare it for the engine. I used a blast tube to remove the large particles and some of the soot. A cyclone particle separator was made to remove the micron-sized soot particles. Cooling tubes were used to condense the water out of the gas and to generally reduce the temperature of the gas as well as to increase the density of the fuel gas. Finally, it went through a sawdust filter to remove any particles or tar that were missed in the previous stages. I later replaced the sawdust filter with a bag filter which could be cleaned and reused.
The gasifier was designed for a large generator, which I didn't end up finishing, but I did some preliminary tests with a smaller generator. Here is an interview I did where I started up the gasifier and ran the engine.
I later increased the fuel hopper size using a propane tank and used fibreglass to insulate the fuel chamber so that fuel wouldn't get stuck in the hopper. Here is a video of the gasifier and the flare running using the air blower, showing a relatively clean flame.
One of the important aspects of making the gasifier work well (i.e. tar free) was to adjust the height of the reduction tube so that it was inside the oxidation zone and the grate height to allow the fuel to flow. Two good checks for a tar free operation was a blue flame (meaning no hydrocarbons in the fuel) and no hydrocarbons in the condensate from the fuel gas cooler. As you can see from the picture above I got close to correctly tuning the gasifier however Fluidyne's Andes class gasifier flaring shows a really excellently tuned gasifier with only carbon monoxide and hydrogen burning.
The microlab gasifier was built by Fluidyne in 2011 and is the same size as the discovery model gasifier but with two cyclones and is now being used for research at the University of Ulster.
Microlab gasifier
I have Doug Williams from Fluidyne to thank for showing me how to build and operate gasifiers. I also have to thank Peter Wilkinson from Wilkinson Transport Engineers, who allowed me to use his workshop and materials to build the gasifier.
Continued interest
My PhD research is on combustion, global warming and reducing soot emissions from engines so this still interests me greatly. Gasification of biomass is one of the key technologies for controlling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is often referred to as bioenergy, with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). CO2 is captured by trees and the CO2 released during burning can be stored, making the process carbon negative.
Photo Credit: Drax Power
A second option is to burn some of the carbon to CO2 and to store the rest of the carbon as solid charcoal. This is called bioenergy-biochar systems (BEBCS). This does not sequester all of the carbon but as the charcoal is easier to handle and when added to the soil (referred to as biochar) can improve the holding of nutrients. This process is cheaper as the biochar can be sold to offset the cost.
Photo credit
I will probably be writing more about biochar in the future, but feel free to ask any questions about gasifiers.
Tuesday, 13 September 2016
Molecular tennis: Can nascent soot burn from the inside?
After arriving at the lab in Februrary I started working with Peter Grančič on collision studies of gas molecules with clusters of flat carbon molecules which resemble the very early soot particles (nascent soot) found in flames. So here is the paper.
I prepared some slides to explain the research. |
Though the global economy has certainly recovered since the 2008 recession, the effects of that economic downturn are still being felt by countless families across the globe.
We humans need to eat to survive. And the healthier we eat, the healthier our bodies are.
Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the global recession, it’s been harder for families to eat well-balanced meals on a regular basis. As food prices continue to rise and wages more or less stagnate, it appears as though there may not be much relief for these families anytime in the near future — particularly as some economists predict we’re due for a repeat of 2008.
While people of all ages need to eat healthy, growing children perhaps have the most to benefit from eating nutritional meals. Children’s teeth and bones, for example, need calcium to grow strong. Calcium, of course, is found in milk, cheese, yogurt and other dairy products. Additionally, kids need to eat a steady balance of iron in their diet, too. This enables their brain cells to develop correctly. Iron can be found in tuna and whole wheat bread.
Children who don’t eat enough healthy foods when they are growing up risk developing serious diseases down the line like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and mental illness, among other afflictions.
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The reality of the modern family’s diet
But due to the uncertain economy, many families simply cannot afford to eat healthy meals time and again.
In fact, new research shows that families in the United Kingdom, particularly those who are less well off, are eating more and more fatty foods like meatballs, instant noodles, pizza and fried food. This is ostensibly due to the fact that folks seem to believe that such foods are less expensive, and they also fill you up.
It’s certainly understandable why folks are choosing to buy and eat these kinds of foods. But a diet consisting of high-fat, processed foods isn’t healthy in the slightest.
In addition to the health risks, children who eat this way have a harder time concentrating in school, and their parents are also likely to be a bit more sluggish, facing health risks of their own.
Why food is becoming so expensive
In the United Kingdom, the price of food has increased 32 percent over the last five years. Between 2005 and 2008, the prices of wheat and corn tripled while the price of rice increased 500%.
Think about your salary over that same time period. Unless you’re someone like Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg, odds are your paycheck hasn’t similarly inflated.
Generally speaking, these food price increases are the result of ever-increasing energy prices, climate change, increased income for many folks around the globe, and changes to global supply and demand, among other things. Couple that with the fact that the global population is growing and food is constantly in demand, and you’ll begin to see precisely why prices continue to climb higher.
What’s more, logistical issues are also contributing to the continually increasing food prices. Due to shaky infrastructure in Central America, for example, food prices can be as much as 15% higher simply due to the fact that it’s difficult to ship it from one place to another in a timely manner.
Altogether, these rising food prices have resulted in food riots in over 20 countries as people scramble to find sustenance. To date, an additional 75 million people around the world have been put into poverty simply because they’re unable to keep up with the soaring prices of food.
As it stands now, these individuals have to spend upwards of 70 percent of their low incomes just to eat. That doesn’t really leave a whole lot of money left over to spend on shelter, clothing and other essentials.
Still, the global consumer must understand the importance of eating a well-balanced diet — even if that’s easier said than done. As food because more expensive, more people are drawn to diets that are heavy in carbohydrates due to the simple fact that such foods are much more affordable than fresh fruits, vegetables and the like. Over time, this can lead to serious health deficiencies as people don’t get the nutrients they need to survive.
But it’s not all terrible news
Though food prices have certainly inched up in recent years, the good news is that, according to the World Bank, those prices have begun to drop off since their peak in August 2012. Still, in Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, food prices have jumped more than 43% since 2010.
While that’s certainly a significant uptick, that area is poised to witness explosive growth due to its increasing imports. The high prices are causing farmers in that region to produce more, and the local economy is healthier as a result. To them, the rising food prices represent a spectacular opportunity to climb up the economic ladder.
The trick, of course, is to find the balance, matching the hungry stomachs with the food producers who have all the reason in the world to keep producing, so long as there are people to eat their food. In an increasingly globalized world, let’s hope we’re getting closer to striking that balance.
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Holly Whitman
Holly Whitman is the author behind Only Slightly Biased, a freelance journalist and striving to be one of the best women political writers on the web. Her work has been featured on Yahoo Finance, Fortune, Politicus, Bust and Feministing. You can find her on Twitter at @hollykwhitman.
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Astronomy Chapter 3: Question Preview (ID: 23030)
Below is a preview of the questions contained within the game titled ASTRONOMY CHAPTER 3: Review For Chapter 3 .To play games using this data set, follow the directions below. Good luck and have fun. Enjoy! [print these questions]
Nuclear fusion results when
a) atoms are split apart b) a star runs out of fuel c) gases and dust rotate and are pressed together by strong gravity d) planets glow at night
A star nursery where new stars are born
a) universe b) nebula c) neutron d) nuclear fusion
Newton invented
a) the refracting telescope used to show the Earth revolves around the sun b) the H-R Diagram c) reflecting telescope used to collect radio waves d) reflecting telescope, the type used by astronomers today
A device used to collect radio waves from objects in space is called
a) radio telescope b) reflecting telescope c) refracting telescope d) recycled telescope
A star system in which one star blocks the light from another is called
a) constellation b) nebula c) eclipsing binary d) black hole
When a star runs out of fuel, it CANNOT become a
a) neutron star b) white dwarf c) black hole d) protostar
The distance between the crest of one wave of electromagnetic radiation and the crest of the next one is its
a) wavelength b) frequency c) color d) spectrum
Patterns of stars in the sky are called
a) galaxies b) constellationa c) star systems d) observatories
Which of the following is not part of the electromagnetic spectrum?
a) radio waves b) sound waves c) X-rays d) infrared radiation
A star begins in a
a) black hole b) nebula c) red giant d) distant galaxy
A neutron star that appears to produce pulses of radio waves
a) quasar b) binary system c) black hole d) pulsar
The earliest stage of a star's life is
a) protostar b) giant star c) quasar d) white dwarf
The Heretzsprung-Russell diagram graphs a stars
a) diameter and brightness b) distance and brightness c) brightness and temperature d) brightness and absolute magnitude
Parallax can't be used on a star if the star is too
a) close b) bright c) small d) far
A light-year is a unit of ____
a) time b) distance c) mass d) absolute magnitude
How long a star lives depends on
a) its color b) whether it is single or binary c) its mass d) its temperature
A quasar is a type of
a) star b) universe c) pulsar d) galaxy
The hottest stars are
a) blue-white in color b) red-orange in color c) yellow in color d) violet in color
Brightness of a star as seen from Earth
a) absolute magnitude b) apparent magnitude c) d)
Our sun is a
a) main sequence star b) red giant c) white dwarf d) old star
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Net farm or net cash income? Aren't you glad you asked.
One of life's great mysteries involves two phrases with similar words and — you would think — similar meanings. But those who ought to know say while net cash income and net farm income may sound alike, they aren't.
I didn't cover the 1978 “tractorcades” that tied up traffic in Washington, D.C., for days. But farmers who did have said they spent much of their meetings with the Carter administration listening to USDA officials trying to explain the difference.
Thus, I was intrigued by a recent article by Roy Ferguson in The Ferguson AgReport on “Understanding USDA's Net Cash Income and Net Farm Income.” Ferguson, a farm management consultant, has long advocated the use of standard accounting principles for farmers that would help provide more realistic assessments of their operations.
Net cash income and net farm income are two valid measures of profit which are widely used in USDA economic reports. But the terms, which Ferguson believes few farmers understand, can also lead to confusion.
In 2005, net cash income was $82.8 billion while net farm income was $72.6 billion. The previous year net cash income totaled $85.5 billion vs. net farm income at $82.5 billion. In other years, net farm income has been much higher than net cash income. Why so much variation?
“USDA's net cash income is primarily a financial measurement that conforms rather closely to standard cash reporting procedures,” he says. “While past peculiarities such as treating net CCC loans as sales along with not recognizing family living withdrawals as operating expense remain subject to criticism by accounting purists, USDA does identify the extent of each category carefully.”
USDA calculates net cash income by adding crop receipts to livestock receipts to show total receipts from farming. The value of government payments and other cash income is then added to total receipts to establish gross cash income. Total dollars of gross cash expense, including interest expense, are subtracted from gross cash income to determine net cash income.
Net farm income begins with the same data used to determine gross cash income. An “accrual” oriented adjustment is made to reflect net inventory changes. “Hypothetical values for imputed non-money income follow next,” he says.
“Then depreciation charges and perquisites for hired labor plus other expenses are added to gross cash expense to yield total farm expense. Finally, subtracting total farm expense from total farm income provides net farm income.”
Ferguson said some of the confusion may come from farmers not realizing that net cash income and net farm income are quite different measurements. “NCI is primarily a financial indicator,” he says, “while NFI is more useful for macro-economic evaluation.”
He also concedes the two measurements have led to problems, including rumors USDA falsifies the numbers as part of a conspiracy to eradicate family farmers. “Reality is that nothing could be further from the truth,” he says. “USDA's economists and statisticians strive diligently to achieve maximum accuracy irrespective of the final results.”
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How to Grow Series
Cucumbers are one of my favorite vegetables to grow. The main reason is because they are so much tastier than the ones you find in the grocery store. Nothing says summer like a crispy, sweet cucumber salad, except maybe a tomato sandwich on soft white bread.
How to grow, take care of and harvest cucumbers
There are two types of cucumbers you can grow; vining varieties and bush varieties. Vining varieties can be left to creep along the ground if you have a lot of space to work with or they can be trellised in smaller spaces which also keeps them cleaner and makes it easier to harvest them. Bush varieties, generally don't need trellising though I like to stake them as the plants can become heavy with cucumbers late in the season. Bush varieties can also be grown in large containers.
Cucumbers do not like having their roots disturbed so transplanting seedlings can be difficult if not done correctly. Start seeds in biodegradable pots to help prevent transplant shock. Cucumbers won't germinate until the soil has reached 60 degrees, so you may want to warm up the soil first in order to plant earlier. Cucumbers are very susceptible to frost damage, so watch the weather closely in early Spring if you've planted early. Protect the plants with a hoop house or row covers. Cucumbers really don't like cool weather, so starting them early can be hit or miss. You can always sow more seeds after your last frost to ensure a nice crop of cucumbers for you and your family.
Choose a spot in your garden that gets full sun most of the day. To start cucumbers from seed, start with a soil that has a lot of compost and composted manure mixed into the top 6 inches of soil and that has a soil pH of 6.0 to 7.0. Cucumbers are very heavy feeders and need a soil full of nutrients and organic matter. Check the information on the seed packet of the variety you've chosen, but generally you should sow the seeds about 2 weeks after your last frost date in the Spring. Press 2-3 seeds about 1" into the soil spaced between 18"-36" apart (check the seed packet as some varieties can be planted closer together).
How to grow, take care of and harvest cucumbers
Keep the soil watered well until they have sprouted. If the soil is warm and moist enough, this should only take between 4-7 days. Once the cucumbers have sprouted, mulch around the plants with straw or grass clippings that have not been treated with chemicals or pesticides. This will help to retain moisture and to keep the soil at a more even temperature. It will also help prevent dirt from spraying up onto the plant and fruit during heavy rains.
If multiple cucumbers have sprouted in the same planting hole, pick the strongest looking one when they are about 2" tall and snip the other plants off at soil level to allow the stronger plant to grow.
After your vine begins to flower, it is time to fertilize your cucumbers. I generally like to mix in an organic fertilizer such as Espoma Garden-Tone with compost, spread it all around the plants and water it in well. Follow the instructions on the bag for how much fertilizer you will need.
Harvest cucumbers when they are the suggested size of the variety you are growing. Simply cut the fruit from the stem so as not to damage the mother plant. Damaging the plant could result in pests being attracted to it and eventually killing it.
Continue to page 2 for troubleshooting problems with cucumbers.
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tourism - definition and synonyms
noun [uncountable]
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1. the business of providing services for people who are travelling for their holiday
The Caribbean is so dependent upon tourism.
Space tourism may be a reality by the year 2010.
1. a.
[only before noun] related to tourism
the tourism industry |
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How different were Greek theatres to modern theatres
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Fred Speight How different were Greek theatres to modern theatres Theatre today as in ancient Greek times is a popular from of entertainment. Today's theatres share many similarities with the Greek predecessors however they are also very different. There are in fact many differences for example; layout, special effects, seating arrangement, the importance of drama and religion, setting, location and architectural features. In ancient Greece festivals were mainly held at the Great Dionysia. This was the oldest theatre in Greece and many plays were performed here for example the first performance of Antigone. The patron of the theatre was the God Dionysus and there was a temple near which was dedicated in his honour. There was also a statue of the patron Goddess Athene. Today there is no link between religion and theatre, as we live in a multi-cultural society with people who follow many different faiths; therefore the theatre is secular to appeal to all people. First I will discus the various aspects of ancient Greek theatre then compare with today's modern version of theatre. Today it is widely believed that theatre first began in ancient Greece, the evidence people used to come to this conclusion was from ancient Greek plays, Greek art and architecture. ...read more.
are the cheapest. These seats were used by the lower classes. The higher your social status the better view of the play you could expect to get. Importantly women were not allowed in the theatre at any time. In today's modern society everyone is considered equal, therefore if you have enough money you can sit wherever you like in the theatre. Also women can attend and enjoy the exact same privileges as men. This is because society has progressed and women are seen as equals in all walks of life whereas in Greek times they were very much second class citizens. Location Theatres in ancient Greece were built so they were open air and exposed to the elements. When being built the builders used natural curved sides for the seating area, this provided excellent acoustics and it is a technique used today. However today theatres are not open air as the weather would prohibit performances for the majority of the year therefore building them with a roof allows performances to take place all year round increasing revenue and profit. Some modern theatres today have domed ceilings which enable sound to circulate better. In ancient times theatres were often built on hills to improve acoustics however today they are almost always built in flat urbanized areas that have a high population for example London, this is because large urbanized areas have easy access because of good transport links e.g. ...read more.
With all this choice it is no wonder the number of people attending plays is far less than in ancient times. Special effects today are also much more advanced giving modern audiences a very different experience. However their experience can not be describes as better as many people today often prefer more dramatic based performances with low key special effects. It is however true to say that modern theatre is more accessible to the general public especially women and the working classes. This is due to changes in modern values in society for example equality for all human beings. It is also much more comfortable today then it was in ancient times as there are plush seat with cushions instead of solid stone rows. However modern theatres have borrowed some things from there ancient Greek counter parts. For example the basic layout, as many theatres are still semi-circular today. They were built using natural curved sides for the seating area, this provided excellent acoustics and it is a technique used today. So in conclusion, although ancient Greek theatres have similarities with modern theatres the differences far out way the similarities. This is because modern theatre has changed so much from special effects to the clientele who are allowed to participate. Also in ancient times women could not act, whereas today actresses are very highly thought of. ...read more.
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1. Compare the ancient theatres with theatres today!
They also used props such as baskets and jewellery depending on the play. Normally in modern theatres there is an orchestra, which plays normally under the stage. There is also a lot of special lighting, which cannot be done in an ancient theatre because there is no roof.
2. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis - How does Nikos Kazantzakis portray Zorba as ...
This is what Zorba tells Boss when he says: "Sometimes I feel I should like to make a bargain: to live one brief minute and give the rest of my life in exchange."
1. Free essay
Rationale - Antigone
I chose to base it upon anger because there are many different ways to portray it and there are lots of different ways of dealing with it. This gave me a wide range of options to choose from when devising the piece.
2. elizabethan times theatre history
open if there were less than thirty deaths from the plague in the city. So the theatre was a threat to Elizabethan England because it helped spread the plague to a lot of people which meant that those people would have passed the plague to even more people outside the theatre.
1. The Greek Theatre
An example of where music might have set a sad mood could be when Creon finds out he is responsible for the deaths of three people. The costumes of an actor were the same as the chorus' chiton and hemateon but they were decorated more elaborately.
2. Theatre of the Oppressed Theorised: Who, How, and What Comprises Forum Theatre's capacity to ...
Paying particular attention to visual aspects, firstly the eyes and then the whole body. The subject and the image swap roles. Second Dynamisation: Pairs move around the room and swap partners; the aim is to synchronise their own and their partners' tempo and movement.
1. AS Theatre Studies Portfolio
this is often used at communion masses as it talks about Jesus' power to turn water into wine like the priest's power to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ which is which communion is about.
2. Outline and assess what you consider to be the most important aspects of one ...
In order for stage truth to prevail the actor must have the correct physical reaction. The key to re-creation of physical actions is to remember the small details of the moment and build upon them to create the whole picture.
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Investigate the effect of changing the hydrogen peroxide concentration on the rate of reaction of the break down of hydrogen peroxide by catalase.
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Planning Sheet for Science Investigation Problem/Aims My aims for this experiment are to investigate the effect of changing the hydrogen peroxide concentration on the rate of reaction of the break down of hydrogen peroxide by catalase. Background Information Predictions I predict that the higher the concentration of hydrogen peroxide is the more it will react with the catalase and therefor producing more oxygen. This is due to the fact that as the concentration of hydrogen peroxide is increased, the number of collisions between the enzyme (yeast) and substrate (hydrogen peroxide) increases. I believe that if I double the concentration of hydrogen peroxide, the rate of reaction will also double. Key Factors *The main factors that I fell will influence the experiment are: 1) Temperature of the catalase and hydrogen peroxide. As the more heat there is the more kinetic energy the enzyme and substrate will have causing them to move faster which will then cause more collisions and faster reactions rates. 2) The concentration of hydrogen peroxide. The higher the concentration of hydrogen peroxide the more substrates there will be, which will enable more collisions between the hydrogen peroxide and catalase, therefore the reaction rate will increase. ...read more.
This is where the reaction of the break down of hydrogen peroxide by catalase is going to take place. 9) I placed the conical flask in a large water container. This is going to be filled with water and have a thermometer in it. This will act as a water bath to try and keep the temperature of the solutions constant. 10) The burette is turned upside down and clicked on to it's stand, this is where the oxygen produced from the reaction is gong to be collected and record. This is to help me find out how much oxygen is produced in two minutes. (I must make sure the bottom of the burette is closed completely to make sure no oxygen will enter or escape.) 11) The opening of the burette will stand in another container of water. I must make sure the water level is over the top of the opening of the burette or my results will not be reliable. The burette must be filled with water, but again I must make sure the water stops on one of the markers so I can make an exact result of where the starting measurement of the water in the burette will be. ...read more.
To find out the process data I used the same formula as in table one, which is; Starting measurement - 5cm3 - Final measurement = Total oxygen produced Beaker number Concentration of H2O2 / M Volume of h202 / cm3 Volume of distilled water / cm3 Volume of catalase used / cm3 Starting measurement / cm3 Final measurement /cm3 Total oxygen produced / cm3 1 1.0 5 0 5 48.2 29.6 13.6 2 0.9 4.5 0.5 5 46.3 28.3 13.0 3 0.8 4 1 5 47.1 29.3 12.8 4 0.7 3.5 1.5 5 49.3 31.9 12.4 5 0.6 3 2 5 48.7 32.4 11.3 6 0.5 2.5 2.5 5 47.1 31.3 10.8 7 0.4 2 3 5 48.7 34.3 9.4 8 0.3 1.5 3.5 5 48.4 36.6 6.8 9 0.2 1 4 5 47.3 38.8 3.6 10 0.1 0.5 4.5 5 49.7 43.9 0.8 11 0.0 0 5 5 47.3 42.3 0.0 Table 3 - this table shows the averages of tables 1 and 2 on the total oxygen produced for each concentration of hydrogen peroxide. Number Beaker Concentration of H202 / cm3 Average total oxygen produced / cm3 1 1.0 14.0 2 0.9 13.4 3 0.8 13.0 4 0.7 11.8 5 0.6 11.1 6 0.5 10.4 7 0.4 9.3 8 0.3 6.9 9 0.2 3.8 10 0.1 1.1 11 0.0 0.0 *Graph - ...read more.
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Related GCSE Aqueous Chemistry essays
1. Marked by a teacher
To investigate the effect of temperature on the rate of reaction
4 star(s)
Variables Variable Why does it need to be controlled? How will it be measured/controlled? Dependant Amount of CO2 The more CO2 produced in less time, the faster the rate of reaction. This is not controlled. It is what we are measuring and will be measured using a gas syringe.
2. Investigating the effects of changing the concentration of different solutions on the refractive index ...
If we know the direction of the incident ray, we can find the direction of the refracted ray using the laws of refraction: when a ray of light passes from one medium to another * the incident ray, the refracted ray and the normal all lie in the same plane
1. The Effect of Concentration on the Rate of Reaction.
Prediction I predict that when the concentration of the hydrochloric acid is lowered, less carbon dioxide gas will be evolved. Therefore the rate of reaction should be slower because the carbon dioxide gas will take longer to be evolved, as there is a greater volume of water in the solution when the concentration decreases.
Therefore, by increasing the temperature the molecules will move faster and collide with each other more quickly. This will increase the rate of reaction and so the temperature will be kept constant throughout the experiment by carrying it out under room temperature.
1. to investigate how the concentration affects the rate of the reaction
So three readings for each molarity is the best to use. 4. For my experiment to take place, I need five different concentrations of acid. I have decided to do this because this shows me how the rate increases/decreases per different concentration.
2. Thermochemistry - calorimetric determination of the dissociation energy of hydrogen peroxide.
The calorimeter is well insulated so that it cannot exchange heat with the surroundings. To measure DHdec occurring at a given temperature T0, it is convenient to use a path composed of two steps: H2O2(aq, T0) + Sys(T0) ? H2O(l, T1) + O2(g, T1) + Sys(T1) DHA (3) H2O(l, T1)
1. How Does Changing the Concentration of a Substance Affect the Rate of Reaction?
Then, using the line of best fit I will calculate the rate of reaction by, if the line of best fit is a curve, I will draw a tangent on my line of best fit and then draw a right-angled triangle from the tangent.
2. Plan an Experiment to Investigate the Effect of pH on Immobilised Yeast Cells on ...
In my experiment I am going to do I am using dried yeast, which contains a suitable enzyme 'catalase'. So therefore I am using the catalase in the yeast to speed up the reaction, the products being produced and the overall results.
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The Iron Duke, Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852
The Iron Duke Arthur Wellesey 1st Duke of Wellington was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the nineteenth century. He is often referred to as simply "The Duke of Wellington", even after his death, when there have been subsequent Dukes of Wellington.
Born in Ireland to a prominent Ascendancy family, he was commissioned an ensign in the British Army in 1787. Serving in Ireland as aide-de-camp to two successive Lords Lieutenant of Ireland he was also elected as a Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons. A colonel by 1796, Wellesley saw action in the Netherlands and later India where he fought in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War at the Battle of Seringapatam. He was later appointed governor of Seringapatam and Mysore.
The Iron Duke rose to prominence as a general during the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, and was promoted to the rank of field marshal after leading the allied forces to victory against the French at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. Following Napoleon's exile in 1814, The Iron Duke served as the ambassador to France and was granted a Dukedom. During the Hundred Days in 1815, he commanded the allied army which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. Wellesley's battle record is exemplary, ultimately participating in some 60 battles throughout his military career and never losing a single one.
An opponent of parliamentary reform, he was given the epithet the "Iron Duke" because of the iron shutters he had fixed to his windows to stop the pro-reform mob from breaking them. He was twice Prime Minister under the Tory party and oversaw the passage of the Catholic Relief Act 1829. He was Prime Minister from 1828–30 and served briefly in 1834. He was unable to prevent the passage of the Reform Act of 1832 and continued as one of the leading figures in the House of Lords until his retirement. He remained Commander-in-Chief of the British Army until his death in 1852.
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Developing self discipline
Your Study Guides and Strategies starts here!
The body is shaped,
disciplined, honored,
and in time, trusted
Martha Graham 1894-1991
American dancer/choreographer
Time management series
Developing self-discipline
thought, action, and speech toward improving yourself and reaching goals.
Self-discipline can also be task oriented and selective.
View self-discipline as positive effort, rather than one of denial.
Schedule a small task for a given time of the day;
Practice deliberate delaying.
• Schedule a particular task in the morning and once in the evening.
• The task should not take more than 15 minutes.
• Wait for the exact scheduled time.
When the schedule time is due, start the task.
• Stick to the schedule for at least two months.
Advantages: Scheduling helps you focus on your priorities.
By focusing on starting tasks rather than completing them, you can avoid procrastination.
• Schedule a task and hold to its time;
Avoid acting on impulse.
• Track your progress;
At the end of the allotted time, keep a record of accomplishment that builds over time.
Advantage: Building a record will help you track how much time tasks take.
• If you begin to have surplus time, fill it with small tasks, make notes to yourself, plan other tasks, etc.
Harness the power of routine.
• Instead of devoting a lot of hours one day, and none the other and then a few on an another day and so on, allocate a specific time period each day of the week for that task.
• Hold firm.
• Don't set a goal other than time allocation,
simply set the habit of routine.
• Apply this technique to your homework or your projects, you will be on your way to getting things done
Advantage: You are working on tasks in small increments, not all at once. You first develop a habit, then the habit does the job for you.
Use self discipline to explore time management
Time management can become an overwhelming task.
When you do not have control over your own self, how can you control time?
Begin with task-oriented self-discipline and build from there.
Advantage: As you control tasks, you build self-discipline.
As you build self-discipline, you build time management.
As you build time management, you build self-confidence.
Maintain a self-discipline log book.
• Record the start and end times of the tasks.
• Review for feedback on your progress
Advantage: This log book can be a valuable tool to get a better picture over your activities in order to prioritize activities, and realize what is important and not important on how you spend your time.
Schedule your work day and studies.
• When you first begin your work day, or going to work take a few minutes and write down on a piece of paper the tasks that you want to accomplish for that day.
• Prioritize the list.
• Immediately start working on the most important one.
• Try it for a few days to see if the habit works for you.
• Habits form over time: how much time depends on you and the habit.
Advantage: When you have a clear idea as to what you want to achieve for the day at its start, the chances are very high that you will be able to proactively accomplish the tasks. Writing or sketching out the day helps.
• Do not be intimidated; do not be put off by the challenge
• If you slip, remember this is natural
• Take a break and then refresh the challenge
Associate a new habit with an old one:
If you drink coffee, make that first cup the time to write out and prioritize your tasks.
Advantage: Association facilitates neural connections!
Mark your progress:
On a calendar in your bathroom, on a spreadsheet at your computer, on your breakfast table: Check off days you successfully follow up. If you break the routine, start over!
Advantage: Visualizing is a ready reinforcement of progress
Role models:
Observe the people in your life and see to what extent self discipline and habits help them accomplish goals. Ask them for advice on what works, what does not.
Time management series
Time management | My daily schedule | My weekly schedule |
Scheduling my school calendar | My goals | Organizing my tasks |
Creating to-do lists | Avoiding procrastination | Developing self-discipline |
Sunday Catechism: Little gods
Q: What is the first commandment?
A: The first commandment is: You shall have no other gods before Me.
We discussed in Children’s Church today what a “god” is and how you might place a “god” before God. It comes down to the value you place on something, anything. A god is something you worship, something you obey, something you think is really, really important.
It harks back to the previous catechism question. You might find this god to have objective value–that it is worthy for its own sake–it is “Lord”. You might find it to have personal value–that you have a special relationship to it–it is “your God.” Or you might find it to have redemptive or salvific value–that it had or has aided you in a cardinal way, that it has taken you yourself from less to worthy.
We used the analogy of parents. In fairly functional families, and even in most dysfunctional ones, we love our parents and will acknowledge their importance to our lives. We know that there are ample reasons to heed their authority give them honor. And yet, we also know that we frequently take them for granted and let more immediate priorities overtake our attention and desires. As kids, specifically, we sometimes treat our toys or friends like they’re more important than our parents.
Idolatry is a key concept in understanding our sin, and we should, as families, start an ongoing discussion about what can sometimes be the idols in our lives. Let us be frank about our own idols, and how placing unwarranted value on even good things can lead to our own bad behavior. And let us help our kids trace back their fears, tantrums, and deception back to warped worship. Furthermore, we should show that the idols themselves are not the ultimate problem; we are. Our little gods are just the mechanism by which we try to make ourselves God. The first commandment is really, to paraphrase Father Cavanaugh from Rudy, “I AM God. You are not.”
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Full text of "Men Of Mathematics"
See other formats
obviousness of this simple assumed equality, V2 x Vs = y^
taken for granted in school arithmetic, is evident if we visualize
what the equality implies: the 'lawless' square roots of 2, 3, Q
are to be extracted, the first two of these are then to be multi-
plied together, and the result is to come out equal to thte third,
As not one of these three roots can be extracted exactly > no
matter to how many decimal places the computation is carried,
it is clear that the verification by multiplication as just de-
scribed will never be complete. The whole human race toiling
incessantly through all its existence could never prove in this
way that ,V2 X Vs = V6. Closer and closer approximations
to equality would be attained as time went on, but finality
would continue to recede. To make these concepts of 'approxi-
mation' and 'equality' precise, or to replace our first crude
conceptions of irrationals by sharper descriptions which -mil
obviate the difficulties indicated, was the task Dedekind set
himself in the early 1870's - his work on Continuity and
Irrational Numbers was published in 1872.
The heart of Dedeldnd's theory of irrational numbers is his
concept of the 'cut1 or 'section' (Schnitt): a cut separates oB
rational numbers into two classes, so that each number in the
first class is less than each number in the second class; every such
cut which does not 'correspond' to a rational number 'defines*
an irrational number. This bald statement needs elaboration,
particularly as even an accurate exposition conceals certain
subtle difficulties rooted in the theory of the mathematical
infinite, which will reappear when we consider the life of
Dedekind's friend Cantor.
Assume that some rule has been prescribed which separates
all rational numbers into ftao classes, say an 'upper' class and a
'lower' class, such that each number in the lower class is less than
every number in the upper class. (Such an assumption would
not pass unchallenged to-day by all schools of mathematical
philosophy. However, for the moment, it may be regarded as
unobjectionable.) On this assumption one of three mutually
exclusive situations is possible.
(A) There may be a number in the lower class which is greatet
than every other number in that class. |
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When people are feeling playful, they giggle and laugh, making others around them want to laugh and play too. Now, researchers have found that the particularly playful kea parrot from New Zealand has a 'play call' with a similarly powerful influence. When other kea hear that call, it puts them into a playful mood.
Biologists suggest the number of songbirds breeding during spring and summer depends mostly on what happens at their wintering grounds. Wintering ground temperatures and population density at the breeding grounds are key factors affecting how many individuals return to breed on Kent Island each spring and summer.
Innovative research looking at the timing and sequence of bird calls could provide new insight into the social interaction that goes on between birds. It will also help teach machines to differentiate between human-made and natural sounds and to understand the world around them. |
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I awoke to find myself in a strange and mysterious land. Where was I? This place was certainly not Earth, I gathered from the first glance at this harsh landscape.
Although it was nighttime, I could see no stars in the sky. Nothing but pitch darkness greeted my eyes, with one exception. A large, yellow sun hung high above and in front of me. Judging by its luminosity, it should have been about the same age as our Sun; I could not guess upon its size because there was nothing to judge against it in the sky. I could not measure its distance away from this planet, either.
Fortunately for me, my surroundings proved to be somewhat hospitable to human life. I say “somewhat” because I have only observed some of the conditions necessary to provide life here. The large sun in the night sky must provide enough light energy for multiple cellular processes. I felt cool enough with my sweater and black wash jeans, so I concluded that this sun must offer sufficient heat energy as well. Obviously, I am still breathing which means that the atmosphere must be composed of a proportion of nitrogen and oxygen gas similar to that of Earth. As I continued to examine this world, I later affirmed the lack of harmful radiation that could be received from the sun; apparently, this world had an atmosphere highly similar to that of Earth.
Unfortunately, these were the only positives I could find. Many other troubling factors remained which left me doubtful of finding life here. First (and most importantly), there was no water. No sign of clouds, no running springs, streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, or oceans. To the best of my knowledge, I highly doubted the presence of groundwater, too. Secondly, there was no wind. A possible explanation could be that this planet had no moons, which meant no tides, which meant no currents of air or water.
Perhaps the most alien thing about this landscape was the ground itself. I shouldn’t even call it a landscape, really. The whole planet was as flat as Kansas, without the wheat fields and cattle. I saw not a single rock formation, canyon, crater, mountain range, valley, or hill in a 360-degree scan of the horizon. Strangely enough, one sweeping glance at the landscape revealed that the surface was perfectly flat. If you were to use one of those tools that check the levelness of a surface, you would find that the liquid bubbles match each other on both sides.
In short, I found myself marooned on a planet with air, an atmosphere, and a nearby sun, but without water, wind, rock formations, and any sign of life.
To make things worse, I had no food or water with me. I didn’t feel hungry or thirsty yet, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that you can’t survive without water for a few days. So, with nothing to lose, I began walking.
The ground was hard-packed as if it were made of stone. As a matter of fact, I tried scratching the surface only to find that the whole planet was made of solid rock.
The first thing I missed was the ability to record time. On Earth, you get lots of clues to figure out a general time of day, if not the actual time. In ancient history, explorers used sundials, sailors were guided by the North Star, and even the conquistadores found use out of a compass. If you weren’t privy to such luxuries, and you lived in the period where people accepted the heliocentric model of the solar system, then you could at least conclude that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. But none of these tricks could help me here. There were no stars in the sky, no shadows cast upon the ground except for my own, and the damned sun wouldn’t even move. That damned sun—somehow I could look directly into it and barely get an afterimage in my eyes.
I don’t know which tormented me more—my growing fatigue (and thirst) or the growing silence. I could hear nothing but the sound of my footsteps, tapping in rhythm across the infinite expanse of unending, solid rock.
After traveling for a very long time, I decided to rest. Sitting down, I gazed around me, dismayed by the observation that nothing had changed from when I first began walking. The horizon continued to stretch on forever. Dark night sky, dark brown ground. Dark night sky, dark brown ground. And the sun never changed position in the sky, either.
I was walking on top of an endless tomb—my tomb if I couldn’t find water before long. Building up my resolve, I had to continue walking. There must be something, somewhere!
I must have been walking for dozens of miles now, because my legs and feet screamed for rest. So I rested again. I became aware of the growing cramp in my stomach—I needed to find food or water soon! But nothing about the planet had changed since I first woke up—literally nothing.
Perhaps I was just dreaming? I pinched myself, looked down at my shoes, and tried rationalizing my way to consciousness. All efforts proved unsuccessful; this is real, I am really here. But how did I get here? My mind drew a blank. The last thing I remember was arriving at a friend’s house one evening. I had changed out of my work clothes, eaten a snack, and said goodbye to my wife. I remember telling her that I’d be home from John’s place later that evening—it was game night with the guys and it was Friday. My wife, my friends, my job, my possessions, all of it is now gone. And I’m here on some godforsaken planet for some unknown reason.
I fell into a troublesome, restless sleep. My mind raced, but my body ached.
Suddenly, I was jerked awake by a deafening rumble. I could not locate the source of the roar of sound, but it sounded like a thousand series of thunderbolts all struck the ground at the same time. I covered my ears and spun around. Nothing, I saw nothing that could have caused such a loud noise. It only lasted for about 10 to 15 seconds, and then everything was back to complete and utter silence.
I’ve heard of dry thunderstorms before. On Earth, they were very rare and localized to specific areas of the world. You can hear thunder and see lightning without getting any rain. Perhaps this planet is gigantic, like Jupiter, and has a set of roving thunderclouds that help form the basis of this planet’s atmosphere? I thought about that possibility. If this was true, I might yet find a source of liquid to drink, maybe even water! By this time, I was getting desperate. It felt like I had seen nothing but this barren surface for weeks. If I didn’t find something to drink, I was done for.
Feeling weaker, but still grasping onto life, I continued my walk for a third time.
Imagine how overjoyed I was to find something different in the landscape! I fell to my hands and knees, caressing my fingers over the rock surface. A perfectly straight line demarcated two different types of rock—the first change in topology I had witnessed since finding myself here. This line, like the horizon, stretched onward infinitely. But on one side of this line, the rock was the dark brown color I had trekked across previously. On the other side, the rock changed to a light gray color—probably the half-way point between gray and white.
I examined the new species of rock. In solidity, flatness, and barrenness, it was exactly the same as the dark brown variety. The only ostensible difference was the color.
Perhaps this change of color signified a different environment up ahead? Clearly, intelligent life must have created this line in the ground to tell something to travelers. I was no longer in doubt about life on this planet. It had to exist; no geomorphic actions could have made such a flat surface or fit together two different rocks so perfectly.
I started to wonder how intelligent this life could be. Certainly, nobody on Earth had yet succeeded in such a sophisticated degree of terraforming the lands as this planet. Perhaps this work was done by gods. Would this be a heaven or a hell, then? Does this line mark some sort of transition? If so, does it serve as a warning or a benediction?
All these questions and more circulated in frenzy in my mind. Do I continue in this direction, or do I follow the line parallel to something else? Does the line end anywhere? What is beyond this line? Have I gone the wrong way? Should I turn back? With nothing to lose, and time marching inexorably to my fate, I decided to press further, crossing the line into this new white-rocked land.
My mouth was the driest it had ever been in my life. My lips chapped, my tongue felt swollen inside my mouth. I had been walking across this grey-white stretch of land for a long time. The sky was still black as night, and the sun remained fixed in that one space, shining furiously in my face.
I was almost in total despair. I made the wrong decision; I should have turned back. I’ll never live to get food or water, much less get out of this place. This must be my punishment for something I had done on Earth. In a sick twist of fate, this will be my death, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I lied prostrate on the ground, conserving my energy for as long as possible. I looked around at the horizon, finding nothing.
Nothing, except—
Wait, what is that?
Out in the distance, you can barely see the very top of it! It looks like a gigantic pillar of some sort! But it must be at least 25 miles away!
I jumped to my feet, reinvigorated by some newfound energy and desire for life. There was something, as far as the eye can see, that looks different than the rest of the barren nothingness of this planet. I felt compelled to chase after it; for fear that it would disappear into oblivion if I lose sight for one instant.
A part of me wished it was just a mirage—some thirsty delusion of life where none exists. But the greater part of me wanted that figure in the distance to be true! So I walked without hesitation in the direction of that thing.
I walked, and I walked some more, crossing back over another line into an expanse of dark brown rock. Before long, I confirmed that it wasn’t just a mirage. As I came closer and closer to it, the thing grew larger and larger; the closer I got to it, the more details I could identify from it.
The giant stone pillar, as I had initially believed, turned out to be far more ornate than I could have imagined. Perhaps a better description of it might be “obelisk”. But instead of a pyramid shape at the top of the gigantic column, it looked like a tall oval. There were thousands of etchings on the sides of the obelisk. Some etchings revealed a calculated, geometric pattern and stood out from the distance more than the softer, shape-like etchings lower on the figure. As I got even closer to the obelisk, I could see the smallest trace of what I think was a mouth on the oval-like centerpiece at the top.
I felt fascination, awe, and terror all at the same time. Certainly this must be proof that intelligent life exists here!
This obelisk, I thought, must have been designed by the gods. No man (no human at least) could have built such a monument. When I got within 5 miles or so of the obelisk, it was so tall that I could no longer see the oval-mouth at the top. The obelisk must have stood over 3 miles high. Like the surface of the planet, its sides looked perfectly smooth and flat without the etchings.
I have never visited Egypt; I have never seen nor deciphered the hieroglyphics. But here I was with a gigantic obelisk, with etchings that would put Khufu to shame!
I pulled my flip camera out of my pocket. Thankfully, I bring it everywhere. Even though the battery was down to its last level, I recorded a few still photographs of the obelisk onto my camera. Let it not be said that I died for nothing on this damned planet!
I continued to get closer to the giant obelisk. Even though I had completely abandoned recorded time during my struggle here, I estimate that it took me about an hour to reach the column’s base. The base might have been hundreds of feet long. I rapped my knuckles against the stone. It was just as hard and immovable as the ground itself.
It’s not fair! It can’t end like this, I screamed in my mind. What could have created this marvel? Why is this here on this planet? Why am I here on this planet?
Sitting down, I leaned my back against the obelisk. Too tired to sleep, too hungry to eat, too thirsty to drink, I was out of ideas. I looked out at the expanse of nothingness, of blackness, of that sun which never seems to move or change in the night sky.
Suddenly, I saw something hovering in the air in the distance. My eyes burst out of their sockets, my heart started beating like a drum. Another gigantic obelisk flew into the air like a bird of prey. Actually, it looked like a statue of a monstrous, black beast beyond comprehension. Its head at the top had a thick, snarling snout. Its gleaming, lifeless eyes centered directly at me, at the obelisk right behind me.
What happened next went by very quickly.
The beast-statue hurtled toward the obelisk with frightening speed, at a speed of hundreds of miles per hour. The two giant pillars collided, resulting in a deafening, thunderous blow that nearly blew out my eardrums. Like a redwood tree to a lumberjack, the obelisk crashed to the ground behind me. I saw its slow demise with equal parts horror and amazement.
The black statue-beast remained hovering in the air for a few minutes afterward, as if it celebrated the destruction of the obelisk. Such beauty, I shuddered, and such destruction!
The sheer size of the statue blocked out the sun; I was placed wholly in its looming shade. It was then that I started to panic.
The statue-beast began lowering itself toward the ground, supplanting itself in the place of the destroyed obelisk. I leapt to my feet to try to outrun it. I was standing directly underneath it!
I turned away from the monumental statue and started to sprint. I saw its shadow increase in size the closer it got to the ground.
Then, my body gave way. My cramped belly and dehydrated limbs forced me to double over in pain, tripping over myself and hugging the ground in the process. I wouldn’t escape the statue-beast. My fate was sealed!
I looked at my last sight: the base of the giant statue about to press down upon me and crush me to death. I would never return to Earth, I would never see my wife again, I would never—
I screamed, clutching my stomach. I woke up, rubbing my eyes groggily. I was sitting in a chair overlooking a chess board.
“Knight to E-4, captures bishop.” John announced.
“What?” I asked, looking around the room. John had turned off all the lights in the room, except for a desk lamp that cast a dull yellow light over the chess board.
“I got your bishop, Phil!” He replied, smiling triumphantly. “Stay awake so you can lose faster! A few of the other guys want to play against me before they leave.” He chuckled.
I yawned and looked at the clock. I better get home to my wife.
“Hey guys, thanks for having me here tonight. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.” I said, getting up to leave the house. The others said goodbye, and I got into my car and drove home.
About a week later, I sat down at my computer, still thinking of the weird dream I had playing chess with John. It seemed so real at the time. I went over the sequence of events that I could remember from my dream.
My eyes went wide with shock. The flip camera!
Plugging in the camera to the computer, I downloaded all videos and pictures that I had saved onto a file in the computer. Scanning over each picture, each video, I couldn’t remember if I had saved the pictures of the obelisk or not.
If I told my wife what I was doing right now, she’d think I was crazy. She would think that… until I showed her these pictures! I still had the pictures of the obelisk saved on my flip camera!
It wasn’t a dream! It couldn’t have been… I’ve got the pictures to prove it!!!
Ad blocker interference detected!
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Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Krypton APEX Mineral
Krypton (Kr #36) is the next element on the periodic table for my APEX mineral collection.
Wikipedia Krypton
Krypton Minerals - There are NO Krypton minerals
Krypton is another Noble gas. That means it won't react with anything and can't create minerals.
Krypton is common in the universe and the reasons are not known. It is not common on Earth.
Krypton wasn't discovered until about 1900.
Krypton is mostly used in specialty lamps. It is considerably more expensive than helium, since air is its only source.
Krypton has no essential function in mammals. |
Tuesday, 7 March 2017
Agroforestry with Kellogg's
Agroforestry Oats and Fruit Trees
My introduction to Agroforestry was a great experience and one that has opened up my eyes to viewing farmland in a very different way. As part of the Kellogg’s origins group (link) we were very lucky to be given a tour of the Agroforestry enterprise at Blue Bell farms, by Steven Briggs. Steven farms as an organic farming tenant growing wheat, oats, and some vegetables on some very good soil near Peterborough.
The 125 acres of agroforestry is laid out across six fields in 3m bands of fruit trees separated by 24m of cropped land. The trees are on shortish, root stocks so the fruit can be picked, and the fruit trees pruned by hand and so that the roots don't get deep enough to interfere with the land drains.
Agroforestry Fruit Trees
The system looks at the land in a 3D way. The trees are able to put roots down below the crop root zone to capture nutrients and moisture lower down in the soil profile. Most arable crops root between 1-2m whereas the trees go down to 10m so there's little competition for these plant essentials. The tree divisions increase the crop edge effect and the leaf mulch falls onto the cropland, returning nutrients as they decompose. The trees also act as a wind-break; for every 1’ of tree height you get a 10’ wind reduction effect, very important in the flat fen lands. This reduction in wind also reduces the notorious ‘fen blow’ of topsoil across the fields and enables more spray days. Spray days on an organic farm you ask? Steven's soil is short of manganese so regular applications are applied to supplement the soils deficiency to the growing crops.
Ploughing Overwintered Stubble
The strips that the trees are planted on can be planted with pollen and nectar so that in the short term will provide brilliant insect habitat. Overtime these will turn into brilliant beetle banks providing habitat and food for beneficial insects helping control pests. The system is run with a 6m Controlled Traffic Farming layout to keep machinery wheelings running in the same place, except where the overwintered stubbles are ploughed.
So are there any down sides? To be honest there we’re too many. Yes it ties up the land for a long period of time as you need to write down the cost of the trees, so OK if you own the land but difficult if you are a tenant and a 3 year FBT makes this impossible. There is a large capital cost, even planning at 120 trees/Ha. Over time the yield from the crops reduce as the yield from the trees take over but if you have a market for the fruit then the output is significant. It makes a lot of sense.
Everyone who visited was really impressed with the system and it certainly made everyone think a little more about some of these techniques could be employed on their own farms.
Friday, 24 February 2017
Glyphosate - A Key Ingredient
Over-winter Ploughed field
Not that long ago, the land at Overbury would have been ploughed over the winter time to prepare it for the next crop. This is a destructive process for all of the organisms; bacteria, nematodes, fungi and earthworms that live in the soil. It was the only way farmers had to control weeds and create a seedbed suitable for our equipment to plant the seeds into. Many fields destined to be planted in the spring would have been left in this ploughed state over the winter period. We now know that is method of land preparation; and we are catching up with the rest of the world, is a very bad practice for many reasons.
The most significant reason is that we are adding air to the soil, which reacts with the carbon locked in the soil, releasing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, a significant ingredient in global warming, adding to the changing climate threat. The tractors that we use release Nitrous oxide as they burn the diesel, (just like diesel cars) and ploughing uses a lot of diesel. Moving the soil also destroys its structure, meaning that small particles of silt, are washed through the soil taking pesticides and fertiliser with them. They wash down to the depth of the cultivation and fill in the pores resulting in the surface level water logging. This water logging means that any subsequent rain can't infiltrate into the soil and so runs off causing surface erosion. Soil erosion can be reduced by 90% buy not cultivating and using Conservation Agriculture techniques. The soil particles end up in the streams and water courses silting up the stream beds, reducing water flow capacity and can potentially lead to flooding further down stream.
There are the soil inhabitants to consider as well. Cultivation destroys their habitat and their food supply and we need them to help our plants (and therefore our food), to collect nutrients from the soil. Worm populations can be reduced by 50% by ploughing. We need the worms to aerate the soil, digest the soil and restructure it, adding glomalins (glue) to stick the particles together and recycle dead and decaying plant materials. A healthy soil is one that can sustain itself with as little human interference as possible and that means not cultivating.
A field after winter with cover crops
Soil is also greatly improved by keeping it covered, using plant material or previous plant residue, a theory nicknamed 'soil armour' in the U.S. This concept uses plants to intercept rain droplets, keeping the soil surface open and aerated. The plants in the picture above have been growing all winter, capturing available nutrients, taking carbon from the atmosphere and locking it up in the organic matter of the plant, restructuring the soil, feeding our soil biology and providing a brilliant habitat for birds and mammals, Our cover crops this year have hosted brown hares, starling, redwing, field fare, lapwing, meadow pipets, yellow hammer, chaffinch, linnets, snipe, woodcock and many others across these fields. Compare that to the ploughed field above where it is mainly lifeless.
From the environments point of view cultivation's are not a good idea.
So why the long blog about protecting the soil? Well this method of farming, called no-till or zero-till, is under threat from misinformed lobby groups trying to get the active ingredient 'glyphosate' banned from all of our European crop production systems. It is a very safe herbicide, (weedkiller) that we use instead of cultivation to kill weeds and cover crops, prior to planting our next crop. It has been a valuable tool available to farmers for the last 40 years. Without glyphostate there will be serious implications to our food security and the negative effects of cultivation, (listed above) in terms of mechanical weed control will return. It is used across the world and is one of the most rigorously tested of any pesticide, that is currently registered for use. An EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), concluded in a peer reviewed report (published EFSA Journal 2015;13(11):4302in)
The only body to conclude that glyphostate might pose a health risk is the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) who concluded it is "probably carcinogenic to humans". According to the IARC's own classifications glyphostate is in the same category as drinking very hot drinks, working as a hairdresser and working night-shifts. Glyphostate is safer than orange juice, bacon and indeed coffee, so we need to keep it in perspective and look at the benefits it delivers in globally feedin the world.
Without glyphostate, as part of an Integrated Farm Management approach UK yields of wheat and oilseed rape (canola) will drop by about 20%, primarily due to weed competition. We will need to use 546,000 Ha more land to replace this lost production. Our farms will not be able to compete with other growers using it around the world. Profitability would fall and cheap food imports will be sucked into the country; in many cases produced to lower environmental standards. Mechanised weed control, including ploughing will return; reducing our soil organic matter, biological life, disruption to ground nesting birds and fewer environmental benefits. It will be a gloomy picture.
We need to look at the whole system to appreciate how decisions impact on each other and if the cause and effect can be beneficial or not. Nothing is simple or black and white. I know that not being able to use this proven, safe chemical will impact severely on what we do and how we do it; eroding the positive environmental benefits of no-till farming.
No-till planting Into Cover Crops
Monday, 23 January 2017
A Shout Out for the Worms!
Preparing to count worms
At long last we have finally managed to get some time in the field to do some worm counting. I have been trying to find a few hours for quite some time BUT at long last we have created a bit of a benchmark. It should have been done at the start of the switch into no-till farming but as always its not until you start something that you realise what is important and believe me-these guys are important! So what did we find out? Firstly that there are many factors that have an effect of worm numbers. The first field we sampled was on our sand and gravel fields with a high sand content.
We randomly sampled 4 separate areas within the field, each sample measured 20cm wide x 20cm across and 30cm deep. This field is only into year 2 of no-till farming and as you can see from the photograph below the worm numbers are quite low. On this field we had an average count of 11 worms/sample section with a minimum number of 6 and a maximum number of 15. Our target is 16 worms in a spade full, so roughly our sample size. We measured the soil temperature as a point of reference to see, when we re-sample, what effects this might have on the population and all sample points were geo-tagged so we can return.
This field averaged out at 268 worms/m2 which is slightly short of our target population of 400 worms/m2. So there is some work to be done! By reduced cultivation or no-tilling our fields and by returning crop residue, or by adding compost as worm feed we should be able to build populations over a relatively short period of time.
Worm count form Bottom Heath-Sandy field
The next sample field was up on Bredon hill at an altitude of 900ft above sea level in a field planted with winter wheat, after oilseed rape (same rotation as the sandy field). Up here the worm populations were very pleasing with some sites hitting 45 worms/sample. Most of them were epigeic worms, which move around in the upper surface layers of the field feeding on crop residue and will help to recycle the decaying material. The counts ranged form 12-45/sample area.
Worm count from Shaldons-Cotswold Brash
But why bother, what is the point of having more worms, what do they do for us in the middle of an arable field?
Worms are important for many reasons; their burrows aerate the soils, moving fresh air (oxygen) down into the plant rooting zone, breathing life into the deeper layers of soil. We must not forget that soil is made up of 25% air. Worms also feed on soil, reformatting its structure in the form of casts on the soil surface. These casts are rich in available plant nutrients held in a stable organic state, unlikely to leach through the soil surface. These castings can contain 7 x more phosphorus, 10 x more potassium, 5 x more nitrogen 3 times more magnesium and 1.5 x more calcium than the surrounding soils. Recycling the dead plant material is also a key role played by these sub terrain dwellers, coming up to the surface and dragging down plant material such as straw, leaves and any organic material we may add. They are also key when it comes to field drainage. The burrows of Anecic worms can go down 2-3 meters which are very helpful for taking storm water down into the subsoil and stopping it running off from the fields, helping reduce flash flooding events further down the catchment. Worms are also food for others, so a good supply can only benefit the populations of birds and small mammals increasing overall farmland biodiversity.
Worm Cast in Shaldons
There is more to do. I will be sampling the heavy land fields (4 years no-tillage) and some other areas of the farm that have recently been cultivated to see what numbers are lurking in the soil. We will be looking at increasing the feed for worms to continue their growth in some areas. Can we get too many worms or will dry summers and cold winters even out the populations? Only time and monitoring will tell. If you want to find out more information then please consider joining the Earthworm Society of Britain who are looking for new members and people to search for and record their worm populations.
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
Open Farm Sunday Reflection
Open Farm Sunday in numbers
The New Year is a great time to look back at the achievements of the previous year and cast an eye to the coming year and what might be coming over the horizon. Open Farm Sunday is always the first date that goes into our farming diary at Overbury and although our visit is quite low key and limited in numbers, it's a great opportunity to talk real farming issues to those guests who book onto our tractor and trailer rides. Our contribution is small, but collectively our industry, when it puts it's mind to it, can achieve great things.
I had a quick look back to 2011, when it was a wet and cold event at Overbury and nationally 120,000 people visited events. Staggeringly 2016 saw in excess of 260,000 people visiting our open farms. Some of the quotes from host farmers in 2011 still ring true today:
"highly rewarding and the feedback has been extremely positive",
"I feel really proud to talk about the food we produce and the work we do for the environment".
Those messages are still so true today. Our food and the environment, in which it is grown and nurtured, are so important and in the coming months and years we must not loose sight of this important message. As negotiations take place about how we exit from the European Union (Brexit) it is a matter of national importance to secure a safe supply of home produced high quality, nutritious food from a protected but managed environment. Our countryside is under pressure from more houses, more people and more access, it's something that won't change or reverse so we all need an understanding of how our countryside works. Farm visitors also get so much out of the events, it really is a two way conversation:
"Wow, absolutely superb day. Thoroughly enjoyed every part and my children had a great time"
"Showed a good insight into live on a working farm"
In the great world of on-line social media to get #OFS16 trending is a great achievement and it really does help to spread the word to see what we actually do. In 2011, 362 farmers opened their farm gates. In 2016 this number had risen to 382. My challenge to our industry is to get out there, welcome people and get involved before it is too late. Now is the time to add June 11th into your diary, the next Open Farm Sunday event. If you are unsure about what is involved or concerned about any aspect of becoming a host, there are free training sessions run by LEAF to give you all the information you need. So there it is, an easy New Years resolution, host an Open Farm Sunday event, make a difference to your industry and have some fun!
Friday, 11 November 2016
Loosing Our Biggest Asset-or not?
LiDAR Image of the Carrent Catchment - source Environment Agency
Every day is a school day and so we have to keep learning about our environment and how we interact with our natural surroundings. We are just starting to develop a local group of farmers, with help from Gloucestershire FWAG called the 'Carrant Catchment Restoration Project', with the aim of increasing water quality and biodiversity in the local stream that originates around Bredon Hill. One of the most staggering bits of information came from our local Environment Agency and uses LiDAR information to look at the erosion risk from farmland. At first glance this sea of red shows high risk areas all over he top of the hill! Quite alarming. We then have to start looking at land use, and some of the red areas are taken out of the equation with woodland and the grassland. We mustn't ignore the grassland-as significant soil erosion can stem from overgrazed or compacted grassland, but it's the arable area of the hill that is by far and above the largest proportion and so poses the largest risk of erosion.
Surface runoff is caused when the field is at water capacity or when compaction is present, both cause the next rainfall to run downhill taking soil particles with it. These particles are potentially carrying fertiliser and pesticides off down into the nearest water coarse, causing the very typical brown water often seen after heavy rainfall events.
Winter Barley Rooting Structure on Bredon Hill
Our new system of zero tillage (no till) crop farming is the best way to stop erosion from happening on our fields. The system means that the soil is not disturbed so it can structure itself to allow more water to enter it, reducing runoff. By leaving crop residue or by growing cover crops the soil surface is protected form rain droplets, stopping surface compaction from happening. By not cultivating the land we are not burning the organic content of the fields, reducing green house gas emissions. From a water storage position the organic matter acts like a sponge so the more we have, the more water we can store before it runs off through the soil profile into the groundwater. The picture above is from a field that has been in zero tillage for 4 years and is really starting to come to life in many ways. The crop residue is present and under that a crumbly mixture of roots and soil particles attached to the roots of the plants. This is just the start of what I hope our soils will turn into over time.
Reed Bed Catchup
Reed bed on water Coarse
It was November 2011 when we dug out the reed bed and silt trap at the far end of the farm to try and intercept the ditch water and improve the quality of the outfall into the Carrant Brook. The silt trap was used to slow down the water and allow the heavier particles (of silt) to drop out of the water. The water then carried on through the reed bed in a shallow wide spread to allow the roots of the reeds to take nutrients, nitrate and phosphate, are he main two form the water and capture those nutrients in the form of plant material.
After quite a slow start the reed bed has really taken off providing a great habitat for bird species like reed buntings as well as a more general habitat improvement next to the hedge and copiced willows. We have just started a water sampling project with Gloucestershire University, so it will be really interesting to see what effect a very small investment in time and energy can have on the water leaving the farm.
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Buckwheat Cover Crop
Buckwheat Emerging After Peas
We tried a single species cover crop this year in a very quick slot after the hand picked peas up on the hill on those fields that we harvested early enough. The Buckwheat was planted right behind the pea pickers and rapidly covered the ground. The idea was for these roots to start to undo some of the damage to the soil caused by the heavy traffic (tractors and trailers) during the harvest. The crop grew for 8 weeks and was really flowering well (below top left), almost too well and we are finding a few seedlings in the following wheat crop, which isn't causing me too many alarms. Buckwheat will die when temperatures get to below 5 degrees. The bottom picture shows the Cross Slot opener (seed placement bit) actually planting the seeds and the third picture (top right) shows what the field looked like after the drill had passed over the field.
Cross Slot Drilling into Buckwheat Covercrop
It certainly looks very different to a conventional field, without the green lines on a brown background but to me this is how mother nature plants her seed, no cultivation just the seeds working into the ground. It really is a case of retraining the mind to actually appreciate what is happening in the field. The residue of the peas and the buckwheat is spread on the soil surface with the seedlings making their way up through to the light. By next harvest all of that residue will have been returned to the soil by the worms and the weather, recycling the nutrients locked up within it. Where the system really benefits the wider environment in in terms of carbon capture. Without cultivating the soil the carbon retained within it, in the form of organic matter, stays in the soil, it is not oxidised and released to the atmosphere. So the soil is not being depleted and the dead plant material is slowly being turned into organic matter and then humus. But it will take a long time!
Wheat Emerging through Buckwheat Covercrop
Wheat after cover crops have all emerged really well this year which is always a great relief! |
4 St Gregory the Great, 540-604 (Doctor of Hymnology)
Saint Gregory the Great is so called because he was truly a great leader starting as a Prefect of Rome before he was thirty. Afterwards, the church flourished under his wise and holy influence as a monk, deacon, priest, papal nuncio, and abbot. At fifty he was elected Pope by the clergy and the people of Rome.
During his day during the sixth century the church was undergoing ferocious attacks by Huns, Goths, and Lombards with rampant strife that caused great hardships and tragedy. The population of Rome plumetted from a million to 15,000 due to invasions, pestilence, and diseases. Gregory's courage, leadership, action, and prayers, helped unite the church together.
No doctor of the church or member served in more offices or position than Gregory. He was the first Pope to be declared a doctor. He shares that distinction with St Leo, the only other pontiff to become a doctor, and he was born before Gregory.
Gregory was firm and direct in removing unworthy priests from office and was a great Benedictine reformer and strengthened the respect for doctrine. |
Glacier Skywalk, architecture and nature, sturgess architecture, discovery walk, discovery walk canada, tourist architecture, green design, bridges, building technology and nature, canada architecture, sunwapta valley, columbian icefields, tourism design
Overlooking the Sunwapta Valley along the Columbian Icefields in Alberta, Canada, the Discovery Walk has been designed as an extension of the landscape. It melds with the cliffs and protrudes outwards from the rugged mountainside with an ever-changing, bold geometric form. A viewing platform stretches far out over the valley to give views of the glaciers below, while adding a bit of a death-defying element to the design. Overall, the walk provides visitors with a shelter against the elements, that also serves to astound them with what surrounds them.
While we won’t argue with the dynamic design of the Discovery Walk, it does bring into question the use of building technology as a vehicle to experience nature. Is this design actually bringing individuals closer to the natural environment, or is it in fact creating another barrier?
+ Glacier Skywalk
+ Sturgess Architecture |
Page last updated at 16:31 GMT, Thursday, 29 April 2010 17:31 UK
US military joins Gulf of Mexico oil spill effort
Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano: This is a spill of national significance
Andy Gallacher
Andy Gallacher, BBC News, Venice, Louisiana
The newly-discovered leak and the news that up to five times as much oil is now leaking from the sunken rig have given a new sense of urgency to the situation here on the Gulf Coast.
The huge slick is now close to reaching land and if the weather turns as forecasters predict, the oil may reach the coastline sooner than thought.
Attempts at controlled burns may be inevitable but Louisiana is now asking for outside help to try to stem the flow of oil.
There is some dispute as to how much oil is now spewing from the sunken rig but all along this delicate coastline, officials are preparing themselves for what could be a huge environmental disaster.
The oil slick caused by the leak is 45 miles by 105 miles and is heading towards the coast.
If the coastguard estimate is correct, within two months the spill could match the 11 million gallons spilt from the Exxon Valdez tanker off Alaska in 1989.
Oil giant BP operated the Deepwater Horizon rig. Its chief operating officer of exploration and production, Doug Suttles, welcomed the US military's offer of help.
Mr Suttles estimated something between 1,000 and 5,000 barrels a day was leaking.
Meanwhile, a firefighting expert said the disaster may become the biggest oil spill ever.
Mike Miller, head of Canadian oil well firefighting company Safety Boss, told the BBC World Service: "Probably the only thing comparable to this is the Kuwait fires [following the Gulf War in 1991].
Controlled burn
The scale of the operation to contain the oil spill and protect both the US coastline and wildlife is unprecedented, with the military and other government agencies collaborating with BP - which had hired the sunken rig - and industry leaders.
How the oil has spread
Approximate oil locations 22 April - 15 May
A coastguard crew has set fire to part of the oil slick in an attempt to save environmentally-fragile wetlands.
Relief well
1991: 520m gallons were deliberately released from Iraqi oil tankers during the first Gulf War to impede the US invasion
1979: 140m gallons were spilt over nine months after a well blow-out in the Bay of Campeche off Mexico's coast
1979: 90m gallons leaked from a Greek oil tanker after it collided with another ship off the coast of Trinidad
1983: 80m gallons leaked into the Gulf over several months after a tanker collided with a drilling platform
1989: 11m gallons were spilt into Alaska's Prince William Sound in the Exxon Valdez disaster
Seventy vessels - oil skimmers, tugboats barges and special recovery boats that separate oil from water - as well as five aeroplanes, were working to spray dispersants and round up oil, BP said.
Louisiana's coast contains some 40% of the nation's wetlands and spawning grounds for countless fish and birds.
AFP news agency reports that two Louisiana shrimpers have filed a lawsuit accusing the operators of the rig of negligence, and seeking at least $5m in damages plus undetermined punitive damages.
Graphic of ROV on seabed
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Philosophy Lexicon of Arguments
Author Item Excerpt Meta data
Duhem, Pierre
Books on Amazon
Judgments I 222
A law of the ordinary mind is a simple general judgment that is right or wrong. E.g. The sun rises every day in the east. Here we have a real law, without condition, without restriction. on the other hand, e.g. the moon is always full. Here we have a wrong law.
This does not apply to physical laws; they are always symbolic. A symbol is not correct or wrong, but more or less well chosen. The logician would not understand if one asked whether a certain physical law is right or wrong.
Duh I
P. Duhem
Ziel und Struktur der physikalischen Theorien Hamburg 1998
> Counter arguments against Duhem
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2017-03-22 |
return to list of latest ideas
Single Idea 19754
[catalogued under 25. Society / D. Social Rights / 1. Legal Rights / c. Property rights]
Full Idea
Others have spoken of the natural right that everyone has to preserve what belongs to him, without explaining what they mean by 'belonging'.
Gist of Idea
If we have a natural right to property, what exactly does 'belonging to' mean?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1755], Pref)
A Reaction
This is aimed at Locke. What Marxists will challenge is the legitimacy of property ownership, granted by patronage, enclosure, exploitation and conquest. These start as injustices, but that fades after a few generations. Locke has a labour-theory.
Book Reference
|
The Philosophical Society of Washington
Minutes of the 2,187th Meeting
President Robert Hershey called the 2,187th meeting to order in the Powell Auditorium of the Cosmos Club at 8:22 pm February 11, 2005.
The minutes of the 2,186th meeting were read and approved.
Mr. Hershey introduced the speaker of the evening, Mr. Luis A. Orozco. Mr. Orozco is a professor in physics at the University of Maryland and a distinguished traveling lecturer of the American Physical Society.
Why, Mr. Orozco began, should we be concerned with the question of whether light is a wave or a particle? This question has bothered many people. A first approach is to compare it to sound, which is known to be a wave. A solid object, sound flows around it, blocks a light beam. He demonstrated these phenomena. Therefore, light is a particle.
But then he showed the data from a photon counting experiment. Each photon was represented by a click, or a dot on paper. When there are only a few dots, they look like noise. As the frequency is increased, they start to exhibit oscillations. Is light sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle, he asked?
He turned to Euclid of Alexandria for an earlier perspective. Euclid said the eye sends out probes to feel an object. Close objects look large and distant ones small because the nearer objects intercept more of the probes, Euclid reasoned. This idea stood as truth for many centuries.
Only about 1000 years ago, this idea was tested by Abu Ali al Hasan Ibn al Haytham. He asked his colleagues to look at the sun. They soon said it was impossible. Al Hasan said that showed that optics were emissions, not tactile probes. This is believed the first known example of the scientific method, considered by many the greatest idea of all time.
Six hundred years later, Newton advocated a corpuscle theory. Rays of light, Newton said, were corpuscles emitted by objects. They were light's “least parts.” He called it “manifest” that light consists of parts.
But particles have collisions, and light beams do not deflect each other. Newton was also concerned about an Island crystal that deflected light in two different directions. He posited that the particles had spin, causing some to go one way and some the other.
Huygens disagreed. If light were made of particles, two beams crossing would cancel each other. He argued that light was a wave. Waves need a medium. Huygens's answer was the hypothetical concept, ether.
In 1810, Malus discovered that light is polarized by reflection. He noticed, rotating the Island spar crystal, that the light was extinguished in certain positions. He argued that light particles have sides or poles. Mr. Orozco demonstrated the blocking of light using two polarized filters. Each passed light; the two together blocked all light.
Thomas Young beamed light through two small slits and observed a number of dots. This is an interference pattern. Using a diffraction grating produces the same thing, but the spots are far more spread out. You can check it out with a laser disk. Interference patterns represent waves.
In the days of Napoleon, a prize was offered for the most interesting and amazing piece of physics. Fresnel submitted a paper on the wave properties of light. Poisson and Arago were on the jury. Poisson deduced from Fresnel's paper that there should be a dark spot in the diffraction pattern with a bright spot in the center of it. He thought this was so unlikely he was ready to dismiss Fresnel. Arago, however, tried it. He found the bright spot, and Fresnel won the competition. This settled for a long time the question. Light is waves.
James Clerk Maxwell, in the1860's, combined electricity, magnetism and light into one theory electromagnetic theory. He said light was an electromagnetic wave.
Then Heinrich Hertz demonstrated that electrons could be emitted from metal if a certain light hit it. This is the so-called photoelectric effect.
The Michelson experiment demonstrated there was no ether. Michelson had studied in Napoli and moved to the Naval Observatory here in Washington. Here his boss showed him a letter from Maxwell inquiring if it was possible to measure carefully the speed of light at different times of the year. That question fired his imagination and led to his famous experiment.
Max Planck reluctantly brought particles back to light. Invited to a colleague's house for coffee and cake, he was shown an experiment in measurement of spectra. That night he wrote a post card to Heinrich Rubens. Rubens wrote back. The result of the post card was the birth of the quantum.
Einstein said if light is a particle, that could explain the photoelectric effect of Hertz.
Bohr began to understand the hydrogen atom with the quantum. Later he established the complementarity principle.
Louis de Broglie found that material particles are also waves. Incidentally, his is the only Nobel Prize based on a paper that fit on half a page.
The birth of the photon probably happened in a paper by Stark in 1907. He found that the quantum of light also has mass.
Paul Dirac reconciled quantum mechanics and special relativity with quantum electrodynamics. This is perhaps the most successful, most thoroughly tested, theory we have in this area.
Richard Feynman explained the quantum in terms of trajectories of particles that keep track of their phase, like a clock. Quantum mechanics was back in shape.
Recently, John Bell posed question that have to be answered by alternatives to quantum mechanics. Bell died 15 years ago.
Mr. Orozco described some of his own studies. Using light trapped between two mirrors, he used a detector to start a clock and another to stop it to time the intervals between clicks. Averaging over 913 of these yields a wave picture.
Light is a wave and (!) a particle, he concluded. The solution is the uncertainty intrinsic in the measurement. Only quantum electrodynamics solves the problem.
He offered to answer questions.
"How does light go through a vacuum?" one person asked. It is self-propagating, Orozco said. The electric and the magnetic part stimulate each other producing a cycle.
How does light know up-down from left-right? It does not. Light has just two orthogonal directions, it does not know which is which. What determines which way it goes is the source.
Mr. Hershey announced the next meeting. He made the parking announcement. Finally, he adjourned the 2,187th meeting to the social hour.
Attendance: 42
Weather: Clear
Temperature: 2°C
Respectfully submitted,
Ronald O. Hietala,
Recording secretary
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Russian Cultures And Lifestyles: Question Preview (ID: 17382)
Below is a preview of the questions contained within the game titled RUSSIAN CULTURES AND LIFESTYLES: Chapter 14 Unit 2 .To play games using this data set, follow the directions below. Good luck and have fun. Enjoy! [print these questions]
Education in _____ is promoted in Russia.
a) math b) science c) history d) the Russian language
Who wrote Swan Lake and The Nutcracker?
a) Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky b) Igor Stravinsky c) Leo Tolstoy d) Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Russia's greatest writer is
Russia has long been a center of music and _______.
a) beauty b) dance c) paintings d)
______ is a feeling of loyalty to one's own country.
a) socialism b) communism c) nationalism d)
Early Russians passed stories by word of mouth, called
a) playing telephone b) oral tradition c) speaking tradition d)
Under _______, people were not allowed to practice religion.
a) communism b) socialism c) d)
The largest ethnic group in Russia is the
a) Tatars b) Yakut c) Ukrainians d) Russians
The official language of Russia is
a) Russian b) Slovakian c) Siberian d)
Russia has many different ______ that speak their own language and have their own culture.
a) cultural groups b) religious groups c) ethnic groups d)
Krasnoyarsk was once a fortress city, but is now home to a
a) carnival that highlights children b) festival that highlights the world of beauty c) parade that highlights children's art d)
Most people live in
a) the country b) cities c) d)
Russia is working on improving its _____ systems.
a) economical b) communications c) cultural d)
Wealthy Russians may own country homes called
a) dachas b) suplas c) murachas d)
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Uses of Green Chemistry
Subject: Geography | Topics:
Major uses of Green Chemistry: Energy; Global Change; Resource Depletion; Food Supply and Toxics in the Environment. Energy is the vast majority of the energy generated in the world today is from non-renewable sources that damage the environment. Global Change Concerns for climate change, oceanic temperature, stratospheric chemistry and global distillation can be addressed through the development and implementation of green chemistry technologies.
Related Geography Paper: |
Zeitoun Test | Mid-Book Test - Easy
Buy the Zeitoun Lesson Plans
Name: _________________________ Period: ___________________
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What kind of bait does Zeitoun use when fishing as a child?
(a) Corn.
(b) Minnows.
(c) Sardines.
(d) Plankton.
2. How far from the coast would Zeitoun go to fish as a child?
(a) One mile.
(b) One half mile.
(c) One half kilometer.
(d) One kilometer.
3. Why can't Zeitoun sleep in his bed during the flood?
(a) He misses his wife.
(b) He is too scared.
(c) It has been damaged.
(d) It is too hot.
4. What does Zeitoun refuse to do during the flood?
(a) Listen to the radio.
(b) Work with strangers.
(c) All of these.
(d) Leave the city.
5. What religion does Zeitoun's wife follow?
(a) Buddism.
(b) Catholocism.
(c) Islam.
(d) Mormonism.
6. Where does the extra water in the yard come from after the storm?
(a) The gutters.
(b) The lake.
(c) The sea.
(d) The rain.
7. How does Zeitoun get around the neighborhood during the flood?
(a) He floats in a sled.
(b) He uses the canoe.
(c) He makes a raft.
(d) He swims.
8. How does Zeitoun save special items from the flood?
(a) He puts them in a time capsule.
(b) He carries them to the second floor.
(c) He moves them to the basement.
(d) He loads them in the canoe.
9. How many children does Zeitoun have?
(a) 2.
(b) 3..
(c) 4.
(d) 5.
10. Why can't Zeitoun personally help the single woman he finds?
(a) She is too big.
(b) He is too tired.
(c) The canoe is sinking.
(d) She is afraid of swimming.
11. What is Katrina?
(a) A hurricane.
(b) A tree.
(c) A tornado.
(d) A truck.
12. Who teases Zeitoun about forgetting his daughter?
(a) His daughter.
(b) His wife.
(c) His brother.
(d) His best friend.
13. What does Zeitoun say the dogs in the neighborhood sound like during the flood?
(a) Scared.
(b) Angry.
(c) Happy.
(d) Hungry.
14. When did Zeitoun forget about his daughter?
(a) When bringing her home from the hospital.
(b) When taking her to school.
(c) When moving to a new house.
(d) When coming home from work.
15. How many tenants does Zeitoun have?
(a) 22.
(b) 20.
(c) 18.
(d) 24.
Short Answer Questions
1. What is the name of Zeitoun's oldest brother?
2. What status does New Orleans have during the flood?
3. Why does Zeitoun go by his last name?
4. How old was Zeitoun when he began fishing?
5. What is Frank desperate for when Zeitoun sees him?
(see the answer keys)
This section contains 374 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
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Demographic features in development, Macroeconomics
We have learned in the previous unit that human resources play a significant role in generating aggregate flow of goods and services. The difference in the growth of national income and the per capita income is explained by the growth in population. Hence, in this unit, we will discuss demographic features and indicators of development. Human resources have a two-pronged relationship with economic growth. As a resource, people are available as factors of production to work in combination with other factors of production like land, capital and enterprise. As consumers, human beings make demand on the national product of the economy. The size of population, therefore, is a crucial determinant of economic growth. A large population may not necessarily contribute to economic growth; in fact, a large fast-rising population may find itself in a situation described by economists as 'over-population'. A related question is: Does economic growth alone constitute economic development? The answer is simple 'No'. Then, What is economic development? What are the indicators of economic development? After reviewing the demographic profile of the Indian economy, we, in this unit, will also address the related question of indicators of development.
Posted Date: 11/10/2012 4:46:24 AM | Location : United States
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PRI's Environmental News Magazine
Harvesting Tattoo Ink, not Coca
Air Date: Week of June 19, 2009
stream/download this segment as an MP3 file
A bag of jagua is weighed before being put onto a Cessna for the flight to the city of Medellin for processing. (Photo: Conrad Fox)
For ten years, the United States has been helping the Colombian military fight a six billion dollar war on coca, the plant used to make cocaine. The major focus has been eradicating cultivation of the plant by manual removal and pesticide spraying. But increasingly, there are efforts to help farmers find alternatives to growing coca. As Conrad Fox reports from the Choco forest in western Colombia, one project has farmers picking native fruit to make blue ink for tattoos.
When it comes to the illegal cultivation of coca – the plant used to make cocaine, a new report from the United Nations finds mixed trends in the Andean region of South America.
The UN found coca production increased slightly in Bolivia and Peru, but dropped significantly in Colombia. Officials attribute the decline in Colombia to the widespread use of pesticides and the uprooting of coca crops, activities supported by United States troops.
But the U.S. backed program Plan Colombia has also been helping farmers grow legal crops and bring them to market.
Conrad Fox has our report from western Colombia.
FOX: It's pouring rain in the village of Napipi. On the bank of a slow moving muddy river, women wash pots while children play in the water. A group of men gather to discuss their prospects. One of them is Mardonio Sanchez.
VOICEOVER: Right now the economy is really bad. Timber production is way down. The river floods out our crops. The banana harvest, corn, everything else is way down. We're all flat broke right now.
FOX: One of the few sources of cash around here is logging, much of it illegal. But the trees are running out, and with it their income. It's the kind of desperate situation that leads many in Colombia to grow coca. Mardonio admits it's tempting.
VOICEOVER: We don't have it here, but you hear about coca. It's essentially money. You just harvest it and there's your money.
FOX: They may not have seen it yet, but they could soon. Once confined to the south of Colombia, coca has been gradually spreading to other regions, including Choco. As it does, it leaves behind a swath of destruction. In the last eight years in Colombia, 336 square miles of old growth forest – that’s about the size of New City’s five boroughs - have been cleared to make way for coca. Meanwhile, the army, funded by the U.S. government, sprays more than that every year with herbicide. They do it to eliminate coca plantations, but locals complain it kills surrounding forest too.
FOX: Mardonio and his friends say they don't want that to happen here. Later in the day, the men head to the forest.
FOX: Twenty-five feet up a tree, one of MardonioÂ’s friends plucks fruit and sends it falling to the ground, narrowly missing his colleagues below.
Cutting jagua from the trees. (Photo: Conrad Fox)
FOX: Laughing, they cover their heads and bag the fruit, which they call the “jagua”. The jagua is about the size of an avocado, and inside is a deep blue pulp that can stain your skin for days. It's perfect for temporary tattoos.
FOX: “I don’t like tattoos,” says one of the men, screwing up his face. “They’re for tourists.”
FOX: The jagua pulp will be turned into tattoo ink and shipped to Europe for sale. The men may not like tattoos, but they do like the money it brings in. The average wage for a laborer here is about $7 dollars a day. On good days, a jagua collector can make more than six times that.
FOX: “The jagua is our coca,” laughs Mardonio. But unlike coca, the jagua is a sustainable product. The trees are naturally-occurring, so they don't have to tear down forests to plant them.
FOX: The men load about a dozen large sacks of jagua onto a boat and head upstream. Abandoned villages line the riverbank, reminders of the bloody fighting between paramilitaries and FARC rebels that has plagued this region for years. Rebels still roam the forest, but the army now has firm control of the river. The army is funded by Plan Colombia, the same program that gives the jagua farmers their funding.
Jagua farmers use a motorboat to transport the fruit. (Photo: Conrad Fox)
REICHLE: It's not just helicopters and weapons and spraying and whatnot. A good portion of our assistance is focused on alternative development lifestyles.
FOX: That's Susan Reichle, Deputy Director for the Colombia branch of USAID, the US government's international development agency. Every year her department spends about $100 million dollars investing in projects that she hopes will provide an alternative to growing coca, with products like coffee, flowers, banana, or sugar. The jagua farmers have received $300,000. It's the carrot to Plan Colombia's counter-narcotics stick.
REICHLE: The question we get asked very often, why would people leave a lucrative industry, a lucrative crop—and purely because they want to move into the legal economy. They do not want to live with violence, and coca—they understand, it comes with violence.
FOX: The jagua farmers beach their boat and haul the sacks of fruit up to an improvised airstrip. With no roads, the only way to send the jagua for processing is an hour-long flight by small plane to Medellin. It's expensiveÂ…
FOX: ...but Nicholas Cock thinks sales will soon cover the costs. Cock is director of Ecoflora, the Medellin-based company that will process and export the jagua. With growing public concern about the toxicity of synthetic colorings, he sees a big opportunity for the jagua's all-natural blue.
COCK: These candies, the Smarties, you don't find them anymore in blue in Europe, and kids are dying to get their blue Smarties back. (laughs). We have developed a proprietary technology which makes it applicable for different uses including makeup, shampoos, conditioners, soaps, toothpaste, floor cleaners, Pepsi blue...
FOX: So basically you guys are into blue. This is your business, selling blue.
COCK: We want to make the blue world from the natural resource in order to promote sustainable development in our country.
FOX: A green blue
COCK: A green blue. Correct.
This child stained blue with jagua juice. The native Indians of the region use jagua as a fly-repellent and in ceremonies. (Photo: Conrad Fox)
FOX: If the project is successful, Cock hopes that the men will not only get richer, they'll be less tempted to chop down trees to grow coca. Back in Napipi, there's evidence they may be on the right track.
FOX: This man doesn't want to give his name. He admits he used to grow coca. Not anymore.
VOICEOVER: Now, I've got lots of jagua trees producing lots of fruit. It's a healthier alternative for my family. And nobody comes after you for it. I'm old. I don't want to spend my last days in jail.
FOX: When Plan Colombia began ten years ago, economic assistance like the crop substitution program was just a small part of the budget. That kind of aid has been slowly increasing, even as military assistance has decreased, and the trend looks set to continue. Plan ColombiaÂ’s budget proposal for next year shows spending split equally between economic development and military aid.
For Living on Earth, I'm Conrad Fox in the Choco forest, Colombia.
YOUNG: Just ahead: Take a big dose of countryside and call me in the morning. How reconnecting with nature can save your sanity. Stay with us - on Living on Earth.
Click here for the Spanish-language website of ESPAVE, the farming cooperative producing the jagua.
Learn more about USAID work in Colombia here.
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Lakers History
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The Los Angeles Lakers
Throughout this course we learned many facts about the Los Angeles Lakers that helped me better understand their history, business and social life. I think the Lakers have improved drastically in the past decades. By choosing the right players, coaches, and staff, they were able to move forward with their success. This is good to see because it is hard for any basketball team, such as the Lakers, to stay as one team. Not only did the Lakers become a better basketball team; they became successful economically as well. When they first started out as a team, the Lakers were located in Minneapolis. They were named the Lakers because Minneapolis is nicknamed “city of lakes” or “the land of a thousand lakes”. Minneapolis is a small town and back then, the team was worth about twenty million dollars. Now that they are in Los Angeles, one of the famous cities in California, a metropolitan city, they have a net worth of seven billion dollars. That is a drastic change in just thirty-three years. Their move to a better location indicates that it was a benefit for them. However, they do not stop making business even though they are very wealthy. Recently, the Lakers signed a contract with the Time Warner television. Now, the people from Los Angeles can watch the games on their local television. In addition to having a lot of money, their social life has become more popular throughout the decades. The Lakers have grown into becoming a better basketball team. In the beginning of the Lakers Era, the Lakers did not have a big name. It was not until “Showtime” when the Lakers got more popular. Showtime was the era when the Lakers’ court plays were fast paced led by Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. As a result, they won five NBA Championships. Showtime attracted many fans and even got some big celebrities to come out and watch the Lakers play. This was one of the ways the Lakers got a lot of attention from the media....
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Black Rhino
Front Cover
Heinemann-Raintree Library, 2004 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 48 pages
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Where do over 80 percent of black rhinos live? What is a midden and why do rhinos make them? How many horns does a black rhino have? In Black Rhino, you will find answers to these questions as you learn why this powerful animal needs a lot of help from concerned people so that it does not disappear from this Earth. From 24-hour guards to relocating these 1-ton animals, conservationists have had to work hard to save the remaining rhinos. As you learn about their long breeding cycle and why some people value their horns, you will better understand how much work still needs to be done.
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The Black Rhino
The Body of a Rhino
Black Rhino Home Ranges
Young Black Rhinos
Destroying Black Rhino Habitats
Conservation Efforts
The Future for Black Rhinos
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About the author (2004)
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breakfast of champions
My Facebook feed has been flooded lately with stories about Tour de France cyclists going low carb.[1]
Or is it high protein?[2]
Whatever is going on, it seems helps them run well too![3]
While I’m not sure you can say that these elite cyclists have eschewed all carbohydrate-containing foods, the trend away from processed carbs to whole foods is intriguing.
So if they’re going low carb does it mean they’re now butter, cream, MCT oil after starting the day with BPC?
Dr. James Morton, head of nutrition at Team Sky and an associate professor in the Faculty of Science at Liverpool John Moores University explains:[4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
We promote a natural approach to food. Our riders eat food that grows in the ground or on a tree and protein from natural sources.
They need energy, but they also have to stay lean and healthy with a strong immune system. A natural diet is the best way to achieve this.
Fat is important for everything from energy release and muscle health to immunity, but by eating the right food the fat takes care of itself. The riders eat eggs, milk, Greek yogurt, nuts, olive oil, avocados and some red meat for a natural mix of saturated and unsaturated fats.”
To achieve optimal weight Dr Morton asks the riders to “periodise” their carb intake by eating more when they train hard and cutting back when they’re less active.
They routinely train in the morning after eating a protein-rich omelette, instead of carbohydrate-dense bread, to encourage their bodies to burn fat for fuel.[9]
So how does low carb real food thing work?
According to Dr Terry Wahls it seems that nutrient density is a key part of maximising energy output.
Your mitochondria can limp along, producing a few ATP on only these three things, but to really do the job right and produce the most ATP, your mitochondria also need thiamine (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacinamide (vitamin B3), pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), minerals (especially sulfur, zinc, magnesium, iron and manganese) and antioxidants. Mitochondria also need plenty of L-carnitine, alpha-lipoic acid, creatine, and ubiquinone (also called coenzyme Q) for peak efficiency.
If you don’t get all these nutrients or if you are exposed to too many toxins, your ATP production will become less efficient, which leads to two problems:
Your body will produce less energy so they may not be able to do everything they need to do.
Your cells will generate more waste than necessary in the form of free radicals.
Without the right nutrient sources to fuel the ATP production in the mitochondria – which in turn produce energy for the cellular processes required to sustain life – your mitochondria can become starved. The cells then can’t do their job as effectively.[10]
So let’s look at the macro and micronutrient analysis of Chris Froome’s “rest day breakfast” (pictured above). The analysis indicates that it does very well in both the vitamins and minerals score as well as the amino acids score.
If we throw in some spinach Froomey would improve the vitamin and mineral score of his breakfast even further. The addition of spinach increases the nutrient balance score from 57 to 77 while the amino acid score stays high.
Froome’s wife says eating more protein has been one of the keys to losing weight and building muscle leading up to the tour.[11] Getting a quarter of your calories from protein is more than the 16% most people consume, however with 65% of the energy coming from fat you could also call this meal low carb, high fat, or even “ketogenic” depending on which camp you’re in.
This simple but effective meal would be a pretty good option for just about anyone. Froome’s breakfast ranks well regardless of your goals. Based on the ranking system of meals for different goals it comes in at:
• #18 and 52 on the therapeutic ketosis ranking, and
• #26 and 64 on the overall nutrient density ranking.
It seems it’s not just the low carbers, “ketonians”[12] and people battling diabetes who are training their bodies to burn fat more efficiently. Maximising your ability to burn fat is critical even if you are extremely metabolically healthy.
The chart below shows comparison of the fat oxidation rate of well trained athletes (WT) versus recreationally (RT) athletes (who are not necessarily following a low carb diet).[13] The well trained athletes are clearly oxidising more fat, which enables them to put out a lot more power (measured in terms of their VO2max). It seems that you ability to efficiently burn fat for fuel it a key component of what sets the elite apart from the amateurs whether you call yourself vegan, ketogenic or a fruitarian.[14]
While carbohydrates help to produce maximal explosive power, it seems that the glucose turbocharger works best when it sits on a big power fat fueled motor. According to Peter Defty (who spent the last couple of years helping 2016 Tour de France second place getter Romain Bardet refine his ability as a fat adapted athlete using his Optimised Fat Metabolism protocol), fat can yield more energy more efficiently with less oxidative stress which requires less recovery time.[15]
Dr Morton also understand the importance of keeping carbohydrates low to maximise mitochondrial biogenesis and to access fat stores. If you want to learn more about his thinking on the use of diet to drive mitochondrial biogenesis you might be interested in checking out his array of published papers on the topic.[16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] On the topic of carbohydrate intake Morton says:
Amateur riders are taught the importance of carbohydrates for training and racing, perhaps too much actually.
From our research at Liverpool John Moores University, we now know that deliberately restricting carbs around carefully chosen training sessions can actually enhance training adaptations.
But then of course we must ensure higher carbohydrate intakes for key training sessions and hard stages in racing.
I believe this concept of periodising daily carbohydrate intake is the most exciting part of sports nutrition in the last decade and our challenge now is to address how best we do this practically.
Essentially, exercising your mitochondria in a low insulin and low glucose state forces your body to adapt to using fat for fuel and to use glucose and oxygen efficiently and effectively.[23] [24]
Not only is this useful for endurance athletes and people battling diabetes, training your body to use fat and oxygen more effectively is also claimed to be important to minimise anaerobic fermentation which is said to increase your risk of cancer.[25] [26] [27]
Many of us struggle trying to cope in an environment of excess energy from low nutrient density highly insulinogenic food. If we can’t obtain the necessary nutrients from our food to efficiently produce energy our bodies seek out more and more food in the hope of finding the required nutrients and enough energy to feel OK.
Our bodies do their best to use the energy that we give them, but they are working overtime to pump out insulin to store the excess energy that is not used. Over time our bodies adapt by becoming resistant to insulin in order to stop the excess energy being stored in our liver, pancreas and eyes when our fat stores on our muscles and belly can’t take any more.[28] Then to overcome the insulin resistance the body has to pump out more insulin which makes even less of the energy we eat available for use.
When we call on our mitochondria to produce intensive bursts of energy with minimal fuel (i.e. fasting) or glucose (i.e. low carb) we force our bodies to more efficiently the limited carbohydrate. Suddenly our bodies become insulin sensitive.
Recent studies indicate that people who are fat adapted are able to mobilise higher rates of fat at higher excercise intensities.[29]
With a higher reliance on fat they are able to conserve the precious glucose for explosive efforts.
Then, when they really need the power they have both fuel tanks available to cross the line first… and second!
10 thoughts on “breakfast of champions”
1. Hi Marty,
Interesting post. Froome doesn’t seem to eat a lot. I wonder about his frequency, that’d be interesting to know.
I thought I’d comment on this statement you made ==> “training your body to use fat and oxygen more effectively is also claimed to be important to minimise anaerobic fermentation which is said to lead to cancer”.
This is slippery ground…’leads to cancer’ is a problematic statement about its aetiology given that the (consensus) metabolic theory of cancer considers it the phenotypic hallmark, not the causal metabolic insult per se leading to it. It’s anyones guess what that insult is (or those insults are). Sorry if I seem nitpicky but given how promising the metabolic theory of cancer is I think we should be cautious when promulgating aetiology.
Liked by 1 person
1. I don’t think any of them eat a lot considering the amazing amount of work they’re doing on the bike! I wouldn’t be surprised if Morton has them doing fasted training looking at his research.
I’ve changed “leads to” to “increases your risk of”. I’m no oncologist, however if you look at what Seyfriend and Warburg et al are saying I think it is possible that there is a common metabolic thread running through cancer, diabetes, heart disease and elite fitness. You ability to metabolise fat (not necessarily eat it though) looks like it could be important!
Liked by 1 person
2. In the FASTER study even though the Fat adapted athletes burned a high amount of fat they in fact did not have more carbs at the end of the 3 hour run (maybe 4). So your conclusion, based on the data from that study, is incorrect. It was a strange finding, one that they think maybe due to the need for TCA cycle intermediates, but the none the less there was no difference in CHO stores of CHO or FAT adapted athletes.
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