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According to the Meririam-Webster online dictionary a bicycle is “a vehicle with two wheels tandem, handlebars for steering, a saddle seat, and pedals by which it is propelled; also : a stationary exercise machine that resembles such a vehicle.” [1] Keeping the definition in mind, how did the modern day bicycle evolve from its early renditions?
The actual beginning of the bicycle is up for debate. Until a few years ago, historians believed the bicycle was invented by father and son, Pierre and Ernest Michaux, who were French carriage-makers. However, this information was unverifiable. Also debatable was the theory a pupil of Leonardo deVinci sketched a bicycle in the late 1400s. Equally in question was the contention Comte de Sivrac developed a célérifère in 1791. The célérifère was reported to have had two wheels set on a rigid wooden frame and no steering. Instead, steering was accomplished by leaning and propulsion was accomplished by the rider’s feet pushing it along. Though no two-wheel célérifère existed, a four-wheel version did indeed make an appearance in Paris.[3]
First Bicycle – photo by Wilhelm Siegrist (1797-1843?), Source: Wikimedia CommonsCredit: photo by Wilhelm Siegrist (1797-1843?), Source: Wikimedia Commons
First Bicycle Verified
The first bicycle verified was invented by German Baron Karl von Drais in 1817.[3] He patented the design in 1818 and it was a commercial success. It had two wheels, was steerable and made almost completely of wood. It had no pedals, but was propelled by the feet pushing it along. The contraption was called the laufmaschine, German for “running machine,” and nicknamed the dandy-horse or the hobby-horse. Later, French photographer and inventor, Nicephore Niepce called it the velocipede, which is Latin for “fast foot.” [2]
The velocipede was manufactured in Germany and France and used primarily in Western Europe and North America. After increasing numbers of accidents, the popularity of the velocipede waned and some cities even prohibited using it. Denis Johnson of London picked up the concept of the contraption and in late 1818 advertised it as the “velocipede,” though people still tended to call it the hobby-horse or the dandy-horse.[3] Due in part to Johnson’s marketing, the velocipede became the craze in the summer of 1819. The craze died out the same year. However, the design was the foundation for the modern day bicycle.
The Tricycle and the Quadracycle
Between the 1820s and 1850s, there were many developments of human-powered vehicles with most of them using the early design of von Drais.[3] Tricycles and quadracycles came in a variety of designs with all using pedals, treadles and hand-cranks. However, the designs were flawed because they had high weight and rolling resistance. Finally in the 1850s Willard Sawyer manufactured a range of treadle operated quadracycles which were successful worldwide.[3]
Modern tricycles or trikes as they are commonly called, are of varying designs depended upon whether it is a vehicle for a child or an adult. Trikes usually have one front wheel and two rear wheels. Adults who find it difficult to balance a two-wheel bike often move to the three-wheeled trike. Typically, children start with a trike from about ages 2-4 and then move to a bike, often starting with training wheels attached to the back wheels. The difference between adult and children trikes is the adult trikes usually have a gear-drive with multiple speeds and front and rear brakes, while a child’s trike is usually direct drive with no brakes.[3]
History of the Bicycle Moving into the 1860s
In 1839, claims were made a treadle powered bicycle was invented by Scotsman Kirkpatrick Macmillan. A similar machine was reportedly produced by Gavin Dalzell of Lesmahagow, circa 1845. However, no records exist either of these claims are true. The first documented producer of the treadle bicycles is credit to Thomas McCall of Kilmarnock in 1869. His design was inspired by the French Lallement/Michaux type which was a front-crank velocipede.[3]
McCall’s First Bicycle; Source: Wikimedia CommonsCredit: photographer unknown, Source: Wikimedia CommonsLallement and Michaux designed the first highly popular and commercially successful bicycle.[3] There remains much debate which of the men actually designed the first pedal-powered bicycle. Historians do agree the first pedals were attached to the front wheel by a French metalworker in 1864.[3] Metal instead of wood was used for the frame of the bike which greatly reduced the weight and increased the ease of manufacturing the bike. Having the pedal attached to the front wheel, however, made steering difficult and the rotational speed of the wheels was limited and the rigid frame made for a jarring ride. Thus, the bike earned the nickname “boneshaker.”[3]
The Franco-Prussian war of 1870 closed the market for the velocipede in France. Also by 1870, its popularity in the United States ended. England was the only country where interest in the Lallement/Michauz designed bicycle stayed.
The Next Phase in the History of the Bicycle
The next design for the bicycle was the “penny-farthing.” This design increased the rotational speed by increasing the size of the front wheel and reducing the size of the rear wheel. The frame was also made lighter. Frenchman Eugene Meyer is considered the inventor of the “high bike.”[3] He also invented the wire-spoke tension wheel in 1869.
James Starley in Coventry, considered the father of British cycling industry, added tangent spokes and a mounting step to his penny-farthing, famously known as “Ariel.”[3] Under his tutelage, ball bearings, hollow-section steel frames and solid rubber tires became the standard. This type of bicycle was dubbed the ordinary bike and was nicknamed penny-farthing in England as a penny represented the front wheel, and a coin smaller in size and value, the farthing, represented the rear wheel.[3]
Penny Farthing Bicycle – photo by Immanuel Giel, Source: Wikimedia CommonsCredit: Penny Farthing Bicycle – photo by Immanuel Giel, Source: Wikimedia Commons
Though these bikes were quite popular; they were also unsafe. Because the rider was so high up, it was easy to be thrown over the front wheel if a bad patch in the road was hit. In addition, the rider’s legs were often caught underneath the handlebars which prevented him from falling free of the bike. Because of this risk in riding the bike, it was more prominent with young gentlemen. Others rode tricycles or quadracycles with the same design. Women’s attire made riding the ordinary bike unacceptable and they resorted to the tricycles as well. Queen Victoria owned Starley’s “Royal Salvo” tricycle, though there are no indications she ever actually rode it.[3]
By 1875 the bike was becoming popular in France and by 1878, they made their way onto the streets of Boston in the United States. By 1884, the penny-farthing bicycles and tricycles were popular in England, France and the United States, mostly among the upper-middle class people.
How to mount and ride a penny farthing
The Safety Bicycle
The invention of the safety bicycle is considered by many to be the most important change in the evolution of the modern bicycle.[3] It was this change that brought us closer to the modern day bicycle and made the machine accessible to women riders.
In 1885, John Kemp Starley, the nephew of James, designed the first "safety bicycle" called “the Rover.”[3] It had a steerable front wheel, an equally-sized rear wheel, and a chain drive to the rear wheel. By 1890, the safety bicycle had completely replaced the penny-farthing in North America and Western Europe. In addition, John Dunlop reinvented the pneumatic bicycle tire in 1888 and frame designers started using the diamond pattern.[3]
The safety bike improved four key aspects: steering, safety, speed, and comfort. The bike became extremely popular among the upper and middle classes of North America and Europe and because it was suitable for women; it became extremely popular with that population. The impact on women was tremendous as the bike gave them more freedom and mobility. This time in the history of the bicycle became known as the “golden age” or the “bicycle craze.”[3] By the 1900s, not only had cycling become an important means of transportation, it also became a popular form of recreation in the United States.
Adolph Schoeninger, a Chicago immigrant, started producing bikes using a stamping process which significantly cut the cost of production and in turn, prices. The Crescent bike he manufactured was affordable for working people and was massively exported to Europe, thus lowering the costs there as well.[3]
The 20th Century and into the 21st Century of the Bicycle
Riding bicycles steadily grew in popularity and importance in Europe in the beginning decades of the twentieth century. In the United States, the popularity dropped drastically between 1900 and 1910 due to the prominence of the automobile as the preferred means of transportation.[3] Bicycles grew to be considered children’s toys and thus by 1940 most bicycles in the United States were made for children. In Europe, bike riding continued to remain a popular choice of adult activity.
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Bicycle designs evolved according to the needs of the riders. In 1960, bicycles regained popularity in the United States as the population became more aware of the need for exercise Racing Bicycle – photo by Mikel Ortega, Source: Wikimedia CommonsCredit: photo by Mikel Ortega, Source: Wikimedia Commonsand energy conservation. In the 1980s the craze for the European based 10-speed bikes reached a peak in the United States.[4]
As riders have demanded new designs, BMX, mountain bikes, racing bikes, and recumbent bikes have all made their way onto the streets of America. Sting-ray handle bars gave way to racing handle bars and seats are streamlined for maximum comfort. Stationary bikes are prominent in gyms and living rooms. Since 2003 over eighteen million bicycles are sold annually in the United States.[4]
The copyright of the article Penny-Farthing to Training Wheels: The History of the Bicycle is owned by Cheryl Weldon and permission to republish in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Learning to ride a bicycle |
Monday, April 30, 2012
Finding the Mean and Median of Numbers
My child is in 5th grade and this is what he is learning in that grade.
Let's start with the "median number."
15, 22, 3, 8, 18, 10, 5
First write it in order from smallest to biggest.
3, 5, 8, 10, 15, 18, 22
Put your right pointer on the last number, and your left pointer finger on the first number. Your fingers should meet in the middle. Which in this case your fingers should land on 10. So the median number is 10.
"Mean number"
Add all the numbers, then divide the answer by how many numbers you added.
7, 12, 15, 19, 2
7+12+15+19+2=55 ÷5 (because you added 5 numbers) =11
So, the MEAN is 11
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Homemade Laundry Detergent
1 bar Fels-Naptha shredded
1 cup Borax
1 cup washing soda
Here are 4 cups of hot water and the shredded fels-naptha, medium heat until the shredded soap are all melted.
5 gallon bucket, filled half way with warm water.
Mix the melted bar soap, 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda. Stir until the powder/grain are gone.
Fill the bucket more warm water.
Let it set overnight. The next day this should look like jello. Stir again, until well blended. Some people mix one cup of this mixture to make 1 gallon. I usually use it the way it is. No more water for me.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
How To Make Your Children Take Capsules or Tablets Drugs
I call it drugs because it is drugs, even though they are prescribe by a doctor. You will not find this post teaching you how to make them take it, rather a complain of ways that will never work. I even powder it and mix with anything that they will eat with no problem, but still they can't take it.
When they are little (well one of them with ear infection liquid drug) I have to be on top of them, pressing their arms against their body, holding their noses so that they have to open their mouth then use a medicine dropper and drop the liquid at their throat until I'm sure it will not come out anymore. Yes, a struggle and not a healthy way to do it. That liquid may end up at their lungs.
They are older now and I don't feel like fighting and not to mention cleaning up their vomit on the floor. I even tried doing it in the bathroom, but the toilet is easy access and they just vomit in the toilet.
With the ear infection drugs, I stopped and found and easy cure...hydrogen peroxide and they are fine with it. Nothing going down their throat. However, they an eat any junk food anytime with NO gag reflex on their throat. I hate this part of parenting.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
SIL Scare Me A Little
She does not scare me, but I am scared of her in the sense that she works for the department of education, as a person she doesn't scare me. Out of no where she commented as, "it doesn't matter what is your opinion about standardize testing, it is needed to get to college, to get a better job."
"Oh no you didn't just said that," I thought. I didn't say anything to her after that. I'm sorry, she knew where DH and I stand about it. Did she meant to say, "to get a better job that everyone hates you because of what you do, or earn a lot of money and no one will like you." Either way I do not like it.
How many shoe maker, seams person, toy maker, etc. do you know? I don't know anyone personally who can weave. Furthermore, my idea of professionals are not how many fancy frame piece of paper you have hanging on your wall to brag what you accomplish, but how may people will actually recommend you to people they know and people they will meet. Anyone can easily print it online and hang it on the wall...really! |
Tips for Critiquing the Media
Things to Remember About the Media and Advertising
• All forms of media and advertising are constructions. They were created for a specific purpose, and this does not mean that they reflect reality. Their job is to sell you something, and they will often do whatever it takes to convince you that you need their product or service, even if this involves playing off of your emotions.
• You get to decide how advertising impacts you. You can choose to view advertising in a very media literate way that protects your body image and self-esteem.
Questions to Ask When Viewing an Advertisement
• What is this ad trying to sell? How does this ad try to convince you that you need their product or service?
• How does this advertisement impact the way you feel about yourself or see yourself?
• Is this advertisement sending some kind of message about worthiness?
• Does this advertisement (or advertisements from this company as a whole) represent a diversity of people (including race, body size, age, gender, etc.) Why or why not? How does the fact that they do/don’t play into the way they want their product to be represented? If they don’t represent a diversity of people, would it be appropriate for them to do so? Why do you think they don’t?
• Does this ad try to create some kind of emotional experience surrounding the product? Did the advertisers try to convince you to feel a certain emotion towards their product?
Things You Can Do
• Talk back to the advertisements that you see. Challenge the messages that they send and point out the inaccurate ways that they represent reality.
• Write letters to advertisers that you see consistently sending out negative messages. Explain to them why you disagree with the messages that they are sending, and why you would like them to change
• Write letters to advertisers that you think send positive messages. Compliment their methods and let them know what you love about the way they advertise.
• Make an effort to avoid buying products from companies that consistently use advertising that sends negative messages.
• Talk to your friends and family about advertising. Tell them how it makes you feel and encourage them to take a closer look at some of the images we see every day.
• Take a look at the way you talk to yourself and the people around you. Are you reinforcing some of the same messages that the media sends us through the comments you make either about yourself or other’s bodies (such as fat talk)?
• Take a break from the media! Rip the advertisements out of the magazines that you read, try listening to an iPod instead of the radio, or just turn off the television. The less media and advertising you consume, the less it can impact you.
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Time to Karl up and die
The Philosophers
October 8, 1999
This introduction to the history of western philosophy is not arranged thematically. Twenty-eight thinkers are studied separately. There is a danger of a cult of personality; several contributors make hyperbolic claims on behalf of their chosen thinker. How does one decide when to begin the history of a subject in which there seems to be no progress? The editor wonders whether or not "our philosophy should consider shuffling off its past, like science, even historiography. Should philosophy now begin, at the earliest, with Hobbes?" Ted Honderich does not actually begin with Hobbes, a contemporary of Descartes. He begins with Socrates, the Greek conversationalist who loved to talk people into the ground. Since there is nothing on the pre-Socratics, men such as Thales and Pythagoras, Socrates appears out of nowhere. Apart from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, we have the British empiricists: Locke, the Anglican bishop George Berkeley, and the Scottish sceptic Hume. By contrast, we have the Continental rationalist trio of Descartes, Spinoza, the father of critical biblical studies, and Leibniz. These two schools are synthesised in Kant in 18th-century Germany. Two American pragmatists are here with a lucid chapter on C. S. Peirce. G. E. Moore, the philosopher of common sense, is not in, though he is no less influential than, say, the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham or the pragmatist William James, each of whom gets a chapter. No living thinker is included.
Who is chosen is admittedly a matter of judgement. But today Machiavelli is more influential than Marx. Nor will it do to object that Machiavelli is only a political theorist. For Marx was merely a historian and economist who gave us no distinctively philosophical method or view. The philosophical components of Marx's thought are all there in Hegel and Feuerbach. Given the universal collapse of communism, why discuss Marx at all? Why not include Freud instead as a metaphysician who dared to replace the transcendent and the conscious with the local and the subconscious?
Three truly modern and courageous thinkers, each leading an unhappy life for the sake of his philosophy, are Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. The contributor on Kierkegaard makes an intelligent claim about the need for Christian spirituality in an agnostic age: denied a religious outlet, we may seek refuge in utopian politics. Moreover, Kierkegaard himself plausibly argued that the paradox and "absurdity" of Christian faith encourage humility: we are reminded that the certainties sought in faith must not be achievable through human faculties alone.
Nietzsche subtitled one of his books "A Philosophy of the Future". Like his intellectual mentor Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was attracted to eastern faiths extolling Buddhism as "spiritual hygiene", though no Buddhist would approve of his megalomania. His goal was to affirm life's value in a godless world and to reaffirm it without the comforting illusions of Christianity. The chapter on him is the longest, though there is no critique of his opinions. Clearly philosophy gave Nietzsche, as with Socrates, the courage to ignore and condemn what those in authority or majority say. Yet if we see the world sanely, we reject Nietzsche's own views as desperately implausible, belonging properly to the lunatic asylum.
Wittgenstein, that mercurial genius, writing in oracular style, invented a method, the best way to achieve fame in philosophy. The logical positivism of his early days was later repudiated and he invented a second method, a unique philosophical achievement. Philosophy is not a science; it does not compete with other subjects. It merely monitors the limits of sense and nonsense. Language is autonomous; it extends the intellect and the range of the will. We do not solve problems; we dissolve them. We do not seek knowledge; we seek understanding. We do not speculate; we look at the real world. Philosophy leaves everything as it is, concludes Wittgenstein. Yet it is wonderful that such a subject, within which there is no progress, somehow influences developments in many other disciplines.
Shabbir Akhtar holds a PhD in philosophy. He is writing a biography of St Paul.
The Philosophers: Introducing Great Western Thinkers
Editor - Ted Honderich
ISBN - 0 19 823861 4
Publisher - Oxford University Press
Price - £10.99
Pages - 288
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y1WlEjNAYV3-K1WpS3N1_iK3Azo TaJuLa's Blog: 13 Unconventional Ways To Whiten Your Teeth.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
13 Unconventional Ways To Whiten Your Teeth.
1. Oil (sesame oil or virgin coconut oil)
Oil, or more specifically, oil pulling, is when oil is used for gargling, not cooking. Sesame oil or virgin coconut oil is swished around inside the mouth and then spat out after fifteen minutes. As the substance is vigorously “pulled” back and forth between your teeth, the mucous membranes inside your mouth absorb nutrients from it. Sesame oil has omega-3 fatty acids, iron, calcium, and vitamins A, B and E; while virgin coconut oil has antibacterial properties that promote healthier gums and cavity-free teeth. Just make sure not to swallow any of the spittle that will form as you gargle.
2. Strawberries
Malic acid is a natural astringent that acts as a bleaching agent, and it is present in most commercially available tooth-whitening products. Strawberries are filled with this key ingredient, which will whiten your teeth naturally, so make sure to add them to your basket on your next trip to the farmer’s market. The vitamin C in strawberries also aids in removing plaque.
3. Apples
Apples also contain high levels of malic acid. The act of biting and chewing on this crunchy fruit gently scrubs away debris, stains, and bacteria from your mouth.
4. Celery
Say goodbye to tooth stains as you snack on that piece of celery during your break! The fibrous cellulose act as a natural toothbrush, while the high water content stimulates saliva production, your natural mouth cleanser.
5. Carrots
Chewing on these rabbit favorites raw will increase the amount of saliva in your mouth, cleaning it further. The vitamin A in carrots is good, not just for your eyesight, but helps strengthen tooth enamel as well.
6. Broccoli
When eaten raw, this vegetable gently abrades tooth surfaces, which removes unsightly stains. The iron found in broccoli protects tooth enamel by coating it with an invisible barrier that keeps cavity-causing acids away.
7. Cheese
Being devoid of color, most cheeses will not stain teeth. They also contain calcium and phosphorus, which help strengthen teeth and gums through re-mineralization. Those properties also help in insulating teeth from harmful acids in the mouth.
8. Water
Drinking water helps you stay hydrated and prevents stains from forming on your teeth. Swish it in your mouth after eating or drinking pigment-rich foods and beverages to keep your smile white and bright. Water also reduces your mouth’s overall acidity, lessening the likelihood of damaging your tooth enamel. Just make sure you stick to flat water, as the sparkling variety increases the chances of eroding tooth surfaces.
9. Pineapple
Pineapple contains an enzyme called bromelain, which is a natural stain remover that also helps separate plaque from the surface of your teeth. This prevents tooth erosion and discourages cavities from forming, resulting in healthier and whiter teeth.
10. Shiitake Mushrooms
This fungi is filled with lentinan, a type of sugar that does not promote tooth decay, but instead curbs its formation by preventing plaque-building bacteria from proliferating in your mouth.
11. Salmon
The vitamin D found in salmon helps the body absorb calcium and phosphorus, nutrients that strengthen your teeth and contribute to a beautiful smile.
12. Basil
As a natural antibiotic, this herb has bacteria-inhibiting properties that prevent the formation of cavities.
13. Onions and Garlic
The key is in eating these raw. Doing so releases bacteria-reducing compounds called thiosulfinates and thiosulfonates, promoting healthier teeth by reducing the production of plaque. Being colorless, these foods will also not stain teeth. I wont be caught dead eating a raw onion or garlic count me out.
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Sunday, September 23, 2012
Arrow Wounds
With all the recent popularity of bow and arrows (The Hunger Games, Revolution), can you tell your readers the proper way to deal with injuries like this?
Thanks, Kimber
Arrows are an old weapon and a unique weapon. Let’s start by looking at the arrow itself—that lends a lot to the understanding of the injury and treatment.
A Bit About Handmade/Homemade Arrows Ala Hunger Games
The earliest recorded information about arrow injuries and their treatments comes from the 1800s, when the Bow and arrow was still a common weapon—not yet supplanted by guns.
First, let’s look at the traditional hand-made arrow, like in Hunger Games or Revolution.
The arrow was comprised of a head, a shaft, and feathers.
The arrowhead—usually rock or bone—was shaped into a roughly triangular shape. The tip needed to be sharp and able to “cut” the skin, and had to be sturdy enough to penetrate clothing. Arrows were often shot with enough velocity that they could lodge in bone, although perforation of the skull was uncommon unless the victim was hit in the eye socket.
The shaft was typically made of dogwood stripped of bark, then soaked and twisted to ensure a straight shaft that would rotate. The shaft had to be long enough to stabilize the flight of the arrow, but be of a length easily portable in a quiver. A horseback-seated archer needed to be able to reach over his shoulder and pull an arrow out of the quiver.
The end of the shaft was stabilized by feathers. The choice of feather was based on the weight of the arrowhead. The bigger and heavier the head, the bigger the feather needed to balance it. The other function of the feathers was to influence the spin of the arrow. Like a quarterback, an archer wants spin in the flight. A rotating projectile goes farther.
The head was bound to the shaft with tendon and sinew. The reason for this (other than convenience) is this: when the arrow penetrates body tissue, the blood and moisture loosens the binding. When the well-meaning friend went to remove the arrow, the arrowhead remained inside the victim, where it generally did more damage by moving—those sharp edges—and caused infection. Compared to bullets, which are hot (and more likely to be sterile) and blunt (less likely to cause damage once they’ve stopped), arrowheads could not be left in place. The easiest way to get one out was to cut down to the head and extract the whole thing. This was the best chance for survival.
Chest wound were more dangerous, especially if it wasn’t a through-and-through injury.
Poisoning an Arrowhead
An old method was to take a chunk of raw animal liver and entice a rattlesnake to bite the liver. I have no idea how they got the snake to do this. Then the liver was buried and allowed to rot for a few days. The meat was disinterred, and arrowheads (already mounted on shafts) were dipped in the rotten poisoned liver and allowed to dry. The consequence of this—even if the arrow was successfully removed, the victim often died of poisoning, either from nasty bacteria or the rattlesnake poison.
The Modern Arrow
Most arrows today have machine-made carbon shafts and sharp cone-like points. Their shape is conducive to going deep with a low velocity, and tends to cut through body structures in its path. The good news is the arrow tends to act like a plug—if it lodges in the heart, the last thing you want to do is pull it out. Same for penetration of major blood vessels. The upshot is you can’t tell exactly where it is or what it punctured.
The arrow should be stabilized in place, usually with gauze or cotton around the arrow at the entry site, and the patient should be transported like this. Many patients have a stable blood pressure and heart rate. In the ER, X-rays may be obtained. A CT scan can help map the tract of the arrow and give medical personnel a better idea of what structures may be affected. The arrow is generally removed in surgery.
Barbed arrows are similar to the handmade ones, causing more damage and tend to be fraught with more surgical peril during extraction. Again, don’t pull the arrow out.
In fiction, the choice of the arrow—homemade or machine-made, poisoned or plain—depends on the scene you’re looking for. Just…don’t pull out the arrow.
Cheers, Kelly
Kelly has worked in the medical field for over twenty years, mainly at large medical centers. With experience in a variety of settings, chances are Kelly may have seen it. Sometimes truth seems stranger than fiction in medicine, but accurate medicine in fiction is fabulous.
Find her fiction at
1. Kelly - I love this information...thanks for this most excellent blog. I've read every one:)
1. Glad you're enjoying it, Kay Dee.
Thanks for following.
Cheers, Kelly |
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
M4 - May Week 3
We are doing a unit study on whales right now, so we kinda focused on beachy stuff. Now if only we could've gotten to the beach - that would've been a blast!
Sink or Float
We've done that experiment where you collect a bunch of items and test each to see if it sinks or floats. This week we made it a little more complicated - take the same exact item and see if you can make it float.
We started with a play doh ball. (You can use the yucky brown play doh that results after you mix up all the play doh colors.) It sinks.
Now form it into a boat. It floats! Until the water creeps over the edge and makes it sink.
Then we moved on to a discussion of swim bladders and how they help fish float. This experiment involves balloons AND marbles, so obviously it's going to be a success!
First you get two marbles and two balloons. You're going to put the marbles inside the balloons. One you'll tie up right away. The other, you'll blow a little bit of air into and then tie it up.
Put both balloons into a tub of water. The first one sinks, while the one with air floats. Why?
The air-filled balloon makes a handy stress reliever when you're done. Not that you'd be stressed or anything.
Blubber Insulation
This is the tried-and-true blubber insulation experiment. (First, put on your swim wings in case you decide to take a dive.)
Make a bowl of ice & water Put your hand inside. It is COLD!
Then take two sandwich bags. Put butter (or lard, or shortening) in the first bag. Put your hand in the second bag and insert it into the first bag. Now you can squish around the butter all over without making your hands greasy.
Now, put your hand with sandwich bag "glove" into the ice water. It's a little cold, but not freezing like it was without the "glove."
That's how blubber insulates whales and other warm-blooded sea animals who live in cold places!
Well, we are doing a WHOLE unit study on whales from Download N Go. When it is done, I shall never want to discuss whales again, I think. But I will tell you all about it when we do a review on the unit study. In the meantime, I know all about classifying them as toothed versus "Faline" (Bambi's girlfriend) whales. Though Mommy keeps saying it's "baleen," I think "Faline" is much more beautiful.
We've watched all the Free Willy movies. The second one includes an oil spill disaster, so we did a little demo on the impact of oil spills on wildlife, particularly birds. This was my favorite experiment - probably because the results are so drastic...
Put some water in two bowls. Pour a couple of tablespoons of oil into one of the bowls. Then get two feathers.
Dip one feather into the water-only bowl. Dip the other feather into the oil mix. The first feather will still be light and feathery - feathers are water-resistant. The second feather will be heavy and gooey.
That's why birds can't fly after they've been immersed in oil.
I had to try this experiment again and again - good thing we've got lots of feathers!
And Me
Hearing (again)
Do you know you can "hear" with your ears plugged? Put a pencil in your mouth, like this.
Close your eyes and plug your ears. Have someone rub the eraser. You'll hear a scratchy sound, even with your ears plugged!
We also listened to the "ocean" through a sea shell! The shell actually just accentuates the other noises around, or acts like a resonating chamber...
abc button
Ticia said...
I love the blubber experiment. No matter how often I see it featured, it always amuses me.
Katie's Nesting Spot said...
I am going to go try that pencil in your mouth and plug your ears RIGHT now! I had not heard of that one before!
Féepoussière said...
What a beautiful-but sad- experience that the feathers ...
I will do with my 3 year old daughter and a half, looking sadly from France the Louisiana oil spill ...
Thank you! |
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Coding Styles and Standards
One of the main reasons for having coding standards is to keep your code readable by everyone. By enforcing standards and formatting, the code base becomes consistent, and anyone can easily understand the structure of the code because he will be more familiar with what to expect. It is also very useful when a new developer joins the team because once he is familiar with the patterns, he will be able to easily read the existing code, which results in a more pleasant experience.
In this example, I will define coding standards for an iOS project (which uses Objective-C). We will take advantage of the fact that code formatting can be automated in XCode by using a plugin. The coding style that I chose is based on the Chromium style guide, but I made a few modifications, which can be found in the `.clang-format` file. Feel free to make changes as you see fit; All of the options are defined here LLVM Coding Standards.
1. Install Alcatraz, the package manager for XCode.
`curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/supermarin/Alcatraz/master/Scripts/install.sh | sh`
2. Select `Package Manager` from the `Window` menu and search for `ClangFormat` and install that plugin.
3. Select `Clang Format` from the `Edit` menu, and click on `File`. This will load formatting settings from the `.clang-format` file that is located in the repository.
4. When you want to format a file, go to the `Clang Format` menu and select `Format File in Focus`. You can also enable `Enable Format on Save` to have the plugin automatically format the file when you save it. You can also bind formatting to a keyboard shortcut, refer to the ClangFormat homepage for more options.
Additional Standards
The automatic code formatter does not implement all the standards we would like to follow. There are some standards that need to be enforced by the developer himself because they can't be automated. Please refer to https://github.com/paulsfds/objective-c-style-guide to see some examples.
Other Languages
Coding standards are universal and there exists some popular ones for other languages. I would also suggest searching on Google for popular standards for your favorite language. Also, many well established companies such as Google have their own coding standards that are available to the public. Here are a few popular ones to take a look at:
What are your favorite coding styles and standards? |
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Sunday, January 06, 2008
A Student's Guide to the Medical Literature
As any new medical student knows, exploring the existing medical literature can be a real challenge.
Fortunately, this site offered by the University of Colorado’s Health Sciences Center provides a nice guide to navigating these potentially treacherous waters. Created by a fourth year medical student, Katherine McLucas, the guide begins with a short tutorial that outlines a simple four-step approach to reading medical literature. Additionally, the site also includes a section on search strategies, an interactive glossary with hyperlinked terms, and version of the guide that can be used on a PDA. Overall, the site is well-thought out and executed, and is something that medical students will want to revisit when they are in need of some assistance.
Internet Scout Project
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Crescent Dunes Concentrated Solar Power Facility Completed
For those of you who went to camp in the summer, you may remember burning your initials on a piece of wood by focusing the sun’s rays with a magnifying glass. That’s pretty much the idea behind the Crescent Dunes concentrated solar power project in Nevada. It is now online and generating enough electricity to power 75,000 homes.
Saudi Arabia Focusing on CSP, Adding 41 GW Solar by 2032
Crescent Dunes uses an array of sun tracking mirrors called heliostats to concentrate sunlight and beam it to the top of a nearby tower. There, the sun’s power is used to heat salt to 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. The molten salt is then stored in tanks, where it can cool to as little as 500 degrees F before being reheated the next day when the sun rises again. Unlike a traditional photovoltaic solar facility, the Crescent Dunes installation can tap the heat of the stored molten salt to create steam to turn traditional electric turbines for up to 10 hours after the sun goes down.
The plant can react to a demand for electricity within 20 minutes of receiving a request from a grid operator for electricity. Solar Reserve, the owner/operator of Crescent Dunes, says the system is 99% efficient. It has a 25 year power purchase agreement with NV Energy to buy the electricity it makes.
NV Energy has been in the news lately, as it has bullied the Nevada Public Utilities Commission into passing new regulations that are highly unfavorable to people with rooftop solar systems in Nevada. Owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, NV Energy is a big supporter of solar energy, just as long as it controls the market and the retail price consumers pay for electricity.
Concentrated solar power is significantly less expensive that using conventional lithium ion batteries to store electricity. The Crescent Dunes facility can store enough solar energy to generate more than 1,000 megawatt hours of electricity during a 24 hour period. By comparison, one of the largest battery storage installations in the world, located in Hawaii, can store only 50 megawatt hours. CSP costs about $25 per kilowatt-hour. Even when Tesla’s Gigafactory is fully functional, the batteries it manufactures are expected to cost around $100 per kilowatt-hour.
“It is shortsighted to only look at the immediate cost, and not really on the value that you can give to the energy system, the role that CSP can play to backup, and in combination with PV and wind add up to a really very high share of renewables, because it can provide power on demand when other fluctuating renewables can’t do it,” said Christof Richter, Executive Secretary of SolarPACES. “To fully de-carbonize the grid, we need PV for days and CSP for nights.”
And fully de-carbonizing the electrical grid has to be one of the primary concerns of all the world’s nations as they struggle to lower carbon emissions before global climate change races out of control.
Source: CleanTechnica
About the Author
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Lions hunting bison, Chauvet cave.
"During the Old Stone Age, between 37,000 and 11,000 years ago, some of the most remarkable art ever conceived was etched or painted on the walls of caves in southern France and northern Spain,” writes Judith Thurman in The New Yorker, in 2008. “After a visit to Lascaux, in the Dordogne, which was discovered in 1940, Picasso reportedly said to his guide, ‘They’ve invented everything.’ What those first artists invented was a language of signs for which there will never be a Rosetta stone; perspective, a technique that was not rediscovered until the Athenian Golden Age; and a bestiary of such vitality and finesse that, by the flicker of torchlight, the animals seem to surge from the walls, and move across them like figures in a magic lantern show (in that sense, the artists invented animation)." (1)
The filmmaker Werner Herzog was reportedly so intrigued by Thurman’s article, he petitioned the French government the following year for permission to film in the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc, in the South of France. The resulting film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, was released in 2010.
“Among the film’s most fascinating insights,” writes Adam Cook, “is the discovery of how those who created the [cave] paintings would use torchlight and shadows, in conjunction with the images, as dramatic tools. One bison, as Herzog points out, is painted with eight legs, to give it a sense of motion. It is what he refers to as a ‘proto-cinema,’ and indeed all the elements are there, which when considering how old these works are in comparison to the cinema, is startling, and moving." (2)
“When our Magdalenian ancestors painted and etched the walls of caves in southern France and northern Spain, they were… making images that were essentially cinematic,” writes Edward Wachtel in the abstract for his article, “The First Picture Show: Cinematic Aspects of Cave Art.” “Their creations have generally been presented as still images—etchings, drawings, paintings—predecessors to photography. However, the tools and techniques they used, including brushes and blowguns, the irregular cave surfaces and lamps fueled by animal fat, conspired to create works and viewing conditions that made images that appeared to move, change color, dissolve, cut, appear and disappear. In short, they made cinematic images—precursors to film and television."(3)
Rhinos, Chauvet cave.
Other scholars agree and even theorize about the genesis of the proto-cinematic nature of cave art. Matt Gatton argues, in The Camera Obscura and the Origin of Art: The Case for Image Projection in the Paleolithic, that “harsh climates during the Paleolithic forced members of the human lineage to make rudimentary huts and tents. Survival depended on the ability to seal out the elements… [but] random holes in these rough shelters coincidentally and occasionally formed camera obscuras, projecting moving images inside the dwelling spaces,” which were then traced or copied. (4)
Scene from Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams".
Gatton's theory may be debatable; Herzog's Paleolithic fantasy is, ironically, somewhat more plausible: "Arguably, or for me," says Herzog, in an interview with Archaeology Magazine, "the greatest single sequence in all of film history [is] Fred Astaire dancing with his own shadows, and all of a sudden he stops and the shadows become independent and dance without him and he has to catch up with them. It's so quintessentially 'movie'. It can't get more beautiful. It's actually from Swing Time [1938]. And when you look at the [Chauvet] cave and certain panels, there's evidence of some fires on the ground. They're not for cooking. They were used for illumination. You have to step in front of these fires to look at the images, and when you move, you must see your own shadow. And immediately, Fred Astaire comes to mind—who did something 32,000 years later which is essentially what we can imagine for early Paleolithic people." (5)
1. Thurman, Judith. First ImpressionsThe New Yorker, June 23, 2008.
2. Cook, Adam. Werner Herzog and the Proto-Cinema. 2012.
3. Wachtel, Edward. The First Picture Show: Cinematic Aspects of Cave ArtLeonardo, Vol. 26, No. 2. 1993, p. 135-140.
4. Gatton, Matt. Paleo-Camera. 2005.
5. Zorich, Zach. Interview: Werner Herzog on the Birth of ArtArchaeology, Vol. 64, No. 2, March/April 2011. |
Juice Cleanses
A nutritious juice here and there can be beneficial for your health, but when it’s taken to the extreme, limiting your diet to strictly juices for weeks, it not only fails to be the magic solution the fanatics are claiming it to be; it can also do more harm than good.
During a juice fast or cleanse, a person limits their diet to only fresh vegetable and fruit juices and water for anywhere from a few days to several weeks. The fast focuses on freshly made, unpasteurized juice, so the usual bottles of OJ that you would pick up at the corner store wouldn’t be allowed.
Pathogens can live on all raw food, but packaged juices go through a pasteurization process that kills them. If you do make your own juices at home, make sure to only make enough for one serving so you don’t give dangerous organisms a chance to develop. And, as always, scrub that produce clean!
It’s an easy way to add servings of vegetables and fruits to your diet. The latest dietary guidelines recommend five to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, depending on a person’s caloric intake. The average American requires 2,000 calories a day to maintain weight and health, so the average person’s goal is nine servings, or 4.5 cups, of fruits and veggies per day. By the way, potatoes don’t count.
People undergoing chemotherapy, diabetics, people with nutritional deficiencies and people with kidney disease should not try a juice fast. The high sugar consumption involved in juice fasts can skyrocket blood-sugar levels in diabetics, which can result in fatigue, muscle loss, blurry vision, excessive hunger and thirst, and wounds or infections that heal more slowly than usual. And the high levels of antioxidants and low levels of protein can be dangerous for those undergoing chemo.
Juicing is not better than whole fruits and vegetables. In fact, it removes some nutrients. Actually, the fiber and some of the antioxidants found in the skins and seeds of fruits and vegetables are often eliminated in the juicing process. For example, the white pulp in an orange provides flavonoids, but that’s usually left behind.
Because juice doesn’t offer the fiber contained in fruits and veggies, the body absorbs fructose sugar more easily, which can affect blood sugar levels, according to Food Republic. If you do decide to try a juice cleanse, drink more veggie juices and limit fruit juice to one glass a day in order to avoid this potential side effect.
None of this means you shouldn’t drink juice. It simply means, instead of drinking only juice for weeks, a healthier route might just be including juices in a balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, lean protein and whole grains.
Juices are less filling than whole fruits and vegetables. You’re not going to feel as satisfied and full if you drink your meals instead of chewing them. Additionally, the fiber that’s been left out of the juice would have helped slow consumption and make you feel more sated.
Juice fasts can leave out critical nutrients your body needs to function properly. You should always be skeptical when a diet requires extreme restrictions and cuts out entire food groups. There’s a reason dietary guidelines include various categories of food: You can’t get all of your essential vitamins and minerals out of just one. A lack of fat leaves your skin and hair in poor shape and contributes to malabsorption of fat-soluble vitamins.
There’s nothing wrong with going on a juice fast for a few days, but it’s not a great way to lose weight. Additionally, if you do this to your body enough, you may permanently lower your metabolism, and it’s tough enough to lose weight as it is.
There isn’t really anything to detox. The fact is, though, our body does an excellent job of this already; our, liver, kidney’s and intestines filter the unwanted items quite effectively and expel them through urine, bowel movements, breath and sweat. We don’t need to punish ourselves with strict juice-only diets to eliminate the bad stuff.
The weight loss industry is a business, a booming one at that. Want to juice at home? Get ready to put down some money. Juicers range from $30 to $300. And since you shouldn’t be saving unpasteurized juice for later, you might want to buy one for the office while you’re at it.
Look, there are some benefits to juice cleanses. If you follow it all the way through, you’ll probably feel a sense of accomplishment. You might feel like you’ve freed yourself from the control cravings had over you. Some people say it helps them break their unhealthy eating habits. And yes, for once, you’re probably getting the recommended servings of fruits and veggies, if not more, per day. But if you’re going to try a juice cleanse, make it short. It’s not healthy to restrict your body for weeks from the other nutritious foods it needs.
Moderation is key to any diet, and the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to make healthy lifestyle changes that you’ll be able to maintain throughout your life.
Manhattan Wellness Group helps with health and well being through good diet suggestions, exercise, chiropractic care, physical therapy, massage and acupuncture. |
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If you haven't already checked out our tutorial on how to create a basic latex seam, please visit that article and then come back. If you've already mastered the basics, read on...
Step 1: Apply the glue
We covered this in the basic latex seam tutorial, but again - apply glue a little more than 1/4 inch wide on both pieces of latex sheeting that you are adhering. Don't apply a ton of glue - less is more, just make sure that you cover the entire area and don't leave any gaps.
Step 2: Attach the seam
Pick up one side of the seam and very carefully attach about a 1/2 inch point to the other seam. Line them up perfectly. When you do this pull the top layer back over your hand so that it's not touching the bottom layer. See the video for clarification.
Very slowly and carefully start adhering the top layer to the bottom layer using a rolling motion of your finger. As you begin to move down the seam, you will find that you must stretch the top layer of sheeting to continue keeping your seam on track. Here comes the hard part: you need to use your thumb and index finger or middle finger of the hand holding the bottom layer of sheeting to stretch the bottom layer the same amount that you are stretch the top layer. See video for clarfication.
This takes a lot of practice and comes more naturally for some than others. I cannot stress enough that you must be very gentle and "feel" the layers of latex, how much they are stretching, etc. You do not need to pull hard or press hard with your finger. It's a very subtle application of stretch and pressure.
Step 3: Roll the seam
Most likely you'll have some amount of "ripples" or a wavey-like appearance in your seam. This is not unusual for a first attempt. As you practice you will find that you get better, but you may never get a curved seam 100% smooth. That's ok - even the pros don't get it perfect. If you're producing a garmet you'll find that as long as it is close the imperfections will not be noticable once wearing the garmet.
If you're happy with how your seam came out, take your roller and with strong pressure - for some people as much as you can muster - and roll across the seam diagonally. This serves two purposes: to encourage the glue to form a strong bond with the latex, and to force out any air bubbles that may have gotten into your seam during the process.
Step 4: Curing time
Besides bringing the two layers together, this is the hardest part :) It will take a minimum of 24 hours for your seam to cure completely. Try to avoid applying any stress to the seam for 1 day - then enjoy your new creation! Check back with us for more tutorials on advanced topics such as creating latex ruffles, appliques, and how to add zippers to your latex garmets.
If you have any questions or comments please email them to: sales@mjtrends.com
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International Freight Forwarder, NVOCC and Shipping Agent
Dangerous Goods Specification
Dangerous Goods Specification
Class 1: Explosives Subclass 1.1: Explosives with a mass explosion hazard Consists of explosives that have a mass explosion hazard. A mass explosion is one which affects almost the entire load instantaneously. Subclass 1.2: Explosives with a severe projection hazard Consists of explosives that have a projection hazard but not a mass explosion hazard. Subclass 1.3: Explosives with a fire Consists of explosives that have a fire hazard and either a minor blast hazard or a minor projection hazard or both but not a mass explosion hazard. Subclass 1.4: Minor fire or projection hazard Consists of explosives that present a minor explosion hazard. The explosive effects are largely confined to the package and no projection of fragments of appreciable size or range is to be expected. An external fire must not cause virtually instantaneous explosion of almost the entire contents of the package.
Subclass 1.5: An insensitive substance with a mass explosion hazard
Consists of very insensitive explosives with a mass explosion hazard (explosion similar to 1.1). This division is comprised of substances which have a mass explosion hazard but are so insensitive that there is very little probability of initiation or of transition from burning to detonation under normal conditions of transport.
Subclass 1.6: Extremely insensitive articles
Class 2: Gasses
Subclass 2.1: Flammable Gas
Gases which ignite on contact with an ignition source, such as acetylene and hydrogen. Flammable gas gas means any material which is ignitable at 101.3 kPa (14.7 psi) when in a mixture of 13 percent or less by volume with air, or has a flammable range at 101.3 kPa (14.7 psi) with air of at least 12 percent regardless of the lower limit
Subclass 2.2: Non-Flammable Gases
Gases which are neither flammable nor poisonous. Includes the cryogenic gases/liquids (temperatures of below -100°C) used for cryopreservation and rocket fuels. This division includes compressed gas, liquefied gas, pressurized cryogenic gas, compressed gas in solution, asphyxiant gas and oxidizing gas. A non-flammable, nonpoisonous compressed gas means any material which exerts in the packaging an absolute pressure of 280 kPa (40.6 psia) or greater at 20°C (68°F), and does not meet the definition of Division 2.1 or 2.3.
Subclass 2.3: Poisonous Gases
Gases liable to cause death or serious injury to human health if inhaled. Gas poisonous by inhalation means a material which is a gas at 20°C or less and a pressure of 101.3 kPa (a material which has a boiling point of 20°C or less at 101.3kPa (14.7 psi)) which is known to be so toxic to humans as to pose a hazard to health during transportation, or in the absence f adequate data on human toxicity, is presumed to be toxic to humans because when tested on laboratory animals it has an LC50 value of not more than 5000 ml/m3.
Class 3: Flammable liquids
A flammable liquid means a liquid which may catch fire easily or any mixture having one or more components whith any flash point. As example: acetone, diesel, gasoline, kerosene, oil etc. There is strongly recomended for transportation at or above its flash point in a bulk packaging. There are three main groups of flammable liquid.
1. Low flash point – liquids with flash point below -18°C
2. Intermediate flash point – liquids with flash point from -18°C. up to +23°C
3. High flash point group – liquids with flash point from +23°C
Class 4: Flammable solids or substances
Subclass 4.1: Flammable solids
Solid substances that are easily ignited. Self-reactive materials, which are thermally unstable and that can undergo a strongly exothermic decomposition even without participation of air. Readily combustible solids that can cause a fire through friction and show a burning rate faster than 2.2 mm (0.087 inches) per second, or metal powders that can be ignited and react over the whole length of a sample in 10 minutes or less.
Subclass 4.2: Spontaneously combustible solids
Solid substances that ignite spontaneously. Spontaneously combustible material is a pyrophoric material, which is a liquid or solid that can ignite within five minutes after coming in contact with air or a self-heating material that when in contact with air and without an energy supply is liable to self-heat.
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Socotra (also spelled Soqotra)
Socotra Socotra Socotra Socotra Socotra Socotra
Socotra, an administrative part of the Republic of Yemen, is an island situated in the Indian Ocean in the tropical climate not far from the shores of Africa. Its location and uniqueness makes Socotra a perfect destination for tourists seeking unusual experiences. Moreover, its pleasant climate enables everyone to enjoy various activities. Whether you are a botanist, an ardent biologist, a fisherman or a scuba diver, you can explore the rich biodiversity not to be found anywhere else in the world. What’s more, you will find no tourists or tourist facilities on Socotra’s endless and pristine shores.
The rich biodiversity gives the landscape its uniqueness so that everyone, especially the Europeans, will find it hard not to be enchanted by its beauty.
The geologists consider Socotra “the most isolated piece of land” in the history of the Earth.
The island is also an attractive place for trekking and due to its pleasant climate almost anyone can set out on the long walks while the experienced sportsmen can try more demanding treks.
Those of you who are attracted to sea life will be fascinated by the diverse species that live in the local waters. You can watch or even swim with the dolphins and observe turtles, stingrays and many other colourful fish living on the coral reef.
In brief, Socotra offers something for everyone and convinces you that the virgin land still exists! |
Health Promotion & Knowledge Management
Creating Awareness on Health Effects of Fast food
• Questionnaire
Our group will be really grateful if you can fill in the survey for this project. It will only take a while and you can fill it any time after you finish reading this website content. The questionnaire can be access by clicking the "survey" section.Thanks a lot for your time!!
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What Is Fast Food?
Fast food is defined as hot food that is served very quickly in special restaurants, and often taken away to be eaten in the street. These items are routinely sold and vary widely in food type, encompassing all kinds of meats, preparation method and ethnic cuisines. Examples of fast foods are French fries and hamburger. There are also quick-service restaurant that provides variety of menu of Americanized Mexican, Greek, Chinese many other kinds of ethnic foods. Fried fish and shellfish, hot dogs, chicken, pizza, roast beef, and pasta are among other kind of fast foods. Though menus and delivery formats differ greatly, fast food‘s common characteristics include immediate customer service and cheap price.
Why is it Popular?
• Availability. Fast Food restaurant is everywhere.
• Cheap. The price of fast food is relatively cheap.
• Quick. When people feel hungry and less time to spend on eating, they will tend to buy foods that are quickly prepared.
• Heavy marketing and TV advertising. Advertising is also a reason why fast food is getting popular. Demographics, trends, and consumer preferences are among the factors that helping these advertisements to attract many people to buy fast foods.
• Variation. Nowadays, fast food restaurant not only provide hamburger and chips but also other kind of food to attract more people coming to their restaurant.
How can fast food affects my health?
Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are,” said the French food philosopher Brillat-Savarin. What we eat is an extremely important part of our life, as what we eat is going to affect many chemical processes that happened in our body.
University students usually have less time to select, prepare, and eat food due to various factors like having a “packed” timetable or do not have simple cooking skills. For this group of people, fast foods are very tempting because they are quick, reasonably priced, and readily available. BIS Shrapnel firm research shows that fast food chains and takeaway outlets are the most popular places for buying a full meal or snack.
Somehow, they are not aware that high intake of fast food can harm their health. For instance, hot chips have high saturated fat content. A recent evidence based review stated that include a high intake of saturated fatty acids, trans fatty acids, and sodium are dietary risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.
Excessive intakes of hot chips also increase dietary fat consumption. This is a major contributor to obesity for a variety of physiological reasons. There is also a study shows that fast foods also have high energy-density than average British diet and traditional African diet. It also demonstrates inability of human to recognize foods with a high energy density and appropriately down-regulate the bulk of food eaten in order to maintain energy homeostasis. Thus, it causes passive over-consumption of fast food and gives significant contribution to excess caloric intake and to the development of obesity.
Besides that, epidemiological studies have revealed that a high total fat intake is also linked to increased rates of breast, colon, and prostate cancer. It is noted that, high fat diet influences body to secrete hormone that can create favorable environment for cancer growth.
Recently, some fast food restaurants do provide food with low calories and fat content. Thus choosing what food to eat is a crucial step in maintaining our health.
Note:Energy density is defined as the energy content per unit weight of foods, meals or diets (expressed here as kJ-1 100 g).
1. Hornby AS. Oxford advanced learners’ dictionary. 6th ed. UK;Oxford University Press: 2000.
2. Hogan, David Gerard. “Fast Food.” Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. Ed. Solomon H.Katz. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003. 606-609. 3 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale. Monash Library. 8 Aug. 2006
3. Urmil M, & Boyd S,. A review of factors affecting fat absorption in hot chips. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. 2001;41(2):133
4. Victorian Government Health Information. Cardiovascular disease & type II diabetes[homepage on the internet]. Australia, Department of Human Services; [updated 2006 March 21; cited 2006 March 30]. Available from:
5. Prentice AM, Jebb SA. Fast foods, energy density and obesity: a possible mechanistic link. Obesity review. 2003; 4: 187–194
6. Diet and disease [homepage on the internet]. America: A.D.A.M. Inc; [updated 2003 October 17; cited 2006 August 12] Available from:
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Will you entrust the US government or a private entity with your electronic medical records?
The ARRA stimulus bill provides incentives for medical providers to use Electronic Medical Records for storing patient healthcare information. (To read more about Meaningful Use and certified Electronic Medical records, beyond the scope of this posting, please refer to CCHIT). The overarching goal is to allow medical records to be exchanged between health-care providers. A simple example: An employee changes jobs and receives new health insurance, which requires him to use a different healthcare provider. How does he transfer his medical records to that new health-care provider. Or a soldier is treated in a military hospital, then transferred to the VA and finally to a public/private hospital. How does his/her electronic medical record transfer between the three distinct institutions.
In transferring electronic patient data between institutions:
• How does American law protect the privacy and security of patient health-care data?
• Why are Americans hesitant to share medical information electronically?
On Monday January 25th, 2010 a study by the Ponemon institute revealed that Americans distrust the Federal Government or private enterprise to electronically store their health-care data.
Let’s examine how US Federal law protects electronic medical records
Health Insurers and Providers who are covered entities must comply with your right to:
• Ask to see and get a copy of your health records
• Have corrections added to your health information
Nothing implied about electronic medical records, nor exchange of electronic data and most importantly authenticating the individual who is requesting access to the records. In an electronic medical record system, how can I be certain that Joe Smith is who he claims to be when he logs into the system. Is user-name password sufficient security?
• In light of the ARRA stimulus bill, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revised the privacy rule in December 2008. (11 page PDF here). In summary:
1. Access: Individuals must be provided timely access to their medical data
2. Disputation/Correction: Individuals must be able to dispute and correct information in their health record, from a simple typo, corruption of digital information in transit between entities and even medical identity theft.
3. Openness/Transparency: Individuals must have access to their record and know what is in there and how it is disclosed.
4. Individual choice: Individuals must be able to choose how data is shared. For example which doctor is allowed to view their record delegating access to another person in case the individual/patient is incapacitated and cannot access their record.
5. Collection/Use: Individuals have the right to know how their medical data is distributed/used; that data is only used for their care and not distributed beyond the patient’s consent.
6. Data quality/integrity: Data is secure and not compromised
7. Accountability/Auditing: An audit trail and legal accountability exists to know who was authenticated and authorized to access an individual’s data.
The word “trust” appears 13 times in the 11 page document, the phrase “trust in electronic exchange of information” appears six times. Clearly the HHS is attempting to gain the public trust in an electronic exchange of health data.
• The Federal Trade Commission proposed a breach notification rule (50 page PDF) “requiring vendors of personal health records and related entities to notify individuals when the security of their individually identifiable health information is breached.”
So, given the above laws, why does the Ponemon study find Americans so distrustful to store their electronic health data. The study revealed: Users rated health records as far more sensitive than other information they typically share with Web companies. On a scale from one to seven, medical data received an average rating of 6.64, while credit card information received only a 4.27 and online search records just a 1.86.
I posit that:
• Internet searches can be reasonably anonymous. I can search for information from a public computer such as the library or a firewall can transform my computer’s identity (IP address).
• If my credit card information is compromised I am protected by the credit card company; so much so that credit card companies have sophisticated software that track errant spending patterns and forewarn me. Am I in an obscure overseas country attempting to purchase a $3000 airline ticket?
• Americans, historically, have a distrust in their government. The Bill of Rights dating back to 1791 protects the individual (for example unreasonable searches). So why should the government be trusted with personal health information?
The problem is health information potentially reveals personal and important details about an individual: their weight, medications, illnesses, addictions, allergies, perhaps even sexual preferences. (Interestingly under the US law, patients do not have access to their psychotherapy notes. See HIPAA rule “You do not have the right to access a provider’s psychotherapy notes.” )
The real problem I believe is what options does a an individual have if their electronic medical record has been compromised? Witness two recent incidents in California where electronic patient information was stolen: UCSF – (600 patients) and Kaiser (15000 patients).
Is the FTC breach rule sufficient?
I think the rule is sufficient, but the ubiquity, and ease of electronic data duplication, makes it difficult to gain the trust of users. If my medical records are stolen, what comfort is the rule? The answer individuals require from electronic medical record vendors is “we will encrypt your data, at rest and in transit.” At rest means data in a database is encrypted; in transit means, that the data as it is transmitted across computer networks. Today, encryption in transit is easily achieved with SSL. Encryption at rest is rare because it is practically difficult to implement. If I encrypt “Joe Smith” as “aS@Pn!”, then how do I search for his record, as I cannot search for “Smith”? How does another, say reporting application, access and present the encrypted data? How do I index a database (group all the “Smith”s together) if the data is encrypted? How can a receiving party in another institution (sharing electronic medical records) decrypt the data? As the UCSF and Kaiser incidents note, unencrypted data was stored on detachable disks and subsequently stolen.
Electronic medical record vendors and the US government have a long way to go to gain public trust.
(This posting is an assignment from my UC Davis Informatics class on telemedicine)
2 thoughts on “Will you entrust the US government or a private entity with your electronic medical records?
1. Important points, I would question how protected we were with paper files as well?
Certainly points to what I believe is the value of PHR. As then will not be completely dependent upon others . Just need to determine how we might feel comfortable in securing (see a cloud market emerging)
2. Jim
Paper files were not subject to electronic eavesdropping nor easily duplicated into hundreds of copies.
To steal a few thousand electronic medical records, just nab one disk; to steal a few thousand paper medical records requires a truck. A cloud market is emerging for EMRs 🙂
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Fashion Industry Profile: Chapter 6. Fibers and Fabrics
What is True Organic and What is True Sustainability
I am taking a Fashion Textile Survey online course at Parsons. Several of the hot words in our discussions are of course “natural,” “organic,” “eco-friendly,” and “sustainable.” However, the professor is pretty serious about the way we are using these words. He always questions us like “is it true?”
For example, regarding organic, what he says are as below.
Connected with the questions about what is natural, note that even if a fiber is called natural that in no way means organic. The word organic, though in chemistry means made from carbon, in everyday discussions of textiles or food means produced without synthetic pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers. I imagine that at this point most of you already know that “conventionally grown” (in other words non-organic) cotton is a huge user of pesticides, fungicides, and synthetic fertilizers and like me, you are interested in utilizing better systems to make our clothing.
A very good source of information about organic fiber is the Textile Exchange. This is an industry group that also provides some information free: Here is a an example from there Resource Center FAQs.
Why should cotton be grown organically? Is it going to be better for me, like organic food?
It is better for you as a global citizen, though the benefits may not be so immediate as with organic food.
In respect to the health of the end user, there are studies that show that chemical residues do remain in garments. There are also studies showing that people with hyper-sensitivity to chemicals are less likely to suffer from related health problems if clothing, bedding and other textiles are made from organic fibers (and manufactured without the use of synthetic dyes, etc). It is usually a preference for organic cotton that motivates people to choose organic. Market studies reveal that parents opt for organic cotton products for their babies both for the safety and as an expression of larger global concerns.
Growing cotton organically is going to benefit the grower. Because organic agriculture does not permit the use of toxic and persistent chemicals there are fewer occupational health hazards for farmers and risk of accidental poisoning of family members. There is likely to be an increase of farmers’ income due to organic price premiums and reduced input costs.
These days, environmental and social impacts are as important as quality of product. This recognition is considered good business, and good for business. Further, consumer choice is moving beyond immediate gratification to an act of conscious, responsible choice, and so it is with fiber as well as food.
He also mentions that there are environmental advantages to using synthetic fiber because unlike natural fibers, synthetic fiber generally does not loose strength when recycled. An example is the National Geographic video of polyester being recycled from plastic bottles.
I used to think that cotton and wool were natural, sustainable and environmentally friendly fibers with superb attributes, therefore people should evaluate and consider them more as raw materials of the daily wear. However, my view were changed after I checked the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI).
The Higg Index was created by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition formed in 2011 to support the eco-friendly movement. This index measures the environmental and social performance of apparel and footwear products, including everything from carbon emissions and chemical usage to conditions in factories. It aims to help companies improve long-term sustainability in the industry, and informs shoppers about their purchases.[1]
The index is a comparatively new tool that provides a common language about material sustainability. It not only gathers the data from the industry, but also processes and assesses those data, and provides a comparable index. For example, in the category of raw materials, cotton sores an MSI 54.9 (which means the impact from 1kg of a material, thus the lower the better), out of which 40 accounts for Water Scarcity. Take wool for another example. It scores 48.0, and the biggest portion 22.1 comes from Eutrophication. Compared to those two materials, polyester only scores 12.1, and acrylic 18.6.
When considering sustainability, we tend to focus on chemistry and global warming, but this Higg Index inclusively take into account more aspects that have impact on our environment. How we should define and consider sustainability, just as how we should define organic, is very thought-provoking.
[1] Elaine Stone, The Dynamics of Fashion, (New York: Fairchild Books, 2013) , 42.
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Man comes into the world with mental and moral characteristics which he can only very imperfectly influence and a large proportion of the external circumstances of his life lie wholly or mainly beyond his control. Every one also recognizes how large a part of the unhappiness of most men may be directly traced to their own voluntary and deliberate acts.
In the words of Burke, ‘It is the prerogative of man to be in a great degree a creature of his own making.’ There are men whose whole lives are spent in willing one thing and desiring the opposite and all morality depends upon the supposition that we have at least some freedom of choice between good and evil.
No human being can prevent himself from viewing certain acts with an indignation, shame, remorse, resentment, gratitude, enthusiasm, praise or blame, which would be perfectly unmeaning and irrational if these acts could not have been avoided. We can have no higher evidence on the subject than is derived from this fact. It is impossible to explain the mystery of free will, but until a man ceases to feel these emotions he has not succeeded in disbelieving in it. The feelings of all men and the vocabularies of all languages attest the universality of the belief.
Men continually forget that Happiness is a condition of Mind and not a disposition of circumstances, and one of the most common of errors is that of confusing happiness with the means of happiness, sacrificing the first for the attainment of the second. It is the error of the miser, who begins by seeking money for the enjoyment it procures and ends by making the mere acquisition of money his sole object, pursuing it to the sacrifice of all rational ends and pleasures. Circumstances and Character both contribute to Happiness, but the proportionate attention paid to one or other of these great departments not only varies largely with different individuals, but also with different nations and in different ages.
All the sensational philosophies from Bacon and Locke to our own day tend to concentrate attention on the external circumstances and conditions of happiness. And the same tendency will be naturally found in the most active, industrial and progressive nations; where life is very full and busy; where its competitions are most keen; where scientific discoveries are rapidly multiplying pleasures or diminishing pains; where town life with its constant hurry and change is the most prominent. In such spheres men naturally incline to seek happiness from without rather than from within, or, in other words, to seek it much less by acting directly on the mind and character than through the indirect method of improved circumstances.
Smoking in manhood, when practiced in moderation, is a very innocent and probably beneficent practice, but it is well known how deleterious it is to young boys, and how many of them have taken to it through no other motive than a desire to appear older than they are—that surest of all signs that we are very young. How often have the far more pernicious habits of drinking, or gambling, or frequenting corrupt society been acquired through a similar motive, or through the mere desire to enjoy the charm of a forbidden pleasure or to stand well with some dissipated companions! How large a proportion of lifelong female debility is due to an early habit of tight lacing, springing only from the silliest vanity! How many lives have been sacrificed through the careless recklessness which refused to take the trouble of changing wet clothes! How many have been shattered and shortened by excess in things which in moderation are harmless, useful, or praiseworthy,—by the broken blood-vessel, due to excess in some healthy athletic exercise or game; by the ruined brain overstrained in order to win some paltry prize! It is melancholy to observe how many lives have been broken down, ruined or corrupted in attempts to realize some supreme and unattainable desire; through the impulse of overmastering passion, of powerful and perhaps irresistible temptation. It is still sadder to observe how large a proportion of the failures of life may be ultimately traced to the most insignificant causes and might have been avoided without any serious effort either of intellect or will.
How different would have been the condition of the world, and how far greater would have been the popularity of strong monarchy if at the time when such a form of government generally prevailed rulers had had the intelligence to put before them the improvement of the health and the prolongation of the lives of their subjects as the main object of their policy rather than military glory or the acquisition of territory or mere ostentatious and selfish display!
It is very evident that a healthy, long and prosperous life is more likely to be attained by industry, moderation and purity than by the opposite courses. It is very evident that drunkenness and sensuality ruin health and shorten life; that idleness, gambling and disorderly habits ruin prosperity; that ill-temper, selfishness and envy kill friendship and provoke animosities and dislike; that in every well-regulated society there is at least a general coincidence between the path of duty and the path of prosperity; dishonesty, violence and disregard for the rights of others naturally and usually bringing their punishment either from law or from public opinion or from both.
The pleasures of vice are often real, but they are commonly transient and they leave legacies of suffering, weakness, or care behind them. The nobler pleasures for the most part grow and strengthen with advancing years. The passions of youth, when duly regulated, gradually transform themselves into habits, interests and steady affections, and it is in the long forecasts of life that the superiority of virtue as an element of happiness becomes most apparent.
Few things have done more harm in the world than disproportioned compassion. It is a law of our being that we are only deeply moved by sufferings we distinctly realize and the degrees in which different kinds of suffering appeal to the imagination bear no proportion to their real magnitude. The most benevolent man will read of an earthquake in Japan or a plague in South America with a callousness he would never display towards some untimely death or some painful accident in his immediate neighborhood, and in general the suffering of a prominent and isolated individual strikes us much more forcibly than that of an undistinguished multitude. Few deaths are so prominent, and therefore few produce such widespread compassion, as those of conspicuous criminals. It is no exaggeration to say that the death of an ‘interesting’ murderer will often arouse much stronger feelings than were ever excited by the death of his victim; or by the deaths of brave soldiers who perished by disease or by the sword in some obscure expedition in a remote country. This mode of judgment acts promptly upon conduct.
To see things in their true proportion, to escape the magnifying influence of a morbid imagination, should be one of the chief aims of life, and in no fields is it more needed than in those we have been reviewing. At the same time every age has its own ideal moral type towards which the strongest and best influences of the time converge. The history of morals is essentially a history of the changes that take place not so much in our conception of what is right and wrong as in the proportionate place and prominence we assign to different virtues and vices. There are large groups of moral qualities which in some ages of the world’s history have been regarded as of supreme importance, while in other ages they are thrown into the background, and there are corresponding groups of vices which are treated in some periods as very serious and in others as very trivial.
The human mind has much more power of distinguishing between right and wrong, and between true and false, than of estimating with accuracy the comparative gravity of opposite evils. It is nearly always right in judging between right and wrong. It is generally wrong in estimating degrees of guilt, and the root of its error lies in the extreme difficulty of putting ourselves into the place of those whose characters or circumstances are radically different from our own. This want of imagination acts widely on our judgment of what is good as well as of what is bad.
If we look again into the vice and sin that undoubtedly disfigure the world we shall find much reason to believe that what is exceptional in human nature is not the evil tendency but the restraining conscience, and that it is chiefly the weakness of the distinctively human quality that is the origin of the evil. Most crimes do not spring from anything in the original and primal desire but from the imperfection of this higher, distinct or superadded element in our nature. The crimes of dishonesty and envy, when duly analyzed, have at their basis simply a desire for the desirable—a natural and inevitable feeling. What is absent is the restraint which makes men refrains from taking or trying to take desirable things that belong to another.
(Adapted from The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Map of Life, by William Edward Hartpole Lecky)
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Group of Zaptié in Italian Somaliland (1939).
Zaptié was the designation given to locally raised gendarmerie units in the Italian colonies of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland between 1889 and 1942.
Origins and duties[edit]
The word "zaptié" is derived from the Turkish zapiteh; a term which was used to refer to both the Ottoman Empire's gendarmerie prior to 1923, and to the Turkish personnel recruited for the Cyprus Military Police during the period of British rule on the island.
The Italian colonial governments in the territories listed above modelled the various zaptié constabulary forces on Italy's own carabinieri. The first of these units was raised in Eritrea in 1882, drawing from existing companies of basci bazuks (irregular troops).
In Tripolitania and Cyrenaica the zaptié were generally used for patrolling rural areas in coastal regions, while mounted police or spahis operated in the southern desert regions, together with camel mounted meharists; in the city of Tripoli civilian police were employed. The original Libyan zaptié were recruited from indigenous gendarmerie of the same name, who had served under the Turkish government prior to 1910.
In Italian Somaliland, the zaptié provided a ceremonial escort for the Italian Viceroy (Governor) as well as the territorial police. There were nearly one thousand such para-military police in 1922, when Benito Mussolini took control of the Italian government and started a policy of "pacification" and assimilation of the Italian colonies.
Attire, weaponry and ranks[edit]
Zaptié troopers were armed with 1874 model revolvers, cavalry carbines, and 1871 model sabres. Officers and some non-commissioned officers were Italian, but the rank and file were recruited from the colony in question, as an example, the Somali Zaptié Corps in 1927 numbered 1,500 Somali and 72 Italian personnel. Uniforms varied from colony to colony, but usually comprised fezes, red sashes and khaki or white clothing. A common feature was the white and red collar insignia of the carabinieri.
Cavalry and fort of the Sultanate of Hobyo, one of the ruling Somali polities that the zaptié fought against in the Campaign of the Sultanates.
Three hundred zaptié took part in the Italian conquest of northern Somalia in 1925, as part of the "colonna Musso", they assisted in the occupation of the Sultanate of Hobyo (Hafun and Ordio). Other zaptìé units served with the "colonna Bergesio" in the Elemari region (Gallacaio, Garad and Sinedogò); in 1926, zaptìé served in the Majeerteen Sultanate (Bender Ziada, Candala and Bender Cassim).[1]
Zaptìé detachments participated in the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 and in the East African Campaign of World War II.
In 1941 in Somalia and Ethiopia 2,186 zaptìé (plus 500 recruits under training) formed part of the Carabinieri, they were organised in a battalion commanded by Major Alfredo Serranti that fought at the Battle of Culqualber in Ethiopia for three months until this military unit was destroyed by the Allies. After heavy fighting the Italian Carabinieri received "full military honors" from the British.[2]
In this battle, Muntaz (corporal) Unatù Endisciau of the LXXII Zaptié (I° Gruppo Carabinieri) Battalion was the only "soldier of colour" to be awarded the Italian Gold Medal of Military Valor.[3]
After World War II, a former member of the zaptìé corps, Siad Barre, became President of Somalia from 1969 to 1991.[4]
See also[edit]
• "Le Uniformi dell" AOI (Somalia 1889-1941)" Piero Crociani and Andrea Viotti. |
Critical Context
Tournier’s original version of Friday won the esteemed French Academy Prize for best novel in 1967. It is often considered to be the first installment of a trilogy including Le Roi des aulnes (1970; The Ogre, 1972) and Gemini. Vendredi: Ou, La Vie sauvage (1971; Friday and Robinson: Life on Esperanza Island, 1972), an important adaptation created for children, deletes Robinson’s private journal and adds seven scenes of interpersonal exchange in which Friday transfers to Robinson his knowledge of gourmet cooking, metaphor, and mime. These modifications strengthen Friday’s role as mentor and mirror. Tournier’s autobiographical essay Le Vent Paraclet (1977) includes comments on Friday in terms of urban isolation and problems of the Third World.
The novel is highly discussable, and comparison to Gemini is especially indicated. Friday and Robinson become twins with two bodies and two souls, whereas Jean and Paul have two bodies and one soul. Important theories of morality, perception, and sexual composition can be extracted from the novel. Speranza can be studied independently as an ecological system, and each of the behaviors exhibited by its two main inhabitants (nudity, urination, mimicry, mating, signal systems, death rituals, and so on) count as formal objects of ethnological inquiry. Most important, through its case history of solitude, its laboratory encounter between two cultures, and its structure of creation through compensation, Tournier’s Friday continues Freudian thinking on the origins of neurosis in technological societies. As Sigmund Freud wrote, “It is easy...for the barbarian to be healthy; for the civilized man, the task is a hard one.” |
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Center-tapped rectifier without diodes?
1. Sep 22, 2012 #1
Hi everyone. I'm back again with another silly question. Please bear with me.
Below is a figure of a basic center-tapped full-wave rectifier circuit and my question is; why can't we use anything other than diodes to get a unidirectional output current? For example, what difference would it make to the output if I use two resistors instead of the diodes D1 and D2?
If we imagine that there are resistors in the place of diodes, the way I see it, during the positive portion of the AC input cycle (with the polarities as they're shown in the figure below), the direction of conventional current through the load resistor R is from right to left. And to me it looks like that should still be the case during the negative portion of the AC input cycle. The polarities would constantly be changing in the top and bottom resistors, but my object of interest is the resistor in the middle, which doesn't seem to be (to me) changing polarities any time during the entire cycle.
So what do semiconductor diodes add to this circuit that other components (or simple conducting wires, for that matter) can not?
Much thanks and apologies for my ignorance.
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2. jcsd
3. Sep 22, 2012 #2
4. Sep 22, 2012 #3
Consider the voltage over the upper coil as v1 and over the other coil as v2.
The center tap of the transformer can be considered a reference point. So, if you simply "ground" it you will understand that that point is always with 0 volts (as it is the reference). Then, when the voltage supply is at its positive half-cycle, v1 is positive and D1 enters conduction. On the other side, D2 is blocked because it is reversed polarized. The voltage over the resistor is equal to v1 (v1 on the right side of the resistor and ground on the left side of the resistor).
During the negative half-cycle, D1 gets blocked and, as v2 polarizes D2, it conducts. On the right side of the resistor there is v2. On the left side there is the ground.
As v1 = v2 (that is a center tap, right ? So both voltages are equal), the voltage across the resistor is always positive, never gets negative (you can see that using the simulation tool I mentioned).
5. Sep 23, 2012 #4
Thanks for your response. But I think you didn't understand my question.
My question is, why are diodes necessary for achieving full-wave rectification in this circuit and why can't we simply use conductors. Wouldn't the voltage across resistor still always be positive without semiconductor diodes, since the current path for the resistor is only from right to left?
6. Sep 23, 2012 #5
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because diodes ONLY conduct in one direction. Resistors conduct in both directions and would not provide rectification. No the current is not only from left to right. its from both directions. its direction changes with each half cycle of the AC
Each diode only conducts on one half of each cycle those 2 conductions are then combined to give an overall positive raw DC output which is then smoothed with capacitors.
7. Sep 23, 2012 #6
How so?
I would be glad if you could Draw two diagrams:
1. Make the Top of coil +ve and bottom -ve. Draw current directions in all branches and Voltage magnitudes at all nodes.
2. Same as 1, but with Polarity of the Coil reversed.
8. Sep 23, 2012 #7
I edited the diagram I attached on my original post and drew current directions quite lazily. I don't know the voltage magnitudes, so I left that part out (I hope that's not a big problem).
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9. Sep 23, 2012 #8
But I was expecting that you would replace the diodes with resisters (or conducting wires).
In your second diagram you have labelled the coil voltages vi wrongly.
Starting from top it would be - + - +.
Even better do this:
Assuming a total coil voltage of 20Volts;
In the first diagram, starting from top node of the coil, the voltages would be
Top Of coil = 10V
Middle of coil = 0V
Bottom of Coil = -10V
In the second diagram
Top of Coil = -10V
Middle of coil = 0V
Bottom of Coil = 10V
Now, use these voltages and draw the current diagrams; once using diodes and once using conducting wires (or resisters) instead of diodes.
When you use diodes remember that it prevents current from flowing in the reverse direction.
I would be glad to see your corrected diagrams.
10. Sep 24, 2012 #9
You are incorrectly assigning polarity to the transformer output. A.C. input = A.C. output.
11. Sep 24, 2012 #10
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yeah I was going to make the same observation :)
12. Sep 24, 2012 #11
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You don't necessarily need diodes, but you do need some components that have a nonlinear response, i.e. the graph of current against voltage is not a straight line through the origin. For "conductors" (I assume you really mean resistors) the graph is a straight line - that's what Ohm's law says.
The reason why diodes are used far more often than any other nonlinear component is because they come close to having the "ideal" nonlinear behaviour that is required.
13. Sep 24, 2012 #12
Hello VC - I think the issue you are facing is the "+" and "-" symbols used in your diagrams. The top coil is not always Positive (+), it only is when the primary coil or Vi is Positive. When the Vi goes negative all of the polarities in the system reverse.
That is why "+" and "-" symbols on transformers is misleading - and preferably just use a black dot on both the Primary and secondary - indicating their relationship to one another. Not that the coil is always positive.
14. Sep 24, 2012 #13
Oops. That totally slipped out of my mind. Sorry.
I assume you mean the CT voltage polarities? Yeah, I didn't bother changing it because, well to be honest, I have no idea what a center-tap actually is. I'm just assuming that it acts as a ground to complete the circuit. I don't know what the + and - specified above and below it in the diagram really mean.
Ermm.. wouldn't the current through the middle coil then be 0A due to 0V? And
15. Sep 24, 2012 #14
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If one end of a resistor is at 10V and the other is at 0V, won't you expect to get a current flowing? It's PD that is responsible for current flow and not just Potential.
I think, when one has a problem in understanding something that is as tried and tested as a basic rectifier circuit, the temptation to conclude that the circuit is wrong should be resisted. One should ask oneself "what have I misunderstood about this?" and not try to find reasons why one might not be wrong.
16. Sep 24, 2012 #15
Eh, I'm not being presumptuous. I know that the fault is in my understanding and I don't think I've implied otherwise. I'm sorry if you felt that way.
I said earlier that I don't know what the center-tap really is and I am assuming it to be a ground a.k.a a potential of 0V. Starting from that assumption, I think it may not be so wrong to say that you're going to get 0A current.
17. Sep 24, 2012 #16
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Sorry but there have been 'explanations' earlier on in the thread and you don't seem to have taken them on board. Anyway-
It can be at any potential you care to take it. You could attach it to the output of a 2kV transformer if you wanted to. But it's the Potential at the other ends of the connected components that determine the current flow. Wherever it was connected, the other 'ends' of the secondary would be at potentials, respectively 10V above and 10V below (or in antiphase, to be more precise). That (potential difference), as I said before, is what determines the current. If two equal resistors are connected in series between the two ends, then the potential (of course) at their junction would be the same as that of the centre tap (the potential divider situation). No net current will flow into the centre tap when connected via a resistor R. Is this what you were saying? It's certainly why you need to have diodes, which have (approximately) zero and infinite resistance (i.e. unequal resistances), depending on the polarity of the connection so they act like switches so that on alternate cycles, it is the forward conducting diode that lets current flow from the end with the positive PD wrt the centre tap and NOT into the other end, against the 'off' diode.
The arrows in those two diagrams early do not show what's happening very well. The arrow 'into' the reverse biased diode should be zero in length (or at least very short) to show the process whereby the current always flows 'into' the CT.
Last edited: Sep 24, 2012
18. Sep 25, 2012 #17
VC - it still seems that you are looking at this as the "+" of the coil is always positive V relative to the center tap - like a battery (Direct Current =DC) - but it is not, the actual voltage in this case varies from +V to -V; Transformers use Alternating Current (AC) ; as in the Sine Wave on the left of your original diagram. For the first half of the wave the Polarity is positive then for the second half all of the polarities are reversed ( in this simple case)
19. Sep 25, 2012 #18
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To original poster......current flows one direction (from source) during the positive sign of the sin wave.
On the negative side of the sine wave current flows the other direction. (from source)
Without one way diodes you get crappola.
The current must be stopped in one direction to produce a sin wave that just "rides" on the top of the x axis. With the diodes, The load (resistor) only gets current in one direction thru it. This is how direct current is made from AC. The current MUST be stopped in one direction twice per cycle (full wave) or you get nada.
20. Sep 25, 2012 #19
Hi Windadct!
Yes I'm aware that the input is AC and the top coil is not always positive (disregard my drawings. That was an embarrassing attempt. I'll stop being lazy and make another one). What I am saying is that, my poor and fallacious understanding (for which I apologize again) tells me that if I would be using three resistors, one resistor on top, one in the middle (that would also be my output), and the the third on the bottom, the current through the MIDDLE resistor should always be - according to my fallacious understanding - in the same direction.
I have no problem understanding that the current through the top and bottom resistors would indeed be an A.C current, but the circuit geometry of the common center-tap rectifier circuit suggests (only to me, of course) that the resistor in the middle should always be getting a current in one direction only, irrespective of the changing polarities of the source.
I don't know if it is possible for current to flow FROM the center tap TO the right-middle node of the resistor during some particular portion of the full cycle, but if it is, then that's problem solved for me. Now, is it?
I really appreciate all the replies I've got (especially I am Learning), but unfortunately, I haven't been able to quite catch it and I admit that is my problem. The moderators can lock this thread if they want to.
Edit: Attaching a little more accurate drawing of what I am trying to say here. The arrows show the current direction.
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21. Sep 25, 2012 #20
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You are (still) very selective in your assimilation of information about this!. If you read my earlier post you would see that the mid point of the two resistors (the ones replacing the diodes) is at the same potential as the centre tap (assuming the resistors are equal). No current will flow through R in that case because, at all times, the potential difference is zero across it. That arrow you have drawn should have ZERO length in each case.
This is, in fact, a trivial version of the well know Bridge Circuit where no current flows when the ratio of impedances on each side is the same. Look up Wheatstone Bridge.
Last edited: Sep 25, 2012
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Time dilation effect
1. Oct 24, 2012 #1
If someone was to travel from the solar system to Proximi Centauri, I believe that from their point of view time would pass normally and regardless of how fast they were travelling, the speed of light would still be c. As I understand it, as the person travelling approaches c relative to Earth time relative to Earth will pass more slowly. How is it possible though that from the point of view of the person travelling they could reach Proxima Centauri in less than 4.24 years? Wouldn't that require the star to move towards them at speed that relativity doesn't allow.
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3. Oct 24, 2012 #2
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No, not after you allow for length contraction as well.
A good exercise is to try writing down the position and time coordinates of the two events (ship leaves earth; and ship arrives at destination) in the earth reference frame and then using the Lorentz transforms to convert the coordinates to the ship frame.
Departure event:
At t=0 and x=0 in the earth frame, a ship zooms past as us at .5c heading towards Proxima Centauri which is rest relative to us. This is also t'=0 and x'=0 in the ship frame, in which the ship is at rest and Proxima Centauri is approaching the ship at .5c (and the earth is receding behind the ship at the same rate). What is the x' coordinate of Proxima Centauri in the ship frame? That's the distance from earth, in the ship frame.
Arrival event:
At t=8.48 years, x=4.24 light-years in the earth frame the ship zooms past Proxima Centauri (but note that an earth-bound telescope won't see this happen for another 4.24 years, when t=12.72 years). In the ship frame, the x' coordinate of this event is 0. What's the time coordinate in the ship frame? That's the amount of time that it took Proxima Centauri to cover the distance between it and the ship.
Last edited: Oct 24, 2012
4. Oct 24, 2012 #3
Time dilation is not the only relativistic effect. Lengths of bodies traveling at relativistic speeds also contract. So, the spaceship pilot, at rest in the spaceship, observes that the distance between the relativistically moving Earth and Proxima to be contracted. In other words, he does not have to travel the whole 4.24 light-years, but something significantly less.
5. Oct 24, 2012 #4
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No, it just requires that the coordinate system in which the traveler is at rest has a different assignment for how long distances are and that is why he measures the distance to be shorter. It's called length contraction.
Actually, from his rest frame, he's not reaching Proxima Centauri, but rather Proxima Centauri is reaching him.
Relative speeds, that is, the speed that object A measures object B to be traveling with respect to object A and vice versa are always the same in Special Relativity. So the traveler can measure how fast Proxima Centauri is approaching him and based on how long it takes he can determine how far away it was when it started moving toward him.
Last edited: Oct 24, 2012
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Sebastian Seung is a leader in the new field of connectomics, currently the hottest space in neuroscience, which studies, in once-impossible detail, the wiring of the brain.
Why you should listen
In the brain, neurons are connected into a complex network. Sebastian Seung and his lab at MIT are inventing technologies for identifying and describing the connectome, the totality of connections between the brain's neurons -- think of it as the wiring diagram of the brain. We possess our entire genome at birth, but things like memories are not "stored" in the genome; they are acquired through life and accumulated in the brain. Seung's hypothesis is that "we are our connectome," that the connections among neurons is where memories and experiences get stored.
Seung and his collaborators, including Winfried Denk at the Max Planck Institute and Jeff Lichtman at Harvard University, are working on a plan to thin-slice a brain (probably starting with a mouse brain) and trace, from slice to slice, each neural pathway, exposing the wiring diagram of the brain and creating a powerful new way to visualize the workings of the mind. They're not the first to attempt something like this -- Sydney Brenner won a Nobel for mapping all the 7,000 connections in the nervous system of a tiny worm, C. elegans. But that took his team a dozen years, and the worm only had 302 nerve cells. One of Seung's breakthroughs is in using advanced imagining and AI to handle the crushing amount of data that a mouse brain will yield and turn it into richly visual maps that show the passageways of thought and sensation.
What others say
“[Seung and his colleagues] will need to make their technique a million times faster to finally bring larger maps -- like that of a cortical column -- into the realm of reality.” — Emily Singer, Technology Review
Sebastian Seung’s TED talk
More news and ideas from Sebastian Seung
EyeWire’s creative director on how she got her job from an email, how her team is highlighting the beauty of the brain
May 8, 2014
Amy Robinson maxed out her bank account to attend TEDGlobal 2010. While there, she heard Sebastian Seung of MIT give the talk “I am my connectome” and knew she had to talk to him. Two years later, Robinson—the organizer of TEDxHuntsville—saw on Twitter that Seung was launching something new: EyeWire, a game allowing citizen scientists around the […]
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Wednesday, March 21, 2012
The Gopher Gang
The Gopher Gang was an early 20th century New York street gang known for its members including Goo Goo Knox, James "Biff" Ellison, and Owney Madden. Based out of the Irish neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, the Gopher Gang grew to control most of Manhattan with their territory covering Fourth and Forty-Second Street to Seventh and Eleventh Avenue.
Formed from various local street gangs in the 1890s numbering around 500 members into what later became a committee including Marty Brennan, Stumpy Malarkey, and Newburg Gallegher. The committee met semi-regularly at their headquarters known as Battle Row, a saloon owned by Mallet Murphy, to discuss robberies and divide profits from Manhattan bordellos and illegal gambling operations.
Murder of William Lennon
Gallagher became involved in a three-year feud with local bartender William Lennon in 1907, their dispute being over a card game, which resulted in several violent altercations between them. The first incident between the two required Gallagher to have stitches after Lennon had repeatedly slashed his face with a knife. Gallagher later claimed that Lennon had threatened to shoot him on sight and engaged him in several gunfights including an incident in December 1909 when Lennon wounded him in a gunfight between the two.
On May 17, 1910, he and Marty Brennan entered a saloon where Lennon was working. After another argument between the two, Lennon drew a revolver and shot Gallagher in the stomach (two of these bullets were still lodged in his body at the time of his trial). Gallagher and Brennan entered another saloon at Eleventh Avenue and Forty-Fifth Street where, according to Gallagher, they unexpectedly encountered Lennon who was now working there. Upon spotting the two gang members, he swore at them and apparently went for his hip pocket when Gallagher pulled his pistol and fired three shots killing him. He and Brennan left the saloon and were arrested shortly after.
Charged with manslaughter, Gallagher made a full confession taking full responsibility for the killing and claimed that Brennan had taken no part. The two were convicted and given long jail sentences. Gallagher, this being his first criminal offence, was sentenced to serve between 9 and 19 years imprisonment by Judge Foster on November 9, 1910. Despite his efforts, Brennan was also sentenced to 19 years due to a previous prison term in Elmira.
One Lung Curran and decline
In the early 1910s the Gophers were led by One Lung Curran who was notorious for his attacks on lone patrolmen. Although most police rarely patrolled Hell's Kitchen, and only then in large groups, Curran often stole officers' uniforms and, after taking them back to his girlfriend for alterations, would wear the stolen clothes around the neighborhood. This encouraged other gang members to steal uniforms for themselves, becoming a sort of trend among the prominent gang members.
The gang began employing younger apprentice gang members such as the Baby Gophers and other gangs subordinate to the Gophers. These included the Parlor Mob, the Gorillas, and the Rhodes Gang as well as a female gang known as the Lady Gophers. Led by Battle Annie the Battle Row Ladies Social and Athletic Club, as they were officially called, acted as reserve members of several hundred women for the Gophers in territorial disputes against rival gangs and as strikebreakers during the next decade. With the death of One Lung Curran in 1917, the gang declined in power, breaking up after most of the gang leaders were arrested by the end of the year.
Popular culture
The 2002 film Gangs of New York directed by Martin Scorsese provided a lightly fictionalized history of the Civil War-era origin of the competing Irish immigrant crime crews which dominated Five Points. The movie explains the social tradition of enduring, if not actually shielding, Irish gangs in Manhattan's Irish-American neighborhoods.
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Research Reveals Water Temperature Influences Horseshoe Crab Spawning
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New investigate from a University of New Hampshire finds that Atlantic horseshoe crabs in New Hampshire’s Great Bay Estuary time their annual spawning formed on H2O temperature, not lunar cycle, as was some-more ordinarily believed. The investigate provides a first-of-its-kind demeanour during a environmental factors that change horseshoe crab spawning activity in a state and could pave a approach for changes in how monitoring surveys are conducted on a East Coast.
Grouping of horseshoe crabs.Image credit: University of New Hampshire
Grouping of horseshoe crabs.Image credit: University of New Hampshire
“We wanted to settle a baseline for horseshoe crab populations in New Hampshire since it had never been finished before,” explained Helen Cheng ’14, who led a research. “Knowing how a class behaves is critical in handling their populations, so we indispensable to know some-more about horseshoe crab spawning behaviors for effective management.”
A decrease in a horseshoe crab race could impact several fields. In medicine, they play an critical purpose in eye research, surgical sutures, and a member of their splendid blue blood (LAL) is used in a curative industry. American eel and conch fisheries use them for attract and several other class in a ecological food sequence count on them for survival. The refuge of a world’s 4 remaining horseshoe crab class depends on correct government of a spawning habitat, that can be severe due to increasing growth nearby beaches.
Each spring, Atlantic horseshoe crabs yield adult on beaches to parent and lay eggs along a Eastern Seaboard and in N.H.’s Great Bay Estuary,. Little is famous about horseshoe crab populations in a Granite State, though spawning surveys are now conducted in many other states, like adjacent Massachusetts. Rather than collect information for a whole two-month spawning period, many of these surveys take place only during a full and new moons when tides are generally during their many impassioned — a custom that is mostly formed on chronological consult practices from other states.
Win Watson, a highbrow of zoology during UNH and an author on a study, questioned a lunar-based timeframe for surveys and wanted to find out if other environmental factors were during play in causing peaks of spawning activity. Great Bay is an ideal plcae to investigate this subject due to a light changes in H2O heat and salinity from a sea into a estuary. With assistance from volunteers, Cheng collected environmental information and counted a series of spawning horseshoe crabs found on 4 beach areas within a Great Bay Estuary during a spawning deteriorate in dual uninterrupted years. They counted some-more than 5,000 spawning adult horseshoe crabs during that time, and a information suggested that peaks of spawning activity typically coincided with spikes in a bay’s H2O temperature.
“I consider a information is among a best accessible to uncover a impact of H2O heat on horseshoe crab spawning activity,” pronounced Watson. For example, during one of a sampling years, 2012, there was a quite comfortable spring, that caused horseshoe crabs to parent several weeks progressing than other years. “We were tracking some of a crabs regulating telemetry, and as shortly as a waters warmed up, they immediately changed several kilometers to where they routinely parent and began a process,” pronounced Watson.
The investigate also examined a change of other environmental factors including call tallness on horseshoe crab spawning activity. Horseshoe crabs asian themselves to a beach formed on call action. When a waves are too tiny they are incompetent to find their approach to a sandy beach for spawning, and when waves are too large, they equivocate a beaches. The investigate indicated that moderate, one-foot waves, are mostly compared with peaks in spawning activity.
In a future, a researchers remarkable that meridian change could be a cause that impacts a timing of horseshoe crab spawning. “If H2O temperatures comfortable adult progressing than common in a spring, a timing of spawning and egg induce could start progressing as well; this could potentially lead to a cascade of unintended consequences inspiring horseshoe crab populations and other class that count on them,” Watson said.
Cheng remarkable that while conducting daily horseshoe spawning surveys was an strenuous task, it supposing a some-more finish viewpoint on what horseshoe crabs do via their spawning season. Based on their findings, both Cheng and Watson pronounced lunar cycle-based spawning surveys in other states could be blank out on some critical data.
The researchers wish this investigate will be used to rise some-more fit and effective spawning surveys in Great Bay and beyond. Enthusiastic volunteers have been useful to start a consult routine in N.H. and Watson pronounced a mobile app is being grown to support with recording information and stating sightings of horseshoe crabs with tags on them.
Ultimately, Cheng views a horseshoe crab as an envoy of Great Bay. “Horseshoe crabs are a charismatic class and they offer as a good overdo apparatus to learn a open about a brook and a health.”
The research, saved in partial by N.H. Sea Grant, was published in a biography Estuaries and Coasts.
Source: University of New Hampshire |
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Milk Lower Risk Of Breast Cancer
Benefits of milk is no doubt. Almost all of the nutrients found in milk of good quality. Protein and milk fat has a high digestion properties. Vitamin and mineral content of milk is also relatively complete.
Milk can be consumed in various forms. There are fresh or in processed form, such as milk powder or condensed milk. Humans also consume milk from food products containing milk, such as cheese, ice cream, and yogurt.
However, there are still differences of opinion about the consumption of this milk. No group has claimed that the consumption of milk every day is not good for health, especially vascular diseases such as constriction of blood vessels. The argument is, milk increases blood cholesterol levels are a risk factor for heart disease. Second, a positive relationship between average milk production per capita in deaths from heart disease in some countries.
Other groups supporting the role of milk at a reduced risk of various degenerative diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, and cancer. Recent studies in Norway in favor of it.
Hjartäker with colleagues from the Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tromso, Norway, through publication in the International Journal of Cancer, show that consuming three or more glasses of milk a day can reduce the risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women.
Through the study cohort of Norwegian Women and Cancer Study, they examined 48 844 women for six years and two months. Milk consumption was measured with a history of food consumption submit the form to the respondent. During this period, Hjartäker team found 317 cases of breast cancer patients.
It turned out that the consumption of milk since childhood negatively associated with the incidence of breast cancer when they were aged 34-39 years (premenopausal). That means that the consumption of milk since childhood can reduce the risk of breast cancer.
Milk consumption in adulthood also reduces the risk of breast cancer after corrected by hormonal factors, body mass index, physical activity, and alcohol consumption. Women who do not consume milk run the risk of breast cancer 2 times greater than women who consumed 3 cups of milk or milk every day.
1. I don't drink milk and not a woman...Can men get breast cancer??
2. Nice posting
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3. my kids and i drink milk every night before we go to sleep.. thanks for sharing! I'm following you now..
4. Hello nice info about milk!! Keep posting ;)
5. Nice info here, i like your blog, keep share and be the best!
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6. Saya paling suka susu, susu kembar tapi
7. Life without love is like a tree without blossom and fruit.
8. i like milk... thanks for share... keep blogging |
1. Sorrow Noun
An emotion of great sadness associated with loss or bereavement.
He tried to express his sorrow at her loss.
See Answerحوصلہ رکھو سب ٹھیک ہوجائے گا
2. Sorrow Noun
Sadness associated with some wrong done or some disappointment.
He drank to drown his sorrows.
He wrote a note expressing his regret. +
See Answerوہ نامَرد ہے
3. Sorrow Verb
رنجیدہ ہونا
Feel grief.
4. Sorrow Noun
دکھ ہونا
Something that causes great unhappiness.
Her death was a great grief to John.
5. Sorrow Noun
The state of being sad.
She tired of his perpetual sadness.
See Also
Sadness Unhappiness emotions experienced when not in a state of well-being.
Broken Heart devastating sorrow and despair.
Brokenheartedness Grief Heartache Heartbreak intense sorrow caused by loss of a loved one (especially by death).
Mournfulness Ruthfulness Sorrowfulness a state of gloomy sorrow.
Useful Words
Bereavement Mourning state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one.
Emotion any strong feeling; "I respect your emotions".
Departure Exit Expiration Going Loss Passing Release euphemistic expressions for death; "thousands mourned his passing".
Some relatively many but unspecified in number; "they were here for some weeks".
With with; "With whom is he?".
Wrong Wrongfulness that which is contrary to the principles of justice or law; "he feels that you are in the wrong".
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Pradaxa could increase risk of viral infections
Researchers at the University of North Carolina have recently found that the newly approved blood thinner Pradaxa, which blocks a key component of human blood clotting, could increase the risk of some viral infections.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently gave approval to the drug Dabigatran etexilate, known as Pradaxa. The drug inhibits thrombin, which is the body's coagulation activator.
In blocking thrombin, Pradaxa disturbs the protease cascade of molecular events that would naturally happen in coagulation. This has been shown to have an unintended consequence.
"Our findings show that blocking thrombin reduces the innate immune response to viral infection," Nigel Mackman, the John C. Parker distinguished professor of medicine in the division of hematology and director of the UNC McAllister Heart Institute, said. "The use of the new generation of blood thinners might increase the risk and severity of flu and myocarditis."
Viral infections like dengue fever trigger the coagulation system, which has previously been thought to be harmful. This effect, however, helps the body activate immune cell macrophages, which boosts the immune system.
"The results we generated were completely unexpected and in fact our hypothesis was that PAR-1 deficient mice would be protected from viral myocarditis because they would have reduced inflammation," Mackman said. "We are now determining if the traditional long term anticoagulant warfarin has the same effect on viral infection or is this specific to the new blood thinner."
The study was a collaboration between the Mackman group at UNC and Charité - Universitätsmedizin in Berlin, Germany, along with other groups at UNC. |
The goal of treatment is to help the patient live normally for as long as possible. Treatments are designed to kill cancer cells and avoid serious complications related to either the cancer or its treatment. A team of specialists usually works together to treat patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The treatment and management of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma may involve radiation therapy, chemotherapy, medications to help with side effects, and other treatments, such as bone marrow transplant. Therapies may also be used in combination. Chemotherapy is the main treatment. Radiation is rarely used alone. Surgery is very rarely used to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It may be considered if the lymphoma is limited to an organ, such as the thyroid or stomach.
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma typically recurs after the initial treatment. If this happens, the doctor will recommend additional therapies. Maintaining the best possible quality of life becomes the goal. When standard therapies do not provide the desired remission, you may want to discuss with your doctor the possibility of participating in a clinical trial.
Your doctor will recommend a treatment plan for your specific needs. In general, treatment options depend on the stage and classification of the cancer, your symptoms, your age, and whether or not you have other medical conditions.
The doctor may recommend delaying treatment until the disease progresses to the point where symptoms occur. Early treatment does not necessarily improve the odds of survival in patients without symptoms. In some cases, the disease may go into remission without treatment. The doctor will continue to closely monitor you, even if you are not actively treated.
Select a topic below for a thorough discussion of each non-Hodgkin's lymphoma treatment option:
Radiation therapy
Bone marrow transplanation
Biologic therapy
Lifestyle changes
Managing the Side Effects of Cancer and Cancer treatment
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Can We Prevent School Shootings?
05/14/2015 06:03 EDT | Updated 05/14/2016 05:59 EDT
Shutterstock / justasc
The December 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School that claimed the lives of twenty children and six adults shocked the world. The call for greater school safety following this tragedy led to virtually every state legislature in the United States introducing new laws to make schools safer.
Along with laws to improve school security being passed in twenty states, communities across the country have spent millions of dollars beefing up school security. This includes installing metal detectors, electronic door locks, bullet-proof glass, intruder alarms, and security cameras to keep school grounds under continuous surveillance. Considering the cutbacks in public education that are becoming far too common these days, spending money on security measures usually means making sacrifices elsewhere. Whether this means larger classroom sizes, fewer teachers, or less spending on textbooks and other educational materials, the fear of future school shootings is definitely having a dramatic impact on the kind of education children are receiving.
But is this fear actually justified? While every parent needs to worry about the safety of their children, the kind of mass casualty events such as what happened at Sandy Hook are still relatively rare. According to a 2010 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 to 34 school-age children were victims of homicide at school every year from 1992 to 2010. By contrast however, homicides involving children were overwhelmingly more likely to occur outside of school. In the 2009-2010 period alone, 19 school-associated homicides occurred compared to 1,377 homicides outside of school during that same period.
While those involved regular shootings rather than the mass-casualty events that have people so fearful, they are also much less likely to draw real media attention. They also highlight the role that firearms play in these tragedies and, inevitably, the question of gun control arises with the political baggage that comes with it. Proposals to curb school shootings have ranged from a ban on firearm purchases to arming school teachers to prevent further school shootings. These incidents have also promoted a "zero tolerance" atmosphere in many communities in which even bringing a paring knife to school can result in children being expelled, or even arrested, presumably to eliminate the "threat" they pose.
But how prevalent are school shootings really? A new study published in the journal Psychology of Violence examined more than 18,000 homicide incidents from 2005 to 2010. Carried out by Erin K. Nekvasil at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education and her fellow researchers, the study used the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The NIBRS database is used by law enforcement agencies across the United States to collect information on a wide range of criminal offenses, including homicide, and has been an important tool for researchers as well.
According to the NIBRS, there have been 3,145 homicides each year from 2005 to 2010 for a total of 18,873 homicides studied. Of these, 14,475 cases involved a single victim (78 per cent) and 4,398 (22 per cent) involved more than one victim. As for where the homicides occurred, the most common location was at a person's residence (52 per cent) or other public locations such as highways/freeways, parking lots, etc. Only .3 per cent of all homicides and 8 per cent of mass casualty incidents actually occurred at a school during the five years covered in the study. As for weapons used, about 68 per cent of all homicides involved firearms with most homicides involving either acquaintances (46 per cent) or close relatives (38 per cent). Only sixteen per cent of all homicides involved total strangers. Of the school homicides alone, about 39 per cent were committed by adolescents who typically kill only a single person rather than carry out a mass shooting.
What this study showed was that, according to homicide statistics, schools are actually among the safest places in the United States despite the hysteria linked to school shootings. With major cutbacks in education funding, these findings strongly suggest that there is little real need for spending large amounts on improved security measures that likely won't improve school safety. Also, considering that children are far more likely to be killed at home or other places in the community, it would be a better investment to put more money into community policing to respond to complaints of domestic violence and to improve public safety.
Due to the "culture of fear" that often arises over incidents such as Sandy Hook, people frequently develop exaggerated fears that are not justified by the actual facts. As Erin Nekvasil and her co-authors pointed out, killings are far more likely to occur in restaurants than in schools though there doesn't appear to be any concern about "restaurant violence" or a call to arm food servers.
While the NIBRS database is limited with many states and police agencies not participating, the overall trend seems clear enough. Though schools often rely on expensive security procedures and "zero tolerance" policies that may not do any good, there may be more effective alternatives. These include referring high-risk students to mental health professionals for threat assessments to evaluate actual risk. Since school shooters almost always tell others about their plans for violence or make extensive preparations that can be reported by others, the FBI and Secret Service have recommended the use of formal threat assessment guidelines in K-12 schools. Programs looking at family members at risk for violence may be needed as well, along with crisis intervention teams to defuse high-risk situations.
Then again, there is also the strong link between firearms and mass-casualty incidents such as school shootings. While gun control remains a politically-charged issue in the United States, a ban on firearm sales to high-risk individuals, including people suspected of violence or who have serious mental health problems is definitely needed.
Overall, there is no one solution that can prevent school shootings, the current fear that often surrounds issues involving school safety likely does more harm than good. Despite well-publicized incidents such as Columbine and Sandy Hook, the risk of children being killed in a school shooting remains low. Staying aware of people making threats or who might pose a serious risk of violence, including domestic violence in the home, can keep it that way.
Victims Of The Newtown School Shooting |
Prehistoric fossil found by young hikers - News, Weather and Sports for Lincoln, NE;
Prehistoric fossil found by young hikers
Posted By: Reid Kilmer
A group of young hikers discovered a fossil from thousands of years ago. They’re called the Bobcat explorers of the Wilderness Park Nature Camp.
All of them are eager hikers who like discovering outdoor treasures, but this week brought them a surprise.
The Bobcats say they were on a normal hike along the creek when all of a sudden they found something out of the ordinary.
Camp explorer, Matthew Bradly said, "I got some information from her that she thought it was a mammoth tooth but it was a baby one."
Jr. Counselor, Shannon Sullivan said, "We were pretty shocked, we always find a lot of cow and bison and deer bones but never anything like this."
The mammoth tooth was lying next to salt creek when the hikers stumbled upon it. Once camp counselors realized what they found, they took it to the state's museum Morrill Hall to find out more.
What officials told them was the tooth could be anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years old.
They say judging by it's size it belonged to an eight or nine year old mammoth about the size of an Indian elephant.
George Corner, the Collection Manager for the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Nebraska’s State Museum said, "It’s uncommon to find them because most of our sediments are covered in sod so you have to be in the right place at the right time to find one."
This group of explorers did end up being in the right place at the right time.
Camp Explorer, Piper Dians said, "I think it's pretty cool how it got into the creek and we found it, but I’m not sure how it got there. It was really cool how our whole group found it."
The camp is holding onto the tooth for safe keeping but if you happen to find any fossils, Morrill Hall says they will gladly help you identify it.
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Lighting System Design: Choosing Lighting Systems and Bulbs for Your Aquarium
Veterinary & Aquatic Services Department, Drs. Foster & Smith
When designing a lighting system for any aquarium, we are faced with a multitude of products to choose from. This is due, in part, to the many advancements that have been made in the lighting industry over the past decade. It is important to know the spectrum and intensity of light that is required by the organisms that will be kept in the aquarium prior to designing the lighting system. The various types of lighting systems also differ in price, operating costs, and the amount of heat produced by the bulbs and ballasts. This article will explain the various lighting systems that are offered on the market and their characteristics. A table at the end of the article summarizes this information.
The most common lighting systems available for aquarium use include:
• Incandescent
• Fluorescent
• Standard fluorescent
• HO and VHO fluorescent
• Power compact fluorescent
• Metal halide
• HQI
It is important to remember that the bulbs and ballasts associated with these systems are specific to those systems and cannot be interchanged.
Incandescent bulbs for aquariumsIncandescent bulbs are the typical lights used in the home for general use. An incandescent light consists of a glass bulb with a filament within it. When electricity is passed through the filament, it causes the filament to heat up and glow, producing light. Incandescent lights are very inexpensive, feature long lamp life, and come in a variety of colors. However, their uses in the aquarium hobby are limited due to both the low spectrum of light and the amount of heat produced. Due to these factors, incandescent bulbs are only offered in low wattages, making them useful only on small, fish-only aquariums, which do not require a wide light spectrum or intensity.
Lighting systems requiring ballasts
IceCap ballast for aquariumsOther than incandescent, all other aquarium lighting systems require ballasts that have been designed for that specific system. A ballast provides the correct starting voltage and maintains the correct current to the bulb. There are two different types of ballasts available: magnetic and electronic. Electronic ballasts are relatively new to the industry and feature a smaller, cooler running design. Not only do the electronic ballasts produce less heat, they are also more energy efficient and feature a longer bulb life. For example, bulbs used for a planted or reef aquarium with a magnetic ballast system should be replaced after 6 months of operation. However, with an electronic ballast, these same bulbs can be kept in operation for 18 to 24 months without significant losses in spectrum or intensity. Although electronic ballasts are more expensive initially, the energy savings and lower bulb replacement costs are significant over the life of the system.
Types of fluorescent lighting: There are many different types of fluorescent systems available on the market today, making them the most popular type of lighting system. The different types of fluorescent systems include; standard, HO (High Output) and VHO (Very High Output), and power compact. Fluorescent bulbs come in many different sizes, wattages, and spectrum ranges, which make them one of the most versatile systems. All of these systems require a ballast that is specific to that system. The bulbs cannot be interchanged between systems.
A fluorescent light consists of a glass tube filled with gas. Electricity is passed through the tube causing the gasses within the tube to heat to the point to where they glow, producing light. Different spectrums of light are achieved by coating the inside of the tube with different blends of phosphors. As the light passes through the coating, the phosphors produce colors based on their chemical makeup. Over time, however, the gas and coating within the bulb will degrade with use, changing both the intensity and spectrum of the light produced by the bulb. It is important that these bulbs are changed on a regular basis.
Variety of standard fluorescent daylight and actinic bulbs for aquariumsStandard fluorescent: A standard fluorescent system includes a ballast that is designed to operate bulbs in the size range from 18" to 72" in length. Along with the different lengths, bulbs are also offered in different diameters. The diameter is represented by the bulb's T rating. The T rating is based on a scale of 1/8 inch. Therefore, a bulb with a T rating of 8 has a 1" diameter. The most common diameters for standard fluorescent bulbs are a T-8 and T-12. Most fixtures will accept either of the two, but the wattages are different. For two bulbs of the same length, the one smaller in diameter will have a lower wattage. For example, a 48" T-12 bulb produces 40 watts, whereas a 48" T-8 bulb only produces 32 watts. Also, fluorescents offer a wide variety of spectrums to choose from. These spectrums range from the fish-only beauty lights, to specialty plant bulbs, all of the way up the Kelvin scale to the actinic bulbs for saltwater aquariums.
The initial cost of standard fluorescents are in the low to medium price range depending on the type of ballast included. The commonly available sizes for these systems range from 18" to 48" with wattages from 15 to 40 watts. The operating costs for these systems are low in comparison to other types of lighting. Bulb replacement is recommended on these systems every 6 to 18 months, again depending on the type of ballast that is used. Another advantage to these systems is the lower amount of heat produced. Therefore, an aquarium that is illuminated with standard fluorescents typically does not require a water chiller or a hood with cooling fans. Standard fluorescent systems are a good choice for both freshwater and saltwater fish-only aquariums. Multiple-bulb systems can also be used for aquariums housing only those live plants and corals that require low light levels.
Hamilton Magnetic Super Power VHO system for aquariums
HO and VHO fluorescent: High Output (HO) and Very High Output (VHO) fluorescents are similar in design to the standard fluorescent, but offer higher light output in the same size bulb. They require a different ballast and end caps than are used with the standard fluorescent systems. The bulbs for HO and VHO cannot be used with a standard fluorescent system. With the advent of VHO bulbs, which produce more light per watt, HO bulbs are not commonly used.
These systems fall into the medium price range and will vary depending on whether the system includes a magnetic or electronic ballast. These bulbs are available from 24" to 72" long, with various T ratings, and with wattages ranging from 75 to 160 watts. Because of the wattage difference, these systems will use more electricity and are more expensive to operate than the standard fluorescents. Bulbs should be replaced every 4 to 6 months with a magnetic ballast, and every 12 to 24 months with an electronic ballast.
The heat generated by the HO and VHO bulbs needs to be addressed prior to the installation. At the very least, ventilation fans should be incorporated into the lighting hood. Otherwise, depending on room temperature, a water chiller should be included in the budget for the installation.
The HO and VHO systems are typically used for saltwater reef aquariums. These systems are also used for taller aquariums (24" or more) that require the extra wattage to illuminate the bottom of the aquarium. The spectrum available for these systems is typically in the higher Kelvin range, making them unsuitable for freshwater planted aquariums unless supplemental lighting is incorporated to provide the correct spectrum.
Power compact fluorescent: Power compact fluorescent systems operate with the same principles as the other types of fluorescent systems. Their appearance is different when compared to other systems. Instead of using one glass bulb, power compacts incorporate bulbs that have a twin tube design. When looking at the wattage ratings on these bulbs, the rating includes both tubes in the total output of the bulb.
Power compact fluorescent systems fall into the medium price range and are modest on energy consumption. They range from 6" to 34" in length with intensities of 9 to 96 watts. There are two commonly available designs: square pin and straight pin socket bases. These bulbs require the sockets that have been designed for the pin layout of the specific bulb type and cannot be interchanged. Because they are operated by an electronic ballast, the average life of these bulbs is 14 to 24 months, depending on the number of hours per day that they are used.
Like the other high-powered fluorescent systems, the power compacts produce an amount of heat that is proportional with the number of watts of the system. When multiple bulbs are used, a cooling fan should ideally be incorporated into the lighting hood to remove any excess heat. A water chiller may be needed when illuminating an aquarium with approximately 4 watts per gallon or more depending on room temperature.
Power compact fluorescents are an excellent choice for any type of aquarium. They are available in a wide range of spectrums, ranging from the low Kelvin rated bulbs for freshwater planted aquariums up to the blue spectrum needed for saltwater reef aquariums. Because of the low operating cost and the longevity of the bulbs, these systems are a good choice for most aquariums.
Reef Sun metal halide system for aquariumsMetal halide: Metal halide bulbs are similar to incandescent bulbs in appearance, but offer higher intensities and wattages. Metal halides also offer spectrum ranges that have been designed for the aquarium industry. A metal halide light consists of a glass bulb with a series of wires connected to another glass bulb within it. When electricity passes through this interior glass bulb, it causes the gas to produce light. The base of the bulb is threaded like an incandescent lamp, but requires a special socket, called a mogul, that is specific to that system. The ballast required to operate this system is typically located in the cabinet below the aquarium, where the heat it produces will not be added to the aquarium.
There is a wide range of bulbs available for the metal halide systems with spectrums ranging from 4000K up to 20,000K, and intensities ranging from 175 watts up to 1000 watts. The metal halide bulbs are expensive; the higher the wattage of the system, the more expensive the bulbs. Bulb prices range from $60 to $120 each for a 175-watt system. Along with the increase in price for bulbs, the higher wattage systems require an increased amount of electricity needed to operate the system.
Metal halide lighting systems are in the high price range for both initial and operating costs. Initial cost will vary depending on the type of ballast and bulb that is included with the system. Magnetic and electronic ballasts are available for these systems.
The higher cost of operating a metal halide system is a result of power usage and bulb replacement costs. Magnetic ballasts for a 175-watt system draw 1.8 amps of power, and electronic ballasts draw 1.47 amps. The electrical cost of operating a metal halide system with a magnetic ballast for 10 hours per day, at an average of $.08 per Kilowatt, is approximately $4.75 per month. The same system with an electronic ballast operating for the same amount of time will cost approximately $3.88 per month. The average life of a metal halide bulb is between 6 and 18 months depending on the type of ballast and the number of hours that the bulb is used per day.
Even though metal halide systems are expensive, they are actually very efficient. Watt for watt, they produce more light than other systems. But because they are used to produce so much light, they do have high energy costs. Trying to produce that much light using other systems would require far too many bulbs or, in reality, be impossible.
The bulbs of a metal halide system produce a large amount of heat that will both warm the air within the lighting hood as well as warm the aquarium water through its radiant heat. Circulation fans are a must with these systems in order to remove the hot air from the lighting hood. Also, a water chiller is typically needed, unless the aquarium water is purposefully being maintained at a high temperature. Raising the lighting system off of the top of the aquarium by at least 8" can reduce the amount of heat that is transferred to the water. This will allow greater air circulation and will reduce the amount of radiant heat added to the water.
In addition to heat, there are other drawbacks associated with metal halide systems. When in operation, these bulbs become very hot to the touch. The bulb could potentially explode if it is splashed with water while in operation. Furthermore, these bulbs emit some harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Either glass tops should be used to cover the aquarium, or the lighting system needs to be covered by glass. The glass will eliminate both the chance of the bulb being splashed and will reduce the amount of UV rays that enter the water.
Metal halides are different than the other lighting sources mentioned thus far. They are an intense light source coming from a small area that produces an effect that is referred to as glitter lines. Glitter lines are light waves that have been intensified by the movement of the surface of the water. If looking at a pool of water in the sunshine, you will notice light waves dancing on the bottom of the pool as the surface water of the pool moves. These intensified light rays not only produce an attractive effect on the aquarium, but have also been speculated to provide benefits for photosynthesis within corals.
A metal halide system is useful for any aquarium setup that demands high light intensities. It is useful for very tall, fish-only aquariums where the light intensity is needed to illuminate the entire aquarium. This type of lighting is also ideal for freshwater planted and saltwater reef aquariums.
German HQI bulb for aquariumsHQI: HQI systems are relatively new to the hobby and offer many of the same features as the metal halides, but differ in design. The bulb is much smaller than the halides and is double ended. Many of the ballasts for the metal halides can also be used for HQIs. The HQI bulbs, however, require a system-specific socket. There is less of a variety of spectrums and wattages to choose from compared to the metal halides. HQIs are commonly offered in 150 watt and 250-watt systems with spectrums of 10,000K and 20,000K. Because of this, these systems are used mostly on saltwater reef aquariums.
Along with the many advancements that have been made in the lighting industry over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in our knowledge and understanding of the requirements of photosynthetic organisms. These two key factors have given us the ability to not only sustain many of these organisms in an aquarium setting, but also to raise and propagate them in an environment that is becoming closer to the conditions that occur in nature. When choosing a lighting system, it is important to design that system around the requirements of the organisms that are to be maintained.
Benefits Limita-
7-25 2-4 months Varies with color of bulb None Low Low High Inexpen-
sive; multiple colors
Narrow spectrum; lower light intensity; high amount of heat Small fish only
Standard Fluor-
15-40 6-18 months depending upon ballast 3000-20k and actinic Electronic Low-
Low Low Wide range of colors, sizes; aesthetic; efficient; cool; inexpen-
Not ideally suited for photo-
synthetic plants or invertebrates
Mini or micro reef with low light corals and plants; fish only; use actinic for dawn-
dusk with metal halides
VHO 75-165 12-24 with electronic ballast; 4-6 months with magnetic ballast 10k and actinic Electronic Medium Medium Medium Large selection of sizes; longer bulb life Need fan and possibly chiller Reef less than 24" deep; use actinic for dawn-
dusk with metal halides
Power Compact 9-96 14-24 months 5-10k and actinic Electronic Medium Low-
Medium Longevity; high intensity; wide spectrum range; compact Need fan and possibly chiller Reef less than 24" deep; freshwater planted; use actinic for dawn-
dusk with metal halides
Metal Halide 70-1000 6-18; high temp 9 months, daylight spectrum 12 months 5-20k Electronic - specific to bulb type High High High Highest light output per watt; glitter lines provide aesthetics; large selection Bulbs may explode if exposed to water; produce UV rays requiring glass aquarium top; require fan and chiller Freshwater planted; saltwater reef
HQI 150-400 6-18; high temp 9 months, daylight spectrum 12 months 10-20k Electronic - specific to bulb type High High Medium-
Highest intensity with less heat than regular metal halides Bulbs may explode if exposed to water; produce UV rays requiring filter; require fan and chiller Saltwater reef
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Explain the Theory of Natural Law
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Explain the theory of Natural law (25 marks)
The theory of natural law originates from Aristotle’s idea of goodness as fitness for purpose and stoic’s concept of a universal law of reason which is in agreement with nature. What we now call human nature. This point is then furthered by Aquinas who agrees with the argument but furthers it by linking it with his Christian belief by saying following this law is equivalent to following the command of God as human nature is in us inbuilt into us from when God created us. Aristotle believed that every object has a specific purpose and function and that its supreme good is to fulfil that purpose. This includes humans, Aristotle believes that humans also have a purpose and function so when it fulfils it then it reaches supreme good like other objects. He believes that the supreme good for humans is to reach eudaimonia which is to live a good life to help you flourish. He saw this as the final goal is to flourish so all the actions they do is to help them reach this in the end. This is where natural Law comes in. Aquinas took this belief and linking it with his religious belief he came to the conclusion that as human’s goal is to flourish God gave us a rational nature when he created us which would help us reach this. He gives us a universal and unchangeable law on how to live so we are able to reach supreme good, to reach perfection. However he didn’t believe that it was possible for us to reach this is this life; we begin now and continue into the next life. He believes our natural law and divine law are equal in importance as natural law is the law God built into us when he created us and divine law is the law we read in the bible where we can learn further laws God teaches to help us flourish. He believes these both derive from Eternal Law, the law in which God created the universe and everything within. Aquinas focused on the fact that as humans goal is to reach perfection their actions would...
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Ink and Toner differences
The most apparent difference that separates Ink and Toner cartridges is the equipment that each are respectively used in. While Ink is typically used in Inkjet printers, toner has a wide variety of other uses besides printing, including copiers. However, toner is most commonly used in laser printers, which are seen as a luxury due to their speed and printing quality.Another big difference between Ink cartridges and Toner cartridges are the materials that each are made of. Toner was originally just carbon powder, but when industry demand called for higher quality, more smudge resistant materials it was combined with dye and polymers were added to increase production value. Ink, however, has remained with tried and true ink liquid, the same that has been used before printers were ever even thought of.
For a moment, i’d like to discuss exactly what toner is, because there tends to be a lot of confusion in this specific area. Toner is taken from a base, carbon powder that is then mixed with polymers and dye depending on what it will be used for. The highest quality toner powder is incredibly minuscule and fine, while lower quality toner will typically have granules in it, or “pebbles” as they are called in the industry. The thing about these “pebbles” are that they typically cause blotched on the paper when they are used, which can result in a messy looking document. When shopping, this is an important thing to keep in mind. Color toner is mixed with a pigment, usually organic dyes, and a poly binder. The most commonly used binders are polyester and styrene acrylate. The main use of the binder is to hold the color in place when producing the final image. It also serves to provide a shiny, professional looking gloss to the image, which is one of the most common appeals of a toner cartridge rather than an inkjet.
But what about ink cartridges? The constant industry demand for faster and higher output printing is what brought about the original ink cartridges. In the early 80′s the first ink printer was placed on the market. People were ecstatic about not having to stop and refill typewriters and dot matrix printers, and they didn’t have to manually refill toner cartridges, which was typically a messy and dangerous operation. Soon, in the late 90s, they made an incredibly big splash in the household printing market, and still control the field because of their inexpensiveness compared to laser printers.
Determining which is right for you, however, depends on a variety of variables. If you’re looking for increased picture output and overall picture clearness, you’re probably going to want to invest in a printer that accepts toner cartridges. If you’re a home user that’s just looking for a barebones system that’s simple and cost effective, you’re going to want to use an inkjet printer.
To help you make your decision, i’m going to list the cost effectiveness factors to help you decide which is more financially viable for a person in each listed situation. Lets start with toner. A typical toner cartridge costs anywhere from 50-60 dollars. The page yield for each cartridge is 2,000-3,000 pages, which comes around to 2-2.5 cents per page. However, a typical inkjet cartridge is cheaper, about $20-$30 per cartridge. However, there is a substantial reduction in page yield, only 400-500 pages. Believe it or not, this comes out to 4-6 cents for page, making it more expensive than a toner printer in the long run!
In conclusion, there’s plenty of differences between inkjet and toner cartridges. Depending on your situation, both can be useful and utilized in a variety of different circumstances. I hope that by reading your article, you are more informed on the differences and will more easily make a decision on which one you want to purchase. |
Everybody in this world dreams of the future. Little girls dream of growing up and becoming a princesses, boys dream of becoming astronauts and flying to the moon. Many people, as they get older stop dreaming as big, and instead start dreaming things that seem a little more realistic. For example, things such as: getting through college and becoming a doctor, or a scientist, and maybe some keep dreaming of being astronauts. These are the dreams that children nowadays have.
But back around 1860, young Booker T. Washington was dreaming of something I’m almost 100% sure , that every child in the United States takes for granted. He was dreaming of going top school! These days a child try’s to find ways to get out of school. In the United States we go to school whether we want to or not. In the 1860’s it was a privilege to go to school; it was even more of a privilege to be black and go to school. In 1865 the war between the states was ended and the slaves were set free. Through even then, young Booker didn’t get much of an education. he worked at the mine and went to school when he could. Washington eventually got to go to Hampton Institute and got a proper education. Though unlike many of us these days that achieve our goals, he didn’t stop dreaming. Instead he said MORE!!!! “I want to learn more!!” “What can I achieve??!!” These days we just say “I need to find a job so I can settle down and start putting money in my retirement fund.” I’m not saying putting money in your retirement fund is bad; I’m saying it’s bad to immediately start looking for the end when you are a 25 year old college graduate. Washington kept dreaming. He kept thinking. “What can I achieve?” “What can I do to better the image whites have of blacks?”
When he got the job at Tuskegee he put his everything into it. He spent literally everything he had into that school. And as payback to his labors, the school prospered, thrived you might say. It is still active today; and it is a good school. And all because of one man’s blood, sweat, and tears.
Instead of setting into a job where you hope to slowly climb up the ladder; I say you should keep dreaming. When you go to college, if you go to college, don’t just go because it’s cool. Go because you know what you want to study and pursue it with a passion. Keep dreaming of what you could become.
So in answer to your question “Is Washington’s view of the future also my view of the future?” Kind of. Washington’s view was of the human race being better; becoming more. and that’s what we need to do. |
Number Line
UDL 3.3 UDL 5.3
A number line is visual line where every point along the line represents a real number. A number line can start or end with any number, but is assumed to extend towards infinity in either direction. As one moves along the number line from left to right, the values of the numbers increase or decrease. Any number that is to the right of zero is a positive number and any number to the left of zero is a negative number. Students can use number lines to understand math concepts such as adding and subtracting, positive and negative integers, fractions, greater than, less than, etc. Number lines can also be used for understanding early number sense such as counting and comparing whole numbers.
Ready-to-Use Resources
Fraction Line Drag Race
Engaging and differentiated classroom activity that allows students to apply their understanding of partitioning fraction lines and placing fractions on the line by modeling a drag race. Students first select 3 different cars with different "speeds" (unit fractions). Then they partition and label each car's drag strip (number line) based on the unit fraction of the car. They play the game by rolling a die and advancing each car forward. A provided data sheet has them record each cars position on the fraction line after each roll. Differentiation resources are included such as pre-labeled number lines and video hook to build engagement and background knowledge.
Grade 3 · Math · 13 pages
Reference Tool
Blank Number Line
Blank number line that can be customized according to specific content or used for student practice.
Grade K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 · Math · 1 pages
Reference Tool
Decimal Number Lines
Decimal number lines that can be printed for classroom use. Number lines can be used to compare and order decimals.
Grade 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 · Math · 1 pages
Reference Tool
Fractions Number Lines
Fraction number lines that can be printed for classroom use. Number lines can be used to compare and order fractions.
Grade 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 · Math · 1 pages
Reference Tool
Positive and Negative Integers Number Lines
A set of printable number lines displaying positive and negative integers. Number lines can be used to support students in problem solving and when ordering integers.
Grade 6, 7, 8 · Math · 2 pages
Reference Tool
Whole Numbers: Number Lines
A set of printable number lines that are ready for classroom use. Includes number lines with whole numbers ranging from 0-100 and 0-20.
Grade K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 · Math · 3 pages
Implementation Tips
Sometimes manipulatives such as a small car, dinosaur figure or game pieces can be moved along the number line as the student is learning to solve mathematical problems. This helps some students learn positive and negative directions as well as the concepts of addition and subtraction.
Number lines can be made readily available for students to use or refer to (e.g. at the top of a mathematical worksheet, in a laminated number line in math binder or posted on the wall).
Color-coding can be useful when using number lines for teaching specific concepts. For example, all positive integers can be labeled in black and all negative integers in red.
Adding & Subtracting Integers
1. Start with an example 5 + 8 = ___. 2. Student locates the number 5 on the number line 3. Starting from the number 5, student counts 8 units to the right (positive direction) 4. Student lands on the number 13 thus finding the solution for 5 + 8 = 13 5. When working on subtraction problems, students learn the concept of taking away or moving in the negative direction (left) along the number line in order to subtract.
A number line can be used when students are learning about fractions. Large ticks can represent whole numbers and equally-spaced smaller ticks can represent parts of the whole numbers (e.g. 1/4, 1/10, etc). Students can learn how to find the fraction on the number line (e.g. 5/4 or 1 ¼) as well as determine what the points on the number line represent (e.g. the point that is equidistant between 0 and 1 is ½).
Comparing Values of Numbers
When comparing two numbers, students can refer to the number line to determine whether a number is greater than or less than another number. Using a number line is also useful when comparing positive and negative numbers. |
Prompt: Blog post on Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Image credit: Brett Davies
What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true? What are stories and where do they come from? How do stories reflect on and respond to the world? How does the way that they are told change the story? Change its value? What role do naming, articulating, embellishing, stirring up, digesting, juggling, and the many other verbs for storytelling play in how people take in and respond to the world?
Reflect on these questions as you read chapters 6-9 of Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Choose a short passage, type it into your comment, and then write a 200-250 word close reading and reflection on how the way that the passage is written (the imagery, tone, allusions, metaphors, sentence length, word choice, punctuation, etc) contributes to your interpretation of the novel’s style and themes. Post your comment by 11:59 on Sunday 6/29 and come to class prepared to respond to two of your classmates’ comments.
14 thoughts on “Prompt: Blog post on Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1. It occurred to Haroun that Blabbermouth’s juggling reminded him of the greatest performances given by his father, Rashid Khalifa, the Shah of Blah. ‘I always thought storytelling was like juggling,’ he finally found the voice to say. ‘You keep a lot of different tales in the air, and juggle them up and down, and if you’re good you don’t drop any. So maybe juggling is a kind of storytelling, too.’
In the story, Rushdie compares storytelling to juggling. I think this is a valid comparison as in storytelling, especially if it is an intricate one, the teller must keep all the story lines straight and with juggling the juggler must keep tract of all the balls. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories not only is this seen in what Haroun says about his father but in the story itself. The fact that there are parallels in characters between the real world and Kahani, such as the bus driver Butt and the bird Butt and Mr. Sengupta and Khattam-shud, shows a type of juggling. Also the existence of two worlds existing and interacting with each other is exemplary of this. “Juggling” in a story creates a more interesting and interactive story. I think it also resembles what happens in real life and better reflects the world. There is always more than one side to a story and everyday we are interacting with various people. If someone wanted to tell the whole, true story of something that happened more than just their point of view would need to be included if it involved other people. This helps shape my view of the novel’s style as it possibly suggests to the reader what Rushdie thinks of storytelling.
2. “What a whirring of whirrers and stirring of stirrers, what ranks of lifters and banks of sifters, what a hummering of squeezers and thrumming of freezers was there!” (159).
In this passage, the “Poison Blenders” machines are being described after Haroun and Iff are captured. Khattam-Shud leads them down the Dark Ship and Haroun and Iff are amazed by the machinery Far Too Complicated to Describe. In this passage, Salman Rushdie writes in a playful tone, using rhymes and alliterations to create a sense of childish wonder in what Haround was seeing. The passage is written in a light, non-serious tone, although it describes the “poison blenders” that are corrupting the fresh story water. The story-water and the corruption of the story water may be an allusion to worldly issues, such as violations of free speech or corruption in politics. This contributes to the style Rushdie uses in writing this novel. Rushdie uses a fairy tale-like tone that makes readers feel as if they are being told a children’s story through light and fun poetic elements, but at the same time, pointing out serious issues that we may be facing in the real world.
3. The first paragraph on page 113. “Here’s another Princess Rescue Story I’m getting mixed up in…”
Rushdie starts this chapter off by bringing up another story in which Haroun is getting mixed up in. He uses the stories as a way to keep the readers loose throughout. After writing ‘The Satanic Verses’, I feel as if he had a lot of fear in him. He had the fear of people coming at him again so he decided to make a book which is not as offensive and imaginative. His use of commas to insert a phrase is used quite often throughout his book. Everyone uses it when they write, but I feel as if he uses it more than others. By using this, instead of parenthesis, it makes it easier to get across more information in his stories. This also makes me re read the passage another time at first, but after a while I got used to it and it does make me feel more engaged in the reading. I feel more engaged because it is like a curveball to me. The use of the commas is helpful in ways and it is used repetitively throughout his chapters.
4. “Haroun watched the Pages jostling and arguing and shaking their fists in the air and tripping each other up, just to be awkward, and remarked: ‘It doesn’t seem like a very disciplined army to me.’ ‘You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,’ snapped Blabbermouth, after which (evidently a little put out) she announced she couldn’t wait for Haroun any longer,”(114)
In this passage Haroun is observing an army and Blabbermouth is telling him to not judge a book by its cover. This is one example of how Rushdie plays with language. The phrase ‘You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover’ is a play on words. It is also used creatively because the army is literally made out of pages and chapters like books. Another thing that I noticed from the reading is that Rushdie uses very playful language that we do not always understand. I think one of Rushdies intentions is to show readers how a story can be interpreted a million ways regardless of the writer’s intentions. Haroun is also starting to believe and see the necessity of story telling and how storytelling was his father’s life, and without it he doesn’t know what to do. I think this leads to how a persons stories is also their identities and that is why is necessary.
5. “And the point has come at which it’s no longer possible to tell which is Khattam-Shud’s Shadow and which his substantial Self– because he has done what no other Chupwala has ever dreamt of– that is, he has separated himself from his Shadow!” (133)
Rushdie’s fanciful novel at this point is increasingly urgent and although it retains its whimsical nature, it is as serious by plot development as any real story. The quote above is used to describe Khattam-Shud’s achievement as understood by the Shadow Warrrior and is delivered in two parts for dramatic effect. The main focus of the sentence concerns itself with Khattam-Shud’s separation of body and shadow and the interjection in between exclaims that it was something not even Chupwalas could have imagined. The dramatic effect is achieved through the use of dashes to separate the two parts of the sentence. Therefor the sandwiched exclamation from the point of view of the Chupwalas is given a sense of importance necessary to warrant insertion in the middle of the sentence. The exclamation point at the end ties in the two parts neatly and forcefully as it finishes drawing a concept of Khattam-Shud in the reader’s imagination. Also I would like to parallel this with the dangers of literal readings of fiction which can separate its underlying meaning with its literal self and severely distort its value often times in a negative effect. Supporters of censorship and book burning have tendencies toward behavior such as this and as the novel will reveal, that it usually has negative consequences.
6. “In the old days the Cultmaster, Khattam-Shud, preached hatred only towards stories and fancies and dreams; but now he has become more severe, and opposes Speech for any reason at all. In Chup City the schools and law-courts and theatres are all closed now, unable to operate because of the Silence Laws.” (Rushdie 101)
In this passage Rashid is discussing the history of Khattam-Shud to the royal court as well as Haroun and the Walrus. The discussion of Khattam-Shud’s history alone clearly displays some undertones of a discussion on sensorship as can be seen through Khattam-Shud’s hatred of stories. But this passage also displays Rushdie’s sense that censorship is growing in power as can be seen through the examples of “schools and Law-courts and theatres” all being shut down thanks to this one man’s hatred for one aspect of life. Throughout the passage Rushdie utilizes very real world things, such as courts and schools in order to create some sort of realistic attributes to an otherwise fanciful world. Examples like these also allow for Rushdie to critique the censorship laws in which he was forced to deal with after writing The Satanic Verses, without literally writing an entire book based literally on a rebuttal against these censorship laws. Rushdie’s contrast between the land of free-speech that is Gup, and the land in which censorship and silence has been able to run rampant and control everything, Chup, also displays Rushdie’s arguments against censoring any kind of free-speech due to the fact it causes for stories to die and not be able to grow and evolve as is seen through the depiction of the Sea of Stories where while it once was thriving and blue, is slowly starting to lose its color and power with the influence of the censoring powers of Khattam-Shud.
7. While reading chapters six through nine, one of the passages that caught my eye was on page one-hundred thirteen. “Haroun jumped out of bed and ran to the window. Down below him in the Garden was a great commotion, or rustling, of Pages. Hundreds upon hundreds of extremely thin persons in rectangular uniforms that did, in fact, rustle exactly like paper”. Here, Rushdie is using some metaphorical descriptive language. He is creating actual creatures that resemble pages of a book, but who take on the role of a medieval page, or servant to a knight or lord. This helps transform the story into more than just a fantasy tale. It gives it intelligence beyond mere wordplay. It makes the story a whole lot more fun to read, along with the distinctive dialogues that each of the unique characters possess. The water genies habit of using three adjectives at a time; Butt the Hoopoe’s stuttering at the start of a sentence. Stories serve two main purposes; to teach a lesson, as in fables or old religious legends. The other purpose is entertainment, which comprises pretty much every genre of story. But with Haroun and the Sea of Stories, the author has successfully transformed a potentially light and youthful adventure tale into a story adults can enjoy. Passages like this set the tone for the voice of the author, and form the framework for the literary style.
8. “… a shadow very often has a stronger personality than the Person, of Self, or Substance to whom or to which it is joined! So often the Shadow leads, and it is the Person or Self or Substance that follows. And of course there can be quarrels between the Shadow and the Substance or Self or Person; they can pull in opposite directions -” (132)
In this excerpt, Mudra the shadow warrior is explaining to Haroun and his party about the people of the Land of Chup. In the Land of Chup, the shadows are considered to be equal to the people and sometimes they can be very different from the person to whom they are joined to. In this passage Rushdie plays with capitalization and repetition when he writes about the two parts of the shadow and self. He capitalizes the words person, self, and substance, making it a proper noun. He also uses repetition, using the word “S”, to classify the words in one group, and this emphasizes the distinction of the person and the shadow. Rushdie’s novel talks about Haroun and his experience between two worlds, reality and the fantasy world of stories. It seems he is stressing the coexistence of the conscious self and also the unconscious self of a person. Sometimes the thoughts that we have in the unconscious parts of our minds can influence the decisions made by the conscious self and maybe even creating conflicting thoughts within oneself. In everyday life, people may face many problems and might find relief in the unconscious “story world”. As if to further emphasize his point on the importance of stories, Rushdie plays with the repetition of the same words in each sentence of this passage.
9. “Goopy and Bagha, uttering piteous whimpering noises, confessed that they couldn’t go any further.”(140) “It was quite a speech for the Floating Gardener.”(141)
In both of these passages, Rushdie uses personification by allowing the Plentimaw fish and floating garden to speak. The garden also has the ability to become a gardener. By using personification throughout his story, Rushdie creates an unrealistic and abstract world where inanimate objects and animals can talk. To answer the question of “What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” stories, especially those that aren’t true, allow readers and listeners to escape reality and enter an entirely new world. This idea of escaping reality parallels Haroun’s travels. At first he is in a world where he is familiar with everything. Then he is transported into a whole new world where nothing seems real to him. I believe that stories have the same affect on readers and listeners. Stories invoke creativity and imagination and allow people to create a world that’s far from reality. The way that Rushdie writes, allows the reader to go along with Haroun on his journey to the new world of Kahani where animals and objects talk. The reader is able to escape their own reality as they travel with Haroun.
10. “Haroun and Iff both cried out in shock as Khattam-Shud changed his shape. The Cultmaster grew and grew before their appalled, astonished eyes, until he was on hundred and one feet tall, with one hundred and one heads, each of which had three eyes and protruding tongue of flame; and a hundred and one arms, one hundred of which were holding enormous black swords while the one hundred and first tossed Butt the Hoopoe’s brain-box casually into the air…and then, with a little sigh, Khattam-SHud shrank back into his earlier, clerkish form.” (156)
In this passage Haroun and Iff watch in horror as the shadow transforms itself. In the book it’s formed as a paragraph but it is actually only one sentence. Rushdie’s choice of word repetition also plays a significant role because it helps the sentence move fluidly. Saying one “hundred and one” over and over again would make one think the word has lost its value, but it actually becomes more fun to say because of how it rolls off the tongue nicely. It almost has a cartoon feel to it as well when you read it because it seems so impossible and animated. It makes the reader read faster with anticipation as well as feel “appalled” and “astonished” too. People are allowed to eagerly take in this description due to its fast paced, whimsical style, which is Rushdie’s overall writing style in this story. His fairy-tale like, or cartoonish, style condenses the large, scary issues so that they’re easy to digest for readers. There are a lot of references to the differences between ‘dark and light,’ which may be the overall moral of the story (those are usually the morals to most fairy tales). His writing style is more dramatic, fun, and easy to read so more people would be willing to read it and increasing the value in the story and the message trying to be conveyed.
11. “…because the dance of the Shadow Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty ( just as speech could be graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and creatures of darkness could be as lovely as the children of the light.” (125).
This text is taken from when Haroun is observing the shadow warrior for the first time. This is also before Haroun and company learn that the shadow warrior is actually an ally. What I find interesting about this text is that it shows how silence can be a good thing in its own way. Up till this point in the story, silence has mostly been associated with the main antagonist Khattam-Shud. But during this encounter, silence is something that is almost elegant. Haroun even goes as far as thinking that the creatures of darkness could be “lovely as the children of the light.” This is reminiscent of don’t judge a book by its cover. If you don’t know someone, how can you say that they haven’t any good in them.
12. “‘Stories have warped the boy’s brain,’ he pronounced solemnly, ‘Now he daydreams and spouts rubbish. Insulting, abusive child. Why would I have the slightest interest in your mother? Stories have made you incapable of seeing who stands before you. Stories have made you believe that a Personage such as Cultmaster Khattam-Shud ought to look like … this.'”
At the end of chapter 9, the shadow of Khattam-Shud berates Haroun for his interest in stories, claiming them to be worthless much as Mr. Sengupta did. What is interesting about this passage is that I cannot recall any other character, even Haroun’s father, use the word “stories” so frequently; “stories” is even emphasized by it being in italics. It is a bit ironic that the one person who seems to hate stories the most talks about them the most as well. Khattam-Shud tries to convince Haroun that stories are pointless, but he does so by telling Haroun a story about how stories corrupted him. It seems as though no matter what a person believes in, stories are a part of life as it is a basic means of communication. Khattam-Shud also, in an attempt to belittle stories as simple lies, show their worth as he says that stories make him into the big, evil monster instead of his lackluster self. In this passage, we see how hard it is to go against stories.
13. The use of stories that aren’t true is to give the reader a greater sense of enjoyment, to broaden the horizons of reality, and to overall make life more interesting. Stories come from people, some come from actual events, while others are made up or dramatized events. Stories come to form by the author or creator of the story and its very important that who tells the story does it in an interesting manner, if a story is told in an unenthusiastic way it would change the value because people will not enjoy reading it (especially if it’s a novel) and therefore not take note of it, or even take it seriously. Naming gives things meaning but more so identity. Many things are named after their function. Naming is important because people respond to the things they are familiar too, if there were no names to anything than it would be difficult to get a point across. Other verbs for storytelling play and important role also, I feel like every artist takes in inspiration either from others or from observing the world around them. Digesting, stirring up, embellishing, juggling are all ways of making stories more interesting and meaningful. If a great book is created most people would take note and respond in a positive manner, or it would be meaningful because of the affect it had on the individual.
A passage from the text that I found particularly interesting is when Haroun observes Blabbermouth juggling: “I always thought storytelling was like juggling, he finally found the voice to say. You just keep a lot of different tales in the air, juggle them up and down, and if you’re good you don’t drop any. So maybe juggling is a kind of storytelling, too (109). This passage is written I believe to explain in a simple manner Rushdie’s writing style. Although I believe many authors are inspired by each other, Rushdie in my opinion is less hesitant to use other people’s work in a sort of obvious way.
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What does ATM mean?
ATM meaning in Medical Dictionary
representation when it comes to ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) gene. The protein produced by the ATM gene functions to regulate the price where cells develop. The ATM necessary protein performs this by delivering signals and changing proteins in the mobile, which in turn alters the event regarding the proteins. This protein also interacts along with other proteins (for instance BRCA1) to react whenever DNA is damaged as a consequence of experience of some type of radiation. If strands of DNA are broken, the ATM necessary protein coordinates DNA fix by activating various other proteins. This purpose helps to maintain the stability associated with mobile's genome. Due to its central part in mobile unit and DNA repair, the ATM necessary protein is very important to disease biology.
ATM meaning in Chat Slang Dictionary
right now
ATM meaning in Etymology Dictionary
1976, acronym for computerized teller device (1974), that was developed in modern form c.1968.
ATM meaning in Cooking Dictionary
automatic teller device.
ATM meaning in General Dictionary
an unit of force: pressure that will support a line of mercury 760 mm large at sea level and 0 degrees centigrade
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• an unattended device (outside some banking institutions) that dispenses cash when an individual coded card can be used
• an easy method of digital communications this is certainly capable of very high rates; suitable for transmission of images or vocals or movie also data
ATM meaning in Computer Terms Dictionary
is short for "Asynchronous Transfer Mode." Most people understand of ATMs as automated teller machines -- those friendly containers that enable you to withdraw money from your bank or credit account while charging you you a ridiculous surcharge for solution. Inside computer system world, however, ATM has an alternative meaning. Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a networking technology that transfers data in packets or cells of a hard and fast size. ATM uses 53-byte cells (5 bytes the target header and 48 bytes when it comes to data). These extremely tiny cells may be processed through an ATM switch (perhaps not an automated teller machine) fast enough to preserve data transfer speeds of over 600 mbps. Technology had been created for the high-speed transmission of all of the kinds of media from standard pictures to full-motion video clip. Since the cells are incredibly small, ATM gear can transmit huge amounts of data over one link while making sure no transmission uses up all the data transfer. In addition enables websites Providers (ISPs) to assign restricted bandwidth to every client. While this might appear like a downside for customer, it really improves the efficiency regarding the Internet Service Provider's net connection, resulting in the overall rate of connection to be faster for everyone. |
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Help! elastic collistion, cons of momentum problem!
1. Dec 18, 2012 #1
Block 1 moves with speed of 10m/s to right. It hits block 2 which has twice the mass of block 1 and speed of 5m/s to right. compute the magnitude and direction of block 1 for a perfectly elastic collision.
u1 = 10m/s
u2 = 5m/s
m1v1 + m2v2 = m1u1 + m2u2 ---->
v1 + 2v2 = u1 + 2u2
............= 10 + 2(5) = 20
(1) v1 + 2v2 = 20
why did u2 and v2 get multiplied by two and why did the m cross out?
2. jcsd
3. Dec 19, 2012 #2
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Are you saying you've just copied these steps from somewhere else and don't know the logic behind them? If those steps were your own work, surely you know why you made them.
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1. Elastic collistions (Replies: 2) |
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Horizontal Asymptote by Long Division?
1. Aug 29, 2012 #1
Find the horizontal asymptote
2. Relevant equations
3. The attempt at a solution
There are two ways I did this problem. One way seems to be a coincidence and the other the "proper way"
1. I used long division, and got 2+(9x-3)/(x^2-2x)
2 seems to be the horizontal asymptote of the function
2.If we remove the highest degree terms from the function you end up with (2+(5/x) -(3/x))/(-2/x) with 2 being the horizontal asymptote.
Which is the proper method and why is it that everything I've ran into so far displays this.
2. jcsd
3. Aug 29, 2012 #2
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Both are correct methods, but you would probably choose to do the second method because it's easier (unless the question specifically asked for you to solve it with method 1.).
Do you understand why method 2. works? Also, you shouldn't be saying method 1. has an asymptote of 2 because it seems to be, you need to give a better reason than that!
Notice it's nearly the same as method 2. Can you show that the fractional part in method 1. has an asymptote of 0?
4. Aug 29, 2012 #3
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Either way is fine. In the first case, you got
$$f(x)=\frac{2x^2+5x-3}{x^2-2x} = 2 + \frac{9x-3}{x^2-2x}.$$ If y=2 is the asymptote, that means the fractional term goes to 0 as x goes to ±∞. Do you understand why that's true?
In the second case, it looks like you have a few typos and meant
$$f(x) = \frac{2x^2+5x-3}{x^2-2x} = \frac{2 + \frac{5}{x} - \frac{3}{x^2}}{1-\frac{2}{x}}.$$ (If they weren't typos, you're not doing it right and need to figure that out.) When x grows large, the terms with x in the denominator become small, and you find f(x) approaches 2.
The second method is the one you'd use more often because long division is a pain.
5. Aug 30, 2012 #4
Thanks guys, and yes I understand why the second method works. It's a limit related thing....right? :tongue:
6. Aug 30, 2012 #5
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Yes, [itex] \lim_{x → ∞} \frac{1}{x^n} = 0\,\, \forall\,\, n ≥ 1 [/itex]
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New Zealand Landslides
New Zealand Landslides
Detailed Description
As many as 80,000 landslides occurred as the result of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in New Zealand in November of 2016. The earthquake and landslides caused casualties and significant damage to communities, including homes and transportation infrastructure. The USGS is working with New Zealand’s GNS Science in assessing the area's stability and potential impacts of landslide dams blocking stream channels in this mountainous region. Understanding the factors that contributed to the severity and extent will improve and inform the development of models and near-real-time hazard assessments. An example is USGS PAGER, which provides fatality and economic loss impact estimates following significant earthquakes worldwide. These events provide a reference for domestic earthquakes in mountainous regions, such as southern California. Scientists will also use this as an opportunity to observe how landslide dams behave, ranging from impacts on downstream flooding to sediment accumulation over the next several years.
Image Dimensions: 1280 x 960
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Express Yourself!
Express Yourself!
July 06, 1994
Cheryl Cadaret's third grade class at West Point Elementary School recently completed an in depth study of Cinderella stories. Students read and compared several versions of Cinderella, including several from other countries and cultures. Comparison charts were created, castle descriptions, modern day versions, character poems and stories revised by the villians were written by small groups and individuals. The study concluded with each student writing a new ending to the French version of the Cinderella story. Here is a sampling of the continued story.
The Prince and the Princess have just kissed and are expected to live happily ever after.
Cinderella and her prince went to the Bahamas for their vacation. It was the worst day of their lives. Cinderella was wrong about her Prince. He was everything she didn't want him to be. He was the kind of man who did all of the work around the house and he always talked about his job as a lawyer. On the other hand, the prince thought that Cinderella was so bossy. She was always telling him what to do and he always would say no and she would get an attitude.
One day Cinderella got mad at her prince and they decided to divorce. The prince was so happy that he jumped through the ceiling. In five minutes, the prince was out on his own.
Every night Cinderella would expect the prince to come begging and asking her to forgive him, but every night she was wrong. While Cinderella was thinking that the prince was coming to say he was sorry, the prince was out partying and having the time of his life with his friends.
One night Cinderella realized how mean she had been to her prince. She went looking for her true love. She looked everywhere that she could think of but she had no luck finding him.
One day the Prince's sister came to visit Cinderella. Cinderella thought that the prince did not love her anymore. She ran off crying. The Prince's sister went to tell Cinderella the story of Cinderella and Cinderella understood what she had done wrong.
The next day Cinderella and her prince went to court and told the judge they did not want to get a divorce. Cinderella promised that she would never boss her prince around again and they lived happily every after as the story had said before.
``You made the child cry,'' yelled Cinderella. ``No, I didn't,'' replied the prince. ``Then who did?'' she said, a little calmed down. ``I don't know,'' he said.
``You know,'' she said, ``I don't really like this marriage at all because we are always fighting. I guess we weren't meant for each other.''
As the prince realized what she had just said, he ran through the hall and out the doors and right to the woods. After a while of running, he stopped and found a stump to sit on.
After he had thought about it a little bit, he realized that Cinderella was right. They weren't meant for each other. He set off to find some other place to live so he and Cinderella wouldn't live together anymore.
After a while of walking, he came to a stream. Since he wanted to find someplace to live quickly, he jumped in. At the other side he spat water out of his mouth. He had been in such a hurry that he didn't have time to remember that he couldn't swim. After he had caught his breath, he set off again.
After a couple of miles, he came to some thorn bushes. He was very excited and ran to jump over them. He wasn't good at jumping so he crashed right into them. He decided he would crawl through them. When he got through the bushes, he sat down to get all the leaves off of him. When he looked around he saw a tumbled-down shack.
The shack looked deserted and it was almost dark. He thought that it would serve for one night. He went in to get settled.
The next morning he decided he would go back to Cinderella because he was beginning to feel lonely. He set off the other way so he would get home before dark. When he got home, Cinderella threw her arms around him and they never fought again because they didn't want it to happen again.
More Cinderella
After Cinderella had married the prince, they were supposed to be happy. But they had a miserable marriage. The prince, Alex, told her to do this and to do that. It was just like the old days for her when her stepmother made her do all the work.
Then they got a message in the mail to go to the Three Day Ball. Alex and Cinderella sat on the couch and read the note. The note proclaimed: ``Three Day Ball begins tonight at 7:30.'' Alex could go but Cinderella could not because she had the washing to do. So when Alex went to the ball, Cinderella started doing the washing. When she had finished the washing, she started to cry.
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Incredible Journey of Arun Chavan: From Sugata Mitra’s ‘The Hole in the Wall’ to Yale University
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23-year-old Arun Chavan, who is pursuing PhD in Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, learnt surfing computer by himself as a child from Sugata Mitra’s ‘The Hole in the Wall’ project. Back then when he was 12 years old, Arun was one of many kids who were fascinated by the computer in Shirgaon, a coastal village in Maharashtra, India. Everyday, he’d reach the place where the computer was stationed and, along with other kids, spend hours playing games, making calculations and browsing the Internet. Over the course of time Arun learnt several new things became inspired by the idea of self-learning. Today, he’s a PhD student in Evolutionary Biology at Yale University.
According to Arun, apart from studies and interaction with people, the project had a profound influence on his perception about the world and life. The learning experience from the project “Hole in the Wall” also convinced him about many different ways of learning and the fact that learning is best accomplished kinesthetically.
The Hole in the Wall
Hole in the Wall project was conducted as an experiment to understand children’s learning process in 1999 by Sugata Mitra, a renowned educationist. The experiment started in at slum in Kalkaji, New Delhi where an internet connected computer was stationed behind the wall with a hole and was made free for the children to browse it on their own. They also fixed a hidden camera to check how children could teach themselves without any instructions from others. The project was a huge success that motivated Sugata to place more computers at several places. He termed the system as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). In 2004, he started the same experiment in Cambodia and got phenomenal success . Sugata Mitra’s other areas of interests include Remote Presence, Cognitive Systems, Self-organising systems, Physics and Consciousness and more.
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• There is a saying, ““You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
This is exactly what Sugata has been advocating for over two decades now….the emphasis should never be on rote learning..make them curious instead! |
10 Lessons to Teach your Children about Money
Every Irish child has at some stage heard an exasperated parent saying, “You know, money doesn’t grow on trees”. You may have even used it yourself! While it is a valuable lesson for a child, there are many ways we can guide our children to help them understand money and put them on the right path to managing their money wisely.
Here are some ways that you can help your kids with their financial futures. As the lessons apply to different age groups, we’ll start with a few for children who are still at a very early stage in their financial lives.
1. Establish a savings routine
This can start as soon as children start to receive pocket money. Encouraging them not to spend it all as they receive it and instead to save for a bigger treat to be bought every few weeks or months can set in place the benefits of delayed but ultimately greater rewards. We all know the benefits as we’ve got older of saving for holidays and cars instead of borrowing and paying back far more than the actual cost.
2. If it looks too good to be true, well it probably is.
While we all may associate this only with a “great” share tip that eventually turned into a very expensive lesson, this is a useful lesson for children too. My nephew recently bought a 1,000 piece jigsaw from a friend of his for only 20¢ and was delighted with himself. That was until a few days later that he found the last four pieces were missing…
3. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves
Another old saying that many of our parents used but it's also one well worth remembering and passing on to our children. This tip is all about small amounts eventually making a big difference, teaching children the value of not getting complacent and wasting what seem like insignificant amounts of money to them.
4. Beware borrowing
It's important for children to understand debt. The line from Hamlet of “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” is probably not the best advice for kids as they grow up today. After all, they’ll probably need a mortgage one day and using debt can sometimes deliver savings – for example where there is a significant discount for paying a full year’s subscription in advance.
However children need to learn to plan debt carefully and to avoid expensive debt, particularly to avoid buying impulse purchases using credit cards that they won’t be able to immediately pay off.
5. Share our own mistakes
Now here’s one to test us all! We’ve all made mistakes over the years. Maybe we ended up overweight in property before the economic crash, maybe we didn’t get proper independent financial advice early enough in our lives. Tell your children about lessons you’ve learned and how they can avoid making these same ones themselves.
6. Make companies fight for your business
Your children need to understand that they have real buying power in relation to a lot of the products and services that they purchase. They offer the potential of being very long-term customers, the types that brands really want to attract. So whether they are opening a bank account, booking a hotel, getting car insurance, buying a car, some electronics or even just clothes, they should get into the habit of making sure they get the best price by haggling.
7. Plan your financial future
This is probably the most important lesson of them all… Financial planning shouldn’t start when people hit their forties and start worrying about retirement. Financial planning should start at a very young age; when children are thinking about all the things they want, but can’t afford! Choices have to be made, careful decisions need to be taken and a plan needs to be put in place to manage their limited resources to achieve the maximum effect and/or enjoyment.
8. A bank’s job is to sell to you
Banks are a necessary service provider for everyone, and your children will need one (if they don’t have one already). But children need to understand that banks don’t provide their services and products for free. At the end of the day they have shareholders who want to see a return. That return is achieved by selling products to all of us – loans, credit cards, investments, insurance.
Children need to learn to separate the necessary services banks provide (current accounts, mortgages, deposit accounts) from the other optional products that they might try and sell them.
9. Fund your pension early
Every 10 years earlier that you start a pension, your fund approximately doubles. So children need to be taught that pensions are not for old people! They are for savvy young people who have planned their financial futures and who want to make their financial objectives throughout life easier to achieve.
10. Get cover while it’s cheap and accessible
Life assurance, income protection and other such products are much cheaper and easier to get (younger people are healthier, underwriters take a more benign approach) so young people should get cover in place early. They should look potentially at convertible policies that they can maintain cover on, off into the future. These could be very valuable, particularly if they are unfortunate to suffer from ill health as they get older.
There are lots of lessons we can teach our kids, and lessons about money are useful to help guide them through a complex area of their lives. |
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Creepy Coincidence of the Deadly Double - Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge Conspiracy Theory
No sooner had the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, that the home front became obsessed that lurking in the shadows was a Japanese traitor or Nazi spy, saboteur, or subversive hiding behind every bush, gathering all of the United States’ valuable information.
As a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation was on high alert for spies, especially “suspicious looking Orientals.” Many law enforcement officials took matters into their own hands. At a major naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, the chief of police located all Japanese aliens living in his city and ordered them jailed – all fourteen of them. In Newark, New Jersey, police officers’ were given the authority to board trains and arrest all suspicious looking Orientals and to use their own judgement when determining if an individual of Oriental origin “looked suspicious” or not. Other state’s followed, singling out many individuals as “suspicious looking Orientals.”
Hidden Treasures - Treasure Chest of the Church of Pisco
The year was 1859. Four unsavory characters were serving as mercenaries for the Peruvian Army. A Spaniard (Diego Alvarez), an Irishman (Killorain), an Englishman (Luke Barrett) and an American (Brown). They figured there had to be a way to make better money and were looking for opportunities.
One of the men ran into a renegade priest named Father Matteo. The priest told the man of a treasure hidden and guarded at a church in the town of Pisco. The four came up with a plan, deserted from the army and made their way to Pisco.
Alvarez and Killorain were both Catholic and started to attend mass regularly. They became model parishioners. After some time they went to the local priests with a terrible story. They had found out that a renegade priest by the name of Father Matteo knew about the treasure and was gathering up a large group of bandits to come and steal the treasure.
The Priests believed the story. These men could know nothing of the treasure on their own. Father Matteo must be up to something. Alvarez came up with a plan to save the treasure. They could load the treasure onto a ship and move it to the safety of Callao. Alvarez and his three friends would gladly donate their services as guards.
So it came to pass that the priests loaded the following on a ship in the tiny harbor of Pisco:
• 14 tons gold ingots
• 7 great golden candlesticks, studded with jewels
• 38 long diamond necklaces
• A quantity of jeweled rings
• A quantity of jeweled bracelets
• A quantity of jeweled crucifixes
• 1 chest uncut stones
• 1 chest Spanish doubloons
• Various other jewels and ornaments
Hidden Treasures - Treasure Chest of the Church of Pisco
The Mysterious Norwegian Woman - The Isdal Woman Spy Thriller
The Isdal woman (Norwegian: Isdalskvinnen) is the subject of an unsolved case involving an unidentified woman found dead at Isdalen Valley in Bergen, Norway on 29 November 1970. Considered one of Norway's most profound mysteries, the case has been the subject of intense speculation over the years regarding the identity of the victim, the events leading up to her death and the cause of death. Public interest in the case remains significant.
The woman was found in a part of Isdalen popularly known as "Death Valley", which lies in the direction towards Mount Ulriken. Next to the scene police found a burned-out passport. The autopsy showed that the woman had suffered blunt force trauma to the neck and had taken several sleeping pills before she died. The official police report concluded suicide, but this conclusion is highly controversial.
On 29 November 1970 at approximately 13:15, while hiking in the hills of Isdalen valley outside of Bergen, a university professor and his two young daughters came across the partially charred remains of a naked woman hidden among some rocks at a remote hiking trail. Present at the scene were large amounts of sleeping pills, and bottles of petrol. A full scale murder investigation was immediately initiated and the case has since evolved to become the most comprehensive criminal case by the Bergen police.
In addition, police discovered a prescription for a lotion, but both the doctor's name and date had been removed. Within the lining on one suitcase police discovered 500 German marks. Partial fingerprints were found on a few pieces of broken glass. They were insufficient for an identification, but police suspected that they belonged to the dead woman. The police had made phantom drawings on the basis of witness descriptions and analysis made from the body; these drawings were published in the media and disseminated via INTERPOL in a number of countries.
The Mysterious Norwegian Woman - The Isdal Woman Spy Thriller
Himuro Mansion Haunting - Urban Legend of Haunted House - Horrible Murders
The Himuro Mansion (or Himikyru Mansion) is a japanese urban legend about the dark history of a haunted house and the horrible murders of an entire family who lived there. They say that the video game Fatal Frame was based on a true story. Eager to solve the mystery, many people have scoured maps, trying to find the real location of Himuro Mansion.
According to the legend, the Himuro Mansion is a large, traditional Japanese house that is located in a rocky area somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo. The mansion became famous for being the site of the worst mass murder in the history of Japan.
Terrible rituals were performed deep in Himuro Mansion, such as the Strangling Ritual, the Demon Tag Ritual, and the Blinding Ritual. The Strangling Ritual and Blinding Ritual were performed in a hidden room, not shown on the house's original plans. This room is connected to the house by a long lattice corridor that starts at the Rubble Room.
These rituals were part of the Himuro family's duty to keep the Hell Gate sealed. The family was able to do this for many years until Kirie's ritual failed and caused The Calamity, killing most of the occupants of the mansion and unleashing the Malice, cursing the mansion and all who die within it. The Himuro Family Master then killed all those in the house who survived The Calamity before taking his own life.
A folklorist named Ryozo Munakata moved in with his family to study the mansion, but he and his family disappeared, killed by the mansion's curse. Years later, Junsei Takamine and his research team went to investagte the masion for Takamine's newest work and disappeard, leading Mafuyu Hinasaki to the masion in search of them, where he too disappeared. His younger sister, Miku Hinasaki, then arrives at the mansion and breaks the mansion's curse to rescure her brother.
The Himuro family were said to have practiced ancient and forgotten Shinto rituals that had long ago been outlawed in Japan. One of these occult rituals was called “The Strangling Ritual” and involved the sacrificial murder of a young girl. The purpose of this gruesome ritual was to protect the Himuro family from bad karma which they believed would emerge from a portal in the mansion’s courtyard.
Himuro Mansion Haunting - Urban Legend of Haunted House & Horrible Murders
Monday, May 6, 2013
Codex Seraphinianus - The World's Weirdest Book
Some people think it's one of the weirdest books ever published. An art book unlike any other art book. A unique and disturbing surreal parody. Grotesque and beautiful. It's very hard to describe. Codex Seraphinianus by Italian artist Luigi Serafini is a window on a bizarre fantasy world complete with its own unique (unreadable) alphabet and numerous illustrations that borrow from the modern age but veer into the extremely unusual.
The word "Codex" in the title means "book" or "code" (from Latin caudex), and "Seraphinianus" is derived from the author's last name, Serafini (which in Italian, refers to the seraphs). Literally, Codex Seraphinianus means Serafini's code. It was first published in two volumes by Franco Maria Ricci in 1981. The pictures in this AbeBooks article are from the 1983 American edition published by Abbeville - 370 pages of the Twilight Zone. There is also a 1993 single volume edition and a revised 2006 Italian edition with new illustrations - this final edition is the most affordable version.
Created in the late 1970s, the book's blurb on the cover flap talks about Codex Seraphinianus being a book for the "age of information" where coding and de-coding messages is increasingly important in genetics, computer science and literary criticism. "The Codex presents the creative vision of this time..." goes on the blurb. If Serafini was so influenced by "information" in the 1970s to create this maverick art book, then what must he make of today's information age? Codex Seraphinianus Covers featuring Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Google? Countless websites and blogs can be found pondering the meaning of Codex Seraphinianus or simply admiring a truly original piece of art/fantasy/imagination - call it what you will.
Codex Seraphinianus - The World's Weirdest Book
Born into a wealthy family with Hungarian origins from Bucharest, Romania, the family relocated to the town of Berkerekul (former Yugoslavia) when Renczi was ten. By the age of fifteen, she had become increasingly unmanageable by her parents and had frequently run away from home with numerous boyfriends, many of whom were significantly older than herself. Early childhood friends described Renczi as having an almost pathological desire for constant male companionship and possessing a highly jealous and suspicious nature. Although Vera Renczi was a stunningly beautiful woman (according to the standards of the time, I guess), she was also one of the most prolific female serial killers in history, driven by a pathological need for devotion from men.
Renczi's first marriage was to a wealthy Bucharest businessman many years her senior and she bore him a son named Lorenzo. Left at home daily while her older husband worked, she began to suspect that her husband was being unfaithful. One evening, in a jealous rage, Renczi tinctured the man's dinner wine with arsenic and began to tell family, friends, and neighbors that he had abandoned her and their son. After approximately a year of "mourning", she then declared that she had heard word of her supposedly estranged husband's death in a car accident
Shortly after hearing the news of her first husband's "automobile accident" Renczi again remarried, this time to a man nearer her own age. However, the relationship was a tumultuous one and Renczi was again plagued by the suspicion that her new husband was involved in extramarital affairs. After only months of marriage the man vanished and Renczi then told friends and family that the man had abandoned her. After a year had passed, she then claimed to have received a letter from her husband proclaiming his intentions of leaving her forever. This would be her last marriage.
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African Ethnobotany
African people have used indigenous medicinal plants for millennia to survive and have good health. This plant medicine has been around for much longer than western medicine, and complex interactions and effects from using different plants used in traditional medicine formulas have been known for thousands of years.
Various means are used to traditionally administer plant medicines: typically drinking infusions or decoctions, steaming, vomiting (emesis therapy), enemas and smoking. All these preparations have their place and for specific conditions.
While steaming medicines are good for nervous complaints, and relax a person quickly, being absorbed through the mucousal membranes of the nose, other treatments such as drinking medicines such as imbizas (cleansing mixtures) are taken for longer periods (up to a week sometimes) to work internally to rebalance the digestive system.
South African traditional plant incense
Hard medicines such as barks are usually first ground into smaller pieces by stamping and then are usually boiled into a liquid preparation, or if ground finely, taken orally as a powder. Ground medicines are often mixed with other medicines that have similar actions or effects, thereby strengthening the combined action. This is termed phytochemical synergy or complementary effects. I am currently studying synergy dynamics involved with South African traditional medicine.
This synergy aspect of holistic medicine has been neglected in favor of ethnopharmacological studies focusing on identifying single active chemicals for western-allopathic medicine, or what I call isolate medicine production, e.g., for high blood pressure, or antibiotics. Yet, whole form plant medicines are known to act more holistically to encourage healing, unlike allopathic western medicines, that usually treat only symptoms. Therefore, traditional medicine has much to offer in the future production of synergy medicine.
Jean grinding South African plant medicines
Jean Francois Sobiecki taking photos for plant identification
African traditions have by and large not written their plant knowledge down and have relied on oral transmission from generation to generation, yet with acculturation: or the change of one culture by another, (in most cases western consumer culture changing indigenous tribal cultures), this oral knowledge does not get passed on to the younger people who are seduced by the materialism of western cultures and have no interest in upholding traditions. Thus, the traditional knowledge is lost with the dying of the old people.
Despite this loss of indigenous knowledge there still exist some individuals (often healers) with a long history of traditional plant use knowledge that have been passed down to them from their healer grandparents and continue to pass it on to their apprentices.
This knowledge needs to be preserved and understood by western culture for future application.
African traditional medicine from my experience is pragmatic and sensible: whatever problem is presented, the traditional healer finds the most effective and simplest solution to solve the problem. Talk therapy, the use of medicines and ritual are cleverly combined to reinforce the power of healing and get results.
African medicine is often stigmatized by sensationalist stories of witchcraft. This does occur but not by authentic traditional healers who want to heal others but by those who want to do harm to others and this occurs in all cultures just in different ways. What is more common though yet less know and publicized are the healing dynamics involved with the regular use of complex plant formulas by thousands of South Africans each day, in order to harmonize the functioning of the body and mind. This is what needs to be studied more and appreciated. See African traditional medicine section for more examples.
Ethnobotanical research in South Africa.
The study of medicinal plants in South Africa has had a long history, with remarkable scholars such as Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk having compiled classics such as: The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern and Eastern Africa in 1962. Yet, ethnobotanical studies have been sporadic and never truly mainstream, many people do not even know what ethnobotany means.
A resurgence in ethnobotany interest has been catalyzed in South Africa by a few scientists like, Professor B.E-Van Wyk whose books on South African food and medicinal plants have promoted the commercialization of valuable species. This has created a much needed impetus for developing South African products for South African markets, though conservation and sustainable policies for the South African medicinal plant trade needs urgent address as part of this demand driven industry. There was also the inception of the pivotal Indigenous Plant Use Forum (IPUF) in 1993 through Anthony Cunningham, that stimulated networking among researchers, and a great thrust in ethnopharmacological studies driven by Professor J Van Staden (The Research Centre for Plant Growth and Development UKZN).
Other than the researchers mentioned above, active teams involved in ethnobotanically related work in South Africa include (though not exhaustive of individual researchers) include: include: University of Pretoria’s Phytomedicine program (Prof J.N Eloff), SANBI (novel drug development program (Dr N. Crouch), Fort Hares’ ethnobotany division (Prof A.J Afolayan) and Wits Universities (Prof Witkowski, Prof K. Balkwill and Dr V. Williams).
Despite the great progress in ethnopharmacological research an analysis of Liengme’s (1983) survey of ethnobotanical research in South Africa shows that the majority of studies of indigenous plant use have focused on medicinal plants (16%) and food plants (20%), with only a few (7%) relating to the category “Magic, Ritual and Customs” (Dold et al., 1999). Thus, there is little research focus, yet immense knowledge, on spiritually used plants in South African traditional medicine, many of which have scientifically verifiable psychoactive effects (Sobiecki, 2002, 2008, 2012). These plants are used by the indigenous people of southern Africa to relax the nervous system, open dreaming so as to bring luck and treat mental disturbances (Hirst, 2000, 2005; Sobiecki, 2012).
Therefore, there is an urgent need to integrate the cultural and scientific areas of ethnobotanical research in South Africa.
hypoxis hemerocallidea African potato
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Horseradish History
Horseradish History
What 3,000-year-old plant has been used as an aphrodisiac, a treatment for rheumatism, a bitter herb for Passover seders and a flavorful accompaniment for beef, chicken and seafood? If you guessed horseradish, you’re right. The history of horseradish is intricate and mysterious, but one certainty stands: Horseradish has been prized for its medicinal and gastronomic qualities for centuries.
During the Renaissance, horseradish consumption spread from Central Europe northward to Scandinavia and westward to England. It wasn’t until 1640, however, that the British ate horseradish — and then it was consumed only by country folk and laborers. By the late 1600s, horseradish was the standard accompaniment for beef and oysters among all Englishmen. The English, in fact, grew the pungent root at inns and coach stations, to make cordials to revive exhausted travelers. Early settlers brought horseradish to North America and began cultivating it in the colonies. It was common in the northeast by 1806, and it grew wild near Boston by 1840.
Commercial cultivation in America began in the mid 1850s, when immigrants started horseradish farms in the Midwest. By the late 1890s, a thriving horseradish industry had developed in an area of fertile soil on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.
Later, smaller centers of horseradish farming sprouted in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. After World War II, homesteaders in the Tulelake region of Northern California began cultivating the root in the west; other areas in the country followed suit.
Today, approximately 6 million gallons of prepared horseradish are produced annually in the U.S. — enough to generously season enough sandwiches to wrap 12 times around the world. |
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The Belly Dance, also known as Raqs Sharqi or more commonly Oriental Dance, is one of the oldest form of dance and ritual expression. Unlike its namesake, the whole body is actually involved with.a biased emphasis on the hips.
As a unique dance derivitive from ancient Mesopotamia, artifacts have been found in Anatolia (modern Turkey) dating back to 10,000 B.C.
Egyptians also expressed this dance through ritualistic performances to the Goddesses, Isis, Hathor, Neith and Maat.
The ancient ritual of dancing at the social occasions of an engagement, wedding, and birth of a child has found expression in every culture of the Middle East. Egypt, Iraq (Babalonia), Turkey, Iran (Persia), Lebanon (Phoenicia), Syria (Assyria), Morroco, Tunisia, Algeria, Greece and the rest of Arabia have styles of this dance richly represented in their cultural history. It thrives to this day only being restricted by Islam.
precision and discipline of classical ballet and the fluid undulations and crisp locks of Oriental dance.Choreographer, candelabra, sword, vases or goblets, veil and finger cymbals. cane
Raqs Sharqi has particularly flourished and developed in Egypt. The "Orientalists" who travelled with Napoleon in 1798 first described this dance from their explorations of Egypt and Arabia. They named it "le dance du ventre" (dance of the stomach). The dance was much more abdominal then as compared to today. The term belly dance was coined at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where a troupe of Algerian dancers performed. The star of the show was called "Little Egypt".
From the 19th century through the first few decades of the 20th century, professional dancers in Egypt were classified as either Ghawazee (which translates as "invaders of the heart") or Awalim. The Ghawazee were gypsies, usually performing outside or in courtyards. The Awalim were more educated women, who danced, sang, played instruments, and recited poetry. They were invited to perform in the homes of the wealthy and in courts.
Up to the 1930's, dancers performed mostly in people's homes, coffee shops, courtyards, palaces or courts. Then in Cairo, a Lebanese woman named Badia Mansabny opened a nightclub called "Casino Badia" which was fashioned after European cabarets. A diverse program featured Oriental entertainment in the form of dancers, singers, musicians and comedians. Having formerly been performed in rather small places, Raqs Sharqi now had to be adapted for a larger stage. European dance instructors helped train the Oriental dancers and added elements from other dance traditions, in particular ballet. The unadulterated version of Egyptian dance is Baladi, which is always performed as a solo dance.
It was during this time that the two-piece costume with sequins, which we now associate inseparably with Oriental dance, came into vogue. New rhythms including Latin beats were introduced into the music. Special music was composed for these productions, and to this day the music is constantly being inspired and created for the performance of the dancers.
It was also at this time that many films were being produced in Egypt, including musicals featuring an Oriental dancer. Many dancers for these films were "discovered" in Badia Mansabny's Casino. Two of the most famous, Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal, started as chorus girls and proceeded to become the stars of Egyptian cinema. Through exposure in these films, as well as in the Casino, dancers achieved a celebrity status which could never have been achieved in the past.
Today famous dancers perform in the floorshows of the five-star hotels, at weddings, in films, in the theatre, and in nightclubs. The dance is flourishing all over the world and is enjoying its greatest popularity ever. |
Fermi’s paradox solved?
The galaxy is vast, the number of planets enormous, so how come we never hear from any alien life forms?
Professor Galacticus proposes the following explanation:
There is a lot of life in the galaxy, and he surmises that all of it will be carbon-based and all of it originate in water. As a result, in every planet in which life takes root, deposits of carbon and hydrocarbons will build up over millions of years as organisms die, form sediments, and are subjected to various geological forces.
In a relatively small proportion of living planets, Galacticus suggests, the process of biological evolution will have resulted in symbol- and tool-using intelligence. This in turn brings into being a newer and much faster secondary evolutionary process, corresponding, roughly speaking, to what we call culture.
At a certain level of development, culture stumbles upon the vast reserves of chemical energy that built up millions of years before it came into being. By exploiting these reserves, culture is able to massively accelerate its own evolution – Galacticus speaks of ‘putting on seven-league boots’ – because the enormous increase in the productivity of each individual allows large numbers of individual to cease to be involved in meeting the basic physical needs of the species and thereby become available for other work.
In such a context, highly complex activities such as space travel become possible: activities which require individuals to devote themselves to doing things with no immediate practical benefit at all. And when cultures embark on the project of space travel, they naturally begin to contemplate the possibility that other cultures, on other planets, are doing likewise, and begin to develop means of searching for, and communicating with, those putative others.
However all this occurs in a very narrow window for, unknown at first to the individuals who make up these cultures, they have set in train a force that will destroy them. This force is not nuclear weapons, as some have surmised it might be, nor poisonous pollution, but something seemingly entirely innocuous: a very common substance, and one that is not merely non-toxic but actually essential to life. Carbon dioxide.
By the time the danger becomes evident, cultures are already so massively committed to fossil fuels that change is difficult. It is not technically impossible – the explosive development of technological knowledge which the ‘seven-league boots’ have made possible means that a switch to some combination of alternative energy sources is entirely feasible in purely engineering terms – but it is psychologically and sociologically very difficult indeed. Almost every one of the intelligent life forms in the galaxy has gone well past the point of no-return – or will do so – before they have fully taken on board the nature of the threat.
And then the physical world takes over, positive feedback loops of various kinds kick in, and, very rapidly, the culture, what is left of it, is reduced to a precarious existence in which the very idea of attempting to communicate with aliens, just for the sheer fun of it, is simply laughable.
‘Hence,’ says Professor Galacticus, ‘the silence from the sky.’
* * *
‘You may think,’ he adds, ‘that I am making far too many assumptions about the psychology and sociology of unknown life forms, but I don’t think I am. You see, their basic psychological equipment is always going to be the product of a biological evolutionary process. We know how creative such a process is, and we know the diversity it has achieved, but it has one deep limitation. It is reactive rather than teleological. It is not aimed at anything, but is simply based on the accumulation of a kind of trial and error knowledge, and this makes it very weak at dealing with an unpredented threat.
‘I would, however, be very pleased to be proved wrong.’
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Count cells not equal to
An excel formula to count cells not equal to
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Count cells not equal to
If you need to count the number of cells that contain values not equal to a particular value, you can use the COUNTIF function. In the generic form of the formula (above) rng represents a range of cells, and X represents the value you don't want to count. All other values will be counted.
In the example, the active cell contains this formula:
How the formula works:
COUNTIF counts the number of cells in the range that meet criteria you supply.
In the example, we use "<>" (the logical operator for "does not equal") to count cells in the range D4:D10 that don't equal "complete". COUNTIF returns the count as a result.
COUNTIF is not case-sensitive. In this example, the word "complete" can appear in any combination of uppercase / lowercase letters and will not be counted.
If the value in cell a1 is "100", the criteria will be "<>100" after concatenation, and COUNTIF will count cells not equal to 100.
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Final Project
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MSA 601 Final Project
Virtual Teams
Ben Presnell
Central Michigan University
Brandt, V., England, W., & Ward, S.. (2011). Virtual Teams. Research Technology Management, 54(6), 62-63
In this article Brandt, England, and Ward define what virtual teams are, they state “virtual teams are individuals working together who have never met each other in person and probably will not meet face-to-face during the assigned project (Brandt, England, Ward 2011).” The next part of the article is used to define what virtual teams consist of. Virtual teams mainly consist of members from different locations working together on a specific project. Although some members of the team may meet each other at some point, they will never see each other on a frequent basis. In the main body of the article Brandt, England, and Ward give 6 common dimensions of successful virtual teams, they are as follows:
1. Trust-Trust generally develops from a history of interpersonal interactions through which people come to know one another. In virtual teams, trust must be established through other means since team members may have no past experience to draw on and no future to reference (2011).
2. Cultural Differences-Cultural and language differences become magnified in virtual teams because it is much easier to hide errors and problems and make wrong assumptions. Unintended non-inclusive behaviors based on cultural norms can be interpreted as rudeness or intimidation. Fostering cultural understanding breaks down the barriers that can hamper success and leads to more effective virtual teams (2011).
3. Communication-Communication issues for virtual teams include both the tools or technologies for communication and the rules of engagement. Both are critical for virtual team success and what works well for co-located teams is generally not effective for virtual teams. Shared electronic workspaces such as shared websites on an intranet are preferred communication tools for virtual teams (2011).
4. Social Skills-Use caution when assembling virtual teams solely on the basis of people’s expertise and availability. Social skills should be considered as a major prerequisite for good teamwork within the virtual team. If the team is unable to establish a basis for the effective exchange of know-how, performance will suffer (2011).
5. Mission and Goal Clarity-While all teams need clear missions and goals to be effective, virtual teams have more opportunities for diverse assumptions about the team’s mission and goal to take root. Clarity comes from discussion among all team members to reach a common understanding of the team’s deliverables. Another key requirement for the virtual team is the need to highlight the expertise of each member of the team and how that expertise relates to the team’s goals (2011).
6. Rewards and Recognition-Finding appropriate ways to compensate virtual teams with global membership require creativity. The diversity of the individuals on the team along with local rules and regulations makes a common reward for all approach difficult to execute. Incentives for both project and personal performance need to take into account the diversity of the team (2011).
While all of these dimensions of virtual teams are important to their success, it is also noted that all virtual teams are not the same. The importance of each dimension can vary from team to team and each separate component should be emphasized more or less depending on the team make up, assigned task, and time permitted.
Wally Bock. (2003). Some rules for virtual teams. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 26(3), 43.
In this article Wally Bock describes what the best uses for virtual teams are. Virtual teams are best used for problem solving, quality assurance, product development, information sharing, and a variety of other team...
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The perfect idea of leadership evolves from the situation where leaders are required. There are many ways to describe what leadership is, it depends solely on the situation you’re in. leadership can be described as a combination of sociology, anthropology, political science and psychology. The main concern with this paper is to view the topic as ‘Leadership’ rather than focusing on the leader itself, the idea is that leadership can be found in everyone and that everyone can be a ‘Leader’ (Ladkin, 2010).
“What is the relationship between the questions we ask and our methods for answering them?” (Ladkin, 2010) this is one of the first questions asked by Donna Ladkin in her book ‘Rethinking Leadership’. ‘Transformational leadership’, this is a leadership theory introduced by James MacGregor Burns in 1978. His idea was that, in good transformational leadership there are four attributes; charisma, inspiration, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation and that these attributes can be measured through the ‘Transformational Leadership Questionnaire’, this was an instrument developed by Beverley Alimo Metcalfe and Robert Alban Metcalfe, this approach does make sense; transforming the working style of a factory worker for instance may take many steps and different components, the manager needs to have charisma in order to be able to delegate jobs for the worker without coming off to strong and inspiring him or her at the same time. (2001, as cited in Ladkin, 2010, p. 4) The leader must work with the workers natural talents in order to utilize their best abilities. Ladkin described this as, “Having identified their strengths and weaknesses in terms of this quotient, potential leaders can create a ‘development plan’, to improve their performance on specific factors.” (Ladkin, 2010, p. 4)
‘Leadership as a phenomenon’ is a philosophical approach known as phenomenology. Ladkin uses this approach to “gain insight into the nature of leadership as a phenomenon”. (Ladkin, 2010, p.15) ‘The Lifeworld’ was introduced by Edmund Husserl, who is known to be the father of Phenomenology, he uses this notion to distinct wish between ‘aspects’ and ‘identity’ and the dissimilarity between ‘wholes’, ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’. ‘The Lifeworld’ in many ways refers to the underlining meaning, or value of something as one might see it, it specifics situations where something is worth, or represents more than it may seem, Ladkin uses a chair as Metaphor to explain how, ‘occupying’ a chair can mean different thing in different situation, the queen of England occupying a chair holds a much more important status than an office secretary occupying a chair in her daily working situation. It is not the physical chair that makes the difference, but it is the magnitude of responsibility that the two different jobs hold. Another example I can relate to is, the ‘trophy’ that is awarded to the winning team of the Rugby World Cup this year (All Blacks), it is not the physical attributes of the trophy that makes it so precious, but the value of the success and hard work it represents to the team that wins it, it represents the long years they have waited for the opportunity, it represents the long hours they put in and the sweat, blood and tears they have sacrificed in order to win the tournament. As Ladkin describes it, “ ‘Without Lifeworlds’ of human beings who would recognize, look for and respond to this phenomenon they agree to call ‘leadership’, there would be no leadership.” (Ladkin, 2010, p. 21).
The phenomenon of Leadership can be viewed as having many different ‘sides’. As in the example of the ‘cube’ explained by Ladkin; leadership is like a cube, it has many sides that form it. The perceived ‘leader’ and the ‘follower’ make two of the most important sides followed by the situation and the characteristics of the environment, the circumstances of the situation, and the level of the stakes. (Ladkin, 2010, p. 22). A leader cannot judge a...
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10 ways to learn a new language
1.Choose one language of a place that interests you
Some many people when choosing to learn a new language, have a hard time choosing.
From french, to Chinese or even Russian. How do you start ? First you must choose a language of a country that interests you or that you think you may use. For example the second language I learnt was French, as I had a general passion for French.
2. Enroll in classes or buy a language book
The first step is to enroll in a language course, if you need help when studying this is perfect for you but search around because sometimes prices can be expensive. If a classes don’t fit your lifestyle, then buy a book. For this you will need self-motivation, and practice and also to search the sound on google translate.
3. Download Duolingo
Duolingo is a great free app that can be downloaded to androrid or apple. While there are only a few languages to select from if you have the choice of your language then do it. It works on your writing, listen and hearing abilities. Do this while on the bus or just in general spare time to enhance your skills.
4. Listen to music in the choice of your language
Downloading and listening to music in the choice of your language is a fun way to learn new words and keep up your pronunciation. Even dancing to the music and knowing the words in a way to have fun with it.
5. Put post-stick notes everywhere
Putting post-stick notes all over your house of objects is an amazing way to remember and learn words. For example put a post-stick note of your door, of the word of your chosen language, also under write the sound of the word.
6. Learn the sound of the vowels
If you are learning a latin based language learning the vowels will ensure you can speak the words correctly. It will also make it easier to sound words out and form the sound of it in head even if you are unsure of how the other letters are.
7. Talk to native speaks of the language
Speaking with a native speaker is one of the best ways to speak a language, not only will they help you to speak correctly but you will be able to understand what they are saying. Also when you speak with a native speaker you learn words that are more commonly used . There are times when you may use the formal way to speak a language but it may not really be spoken in the country.
8. Ensure you practice at least 30 minutes per day
To make sure that you that you are learning and able to speak you must practice, practice. Doing so at least 30 minutes per day will ensure that your are getting the most out of your learning.
9. Confidence
One of the most important things is confidence and trying to speak it even if you are not perfect. Some many people study a language for years and cant even speak it. In order to speak you must try.
The final thing is to book your flight and go to the country. There is no better way to learn then to immerse yourself in the culture. Also by not speaking english and forcing yourself to converse in that language you will learn. It will be much better then any of the of the 9 steps above. There is no greater feeling then being able to speak fluently in more then one language. |
What is job satisfaction? We usually hear phrases like “I hate my job” and “my job makes me miserable”. Why people hate their jobs? How can they be happy and satisfied with their jobs? What are the factors which contribute to job satisfaction? Let’s analyze what job satisfaction is and what factors affect it?
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is a work attitude. Let’s understand first what an attitude is.
Attitude has three components
Cognitive part of attitude comprises of thoughts, beliefs, opinions and knowledge about something.
Affective part of attitude is related to feelings and emotions associated with something.
Conative or behavior
Behavior is the inclination to take action about someone or something in a certain way.
Job satisfaction: cognitive and affective
Job satisfaction comprises of both cognitive and affective aspects of job which includes, beliefs or thoughts about the job and feelings or emotions associated with job. Let’s analyze both cognitive and affective components of job satisfaction separately.
Job satisfaction: Cognitive
From a cognitive point of view, job satisfaction is logical and rational appraisal of working conditions, development opportunities and work output. Job satisfaction is determined by the degree to which working conditions, development opportunities and nature of job satisfy individuals’ needs. In cognitive appraisal, individuals compare different job aspects with their own set standards which determines their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the job.
Job satisfaction: Affective
From an affective point of view, job satisfaction is concerned with the feelings and emotions individuals associate with their jobs. It is the degree to which job evokes individuals’ positive feelings and emotions. This component of job satisfaction is related to feelings of pleasure and happiness associated with the job.
What factors affect job satisfaction?
There are many factors which contribute to the formation of attitude of job satisfaction. These can be divided into individual factors job-related factors and organizational factors. Let’s analyze them separately.
Individual factors
Individual factors include personality traits which affect one’s job satisfaction. Personality traits which affect job satisfaction positively are:
Positive affect
Positive affectivity is a personality trait associated with the experience of positive emotions. Individuals high on positive affectivity are cheerful, enthusiastic, energetic, confident and alert.
Extraversion is a personality trait characterized by sociability, optimism, assertiveness and talkativeness.
Conscientiousness is a personality trait characterized by planning, organizing, self-control, determination and purposefulness.
Self-esteem is an appraisal of individual’s self-worth. It is the value individuals’ attach to themselves.
Self-efficacy is an estimation of individuals own ability to perform well in different circumstances.
Internal locus of control
Internal locus of control is a tendency of individuals to attribute their life circumstances to themselves rather than external environment, with the belief that they control their life events and circumstances instead of some external factors beyond control.
Job-related factors
Job related factors include job characteristics which include:
Skill variety
Skill variety is the opportunity provided by the job to develop and acquire new skills. When a job requires variety of skills, abilities and talents then it seems more meaningful.
Task identity
Task identity pertains to the ability to complete a task with a visible outcome. This relates to completeness of a task in itself rather than a piece of some bigger outcome.
Task significance
Task significance is the perception of the importance of task to the people within and outside the organization. It is the degree to which an individual feel that task in hand is significant enough to affect other people’s lives.
Autonomy is the degree to which an individual enjoys freedom, discretion and independence in carrying out different facets of job.
Feedback is the degree to which individual is notified about the outcome of the task performed. The information and knowledge about the outcome of job done as well as the effectiveness of task carried out comprises feedback.
Organizational factors
Organizational factors pertains to the working environment which includes:
Leadership and supervision
Leadership and supervision pertains to the support individuals get from their leaders and supervisors in carrying out their job functions. This include both technical and social support.
Co-worker ties
Co-worker ties relates to the quality of working relationship individuals enjoy with their coworkers. It refers to the mutual respect and social harmony among the employees.
Job security
Job security is an assurance to the individual that his/her job is secure. This is most important in the times of economic uncertainty.
Promotion pertains to the opportunities for future growth and further advancement.
Compensation refers to the amount of pay and rewards individual is getting from that job. This also includes fairness and justice in terms of compensation with respect to coworkers.
Person-organization fit
Person-organization fit is a match between individuals’ values, needs and abilities with organization’s values, demands and rewards. The better match results in increased satisfaction and performance and decreased stress and turnover.
Job satisfaction and organizational outcomes
Job satisfaction results in positive outcomes such as:
Job satisfaction is positively associated with job performance. This suggests that employees who are more satisfied with their jobs are more productive and organizations with more satisfied employees are more effective.
There is a negative relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism. Satisfied employees are more likely to be present at work even when little sick as compare to dissatisfied employees.
Satisfied employees are more likely to stay with the organization while dissatisfied employees are more likely to look up for new job opportunities. The relationship of job satisfaction with turnover is also affected by other factors like alternative job prospects and employees’ human capital (education, skill level etc.).
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
Individuals who are more satisfied with their jobs are more inclined to exhibit organizational citizenship behavior. Satisfied employees are more likely to display altruistic behavior at work and would go a step further to help their coworkers by going beyond their normal job expectations.
Counter productive work behaviors (CWB)
Dissatisfied employees are more likely to dispel their dissatisfaction in the form of undesirable work behaviors such as work avoidance, aggression, substance abuse and stealing at work.
How to increase job satisfaction of employees?
Job satisfaction of employees can be enhanced by paying attention to job design, individual personality and working environment.
Job Design (autonomy, task variety, task identity, task significance, feedback)
Personality (Positive affect, self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control)
Working environment (Compensation, Promotions, Support, coworker ties)
Benefits of job satisfaction
The employees with high job satisfaction level are:
• More productive
• More supportive
• Less absent
• Less deviant |
Mapping the Bootheram – how the West was ‘won’ from the East
The Ngarakbal hold the first portion of one of the important Transcontinental Bootheram Lore’s [Dreaming]…as above so below, it is written in the stars for the Lore to travel on the land through the peoples songs, hence, Songline…… and each tribal cultural block hold their portion of the ‘song’ as It travels across the land….following the stars….ironically it was the same stars that the British followed to Australia
mt warning caldera - with Wollumbin
Lore must always be sung in sequence…..just as one cannot fully understand a play from only half way through the plot…neither can one understand the lore unless it commences at the beginning….
Land and language [dialect or linguistics] are linked…and the name of the clans who hold portions of the ‘song’ is the same name as their dialect…and as the song travels it changes dialect, passing through each ancestral clan Estate….
For the Ngarakbal their central sacred site, Mt Warning/Wollumbin has many names….it depends on the Bootheram that is being related as to which name is used
In historical Bootheram’s each timeframe, or epoch, has a Creator Being …a totem who embodies that time and place…When the Wollumbin volcano was part of the deep ocean it had the totem of the Tiger Shark – and a specific name for that creation ancestor….And as it was ‘sung’ from the waters by the ancestor spirits [skybeings/starlore] the totems change to represent the next timeframe/epoch……The totemic creator spirit changes with every epoch.
One of the ancestor creator spirits was a Turkey….and he also has a Bootheram for his own epoch…The Turkey’s name was Wollumbin…the Tweed Caldera is the best example of an erosion caldera on the planet….Wollumbin Volcano Bootheram of the Turkey and the language of that song is in Galibal dialect…The Galibal were a tribe within the Ngarakbal area…….Gallibal is the sound of a Turkey, and the name of the tribe who hold his Bootheram.
The central plug of the Caldera was named Mt Warning by Captain James Cook when he ‘discovered’ and charted the [so-called] unclaimed east coast for the crown in 1770.
Recently it has had the dual-name of Wollumbin applied and recognised by the Geographical Name Board – who control the mapping. They incorrectly gazetted the central plug alone, instead of to the whole Volcano that Wollumbin [the creator spirit] created way back in the dreamtime. As a result of this gazettal the ancient lore has been obscured, because Wollumbin has also been incorrectly attributed to the dialect called Bundjalung…. Administrative bungle by government?….or deliberate move to rewrite history to their advantage?
This ‘administrative bungle’ occurred because the first Police Administrators, who also managed the Aboriginal Protections Boards [which is a nice administrative way of naming slave camps] in the late 1800’s were ordered to collect the languages of the Aboriginal peoples….and they incorrectly classified an entire region of Northern New South Wales as Bundjalung….which is the name of a tribe from the Widjabil who are one of the four groups in the moiety/cultural block of the Yoocum Yoocum…and in traditional lore and custom the Bundjalung tribe [proper] has no jurisdiction over Gallibal Land, Language or Lore.
Interestingly, Bungil-lung is also part of the ‘Lung’ Lore – another songline which travels up from the South Gippsland of Victoria along the east coast…. I won’t cover that now but will explain that in later posts….or subscribe to my newsletter for more in-depth info.
Anyway, the original name of the cultural block that the Ngarakbal and Githabal come from was the Yoocum Yoocum….but that fact had been stealthily buried as part and parcel of the conquering and claiming of the east coast of Australia – and as we all know, rewriting history to the benefit of the conquerors is the classic pattern that has occurred all over the planet…Cultural genocide essentially…..and there have been many wars written out of the historical records…including the fact that only the east coast of Australia was claimed by the Crown, because the other four fifths had been claimed by the Dutch….and these facts have also been conveniently obliterated from the contemporary records of today since the Boer War – British v’s the Dutch – ousted the Dutch and allowed for the Crown to claim the rest of the Australian continent. As you can see on this pre- Cook map of New Holland below….the east coast had not been charted, and therefore not claimed according to Northern Hemispheres laws of tenure.New Holand map -pre British
Anyway, back to the east coast history…..
Joshua Bray, the first Tweed/Byron Shires Police Magistrate collected the Ngarakbal’s linguistic records in the late 1800’s under orders from the crown who were busy fighting the Dutch at the time….Joshua Bray is pictured below
Joshua Bray - headshot
Using the legal process of applying Aboriginal language to landscape for the use of naming geographic features was required in order to oust the Dutch who had used their own language to map the west…..So, Aboriginal language was used to validate the crown maps and thus their legal tenure of Australia….
These Police records of Joshua Brays Ngarakbal language were submitted as evidence to alter the gazettal of the name of Mt Warning to Wollumbin in the mid 2000’s – as part of the contemporary governments Reconciliation process of dual naming significant sites – Though government was recognising the Aboriginal significance of ancestral sites it was, at the same time, stealthily changing the ancestral attributions from the original truth [lore, land and language of the Yoocum Yoocum] to the administrative records of the Police [Bundjalung]….wiping out Yoocum Yoocum completely from the Lands records….This administrative sleight of hand trick then travels all the way up to the UN, and thus, the U.N Geographical Names Board now endorse the bogus historical referencing of Bundjalung. The ancestral names on the maps have been sanitised and the ability for Aboriginal Native Title claimants to prove pre-colonial title of their own country has been thwarted……Cultural genocide. Pretty dastardly manipulative stuff isn’t it…..and yet another verse in the ancient Starlore Bootheram of the Ngarakbal and Githabal people . |
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Makhno was born a Ukrainian Peasant in 1888 in the Russian Empire. Through his life he held a series of menial jobs, primarily as a farmhand, that was, until the Russian Civil War erupted. He began organizing an army of peasants and workers and combated the Red Army of the Soviet Union, the White Army of Republicans and Monarchists, and various other forces from the central powers and nationalists, in an attempt to secure a region of Ukraine so it could practice Anarchism.
The turning point would be the truce Makhno organized between the Black Army of Anarchists and the USSR’s Red Army. Here, he decided against it, and continued the offense, and with constant attacks by the White Army, the Red forces were dwindling and faces a large lack of morale. Makhno decided to expand out of the Free Territory, and march on Moscow.
Makhno’s offense on Moscow was victorious, and the Red Army surrendered. Lenin and Trotsky signed the surrender document, dissolving the USSR and assimilating the remaining portions of the Red Army that hadn’t already defected with the Black Army. Makhno refused the offers that came to become the dictator of the region, instead opting for being the military commander of the unified forces that defended the leaderless anarchistic regions of the former Russian empire, now known as the Union of Free Soviets.
The international response was one of fear, as both Communists and Anarchists were looked upon with suspicion throughout the western world. Makhno was characterized as a tyrant, a godless oppressor coming to slaughter the citizens of upstanding christian nations. Makhno was able to defend the Union of Free Soviets, from various Republican, Monarchist, and Foreign incursions, and the UFS was forced into hermit like isolation. The former Russia withdrew itself from the Great War, but provided no provisions to the Central Powers, as Makhno’s defense was able to keep them secure.
Across Europe, the Central Powers lost to the Allies, and were forced to sign the Treaty Of Versailles, without gaining any real territory. Makhno ensured the defense of the free territory throughout the great depression and aided the rise of the Bavarian Soviets, who, rather than embracing the Marxism of the USSR, embraced Anarchism, and joined with the Union of Free Soviets. Fascism did emerge in Italy, and was able to take serious power, but their influence never expanded further. As the Spanish Civil War erupted in the 30s, Makhno, now in his 50s, came to the aid of the Anarchist CNT/FAI, sending soldiers and supplies. The Marxist factions of the Republican side were denied aid, and the Anarchist forces were able to crush Franco’s fascist army, and establish themselves as a region of the Union of Free Soviets. Fascist Italy was demoralized by the loss of their allies, and never sought to expand their influences.
As a large part of Europe became part of the Union of Free Soviets, the United States, and a large portion of the British Commonwealth, succumbed to internal revolutions led by the Industrial Workers of the World. A significant portion of the industrialized world was now organized under the Anarchism laid out by Proudhon, Stirner, Kropotkin, and Bakunin, all thanks to the work of Nestor Makhno.
Years went by, and a majority of the world was now practicing Anarchist Communism, and was able to send the first individual into space, making the first expanse into the final frontier. By this time, Makhno would have passed away, but his world-changing influence would always be remembered.
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Helping Teachers to Structure Their Classroom (Tier 1) Data Collection
Academic and behavioral interventions under RTI are incomplete without data being collected to document whether those interventions are actually benefiting students. Indeed, an RTI intervention can be viewed as ‘fatally flawed’ (Witt, VanDerHeyden & Gilbertson, 2004) if it lacks any one of these data elements: (1) calculation of the student’s starting point, or baseline performance, in the identified area of concern; (2) setting of a specific goal for student improvement; or (3) selection of a method to monitor the student’s progress formatively during the intervention to judge whether the intervention is successful in helping the student to attain the goal. Clearly data collection is essential to implementing any school-based intervention.
As general-education teachers are often the ‘first responders’ who provide classroom interventions under RTI, they need to know how to set up a data collection plan that includes baseline, goal, and progress-monitoring. Instructors, however, can find the task of data collection to be daunting—unless they are provided with a step-by-step tutorial in how to do so.
Here are the essential six steps that teachers should follow to ensure that their data collection is adequate to the task of measuring the impact of their classroom interventions:
1. Decide on a data collection method. The teacher chooses a method for collecting data that can be managed in the classroom setting and that will provide useful information about the student problem. Examples of data collection methods are curriculum-based measurement (e.g., oral reading fluency; correct writing sequences), behavior-frequency counts, and direct behavior report cards. When selecting a data collection method, the teacher also decides how frequently that data will be collected during intervention progress-monitoring. In some cases, the method of data collection being used will dictate monitoring frequency. For example, if homework completion and accuracy is being tracked, the frequency of data collection will be equal to the frequency of homework assignments. In other cases, the level of severity of the student problem will dictate monitoring frequency. Students on Tier 2 (standard-protocol) interventions should be monitored 1-2 times per month, for example, while students on Tier 3 (intensive problem-solving protocol) interventions should be monitored at least weekly (Burns & Gibbons, 2008).
2. Collect data to calculate baseline. The teacher should collect 3-5 data-points prior to starting the intervention to calculate the student’s baseline, or starting point, in the skill or behavior that is being targeted for intervention. The student’s baseline performance serves as an initial marker against which to compare his or her outcome performance at the end of the intervention. (Also,--because baseline data points are collected prior to the start of the intervention--they collectively can serve as an indication of the trend, or rate of improvement, if the student’s program remains unchanged and no additional interventions are attempted.). In calculating baseline, the teacher has the option of selecting the median, or middle, data-point, or calculating the mean baseline performance.
3. Determine the timespan of the intervention. The length of time reserved for the intervention should be sufficient to allow enough data to be collected to clearly demonstrate whether that intervention was successful. For example, it is recommended that a high-stakes intervention last at least 8 instructional weeks (e.g., Burns & Gibbons, 2008).
4. Set an intervention goal. The teacher calculates a goal for the student that, if attained by the end of the intervention period, will indicate that the intervention was successful.
5. Decide how student progress is to be summarized. A decision that the teacher must make prior to the end of the intervention period is how he or she will summarize the actual progress-monitoring data. Because of the variability present in most data, the instructor will probably not elect simply to use the final data point as the best estimate of student progress. Better choices are to select several (e.g. 3) of the final data points and either select the median value or calculate a mean value. For charted data with trendline, the teacher may calculate the student’s final performance level as the value of the trendline at the point at which it intercepts the intervention end-date.
6. Evaluate the intervention outcome. At the conclusion of the intervention, the teacher directly compares the actual student progress (summarized in the previous step) with the goal originally set. If actual student progress meets or exceeds the goal, the intervention is judged to be successful.
As teachers adopt the role of RTI classroom ‘first responder’ interventionist, they are likely to need assistance – at least initially—with the multi-step process of setting up and implementing data collection, as well as interpreting the resulting data. Check out the RTI Classroom Progress-Monitoring Worksheet (see attachment at the bottom of this page), a form designed to walk teachers through the data-collection process.
• Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools. Routledge: New York.
• Witt, J. C., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Gilbertson, D. (2004). Troubleshooting behavioral interventions. A systematic process for finding and eliminating problems. School Psychology Review, 33, 363-383. |
Flemish Art and Architecture 1585 - 1700
Ver imagen grande
Flemish Art and Architecture 1585 - 1700
Tapa dura, 346 páginas, 29.4 x 22.5 x 3 cm.
Yale University Press
"This beautifully illustrated book provides a complete overview of the art of the Southern Netherlands from 1585 to 1700, file years between the separation of the Southern from Northern provinces and the end of Spanish rule. Eminent Flemish art historian Hans Vlieghe examines the development of Flemish and specifically Antwerp painting, the activity and influence of Rubens and such other leading masters as Van Dyck and Jordaens, the Antwerp tradition of specialization among painters, and the sculpture and architecture of this period. He also describes the socioeconomic and political conditions that facilitated file rise, evolution, and expansion of Flemish art, focusing particularly on the Counter Reformation.
In the first half of the seventeenth century, Antwerp painting rapidly became one of the highlights of Baroque art. This was clearly linked to the activity of Rubens, who was immensely important not only for the astonishing stylistic quality of his work and for his enormous influence on several generations of painters, but also for his workshop practice modeled on the Italian method and his ability to familiarize others with Italian Renaissance and Early Baroque art. Yet Rubens's work can only be understood fully in the context of the Antwerp tradition. Vlieghe organizes the book around the pictorial categories of Antwerp's specialists -- and discusses the contributions of well known and lesser known artists to each type of painting." |
upper room daily devotions
Monday, April 25, 2011
World Malaria Day - Imagine No Malaria - My History with Mosquito Borne Illness
I grew up in a town that had been ravaged by yellow fever in the boom of industrialization after the Civil War. In 1878, yellow fever swept in to the United States from Cuba via New Orleans, LA and began to crawl up the Lower Mississippi River Valley decimating towns. Ships were fumigated, areas were quarantined, people were subjected to bloodletting and they were given quinine and carbolic acid, but nothing stopped the spread of yellow fever or its deadly effects. By July, the disease had found its way to Memphis, TN; over half of the population, an estimated 20,000-27,000 people out of a total of 47,000, fled the city to rural areas to escape the epidemic. The cost to Memphis bankrupted the city. Just south of it, in Holly Springs, MS, where I grew up, the effects were just as severe. Resting at an altitude of 720 feet above sea level, the town thought itself safe from the epidemic. The common wisdom at the time indicated that yellow fever could not exist above 500 feet above sea level. The town welcomed people fleeing from Memphis as well as from other small towns. The courthouse was turned into a hospital. Despite their optimism, though, Holly Springs would fall victim along with the rest of the region. By the end of the year, 1440 people contracted it and 304 died of it. Across, the region, yellow fever struck over 120,000 people with over 5,000 dying from it.
Yellow fever was attributed to poor hygiene and sanitation. It wasn't until two years after the epidemic that a Cuban physician indicted mosquitos in the disease's cause and spread and it took another 22 years before Walter Reed would finally prove that mosquitos were the source of the disease.
As a child, I used to give people tours of the Yellow Fever House in Holly Springs. I remember thinking how long ago 1878 seemed, how distant those deaths, how such things couldn't happen today. I remember that I couldn't imagine living in that place where mosquitos had been able to spread disease without restraint.
Now, I can. I have been in places ravaged by malaria. I have seen children and adults tired, red-eyed, feverish, and sick because of a mosquito bite. I have spoken with parents whose children have died and children whose parents have died all because of mosquitos. Unlike the Lower Mississippi River Valley in the 1800's, however, we know that mosquitos carry malaria. We know that a simple treated bed net will save a life. We have medicines that can treat infected people and prevent infection in others. When I have traveled to regions with malaria, I have been privileged enough to be able to take a net along with me and take prophylactic medication. Yet, there is no reason that I should have such easy access to these if people living in the areas affected do not.
Today is World Malaria Day. I do not live in Congo, but I did live in Holly Springs. I grew up knowing that ignorance allowed mosquitos to spread disease and kill thousands upon thousands of people. Today we are not ignorant of the causes or treatments of malaria. And yet, every 45 seconds a child dies of malaria somewhere in Africa. There is no excuse not to eradicate malaria in our life time. I implore you to take the $20 that you would spend at lunch and send a net, save a life. Stop malaria today.
1 comment:
ttennheat said...
I didn't realize the history behind yellow fever. Thanks for sharing.I hope people realize the same devastation that took place with yellow fever in the States is taking place in Africa with malaria.
Blog Archive |
This morning I heard an interesting program on NPR radio station about ants and their pedometers in the brain. It’s hard to believe, but it seems that German scientists have the proof that ants count their steps backwards in order to go back to their nests.
In the Sahara desert, they cannot rely on the scent the other ants worldwide spray on the way, so they can come back. Due to the wind and sand, they cannot smell their scent left, so their brain have a kind of pedometer that counts the steps since they left the nest and then they count backwards to come back. They also follow the sun position for their sense of direction.
You may see the article with a cartoon showing the experience the scientists made to proof their theory at the NPR’s website.
2 thoughts on “Can Ants Count?
1. @Henry Ho
Yes, of course we can count on Apache ANT, that is not new !!
I’ve been without CF articles and ideas lately, so I’m keeping the blog alive with job postings and some interesting articles I find.
Thanks for your comment.
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It’s just whole eggs, every other egg dish is microwave-able.
But why?! Legend has it (or from the wise words of our mums), that the microwave will explode if we try to microwave an egg in it. Just how true is that? Let’s find out.
What happens when I microwave an egg?
This happens. Not that bad huh? All you have to do is just 10 minutes of clean up – your home is safe and sound! Even then, please do not try this at home because a damaged microwave equals to an angry mum (psst, try it at the office or where no one would know you did it 😉
Why do whole eggs explode?
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The microwave heats food up by channelling energy to the water in food. For eggs, steam is built up in the egg yolk and expands. After a couple of seconds, the pressure becomes too much for the shell to handle and explodes.
However, even without the shell, it’s still a bad idea to microwave uncooked or hard boiled eggs as it is likely to splatter.
How do I microwave eggs safely?
microwave eggs
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Yes, it is possible, but you’ll have to take precautions. To prevent steam from escaping and causing messy egg splatters, cover the egg fully with a paper towel. There are different methods to cooking eggs in the microwave.
Hard boiled eggs: Place the egg in hot water and cover with a plate on 50% power. There is a slight chance the egg could explode so watch carefully.
Sunny side up: Crack eggs onto a plate and gently prick the yolk with a toothpick/knife. Microwave for about 40 seconds
Scrambled eggs: Crack two eggs and pour some milk in the egg mixture. Microwave for 45 seconds, remove, stir, and microwave again.
*Disclaimer: Microwaved eggs aren’t going to taste very good… the good old classic method is still the best!
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Nope, I’m not having microwaved scrambled eggs.
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But this 5 minutes microwave quiche (without the crust) looks pretty edible.
I don’t know why this never went viral. It ought to!!!!
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
When is a prune not a prune?
This is both a language question and a horticulture question. The language question is one you are probably familiar with: the people who market the crop decided at some point that enough people have negative associations with the word prune that they would be able sell more of them as “dried plums.” This euphemism extends to the marketing of prune juice as dried plum juice. Meanwhile, lots of people, myself included, actually like prunes. So Trader Joe’s, for example, sells a product labeled “Pitted Prunes” on the front of the bag and “Pitted California dried plums” in the fine type of the ingredient list. Whatever.
The horticultural question is more interesting. To a grower, a prune is any variety of plum with a high enough sugar content that it can be successfully dried with the pit still in it. Granted that prunes are all pitted these days, the definition remains. The main (perhaps only) variety grown in the Northeast that meets this criterion is called, unsurprisingly, the Italian Prune Plum. It is a dusky purple, oval fruit, about two inches long and an inch and a quarter or an inch and a half in diameter.
This year, though, the rainy summer in Connecticut has resulted in low sugar content in all manner of crops. The tomatoes—the ones that survived the Late Blight blanketing the region—have been less flavorful than in other years. And the stone fruit has been mediocre at best. This includes the Italian Prune Plums from my favorite local fruit grower. So they’re Prune Plums, but, with their low sugar content, I’m not sure they’re prune plums.
I hope next summer is sunnier.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
New York Times "On Language" columnist William Safire dies at 79
Not a linguist, just a philologist, Safire got the answer wrong, at least part of the time, according to the folks over at Language Log. But he brought thinking about words and language to the fore of popular culture for decades. He will be missed.
Monday, September 21, 2009
A good news communication story
This was polling as it should be done.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Cutty Sark
A colleague asked rhetorically this morning, “why we italicize the names of ships.”
Indeed, why italicize anything? All such choices are conventions. Conventions change, and in any case a given writer or editor is free to thumb her or his nose at convention. Will the average reader notice? Probably not. Will there occasionally be a reader who notices? Maybe. Will other writers and editors pick up the baton and run with it, or will them fumble and drop it, or will they consider your approaching from behind with a baton a threat to their personal well-being, given they did not know they were standing on a track?
Writing and editing that flout convention just for the sake of flouting convention tend to draw the reader’s attention away from the content and to the writer and editor. That can be quite satisfying for the young, insecure, narcissistic writer trying to draw attention, but it does little for the reader and nothing for the editor.
Many editors tend to be conservative about retaining conventions long past the point that they even make sense. Others are more open to gradual change, adapting to the usage and vocabulary of new generations. Gradually, conventions morph.
With respect to italicization, the underlying rationale is reduce ambiguity. Queen Elizabeth II was a ship. Queen Elizabeth II is not. The common practice of italicizing foreign words may be related to the similar practice of italicizing any unfamiliar term when introducing and defining it. Once something is generally accepted by dictionaries as an English word or phrase, it is no longer italicized. But in the meantime the italics signal to the reader that a foreign lexicon is in play. Many style guides enforce this standard; some do not. C’est la vie. |
Photographer Karolin Klüppel immersed herself in the lives of young girls from the Khasi indigenous people, a society in north-east India where women and girls run the show.
Climbing the ladder to a tall treehouse made of bamboo is the best way to take in the small Indian village of Mawlynnong. At sunset, the shouts and screams of young girls playing down below waft up to the cabin. This idyllic scene might seem like a village anywhere else in Asia, but here something is different. In Mawlynnong girls are raised to be leaders.
The Khasi are an indigenous ethnic group to northern India who number around two million. Theirs is a matrilineal society, where property and power is handed down through the female side of the family, and men play a limited role in society day-to-day.
Between 2013 and 2015, German photographer Karolin Klüppel spent ten months in Mawlynnong, in Meghalaya state in north-east India. Here she created Kingdom of Girls, her latest project, living alongside the Khasi. Her series of captivating portraits provide an insight into the lives of the young girls who live there – girls who will go on to be the major players in the society once they grow up.Klueppel_06 Klueppel_05
Who are the Khasi?
The Khasi are one of the few matrilineal ethnicities in South Asia. Around one million people belong to this ethnic group and the majority of them live in the state of Meghalaya in the northeast of India. The Khasi’s matrilineal form of society arises from the rights and liberties given to the women. These include the right to inheritance and property, the right of determination in the affairs of the family and clan, and the right to choose partners, as well as the right to educate their children and the right to individual development.
What is the origin of the Khasi? Have they always been a matrilineal society?
There are a couple theories behind the origin, really. From what I’ve read of anthropologist Valentina Pakyntein’s studies, the Khasi’s matrilineal system can be traced back to when the Khasi had multiple partners, which made it hard to determine who the fathers were when the time came. Another theory comes from experts who claim the Khasi men were away too long during times of war to properly care for their families, and so passing property onto the daughters – and not the sons who would go on to fight themselves – seemed like a more logical idea.Klueppel_08 Klueppel_07
What made you want to photograph them?
I have been interested in matrilineal and matriarchal societies for years! After I finished an artist-in-residency program in Goa, I decided to travel to Meghalaya to do a photo project on the Khasi. I stayed in Shillong, the regional capital, for one week and decided for myself that it would probably easier to get in close contact with people in a small village. Then I read about Mawlynnong and thought it could be worth seeing.
What was the biggest difference that struck you about seeing life in a matrilineal society?
Compared to the Hindu culture, there are many differences. First of all, it is the matriliny, of course! Women are very respected in the Khasi culture. To disrespect a woman in this culture means to harm the society. Daughters are often more wanted than boys, and a family with just sons is considered to be miserable, because only daughters can assure the continuity of a clan.
Also, the Khasi don’t use arranged marriages. When a woman and a man fall in love with each other, they just start to live together in the same house – usually the house of the woman because men rarely have property – and that means they are married. Most of the Khasi converted to Christianity and, nowadays, many couples decide to marry in church. Also, divorce and remarriage is common and totally respected. In Shillong, many young women even decide to live alone.Klueppel_04 Klueppel_03
To what extent was there a collaboration with each of the girls you photographed?
Mawlynnong is a very tiny village, with just 95 dwellings. Still, there are many Indian tourists coming every day to see “the cleanest village in Asia,” as Mawlynnong is often described. So the girls have some contact with strangers and even tourists from abroad.
To me, they were very open and not very shy at all. Some girls really liked to be photographed; it was like a game for them. I spent a lot of time with the girls, not just photographing them. They often visited me in my room or we went to the river to take a bath. In the evenings we were often sitting together at the fire with the whole family and friends.
In the first weeks of my two visits I was kind of an attraction, but after a while, I became somehow a part of their village society, which was good because it was much easier to work then.Klueppel_02 Klueppel_01
What were the biggest challenges in completing the project?
I would say that there were two challenges. Firstly, financing the project: I had no grant, just some savings that were spent soon enough. Second, being away from family and friends for such a long time. I spent a total of ten months in Mawlynnong working on the project. Of course I made friends and felt very close and connected to my guest family. But still, there was a huge language barrier and really deep conversations just weren’t possible.
What are the biggest lessons we, as outsiders, can take away from their way of life?
Well, the Khasi are a matrilineal society and girls have some advantages there, but, still, in Western societies there are much more opportunities for girls and women to live independently and self-determined.
Many of the Khasi families are very, very poor, especially in the villages. Even if you are a Khasi girl it doesn’t mean you are able to get a good education or go to the university; it just means that if there is some money left for education, it will probably be spent on the girls and not on boys. So, even though I live in a patriarchal society, I still feel that I have many more choices in my life because it’s a far wealthier place.
Another aspect we shouldn’t forget is that the Khasi society is not equal, men have many disadvantages that can lead to problems, like low self-esteem and alcohol or drug abuse, especially in the villages. In the capital Shillong, there is even a men’s group fighting for the emancipation of the men, which counts about 4000 members.
What really impressed me – and what I miss very much in Germany – is how much the Khasi and Indians generally care about their family and friends. Human relationships seem very strong there, which makes sense, because of the poverty and the limited support from the government. If you do not help each other, you are lost.
In the Khasi society, I am sure, no one would ever feel lonely because people just need each other. Whereas, in my society, loneliness is something that a lot of people suffer from. Every culture has its tradeoffs.
Find out more about Karolin Klüppel’s Kingdom of Girls.
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The effects of music on the brain
Even if we listen to music in a passive state and largely as a means to relax or let go, music is anything but. Whether you use it when you exercise or during a power nap, your brain, when in contact with music is, working at full!
Even before science began to pay close attention to the effect of music on the brain, the thinkers of the time had already traced a close link between the two. "Music is noise that thinks," wrote Victor Hugo, while Immanuel Kant observed that "music is the language of emotions." Thought and language: two capacities related specifically to the brain that intellectuals attributed to music, giving it power far beyond a mere means of distraction.
Since the 1950s, many studies have focused on identifying the action of music on the brain.
Music and Work
Not everyone has the same needs when it comes to music and work. Some prefer silence despite scientific proof that music helps to focus and improve efficiency and creativity.
In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a spectacular difference in performance of stressful operations between surgeons operating with their music of choice versus those that operated in silence.
A small distinction should be noted however. In general, instrumental music has been shown to be more conducive to concentration than alternative forms. Lyrics and singing may cause distraction even if it is in an unconscious manner. That being said, the type of work being done and the monotony of the task will affect this.
The Mozart effect
Listen to music and your body, in particularly your brain, will say thank you. With slower music, it can improve circulation and dramatically reduce blood pressure.
How? In 2004 a study by Japanese neuroscientists Den'etsu Sutoo and Kayo Akimaya made things more evident by observing the behaviors of a group of rats listening to Divertimento No. 7 in D Major by Mozart. According to their studies, the stimulus (music) generates a supply of calcium to the brain that produces dopamine, inhibiting the sympathetic nervous system and reducing blood pressure. This also explains why music acts as a defense against anxiety, depression and stress.
The link between music and dopamine production opens a world of possibilities, in particularly for diseases that are linked to this hormone and even arterial diseases such as Parkinson’s, epilepsy or even Alzheimer’s. Regarding the latter, a study at the University of Oregon highlighted the impact of repeated listening to music in Alzheimer's patients: their speech and conversation became more fluid and rich when music was repeatedly played.
Music makes us better
Beyond the biological benefits of music, it is now proven that it even has impact on our relationship with others.
Research by Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2009 revealed that our perception of the emotions of our surroundings are influenced by the music we listen to. For example, if one is subjected to a happy music, the people who surround us will seem happier.
Even more surprising is the experience of psychologists Rona Fried and Leonard Berkowitz of the University of New York: they subjected a group of students to listen to calm music, another to stimulating music a third group to music producing negative emotions and lastly one with no music at all. The students were then asked to render a service. Students submitted to the calming music were more likely to help (90%), followed by those in the third group and those who did not listen to music (60%) and in last, the group subjected to more negative music (45%).
Moral of the story: listen, sing, play! It's good for the body and for the soul.
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• 6 months ago
great! It works wonders in aged care facilities thats for sure! :)
• 6 months ago
Of course. Just surprised this article didn't have an accompanying background track of music.
• 6 months ago
How grateful I am that as children we were subjected to many different musical venues...thanks to our mother. Not only have the three of us siblings (now of retirement age) enjoyed the simple joy of music but a lot of different kinds. This article is going to be saved.
• 6 months ago
Need some more Steve Earle. Waylon. George Jones karaoke tracks.
• 6 months ago
I have been aware of such studies for years. There is a series of "IQ" cd's aimed at the parents of infants and young children, to be played at low volume while they are sleeping. It is a selection of specific classical music designed to stimulate the brain while asleep, without awakening the child. I have seen data on the benefits of such techniques. Music is indeed a form of therapy.
• 6 months ago
This is very interesting information! I downloaded and saved this page. This makes me wonder why there has been no work with humans referenced. Are they too cheap to pay those who ambulate on two legs, to participate in a study? I'd gladly sit and listen to music all day long! :) Music lowers blood pressure but does it KEEP it low, and for HOW LONG?
• 6 months ago
With so many musicians, do you guys produce all of the back tracks in your inventory?
• 6 months ago |
Building Robots at School
September 22, 2008
Intro to Ortho: The Three-View Lego Drawing
Filed under: mini sumo,robots,teaching,Tech Ed — dtengineering @ 6:09 pm
For several years now I have taught a course called “Robotics and Flight 10”. The students in the class are grade nine and grade ten students, and for the majority of them it is their first “real” tech studies class. The two cornerstone projects of the course are building tethered mini-sumo robots and tethered electric airplanes.
It didn’t take long to realize, however, that the students had great ideas on how to design their robots, but that they had a real problem getting those ideas out of their head in a way that I could understand. It wasn’t their problem… it was just that they didn’t know how to DRAW!
So I needed something simple, but fun to start the kids learning the basics of orthographic and isometric projections. I wanted to have something that would challenge the wide variety of skills and abilities that students have, and I wanted to do it with a realatively low investment of time and money.
So what we do is give the kids some Lego blocks. I show them how to set up their paper on their drafting board, and point out that while the T-square does look like a “T”, the square actually looks like a triangle. Then I get them to use the drawing tools to draw a border and title block.
Once they can do that they take two pieces of lego (just the bricks… not the fancy stuff) and I show them how to set up an orthographic drawing. We don’t draw the “bumps” on top or the “holes” on the bottom of the bricks, nor do we draw the “seams” where two pieces come together. We just assume that the lego has fused together in to one solid piece. We pay special attention to the difference between construction line weight and object line weight, aligning the views, and the correct way to rotate the lego between top, front, and side projections. Since all drawings are done at full scale, the students can take measurements directly off the Lego. I generally refuse to mark a drawing unless it is pretty close to perfect, so most kids get 5/5 on this drawing… although some of them end up going back to fix or re-do it more than once.
Once they get the first drawing done, the next task is to do a slightly more complex drawing, with three pieces of Lego. I make a point of advising them that just putting three pieces together to form a “bigger box” is not acceptable… they need some corners and variety in there.
Once they have finished the three-piece drawing, I talk to them about hidden lines, because for the third drawing they have to build a five-piece Lego structure and draw it with hidden lines. By the time they finish this, they are usually getting a pretty good idea of how to draw a simple orthographic projection. So it is time to give them something more challenging….
1. This is where they do the “Stump the Teacher” drawing. The rules are:
2. You can use as many lego pieces as you want, and make it as challenging as you want.
3. When you bring it to me for marking, if I can see one error, I send it back… and don’t tell you where the error is (or how many errors there are!).
4. You can bring it to me three times… if, on the third trip, there are still errors then you have to start over with something simpler. You have stumped yourself!
5. When you submit a perfectly drawn piece it will be marked as:
• Basic complexity (same as the five piece lego drawing) 2/5
• Some challenge 3/5
• Challenging! (the drawing in the photo fits this category) 4/5
• This is CRAZY… it hurts MY brain! 5/5
If, however, I either give up on finding an error, OR I make a mistake in my marking (I have to show them where the errors are on their third and final trip and have been known to very occasionally see an error where there isn’t one) then they get a bonus mark of 6/5 and get to claim the rare and coveted title of having “Stumped the Teacher”.
This is followed up by a few classes doing something similar but with isometric drawings, and then we get in to designing the robots. Although introducing the drawings this way takes about ten classes, it is perhaps not surprising that the quality of design drawings… and robots… has increased significantly since I started doing this introductory unit with the kids. If you have an interesting idea for introducing technical drawing to students, perhaps you will leave a comment describing it or linking to a description of it?
Wheel Diameters, Bumps and Traction
Filed under: teaching,Tech Ed,VEX — dtengineering @ 6:04 pm
The students are making good headway on their first class challenge. All five teams have built something that actually moves and have managed to set up their CPU and controller so that they can actually control it. But they are noticing that some robots climb the “bump” from the cement to the foam better than others. They have also noticed that some robots are really good at pushing the other robots around. So I figured it was time to talk a little bit about the importance of wheel diameter and tire traction when it comes to designing robots.
on the right, a standard two-motor, four wheel drive robot. In the back, a four-motor, four wheel drive robot. Since there is nothing linking the front and rear wheels together, when one wheel loses contact with the ground, the motor attached to it is no longer helping to push. On the left a robot with two different diameter wheels... but with the same gearing leading to each wheel. This is a common "rookie mistake" as the two wheels will have the same rotational velocities, but different circumferences, meaning each wheel will want to travel at a different speed. Note the front "omni-wheels", which allow for easier turning... a factor that becomes more important as the robots get bigger and heavier.
The article on torque briefly discusses the importance of wheel diameter in determining the pushing power and speed of the robot. (Larger wheel = faster, but less pushing power.) But a larger wheel also makes it easier to climb over obstacles. This is because as the wheel gets bigger, the angle between level ground and the wheel’s tangent at the contact point gets smaller. This means that a smaller wheel needs to rapidly accellerate upwards to get over an obstacle, while a larger wheel can “keep on rolling”. Both axles will move upwards the same amount (since the obstacle is the same size for each wheel), but the smaller wheel will have to do it much more rapidly, “wasting” energy by rapidly converting forward velocity into upward velocity. At the extreme end, when the wheel radius is equal to or less than the height of the obstacle, the robot must come to a complete halt in the horizontal direction. This is one reason why “monster trucks” have such big wheels… it allows them to climb over big obstacles.
The second reason that big wheels help is that they raise the axles up off the ground, providing greater ground clearance. This helps prevent getting “high centred” on an obstacle. This happens when the weight of the robot comes to rest on the chassis (where it touches the obstacle), taking weight off of the drive wheels (typically leaving one set spinning in the air) and thus reducing the amount of traction that can be used to push the robot up and over the obstacle.
A Bored of Notes on the Importance of Wheel Diameter for Clearing Obstacles
So it sounds like big wheels are the best choice, but as with everything, there is a trade-off. If you have size contraints on your robot, larger wheels mean that the axles, and thus the points where the wheels contact the ground, are also closer together. This means that the robot is more likely to tip forward or backward under heavy accelleration or braking. This is often compounded by the fact that the higher ground clearance provided by higher wheels often also results in a higher centre of gravity for the robot, making it more likely to tip in any direction.
Of course this discussion has been based on four-wheel drive robots. There are many other solutions to climbing obstacles and maintaining a low centre of gravity. Six and eight wheel drive systems, using smaller wheels… typically with at least one set of wheels raised up a little higher than the others are quite commonly used for climbing over obstacles. Tank Treads are also often used. Other, more exotic drive systems such as snakes, walkers and other creative solutions are used for climbing obstacles as well.
Tips on How to Maximize Pushing Power
Tips on How to Maximize Pushing Power
Other than the importance of going over an obstacle, the other thing that students are discovering is that some robots ‘push’ better than others. There are a number of factors that can affect this, as shown on the board of notes, to the right. Maximizing pushing power is a balance between torque and traction. Torque comes from the motors and gears, and is converted into a pushing force by the interaction of the wheel and the ground. To maximize pushing power, drive the robot against an immovable barrier. If the wheels spin, then you have more torque than you do traction. To make your robot push harder, you need to imcrease the traction, either by increasing the co-efficient of friction between your tire and the ground, or by increasing the amount of force pushing downwards on your tires (ie: make the robot heavier, if you can.) Alternatively, you may wish to increase your gearing or wheel diameter and trade off some of the excess torque for an increase in speed. If the motors stall, however, and the wheels stay still, then you have more traction than torque. You can increase your pushing power by reducing your gearing or wheel diameter (at the cost of reducing your speed)… or by adding more motors to your drivetrain. A more complex solution, should you need both high torque AND high speed is to build a two-speed gearbox that can “shift on the fly”.
One final note, shown by the left hand robot in the photo at the start of this post, is that if you are going to put different sized wheels on a drive train, then it makes sense to link them with the appropriate gear ratio. If both wheels spin at the same RPM, and one has a bigger circumference than the other, it is going to want to go faster than the smaller wheel. The only time these two wheels won’t be “fighting” with each other is when the robot is stopped or the motors are stalled.
September 18, 2008
The VEX Control System
Filed under: teaching,VEX — dtengineering @ 9:16 pm
Now that the students have some robots running about on the floor, they have suddenly become much more interested in the VEX control system. The default program that comes built-in to the VEX control system is pretty good for getting a basic robot up and running, but you will soon want to start doing a bit more. To do that, you need to program your robot.
A Bored of Notes
A Bored of Notes
Before talking too much about programming, however, it is important to notice a few things about the VEX transmitter. The VEX inventors guide (the big white binder that comes with your VEX kit… you have at least looked at it, I hope) has a great section on how to use the transmitter. Specifically it tells you how to set the “trims”. It even tells you what a “trim” is, and why you have to set them. It also tells you how to reverse the direction of one of the joystick axes. This is a REALLY useful thing to do when you have, after programming your robot, realized that it turns when you try to go straight… or goes forward when you try to go in reverse. It is definitely worth taking a few minutes to learn how to set up the controller properly.
The Inventors guide also talks about how to set the antenna up properly. VEX has a good RC (radio control) system, but if you leave your antenna on the transmitter down, and the antenna on your receiver all coiled up in a little roll, you will have probably less than three metres of range. Note that when you go to a competition that you will be required to remove YOUR crystals from the back of the transmitter and top of the receiver, and replace them with COMPETITION crystals that will be supplied by the event organizers. This is to prevent teams RC units from interfering with each other. To practice with your robot at a competition you will need to have a telephone cable to connect your transmitter directly to your CPU. Take the time to find a good one that works well BEFORE you go to a competition. You should also note that, should the need arise, you can attach two VEX receivers (operating on different frequencies) to the CPU so that you can use two controllers to run the robot. You could, for instance, have one person drive the robot base while another controls the arm and end effectors.
Now, back to that programming thing. As I mentioned, the default program is pretty good and is really well explained in the Inventors Guide (you haven’t read that YET? Sheesh…) But you will soon want to start doing more, and that means programming. Forunately for beginners there are three common languages that can be used to program a VEX CPU, and at least one of them is really about as easy as programming is ever going to get. I guess that is why they call it EasyC.
The programming kit includes EasyC and a programming cable that will allow you to hook the VEX CPU up to your (preferably laptop so you can take it to tournaments) computer, as well as one seat of the EasyC software. Both the cable and software can be purchased seperately (or you can buy a lab pack of EasyC) but typically a ratio of one seat of EasyC to one programming cable to one robot seems to work okay. If you are running many teams, you could probably share a programming cable between two robots, however.
Rather than go into detail on how EasyC works, I will refer you… once again… to the manual. I will note that on page 16, when it discusses identifying the correct COM port to talk to your robot with that you can usually save yourself the hassle of going through the whole list by looking under “Control Panel->System->Device Manager->Ports (COM and LPT)”. Aside from that the manual is pretty comprehensive, and written far more clearly than anything I’m likely to write here. EasyC is what I use with my students as well as with my own VEX kit at home.
If I need more flexibility, however, or am just feeling sufficiently masochistic to delve into the world of hand coding C, the VEX CPU can be programmed with the Microchip C compiler. I am not going to offer any suggestions on that topic here, however, because if you are considering that option you are either sufficiently skilled to figure it out on your own, or just blissfully unaware of how much happier you will be with EasyC. It isn’t like Microchip C is hard, per se… we use it with our FRC robots and it works great. Our lead programmer for the “BIG” robot was in grade 10 last year and did a fine job with Microchip C… it is just that EasyC is so… well…. easy.
The third, “intermediate” option is RobotC, however I haven’t used it and can’t comment on what it can do.
So good luck, have fun, and try to get some kind of autonomous code (when the robot runs all by itself without any help from you) figured out before your first competition. If you don’t have it figured out by then, then make sure when you get there that you ask around until you find someone who can help you.
September 16, 2008
Building a moving machine: My students’ first VEX challenge.
Filed under: robots,teaching,Tech Ed,VEX — dtengineering @ 4:04 pm
This year I am running five VEX teams as part of my Engineering 11 class here at David Thompson. There are 20 students in the class, which works out nicely to be four students per team. Eventually we will be playing this year’s VEX challenge game, but since very few of the students have any experience with robotics (or building stuff, for that matter), I wanted to ease them in to it. In the past I have just given teams the official challenge and said “go”… but I really do think it is better to lead them through the process one step at a time, and the best place to start is with the drive train… the most important part of any competition robot.
I had all the students put their names in a hat, and we drew names at random to see who would be on which team. These teams will only be together for a couple of weeks… once we have completed this challenge I will reassign them to new teams with completely different partners for a slightly more complex challenge. Then they will be able to form their own teams for the “real” game.
The Playing Field
The Playing Field
The first challenge I have given them is fairly simple. They have five classes to build a robot that can drive the course shown in the photo. It is a race. One robot starts, on the cement, at each end of the playing field. The robots have to navigate between two “slalom” gates marked by bolts. It doesn’t matter which direction they go through, so long as they go through both gates. If a robot knocks a bolt over, the driver has to put down their controller and do five pushups. After the pushups are done then someone else on the driver’s team can take over control, but that driver is “out” for that race. Contact is allowed… but just pushing and shoving, no flipping or damaging the other team’s machine. Finally, if a part… any part… should fall off a team’s robot, then EVERYONE on the team has to do five pushups before they can carry on driving.
The course is set up to cover a few basics in VEX design… how to hook up motors, how to set up the transmitter, how to create a simple EasyC program for the robot, how to steer, how to climb over an obstacle, and how to push another robot around. These are all fundamental skills that will be important in designing a competitive VEX robot.
Rather than provide lecture content and class demonstrations while the teams build (they would really rather be building than listening to me) I ask one person from each team to come to a table at the back of the shop where I demonstrate a topic (today it was battery charging and hooking up the receiver and CPU) to just those five students. It is then their job to be the group “expert” on that topic and share the information with the rest of their group. As different students become experts on different topics and move from group to group, hopefully the knowledge will diffuse throughout the class. And, no, I haven’t quite finalized exactly how I’m going to assess them individually at the end of all this. Probably some combination of self-assessment, peer assessment, and a quiz or two combined with a liberal helping of marks based on their robot’s performance on the playing field.
It has been interesting to watch the different design paths chosen by the teams. Some are creating their own design, while others are using the “squarebot” design in the VEX manual. The teams working on the squarebot design seem to have the easier task, but the squarebot uses just two motors… teams with custom designs are using four motors and jacking up the gear ratio a bit. Interestingly, so far all of the teams are using the small “roller blade” wheels… but we are only a couple classes in to the building. It will be interesting to see what comes from a couple days of practice… the first robot made it across the field today after school.
FIRST Lego League: Where to pay? Where to Play?
Filed under: FLL,Robotics Competitions — dtengineering @ 1:48 pm
FIRST Lego League is probably THE largest robotics competition in the world. Although it is limited to students in the 9-14 age range, it is certainly the largest robotics competition here in BC, both in terms of the numbers of teams and the number of people involved. A large part of this success is due to the hard work of the BC Original Minds Association which organizes the FLL program in BC. Their FLL web site has the most up to date information on what is going on in BC with regards to FLL. The “Resources” page is particularly useful. Although I didn’t see information on the whens and wheres of this year’s tournaments, there are typically three qualifying tournaments in BC, including one on Vancouver Island, as well as a provincial championship held in January in the lower mainland.
Each year FLL introduces a new challenge, based around a positive, scientific, theme. This year’s theme is “Climate Connections”. More information on the challenge is available from the FIRST website.
Details on costs are listed here, and the registration page is here. Typically a team will pay a $200USD registration fee, and buy the “field set-up kit” of lego parts and a 4’x8′ game mat for $65 USD (you get at least $65 worth of Lego in this kit, which you are free to use however you want in future years). This way all teams will be able to replicate the official playing surface in their own lab, shop, or living room. It takes quite a while to build all the various field elements and set up the playing field, however this is essential for practicing and refining the robot’s autonomous routines. To see the “missions” and game mat, look here. If two or more teams are sharing a space, for instance when we ran two teams out of my animation lab here at school, it is possible to only order one field set-up kit and for the teams to share it. Finally teams will need access to either the Lego Mindstorms NXT, or the older RCX, robotics kit, including CPU, motors and sensors. While it is often possible to find the old RCX bricks sitting around unused in the educational system, there is a nicely subsidized kit including the NXT system with essentially all the parts required to build a basic FLL robot available for $365 USD when you register a team. This kit can be re-used from year to year. For more sophisticated robots, additional Lego parts can be added, as specified in the rules. Canadian teams will find their parts supplied through Spectrum Scientific. This avoids some of the brokerage charges that come when ordering direct from the USA, but can result in orders taking a little longer to arrive.
It is important to understand that the robots are only part of the overall competition. Preparing reports related to the theme, developing pit area displays, and demonstrating teamwork and enthusiasm are all important parts of the competition. This why it is possible to have up to ten students on one FLL team. Personally, I think four kids per team is about right, and probably wouldn’t recommend going above six at the most. The FLL Coach’s Handbook has good information on all aspects of building an FLL team. (For some reason that link wasn’t working when Ic checked, but it might just be our balky school connection.) Once you get looking around you will find that there are many, many resources available from programming to mentoring to just building good Lego structures. Maybe you will post some of the ones you find most useful here as a comment?
September 15, 2008
Torque… it all comes down to Torque.
Filed under: robots,teaching,Tech Ed — dtengineering @ 10:07 pm
One of the most useful concepts in building competitive robots is the concept of torque. Oddly, for a concept this simple but powerful, it isn’t officially covered in the BC curriculum until Physics 12… and then often towards the end of the year. That is why I always talk about torque near the beginning of any robotics project, even with my grade 9’s.
Torque is the amount of “twist” about a pivot point, and is determined by two factors: the amount of force being exerted and the distance that force is away from the pivot point. Consider example “A”, a “teeter-totter”. These things used to exist in all sorts of kid’s playgrounds, and were always a great opportunity to see if you could actually launch your little brother into the air. Playgrounds might be safer now that they are gone, but a whole generation is deprived of the deep understanding of physics that comes from having the person on the other end jump off while you are six feet in the air. There is nothing like landing flat on your butt on packed dirt to leave a lasting impression of the importance of torque in your brain.
But I digress. The formula for torque is simply “Force x Distance”, or, in physics symbology, “τ=F*D”. Thus in example “A”, the teeter totter is balanced… the torque on one side 20Nm clockwise about the pivot point, is countered by the 20Nm torque in the other direction. This should be pretty obvious, but what isn’t always obvious is that you could replace the force and distance on one side with the driveshaft of a motor. So long as the motor could produce 20Nm of torque, the system would be balanced.
Torque also describes the amount of “pushing force” you can get from your robot wheels. In example “B”, a wheel is driven by a 20Nm motor. Since the wheel has a radius of 2m, you will get a pushing force of 10N. That’s not bad… the Newton is the metric unit of force, and… roughly translated, one Newton is roughly equivalent to the gravitational force exerted by a 100g weight near the surface of the Earth. So this robot would push with a force equivalent to “one kg” (10N≈1kg). If you don’t quite comprehend the difference between a Newton and a kg, go bug a science teacher until they explain it to you. They will be delighted that you asked. Anyways, back to that wheel… what would happen to the amount of pushing force if you used a 1m diameter wheel? What would be the “trade off” for the extra pushing force? And what idiot came up with an example using a 2m radius wheel? How big would that robot have to be?
Finally, torque also describes the situation where you are attempting to use a robot arm to lift an object, as shown in example “C”. By understanding torque it is easier to understand how a counterbalance (an opposing force on the end opposite the load) can make it easier for your robot to lift heavy loads. Note that the counterbalance doesn’t have to be a weight… you could attach elastic bands between the tower and the “short” end of the robot arm. What isn’t immediately apparent, however, is that torque will also determine whether or not this robot will flip forward as the arm lifts the load (you don’t have enough information to calculate that here, but it fairly easy to do… just consider the front wheel of the robot to be the pivot point.)
One thing to keep in mind is that our good friends south of the border, who long ago fought a bitter war to gain independence from the British Empire, are ironically about the only nation left on the planet still using the old British “Imperial” system of measurement. So if you happen to be talking to Americans, you’ll find that they use terms such as “foot-pounds” and “ounce-inches” to describe torque. It’s the same concept, of course, but in different units.
These are all simple torque calculations (we haven’t discussed the weight of the arm, for instance, or how to deal with loads that are at an angle other than 90° to the level arm), but as students develop a better understanding of torque they can apply it to almost every aspect of robot design…. but without at least a basic understanding of torque, it is almost impossible to design a robot.
P.S. A great question was asked at the end of my torque lesson the other class, “But Mr. Brett, isn’t the formula for work (F*d) the same as the formula for torque (F*d)?” The answer is both yes, and no… the formulas are the same, but in work, the “d” refers to the distance an object moves, which is more correctly referred to as Δd, “the change in distance”. (Alternatively one may refer to it as Force*Displacement, if one simply insists on using F*d).
VEX Schedules for BC
Filed under: Robotics Competitions,VEX — dtengineering @ 9:06 pm
I had a phone call tonight from Lance. Lance is a real, genuine engineer (as opposed to us “teachers with engineering backgrounds”) who plays a big leadership role in organizing robotics events here in BC and supporting teachers and teams in whatever way he can. Lance was working with Randy (on Vancouver Island) to sort out the timing of the VEX tournaments in Vancouver, and on Vancouver Island. They had been tentatively scheduled to be just one week apart.
It looks like now we will stay with the December 6th date for the Vancouver VEX tournament. The location is to be determined, but we have a few places in mind that we should be able to get for free that have worked well in the past. Randy will move the Vancouver Island tournament back to later in January so that teams will have a chance to re-design and re-build their machines. That should make for a very spectacular event in the Courtenay/Comox area of Vancouver Island, as the robots always make huge strides in performance between events. It will be fantastic to see robots at their peak performance on Vancouver Island, as Randy — working with MISTIC — has accomplished a real feat in bringing VEX to Vancouver Island.
Fundraising and Sponsorships
Filed under: fundraising,Robotics Competitions,teaching — dtengineering @ 6:18 am
This summer our team ran a car wash at a gas station near the school. Over the course of a weekend they raised over $800. Afterwards one student observed, “If we do this 27 more times we can afford to go to the Hawaii Regional!”
Trobotics ran a car wash fundraiser one weekend in July.
Trobotics ran a car wash fundraiser one weekend in July.
While I wouldn’t put it past some FRC teams to do 27 weekends of car washes to meet a fundraising goal, it quickly becomes evident that fundraising is only part of solution to funding a robotics team. Developing relationships with the local community: businesses, governments, professionals, tradespeople, community service organizations… everyone, is part of the challenge. While our FRC team has been fortunate to have the support of one of the most generous sponsors in all of student robotics (yes, General Motors, we mean you!) for the past four years… we didn’t start out that way.
We had to hit up our school’s Parent’s Advisory Council, and went on a campaign of cold calling local businesses and anyone we could think of to try and get their support. We did okay, thanks to some help from the folks at FIRST Robotics Canada opening some doors for us once they could see we were serious, but we could have done better if we’d known about some of these resources:
FIRST NEMO (Non-Engineering Mentor Organization) has some good tips about all sorts of non-technical things, including fundraising.
Chief Delphi, the unofficial discussion board for all things FIRST has some great tips. You can search for yourself (sign up as a member and you don’t have to type in all those goofy codes) or start here and here. Or even better, go to the white papers and search for sponsorship or fundraising. Oh, and sign up as a member. It is a really great, supportive, on-line community.
FIRST provides some supporting materials for FRC teams, FTC teams and FLL teams, (if those links don’t work, just go to the FIRST website and look up “Communications Resource Center” under the “quick links” heading) and I will always direct people to the archives of FIRST workshops and conferences, although this time I’m not linking to anything specific as I haven’t really gone through a lot of the “non technical” stuff.
Finally, my tips… set up different sponsorship levels, “Gold, Silver, Bronze” and be prepared to offer up naming rights to your top sponsors. In fact, it is pretty much required for FRC teams to have their sponsors’ name as part of their official team name. We’re pretty darn proud to be “General Motors Canada and David Thompson Secondary School” on the official lists. Realize that sponsors take you more seriously when they see you doing a lot of the hard work yourselves.
Presenting a "thank you" photo to Maryann Combs, of General Motors
When you DO land a sponsor, make sure you take VERY good care of them. Keep them posted with news about what your team is doing, how your design is coming along and what you are learning because of their support. They want to know that their support is having an impact. At the end of each season we like to take a team photo, frame it with a nice border, have the students write “thank yous” on and sign the border and present it to one of our “champions” at General Motors.
Remember that it IS possible to do this. There are 1300 FRC teams around the world, and each of them has figured out a way to come up with thousands and thousands of dollars to play the game. We didn’t really expect to make it our first year… and yet here we are looking at a sixth season coming up! Last year, when two FTC teams from our neighbouring school, Gladstone Secondary, qualified for the FTC Championships in Atlanta, it was a complete pipe dream for them to ever make it there. Yet their community came together in just a few short weeks and both teams made it to the quarter finals of the world championships! It wasn’t easy… it won’t be easy… but it can be done.
My final word of advice though, is to find someone who can do for your team what Pat does for ours. Pat teaches business education at our school and runs the communications/business/marketing side of our team. She is the team’s real expert where money and corporate relations are involved. A robotics team, just like a technology business, needs a wide variety of expertise in order to thrive. Maybe for your team it will be a parent, or someone in the community, but we’d be lost without Pat.
Finding VEX — Where to Pay? Where to Play?
Filed under: Robotics Competitions,VEX — dtengineering @ 3:03 am
Well, I don’t have to write a lot about getting registered. The good people at IFI robotics, organizers of the VEX Robotics Competition (VRC, of course, as we need to keep our TLA’s up) have written a good guide to registering for VRC. The short answer is that registration is $75 for the first team from a school and $25 for each team after that. The five teams at DT, for instance, cost just $175. The real cost comes in the equipment. You can count on spending close to $1000 per team to build a competitive robot, but that equipment should be reusable from year to year. That is why we can afford to have five teams… we already have five sets of equipment. (I’ll write more later on what I would recommend to buy, and where to get it.)
Their guide should tell you where to PAY, and if you look here, you should find a long list of places to PLAY. You will find the list towards the bottom of the page, and it goes on for several pages. The list is (as I write this) incomplete as there will be more events added. Today, for instance, I signed up three teams from our school for the Vancouver Island tournament and all five up for the Vancouver tournament, but those of us organizing the Vancouver tournament have yet to finalize dates and locations (I know it says Dec. 6, but with Vancouver Island running the following weekend, it would make sense for one of us to change). Keep an eye on, and be sure I’ll post more here about the scheduling issues as they are resolved.
As far as other Canadian events go, I see several tournaments listed in Ontario, as well as Nova Scotia and Alberta. Hopefully there will be at least one in Washington State, but we’ll be happy to host the American teams up here if there isn’t.
UPDATE: Sept. 24/08
BC VEX Tournament Schedule (less tentative than before):
December 6, West Vancouver Secondary School
January 20, Courtenay/Comox area, Vancouver Island
Febrary 20, Gladstone Secondary School, Vancouver
Finding FTC — Where to pay? Where to play?
Filed under: FTC,Robotics Competitions — dtengineering @ 2:32 am
I’ve been asked a few times now about the costs of the FIRST Tech Challenge program, and when and where the tournaments will be held. I can understand that there is a bit of confusion to someone new to robotics competitions, so here are some places to look:
What does it cost to play FTC for 2008? Look here. In short the answer is $275 USD for registration and $900 USD for the new kit of parts. This kit of parts (KOP in acronym land) should be reusable from year-to-year. There are also grants available to teams returning from last year, and a limited number of rookie team grants to help cover the cost of purchasing the KOP. At $450 each, the grants are substantial, and definitely worth looking in to. (Hint… read that link, above.)
FIRST works on a program of regional affiliates… you can kind of think of these as “non-profit franchises”. Just like McDonalds restaurants are often locally-owned and operated franchises, but with central control of product and quality, this ensures that FIRST offers local support, but a uniformly high quality of competition around the world. For teams in BC, the regional affiliate partner is the BC Original Minds Association (BCOMA). Their web site is Look under “registration” for how to get signed up for their FIRST Tech Challenge Event, scheduled for January 10 at BCIT in Burnaby.
Other FTC events can be found in Seattle (they have a great write up on getting involved in FTC) and through the FIRST web site. This list will be updated throughout the fall, but at present the only Canadian competitions I am aware of outside of BC are in Ontario. Check out FIRST Robotics Canada’s website for more information on what is happening “back east”.
FTC is a great program, backed by some great people. It can sometimes seem a little intimidating to get signed up and registerested, and sometimes at first glance the fees can seem a bit high. I can assure you that using TIMS (the “Team Information Management System”) gets easier, and that FIRST works hard… and succeeds… at delivering good value for your money.
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Inputting various techniques on Sibelius for guitar and cornet...... can you help?
Discussion in 'Music' started by wigsi, Mar 24, 2011.
1. Can anyone advise me what the abbreviations mean for various guitar techniques on Sibelius. They are on the 'menu' that comes up when you type 'L' . I am familiar with palm mute (P.M.) but some of the others are:
Also, is it acceptable to indicate a staccato note on guitar music with the usual dot above/below the note, or would it be better to indicate a palm mute?
And..... does anyone know how to enter flutter tonguing on a cornet?
Thanks in advance!
2. silverfern
silverfern New commenter
Notate it as a tremolo, ie. with 'slashes' through the stem of the note?
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A phobia is a disproportionate fear triggered by an object or situation. Fear of flying, lifts, heights, agoraphobia (fear of going out), arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and claustrophobia are amongst the more common phobias, but actually you can develop a phobia about anything if you work at it!
In a fully developed phobia the level of fear is completely over the top, cannot be reasoned with, seems out of control and leads you to avoid the feared situation. Phobias can be learnt through traumatic events, over-attention to unpleasant experiences and also from other people’s over-the-top reactions.
The good news is that phobias can often be resolved in just a few sessions of hypnotherapy and the effects can be positively life changing. Imagine going out to the shops or to social events for the first time in years and being able to relax and enjoy yourself. Remember, a phobia is not something that is wrong with you, nor is it something you inherited. It is a process you learnt, for whatever reason, so you can learn a new process and get a better result, often very quickly.
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The signs of Attention Deficit Disorder may or may not be incredibly apparent. Because of the intricacies of this disorder and the variations from child to child, diagnosis may prove to be a difficult process.
The first step is understanding that hyperactivity is not synonymous with Attention Deficit Disorder. While a child may exhibit an increased level of activity with this disorder, it is not an inherent factor of ADD.
On the other hand, there are certain characteristics that are prevalent in a child with ADD, such as inattentiveness, impulsiveness, and being easily distracted.
Inattentiveness and distractibility go hand and hand. A child with ADD may have a difficult time staying on task, completing activities, and paying attention to details. While these may seem common traits among children, an ADD child will exhibit extreme behavior more so than children of the same age. They must also exhibit these behaviors for extended periods of time, more than six months, and the behavior must significantly hinder a child’s ability to function in day to day activities.
Impulsiveness also is a common trait among children with ADD. Often paired with hyperactivity, a child may suddenly bolt from their chair to observe what is taking place across the classroom. On the other hand, a child may also exhibit impulsive behavior that does not show signs of hyperactivity, such as blurting out answers in a classroom setting.
Children with Attention Deficit Disorder seem to be wired in to everything that is happening around them. In some ways, they are hypersensitive to their surroundings and can not concentrate with typical distractions. While they do not have difficulties learning, they may very likely rank poor academically because of their inability to stay on task and complete assignments.
Boys and girls tend to behave differently with ADD. While both genders will typically be hypersensitive to sight, sounds, and physical stimuli, boys tend to be more hyperactive and girls more inattentive. They also both seem to become unmanageable and unruly with overstimulation, sometimes to the point of aggressiveness and abusiveness. This is of particular importance to parents of a child with ADD, as these prove to be more difficult times of control.
It is important, however, to understand that all children are different. No two children will behave exactly the same in any given circumstance. Just because your child behaves more aggressively than other children, does not necessarily mean they have ADD. Diagnosis from a physician or specialist is necessary to determine if Attention Deficit Disorder is present. |
The RMS Titanic
One of the Deadliest Peacetime Maritime Disasters in History
The RMS Titanic
One of the Deadliest Peacetime Maritime Disasters in History
The Titanic was an Olympic class ship which struck an iceberg on April 14th, 1912 and sunk two hours and forty minutes later. It is said then when strong emotions and experiences are felt then the chances of experiencing a paranormal experience peaks. Is there ghosts still lingering among the sunken Titanic?
RMS Titanic was the largest passenger steamship in the world when she set off on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City on April 10th, 1912.
Four days into the crossing, at 23:40 on April 14th, 1912, she struck an iceberg and sank at 2:20 the following morning, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.
A disproportionate number of men died due to the women and children first protocol that was followed. Titanic was designed by some of the most experienced engineers, and used some of the most advanced technologies available at the time. It was a great shock to many that, despite the extensive safety features, Titanic sank.
The vessel began her maiden voyage from Southampton, bound for New York City on April 10th, 1912, with Captain Edward J. Smith in command.
The incident delayed departure for about half an hour. After crossing the English Channel, Titanic stopped at Cherbourg, France, to board additional passengers and stopped again the next day at Queenstown (known today as Cobh), Ireland.
When she finally set out for New York, there were 2,240 people aboard. John Coffey, a 23-year-old crewmember, jumped ship by stowing away on a tender and hid amongst mailbags headed for Queenstown.
Among them were:
• millionaire John Jacob Astor IV and his wife Madeleine Force Astor
• industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim
• Macy's owner Isidor Straus and his wife Ida
• Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife, couturière Lucy (Lady Duff-Gordon)
• George Dunton Widener, his wife Eleanor, and son Harry
• journalist William Thomas Stead
• the Countess of Rothes
• United States presidential aide Archibald Butt
• author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee
• author Jacques Futrelle his wife May and their friends
• Broadway producers Henry and Rene Harris and silent film actress Dorothy Gibson among others
Titanic - 1912 Original Video Footage
This is a Detailed Video showing many parts of titanic and also the passengers who died.
On the night of Sunday, April 14th, 1912, the temperature had dropped to near freezing and the ocean was calm. The moon was not visible (being two days before new moon), and the sky was clear.
Later that evening, another report of numerous large icebergs, this time from Mesaba, also failed to reach the bridge. At 23:40, while sailing about 400 miles (640 km) south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, lookouts Fredrick Fleet and Reginald Lee spotted a large iceberg directly ahead of the ship.
Captain Smith, alerted by the jolt of the impact, arrived on the bridge and ordered a full stop. Shortly after midnight on April 15th, following an inspection by the ship's officers and Thomas Andrews, the lifeboats were ordered to be readied and a distress call was sent out.
Titanic's Ghosts
Documentary about the recent attempts to identify some of the victims retrieved from sea after the Titanic was lost.
As it was not responding to wireless, Fourth Officer Boxhall and Quartermaster Rowe attempted signalling the ship with a Morse lamp and later with distress rockets, but the ship never appeared to respond. Californian, which was nearby and stopped for the night because of ice, also saw lights in the distance.
Californian's wireless was turned off, and the wireless operator had gone
Titanica (1995) IMAX Documentary
Of a total of 2,223 people aboard Titanic, only 706, less than a third, survived and 1,517 perished.
The majority of deaths were caused by hypothermia in the 28 °F (−2 °C) water where death could be expected in less than 15 minutes. Men and members of the 2nd and 3rd class were less likely to survive.
Of the male passengers in second class, 92 percent perished. Less than a quarter of third-class passengers survived.
Overall, only 20 percent of the men survived, compared to nearly 75 percent of the women. Men in first class were four times as likely to survive as men in second class, and twice as likely to survive as those in third. Four of the eight officers survived. About 21 of the 29 able seamen survived and all seven quartermasters and eight lookouts survived.
Three of the 13 leading firemen survived, around 45 other firemen survived and around 20 of the 73 coal trimmers survived. Four of the 33 greasers survived and one of the six mess hall stewards survived. Around 60 of the 322 stewards and 18 of the 23 stewardesses survived.
Three of the 68 restaurant staffs survived. All five postal clerks, guarantee group, and eight-member orchestra perished.
Another disparity is that a greater percentage of British passengers died than Americans; some sources suggest it was because Britons of the time were polite and queued, rather than forcing their way onto the lifeboats. The captain Edward John Smith was shouting: "Be British, boys, be British!" as the liner went down.
• A Swede, Alma Pålsson, was travelling third class to meet her husband with their four children aged under 10; all died. "Paulson's grief was the most acute of any who visited the offices of the White Star, but his loss was the greatest. His whole family had been wiped out."
• The sailors aboard the ship CS Mackay-Bennett, which recovered bodies from Titanic, were upset by the discovery of a 19-month-old boy.
They paid for a monument and he was buried on May 4th, 1912 with a copper pendant placed in his coffin by the sailors that read "Our Babe". The boy was identified in 2007 as Sidney Leslie Goodwin.
• Stewardess Violet Jessop, who had been on board RMS Olympic during the collision with HMS Hawke in 1911, went on to survive the sinking of HMHS Britannic in 1916.
• The last living survivor was Millvina Dean from England, only nine weeks old at the time of the sinking. She died on May 31st, 2009, the 98th anniversary of the launching of Titanic's hull.
• There are many stories about dogs on Titanic. A crewman released the dogs from the ship's kennels before it went down; they were seen running on the decks. Two lap dogs survived with their owners in lifeboats.
Within 24 hours of Titanics sinking the owners of the ship The White Star Line were rushing to send a team of Canadian sailors to the scene to retrieve any bodies still floating in the icy waves. The recovery effort was launched on the 17th of April 1912 from Halifax in Canada as it was the closest major port to where the Titanic went down.
The remains of 150 lost souls that were recovered now lie in Fairview Lawn Cemetery Nova Scotia, although sadly many were never identified their grave marked only by numbers.
One of the most widely spread legends linked directly into the sectarianism of the city of Belfast, where the ship was built. It was suggested that the ship was given the number 390904 which, when reflected, resembles the letters "NOPOPE", a sectarian slogan attacking Roman Catholics, widely used by extreme Protestants in Northern Ireland, where the ship was built.
In the extreme sectarianism of the region, the ship's sinking was alleged to be on account of anti-Catholicism by her manufacturers, the Harland and Wolff company, which had an almost exclusively Protestant workforce and an alleged record of hostility towards Catholics.
(Harland and Wolff did have a record of hiring few Catholics; whether that was through policy or because the company's shipyard in Belfast's bay was located in almost exclusively Protestant East Belfast—through which few Catholics would travel—or a mixture of both, is a matter of dispute.)
In fact, RMS Olympic and Titanic were assigned the yard numbers 400 and 401 respectively.
Ghost Ships - The term Ghost Ship in the Paranormal realm actually has two different meanings.
Generally it means a ship that has had reports of an apparition upon it or the ship as a whole is seen as an apparition but it can also mean a ship that has been abandoned by its crew mysteriously.
The following footage is famous Ghost Ships within our world:
The Flying Dutchman Ghost Ship
Mary Celeste - Ghost Ship
The Queen Mary - Ghosts & Legends
RMS Rhone - Ghost Ship
SS Watertown - Ghost Ship
Titanic - Ghosts Of The Abyss
Ghost Ships Of The Great Lakes |
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Help with circuit
1. Jan 25, 2010 #1
A year ago I took an Electronics course using https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-D...sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264470203&sr=8-1" book.
So few days ago I realized that I didn't remember anything about the subject and then started studying again from the ground up and chose the Sedra/Smith Microelectronics book for the task. So in this book I stumbled upon a different way of modeling the circuits, like this one:
My question is: How do I rewrite this kind of circuit in a closed loop manner? The other book that I mentioned usually provided the closed loop circuit, so it was a trivial task to analyze them. But this one I have no idea, and the introductory chapter doesn't mention anything about it...
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by a moderator: May 4, 2017
2. jcsd
3. Jan 25, 2010 #2
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This sort of thing?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4222062/diode%20problem.PNG [Broken]
Last edited by a moderator: May 4, 2017
4. Jan 25, 2010 #3
So you're saying that I must plug all the voltage sources of my circuit to that GND? And how about the other GND in that picture? the Potential Difference will be calculated between the point after the 10k resistor and the the junction between the 2 voltage sources and the other diode?
5. Jan 25, 2010 #4
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Science Advisor
The other terminal of voltage sources shown like this is earthed, and all earths can be considered joined together.
The diagram in the book actually shows the components laid out according to the potentials at various points in the circuit, relative to earth.
You may get a surprise when you work out what V is.
6. Jan 25, 2010 #5
Thank you so much.
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How come the wind is cold?
1. Jun 19, 2009 #1
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A windy 0 °C day perceived as colder than a 0 °C day without wind.
I find that strange, given that wind is just air particles with kinetic energy. When those speedy particle hit a body, they should give off some of their energy to that body in the form of heat. But instead cold is perceived by our skin. How come?!
2. jcsd
3. Jun 19, 2009 #2
In still air, your body heat warms the air around you, forming a kind of 'protective' warm layer of air. In hard winds, the air around your body is constantly refreshed, and it gets no chance to warm up. Your body heat literally is 'washed away' by the wind! The energy of the particles hitting you should indeed warm you up a little bit, but I'm sure that effect is immeasurably small in comparison.
Compare this to what you should do if you burn your finger! I'm sure you've always been told to hold it in cold, flowing water, instead of still water. The reason is basically because still water warms up pretty quickly due to your body heat. Flowing water is still cold when it hits your skin, and it then washes away, making room for more cold water.
4. Jun 19, 2009 #3
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Remember also that cold winter air is often quite dry, and when it hits your skin, it can evaporate water from your skin. Evaporative cooling can make the air feel cooler than it is.
5. Jun 19, 2009 #4
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Staff: Mentor
Not if the kinetic energy of the body they hit is higher than theirs! Then the body gives some of its heat to the air particles (molecules).
And the faster the wind, the more air molecules hit your body, for your body to transfer some of its energy to.
6. Jun 19, 2009 #5
Yeah I agree with Russ. The heat is transferred from the hotter object (you) to the colder object (the air). Wind just allows more and more of the air which is colder than you to come into contact with you, and leaves no chance for equilibrium between you and the cold air.
7. Jun 19, 2009 #6
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Conduction and convection. The wind speed is much, much less than the speed of the air molecules, which is on the order of 400 m/s at 0°C, as compared to a wind of 20 km/h or 5 km/s.
8. Jun 20, 2009 #7
it takes the heat away from your body quicker.
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Monday, 30 March 2009
A Colony On Mars : Chapter 6
. Monday, 30 March 2009
CHAPTER – The Food on Mars
October 5, 2107: Besides the ever present mushrooms the colony also
raised chickens, rabbits, turkeys, ducks and geese. There was a small heard of
goats but there wasn't enough for them to graze on. They produced a little milk
but Tim never knew what happened to that. There certainly wouldn't have been
enough to go around. Once in a while they would butcher a kid but Tim never
found out who got the meat, he suspected the kitchen staff as there would not
be enough fresh meat to go around either. They were getting enough frozen
meat from Earth to flavor their food but they seldom if ever had steak or roast
beef or any plain meat dish even hamburger. There always seemed to be
bacon sausage and once in a while, ham.
Tim looked up the two guys from the Scientific crew that were working
with the small experimental garden and ask them what all it would take to grow
enough vegetables to meet the needs of the community of now over six
hundred people. After some discussion the finally decided that they would need
about 160 acres of fertile irrigated land with adequate grow lights to raise
everything they needed.
In the early part of the twenty first century in the United States the rule of
thumb had been that it took one acre per person to provide food to the country.
Around 2025 The United States changed from a net food exporting country to a
net food importing country. In response to this development farmers became a
lot more efficient at food production. By 2107 the ratio had been reduced to half
an acre per person. Thanks largely to the more extensive use of hot houses for
growing vegetables. On Earth the growing season for most foods was still
seasonal. On Mars there were no seasons and all food could be grown year
around and around the clock. That meant that on Mars the ratio would be about
one quarter acre per person. That included the room that the animals required.
Tim had in mind that the entire area on the Company cavern behind the lake
and stream, which was approximately 320 acres would be the ideal place for
the farm. That would provide all the land that they would need to easily feed a
population of one thousand people. By the time that the population exceeded
one thousand they would have more land because more caverns would be
opened. Tim got a list of the fertilizers that would be needed to bring the
Martian soil to life and keep it producing for one year. They then worked out
just how many grow lights they would need to run a hothouse of that size. The
results were staggering but undaunted Tim spent his next day off working out a
requisition for the needed material and an estimate of how much was spent by
The Company and the Government to provide the community with canned
produce that nobody enjoyed eating. In his equation he allowed for six full time
gardeners. The conclusion reached is that it would be cheaper to raise their
own vegetables on Mars, a lot cheaper.
The next morning before work he gave a copy of his findings to Carter
and another copy to Thelma. The report was well received on Mars . Walter
and Thelma submitted an edited copy of Tim's report to The Company and the
government. Everyone agreed that was what should be done but they knew the
schedule and knew it would be about seven months before the requisitioned
items would arrive. They would just have to continue eating canned vegetables
until then.
October 5, 2107: Message received from Company on Earth. We have
planned a farm on Mars all along. Knowing you would have adequate electricity
soon we have already shipped your farm supplies, grow lights, equipment and
four farmers. They are now en route on Mars Supply Two and should arrive
around January 15, 2108.
October 10, 2107: Not completely satisfied with that Tim and Carter
gathered up all the grow lights they had and all the other lights that could be
converted to grow lights. They then cleaned out the goat pen, the rabbit pens
and the chicken pens and were able to set up a two acre test farm in The
Company cavern. Some of the people with gardening experience volunteered
and two of them were assigned as full time farmers.
Continue Chapter:
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How to name a hummingbird
Kim Johnson looks at the tiniest birds through the eyes of history
From the first, Europeans thought them quite startling. “Little birds,” remarked Columbus in 1492, when he first arrived in the New World, “so different from ours, it is a marvel.”
Since wrens were the smallest birds known to Europeans at the time, Peter Martyr in De Orbe Novo explained that these were “smaller than wrens.” And indeed, so tiny were some species — “the smallest birds in the world” — that Fernandez de Oviedo, who wrote his detailed New World descriptions in the early 16th century, referred to them as pajaro-mosca or “bird-fly”, or the diminutive pajaro-mosquito, “little bird-fly”.
Back in Europe, people took this literally. They pictured a half-bird, half-fly which hatched as an insect and metamorphosed into a bird.
The English name came in 1630, when Captain John Smith returned home from Virginia speaking of “the humbird, one of the wonders of the Countrey, being no bigger than a Hornet, yet hath all the dimensions of a Bird, as bill and wings with quills, Spider-like legges, small clawes.” (Smith is better known for his romance with the Native American princess Pocahontas than for his observations on nature.)
Two decades later, in John Josselyn’s New England Rarities, the Amerindian names were recorded: “Colibry or viemalin, the Rising and Waking Bird, an Emblem of the Resurrection.” Colibri, “little magic one” or “spirit-bird”, was the name given by the indigenous people of what is now Haiti. A Swedish classifier named Linnaue misspelled the word to get Colubris, actually Latin for “snake”. He also named one genus Trochilus, which was the ancient Greek name for “plover”, a bird small enough for crocodiles to ignore while it picked their teeth. Trochilus is still the name for what Jamaicans call the Doctor Bird.
The resurrection name came from Mexico; “vitzitzili” (vee-tsee-tsee-lee) is what Franciscan priest Bernadino de Sahugun heard when the Aztecs were calling hummingbirds in their Nahuatl language; he translated this to pajaro resucitado, “the reviving ones”. The birds were reputed to die when food and warmth were scarce, and revive, sometimes months later, when things improved.
The idea was ridiculed by naturalists, until the 19th century, when it was scientifically observed that, in cold regions, the birds really did have the ability to slow their metabolism almost to a dead stop. This is just as well, since a hummingbird, because of the proportionately vast amount of energy it burns, can starve to death after a few hours’ activity.
There have been other names, too. De Oviedo compared his “bird-flies” to a “tomin or two”, a tomin being a Spanish feather-light weight. When the Spanish Jesuit naturalist José de Acosta recounted his 16th century travels in Mexico and Peru, he described the birds as los tominejos.
The Mediterranean peoples coined more picturesque names: picaflores, chupaflores, chuparrosas, chupamirtas, pickers or sippers of flowers, roses or myrtle. The Brazilians, even more romantic, preferred “kissers of flowers”. The English, inevitably, settled upon a more grammatically correct version of John Smith’s “humbird”.
Hummingbirds are indigenous to the New World, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, and have inspired much excitement throughout the western world. What, therefore, accounts for the small island of Trinidad — which boasts only 13 of the 300 species — being called the Land of the Hummingbird?
There are several connections. The birds were central to Amerindian mythology, and the Warao Indians of South America believed they first obtained their sacred tobacco when it was carried to the mainland from Trinidad by a hummingbird. But linguist Kemlin Lawrence pointed out years ago that “Cairi”, the aboriginal name for Trinidad, didn’t mean “land of the humming bird”, as is popularly believed. The word simply meant “island”, and wasn’t even a place name. Calypsonian The Mighty Sparrow, noting the greater prevalence of “cobos” (turkey vultures) in Trinidad, sang in the 1960s, “A Bajan fella say this is absurd/I thought this was the land of the hummingbird.”
In 1838, historian E. L. Joseph told another story about another tribe of Indians, the Chaima, after whom Carapichaima in Central Trinidad is named. The people had killed many hummingbirds at La Brea, not knowing the birds were their own resurrected ancestors. The Good Spirit, angered by this deed, had the earth swallow the village, and thus was created Trinidad’s famous Pitch Lake.
A half-century after, a Dominican priest, Fr Bertrand Cothonay, heard that the Pitch Lake was the point of exit of souls from the nether world. While virtuous Amerindians returned to visit their descendants as hummingbirds, sinners emerged from the lake as cobos. Alas, Fr Cothonay, himself in the business of souls, noted (a century before Sparrow) that the district had many more cobos than hummingbirds.
Trinidad’s reputation for being the land of the hummingbird, was rooted, I am told, in a European mistake. In the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of the creatures, all squashed flat like cockroaches, were shipped from Brazil to Europe where their feathers were used to adorn the hats of fashionable women. The transshipment port, where those cargoes of avifaunal corpses were boxed and stamped for the Atlantic haul, was the colony of Trinidad. |
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Vladimir Ilich Lenin
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Capital: Moscow
Communist Rule: 1917-1991
Status: Collapsed - 26.12.1991
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Monday, December 12, 2011
Geography, Geology and adventuring of Mount Fuji
Mount Fuji is a distinctive feature of the geography of Japan. It stands 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft) high and is located near the Pacific coast of central Honshu, just west of Tokyo. It straddles the boundary of Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures. Three small cities surround it: Gotemba to the south, Fujiyoshida to the north, and Fujinomiya to the southwest. It is also surrounded by five lakes: Lake Kawaguchi, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Sai, Lake Motosu and Lake Shoji. They, and nearby Lake Ashi, provide excellent views of the mountain. The mountain is part of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. It can be seen more distantly from Yokohama, Tokyo, and sometimes as far as Chiba, Saitama, and Lake Hamana when the sky is clear.
The temperature is very low at the high altitude, and the cone is covered by snow for several months of the year. The lowest recorded temperature is −38.0 °C, and the highest temperature was 17.8 °C recorded in June 2008.
The forest at the north west base of the mountain is named Aokigahara. Folk tales and legends tell of demons, ghosts, and goblins haunting the forest, and in the 19th century, Aokigahara was one of many places poor families abandoned the very young and the very old. Aokigahara is the world’s second most popular suicide location after San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Since the 1950s, more than 500 people have lost their lives in the forest, mostly suicides. Approximately 30 suicides have been counted yearly, with a high of nearly 80 bodies in 2002. The recent increase in suicides prompted local officials to erect signs that attempt to convince potential suicides to re-think their desperate plans, and sometimes these messages have proven effective. The numbers of suicides in the past creates an allure that has persisted across the span of decades.
Due to the dense forest and rugged inaccessibility, the forest has also attracted thrill seekers. Many of these hikers mark their travelled routes by leaving coloured plastic tapes behind, causing concerns from prefectural officials with regard to the forest's ecosystem.
Mount Fuji is located at the triple junction where the Amurian Plate, the Okhotsk Plate, and the Philippine Sea Plate meet. Those plates form the western part of Japan, the eastern part of Japan, and the Izu Peninsula respectively.
The volcano is currently classified as active with a low risk of eruption. The last recorded eruption was the Hōei eruption which started on December 16, 1707 (Hōei 4, 23rd day of the 11th month) and ended about January 1, 1708 (Hōei 4, 9th day of the 12th month) during the Edo period. The eruption formed a new crater and a second peak (named Hōei-zan after the Hoei era) halfway down its side. Fuji spewed cinders and ash which fell like rain in Izu, Kai, Sagami, and Musashi. Since then, there have been no signs of an eruption. In the evening of March 15, 2011, there was a magnitude 6.2 earthquake at shallow depth a few kilometres from Mount Fuji on its southern side. But according to the Japanese Meteorological Service there was no sign of any eruption.
The closest airport with scheduled international service is Mt. Fuji Shizuoka Airport. It opened in June 2009. It is about 80 kilometres (50 mi) from Mount Fuji. The major international airports serving Tokyo, Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport) in Tokyo and Narita International Airport in Chiba, are some hours from Mount Fuji.
On 5 March 1966, BOAC Flight 911, a Boeing 707, broke up in flight and crashed near Mount Fuji Gotemba New fifth station, shortly after departure from Tokyo International Airport. All 113 passengers and 11 crew members were killed in the disaster, which was attributed to extreme clear air turbulence caused by lee waves downwind of the mountain. There is now a memorial for the crash a little way down from the Gotemba New fifth station.
Climbing routes
Approximately 300,000 people climbed Mount Fuji in 2009. The most popular period for people to hike up Mount Fuji is from July to August, while huts and other facilities are operating. Buses to the fifth station start running on 1 July. Climbing from October to May is very strongly discouraged, after a number of high-profile deaths and severe cold weather. Most Japanese climb the mountain at night in order to be in a position at or near the summit when the sun rises. The morning sunshine is called "Goraikō" which means "honourable arrival of light".
There are four major routes from the fifth station to the summit with an additional four routes from the foot of the mountain. The major routes from the fifth station are (clockwise) the Lake Kawaguchi, Subashiri, Gotemba, and Fujinomiya routes. The routes from the foot of the mountain are the Shojiko, Yoshida, Suyama, and Murayama routes. The stations on different routes are at different elevations. The highest fifth station is located at Fujinomiya, followed by Kawaguchi, Subashiri, and Gotemba.
Even though it is only the second highest fifth stations, the Kawaguchiko route is the most popular route because of its large parking area and many large mountain huts where a climber can rest or stay. During the summer season, most Mount Fuji climbing tour buses arrive there. The next popular is the Fujinomiya route which has the highest fifth station, followed by Subashiri and Gotemba.
The ascent from the new fifth station can take anywhere between three and eight hours while the descent can take from two to five hours. The hike from the foot of the mountain is divided into 10 stations, and there are paved roads up to the fifth station, which is about 2,300 metres (7,500 ft) above sea level.
Huts at and above the fifth stations are usually manned during the climbing season, but huts below fifth stations are not usually manned for climbers. The number of open huts on routes are proportional to the number of climbers—Kawaguchiko has the most while Gotemba has the least. The huts along the Gotemba route also tend to start later and close earlier than those along the Kawaguchiko route. Also, because Mount Fuji is designated as a national park, it is illegal to camp above the fifth station.
There are eight peaks around the crater at the summit. The highest point in Japan is where the Mount Fuji Radar System used to be. Climbers are able to visit each of these peaks.
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Ray's Introduction to Literature, Fall, 1998 Kate's Denotation and Connotation (2)
Online Discussion-- Ray's Class; Kate's Class
last updated 11/20, 98
Imagery & Symbolism
Examples: L Hughes -- W. Stevens -- T. Hardy -- E. Pound -- R.. Frost
Image, Imagery & Imagism
Image means "a concrete picture" (Harper Handbook 235). In daily language image is usually a composite of visual details, but literary images can be those of sights, sounds, tastes, touch and smells. When your composition teacher asks you to give concrete, sensory details in your narrative, you are asked to recall/re-create images of your experience so that your readers can experience and feel them, too. If you give your images figurative meanings or other meanings beyond the literal level, you are creating figurative images (metaphors or similes) or symbols.
In other words,
• "When an image is made to stand for two things, as when a rose represents itself and also the color in a young woman's cheeks, the image turns into a METAPHOR, SIMILE, or other form of FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. [e.g. "A Simile for her Smile"]
• When an image is used so as to suggest complex or multiple meanings, as when a rose represents itself, young women generally, and also beauty and fagility, it becomes a SYMBOL." [e.g. the yellow wallpaper] (Harper Handbook 236)
Imagery is the collective term for "images of a literary work." By itself, an image of a text can only be a sensory detail, but once it is associated with the other images in the text, its figurative or symbolic meanings will emerge. That's why we study the "imagery" --or different clusters of images -- of a literatery work, but not an image in isolation from the others.
Imagism is a movement -- led by some American poets (e.g. E. Pound, W. C. William, etc.) in early twentieth century -- against "Romantic idealism and Victorian moralism" (Harper Handbook 238)
For instance, Pound defined the image as "that which presents an emotional and intellectual complex in an instant of time." He released "A Few Don'ts for an Imagist" which included three principles
1) direct treatment of the "thing", whether subjective or objective,
2) using absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation, and
3) to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of the metronome." (from Imagists)
In its broadest sense a symbol is any object, action or sign that "signifies more than itself" (Heath Guide to Literature 545). For instance, the cross, the number of candles on a birthday cake, the signs on the restroom, the red-yellow-green traffic light, our clothing, . . . , all of these are symbolic or have symbolic values. Human communication largely depends on these various kinds of symbolic language.
Symbolism is "a hightened use of symbol, presenting the word first for its ordinary signification (as when the word rose stands for the flower rose) and then for some idea lying behind the ordinary signification (as when the word rose stands for the flower rose, which stands for beauty).
Symbols used in this way fall into three classes:
1. Natural symbols -- present things not for themselves, but for the ideas people commonly associate with them [what we also call archetypes]: e.g. night for death; sunrise for a new beginning;
2. Conventional symbols -- present things for the meanings people within a particular group have agreed to givev them: e.g. a national flag for patriotism, etc.;
3. Literary symbols --
• sometimes build upon natural or conventional symbols, adding meanings appropriate primarily within a work at hand,
• but sometimes they also create meanings within a work for things that have no natural or conventional meaning outside it. (Harper Handbook 452-53)
L Hughes "Harlem" (1951 502)
1. The questions in this poem contain a series of metaphors, or metaphoric images, each of which suggests the situations, or sentiments, or consequences of one's getting one's dream (or the American Dream) deferred. Try to find out what each implies. For instance, why is dream compared to a grape/raisin, to sore and rotten meat? Why are these negative images associated with sugar, which is "syruppy sweet"? Why does the deferred dream "sag" or "explode"?
2. Compared with "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921 p. 761), how is the poem different in tone?
3. Can you find out any similarities in the two poem's language--both in terms of syntax and the use of images?
W. Stevens "Disillusionment of Ten o'clock"
His Photo & Questions about the Poem in General
1. Look at the colorful version of this poem. Although it looks "colorful," the colors on this page are actually non-existent. When you put all the color images together, you see a contrast between white and the other colors. What symbolic meanings are suggested out of this contrast between white color and the other colors?
2. Why do you think about the drunk and sleeping sailor who "Catches tigers/In red Weather?"
3. What do you think about the poem's repetition of words, the parallel sentences and the rimes? Do they create a kind of power as that in Langston Hughes' poems? Or do they suggest monotony?
T. Hardy "Neutral Tones" (E-Text)
1. The word "tone" here is a pun. Find out its meanings.
2. What tones (attitutes) does the speaker take towards the woman he speaks to? Why does he speak to her? What has happened between them? Why does he talk about this past experience when probably the lover ("you") is no longer present ?
3. Analyze the image pattern of the poem. The poem is divided into two parts: the first three stanzas about a moment in the past, the fourth, the "lessons" the speaker learns.
• In the first part, several images-- figurative and literal--work to present the scenery, the speaker's mood as well as the relationship between the two. First, try to group them into different clusters (for instance, image of color, winter and death), and analyze how they express both literal and figurative meanings.
• Second, analyze how the images in the last stanza are related to each other, and those in the previous stanzas? The second part about the speaker's memory offers a fusion of the images of the lover's face with those of the scenery. It offers a succinct conclusion to a failed love story, and it also shows how memory works--that we frequently think/feel in terms of visual images.
Relevant Links
• Another poem by Hardy in Fu Jen English Literature Databank.
• A biographical sketch with photos
• Thomas Hardy website: A brief date-line listing important events in Hardy's life, plus other valuable information
• The Thomas Hardy Association
Ezra Pound "In a Station of the Metro" (1916 p. 677)
His Photo
Robert Frost "Mending Wall" (1914 p. 748)
His Photo and Questions about the Poem in General
1. This poem is not as dense with images as "Neutral Tones" is, yet it has the "wall" as the major symbol. To find out the connotations of this symbol, you need to examine both how it is presented and the images/characters associated with it. As we suggested in the general questions, there are four major characters, each is associated with different images:
2. neighbor --
"Good fences makes good neighbors."
old-stone savage; in darkness
Something --
frozen -ground - swell
hunters --
yelping dogs
the speaker --
Examine the images associated with these agents who are for or against the wall, and find out the the meanings of the wall, as well as the speaker's attitudes toward it. (Why does the speaker inform his neighbor of the gap if he does not find the wall necessary? Why is Spring both a time for mending , and creating mischief in the speaker?)
3. Like "The Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock," this poem has a lot of repetitions (e.g. "Something"; "To each the boulders that have fallen to each/And some are loaves and some so neatly balls" ). Moreover, it has a regular form (iambic pentameter). What are the effects of the repetitions and regularity in form?
General Questions:
All the five poets here are Modern poets (Hardy being an early Modernist). Although definitions of Modern period (or Modernism) is not our focus in class, please remember that it is a period when people lost their faith in traditional values (such as God, Reason or progress) and then the artists sought to find values in Art or artistic innovation.
Also, try to compare how some of the poems deal with
1. human relations ("Neutral Tones" and "Mending Walls");
2. modern technology ("In the Station of the Metro");
3. society/social problems ("Harlem" and "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock"). |
Typesetting Tip #1: Spaces
In HTML 4.0 and the browsers that fully support it, there are 6 varieties of spaces. These spaces are the en-spaces, em-spaces, thin-spaces, non-breaking spaces, zero width joiners, and zero width non-joiners.
NOTE: Most of these are not supported in IE 6 or 7.
1. ( ) 3 en spaces ( ) – not supported in IE
2. ( ) 3 em spaces ( ) – not supported in IE
3. ( ) 3 thin spaces ( ) – not supported in IE
4. ( ) 3 non breaking spaces ( )
5. () 3 zero width joiners (‍) – not supported in IE 6
6. () 3 zero width non-joiners (‌) – not supported in IE 6
Basic Rules
Don’t use spaces to control indentation. Indentation should be controlled by CSS.
If you need to control spaces between specific words in a body of text, you can use the em spaces, en spaces, or thin spaces.
Don’t use two spaces after a period— this is a left-over habit from typewriting. You should carefully review any text your are given for this problem. This was a common convention, and was learned by anyone who learned to type previous to 1995. If you are guilty of this, it is time to stop.
The non-breaking space is used to prevent to words from being separated by text-wrapping. This can be very handy for careful crafting of headlines and titles where it is important to keep two words together for readability and meaning.
The zero width joiner and zero width non-joiner are commonly used in for setting type in Persian or Arabic, but they could also come in handy in instances where you don’t want a visual space, but there is a need to retain two separate words.
Update: Joe Clark brings the following to my attention: “You can type as many spaces as you want after sentence-ending punctuation on the Web, as they are all reduced to a single space due to rules on whitespace collapse.
(Tip #2: Hyphens and Dashes and #3: Emphasis now available)
(Digg this article)
posted by John Dilworth on Thursday, Oct 19, 2006
tagged with typography |
Diagram of the human eye, 1572.
Diagram of the human eye, 1572.
4 0 c m
actual image size: 17cm x 32cm
Plate taken from the 1572 Latin edition of 'Opticae Thesaurus' by Alhazen (c 965-1039). Arab scientist Alhazen (pseudonym of Abu Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham) is considered the 'father of modern optics'. Born in Basra, Iraq, he spent most of his life in Spain, conducting research in optics, mathematics, medicine and physics. 'Opticae Thesaurus' includes the first accurate description of the various parts of the eye and the first scientific explanation of the proces of vision.
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Michael Sheldrake’s Histories
History of the Nativity
The story of the Holy Birth has created historical and theological controversies. Issues such as the Immaculate Conception and the virgin birth have caused many theologians and others to debate the reality of these events. However, the purpose of this article is to review the historical evidence of the birth of Jesus and how accurately it is portrayed in the Bible.
It is interesting to note that the events of the birth are only described in two out of the four gospels. Matthew describes the genealogy of Christ and indicates that he is descended from King David through the kings of Israel. Matthew then continues with stating that Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit while Matthew states that Joseph decided to marry Mary after which the birth then occurs in Bethlehem in Judea. In Matthew’s gospel the only visitors are the Magi and then Joseph is encouraged to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod.
Luke gives a much more detailed account of the events. He spends much time describing how Mary was made aware of her pregnancy and her joyous response through the words of the Magnificat. Luke also explains the reasons why the Holy Family had to journey to Bethlehem because of the census. It is Luke who says that there was no room in the inn and therefore Jesus was born in a stable. Like Matthew he records visitors but they are poor shepherds and there is no reference to the Magi. There is no flight to Egypt as in Luke; in fact the family go to Jerusalem to complete the act of purification. Luke does provide the genealogy of Christ but later in the gospel when Christ is baptised.
So with only these sources, it is hard for an historian to make an accurate statement of what happened at the birth. There are some agreements between the two gospels such as the birth occurred in Bethlehem in Judea and that Christ was a child of God whose human parents were Joseph and Mary. However, there is very little else. This does not mean there was not a birth of the real Christ. The story of his life in all 4 gospels, the writings of Paul which were written within a generation of Christ’s death based on his personal encounter with Christ and the historical writings of Josephus all confirm that Christ lived and therefore he must have been born.
So are there any facts in the gospels that could help define when and where the birth events happened? Luke says that the birth occurred during the reign of Augustus Caesar when Quirinius was governor of Syria and Herod was king of Israel. Since all three individuals are historical figures and known about from many sources, it would suggest the date can be defined. Regrettably, this does not prove to be the case. Herod died in 4 BC and Quirinius did not become Governor of Syria until 7AD some 10 years later. Historians have tried to determine the date by determining what the star was over Bethlehem which guided the Magi. Some have said it was a comet and some a conjunction of the planets and by searching ancient astronomical records have suggested a number of different dates either side of the millennium. The truth is we cannot define when Christ was born.
Well surely we can prove where he was born since both Matthew and Luke state it was Bethlehem in Judea and this was so clear to the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century that he built the first church over the site of the birth. Unfortunately, even this “fact” is up for dispute. Archaeological excavations at this Bethlehem have shown that it was a site of occupation in the Bronze Age but there have been no remains or artefacts found from the time of Christ. Perhaps they are still waiting to be discovered. But this brings into question the evidence of the census and the reason why the family had to go to Bethlehem (a distance of 100 miles from Nazareth). Firstly was there a census? Thorough searches of the rich written records of the Roman Empire have provided no evidence of an empire-wide census in this period. There is a record of a census in the region organised by Quirinius when he was governor but this would not have required the heads of families to return to their birth place and certainly not the female members.
However, there is another Bethlehem but not in Judea but in Galilee and it was just outside Nazareth. Could it be that this was Christ’s home and where he was born? In recent years, archaeologists have discovered the remains of one of the largest Christian sites here. Could this have been built at Bethlehem in Galilee to commemorate Christ’s birth at this site?
So how can we explain the evidential problems raised by the Nativity? It is possible to state that much remains to be discovered and a clearer picture will emerge in the future. Nevertheless we need to remember that the Gospel writers were not writing scientific history. Their purpose was to emphasise the divine nature of Christ, “his Messiahship” and to strengthen the faith of the followers. They were aware of the prophecies of the Messiah in the books of Isaiah and Micah which stated that such a person would be descended from King David and would be born in the royal city of David, Bethlehem of Judea. Perhaps the census they referred to was the one organised by Quirinius and the passage of time had addled their memories or transposed events.
There is no doubt that Christ was born in the period around these events and I like the symbolism of the visits of the shepherds and Magi representing the wide range of humanity that longed for a Messiah. The events of the flight to Egypt remind us of the conditions of refugees in the present age and the fact that Jesus was born in poverty and a stable highlights very modern problems of homelessness. If the gospel accounts have been enhanced I have no problem with this since it remains an allegoric representation of faith and the need to eradicate social deprivation.
Michael Sheldrake |
The history of the Auswitch
Auschwitz (Auswitch) name comes from German translation of Polish Oswiecim name. It is a town located in Lesser Poland province, around 70 kilometers of Krakow. When Germans took Poland over in September 1939 they changed all the names of towns, villages, streets or even rivers from Polish to German language.
Nowadays Auswitch is worldwide know as a site of the largest mass murder in the history of humanity becouse Nazis established there the biggest complex of concentration camps. First they were created for Polish political prisoners – they were not able to keep them in normal prisons as their numbers was simply to big.
First camp was established at the postmilitary area in the suburb or Oswiecim town. Original building that was already there were sealed with electrical barbed wire fence. Buildings were reconstructed to keep inside hundered of prisoners. Many of them were extended with next level (floor) as before had only ground floor.
Prisoners of Auswitch were usually used for hard labour, first at Auswitch and then in surrounding areas. As number of prisoners was growing Auswitch camp was getting more and more overcrowded. Inmates had to leave in inhuman conditions. Thousands of them died from starvation, cold, disease, overworking, tortures and executions. Lasts two torments were performed in Block no. 11. For Auswitch’s prisoners it was also called ‘Death Block.
Next to it, between Block 10 and 11 there was a courtyard with infamous ‘Death Wall’ where Nazis had shot thousand of people sentenced to death in this way. At that courtyard Nazis also were torturing people with ‘hanging torture’. People with tied hands back were hunged on specially made poles. It was extremely painful becouse all body was hung on back tied arms that was injuring joints.
In the Block no.11 prisoners were killed also in another ways. There were special cell in basements with no ventilation to kill people by lack of oxygen. Death by starvation was also very popular and there is well known story about Saint Maksymilian Koble who sucrified his life to safe another inmate who was sentenced to death by starvation.
Nazis also built special ‘standing cell’ were they were putting people for less serious ofences in Auswitch camp. Although it was not desinged to kill, many inmates died there due to suffocation, cold or just exhaustion. In the block no. 11 Nazis made first tests of Zyklone B gas that in the later period killed millions in Auswitch one as well as Auswitch II Birkenau.
Second camp – Auswitch II was created in 1941 in Brzezinka village ( Birkenau in German ). Local farmers were expelled from their housed not only in the area of Camp but within few kilometers around. It was made to insulate camp from other world and also make harder any trials of escapes. Local houses and farm buidling had been occupied by SS soldiers and sometimes their families.
Camp in Birkenau was located only 3 kilometers driving of Auswitch I. The Birkenau was at least 10 times bigger than Auswitch and it was made only for one purpose: killing people in the most efficient way. Everything there was excatly planned and it’s not exagarration to tell it was a ‘Death Factory’.
In contrast to another camps established on pre war Polish territory like Treblinka or Belzec, Birkenau had also another purpose that was keeping in inhuman conditions those who were strong enough to hard labour after arrival.
Town of Oswiecim (Auswitch) before the WW2 was one of the biggest railway junction in Poland. Germans use this railway to transport Jews to Birkenau and Auswitch from all over the Europe. People were carried sometimes thousands miles in kettle trucks to finally get to Birkenau. Many of them were not able to survive that last journey.
After arrival people had to get off the train and line up it two columns. In one women and children, in second men. Then SS doctors were making examination to determin work ability. Usually around 70% of people were sent straight to murder in a gas chamber just after arrival. Those who were strong enough to work were sent to wooden or brick barrack.
They were much worse than brick blocks in Auswitch I. Generally it was a stable for horses that was adapted to keep people inside. Smaller wooden barracks were designed for 100 people but surivors say it could be even more than 400 people! The worst time there was a winter when temperatures inside were freezing. There were only 2 stoves that was far away from worming up enough such a big building.
Most of the wooden barracks were dismantled by locals who needed fire wood or to rebuilt their properties. That’s why hundereds of brick chimneys might be seen in Birkenau – these are relics of former wooden barrack where only chimenys were made of bricks.
In Birkenau, Gas Chambers and Crematoria where insulated from main camp area. There were much bigger and efficient that those from Auswitch I. Estimations say that in ‘peak time’ in 1944 Nazis could daily kill and burn up to 10 000 people.
In the end of the WW2, Nazis blew up both instalations for mass murder. They were not reconstructed and might be seen in the same state as just after war. For touristic purposes first row of wooden barracks was restored. First 4 of them are opened for visitors where they can see latrin barrack and sleeping one.
After the War both camps has been turned into Museum and Memorial site. In Auswitch I Museum authorities prepared exhibitions that shows all evidences of this horrible crime. Second Camp in Birkenau works more like Memorial where people can see enlargment of this horrible place.
Today Camps in Auswitch are visited by more than 1 million tourists every year. Nearness of Krakow that is very popular destination from many countries makes this place very crowded and busy especially from May to October.
Like it was mentioned before, Auswitch is situated around 70 kilometers of Krakow and few miles less from Krakow Airport. It’s also possible to get there quite fast from second international airport nearby Krakow – Katowice Airport (KTW). Tourists usully take guided Auswitch tours from Krakow or travel there individually by own cars or public transport.
Auswitch is also very important shool trips destination. It allows young people to learn history of the Holocaust and pay a tribute to all people who were muredred here.
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Traducción de cerebrum en Español:
cerebro, n.
Pronunciación /səˈribrəm//ˈsɛrəbrəm//ˈsɛrɪbrəm/
• 1
cerebro masculino
• The cortical system of arterial branches ramifies over the cerebrum to supply the cortex with arterioles that anastomose in the pia mater.
• The cerebrum, pons, and medulla were hypoplastic.
• These changes were observed in a multifocal distribution involving the white matter of the cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, and spinal cord.
• The outer layer of the cerebrum, called the cerebral cortex, is responsible for most higher brain functions such as thought, reasoning, memory, and voluntary muscle movement.
• When pain is experienced, this sensation has reached the cerebrum through complex and dynamic interactions. |
Chris Arneson
geometry, the incircle or inscribed circle of a triangle is the largest circle
contained in the triangle; it touches (is tangent to) the three sides.
The center of the incircle is called the triangle’s incenter.
The incircle can be used to see how big of a circluar object you could
fit into a triangluar shaped room.
11 Responses to “Chris Arneson”
1. Anna Allberry Says:
This was a little confusing. It didn’t really have a good real-life situation. Trying to fit a circular object into a triangular shaped room made sense though.
2. Emma Lee Says:
The triangular room is a little weird but it makes sense. The whole thing was a little confusing though.
3. Spencer Elliott Says:
I didn’t get this at all. I didnt really think this was a real life situation. Just like everyone else said the only thing that really makes sence is the triangular room.
4. Luke Volz Says:
I didn’t really get that. It was really confusing. The triangle room part kind of makes sense but not really. There was no real life example.
5. Cameron Bargell Says:
the triangular room makes a little sence but there was no real life example anyway good effort
6. Lauren Wagner Says:
This was a little bit confusing. It didnt have an example of a “real life”
job. The circle in a triangle part made a little bit of sense.
7. Jeremy Spain-Carrion Says:
This was a bit hard to understand. I’m not sure it would make much sense in real life
8. janelle hoatson Says:
This article was veryinsteresting i never though u could use incircles to do that. good paragraph
9. Lydia Lusk Says:
great job… it is very interesting how geometry can end up in real life
10. Derra Lusk Says:
this was a very interesting how you can use incenter to firgure the space in a room
11. Abby Hess Says:
This was confusing, most people don’t live in triangles, so I don’t see why this helps exactly. But it makes sense for the explaining the incenter of a triangle.
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Fragile: A Reportage on Maguindanao by Jes Aznar
For hundreds of years, the islands of Mindanao have always been under fire. Countless battles have been waged to conquer this vast and rich land. Peace has always been elusive.
But one has to see beyond the culture of dissent to understand what the Moro people really stand for. How they suffer from extreme poverty and injustice every day. How the Spanish, Americans and the modern Filipino victoriously tagged Moros as the antagonists and themselves the protagonists. How they, who once owned Mindanao, now comprise just a fraction of the population and are continuously being evicted and easily killed or accused on a whim.
Through my eyes and my experience in Mindanao, I have taken notice of how fragile this land has become. Its vast natural resources are already dwindling because of large-scale mining and logging. Big chunks of fertile land make way for corporate plantations and subdivisions. The never-ending conflicts are sending the people of Mindanao to faraway lands in search of peace and prosperity. But popular culture opts to send them back.
Just recently, flames of war were again rekindled. Once again, heavy firefights between government troops and Muslim rebels have resumed. Cannons were again pounding on this fragile land. More than half a million displaced. Hundreds killed.
Mindanao and the Moro people have reached a fragile state, ready to break any moment.
This is a part of a long-term reportage on Mindanao and its people. Piece by piece, province by province, on land and in water, the author aims to put pieces of pictures together.
Jes Aznar is a photojournalist and documentary photographer. His photo stories depict the marginalized and the common people’s struggle in their everyday life. He has done several photo essays such as the Hacienda Luisita uprising, human conditions in urban dwellings, the war against diseases in Cambodia, and, recently, the human trafficking issue in the Philippines and other parts of the world. He is currently juggling his time doing documentaries and working for the French news agency, Agence France-Presse. His works have been published on the pages of Time Magazine, Stern, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Asia Geo magazine, among others.
Public viewing of Fragile begins January 17 at Bound Bookshop, 105-A Scout Castor St. corner Tomas Morato Ave., Quezon City.
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Alaska’s Tongass rainforest threatened by loggers
Think the USA and you don’t instinctively think ‘rainforest‘, but Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is actually the world’s biggest intact temperate rainforest. It’s a place of extraordinary grandeur, rarity, richness and beauty, but loggers and other self-interest groups don’t care about that. It looks like several of them are determined to fell the forest’s old-growth trees for profit, and it’s terrible news for the US and the wider world.
17 million acres of magical ancient rainforest under threat
The Tongass National Forest covers a whopping 17 million acres. It contains the largest remnants of intact old-growth forest habitat in the whole of North America, a stunning place of ice-capped mountains, fjords, ancient forests, hundreds of islands, bays, glaciers, lakes, rivers and more than 5000 streams. In short it’s a cool northerly paradise, yet another invaluable chunk of forest that the planet really can’t afford to lose.
The wildlife at Tongass is truly remarkable. While decades of industrial logging have already stripped vast areas of it bare, the old-growth forest habitat that remains is home to brown and black bears, wolves, bald eagles, marten and mountain goats, rare Queen Charlotte goshawks and northern flying squirrels as well as five different types of Pacific wild salmon. Around 70,000 people also live there.
Industrial-scale felling of precious old-growth trees
Sadly, the magical Tongass is the last forest in the entire US where loggers are still allowed to cut down old growth on an industrial scale. The so-called ‘clearcutting’ they do there is horribly outdated, widely abandoned elsewhere thanks to its scandalous destructive impact and total unsustainability. It harms wildlife and fish, and damages ecologically sound recreation and ecotourism, things than earn Alaska around $2 billion a year, a sum that’s absolutely essential for local people.
Can we fix it? Probably not…
During 2016, pre-Trump, the US Forest Service completed plans to move away from old-school clearcutting. Now they’re proposing the biggest sell-off of old-growth forest that America has seen for decades. Will Trump put his foot down? It’s highly doubtful, given his uncaring attitude to conservation and his scepticism about climate change
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To contribute, email me at bloubird@gmail.com.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Bright red cars attract more bird droppings
A new UK study recorded the frequency that birds left their mark on cars in five cities and found crimson motors were targeted the most.
Green cars were found to suffer least, followed by silver, while white vehicles escaped more often than black in the analysis of 1,140 cars in Brighton, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and Bristol over two consecutive days, to see whether color made a difference to birds.
Researchers who compiled the results found 18 per cent of red cars were marked with droppings, blue 14 per cent, black 11 per cent, white 7 per cent, grey/silver 3 per cent, and green 1 per cent.
The British Trust for Ornithology was more circumspect on the role of color in the "drop zone" for birds. "We do know that birds can be attracted to certain colours during display but it is probably more to do with where you park; if you park where birds roost, then you are going to get more droppings on your vehicle," said a spokesman.
The study was done by a British car accessory company called Halfords which sells Bird Dropping Wipes to remove bird droppings from your car's exterior surface.
And also in the news was a tweet about how many bird poops it takes to total the tiny Smart Car, one of the lightest cars on the market which can withstand up to 9000 lbs. of pressure:
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A Consider the Electric Violin
An electrical violin is an enhanced violin that sends out a signal via an electrical pickup gadget. There are numerous different designs of electric violins. Some are standard acoustic violins without an electrical pick-up contributed to the bridge. Other kinds of electric violins are developed in different ways and only work appropriately when connected in. Electric violins are often utilized to play various sorts of songs compared to violins for sale uk conventional acoustic violins.
The pick-ups of electrical violins are essential. Because electrical violin strings are often made from steel, either magnetic or piezoelectric pickups are used to send the noise to the amplifier. This system corresponds to the means electrical guitars function.
Some people add an electrical pickup to a basic acoustic violin to ensure that it's signal could be sent to an amplifier. The trouble without putting a pickup on an acoustic violin is that acoustic violins have a hollow wooden physical body that could develop feedback when it is played electrically. The vibration of the sound shaking in the violin's physical body disrupts the noise made by the strings as well as can trigger aggravating, high-pitched squealing sounds to come from the amplifier.
Most electrical violins have a solid physical body layout. The strong body maintains the instrument from feeding back. Additionally, any necessary electrical equipment, such as any kind of circuitry or batteries, is housed in the body. Since the electric violin is a reasonably brand-new invention, it has no basic physique or layout, and also manufacturers are totally free to experiment as well as developed brand-new means of making the tool.
Electric violins are generally made use of in different scenarios compared to acoustic violins. An electrical violin is considereded a speculative tool and is not located in classical or conventional songs, yet is often made use of in progressive music. Guitar effects like reverb, carolers, as well as distortion could be utilized to give the electric violin a special, otherworldly noise.
Electric violins are unique tools without a sound all their very own. Electric violins are excellent for artists and composers that want to have their own individual noise. |
EIGRP Load Balancing
EIGRP Load Balancing
In this tutorial, you will learn about different types of EIGRP load balancing.
EIGRP support two types of load-balancing, namely:
a) Equal cost load balancing
b) Unequal cost load balancing
Equal Cost Load Balancing: in situations where same route is learnt from different neighbors and has same metric then both these routes are installed and load balancing is done. Since the metric is same it’s known as equal cost load balancing. Equal cost load balancing is done automatically. We can have up to six equal paths for load balancing, the default paths are four.
Unequal Cost Load Balancing: If metrics are different then load balancing will not occur automatically. Thus a command called “variance” needs to be used. This command makes EIGRP load balance even on unequal metrics.
The variance used is a multiplier to the FD (Feasible Distance) of successor. The default variance value is 1, which means equal cost load balancing.
Load balancing
Configure Unequal Load-balancing
As per the above topology, On Router A, we need to configure load balancing so the traffic reaches Router X.
By default the route that Router A would choose is through Router_C to reach network X because the metric has lowest FD (10+10 = 20)
If variance of 2 is configured on router A, then the router B is chosen to reach network X. As (20+10 = 30) < [ 2 x (FD) = 40]
Router D is not chosen for sending traffic and does not be part of load balancing as 25 > 20.
Router_A(config)# router eigrp 10
Router_A(config-router)#variance 2
Here, 2 used with variance command is the multiplier.
Router_a#conf t
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Jun 2, 2012
Causes for decadal variations of wind speed over land: Sensitivity studies with a global climate model
Bichet, A., Wild, M., Folini, D., Schär, C.
Geophysical Research Letters
• States that over the past 30 years, observations indicate a decline of about −0.3 m/s in the northern mid-latitudes land surface wind speed
• States the picture is less conclusive for the Southern Hemisphere and over the oceans
• States such a stilling can affect surface evaporation and climate feedback processes, and may impact technical applications such as wind power
• Uses an atmospheric global climate model to perform sensitivity experiments for the period 1870–2005 to assess the role of changing roughness length, aerosol emissions, sea surface temperature, and greenhouse gas concentrations in surface wind speed changes
• Finds the wind speed trends simulated by the model generally underestimate the observed trends (land and ocean)
• Finds that over land, the model can reproduce the observed stilling by increasing the roughness length by a factor of 1.2 to 4.9, depending on region
• Finds that the other forcings examined can also decrease the 10 m wind speeds (up to 15% of observed values in Europe), particularly those related to increasing aerosol emissions (up to −0.2 m/s in India)
• Results show that compared to observations, the simulated impact of climate forcings on global wind speeds over land and ocean is however small and not always significant |
A Gender-Equal Paradise in the South Pacific?
Feminist Anthropologist Claims an Existing "Non-Patriarchal Society" in New Guinea
Excerpted from Columbia University Press: New and Recent Books in Anthropology
Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society
Maria Lepowsky, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1994 / 344 pages / 20 photos / ISBN 0-231-08121-9 / $17.50, paper
ISBN 0-231-08120-0 / $49.00, cloth
Contradicting scholars who consider sexual inequality a universal condition, Lepowsky presents an ethnography of Vanatinai, a matrilineal, decentralized society in New Guinea where there is no ideology of male dominance. Fruit of the Motherland explores the role of gender in social life and history; religion; and ritual performance, and includes a thoughtful cross-cultural analysis of gender roles, ideology, and power.
The New York Times' Science Editor Promotes Lepowsky's Claim
AUTHOR: Wilford, John Noble
TITLE: Sexes equal on South Sea isle
SOURCE: New York Times
SEC,PG:COL: C, 1:1
DATE: Mar 29, 1994
ABSTRACT: The research that anthropologist Maria Lepowsky has conducted by living with the people of Sudest Island in the South Pacific is discussed. She says that on Sudest, or Vanatinai as it is called by its inhabitants, men and women live and work as virtual equals.
ARTICLE LENG: Long (18+ col inches)
SPECIAL FEAT: Photograph, Map
DESCRIPTORS: Sexes; Anthropology
NAMED PEOPLE: Lepowsky, Maria
GEOG NAMES: Sud-Est Island
JOURNAL ISSN: 0362-4331
Quoting from Loren Petrich's posting to sci.skeptic on the story:
In the New York Times (Tuesday, Mar. 29, page B5 [the Science section]), there is a report on some anthropological work on the people of a Southern Pacific island called Sudest Island (native name: Vanatinai) 200 miles southeast of Papua New Guinea.
This was a relatively ideal spot because it has had only minimal contact with Western colonialism and missionaries, though the illustrations suggest that they have a lot of 20th-century versions of clothing and boats.
The anthropologist Maria Lepkowsky lived with them for two years, and learned that they were different from most other societies that the two sexes were rather close to social equality, and that this was significant enough to pose a challenge to the hypothesis that male dominance in human society is essentially universal. However, her colleagues seem to think highly of her work. At least, nobody was quoted as pooh-poohing it.
Why would that be? For one thing, the island is small (2300 people) and isolated, and people make important decisions by everybody getting together rather than delegating the job to a few leaders. The island has no chief. Also, clan membership and inheritance is matrilineal, though other matrilineal societies may not approach equality of sexes. However, this is described there as an ancient and hallowed custom.
There are no special men's houses or cults, boys as well as girls care for younger siblings and men participate in child care. In other New Guinea societies, menstruation is thought to be a form of pollution (look in the Bible for an example closer to home) and a menstruating woman must be secluded. But not on this island. Also, women have as much sexual freedom as men.
Young people are considered adults when they settle down into a stable marriage, though they may have several marriages before that (seems a bit like "living together"). When they get married, they live with the bride's family, where the husband does "bride service" for a number of months. After that, they alternate residences.
Although their creator god is a male named Rodyo, there are several important female spirits and the theme of the "wise woman". Both sexes can commune with the ghosts of ancestors and perform various rituals and magical acts.
In earlier time, warfare was an activity reserved for men, with men going out in boats to raid neighboring islands. But even then, women were involved in the decision-making.
Also, women are prominently involved in the acquisition of ceremonial valuables like shell necklaces and greenstone ax blades; they may even go to trade for such goods in other islands.
However, it is not perfectly egalitarian. Young women are usually more involved with caring for children and gardening than in acquiring a reputation as a giver. Also, women spend more time sweeping up pig excrement while men spend more time hunting wild boar; the latter is regarded as a higher-status activity by both sexes. I'm sure that some net.male-chauvinist-pig would oink in triumph at this, however :-) -- "Anyone can tell that hunting wild pigs is a more glamorous occupation than sweeping up pigshit".
But Lepkowsky nevertheless argues that this island's society is still pretty close to gender-egalitarianism to be significant. And once this example is accepted, I wonder what other re-evalulations will come out.
And I do hope that this posting gets some civilized responses. And I mean by that responses other than content-free sarcasm.
I had no additional information on the subject at that time, but replied pointing out that John Noble Wilford also had promoted the Loch Ness Monster, suggesting that he seems to have problems judging remarkable claims!
My guess is that Prof. Lepowsky, like anthropologists Margaret Mead and Eleanor Leacock before her, may be "coloring" a society to make it conform to a political ideology, rather than representing it as it really is. It is much easier to get away with this in non-scholarly settings, which appears to be the game she is playing here.
The author of the New York Times piece on the Vanatinai, John Noble Wilford, has fallen for balderdash before, and in a big way. Back in the 1970s, he went ga-ga over the Loch Ness monster, trying to give it scientific respectability. Following the trail of a "repressed memory", I found the following item in my files:
MORE (a now-defunct magazine of media criticism), July/Aug., 1976, p .37:
John Noble Wilford's Daring High-Wire Act At Loch Ness
by Richard Pollack
Never mind the Loch Ness monster. What's happened to John Noble Wilford? As I write, a week has passed without a word from the Time's intrepid director of science news. Wilford, as even the most casual Timeswatcher must know by now, is the chief chronicler and cheerleader of the Academy of Applied Science/New York Times Loch Ness expedition. He launched the adventure splendidly on page one, May 28 ("Scientists Plan All-Out Loch Ness Search") and followed up tenaciously in the days immediately thereafter. On June 6, you could hardly turn a page of the Sunday paper without finding monster stories. "The Search Begins at Loch Ness," advised the page-one headline over Wilford's dispatch from Drumnadrochit, Scotland. "Loch Ness: The Logic Is There," reassured the headline over yet another Wilford piece in The News of the Week in Review......
... having established such a high standard of non-news reporting in his opening story, could Wilford possibly keep up the pace? Absolutely .... [goes on to question Wilford's judgement, points out the dubious credentials of "Dr. Rines" who headed up the expedition, etc.]
So it would seem that once again, when faced with an extraordinary claim, Mr. Wilford has failed to employ even an ordinary amount of critical thinking to determine whether or not it is correct. In fact, as near as I am able to tell, no critical thought concerning this claim seems to have crossed his mind. So, it would seem that the "gender-equal Vanatinai" and the "Loch Ness Monster" have an approximately equal foundation, i.e. "good enough to fool John Noble Wilford," which doesn't seem terribly difficult to do.
Prof. Steven Goldberg Replies to Prof. Lepowsky's Claims
Quoting from Goldberg's Why Men Rule, p. 246-7:
Maria Leopwsky, Fruit of the Motherland: Gender and Exchange on Vanatina, Papua New Guinea unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1981:
Almost all sorcerers on Vanatinai, who often exercise political and economic control over their neighbors, are male... No Vanatinai women have ever been elected as a Local Government Councillor. (469-470)
(The following letter was sent by Steven Goldberg to the New York Times critiicizing their March 29 article by John Noble Wilford claiming that an "approximately gender-equal" society has been found. It would seem that they found his letter "unfit to print.")
Letters to The Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036
March 29, 1994
To the Editor:
Over twenty years ago I wrote a book, recently republished by Open Court as Why Men Rule, on the social implications of the psychophysiological differences between males and females. In it I argued that every one of the thousands of societies on which we have any evidence exhibited three institutions:
Patriarchy: Leadership and hierarchies are associated primarily with males; a society may have a queen when no royal male is available or an elected female leader, but the expectation is always of a male leader and the exceptional female is always surrounded by a hierarchy filled by males.
Male Attainment: Whatever non-maternal roles are given high status are associated with males; I have suggested that it is not primarily that the roles are given high status because they are male--ditchdigging is a male role. The high status roles are male primarily because--statistically-speaking, as always--high status elicits from males a greater "need" of the status, a greater willingness to sacrifice life's other obligations and rewards (family, relaxation, care of infant, etc,), and a greater willingness to learn and to do that which is necessary for attainment of status (whatever this be in any given society).
Male Dominance: The emotions of both males and females associate dominance in male-female encounters and relationships with males. Attitudes about this reality vary from time to time and society to society, but the reality is always present and is attested to as much by the feminist's abhorrence of it as by its acceptance by women of other societies.
Given the contemporary allegiance to explanations of human behavior that invoke social causal factors, it is clear why many would like to find a society that is an exception: a society that lacked these institutions would cast serious doubt on my explanation, which sees the universals as the inevitable manifestation of male-female neuroendocrinological differences, the sexually differentiated behaviors that flow from these, and limits these set on social possibility.
Thus, every so often the Times will report an anthropological "finding" that a society lacks the universal institutions. Under the headline," Sexes Equal on South Sea Island" the paper concludes that anthropologist Maria Lepowsky's work on the Vanatinai challenges "the position...that male dominance is universal or somehow inherent in human cultures and that only its forms and intensity vary."
The Times does not quote the same Professor Lepowsky's unpublished 1981 Ph.D.dissertation:
Almost all sorcerers on Vanatinai, who often exercise political and economic control over their neighbors, are male... No Vanatinai women have ever been elected as a Local Government Councillor (pp.469-70)
Not long before, the Times had a similar piece on the Khasi, a group about whom the two leading experts (who are not quoted) write: "...though the mothers were recognized as the founders of the clans, their heads were always male members, the seniormost maternal uncles." and "Authority within the family group belongs to some male representative of the wife's kin..."
As the Times reports, anthropologists who favor social explanations often invoke "problems of definition" in an attempt to cast doubt on the universalities I mention. But this is double-talk. You can't get rid of an empirical reality by definitional fancy footwork; call the universals anything you like, but they still remain to be explained.
To be sure, there are many individual exceptions; there are, for example, women who exhibit greater dominance behavior than most men, just as there are women who are taller than most men. But we are speaking of the societal level on which "the law of large numbers" comes into play. To be sure, there are many institutions that do vary; cooking is associated with males in some societies and females in others. But the institutions mentioned, and the basic conceptions of males as "more aggressive" (in the broadest sense of the term) and more drawn to the impersonal, and females as more nurturant and more drawn to the personal--the core of the conceptions of masculinity and femininity--are found in every society.
And, to be sure, neuroendocrinological differences between the sexes has nothing to do with differences between, say, Saudi patriarchy and American patriarchy. But, for a sufficient answer to the question I addressed, "Why do all societies have the institutions I mention"?, the "social complexity" invariably invoked to muddy the waters is irrelevant. The social factors are primarily dependent variables that conform to limits imposed by the primarily independent variable of psychophysiological differences between the sexes.
Any explanation of universality must be parsimonious; it makes no sense to explain patriarchy in socialist countries in terms of socialism, capitalist countries in terms of capitalism, and feudal countries in terms of feudalism. Any parsimonious explanation--especially the parsimonious explanation that sees psychophysiological factors as determinative--invariably elicits the wrong-headed criticism that it is "simplistic" because it represents "reductionism" and "determinism". These criticisms are mere name-calling unless they can show that the explanation they criticize is unwarrantedly reductionist or deterministic in that it claims to explain that which it is incapable of explaining. A scientific explanation is supposed to be "reductionist" and "determinist" if, by that, we mean that it is a sufficient explanation of that which it wishes to explain and that it explains it in as parsimonious a manner as is possible.
As long as men and women are neuroendocrinologically-constructed as they are now, all societies will have the universal institutions. This is particularly obvious in a modernized world that does not have at its call the possibility of the limited hierarchy possible in some primitive societies. The primitive societies, because they have little hierarchy, offer fewer of the cues that elicit male dominance tendencies and a smaller arena in which these can be played out. Even these primitive societies always have both some hierarchy and a clear male dominance, but they do have less hierarchy and this is why it is always such societies that are claimed (incorrectly) to be "exceptions". However, even if they did lack the hierarchy they would not demonstrate the possibility of a society that does have hierarchy, but in which the hierarchy is not dominated by males.
Steven Goldberg
Department of Sociology
City College
City University of New York
Maria Lepowsky, Fruit of The Motherland: Gender and Exchange on Vanatina, Papua, New Guinea (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1981)
P.M.Dutta, Impact on The West of The Khasis and Jaintais (New Delhi: Cosmo, 1982)
...though the mothers were recognized as the founders of the clans, their heads were always male members, the seniormost maternal uncles. (pg. 7)
S. Sen, Social and State Formation in The Khasi-Jaintia Hills (Delhi: B.R.Publishing, 1985)
Authority within the family group belongs to some male representative of the wife s kin...
The following letter was just received from Prof. Steven Goldberg (Dept. of Sociology, CUNY) concerning the claim in the New York Times that a "gender-equal" society has at last been found:
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994
As you guessed, the New York Times article on the Vanatinai has resulted in my receiving numerous "what about the Vanatinai" letters.
In many cases, this is understandable. People who have not been following the debate are unaware that there have been a great many claimed (bogus) exceptions to the universalities I describe and take the Times report at face value. (I suspect that the Times reporter did the same. The anthropologist spoke to him only of the woman's right to attain positions of leadership and high status--a right women have in the U.S. and a great many primitive and modern societies--and did not mention the reality of who actually holds such positions.)
What astonishes me is that some contributors to the net--who have invoked "exceptions" before--blithely invoke the Vanatinai without checking the original source. They never seem to learn; no matter how many second-hand reports of "exceptions" they see shot down, they continue to assume they have found a true exception with each second-hand report. [It is true that, in this case, the second-hand report is an interview with the ethnographer (Maria Lipowsky), while in all other cases the ethnographer had nothing to do with the misrepresentation. But the lesson is the same: check the original ethnographic source or you'll end up looking very silly.]
I've already posted quotations from the ethnographer's unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. I've now seen the recently- published (Columbia University Press) edition. The following quotations come from the published version. I'll leave it to others to assess whether the Vanatinai represent an exception to the universals I discuss.
Page 205: ...knowledge of sorcery is one of the primary means by which certain men gain political ascendancy over other men and women...
Page 176: ...sorcerers are often, but not always, big men and/or ritual experts, protectors, and healers of their own kin and neighbors. Although there are big women, female witches and sorcerers, and female ritual experts and healers, men who are widely known as sorcerers often have more influence than anyone else...
Page 203: Sorcery on Vanatinai is almost entirely the province of males, but even so they do not have a monopoly on sorcery...for a few women have been adepts.
Page 172: Sorcerers on both Vanatinai and neighboring Rossel Island are almost always male.
Page 175: The Vanatinai men who are known as sorcerers are often the most influential members of their hamlet.
Page 123-4: The activities that are exclusively male...are high in prestige, while one that is exclusively female is very low in prestige.
Hope all is well,
(end of Goldberg's letter)
So, Prof. Lipowsky herself writes that among the Vanatinai, male activities have high prestige, and female activities have low prestige - making it exactly the same as all other human societies. Yet for some reason many people are willing to blindly ignore these inconvenient realities, and call the society "gender equal".
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. And the "nonpatriarchal" status of the Vanatinai is not even based on weak proof, but rather on mere assertion, backed up by no proof at all. Because even the writings of the one making the claim of nonpatriarchality (Maria Lipowsky) refute the claim itself. Perhaps she wrote the dissertation with her eyes closed, and hence doesn't know what it says?
The Earliest 19th-Century Encounters with the Sudest Islanders (Vanatinai)
The books below are among the sources cited by Prof. Lipowsky in her Fruits of the Motherland. The famous evolutionist Thomas H. Huxley was a member of a British expedition to explore this region. At this time, the peoples of Vanatina and the neighboring islands had had virtually no direct contact with Westerners, so these 19th-Century observers saw that culture in its native state. There is absolutely nothing in these accounts to suggest the existence of non-traditional sex roles, i.e. we find, as expected, men as adventurers and warriors, and women in domestic life. Had these European explorers encountered female warriors, or any other feature of a supposed "gender-equal society," they would surely have remarked on such a surprising finding.
Title: T. H. Huxley's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake
Editor: Julian Huxley
Publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.
Place: Garden City, New York
Date: 1935
July 1st. I see I am getting out of my good habits but there has been nothing to write for the last few days. Various canoes have been to us every day, and the best understanding has been maintained. In some of the canoes they brought off some specimens of their ladies; they were ugly enough but not quite so bad as the Australians. They wear a girdle from which long grassy fibres depend as far as the knees so as to form a kind of petticoat. In this respect they exactly resemble the Darnley Islanders. They never stood up in the canoes as the men do but always kept sitting and sometimes shading them selves with a piece of matting.
One today had a child of which she took great care, shield ing it from the sun with a light mat so that we could hardly get a sight of it.
Title: Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded by the Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. &c., During the years 1846-1850, Including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisade Archipelago, etc. To Which is Added the Account of Mr. E.B. Kennedy's Expedition for the Exploration of the Cape York Peninsula, [by William Carron.]
Author: John MacGillivray
Publisher 1: T. & W. Boone
Place: London
Date: 1852
Publisher 2: Australiana Facsimile Editions No. 118
Place: Adelaide
Date: 1967
...On June 10th (our noon position of that day being lat. 11 38' S. and long. 154 17' E.), at daylight, high land was seen extending from N. to N .W., distant about twenty-five miles. It proved to be the largest Ile du Sud Est of D'Urville's chart, and Rossel Island, the latter forming the eastern termination of the Louisiade Archipelago.......
During our stay here the ship was daily visited by canoes from Pig Island and its vicinity, also from a village or two on South-east Island, a few miles to the eastward of our anchorage. They usually made their appearance in the morning and remained for an hour or so, bartering cocoa-nuts, yams, ornaments and weapons for iron hoop, knives, and axes...
afterwards two or three men with spears were seen by passing boats skulking along the banks of the river on their way to the rapid, where they again set fire to the grass as if to smoke us out or prevent our return. But the grassy tracts along the tops of the low hills in the vicinity being intersected by lines and patches of brush the fire did not extend far, as had also been the case lower down, so caused us no inconvenience.
Among our numerous visitors we occasionally saw a woman or two, but none were favourable specimens of their kind. Unlike the men, whose only covering was the breech-cloth formerly described, the women wore a short petticoat of grass-like stuff, probably the pandanus leaf divided into fine shreds, --worked into a narrow band which ties round the waist. They usually, when alongside the ship, held a small piece of matting over the head with one hand, either to protect them from the sun or par tially to secure themselves from observation, as in their manners they were much more reserved than the men.....
While passing a small island--afterwards named in honour of Mr. Brierly--distant from our an chorage about two miles N.W. by W., several women and dogs were seen on shore and soon afterwards two canoes, which had followed us from the anchorage, were seen to put in there. In the afternoon two boats were sent to this Island, to communicate with the natives, and search for an anchorage near it. We landed upon a sandy beach, after wading over the fringing reef; and were met by some natives who had come round a neighbouring point from the windward or inhabited side. Although at first cautious of approach, yet in the course of a few minutes they came freely about us to the number of twenty, each carrying two or three spears --not the beautiful, polished and well- balanced ones we had seen elsewhere, but merely slender, rudely-fashioned sticks sharpened at each end. About twelve women, dressed in the usual petticoat of grass-like stuff, followed at a distance, and kept close to the point for some time; but at length the natural curiosity of the sex (I suppose) overcame their fear, and although repeatedly ordered back by the men, they drew up closer and closer to have a peek at the strangers. Two of the youngest and most attractive of these ladies advanced to within twenty yards, and received with much apparent delight, and a great deal of capering and dancing about on the sand, some strips of a gaudy handkerchief conveyed to them by a lad decorated with streamers of pandanus leaf at the elbows and wrists--evidently the Adonis of the party.
Prof. Lepowsky claims to find in these pages Macgillivray recording "the womens' refusal to hide themselves and eagerness to trade in their own right" (p.57), but an examination of her source fails to find any such statement.
Conclusion: The supposed "gender-equal" status of the Vanatinai society consists entirely of smoke and mirrors, like all other such claims.
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The Sugar and Alzheimer’s Connection
That’s the disturbing conclusion emerging in a body of research linking Alzheimer’s disease to insulin resistance—which is in turn linked to excess sweetener consumption. A blockbuster story in the Sept. 3 issue of the UK magazine The New Scientist teases out the connections.
Scientists have known for a while that insulin regulates blood sugar, “giving the cue for muscles, liver and fat cells to extract sugar from the blood and either use it for energy or store it as fat,” New Scientist reports. Trouble begins when our muscle, fat, and liver cells stop responding properly to insulin—that is, they stop taking in glucose. This condition, known as insulin resistance and also pre-diabetes, causes the pancreas to produce excess amounts of insulin even as excess glucose builds up in the blood. Type 2 diabetes, in essence, is the chronic condition of excess blood glucose—its symptoms include frequent bladder, kidney, and skin infections, fatigue, excess hunger, and erectile dysfunction.
Here in the US, Type 2 diabetes rates have tripled since 1980, New Scientist reports.
What’s emerging, the magazine shows, is that insulin “also regulates neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, which are crucial for memory and learning.” That’s not all: “And it is important for the function and growth of blood vessels, which supply the brain with oxygen and glucose. As a result, reducing the level of insulin in the brain can immediately impair cognition.”
So when people develop insulin resistance, New Scientist reports, insulin spikes “begin to overwhelm the brain, which can’t constantly be on high alert,” And then bad things happen: “Either alongside the other changes associated with type 2 diabetes, or separately, the brain may then begin to turn down its insulin signalling, impairing your ability to think and form memories before leading to permanent neural damage”—and eventually, Alzheimer’s.
Chillingly, scientists have been able to induce these conditions in lab animals. At her lab at Brown, scientist Suzanne de la Monte blocked insulin inflow to the brains of mice—and essentially induced Alzheimer’s. When she examined their brains, here’s what she found, as described by New Scientist:
Areas associated with memory were studded with bright pink plaques, like rocks in a climbing wall, while many neurons, full to bursting point with a toxic protein, were collapsing and crumbling. As they disintegrated, they lost their shape and their connections with other neurons, teetering on the brink of death.
For a paper published this year, Rutgers researchers got a similar result on rabbits with induced diabetes.
Altogether, the New Scientist story makes a powerful case that the standard American diet is as devastating for our brains as it is for our bodies. The situation is tragic:
In the US alone, 19 million people have now been diagnosed with the condition, while a further 79 million are considered “prediabetic”, showing some of the early signs of insulin resistance. If Alzheimer’s and type 2 diabetes do share a similar mechanism, levels of dementia may follow a similar trajectory as these people age.
Yet another reason to load up on fruit and veggies—and work to wrest federal farm policy (which encourages the production of cheap sweeteners and fats)—from the grip of agribusiness.
Source: http://www.motherjones.com
Study Suggests Coffee Is Healthy, Coffee Drinkers Are Not
Coffee turns out to be good for your health...as long as you drop all the bad habits that go with it.
Older adults who drink coffee have a lower risk of death by about 10 percent, according to a large observational study of over 400,000 people published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study, which followed participants aged 50 to 71 during a 14-year window, examined common causes of death, including heart and respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections. For each life-ending ailment, coffee drinking correlated with lower risk of death in both men and women, with cancer being the only condition that showed no correlation in women and a slight increase in risk of death for men who are heavy coffee drinkers.
However, while it would be easy to draw the conclusion that drinking coffee helps you live longer, the raw data from the study actually shows coffee drinkers die younger. Why? Because a number of bad habits and detriments to longevity are associated with coffee drinking, likely negating any benefits from coffee itself.
The study was conducted by researchers at the National Cancer Institute and funded by the NIH and AARP as part of a diet and health study in older Americans (unfortunately, the full article is behind a paywall, but you can access the abstract here). The data were collected via a baseline questionnaire that gauged demographic and lifestyle characteristics along with diet, then monitored until they died or the study ended.
When the data were first analyzed, coffee consumption was associated with an increase in the mortality of both men and women. To arrive at the result that coffee drinking may lower the risk of death, the researchers accounted for particularly damaging vices that coffee drinkers are more prone to engage in, such as smoking. It was only after accounting for the statistical contribution that smoking adds to increasing the rate of mortality did they arrive at the result that coffee drinkers have increased longevity.
A quote from the study indicates the bad habits that coffee drinkers are guilty of:
As compared with persons who did not drink coffee, coffee drinkers were more likely to smoke cigarettes and consume more than three alcoholic drinks per day, and they consumed more red meat. Coffee drinkers also tended to have a lower level of education; were less likely to engage in vigorous physical activity; and reported lower levels of consumption of fruits, vegetables, and white meat.
Analysis of the study generally showed that the more coffee consumed, the lower the risk of death. (image: LA Times)
With over 170 million Americans drinking coffee and over 1 billion coffee drinkers worldwide (coffee is the second largest commodity in the world, after all), the effects of coffee on health have been researched and disputed for a long time. Previous studies have shown that coffee has multiple benefits that can fight depressionprevent diabetesprotect against liver fibrosis, and even help fight cancer, but the scope of this most recent study helps to take a much broader view of its benefits, even taking into account the known problems with observational studies. Although this study shifts the tug-of-war between the health benefits and risks of coffee back toward the healthy side, the particularly damning observation that the health benefits of coffee are negated by a slew of poor lifestyle choices is a lesson for both coffee and non-coffee drinkers alike.
But ultimately the issue of this study is, if coffee is preventative medicine, drink it up. If it’s poison, everyone should avoid it. Simple, right? Well, not exactly.
The question of whether coffee is good or bad for you is inherently a complex one. The process of roasting coffee produces over 1,000 compounds — some of which are antioxidants, while about 19 are known rodent carcinogens. These compounds create the taste and aromatic richness associated with different roasts. But the fact remains that the vast majority of these compounds have not been tested individually for their health effects and likely won’t be for a long time to come.
Furthermore, the study suffers from another longstanding problem from large-scale statistical analyses, which the authors admitted: correlation does not mean causation. In other words, it is impossible to tell whether coffee itself directly contributed to extending the lifetimes of drinkers or if coffee drinking is part of a lifestyle of people who tend to live longer.
But coffee drinkers in general can help their longevity through some simple lifestyle changes, such as quitting smoking (in case you haven’t heard that before) and joining the 35 percent of coffee drinkers who take it black, which eliminates the milk and sugar both of which are detrimental if you’re drinking 4-5 cups a day.
This study illustrates just how tricky it is to fish out all the lifestyle factors that impact health. But in the end, one thing is clear: coffee’s reputation isn’t as black as previously labeled.
Source: http://singularityhub.com/
Big Pharma Whistles, and the Drug Enforcement Administration Comes Running
The production and sale of both drugs has increased tremendously over the past decade; in some locations, sales have increased by 1,500 percent. Distribution is particularly high in Appalachia, the Midwest—particularly suburbia—and the Southwest.
Why the increase? Our poor diets and inactive lifestyles increase inflammation and pain. Older people are especially vulnerable in this regard. And doctors are increasingly willing to treat pain with drugs. Sales are also being driven by addiction, as users become physically dependent on painkillers and begin “doctor shopping” to keep the prescriptions coming.
As with all opiates, oxycodone and hydrocodone bind to opiate receptors in the brain, blocking not only pain signals but any negative emotions like stress or anxiety. The euphoria associated with early use fades relatively quickly as tolerance builds. The pain-managing efficacy will also be reduced as tolerance builds—which is why these drugs should not be used for long-term or chronic pain. If users take the drug for longer than prescribed, or in higher doses, it is likely that they will become addicted.
Addicts die from drug overdoses at a much higher rate than the rest of the population. Opioid pain relievers like oxycodone and hydrocodone caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008. Addiction is also responsible for the alarming rise in pharmacy robberies nationwide.
The epidemic is not likely to abate soon. The explosion of pain management clinics in Florida, dubbed “pill mills,” prompted the state legislature to close a loophole that had allowed physicians to fill oxycodone prescriptions on the spot. Authorities say a half-billion doses of the drug and its generic equivalents were distributed in the state during 2009 alone. An unknown number wound up in the hands of “patients” who had come from out of state to have prescriptions filled by multiple pill mills, before driving home to resell the pills on the black market.
According to Gene Haislip, who for seventeen years was head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control, the DEA’s policy of allowing increases in the production of these drugs in the face of widespread illegal and non-medical use shows a “serious lack of accountability and oversight”:
The DEA is the lone federal agency with the power to decide how much of the drug gets made and put out there; it alone has had all the responsibility to do something about this problem. The way I did it for seventeen years, which was basically the way it had always been done even before the DEA was the DEA, is that when a significant diversion problem occurred, the quota increase requests would come under greater scrutiny. With Oxy, there has been a significant diversion problem since the late 1990s, so the requests should have come under greater scrutiny.
That apparently didn’t happen, Haislip says. Instead, the DEA has rubber-stamped Big Pharma’s requests to increase oxycodone production. And why is that? Political influence, plain and simple.
As Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, pointed out in her 2004 book The Truth about the Drug Companies, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) employs more lobbyists in Washington than there are members of Congress. Since 2007, the group has spent more than $20 million annually on lobbying in Washington to see that its interests are protected. Haislip says DEA won’t block a company’s requested quota increase “if that company is supporting members of Congress who have the power to block the agency’s funding.”
Then there’s the revolving door between the Office of Diversion Control and drug manufacturers or consulting firms that work with both industry and DEA. People working in the Office of Diversion Control know they might get lucrative work with drug companies upon retirement, and this constitutes a huge conflict of interest that prevents DEA officials from doing their duty. They certainly aren’t going to offer an opinion or do something that’s going to cut off their future prospects.
Contrast the “hands-off” approach dealing with incredibly addictive narcotics with the aggressive disapproval of perfectly safe supplements like DHEA. DHEA, which is short for dehydroepiandrosterone, is a natural hormone produced by the adrenal glands, the gonads, and the brain. DHEA is the most abundant circulating steroid hormone in humans and is sometimes referred to as the mother hormone since other hormones can be made from it. In its supplement form, DHEA is used for slowing or reversing aging, improving thinking skills in older people, slowing the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, weight loss, decreasing the symptoms of menopause, and boosting the immune system.
As we reported last October, DHEA supplementation also helps create improvements in muscle strength and bone mineral density with a reduction in body fat mass. And there is substantial support for its effectiveness in fighting adrenal insufficiency, hypopituitarism, general osteoporosis, systemic lupus, depression, schizophrenia, and balancing the overproduction of cortisol produced by excessive stress. Too much cortisol ages us rapidly; a little extra DHEA can make all the difference.
There are a number of different forms of DHEA. 5-DHEA is the form most commonly sold on the market and used for aging, depression, obesity, cardiovascular risk, and adrenal insufficiency. However, it can result in an increased production of male hormones, which may be positive or negative depending on various factors. For example, some aging males convert extra testosterone to estrogen, a process called aromatization, and too much in women can cause unwanted hair growth. For men with prostate troubles, 1-DHEA might be a better choice (no estrogenicity and decreased androgenicity), while 19Nor-DHEA might be better for women (little estrogenicity and anti-androgenic metabolites). But these little-known forms of DHEA are especially vulnerable to being lumped together with dangerous drugs and banned—simply because they are not well known.
DHEA has had a fifteen-year record of complete safety. Despite this, FDA and certain members of Congress keep trying to regulate it as a controlled substance, specifically as an anabolic steroid, even when used in dietary supplements.
Currently DHEA could be classified as an illegal anabolic steroid if the DEA were to present evidence that it meets all eight requirements under the Anabolic Steroids/Controlled Substances law. As the DEA has not yet put DHEA on the list, they clearly either don’t think it fits or hesitate for other reasons. Legislation was introduced a few years ago to add DHEA to the DEA’s controlled substances list, even though DEA already had the power to put it on the list if they met the burden of proof.
No deaths from DHEA. No addictions. No shameful deals between the manufacturer and federal agencies. No organized crime because of DHEA in America’s heartland. And yet DHEA is under attack, while big Pharma keeps churning out dangerous opiates by the ton.
Source: http://www.anh-usa.org/big-pharma-whistles-and-dea-comes-running/ |
Definitions: Distribution Equipment and Branch Circuit Device
Definitions: Distribution Equipment and Branch Circuit Device
We have two definitions that are unique to our software: distribution equipment and branch circuit device. Revit does not have categories that exactly match these terms. The electrical industry as a whole also does not have words that match these terms. We use these terms in our software because they help explain how our calculations use the Revit model.
Distribution Equipment
Distribution equipment refers to the equipment in the project that provides power to other equipment or devices.
In real-world terms, distribution equipment includes panels, transformers, switchboards, bus ducts, and other equipment like that.
In Revit, distribution equipment includes all the electrical equipment that have their Part Type set to Panelboard, Other Panel, Transformer, or Switchboard.
In Design Master Electrical RT, the settings for distribution equipment are set in the Panel Edit command. They are fed by feeders. Fault and arc-flash calculations happen only at distribution equipment, not at branch circuit devices.
Branch Circuit Device
Branch circuit devices are electrical devices that are connected to distribution equipment that do not have anything else connected to them.
In real-world terms, branch circuit devices include receptacles, light fixtures, switches, mechanical equipment, kitchen equipment, and other devices like that.
In Revit, branch circuit devices are either electrical fixtures or electrical equipment with their Part Type set to Equipment Switch.
In Design Master Electrical, branch circuit device settings are set in the Instance Edit and the Circuit Edit command. They are fed by branch circuits.
Page url: http://www.designmaster.biz/docs/elecrt/index.html?definitions.htm
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Egg Decorating and Egg Hunts: Seven Strategies for Fun and Learning
Spending time in active play with your children can help them develop the physical and mental skills necessary for success in their later academic pursuits. Fun and easy activities like decorating eggs and searching for them in your home or backyard can stimulate your child’s creativity and instill a love of learning that can last throughout their lives. Here are seven fun egg activities that will delight and entertain even the youngest toddlers.
1. Go with Glitter
Double-sided tape or adhesive spots can be used on hard-boiled eggs to create patterns. Dipping these eggs in glitter can produce sparkly decorated eggs fit for any prince or princess. Using various colors of glitter can create a beautiful multilayered effect for your completed eggs. Best of all, any spills can easily be swept up to make clean-up time a breeze.
2. Spell It Out
Adhesive letters are available at most craft stores and can allow toddlers to learn while they play. By helping your child spell out various words and names on pre-decorated or plain eggs, you can build confidence levels and ensure a positive response in the learning environment.
3. Glue It On
Using safety scissors to cut out shapes from brightly colored tissue paper or napkins can be fun for your young ones and can help them develop the motor skills they will need later in their academic careers. Nontoxic glue can be used to adhere these original designs to eggs for a beautiful mosaic effect that your child can display with pride.
4. Make it a Family Affair
Even the youngest children can enjoy drawing faces on hard-boiled eggs to create their own unique characters. This process can be made even more fun by suggesting that your child draw each member of your family. From grandparents right down to younger siblings, these personalized eggs can allow your child to stretch his or her creative talent to the fullest. Adding a few finishing touches with felt and ribbon can ensure that each egg is easy to recognize and can increase self-confidence and pride in their artistic abilities.
5. Button Up
Colorful buttons can be used to decorate eggs and look especially festive when thin ribbons are laced through the eyelets. Your child will love creating his or her own designs by gluing these items to hard-boiled eggs. For younger toddlers close supervision will be required to ensure that these items are not accidentally swallowed.
6. Hide and Seek
Especially for older preschoolers, switching roles in who hides the eggs and who finds them can make any egg hunt more enjoyable. Eggs emblazoned with letters of the alphabet can be used to spell out words as part of the process. This can help younger children with reading readiness and can help older children learn to spell simple words correctly.
7. Explore the Great Outdoors
An outdoor egg hunt is much more fun when children search for their own decorated eggs. These activities can allow you and your child to explore the natural world in the safety of your own back yard. By taking time out to look at flowers, trees, birds and butterflies, you can help your young ones develop a basic understanding of the changing seasons and the wonders of nature. |
20 terms
Ch 23: Great Depression
communities of run-down shacks on the outskirt of cities
a situation in which the supply of manufactured goods exceeds the demand
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
individual chosen by the Democrats to run for President in 1932, he ran on the pledge of a new deal for America
civil rights
rights guaranteed in the Constitution, especially voting and equal treatment under the law
John Collier
under President FDR, this individual was the Commissioner of Indian Affairs who worked to create jobs for Native Americans and worked to protect Native American land
Black Tuesday
this is the name given to October 29, 1929 when the stock market completely crashed
fireside chats
radio talks that were held by FDR to try to boost Americans' confidence in the banks
Eleanor Roosevelt
First Lady who advocated for womens' rights and civil rights
payroll tax
a tax that removes money directly from workers' paychecks
sit-down strike
workers stay in the factory but stop working
Huey Long
Democratic Senator from Louisiana who argued that the government should tax the wealthy and distribute their wealth to the poor
migrant worker
person that travels from farm to farm picking crops
fail to repay loans
Francis Townsend
California doctor who wanted a system of government pensions, such as the social security system
Marian Anderson
an African American singer who was not allowed to perform for the Daughters of the American Revolution
financial failure caused by a company's inability to pay its debts
John Steinbeck
author of the book, The Grapes of Wrath, which describes the miseries of the Dust Bowl
John Lewis
this individual headed the United Mine Workers union, and later formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which was an umbrella organization that consisted of many other unions
Frances Perkins
this individual served as FDR's Secretary of Labor, chaired the Social Securities Act, and wanted employers and employees to work together to create a good working environment, fair wages, and good relations amongst people
collective bargaining
a process that allowed the union to negotiate wages and benefits for all union members; employers were forced to participate in this process with the union |
How Can I Learn Chinese Characters Effectively?
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Chinese characters
Most frequently used 1,000 characters: 90% (Coverage rate)
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Chinese characters are far more intricate than western letters and the composition of the main Chinese characters can be described in three ways:
1. Pictographic Method
This is the earliest method to create the most original Chinese characters. Examples: “日() sun,” “月(yuè) moon,” “水(shuǐ) water,” “火(huǒ) fire” and so on, which take the shape of each term. These pictographic Chinese characters changed the original characters of the physical into subsequent founder fonts after gradual evolution, and some reduction in the number of strokes and some strokes added by the rules have become irregular fonts.
2. Associative Law
It’s easier to see the creation of truth through pictographic Chinese characters, but they should not express an abstract meaning. The ancients would have created another law known as the “ideographic law” in which they used different symbols or borrowing pictographic characters to add some symbols to express an abstract meaning. For example, the Chinese character “明(míng)” is made up of “日() sun ” and “月(yuè) moon ,” which means bringing bright.
3. Pictophonetic Law
Ideographic characters and pictographic characters can be seen from the shape on the meaning of the words, but they are not allowed to deliver voice. Therefore, people created sound law-shaped characters to express the sound of voices and the meaning of the side next to match the shape. A lot of new words came into being. For example, the Chinese character “爸() father ” is made up of phonetic character “巴() bar ” and meaning character “父() father .” According to statistics, pictophonetic characters account for about 90% of Chinese characters. The formation and development of Chinese characters became an important tool for the exchange of ideas that adapted to
In a recent newsletter, we introduced the key Chinese phrases you will need to the needs of human social life.
For an English word, the Chinese translation (or the Chinese ‘word’) often consists of two or more Chinese characters. You should use them together and read them from left to right. If you want to arrange them vertically, the one on the leftmost should go to the top. See an example for the word ‘English’ below:
As you can see, there are two Chinese characters for English (the language), which are yīng yǔ in Pinyin. Pinyin is the international standard romanization scheme for Chinese characters, which is useful for learning the phonetics of Mandarin. There are four tones in Pinyin and we use the numbers here, i.e., 1, 2, 3, and 4, to depict the four tones. If you want to learn Mandarin (or pǔ tōng huà), you have to master the four tones of the language. However, one pinyin usually represents many Chinese characters. For example, han4 can depict the Chinese characters for sweet, drought, brave, Chinese, etc. Thus you have to learn the Chinese characters to master the language. Chinese is not alphabetic so the writing is not related to its phonetics. We don’t translate the Western alphabet since the letters have no meaning, and we do use the letters in writings, especially in scientific writings.
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Greetings. I just wanted to know how to read any chinese character that comes in front of you. For example, if you are learning words in your chinese couses, and in the test you get words you never learnt (that already happened, once), then how to read them?
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Shaping the New Woman: Women's Health, 1870-1930
Professor Hilary Marland
Funded by the Wellcome Trust
bathThis new project will explore the popularisation of health knowledge for women, examining the growing body of advice literature generated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This advice was put forward across a range of media, including the publications of general practitioners and gynaecologists, homoeopathists, herbalists, medical botanists, and hydropathic practitioners intended for a mass audience, in midwifery manuals, recipe books, women’s magazines, birth control literature, beauty manuals, newspapers, and posters and advertisements for medicines and health and beauty preparations.
Professor Marland's project will address the issue of how women sought to inform themselves about their bodies, attempted to deal with gynaecological problems and other health matters, and how access to information changed during this period, as literature on the topic of women’s health proliferated. Some of the publications on gynaecology and hygiene were directed specifically towards the education of mothers and daughters on diseases of the uterine organs. Though many focused on preparing women for motherhood, it was also argued that a good understanding of their reproductive systems was necessary for women to achieve their full potential in public life. Both ‘orthodox’ and ‘alternative’ medical practice generated a wide range of literature teaching women how to prevent disease and to regulate their potentially disordered bodies. As women increasingly entered higher education and paid employment, more attention was paid to the importance of hygiene, regularity, exercise and strength of body and mind to carry out new tasks.
The project will focus on the late Victorian period to 1930, focusing on how advice literature for women shifted to take on board new social realities linking health to women’s education and work, and shifting emphasis from maternity alone to women’s broader functions. |
You are here: Home / Using the Lab / Analysis / Soils / 227
Chloride In Saturated Paste Extract - Flow Injection Analyzer Method
Saturated Paste Extract: Cl
This method quantifies the amount of Cl- in a soil water extract, such as from the saturated paste extract. Thiocyanate ion is liberated from mercuric thiocyanate by the formation of soluble mercuric chloride. In the presence of ferric ion, free thiocyanate ion forms the highly colored ferric thiocyanate, of which the absorbance is proportional to the chloride concentration. The absorbance of the ferric thiocyanate is read at 480 nm. Plant tolerance to chloride can be related to the concentration of chloride in the saturated paste extract. The method has a detection limit of 0.1 meq/L of Cl- and is generally reproducible within 5%.
Diamond, D. 2001. Determination of Chloride by Flow Injection Analysis Colorimetry. QuikChem Method 10-117-07-1-H. Lachat Instruments, Milwaukee, WI.
Rhoades, J. D. 1982. Soluble salts. p. 167-179. In: A. L. Page et al. (ed.) Methods of soil analysis: Part 2: Chemical and microbiological properties. Monograph Number 9 (Second Edition). ASA, Madison, WI. |
Card Game in C
Here is a simple card game that simulates a random deck of cards. The program simulates drawing however many cards you choose and prints what cards you drew, jack of hearts, queen of diamonds, etc. This card game has much room for improvement, this is a good starting point, if anyone would like to modify this program feel free.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h> /*This is the time header file, you must include this when you are using random numbers*/
int rand_int(int n);
void draw_a_card();
/*Notice how char *suits and char *ranks are global variables*/
char *suits[4]={"spades","clubs","diamonds","hearts"};
int main()
int x,y;
srand(time(NULL)); /*This is to set the seed for random numbers*/
printf("\nEnter a number of cards to draw (Press 0 to exit)\n");
for(x=1; x<=y; x++)
draw_a_card(); /*If you wanted to draw five cards this function would be called five individual times*/
} }while(1); return 0; } void draw_a_card() /*void because we aren't returning a value*/ { int r,s; r=rand_int(13); /*Receives a number back from 0 to 12*/ s=rand_int(4); /*Receives a number back from 0 to 3*/ printf("\n%s of %s\n",ranks[r],suits[s]); } int rand_int(int n) { return rand()%n; /*Returns a number from 0 to N-1*/ } |
Personification is a common Biblical method of describing situations with symbolic language. After Cain killed Abel, the Lord said to Cain, "the voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground (Gen. 4:10). Was Abel's blood really speaking? No! Not literally. The language communicates God's faithful loving, tender concern for His martyr Abel and Cain's accountability for his sinful act.
According to Heb. 12:24, "The blood of Jesus speaks better things than that of Abel." It communicates forgiveness, mercy, and redemption. Certainly the blood of Jesus is not literally speaking. The language communicates God's message of redemption. In Rev. 6, God clearly communicates that He has not forgotten His faithful martyrs through the centuries.
Their blood symbolically cries out for God to bring justice upon their persecutors and to reward the faithful ones with eternity. In the Bible, the word soul often means "person or people" (Rom. 13:1, Ezek. 18:4, Acts 27:37). It also means life (see Heb. 13:17, 1 Pet. 4:19, Matt. 10:28). Thus Rev. 6:9 could read, "the lives of those people martyred for Jesus, symbolically like Abel's blood, cry out from the ground for justice." There will be a final judgment and God Himself will set all things right! |
An infographic by Knowledge Hut.
Writing an essay has never been easy. We all know how hard it is to catch inspiration, and how complicated the research could be. The sad thing is that your ideas might be brilliant, but if your grammar is poor, your language is dull, and your structure is messy, your professor will never appreciate them.
On the other hand, a clear and logical structure will definitely highlight your main point. You will be surprised, how many synonyms there are for such usual words as “and”, “but” and “for example”. If you want to make your writing persuasive, use: for instance, markedly, in particular. For easy-to-understand explanations use: in order to, that is to say, in other words, to that end. For demonstrating contrast use such alternatives as “yet”, “on the other hand” and “then again”.
This sophisticated and attractive phrases from the infographic down below are extremely helpful in connecting logical parts of your paper. Just try using them each time you write an essay, and you will see excellent results!
An infographic by EssayPro.
Learning how to play piano the slow, “traditional” way can be frustrating and unmotivating. Many students give up because the road to playing songs they enjoy feels daunting and too long. Believe it or not, it is much easier to learn a popular song by artists such as Adele, Imagine Dragons, and 21 Pilots than it is to learn site reading and music theory from the beginning.
While learning music theory and site reading is important, all it takes is three fingers and a little knowledge of the notes on the keyboard to at least start playing songs you love. This infographic will show you how to play 10 hit songs on piano in a very simple, and easy to read way. Take your time and remember to practice each song multiple times until you get the hang of it.
An infographic by Lessons On The Go.
PTE vs IELTS #Infographic #PTE #IELTS
While IELTS give major emphasis on the speaking abilities of the candidates, PTE is based on complete automated scoring. Our Infographics highlights the significant differences between IELTS and PTE and their benefits. It also highlights the test structure of both the exams and helps you understand which test suits best to your needs.
If you decide to appear for IELTS and want to achieve the desired score, join IELTS course in Perth today to make it happen in one shot through specialized training and detailed analysis of your problem areas. Whether you want to migrate to Australia, Canada or New Zealand, with the help of our IELTS trainers you can always ensure improved performance to meet the expectations of the examiner.
An infographic by Apeiro Training Services.
How to Write an Essay #Infographic #Education #Essay
An infographic by Grab My Essay. |
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