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Back to Portugal Nicolau Coelho's caravel was back in Portugal on 23 June 1501, followed by Cabral on 21 July 1501. Of the thirteen ships that had sailed from Lisbon sixteen months earlier, six had been lost, and two returned empty. The cargoes aboard the five fully loaded vessels in the fleet covered the cost of outfitting the original fleet, the value of the ships lost along the way and left a profit that exceeded the total outlay. Cabral's return came three months after the departure of the Third India Armada, four ships under João da Nova departed, and news of the developments during Cabral's voyage meant the Fourth Armada, labelled the "Revenge Fleet", was going to be a larger and more complex operation. Cabral was initially placed in charge of preparations but was eventually relieved of the command. He may have been dismissed, or may have requested to be relieved of the position. Whatever happened, the intrigue and factional infighting irritated Manuel to the point where mentioning the matter in the king's presence resulted in banishment from the court. The command went to Vasco da Gama, one of his supporters invoked the royal displeasure, and Cabral left the court permanently. While he was out of favour with Manuel I, Cabral was able to marry well. His wife, Dona Isabel de Castro, was a wealthy descendant of Fernando I and one of Afonso de Albuquerque's nieces. While the marriage produced at least four children, details of Cabral's life after he withdrew to Santarém in 1509 are few and far between. Sometime around 1518, he was promoted from fidalgo to knight in the King's Council with a monthly allowance of 2,437 reais in addition to the 30,000 a year he had been receiving since 1497. Cabral died around 1520 and was buried in a chapel of Santarém's Convento da Graça. © Ian Hughes 2017
Monday, September 12, 2011 Converting values to color levels Adding color to a plot is helpful in many situations for visualizing an additional dimension of the data. Again, I wrote the below function "val2col" in R after having coded this manually over and over in the past. It uses similar arguments as the image function in that one defines the colors to be used as well as optional break points or z-limits by which the data is binned into those colors. The typical situation where I use the function is with the mapping of climate data, yet the addition of color to an XY plot can often be easier on the eyes than adding an additional z-axis spatial dimension. In combination with the image.scale function, that I previously posted, the data can be quickly interpretted. As an example, gridded sea level pressure is plotted above as projected polygons using the packages maps and mapproj. Values were converted to colors with the val2col function and the image.scale function plotted a corresponding scale. For those interested in using netcdf files, the example also uses the ncdf package for reading the data files into R.
How to use this manual 1) How to use Manual (you're here: continue!) Tells how to use the manual to model neurons, and where to start if you don't have much expertise with computer. 2) Hardware, software, and compiling (Read to install NeuronC) Describes type of computer equipment and software support is necessary to run NeuronC. This information will allow you to get NeuronC running on many types of personal computers and workstations. 3) NeuronC basis in analogy (Read if you're a beginner) Explains what kind of neural behavior NeuronC models, and how it simulates the voltages and currents in neural circuits. This is important if you're starting out in modeling and need a basic understanding of numerical simulation. For a more complete summary of how NeuronC works, refer to the modeling paper: Smith, R.G. (1990) "NeuronC: A language based on C for dynamically simulating neural networks of the visual system." 4) NeuronC statements and syntax (Carefully read; refer to later) This section describes every NeuronC language statement, its meaning and function in a typical NeuronC modeling program. 5) How to construct a neural circuit. This section describes how to go about designing a neural circuit. 6) How to add new channel types. (Skim, refer to later) This section describes how to modify existing Hodgkin-Huxley channels and also new sequential-state types. If you need to modify the rate constant function you can look up "channels" in Section 4. 7) How to run nc (Refer when running models) This section describes how to use the "nc", "stim", "plotmod", and "vid" commands. It explains the command line switches which allow you to run nc remotely on a workstation and allow you to display the data on a video screen. 8) Predefined variables (Read before making working model) A list of all predefined variables that have special meanings for NeuronC. You can use these variables to control things like the type and resolution of the graphics display, and time increment for the numerical simulation. 9) List of source code files 10) References References for background information about modeling neural circuits. 11) Programming examples (Use as a recipe book!) Some examples of use of NeuronC language statements in simple models. You can use these examples practice your modeling skill by copying and then modifying them. You can use "modules" of NeuronC statements like a cookbook recipe to make larger programs. 12) Curve Fitting with NeuronC You can curve fit an arbitrary nc model using the "Stochastic Search" or "Simulated Annealing" algorithms. 13) Retsim: a retinal simulator A set of high level scripts for both interpreted and compiled versions of the NeuronC simulator. 14) NeuronC syntax (Use if you want to check nc syntax) This gives the syntax file for the NeuronC language, and explains how to read syntax files written for YACC (UNIX tool for creating languages. Click here to return to Table of Contents Hardware needed for NeuronC NeuronC requires a fast CPU because its simulation of neural circuits uses lots of floating point calculations. If a large neural circuit is simulated, NeuronC also requires a lot of memory. Memory use is proportional to network size; an average compartment and its associated connections require about 400 bytes of storage. Another requirement of NeuronC is a video card with enough resolution to display high-res graphics on the screen. NeuronC can be run without graphics to produce a list of recordings but it is useful to display this information in graphical form. Some excellent computer choices for running NeuronC include: 1) Notebook computer with Pentium 3000 MHz and: 1 - 4GB RAM Memory 100-1000 GB disk 1280x900 LCD display DVD-RW drive USB flash drive Linux operating system (download from 2) Workstation/Server with: 8-12 core Opteron CPU (e.g. Opteron 6328, 3.2 GHz) 4-16 GB RAM memory 256 MB video card 200-1000 GB hard disk 1280x1024 monitor DVD-RW drive USB flash drive Linux operating system (download from 3) Mac Mini, Mac Pro, or iMac with: Intel i5 or i7, 2.5 - 2.7 GHz, dual-core 1-4 GB RAM memory Radeon 6630M video card 200-500 GB hard disk 1280x1024 monitor OSX 10.7 - 10.9 4) PC with Xeon/Opteron with: 4-8 GB RAM memory 256 MB video card 200-2000 GB hard disk 1280x1024 monitor DVD-RW drive USB flash drive 5) Any of the above computers running Linux or Mac OSX. For Windows (or Mac OSX), install VirtualBox with a Linux virtual disk image (available at, ~7GB). 6) Array of 2-50 Linux computers running MOSIX, a parallel-job system ( Opteron CPUS, 3.2 GHz Any Linux distribution Local area network (LAN), GB network interfaces. Software required to compile and run NeuronC NeuronC is currently being developed with the Linux operating system using the "g++" C/C++ compiler and X Windows graphics environment. This is a free UNIX-like operating system that is very powerful and easy to install. Any version of Linux, for example "Fedora", "Slackware", "Debian", or "Red Hat" will do, although we recommend "Slackware" running the "KDE" desktop. You can download these distributions from an ftp site, or you can purchase a CD-ROM and install Linux directly from it. Virtually any computer that can run UNIX or WinXP will also run NeuronC, including Mac computers running OSX. The directory "nc" contains all the files needed to run NeuronC. The "nc" directory contains the source codes for "nc", "stim" and "plotmod", along with some examples of neural circuit programs. The "pl" directory contains the source codes for "vid" and "hpflt" and "ibmflt" which are the graphics drivers for the video screen and plotter, respectively. The "plot" directory contains the Ampex plot package which is the source code for the graphics language that "vid" and "hpflt" use. Normally the plot subroutines are compiled into a library called "libP.a" which is used when linking nc and plotmod. Compiling nc under Linux 1) Uncompress and "un-tar" the distribution. This will make a directory called "nc" and several subdirectories: tar xvozf nc.tgz 2) Go to the "nc" directory and type "make": cd nc This makes the programs "nc", "stim", "plotmod" and "vid". 3) After these programs are compiled by "make", they are linked (given a shortcut to) the nc/bin folder. To allow them to run from any other folder, you can include this nc/bin folder in your path. Then you must edit your .profile (bash) or .cshrc (tcsh) shell startup files to include ~/nc/bin in your program execution path. If you are using BASH (standard on many Linux and Mac systems): You can also do the same thing by creating a text file ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile (i.e. in your home folder) and adding You can check this by entering "vid" again -- it should pop up immediately. If you are using the "tcsh" shell (recommended on Linux and Mac systems), you can add this to your ~/.cshrc file: setenv PATH "~/nc/bin $PATH" Alternately, on a Mac, you can add to your path by going to /etc/paths.d and adding a file that contains /Users/xxx/nc/bin (where xxx is your login name or name of your home folder). Another way to allow these programs to be run from any other folder is to link these programs to a folder that is already in your path. For example, to install "vid", the graphics driver for "nc", you can go to the "pl" directory and: mkdir ~/bin cd ../pl ln vid ~/bin // to use a ~/bin sub-folder in your home folder ln vid /usr/bin // if you have root permission 4) Go to the "nc/src" subdirectory and install "stim","nc", and "plotmod": cd ../src ln nc stim plotmod ~/bin // to use a ~/bin sub-folder in your home folder ln nc stim plotmod /usr/bin If you don't have a "bin" subdirectory in your home directory, you can "ln" the binaries anywhere else you like. Compiling nc on Mac OSX Compiling nc under OSX is very similar to compiling under Linux. You will need to have XCode (the C compiler) installed. For some of the old Mac compilers, the -O and -O3 optimizations caused retsim to crash. You may need to remove the optimizations defined by CFLAGS at the top of nc/src/makefile: Change this (lines 1-2, nc/src/makefile): # CFLAGS = # for Mac OSX to this: # CFLAGS = -O3 CFLAGS = # for Mac OSX When compiling retsim (see "Retsim: a retinal simulator" in ncman6.html), you will also have to modify the makefile for retsim's dynamic linking. The Mac OSX uses a slightly different way to link dynamic libraries. From the nc/models/retsim directory, you need to edit the "makefile" which is responsible for compiling and linking retsim. You only need to uncomment the line (i.e. remove the "#"): Change this (line 1, nc/src/retsim/makefile): CFLAGS = -Ofast to this: # CFLAGS = -Ofast Change this (line 6, nc/src/retsim/makefile): # CFLAGS = # for Mac OSX to this: CFLAGS = # for Mac OSX Change this (line 47, nc/src/retsim/makefile) to this: Compiling under Windows/Cygwin To compile "nc" under Windows (Win98,Win2000,WinXP) you must first install "Cygwin" (, which is a "Linux-like" environment for Windows. Under Cygwin you'll have to modify the "nc/src/makefile" to replace "yacc" with "yacc.exe", then follow the instructions above for compiling "nc". Once nc.exe is created you must refer to it by that name instead of "nc", but you can also link (make shortcut for) "nc.exe" to "nc". Copy the binaries "nc", "plotmod", "stim", and "pl/vid" to "/usr/bin" using "cp". For more known compile problems, see doc/README.compile. Editing nc files under Windows/Cygwin If you need to edit some of the source code files under Windows, you may have difficulty using simple editors such as "notepad" because they do not recognize the "\n" (line feed) as the "end-of-line" character. To fix this, you can compile "cradd.c" to make cradd, then access it using "crad": For example, to edit "makefile": cd nc/doc make cradd cradd.exe < makefile > m && mv m makefile notepad makefile Compiling under DOS If you would like to run NeuronC under DOS you can compile it with the Delorie gcc compiler ( A version of NeuronC that runs under DOS is available (with limited graphics). Running under VirtualBox VirtualBox is a virtual machine that runs at near native speed under most Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux systems. You can set up a 10-20 GB virtual disk that includes a Linux distribution and the Neuron-C distribution. A 10 GB virtual disk containing a Linux distribution with KDE and Neuron-C is available. To run VirtualBox you need to download and install the appropriate distribution from Running under MOSIX MOSIX is a parallel job operating system ( that is ideal for running Neuron-C jobs on Linux clusters that contain multiple CPUs, cores, and/or computers. It supports dynamic balancing of jobs so that each CPU is automatically loaded by a number of jobs appropriate for its speed. You can download a version of MOSIX free and install it on several computers within a local-area network. It works best with a fast (1 GB/s or more) local area network. The rationale behind using MOSIX to run multiple Neuron-C jobs in parallel is that computational modeling is extremely CPU-intensive but not very I/O-intensive. Models may take several minutes to several hours, or even days or weeks. Usually several models are run, each with a different set of parameters. The model jobs are started on a MOSIX server, either interactively or from batch processing scripts. After a few minutes the server detects the CPU load and migrates each job to equalize the load on all the CPUs on the MOSIX network. Although the jobs run on different machines, their I/O is automatically taken from the main server, completely transparently to the user. To monitor the progress of the jobs, a monitor command ("mosmon") is included that shows the status of the CPUs, their job load, CPU speed, and memory available. When jobs finish on a CPU, other jobs are migrated from other CPUs to it automatically. This makes the most efficient use of CPUs to run the most jobs as fast as possible. MOSIX is helpful to run multiple jobs in parallel on multiple computers. However, MOSIX is not necessary when you have just one computer with multiple CPU cores, as Linux runing the Symmetric MultiProcessing (SMP) kernel can run your jobs in parallel. As long as the number of jobs is not much more than 2 per CPU core, and the machine has enough RAM to hold all the jobs in RAM without swapping, your Neuron-C/retsim jobs will run fast. Click here to return to Table of Contents NeuronC basis in analogy Click here to return to Table of Contents Biological modeling To model a biological system is to make an analogy between that system and some other process. The model may be simply a conceptual one, in which case it is an analogy in thought only. Conceptual models are very important for us because we use our thinking processes and intuition every day to model events in the real world. Without an intuitive model, we could not find our way through a city or determine what the next step should be in a novel experiment. One way to think of computational modeling is "quantitative imagination"; the computational approach to neuroscience is merely an addition to conceptual modeling. The value of the computational approach is to add a quantitative dimension to our intuition about the function of a neural circuit. The relation between a biological system and the computational model of it depends on analogy in exactly the same way that a conceptual model does. With this type of analogy, we assert that the model represents the biology in a direct quantitative way, but this assertion depends on our intuitive knowledge and experience about the biological system. Seen in this context, a language for neural simulation provides a concise description of a neural circuit's biological form/function for us, but a set of difference equations for a computer. Click here to return to section index Numerical modeling Cables and electrotonic decay over space Several numerical method conventions for modeling neural circuitry exist in the literature. Rall's (1959) cable model allowed currents and voltages in neurons with linear passive membrane properties and branching dendritic trees to be described reasonably accurately. More recently, cable theory has been extended into the time domain (Jack et al. 1975), but still typically requires linear membrane conductances. Ideally we would like a way to model any neural element (cable, synapse, voltage-sensitive channel) in this type of continuous model. The main idea of cable modeling is that a neural dendrite acts like an electric cable with an inside conductor (cytoplasm of neuron) covered by an insulator (membrane). Two ideas form the basis for this analogy: 1) Current flow through a patch of passive membrane is proportional to the voltage difference between the inside and outside of the membrane. im = (Vout-Vin) / rm (1) im = current through membrane rm = resistance of membrane 2) Voltage along the inside of the dendrite (the conductor) is reduced by axial current flow through the dendritic cytoplasm. d(Vin)/dx = ri * I (2) ri = axial resistance I = axial current x = axial distance along dendrite differentiating with respect to x: d2(Vin)/dx2 = ri * dI/dx (3) but the change in axial current within one small patch of dendrite is precisely equal to the membrane current: dI/dx = im (4) combining (1) (3) and (4): d2Vin/dx2 = (Vin-Vout) * ri/rm (5) The solution of this differential equation defines an electric circuit with exponential decay of voltage along the length of a neural dendrite. Voltage and current signals along a passive dendritic tree can be calculated easily using exponential functions (Rall, 1959). For an infinite cable: V = I * ri * lambda * e^-x/lambda (6) V = voltage along cable at distance x from end I = current injected into cable at end ri = axial resistance of cable, ohm/cm lambda = space constant, sqrt (rm/ri), rm = membrane resistance of cable, ohmcm Click here to return to section index Compartmental modeling, developed especially for neural simulation (Cooley and Dodge, 1966; Rall, 1967; Joyner et al., 1978) has allowed many different kinds of neural properties to be simulated, including cable properties, membrane capacitance and channel kinetics, synaptic connections, and time variation of these properties. Compartmental modeling does not use analytical functions to calculate voltages along a cable, thus there is no need to assume that membranes are linear. Although the compartmental method can be used to simulate without time (static modeling), often time is included (dynamic modeling). Each compartment consists of a volume of cytoplasm small enough that its internal voltage is nearly the same everywhere; this condition is called "isopotential". The compartments are connected together by resistors which represent the dendritic axial resistance. The reduction of a neural circuit to a series of connected compartments is justified by analogy because a series of connected isopotential compartments acts very much like a cable if each compartment is small compared with the length of the cable. In addition to the appropriate amount of membrane, each compartment may have other properties such as multiple connections to neighboring compartments and membrane channels with special properties. <--------------dx------------> <------------dx-------------> compartment 1 -----ri------ compartment 2 ------ri------- compartment 3 V1 < ---------- I1 ---------> V2 <-------- I2 ----------> V3 Derivation of cable equation for compartments: dV3/dx = V3 - V2 = I2 ri (7) dV2/dx = V2 - V1 = I1 * ri (8) d2V/dx2 = (V3 - V2) - (V2 - V1) (9) By Ohm's Law, the voltage across a resistor is equal to the electric current multiplied by the resistance: d2V/dx2 = I2 * ri - I1 * ri (10) = ri * (I2 - I1) (11) by Kirchoff's Law, the current flow into a node equals the current flow out of the node: I2 - I1 = Im (12) But the membrane current equals the compartment voltage divided by the membrane resistance: Im = V2 / rm (13) Combining (11), (12), and (13), d2V/dx2 = V * ri/rm (14) Note that (14) is identical to (5). Click here to return to section index Cable equation in time 1) Current flow through a patch of passive membrane is also proportional to the voltage change between the inside and outside of the membrane over time. Adding this effect to the static current flow (equation 1): im = (Vout-Vin) / rm + dVin/dt * cm (15) im = current through membrane rm = resistance of membrane cm = capacitance of membrane t = time Including axial voltage drop (as in equation 3): d2Vin/dx2 = (Vin-Vout) * ri/rm + dVin/dt * cm (16) ri = axial resistance rm = membrane resistance cm = membrane capacitance t = time Vin = voltage inside cell This is the standard equation that neurophysiologists use to describe voltage in a cable in space and time. Click here to return to section index Biological synaptic connections are quite complex. They consist of a mechanism that releases a chemical neurotransmitter coupled to a mechanism for modulating the postsynaptic channel conductance. NeuronC synapses are a simplified version of the biological mechanism and have several parameters which control their function. To simulate the mechanism of neurotransmitter release, NeuronC defines a static "transfer function" which defines how much neurotransmitter is released as a function of presynaptic voltage. The neurotransmitter action is modified by a time function which delays and low-pass filter the neurotransmitter action. The time-filtered neurotransmitter level defines the conductance of the postsynaptic channel. This synaptic model is very simplified because it leaves out details such as: presynaptic calcium channel activity, calcium activated vesicle release, neurotransmitter binding kinetics, etc. These mechanisms are available in NeuronC by selecting special values for the synapse (calcium sensitivity, postsynaptic channel type, etc.). However, the simplified NeuronC synaptic parameters are easy to understand and can simulate a wide variety of synaptic types. Each parameter is "separable"; that is changing its value does not affect other synaptic function parameters. In addition, synaptic parameters can be modified during a runtime to allow a wide variety of neural plasticity functions to be simulated. Click here to return to section index Reversal potentials, Nernst and GHK equation One way to find the conductance of a channel during a physiology experiment is to find its reversal potential, the voltage above and below which the channel current reverses. Assuming the channel is ohmic (acts like a linear resistor) the channel's current is the product of the voltage times the conductance, where the voltage is the reversal potential minus the membrane voltage. G = I / V I = current G = conductance of open channel V = reversal potential minus membrane voltage If the ionic concentrations in the internal and external medium are known, it is possible to calculate the voltage at which no current flows for an ion. This is known as the ion's Nernst potential and is very similar to the definition of "reversal potential". It is a function of the internal and external ion concentrations and temperature: V = RT / zF * ln (co / ci) V = Nernst potential T = temperature (^To^TK) co = external concentration ci = internal concentration z = valency of ion The Nernst potential is a useful approximation of the driving force for an ion through a membrane channel because it defines the voltage at which no net current flows through the channel. Knowing the Nernst potential for the major ions is a great help in understanding electric current flow through a channel. It would be convenient if the reversal potential for a channel could be calculated directly from the Nernst potential of the channel's major ion. However, the driving force for electric current through a channel is not exactly the same as the Nernst potential for the channel's major ion, for several reasons. Every channel allows other ions to pass too. The relative permeability of "other" ions can range from 0.0005 for K through a Ca channel to 0.2 for Ca through an NMDA channel. The effect of having several ions pass through a channel is that its reversal potential is a function of all the ion concentrations and their respective permeabilities. That function is the GHK voltage equation: ( Nao * pna + Ko * pk ) V = RT / zF * ln -------------------- ( Nai * pna + Ki * pk ) V = GHK potential (reversal potential for the channel) T = temperature (deg K) Nao = Na external concentration Nai = Na external concentration pNa = Na permeability through channel Ko = K external concentration Ki = K external concentration pK = K permeability through channel z = valency of ions ( must be same valencies, if different use eqn below) To accurately compute the current through a channel, we need to compute the reversal potential from the GHK voltage equation and for this we need to know ion concentrations and relative permeabilities. In NeuronC, each channel type has a data structure that contains the channel's conductance (and its temperature dependency) and the channel's permeability to several different ions so that an accurate reversal potential can be computed. A more detailed version of the GHK voltage equation is required when both monovalent and divalent ions are permeable through a channel: ( Nao * pNa + Ko * pK + 4 * p'Ca * Cao ) ( Nai * pNa + Ki * pK + 4 * p'Ca * Cai * ef) V = GHK potential (reversal potential for the channel) Vs = surface potential due to external Cao (set by dcavoff, dcaspvrev) F = Faraday constant 96,485 C/mol R = Gas constant 8.314 J/K/mol T = temperature (deg K) Nao = Na external concentration Nai = Na external concentration pNa = Na permeability through channel Ko = K external concentration Ki = K external concentration pK = K permeability through channel Cao = Ca external concentration Cai = Ca external concentration pCa = Ca permeability through channel ef = exp((V-Vs) F / RT ) p'Ca = modified Ca permeability = pCa / (1 + ef) This more detailed GHK voltage equation is an "implicit" function, i.e. V is on both left and right sides of the equation. The reason for the extra terms for Ca is that Ca++ has a valence of 2 so the normal GHK equation for RT/zf is RT/2F. The extra terms have the effect of adding the extra 2. [ This equation is derived from the GHK current equations for mono- and di-valent ions assuming "independence" between ion motion in a "constant field theory" by Lewis (1979), J. Physiol. 286: 417-445. Though more complete than the simple GHK equation above, ions in some combinations do not have independence so even a more complex equation would be necessary at some combinations of ion concentrations to completely specify ion flux. ] To solve this equation, a starting value for V is given and "ef" computed, and the equation solved for a new estimate of V. The process continues for 2-5 iterations until the difference between the new and old estimates for V is small ( 0.1 mV ). The surface potential Vs is a function of the concentration of divalent ions on the external surface of the membrane (for our purposes, Cao). External calcium shifts both gating properties and reversal potentials, though to different amounts. The shift in the gating properties is about 18 mV negative for each factor of 10 increase in Cao. Therefore an increase in Cao makes the membrane voltage more negative (for gating channels) and causes Na channels to be less activated. The effect on the reversal potential is positive but less, and is set by the "dcaspvrev" variable (default = 0.18), which multiplies dcavoff (.018) for a value of 3.2 mV positive shift / factor of 10 increase in cao. Click here to return to section index GHK current equation The flow (or flux) of ions through a selective channel is nonlinear, especially when the inside and outside concentrations are very different. The current through a channel is calculated with the use of the GHK current equation: df = exp (-z * v * FF/R/T); i = p / [iono] z * z * ([ioni] - io * df) / (1 - df); where: i = current due to ion flux through selective channel p = permeability of ion through selective channel z = valence of ion (Na,K ->1 Cl -> -1; Ca -> 2) v = membrane voltage F = Faraday constant 96,485 C/mol R = Gas constant 8.314 J/K/mol T = temperature, degrees K iono = external concentration ioni = internal concentration This equation can readily be extended to multiple ions with the assumption that their flux through the channel is independent. The nonlinear nature of this flux equation means that the current through most membrane ion channels is also nonlinear, and must be calculated from the voltage during each time step. This is particularly difficult for a simulator such as "nc" that uses an iterative method to solve the voltage and current flows in compartments. To speed the computation of currents and voltages in the compartments, we compute a local linear approximation of the GHK current equation. For each voltage, the simulator computes a linear "slope conductance" and a "slope reversal potential", which are utilized just like the ordinary channel conductance and the channel reversal potential: vf = exp(-z * v * F/R/T); vfi = 1 / (1 - vf); cvfi += p * zz/zm/zm (ioni-ionovf)/(1-vf)/ionm; gfrac += p F/R/T * v zzz/zm/zm (ioni-iono)vfvfivfi/ionm; itot = v cvfi cvfi = varible used to calculate slope and vrev gfrac = variable used to calculate slope itot = total current through channel p = permeability of ion through selective channel z = valence of ion v = membrane voltage zm = valence of main ion F = Faraday constant 96,485 C/mol R = Gas constant 8.314 J/K/mol T = temperature, degrees K iono = external concentration of ion ioni = internal concentration of ion ionm = external concentration of main ion For each ion, we compute the "cvfi" and "gfrac" variables and sum them over all the ions. Then we then compute the "slope cond" and "slope vrev" from them: scond = cvfi - gslope; svrev = v - vcvfi/(cvfi-gslope); To increase simulation speed, the "scond" and "svrev" variables are computed for each voltage before runtime, and placed into tables indexed by voltage. At run time, the values are looked up and linearly interpolated. For more on the derivation of this equation, see DeSchutter & Smolen (1998), Methods in Neuronal Modeling, p 218. Click here to return to section index Photoreceptor responses The response of photoreceptors to light is simulated in NeuronC by a special set of difference equations bundled into a "transduction mechanism". This mechanism is a simplified model of the biochemical transduction cascade now thought to exist in photoreceptors. The model includes several important effects widely assumed to characterize the light response, such as flash response waveshape, response linearity over a narrow range, response saturation with bright flashes, and adaptation with background light. Two-stage dynamic model Dynamic compartmental modeling depends on 2 levels of abstraction for its analogy with a neural circuit. At the first level, a circuit is broken into small compartments which are modeled as electronic circuits. At the second level, a computer simulates the operation of the electronic circuits in time using difference equations evaluated with standard mathematics functions. Either of these steps (neural -> electronic, electronic -> difference eqn.) can be accomplished in other ways, such as by simulation on an analog computer, but it is convenient to run the complete simulation on a digital computer. Click here to return to section index Space constant, compartment size, and spatial accuracy Compartmental modeling is limited in the accuracy of its spatial representation, that is, the accuracy of voltage relationships along a neural cable. Spatial accuracy is related to the "space constant", or how far current flows laterally through a cable. If the space constant is small, current flows laterally only a short distance before it passes through the membrane, and smaller compartments are needed to simulate this accurately. Inversely, longer compartments are allowable with a large space constant. A useful rule is to create compartments equal to 0.1 times the space constant, that is, to cause any segment of a cable shorter than 1 tenth of a space constant to be isopotential. The space constant of a cable segment is determined by its diameter, axial and membrane resistance (not by its length). NeuronC uses an automatic method for determining compartment size. It calculates each neural cable's space constant (from diameter, axial and membrane resistance) then calculates the compartment size as a fraction of the space constant (normally 1/10th). This causes the size of the compartments to be varied according to the properties of the cable that defines them. Click here to return to section index Time steps and numerical integration The time properties of the neural circuit can be effectively simulated by breaking the passage of time into small steps. These time steps must be short enough that a compartment's voltage does not change much during the step. The voltage change in a compartment is proportional to the current flowing to neighboring compartments so if the time step is small enough, the actual voltage change is closely approximated (to first order) by a constant derived from current flows. This approximation is justified by analogy because if the voltage in all the compartments doesn't change much during a time step, then the current flow from a compartment to its neighboring compartments cannot change much. The voltage at the next time step is computed by integrating the voltage change from the previous step; this process is termed "numerical integration". It is relatively easy to simulate almost any time-related change in properties of neural elements using a compartmental model, because by analogy these properties do not change for the purposes of the simulation during the course of one time step. Small jumps in channel properties, for example, are allowable over a sequence of time steps because if they're small enough, they faithfully represent the effect of continuous change. Click here to return to section index Numerical simulation of compartments sometimes gives incorrect answers (even using time steps small enough to assure good accuracy) because of mathematical instability. If compartments are closely coupled so that current spreads easily between them ("stiff coupling"), the numerical simulation can develop oscillations over space and time that grow very large and make the simulation useless. This happens because inevitable roundoff errors in the computer numeric processing cause alternate, incorrect solutions to the difference equations to swamp the correct ones. There are several ways to to assure freedom from this type of instability. First, one can reduce the time step, but this reduces the computation speed. Second, one can increase the size of the compartments to increase the axial resistance connecting them. This causes the compartments to be less closely coupled to each other. Third, a better way is to use an "implicit" mode of integration as described below. Click here to return to section index Three methods of numeric integration Euler method The simplest method of numerically integrating a compartmental model, the Euler method (or "forward Euler"), is to calculate the voltage change during a time step from the current flows that existed into compartments at the beginning of the time step. This calculation is simple and very fast but is subject to the instability problem from stiff coupling discussed above. As a result, time steps need to be very small when voltage changes are large, for instance when a voltage clamp shifts the clamp voltage quickly. Even though the actual calculation per time step is very fast, the Euler method is often extremely slow overall, because it may requires smaller time steps than other methods. The Euler method is an "explicit" method because the calculation of voltage for the end of a time step in a compartment depends only on information available at the start of the time step. Implicit method As described above, one way to increase speed is to use a numeric simulation that is unconditionally stable for any size time step. Stability allows larger time steps to be taken and increases accuracy, so it significantly increases the speed of simulation. Stability can be achieved by calculating the voltage change in a compartment based on current flows at the end of the time step. By computing all the voltage changes as a function of each other, the problem of mathematical instability is avoided and all the compartments have correct voltage and current flows at the end of each time step. This is called the "implicit" or "Backwards Euler" method because the voltage in a compartment calculated for the end of a time step depends not only on other compartments' voltages but also on itself, i.e. the voltage is an implicit function of itself. The implicit method of numerical integration is more difficult to calculate than the Euler method because the voltages and current flows for the end of the time step are not known until the voltage calculation for each compartment is complete. However this type of computation is equivalent to solving a system of N simultaneous equations in N unknowns (N=number of compartments), which is solvable by matrix techniques. Crank-Nicolson method The assumption that voltage change is constant during a time step simplifies numerical integration, but the voltage change may not be constant. Often the voltage change calculated at the beginning of the time step may vary significantly from the voltage change calculated at the end of the time step. This would be the case, for example, if a large conductance turned on during the time step. Assuming that the voltage function has constant curvature (constant second derivative of voltage with time), one way to achieve better accuracy is to average the voltage changes calculated at beginning and end (take the average of Euler and implicit methods), and to use this average voltage change for integrating the voltage through the entire time step. This is called the Crank-Nicolson method, used originally for computing heat flow, and is more accurate than the implicit method and faster than Euler's method. The Crank-Nicolson method is a "second-order time" method because it calculates the derivative at two places (beginning and end) during each time step (see Joyner, et al, 1978 and Hines, 1989). Although there are higher-order methods to calculate the continuous voltage during a time step, these methods usually require more computation per time step. Thus, there is a compromise between accuracy and speed, and higher-order numerical integration schemes are generally only useful if their time steps can be made proportionately longer. Empirically, the second-order Crank-Nicolson method is often faster than the Euler or implicit methods because larger time steps can be taken as a consequence of its better accuracy (see Moore and Ramon, 1974). However, fourth-order (in time) methods are often slower than second- order methods for simulations of neural circuits with commonly used timesteps (between 10 and 100 usec). Click here to return to section index Difference equations for implicit methods Derivation of the difference equation for one compartment, using the Crank-Nicolson implicit method of numerical integration (refer to figure). This derivation shows only 2 neighbor compartments for clarity, but the derivation is similar when a compartment has many connections to other compartments. The calculation is repeated for all compartments several times for each time step until the value of "v2n" converges. Crank-Nicolson method: Voltage change in a compartment = dt/c average of new and old currents v2n-v2 = k * ( (i1 + i3 + i1n + i3n) / 2 - ( i2 + i2n) / 2 ) v2n-v2 = k/2 * ((v1-v2)s1 + (v3-v2)s2 + (v1n-v2n)s1 + (v3n-v2n)s2 - (v2-vm + v2n-vm)sm ) v2n-v2 = k/2 ( v1s1 + v3s2 - v2 * (s1+s2+sm) + v1ns1 + v3ns2 + 2vmsm - v2n * (s1+s2+sm) ) v2n * (1 + k/2 * (s1+s2+sm)) = v2 + k/2 * ( v1s1 + v3s2 - v2 * (s1+s2+sm) + v1ns1 + v3ns2 + 2vmsm ) v3ns2 + 2vmsm)) / (1 + k/2 (s1+s2+sm)) v3ns2 + 2vmsm)) implicit factor v2 = voltage in this compartment at start of time step v2n = voltage in this compartment at end of time step vm = membrane leakage reversal potential s1 = conductance to neighbor compartment 1 s2 = conductance to neighbor compartment 2 sm = membrane conductance in this compartment k = dt/c c = membrane capacitance of compartment dt = time step implicit factor = 1 / ( 1 + k/2 * (s1+s2+sm)) Fully implicit (Backwards Euler) method: v2n-v2 = k * ( (i1n + i3n) - i2n) v2n-v2 = k * ((v1n-v2n)s1 + (v3n-v2n)s2 - (v2n-vm)sm ) v2n-v2 = k (v1ns1 + v3ns2 + vmsm - v2n (s1+s2+sm) ) v2n * (1 + (k * s1+s2+sm)) = v2 + k* (-v2 * (s1+s2+sm) + v1ns1 + v3ns2 + vmsm ) v2n = (v2 + k (v1ns1 + v3ns2 + vmsm - v2 s1+s2+sm)) / (1 + k * (s1+s2+sm)) v2 = voltage in this compartment at start of time step v2n = voltage in this compartment at end of time step vm = membrane leakage reversal potential s1 = conductance to neighbor compartment 1 s2 = conductance to neighbor compartment 2 sm = membrane conductance in this compartment k = dt/c c = membrane capacitance of compartment dt = time step implicit factor = 1 / (1 + k * (s1+s2+sm)) Solution methods: Gauss-Seidel iteration with successive over-relaxation The math solver for neurons in implicit mode must solve a system of N equations in N unknowns. As explained above, each compartment receives currents from the neighboring compartments, and these must be summed to find the total current in the compartment that gets integrated on the compartment's capacitance. When the model contains only neurons, each with a soma and a tree-structured dendritic and/or axonal tree, the implicit method of integration can be solved efficiently using Gaussian elimination. This method works if the equivalent connection matrix for the compartments is symmetrical, that is, the only connection back to the soma from each compartment is along just one path from the soma to the compartment. However, when there are loops in the model, for example, when one or more gap junctions connect between neurons, Gaussian elimination fails and another solution method must be used. Often forwards-Euler integration is a backup method. However, the "Gauss-Seidel" method works for non-symmetrical matrices and is the method used by Neuron-C. Synapses are slow enough that propagation of a voltage through them is not necessary to take into account in the implicit mode. In Neuron-C the synaptic conductance is simply added onto the other compartmental conductances. The synaptic conductance is then computed on a slower time scale than the compartments so that it doesn't take much computation time. The "Gauss-Seidel" method for solving N equations in N unknowns is an iterative method. For implicit methods, because the new voltages v1n and v3n are not known, the solution to all the compartments must be iterated until none of the compartments change their values beyond a criterion value. Then the new voltages v1n and v3n are close enough to being correct. In Neuron-C, the compartments are organized into a linked list. Each compartment points to the next one, and they are computed sequentially starting at the beginning of the linked list. Each compartment is calculated one at a time, so e.g. v1n voltage is calculated before v2n, which in turn is calculated before v3n. However, the calculation of v2n is improved because v1n is closer to the final calculation. Each iteration improves the solution to all the compartments. This iteration process allows voltage changes to propagate through a neuron's dendritic tree. The compartments are calculated in the opposite order every other iteration, to allow voltage changes to propagate in both directions. Typical numbers of iteration for compartments are between 10 and 1000 iterations, depending on how fast the compartment voltage is changing, on the compartment size and the resistive coupling between compartments, and on the value of "crit" which is the accuracy limit. In addition, the calculation can be accelerated by simply multiplying the change from the previous iteration by an "over-relaxation" factor greater than 1, typically 1.1 to 1.6. This is called "successive over-relaxation" (SOR) and it can speed the iterative calculation to the compartments. The over-relaxation factor is different for each compartment. If it is too large, the calculation of the compartment's voltage may be "under-damped", i.e. the difference between the previous estimate and the present estimate will oscillate from positive and negative values. If the over-relaxation factor is too small (e.g. 1), the difference between the present and previous estimates is "over-damped" and will asymtote slowly towards zero. This takes many iterations and wastes computation time. The simulator finds the value for the over-relaxation factor that makes the compartment voltage change (difference present and previous estimates) have just one sign change. Each compartment has its own over-relaxation factor. Moreover, the compartments that change their voltage from one iteration to the next less than a criterion value ("crit") don't need to be recalculated, so they are dropped from the calculation. This generates a small error in the neighboring compartments that may increase with iterations, so every 20 iterations all of the compartments are recomputed. This saves computation time because often most of the compartments in a large neuron don't need more than 10 iterations. References: Joyner et al, 1978 Crank and Nicolson, 1947 Hines, 1984; 1989 Atkinson KE (1989), "An introduction to Numerical Analysis", Wiley & Sons. Click here to return to section index Derivation of first and second-order implicit calculation of alpha and beta rate constants for Hodgkin-Huxley channels. dm = alpham - (alpham+betam) * m (original HH rate equation) dmest = alpham - (alpham+betam) * mest (implicit version) mest = m + (dm+dmest) / 2 (second-order C-N version) mest = m + (alpham-(alpham+betam)m + alpham-(alpham+betam)mest) / 2 mest (1+alpham+betam) / 2) = alpham + m * (1-(alpham+betam)) / 2) mest = (alpham + m * (1 - (alpham+betam)/2)) / (1 + (alpham+betam)/2) ( CN ) mest = k1 * m + k2 k1 = (1 - (alpham+betam)/2) / (1 + (alpham+betam)/2) k2 = alpham / (1+(alpham+betam)/2) Fully implicit version: mest = m + alpham-(alpham+betam)mest (implicit version) mest (1+alpham+betam) = m + alpham mest = (alpham + m) / (1 + alpham + betam) mest = k1 m + k2 k1 = 1 / (1 + alpham + betam) k2 = alpham / (1 + alpham + betam) Since the multipliers k1 and k2 are functions of only voltage, they are precomputed and placed in lookup tables, after the method of Hines (1984). Since the rate equations are second-order, they need not be re-computed for each iteration for a compartment's voltage. Instead, the implicit estimated value is used and this allows the calculation to run substantially faster. Click here to return to section index Derivation of second-order implicit calculation of calcium diffusion in shells and to calcium buffer. B + Ca.B = Bt ( free buffer + Ca-bound buffer = total buffer ) f > B + Ca <--------> Ca.B ( defines forward and reverse rates ) < r Ca = free [Ca] in shell B = free buffer in shell Ca.B = Ca-bound buffer Bt = total buffer f = forward rate, /M/sec r = reverse rate, /sec [ Buffer equations here from Yamada et al. (1998) ] d[Ca]/dt = r * [Ca.B] - f [Ca] [B] ( change in Ca from Ca buffer ) ( change in Ca from spatial diffusion ) d[Ca]/dt = ( [Ca(left neighbor shell)] - [Ca(this shell)] ) * S + ( [Ca(right neighbor shell)] - [Ca(this shell)] ) * S dCa = dt * r * (Bt - B) - f * Ca * B + (Caj - Cai) * S + (Cak - Cai) * S dCaest = dt * r * (Bt - Best) - f * Caest * Best + (Cajest-Caest) * S + (Cakest-Caest) * S dca = change in Ca at the beginning of the time step dcaest = change in Ca at the end of the time step i = shell being computed j = i - 1 (left neighbor shell) k = i + 1 (right neighbor shell) Best = new estimate of B Caest = new estimate of Ca in this shell Cajest = new estimate of left neighbor Ca Cakest = new estimate of right neighbor Ca S = shell diffusion multiplier Fully implicit solutions The "difference equation" solution of the above equations for calcium and buffer concentration can be made "fully implicit" by solving for Ca and B at the end of the time step. This solution is more stable but less accurate than the second-order Crank-Nicolson method. Caest = Ca + dCaest Caest = Ca + rBt - rBest - fCaestBest + (Cajest+Cakest-2Caest)S Caest (1+fBest+2S) = Ca + r(Bt-Best) + (Cajest+Cakest)S Caest = Ca + r(Bt-Best) + (Cajest+Cakest)S / (1+fBest+2S) (1) Best = B + dBest = B + r * (Bt - Best) - fCaestBest Best (1+r+fCaest) = B + rBt Best = (B + rBt) / (1+r+fCaest) (2) Crank-Nicolson solution The second order method for solving for calcium and buffer concentration is to compute the values at the middle of the time step by averaging the values from the beginning and the end of the time step. This is more accurate but less stable than the "fully implicit" solution above: For Calcium: Caest = Ca + (dca + dcaest) / 2 Caest = Cai + ( r * (Bt - B) - f * Ca * B + r * (Bt - Best) - f * Caest * Best + (Caj - Cai) * S + (Cak - Cai) * S + (Cajest - Caest) * S + (Cakest - Caest) * S ) / 2 Caest = Ca + ( 2rBt - rB - rBest - fCaB - fCaestBest + (Caj + Cak - 2 * Ca + Cajest + Cakest - 2 * Caiest) * S ) / 2 Caest = Ca * (1 - fB/2 - S) + rBt - r(B+Best)/2 - fCaestBest/2 + (Caj + Cak + Cajest + Cakest) S / 2 - Caest * S Solving for Caest: Caest * (1 + fBest/2 + S) = Ca (1 - fB/2 - S) + rBt - r(B+Best)/2 + Switch fBest with fB: (allowed by Taylor series expansion after Yamada et al, 1998) Caest (1 + fB/2 + S) = Ca (1 - fBest/2 - S) + rBt - r(B+Best)/2 + Caest (1 + fB/2 + S) = Ca (1-S) + rBt - rB/2 - Best(Caf + r) / 2 + Caest = [ Ca + r(Bt-B/2) - Best(Caf+r)/2 + (Caj+Cak+Cajest+Cakest-2Ca) * S/2 ] / implf (3) implf = (1 + fB/2 + S) For Buffer: Remove spatial diffusion, solve for Best: Best = B + (dB + dBest) / 2 = B + (r(Bt - Best) - fCaestBest + r(Bt - B) - fCaB) / 2 Solving for Best: Best (1 + (r+fCaest)/2) = B + r(Bt-B/2) - fCaB/2 Best = (B + r(Bt-B/2) - fCaB/2) / (1 + (r+fCaest)/2) (4) Calcium current and driving force Derivation of driving force for calcium current, when both internal and external calcium may change: GHK current equation (for Ca): I = P z2 * Vm * F^2 / RT * (Cai - Cao * exp (-vs)) 1 - exp(-vs) Defining for simulator (for Ca): Ica = conduct * Vm * (Cai - Cao * exp (-vs)) 1 - exp(-vs) conduct = channel conductance, defined by user vs = 2 * Vm * F/RT Simplifying: Ica = conduct * Vm * (Cai - Cao * exp (-vs)) * exp(vs) 1 - exp(-vs) exp(vs) Ica = conduct * Vm * Cao * (1 - caratio * exp (vs)) 1 - exp(vs) caratio = Cai / Cao However, this doesn't give a correct Ica because the conductance already takes into account the default Cao. Normalizing the Cao by its default, this simplifies to: Ica = conduct * Vm * Cao/dcao (1 - caratio * exp (vs)) (1 - exp(vs)) This simplifies to: Ica = conduct * cadf where: cadf = driving force = Vm * Cao (1 - caratio * exp (vs)) dcao (1 - exp(vs)) The idea is that we rely on "conduct" to represent the conductance defined by the user. When Cao or Cai change, this effectively modulates the conductance. In order to capture this effect, we define the driving force as a function of Vm and Cai and Cao. Then the driving force changes the current depending on changes in the calcium. In order to keep the driving force a voltage, we normalize by Cao / dcao, which then maintains the driving force correct for the default Cai and Cao. Strategy for solving Ca diffusion equations: The idea here is to write an "implicit" equation that can be solved for the Ca concentration at the end of the time step. This number is dependent on the neighboring Ca concentrations at the end of the time step. These are unknown, but are gradually updated by iterating over all the compartments. Calculate Caest and Best alternately so that buffer gets updated along with Ca. Iterate equations 1 and 2 (or 3,4) over all the compartments. When change in Caest from one iteration to next is small ( < 1e-10) stop. Typical number of iterations is 2-5 so computation is relatively fast. Click here to return to section index Time constant, time steps, and accuracy The time constant of a neuron (or a compartment) describes how fast the membrane voltage can change. The time constant is the product of membrane capacitance and the shunting (membrane) resistance, and is normally about 1 to 5 msec for many neurons. However, in some cases the time constant can be much greater, up to 20 msec in photoreceptors or 100 msec in horizontal cells of retina. A long time constant allows larger time steps to be taken for numerical integration because the voltage change per time step is limited by the time constant. A good rule is to use a time step at least 10 times shorter than the membrane time constant; normally 50 to 100 usec (1e-4 sec) is short enough for good accuracy. Accuracy of voltage change over time can be determined by successive simulation runs with different size time steps. For example, one could decrease the time step by a factor of 2 until the voltage response of the model does not change from a previous run more than a criterion of say, 0.1 percent. This assures an absolute accuracy of 0.1 percent in the voltage calculated. Click here to return to section index Drawbacks of compartmental modeling While dynamic (time-varying) compartmental modeling has many advantages it has several drawbacks as well. First, the time step required to maintain stability and accuracy of voltage in a neural circuit is often very short. In this case many time steps are needed to model even a few milliseconds of time, and the numerical simulation proceeds slowly. If only a rough estimate of a neural circuit's response is needed, it may be better to use a static modeling technique, for which multiple integration time steps are not required. Second, compartmental modeling breaks up neural circuits into discrete spatial "chunks" which causes the voltage response to be inaccurate. If many tiny compartments are used to describe a neural cable segment, the inaccuracy is insignificant but the model runs slowly. If just a few larger compartments are used to describe the same cable segment, the model runs faster, but waveshapes and amplitudes of the voltage response are noticeably wrong. The overall problem with compartmental modeling, then, is the generally slow computational speed. Both of the problems with inaccuracy that occur with compartmental modeling (space, time) can be solved by making the model run more calculations, therefore slower. Thus most ambitious compartmental modelers usually end up eyeing large main-frame computers as a "way out" of their modeling problems. Click here to return to section index Parallel computation for compartmental modeling Using a parallel library such as "PVM" or "MPI" and a parallel implementation of a simulator running on multiple CPUs, it is possible to run a simulation job much faster than it can run on just one CPU. However, often we need to run many simulation jobs, each with a different set of parameters. In this case, a truly parallel implementation may actually decrease the overall speed. If there are 20 simulation jobs, and each one runs on one CPU, it would take 20 CPUs the same (or similar) time to run 20 jobs in parallel, each running on one CPU, or using all the CPUs for a parallel implementation of each job. A parallel implementation usually runs a little slower than the expected 20-fold increase in speed, because of inefficiencies in the parallel computation -- during each time step, a CPU must communicate information about connections between compartments that are computed by a different CPU, so it must often wait a few microseconds to receive the information. Thus with a parallel job system we can run many jobs simultaneously very fast without a parallel implentation of the simulator. This is the rationale for using a parallel dynamic balancing job system such as MOSIX or the Linux SMP kernel. Click here to return to section index
Search This Blog Tuesday, May 26, 2009 About Vitamin B B vitamins are water soluble vitamins which greatly determine the health of the person. As B Vitamins are water soluble, it is impossible to experience toxic effects since excess intake of B vitamin can be flushed out through the urine. Therefore, it is important to maintain your levels of water soluble vitamins on daily basis. B vitamins are group of vitamins. There are 8 B vitamins which are thiamine or vitamin B1, riboflavin or B2, niacin or B3, pyridoxine or B6, folic acid or B9, cobalomin or B12, pantothenic acid and biotin. B vitamins are necessary for your body in many ways. They are important for your liver, skin, eyes, hair, and mouth as well as stomach and intestines. B vitamins help in breaking down of carbohydrates into glucose, which is the basic sugar that your body’s cells use for fuel. As the B complex vitamins help to break down fats and proteins within the body, they aid in the functioning of nervous system. You can get all the B vitamins by taking a supplement daily, but it is not difficult to get all the B vitamins you need from a healthy diet. B vitamins can be found in whole grain cereals, rice, nuts, breads, and brewer’s yeast. Certain animal products also contain B vitamins such as eggs, fish and milk. Vegetables such as potatoes, legumes and peas contain some level of B vitamin. B vitamin deficiency can result in innumerable bad health effects. Beriberi, anemia, dermatitis, pellagra, diarrhea, memory and brain damage can occur if your body is not receiving the B vitamins it needs. Therefore it is important to know the recommended daily allowances for B vitamins to ensure that you are getting sufficient levels of consumption. Thiamine or B1 should be consumed at a level of 1 to 1.5 milligrams per day. Riboflavin or B2, niacin or B3 should be around 1.2 to 1.8 milligrams. Pyridoxine or B6 should be consumed 1.4 to 2 milligrams per day. Cobalamin or B12 should be consumed around 2 milligrams for the average adult. Pantothenic acid and biotin should be maintained by your own intestine by eating meat, liver, mushrooms and egg yolk which help assist your body in maintaining its supply. You can see many important body functions that are maintained by B vitamins. Vitamin B3 helps lower cholesterol, increases good cholesterol levels and limits the damage of heart disease. Vitamin B12 is used for managing stress, anxiety and fatigue and improves memory. Be sure that you are getting the nutrition and body building supplements that your body needs. If you are not getting B vitamins through diet, a multivitamin can help you to regulate your daily vitamin dosage. 1 comment: 1. New Diet Taps into Innovative Idea to Help Dieters Get Rid Of 15 Pounds in Only 21 Days!
Btu; British Thermal Unit is the amount of energy required to raise 1 lb. of water up 1° F Btuh; A rate of energy transfer - can be expressed as Btu/hour Capillary Action, Capillarity; The movement of liquid within a material against gravity as a result of surface tension. Combustion efficiency; A measure of useful heat extracted from a fuel source by an operating heating appliance. For example a furnace with a combustion efficiency of 60 percent converts 60 percent of the fuels energy content into useful heat. The rest is lost as exhaust gases. Diffusion; The movement of water vapor from regions of high relative humidity (RH) or pressure toward regions of lower RH driven by a higher to lower temperature differential. HCFC; (Hydrochlorofluorocarbons) are halogeneted compounds containing carbon, hydrogen, chlorine and fluorine. They have shorter atmospheric lifetimes than CFCs and deliver less reactive chlorine to the stratosphere where the "ozone layer" is found. Kilowatt-hour (kWh); Standard unit for measuring electrical energy consumption-kilowatts X hours. Organic; Compounds containing carbon. Pressurized Fog Testing; Done in conjunction with a blower door test, presurized fog test visually identifies air leaks in a building’s envelope. The test is usually done when temperature and weather conditions make an infrared scan difficult. PSI; Pounds per square inch. R-Value; A unit of measurement of resistance to heat flow in hr. ft2 ° F/ RSI; A unit of measurement of resistance to heat flow in m2 ° C/W per 25 mm. (link to R-value table). Resin; Component B in polyurethane foam chemistry. This component is mixed with the A component to form foam insulation. Retrofit; The modification of an existing building or facility to include new systems or components. Standard Testing; Laboratory test methodology for determining relative properties of materials at specific conditions. Thermostat; "Temperature sensitive" control device that signals a heating or cooling system to operate if the temperature in a conditioned space reaches a preset limit. Thermal Resistance (R); An index of a material's resistance to heat flow. See R-Value and RSI. Thermal Shock; A building materials reaction to rapid changes in temperature, usually associated with the curing process. U-Value; Overall thermal conductance. U-value is equal to the inverse of the sum of the R-values in a system (U = 1 /R total). Viscosity; The thickness or resistance to flow of a liquid. Viscosity generally decreases as temperature increases; application temperatures of polyurethane foam components are specified in part, to control viscosity at the dispensing gun.
Symptoms of asthma is a long-term ailment that can massively impact your daily life. You need to consider the correct actions to hold it from getting severe as prevention is much simpler than having to react to a major strike. This informative article offers many tips and techniques to assist you control your bronchial asthma. What this means is staying away from cigarettes and tobacco products, especially in production facilities, as you may be exposed to dangerous smoke or vapors. Have you any idea the sort of asthma attack you suffer from? Knowing bronchial asthma condition can help you to efficiently treat it on a regular basis. People that suffer from physical exercise-stimulated asthma attack will have to be sure they may have an inhaler with them inside of their case. Being aware of your asthma attack attack is likely to attack may help you avert disaster. When you are an symptoms of asthma sufferer, it is crucial that you simply don’t cigarette smoke. 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So, when you have issues respiration or possibly a cough that doesn’t go away completely, you ought to view a medical doctor to find out if you may have bronchial asthma and find out whether you might need treatment to either prevent or handle bronchial asthma. When you nice and clean your floors, it is best to wash your surfaces using a wet mop than capturing them with a broom. Sweeping stirs up airborne dirt and dust and other particles that may bring about your bronchial asthma. A damp cloth must be employed when dusting because a feather duster is the best option for an asthma assault. Most people know that cigarette smoking is poor, but when you have asthma attack there are far more critical implications. Smoke cigarettes is incredibly bothersome on the already delicate asthmatic respiratory system, so in addition to not smoking, and also prevent getting into the presence of people who are smoking. Should you use a vaporizer or warm air humidifier, you have to use only a vaporizer or humidifier that’s been cleaned thoroughly. This amount of regularity can often mean the inhaler you might be using will not be working for your requirements. This very same guidance also pertains to anybody who must re-fill their inhalers a lot more than every single six months. Your physician needs so as to examine your condition and then make any modifications while they see suit.You are the individual who demands to ensure that these visits so you can remain healthy. See a physician if you feel your signs and symptoms have worsened. Use the recommendations you have study in this article to provide you around the signs or symptoms.
The Future of Exploring Nutrition Before 2008 the area surrounding La Salle University was considered one of the largest food deserts in the city of Philadelphia. A food desert is a place where there is no easy access to a grocery store. In 2008 the University built the Shoppes at La Salle. In this shopping center a Fresh Grocer was built helping to limit the size of the food desert. Now in 2013 Fresh Grocer and La Salle are again teaming up to bring better nutrition to the area. shoppes at lasalle Next school year La Salle and Fresh Grocer are moving forward with the Exploring Nutrition program. The planning of this initiative started this year but will completely launch in the fall. So far the University and Fresh Grocer have done research on nutrition in the surrounding area and have also helped with local food drives. One of the food drives was the Easter food drive held at the Fresh Grocer. For this food drive the Fresh Grocer collected and stored the food until La Salle could distribute the supplies to those who needed it. Another drive was held at Mount Airy Church of God in Christ. Mount Airy is a local church and hands out food monthly to the community. This year around Easter La Salle helped supply Mount Airy with food. Without La Salle Mount Airy mostly depends on supplies given from the government so the church was incredibly grateful for La Salle’s help. Food_pictures_2013 012 The hardest thing to imagine was that there are people in the area that need charitable donations monthly. People running the food drive at Mount Airy even said that sometimes people need to receive food weekly, that food stamps only go so far. This reinforces what the movie “A Place at the Table” was stating. People can rarely live off food stamps, and charity only goes so far, there needs to be other alternatives to help people in need. If someone can barely afford to feed themselves how can one expect to be concerned with nutrition? In the 19144 zip code, La Salle and the area surrounding it, there was a seven percent increase in obesity based on poverty. This meant 40.6% of people who live in poverty in 19144 are obese. Clearly there is at least a small correlation between poverty and obesity. And if adults cannot afford to feed themselves how are they supposed to teach their children healthy eating habits? Adults Who Are Obese (Total) Good Sample Size Projected Number Percentage Obese 12,971 35.0% Not Obese 24,089 65.0% Adults Obesity by Poverty Status Projected Number Percentage Poor Obese 3,662 40.6% Not Obese 5,354 59.4% Non Poor Obese 9,309 33.2% Not Obese 18,735 66.8% These are the problems Exploring Nutrition needs to tackle. And one of the ways to do that is through food drives but also through education. Ann Henstenburg and Dana Palermo are both doing research on nutrition in the area. They taught a class to people in the local community and found that by teaching proper nutrition the citizens started to eat healthier and some of them even lost weight. If this approach can work with adults it should work with children. One of Exploring Nutrition’s plans is to help provide healthier lunches in the school, and hopefully this will lead to classes for children on nutrients and proper portion size. Another problem also mention by “A Place at the Table” is the cost of healthy food. It is much cheaper, and more filling to get three hundred calories in junk food than it is in healthy food. This problem is more of a corporate problem than a local one. “A Place at the Table” mentions how the farm lobbies are incredibly strong and grow mostly corn, soy, and wheat, which are used to make processed foods. So it is hard for owners of vegetable and fruit farms to compete. This is also hard for places like Fresh Grocer because they want to help increase healthy nutrition but they also need to stay competitive. So they cannot lower their prices just for the needs of the community. They also have a duty to provide their customers with all options. The movie above explained everything the Fresh Grocer has done for the community. The different food drives, the upstairs meeting area, even something as simple as staying open and helping people buy proper nutrition. Without this store the area surrounding La Salle would still be a food desert. Hopefully with Exploring Nutrition, La Salle and the Fresh Grocer can take things one step further and have the area not only be a former food desert, but also be an area where obesity is no longer a problem. Easter Food Drive Ashley Kuhn and I went to the Mt. Airy Church of God and Christ to investigate a local food drive they had. We went thinking that it was a yearly Easter food drive and learned it was much more. We were unable to attend the actual food drive but we did take some pictures of the food they had stored for the drive and the church. Here is a picture slide show of the beautiful church and some of the food. Click the picture to see the link. “A Place at the Table” “A Place at the Table” is a documentary about the growing problem of hunger in America. Currently there are 50 million people who do not have enough to eat in this country. Overall I did like the documentary. I thought it addressed a real problem in this country and presented viable solutions to the problem. What I did not like about the movie is number one was that it cost me about 7 dollars on amazon, number two I know it was supposed to be a call to action but it kind of came off as preachy, and number three it downplayed the role of charity. The movie has interviews from a wide variety of people. The interviews range from doctors, hungry children and their parents, activists, and teachers. These interviews help show the viewer what it is like to be hungry and how it affects every aspect of our lives. Being hungry impacts not only ones nutrition and health but also how well a child does in school and a family’s peace of mind. The movie also discusses how obesity and hunger are neighboring problems. It discusses how farms have subsidies to grow foods that can be processed instead of having subsidies for farms that grow fruits and vegetables. This causes fruits and vegetables to be more expensive and harder to obtain. The next part of the movie is the call to action. The documentary stresses how this problem can be solved through government assistant programs and how we need to petition to Congress to increase food subsidies. This part of the movie suggests that through government alone we can solve this problem and charity is not the answer. I disagree. I think it should be a joint effort between government and charities. With so much economic instability I think it would not be right to expect the government to spend more money it does not have. However, hunger is a huge problem and it needs to be solved. So if charitable organizations like food kitchens, or even like La Salle and Fresh Grocers food store initiatives, get more backing from the government then together as a nation we can solve the problem of hunger. Here is a link to the movies website and trailer “A Place at the Table” Local Interviews Here is a link in case that does not work Local Interviews I interviewed three women who live in the area. I asked questions like where they grocery shop and what stores they wish were in the area. I learned a lot about the best and cheapest places to grocery shop. I also learned what is lacking in the area. For example there are no restaurants, like saladworks, where people can get fast healthy food. Also, the closest place to buy fresh produce is Manayunk. Reading the labels Nutrition is complicated. Sometimes things that sound healthy are not, and things that seem unhealthy are needed in moderation. For example sometimes an organic candy bar can be much healthier than a nutrition bar. If a nutrition bar is full of sugar and chemicals it could be causing more harm than eating a candy bar. Now the candy bar would have to be healthy, this means eating a chocolate bar that is organic and not king sized. It also means that some nutrition bars lack basic nutritional elements like fiber and are full of processed chemicals. This means that getting the right nutrition is incredibly complicated. To make sure you are getting the right nutrition you need to read the labels on your food. The labels will tell you how much protein, fiber, carbs, and vitamins are in a product. You also need to research and see how much of that nutritional element you need. People need fat and carbohydrates and sugar and salt to have a healthy diet, it all just needs to be in moderation. Just like how too much fiber and protein and even water can be unhealthy. Here are three blogs that help explain what to look for on the food labels. They will also be in the link box. This is a blog that explains why something labeled as a nutrition bar are not always a healthy option. Here is a link that specializes in nutrition facts. And this is Discovery health‘s blog about basic nutrition. Outside information So with this project to understand what the problem and how we can help we need to understand the basics of nutrition. I have put links in this post that give more information about the nutrition problems in lower-incomes, especially inner-city area’s and also a link if you would like to help. While these are posted here the links will also be in the link section the the side. Here is the Yale site, this is Drexel’s site, and here is the Food Trust Site. These websites are great. Colorful, vibrant, full of pictures, and they give pretty decent information. Having successfully worked out Photoshop I will be posting more pictures of the types of food stores that are in the area. These pictures will portray the types of take-out places and food chains in the area and the type of food they sell.
Efficient Immutables A cornerstone of functional programming is to work almost exclusively on values. Values never change. 42 is 42 and when you apply the function (+1) to it, then it will return 43 but 42 remains to be 42. Values are immutable. This is quite obvious for the case of numbers. But how about Strings? Most popular languages treat them as immutable values. This has the benefit that we can safely pass them around without worries that some other code may change their content. Frege extends the benefits of immutability to all pure* data structures, including lists, maps and other standard data structures as well your self-made ones! (*) Pure means that the data structure doesn’t announce any state change or other side effect in its type. This may sound totally unpractical when you come from an object-oriented background and you may ask if that doesn’t lead to extensive copying and memory exhaustion. It turns out that when consequently programming with values there is only a surprisingly small price to pay for a huge number of benefits. Custom Data Structures Let’s start with common, simple data structure: a Person that has a first name, a last name, and thinks in a certain programming language. A simple Person data type data Person = Person { firstname, lastname, language :: String } javaDierk = Person "Dierk" "König" "Java" When we create the javaDierk value of that Person type it is automatically immutable! There are actually two separate features of the language that we see here: • Frege has no assignments, so the = sign above denotes a definition not an assignment. In particular, we cannot redefine javaDierk to point to some other person. Whoever references javaDierk will once and forever see the "thinking in Java" version of me. • We cannot change the person value itself. But we can create new value, based on the given one. Changing a field creates a copy groovyDierk = javaDierk.{ language = "Groovy" } fregeDierk = javaDierk.{ language = "Frege" } There are many interesting ways to work with the record syntax that we will cover in a future post. For now, we have three distinct Person values. With every change we get a new copy. What looked like "setters" works actually more like a copy constructor. But even though we have three copies, there is some automatic structural sharing going on as depicted in the following figure: Efficient Immutables.png Figure 1. Efficient immutables through structural sharing Since we are consequently working with values, we can always safely share not only String values as in the example above but every value. Note that this property could not be achieved if we would allow any kind of mutability to silently creep in. But what if I have a really big data structure and make a real lot of changes to it? Well, let’s try. Assume we have a value of the data structure D with a field x that contains a million Strings (maybe subject to lazy evaluation). Then we update a second field y a million times. This will produce a million copies and we are crazy enough to hold on to each and every copy to prevent early garbage collection. Even this crazy scenario only produces the tiny rightmost blue hump in memory consumption that you see in the magnifier glass below. Immutable memory consumption.png Figure 2. Efficient, GC-friendly memory consumption Note that the list of Strings is just as immutable as a single String and can thus be safely shared between all copies of D. Sharing is good In his awesome talks, Venkat Subramaniam likes to mention that mom always told us: "sharing is good". And, yes, I’m happy to share my toys with anybody, provided that nobody can break them - and that I can retain a copy for myself (this is where most analogies with software tend to break). It goes without saying that immutable data structures can not only be shared safely between API providers and consumers in a single-threaded scenario but also between concurrent and massively parallel computations. The small price we pay is a little bit of temporary memory and some extra time for garbage collection. Immutable by default The best of all: we did not write a single character to make all that work! We did not invest a single brain cycle. It is all automatic. More Considerations Deeply nested data structures are notoriously expensive to copy and to compare. Immutable data structures can often alleviate that burden by just copying or comparing one single reference. A good example is what we called the "copy constructor". Beside setting the provided value(s), it just copies the top-level references and, yet, it is a deep copy anyway. All standard data structures in Frege are immutable. This must be surprising if you come from the OO world. We are so used that e.g. a map changes its content all the time. We may even consider that to be a map’s main purpose in life! Now is the time to reconsider that world view. In the references you will find information and inspiration about that topic. Now what is dierk’s current language that he thinks in? Which of the three references do we use? Wouldn’t it be better to keep just one reference around that points to "the latest" Person? We will cover this scenario in a future post where we will also experience the Frege "mechanics" that prevent such mutable state from undermining our immutable data structures. Chris Okasaki "Purely Functional Data Structures" Rich Hickey Keynote: The Value of Values Persistent data structures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3rurFxrZ8 (min 20 ff) results matching "" No results matching ""
Republic of China The republic that Sun Yat-sen and his associates imagined slowly came about. The revolutionists lacked an army, and the power of Yuan Shikai began to outdo that of parliament. Yuan revised the constitution at will and became dictatorship. In August 1912 a new political party was founded by Song Jiaoren ( 1882-1913), one of Sun's associates. The party, the Guomindang was an blend of small political groups, including Sun's Tongmeng Hui . In the national elections held in February 1913 for the new bicameral parliament, Song campaigned against the Yuan administration, and his party won a majority of seats. Yuan had Song assassinated in March; he had already arranged the assassination of several pro-revolutionist generals. Animosity toward Yuan grew. In the summer of 1913 seven southern provinces rebelled against Yuan. When the rebellion was suppressed, Sun and other instigators fled to Japan. In October 1913 an intimidated parliament formally elected Yuan president of the Republic of China, and the major powers extended recognition to his government. To achieve international recognition, Yuan Shikai had to agree to autonomy for Outer Mongolia and Xizang. China was still to be influence in Xizang. In November Yuan Shikai, legally president, ordered the Guomindang dissolved and its members removed from parliament. Within a few months, he suspended parliament and the provincial assemblies and forced the promulgation of a new constitution, which, in effect, made him president for life. Yuan's ambitions still were not satisfied, and, by the end of 1915, it was announced that he would reestablish the monarchy. Widespread rebellions ensued, and numerous provinces declared independence. With opposition at every quarter and the nation breaking up into warlord factions, Yuan Shikai died of natural causes in June 1916, deserted by his lieutenants. Nationalism and Communism government. The nation also was threatened from without by the Japanese. When World War I broke out in 1914, Japan fought on the Allied side and seized German holdings in Shandong Province. In 1915 the Japanese set before the warlord government in Beijing the so-called Twenty-One Demands, which would recognized Tokyo's authority over southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia. In 1917, in secret communiqu?s, Britain, France, and Italy assented to the Japanese claim in exchange for the Japan's naval action against Germany. Japanese control. But in 1918 the Beijing government signed a secret deal with Japan accepting the claim to Shandong. When the Paris peace conference of 1919 confirmed the Japanese claim to Shandong and Beijing's sellout became public, internal reaction was shattering. On May 4, 1919, there were massive from 1917 to 1923. The student demonstrations of May 4, 1919 were the high point of the New Culture Movement, and the terms are often used synonymously. Students returned from abroad advocating social and political theories ranging from complete Westernization of China to the socialism that one day would be adopted by China's communist rulers. Opposing the Warlords collaboration with southern warlords. In October 1919 Sun reestablished the Guomindang to counter the and its relations with the West. By 1921 Sun had become president of the southern government. He spent aid from the Western democracies were ignored, however, and in 1921 he turned to the Soviet Union, which had
A Letter About Slaying Dragons, I Mean, Middle School Myths Dear Rising Seventh Grader, If you’re like I was as an awkward, gangly sixth-grader-going-on-seventh-grader, your palms are sweaty, your furrowed brow indicates an ample amount of apprehension, and your brain is a buzzing New York City intersection teeming with traffic. You can take a deep breath now. Relax. Help is here. Your older siblings, friends, not-friends, and maybe even your parents have been supplying your overactive nerves with a steady stream of white lies. Luckily, I’m here to bust the top four middle school myths for you, so that you can soar to success in middle school. 1. Middle school is a zoo. This myth is both fact and fiction. Is middle school a zoo…literally? No. Fact: Middle school is NOT a zoo. We do not house ordinarily wild animals in cages for visitors’ enjoyment. Is it as loud as a zoo at times? Is it entertaining, crazy, unpredictable like a zoo? Absolutely. This myth is not meant to be taken literally, but if you read it as figurative language, as a metaphor (which is a comparison between two things that doesn’t use like or as) then you can extract meaning like freshly squeezed juice from a lemon. (That’s a simile, a comparison which does use like or as.) Though this place may teeter on the brink of chaos, you can always look for a bright side and a reason to make lemonade. 1. The eighth graders will eat you alive! Consider this your next lesson in figurative language. Myth #2 is a hyperbole, or an extreme exaggeration. This statement is not meant to be taken literally but serves to make a point. Are the eighth graders as tall and tantalizingly overbearing as skyscrapers? Sometimes. Will they shriek, show off, maniacally laugh in your presence, and call you “Sevie!” to make you feel inferior? Perhaps. However, eighth graders can also be your mentors and friends, directing you to your classroom like a GPS or perfectly passing the soccer ball to you in a pick-up game after school. They may have grown more than you, likely both in height and experience, but you should use this growth to your advantage: learn from the eighth graders. 1. Some of the teachers live at school. Ms. A stockpiles granola bars, crackers, and bags of fruit in her desk drawers. Mr. B’s hoodies huddle together in the corner of his class, like napping cats. Mrs. C has a bag of clothes she brings to school every day. Newsflash: these teachers, no matter how crazy your observations, do not live at school. Ms. A stashes secret snacks in her desk for students who forgot or can’t afford lunch. Mr. B hoards hoodies because some students come to school shivering in the wintertime, without a coat to hug them snug and warm. And Mrs C? She stays after school almost every day to coach students in soccer and basketball. She has to be ready. They all have to be ready. These teachers don’t live at school, but they do love their jobs so much it appears they’re living here. Try to love being here as much as your teachers do. 1. There is a secret pool in the basement! Let us break this Buy-One-Get-One myth. Not only do we not have a secret pool, but we also don’t have a basement. However, if your imagination is just wild enough, you might be able to write a secret pool into a story, or explore a book from its basement to roof–thoroughly, creatively. In books and in writing, you will find freakishly fantastic, deplorably absurd, exceptionally extraordinary things that reality just can’t show you. Don’t be afraid to risk everything and throw yourself into the wonderful world of fiction. It can be difficult to differentiate between fact & fiction, between unmistakably real and indubitably myth. The two seem inextricable like peanut butter and jelly. You will struggle to separate the two, to find meaning in new words, and to define your new life in this new place. You will struggle, but you will struggle to success. I feel confident in you now, Sevie, but first, a final fact: Middle school myths are fire-breathing dragons. (That’s a hyperbolic metaphor.) They’re scary at first, have power to breathe fire, and can scorch everything in sight, but only if you believe in them. If there’s anything you come to middle school with, besides your brain and some bravery, it should be these final words of wisdom: Don’t believe everything you hear the first time. From your maybe future teacher, Leave a Reply WordPress.com Logo Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
Louise Culver's Science Classes Science changing society… May 11, 2015 Earth Science: –Warm Up: “What Do You See” (p. 484) –Think About It: How do you think Earth’s climate would change if there were no surface currents? –Partners: Investigate (p. 484): “Part A Mapping Surface Currents” & “Part B: Tracing Wind & Surface Ocean Currents” –Individuals; “Studying Human population” crosswordà open note quiz: 1. What factors have led to an increased life expectancy? 2. Why does a decline in birth rate take several generations to have an effect on a population? –Small Groups—Whole Group (Hook): What would happen if the population in Lakeland doubled but the number of schools, roads, stores, and, houses remained the same? Describe the changes that would take place. –Individuals: Frayer Models: Infrastructure, arable land, urbanization, least developed countries (p. 22 Author: lhslculver Earth Science teacher at Lakeland High School. Comments are closed.
Our God of Liberty by Mike McKinniss 1280639In a letter to his wife Abigail dated July 3, 1776, John Adams penned an exulting paragraph: Why was Adams so celebratory? Because the day before the Continental Congress had resolved to declare a final break from British sovereignty. Adams and his colleagues from all thirteen colonies had voted for independence from England. The day after Adams wrote this letter to his wife, the Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, which includes this one remarkable and memorable sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It was no accident that these two founding fathers used the language they did. From the very first days of English expeditions into the Americas, the pursuit of a fresh start free from the persecutions of the Old World with an opportunity at a better life – these were at the very heart of the colonist’s soul even as early as the 1620’s. So Adams, reflecting on the decision to secede from Britain, likened the event to Israel’s great Exodus from Egypt. A “Day of Deliverance” he called it. Although we may not call the early Americans slaves of England, freedom was the sensation Adams and his compatriots felt in those early days of July, 1776. Liberty of any size and scope is worth celebrating. It is at the center of God’s heart. That’s right: The God of the Bible is a God who embraces liberty. Consider: When Adam is placed in the garden, he is free to eat of any tree, even while he is warned against taking the fruit of one in particular (Gen. 2:16-17). Consider: The nation of Israel is formed into a people on the basis of their freedom from slavery. Liberty is literally the preamble of their formative document, their covenant with the Lord (Exo. 20:2). Consider: The ultimate expression of God’s heart for liberty is Jesus himself. Jesus stated liberation as the major plank in his platform, the hallmark of his calling (Luke 4:18-19, quoting Isa. 61:1-2). Moreover, the gospel writers consistently set Jesus in the context of bringing Israel through a second (and greater) exodus. Mark 1, for example, is littered with exodus themes (a quotation of Exodus 23:20; Jesus passes through a river into a promised land; Jesus wanders in the wilderness for 40 days). The God of the Bible consistently embraces liberty, and so it ought to be celebrated on any level it might be found. Whether it’s freedom from a financial burden, freedom from a destructive pattern of behavior, political freedom to speak or act, or freedom from the weight of your past; liberty is always worth an exultant shout.
Differences between Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt Essay Custom Student Mr. Teacher ENG 1001-04 26 February 2016 Differences between Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt In reflection there are many differences between the United States’ 31st president Herbert C. Hoover and it’s 32nd president Franklin D. Roosevelt, so much so that their administrations and thoughts on how to run the country existed on two completely different paradigms in relation to their views on the governments role in society. To begin with, the Grand old man and the New dealer start out with a difference in the very foundation of their political standpoints. Herbert Hoover was affiliated with the Republican Party while Franklin D. Roosevelt was a member of the democrat party and their administrations are but a reflection of their affiliations. Herbert Hoover was appointed to office on March 4th of 1933 and Franklin Roosevelt was appointed April 12th of 1945. Hoover ended up serving four years in office as he lost his reelection to Roosevelt himself who later came to serve a total of three terms in office resulting in twelve years of presidency before his death in office. In the administrations of Hoover and Roosevelt it is clear that Roosevelt was more for government involvement than was Hoover however, Hoover had served as the secretary of commerce under the administrations of president Harding and president Coolidge and even in those administrations he believed that the government did not have to be passive and he backed the concept of “associationalism” that envisioned the creation of national organizations of businessmen in particular industries. This was meant to stabilize industries and promote efficiency in production and marketing but he never truly had an opportunity to implement his plans because less than a year after his inauguration the United States plunged into the Great Depression, sidelining previous ambitions and goals. In new light of his presidency Herbert Hoover implements government economic recovery that granted limited success such as the Smoot-Hawley tariff which hurt his administration and the economy rather than help it. And much of his doctrine for governing the American people was to have the least amount of direct government involvement in the people’s everyday lives. On the other hand Roosevelt was elected into the Great Depression and in his first 100 days in office he implemented a flurry of economic legislation that was part of his “New Deal” domestic program in attempt to alleviate (immediately yet not completely) the crisis looming over the United States. During his presidency Roosevelt implemented many acts that dealt with the Economy/Jobs, Financing/Banking, Defense/Foreign Affairs, Social issues, Housing and even Environment and even got the nation’s unemployment rate down from 25% to 2%( The Agricultural Adjustment Acts, Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Farm Credit Act, Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA), Gold Reserve Act, National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA), National Labor Relations Act, Tennessee Valley Act, The Federal Farm Bankruptcy Act, Glass-Steagall Act, Corporate Bankruptcy Act, Emergency Banking Act, Federal Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, Veterans Administration Act, Lend-Lease Act, Neutrality Acts, Selective Training and Service Act, Revenue Act of 1932, Revenue Act of 1941, Social Security Act, Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act, Home Owners Loan Act, National Housing Act, and the Reforestation Relief Act). Roosevelt’s new economic programs brought jobs to hundreds of thousands of men during the Great Depression through rural and agricultural projects that allowed them to once again get a paycheck, which also alleviated the congestion of large urban areas, a feat which overshadows president Hoover’s rural projects such as the Hoover dam. Roosevelt may have implemented many acts such as the Conservation Corps (CCC), Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Tennessee Valley Authority but it wasn’t just his economic reform that allowed for alleviation of the crisis, it was also his cheerful personality. Franklin D. Roosevelt used his optimism to bring trust and public confidence to his administration. And some of the ways he did this was through the “Fireside Chats” which were radio chats which he would use to communicate his programs and plans with the people. Roosevelt’s personality was even shown in his inaugural address where he stated “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” and it was often unknown that he was paralyzed in both of his legs. Herbert Hoover in contrast was not as outspoken and forth going and he lost the trust of the American people. More radical programs of relief were presented to him but he insisted that his policies were working. Hoover’s popularity began to decline due to his perceived political failures and many Americans thought him personally responsible for the conditions that they were in which led them to begin calling the shantytowns (housing for the unemployed) that they lived in on the outskirts of town, “Hoovervilles” But not only are Hoover and Roosevelt different in their domestic services but they were also different in their foreign affairs as Hoover didn’t have much direct involvement in foreign affairs but he did pass the Hoover-Stimson doctrine which refused to recognize Japan’s conquer of Manchuria and even mediated on behalf of Peru and chile to settle a land dispute as well as sending ships to shanghai in order to protect U.S citizens. Hoover simply did not have the same pressing issues in foreign affairs as Roosevelt did because WWII occupied a lot of the time that Roosevelt was in office. Initially Roosevelt attempted to keep America out of the war and simply implemented ways to aid in the war effort while still on the home front such as the cash and carry act where munitions had to be bought and picked up from the United States instead of being shipped to the buyer and this improved the economy as European demand for war goods increased. And even though Roosevelt attempted to keep America out of the war, entry was inevitable after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that Americans themselves wanted revenge for. This led to more foreign intervention and direct involvement that president Hoover didn’t have to endure as president although he did assist in the war effort under president Wilson by supplying the troops with food as well as organizing a large return of Americans from Europe. In conclusion, President Herbert C. Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt are two president who lived on different sides of the political spectrum. President Hoover was a hands off type of president and was not big on large reform and radical change but rather little government involvement in the affairs of the American people whereas president Roosevelt had more of a direct approach. President Roosevelt believed that the government should have direct involvement in the affairs of the people and it was evident in his administration due to all of the economic legislation that was passed during his terms. In the end they were both presidents who stuck to their respective presidential strategies. Free Differences between Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt Essay Sample Let us write you a custom essay sample on Differences between Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt for only $16.38 $13.9/page your testimonials
Learning Styles and Types of Learners In the past five years online learning has become the norm in the academic community. It has allowed students to take a more influential role when it comes to their education. From developing a more self-directed student, teaching the importance of time management and prompting greater degrees of high-level self-reflection. In the past, university and college courses were limited in the degree of which a course could be taught and delivered. Focusing mostly on lectures and note taking, courses did not cater to every students learning style. However with today’s technology possibilities are limitless. According to the Board of Education students can be broken down into three main categories: Auditory learners, who enjoy discussions and talking things through with others. Visual learners, who take detailed notes and benefit more from illustrations and presentations, which would most likely be found in a lecture. And kinaesthetic learners, who learn through doing activities and have an easier time remembering what was done than with what was said or seen. Learning Styles Statistics Larger online resources in courses mean more methods in which students can learn. YouTube links are often posted on elearn by professors, a website which acts as a portal for specific courses. Access to subject specific videos allows students with distinct learning styles to choose a video that best explains the topic. For example, a deductive learner in a chemistry course, who prefers presentations that go from the general to the specific, could choose to watch a chemistry video on Youtube about general chemistry, and work his/her way up. Connect for textbooks are another great online resource for students. Connect is a online textbook in which students can watch different videos, listen to mp3s, take practice quizzes and even perform guided experiments, based on their unit of study. This accommodates to visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners. Connect allows students to be more self-motivated and control more aspects of their learning. Most professors require students to log a certain number of hours weekly for blended learning courses. Connect makes it possibly for students to focus solely on the textbook chapters they need help with and to watch or listen to videos and experiments that they find relevant. TED is a resource for cutting edge discussions on relevant matters. It covers a large spectrum of topics that range from health technologies to global issues. The website features videos that show some of the leading names in science, politics and environmental issues. TED videos cater to every learning style, if a student takes the time to find the video right for them. Overall, online learning opens the door to professional growth. Online resources and courses help to develop a student’s time management, self-motivation and sense of empowerment while also catering to their specific learning needs. With the increase in social media many companies and professionals are adapting a more modern approach to business. Graduates who have a better understanding of online resources and how to navigate the web will better adapt to their work environment and find more success after graduation. Printed from “Reflective Practice” CD ROM © 2007 http://www.education.vic.gov.au/documents/childhood/professionals/support/egsls.pdf Kelly, R. (2012, August 10). Five Factors that Affect Online Student Motivation. Retrieved September 23, 2015, from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/five-factors-that-affect-online-student-motivation/ Morgan, K. (n.d.). How Online Courses Affect People Who Learn Better on Their Own. Retrieved September 23, 2015, from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/online-courses-affect-people-learn-better-own-15641.html Heather Swayze, Kaycee Stewart, Turner Shaw, Brittney Seaward, Karli Sevenpifer Leave a Reply WordPress.com Logo Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
Laura Erickson's For the Birds Wednesday, May 20, 2015 Hearty news on the chickadee front Black-capped Chickadee This year I gave a talk titled “More than You Thought You Wanted to Know about Black-capped Chickadees” for the huge northwestern Ohio birding festival called The Biggest Week in American Birding. I talk about chickadees a lot, but had never given a major program entirely about them before. I’ve amassed lots of cool chickadee facts over the years, but wanted to have some exciting new information as well. In googling to get some interesting statistics, I came across a fascinating entry in David Sibley’s blog. He’s the one who wrote and illustrated the wonderfully comprehensive Sibley Guide to Birds—both the huge field guide and the extraordinarily useful cell phone app that includes all the information from the field guide and more. In his blog, David occasionally posts mystery sounds, and in the blog post I found, he used this sound. He explained on his blog: I made this recording when I had the bird in my hand (after catching it as part of a regular bird-banding operation) and held a microphone against its back to record the sound. This is the heartbeat of a Black-capped Chickadee. I saved the sound into my own computer, and opened it in Adobe Audition, where I could expand and count each beat on the waveform. David Sibley’s recording lasted a bit longer than 8 seconds. I counted 74 beats over one representative 5-second period, and 118 beats over exactly 8 seconds, which both calculated out to about 888 beats per minute. There were several “double beats” recorded—I counted each as a single beat, so if they were really separate beats, the result was closer to a thousand beats per minute. Imagine that! In 1968, a researcher named Calder found that a Black-capped Chickadee at rest had a heart rate of about 480 beats per minute, and in 1941, another researcher, Odum, got 522 beats per minute at rest—he estimated that it must double during activity. David’s chickadee was under the stress of being handled, so the 888 beats per minute for that bird is quite consistent with those earlier results. Black-capped Chickadee with deformed bill My chickadee on April 20, 2014 It wasn’t until after my program that I got a different kind of hearty news on the chickadee front. Back in the winter of 2013-2014, I noticed that one of the chickadees coming to my feeder had an overgrown, deformed upper bill. The bill tip eventually fell off, but not before the neighborhood chickadees had paired off for the season, and that one didn’t get a mate. He not only had a problem with his bill—his three front toes on his right foot are missing. I fed him mealworms by hand throughout the winter, and again all this winter when I’ve been in town. Fortunately, my neighbor and friend, Jeanne Tonkin, has been feeding chickadees mealworms, too, and that particular chickadee has been coming to her hand as well. She recently noticed another chickadee begging from him, and on May 20, when he took mealworms from my hand, I also got to witness him handing them over to a begging female. This establishes both that he’s definitely a male—they’re the ones that provide food during courtship and nesting—and that he’s successfully found a mate this year. It warmed my heart to see this plucky little survivor doing so well. Chickadee missing front toes of right foot, with a deformed bill That same plucky chickadee on May 20, 2015 Killing birds with our driving Pileated Woodpecker on my picnic table Last weekend, when I was driving home from The Biggest Week in American Birding, a festival in Ohio, I found myself driving a little faster than normal on Highway 53 in Wisconsin. My rule is always to drive at the slowest speed that is safe, courteous, and convenient. I prefer staying under the speed limit, but there was a lot of traffic going into and through Eau Claire, and I realized I was still going close to 70 by the time I got down to Rice Lake, where there was virtually no traffic at all. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it until I was approaching a robin sitting in the road ahead. There were no cars next to or beside me so I braked, the robin flew, and although it was a close call, the robin wasn’t hurt. But I was shaken. I didn’t need to be going over the speed limit there—not for anyone else’s convenience or safety, much less my own. I was shortening my long trip by a few minutes, but what could I possibly accomplish in those few minutes that would have been worth the life of a plucky bird who’d made it through the winter and was finally getting the payoff of a mate, a nest, and young? A few miles further down the road, I spotted the body of a Pileated Woodpecker, crumpled on the side of the road. The cosmic waste hit me in the heart. Our driving addiction exacts such a heavy toll—climate change, oil spills at wells and pipelines, toxic sludge, charring at oil refinery gas flare stacks—and if that all isn’t enough, we run ‘em down directly with our own cars. I created a little blog at that gives some tips about how we can protect birds from all the costs associated with driving. My suggestions include ways we can reduce our gas consumption to reduce our personal contribution into the many ways extracting, transporting, and refining oil kill birds. My car shows my gas mileage every step of the way, so I’m acutely aware of how much more I use when I drive faster than about 42 miles per hour. But I also include ways we can avoid colliding with birds: 1. Combine trips and use public transportation, bike, or walk when possible so you can drive as little as possible. 2. Drive at the slowest speed that is safe, courteous, and convenient. 3. When approaching a red light or stop sign, start coasting to a stop sooner. Accelerate gently when possible. 4. Remove heavy items from your vehicle when you don't need them. 5. Keep your tires at the proper inflation. 6. Keep your car in tune. 7. When you see wildlife ahead, look in the mirror to see if anyone is following you, and slow down if you can safely do so. 8. If you know what you're doing, keep an injured-wildlife rescue kit in the car, including phone numbers for area rehab facilities. I’m so tired of people excusing our bad behavior by pleading ignorance. If we’re going to take pride in ourselves as a species for our intelligence, claiming to be smarter than every other species on the planet, we should be using that intelligence to clean up our messes and find safer ways of getting from one place to another. Otherwise, our only claims of superiority over other species are in the areas of selfishness and arrogance. Tuesday, May 19, 2015 Pip the Birding Dog My plucky sidekick Pip Friday, May 1, 2015 Billy Collins's Genius Tundra Swans at Goose Pond was what they called you in high school if you tripped on a shoelace in the hall and all your books went flying. Or if you walked into an open locker door, you would be known as Einstein, who imagined riding a streetcar into infinity. Later, genius became someone who could take a sliver of chalk and square pi a hundred places out beyond the decimal point, or a man painting on his back on a scaffold, or drawing a waterwheel in a margin, or spinning out a little night music. But earlier this week on a wooded path, I thought the swans afloat on the reservoir were the true geniuses, the ones who had figured out how to fly, how to be both beautiful and brutal, and how to mate for life. Twenty-four geniuses in all, for I numbered them as Yeats had done, deployed upon the calm, crystalline surface— forty-eight if we count their white reflections, or an even fifty if you want to throw in me and the dog running up ahead, who were at least smart enough to be out that morning—she sniffing the ground, me with my head up in the bright morning air.
Sunday, April 15, 2007 'Fat' gene found by scientists The findings provide the first robust link between a common gene and obesity, and could eventually lead to new ways of tackling one of the most significant causes of ill health in the developed world. Obesity is a main cause of heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. [Rubbish!] If the biological function of the gene, known as FTO, can now be understood, it could become possible to design drugs that manipulate it to help people to control their weight. "Even though we have yet to fully understand the role played by the FTO gene in obesity, our findings are a source of great excitement," Mark McCarthy, of Britain's University of Oxford, who led the research, said. "By identifying this genetic link it should be possible to improve our understanding of why some people are more obese, with all the associated implications such as increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. New insights will hopefully pave the way for us to explore novel ways of treating this condition." While it has long been understood from family studies that obesity is heavily influenced by genetics, scientists have struggled to pin down individual genes that are involved. A handful of serious genetic mutations that cause rare obesity disorders such as Prader-Willi Syndrome have been found, but the search for common genes that affect an ordinary person's risk of becoming obese or overweight has remained elusive. The effect of FTO emerged from a key study of the genetic origins of disease funded by the Wellcome Trust known as the Case Control Consortium, in which 2,000 people with type 2 diabetes had their genomes compared to 3,000 healthy controls. Scientists from Oxford and the University of Exeter first found that certain versions of the FTO gene were more common among people with type 2 diabetes, but that the effect disappeared when the data were adjusted for obesity. This led them to wonder whether FTO really influenced obesity instead, and they followed up their theory in a further 37,000 people. FTO comes in two varieties, and everyone inherits two copies of the gene. The team found that those who inherit two copies of one variant - 16 per cent of white Europeans - were 70 per cent more likely to be obese than those who inherited two copies of the other variant. The 50 per cent of subjects who inherited one copy of each FTO variant had a 30 per cent higher risk of obesity. Those in the highest risk group weighed an average of 3kg more and those at medium risk were an average of 1.2kg heavier. In each case the extra weight was entirely accounted for by more body fat, not greater muscle or extra height. The results, published in the journal Science, apply to men and women, and to children as young as 7. FTO will not be the only gene that influences obesity, and inheriting a particular variant will not necessarily make anyone fat. "This is not a gene for obesity, it is a gene that contributes to risk," Professor McCarthy said. The research involved too many people to control for exercise and diet, so it is not yet known whether FTO affects how much people eat or how active they are. But it may explain how people with apparently similar lifestyles differ in propensity to put on weight. Independent experts called the discovery highly significant. Susan Jebb, of the MRC Human Nutrition Unit, said: "This research provides clear evidence of a biological mechanism which makes some people more susceptible to gaining weight in a world where food is plentiful and sedentary lifestyles the norm." UK: Govgoons to raid homes over parking tickets?: "The UK parliament is considering legislation that would authorize bailiffs to break into the homes of motorists accused of not paying parking tickets. Under legislation currently making its way through the House of Commons, bailiffs would seize items out of the home in order to pay off the amount owed in tickets, plus hefty fees. Any homeowner that attempting to stop the bailiff would face up to a year in prison." No comments:
Key Gene Associated With Brain Aging Identified The brain is one of the most amazing creations. But once the brain starts to age, a lot of activities are hampered. According to a recent study, the scientist suggests that our brain starts aging at a significantly faster rate after hitting age 65 and possibly it even won’t depend on which allele of a specific gene is present. Key Gene Associated With Brain Aging Identified Researchers, in recent years, have acknowledged several genes linked to Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurological disorders. However, those genes enlighten only a minute section of these disorders. As per the scientists, the key risk factor for such type of neurodegenerative disorder is aging. This is due to the changes taking place in the brain with aging which makes the individual more vulnerable to brain disease. To find out the factor that controls brain aging, the scientist evaluated genetic data from almost 1,200 autopsied human brains from individuals were not detected with a neurodegenerative disorder while alive. From the study, they found a gene, TMEM106B, which drives the differential aging. TMEM106B is said to manage neuronal loss and inflammation in the brain. There are 2 alleles of the gene, one linked to the increased risk of brain aging, whereas as the other is found to defend such a speeding up of aging. The TMEM106B gene becomes active at about age 65. Shortly, the individual with a bad copy of this gene will have a brain that appears 10–12 years older than individuals of the similar age who have functioning copies. The finding of the study can help the professionals to detect individuals who are at risk for such neurological diseases by having a defective TMEM106B gene. It can also aid in the development of drugs that can target the TMEM106B gene to support healthier brain aging. So don’t you think TMEM106B gene can be an attractive target for scientists to develop therapies that can decelerate brain aging? Leave a Reply
Pharos Of Alexandria Essay Research Paper Amazing Pharos Of Alexandria Essay, Research Paper Amazing Ancient Structures: Pharos of Alexandria The Pharos of Alexandria is the seventh wonder of the world. My dad is very amazed by the Seven Wonders of the World and had asked me about them a while back. Since I didn t know about them, he checked out a book that I had also looked through. These seven structures then caught my interest and I took this opportunity to research one of them. I chose to research the Pharos of Alexandria because it is not as popular as the other six Wonders such as the Great Pyramid and the Colossus. Shortly after the death of Alexander the Great, his commander Ptolemy Soter assumed power in Egypt. He had witnessed the founding of Alexandria, and established his capital there. Off of the city’s coast lies a small island, Pharos. A legend says its name is a variation of Pharaoh’s Island. The island was connected to the mainland by means of a dike, the Heptastadion, which gave the city a double harbor. Because of dangerous sailing conditions and flat coastline in the region, the construction of a lighthouse was necessary. The project was set up and initiated by Ptolemy Soter around 290 BC, but was completed after his death, during the reign of his son Ptolemy Philadelphus. Sostratus, a contemporary of Euclid, was the architect, but detailed calculations for the structure and its accessories were carried out at the Alexandria Library/Mouseion. The monument was dedicated to the Savior Gods, Ptolemy Soter and his wife Berenice. For centuries, the Lighthouse of Alexandria was used to mark the harbor, using fire at night and reflecting sunrays during the day. It was even shown on Roman coins, just as famous monuments are depicted on currency today. When the Arabs conquered Egypt, they admired Alexandria and its wealth. The Lighthouse continues to be mentioned in their writings and travelers accounts. But the new rulers moved their capital to Cairo since they had no ties to the Mediterranean. When the mirror was brought down mistakenly, they did not restore it back into place. In 956 AD, an earthquake shook Alexandria, and caused little damage to the Lighthouse. It was later in 1303 and in 1323 that two stronger earthquakes left a greater impression on the structure. When the famous Arab traveler Ibn Battuta visited Alexandria in 1349, he could not enter the ruinous monument or even climb to its doorway. The end of the Lighthouse came in 1480 AD when the Egyptian Mamelouk Sultan, Qaitbay, decided to fortify Alexandria’s defense. He built a medieval fort on the same spot where the Lighthouse once stood. He used the fallen stone and marble for his project. In 1166, an Arab traveler, Abou-Haggag Al-Andaloussi visited the Lighthouse. He documented a great amount of information and gave an accurate description of the structure, which helped modern archeologists reconstruct the monument. It was composed of three stages. The lowest square was 55.9 m (183.4 ft) high with a cylindrical core; the middle octagonal with a side length of 18.30 m (60.0 ft) and a height of 27.45 m (90.1 ft); and the third circular 7.30 m (24.0 ft) high. The total height of the building including the foundation base was about 117 m (384 ft), equivalent to a 40-story modern building.. The design was not like the slim single column of most modern lighthouses, but more like the structure of an early twentieth century skyscraper. The three stages were each built on top of the lower, and the building was constructed of marble blocks with lead mortar. The lowest level was shaped like a massive box. Inside this section was a large spiral ramp that allowed materials to be pulled to the top in horse-drawn carts. On top of this section was an eight-sided tower. On top of the tower was a cylinder that extended up to an open cupola where the fire that provided the light burned. On the roof of the cupola was a large statue of possibly Poseidon. The lower portion of the building contained hundreds of storage rooms. The interior of the upper two sections had a shaft with a dumbwaiter that was used to transport fuel up to the fire. Staircases allowed visitors and the keepers to climb to the beacon chamber. There, according to reports, a large curved mirror, perhaps made of polished metal, was used to project the fire’s light into a beam. It was said ships could detect the light from the tower at night or the smoke from the fire during the day up to one hundred miles away. There are stories and much uncertainty about the form and function of the Pharos. For instance, if the beacon on the summit was a simple wood fire, then how was a constant source of fuel provided in a land with so few trees? Also, there are stories that the mirrors in the lighthouse could be used as a weapon to concentrate the sun and set enemy ships ablaze as they approached. Another tale says that it was possible to use the mirror to magnify the image of the city of Constantinople from far across the sea to observe what was going on there. Furthermore, ancient texts regularly mention a statue as standing on the top of the tower, but if this was placed above a perpetually burning fire it would surely crack. There is a debate as to whom this statue represented. For so long it was supposed to be Poseidon, god of the seas, but later scholarship has opted for Zeus. Then others suggested that there were two statues, of Castor and Pollux. Society in the past was greatly affected by the lighthouse of Alexandria. For the sailors in the past it ensured a safe return to the Great Harbor. The Architects also saw great meaning in it for it was the first lighthouse in the world and the tallest building in existence, with the exception of the Great Pyramid. Although the Lighthouse of Alexandria did not survive to the present day, it left its influence in various respects. From an architectural standpoint, the monument has been used as a model for many prototypes along the Mediterranean, as far away as Spain. From a linguistic standpoint, it gave its name, Pharos, to all the lighthouses in the world. The lighthouse was built on the island of Pharos and soon the building itself acquired the name. The connection of the name with the function became so strong that the word “Pharos” became the root of the word “lighthouse” in the French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian languages. 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Amos 5:15 עמוס ה:טו Original Text: שִׂנְאוּ רָע וְאֶהֱבוּ טוֹב וְהַצִּיגוּ בַשַּׁעַר מִשְׁפָּט אוּלַי יֶחֱנַן יְיָ אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאוֹת שְׁאֵרִית יוֹסֵף Hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate; Perhaps Adonai, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. [JPS translation] Suggested Discussion Questions: 1. Whose job is it to establish justice? 2. How is justice established? 3. What are the obstacles to establishing a just society? Time Period: Related Texts: Related Sourcesheets:Shemitah as a Model for Debt Relief Comments on this Text 1. Do you think we should hate evil or work to change evil? 2. What does it mean to establish justice in the gate? 3. Do you think that hating evil and loving good helps to establish justice in the gate?
Damage Caused By Bird Droppings/Get rid of pigeons in Sandia Heights The life expectancy of a rooftop, commercial or residential establishment in Sandia Heights, can be cut in half by just a light, but continuous, application of bird droppings. This light dusting of bird dropping can cost you thousands of dollars in repairs or an entire roof replacement. Bird droppings are naturally acidic and bird droppings actually eat away at most substrates, especially tar-based roofing materials. When bird droppings are allowed to accumulate on rooftops, they eat into the material and eventually cause leaks; feel free to contact Pest Bird Management now. Sandia Heights Bird Nest/ Water Damage/ How to keep birds away! Pigeon nests are often built in rain gutters, drains and corners of roofs where drains are located. Many homes and warehouses experience water damage every year, there are rooftops that even collapsed when drainage systems are blocked and standing water is allowed to sit or rise just six inches. When sitting water is allowed to collect, a collapse rooftop could result in death or great bodily harm; this could put a company out of business. Sandia Heights Bird Droppings/ Collapsing Ceilings/ Get rid of pigeons Pigeons enter attics of houses, apartments, warehouses, restaurants and other buildings through openings that are not sealed off properly. In most scenarios the pigeons will set up home in these protected areas and start to build nests, all the time discarding bird droppings. Over time the weight of the droppings becomes so great that the actual ceiling collapses. You would guess that this type of occurrence would be extremely rare but it happens with alarming frequency. Sandia Heights Fires Started by Bird Nests/ How to keep birds away! Nesting materials such as Straw, twigs and dried droppings are usually very flammable due to their dry nature. When birds build their nests inside fire place ducts, electric signs or other areas where the nesting materials may be introduced to fire, there is a great risk of property damage. Sign companies that own electric signs blame bird nests for most of their sign fires. Sandia Heights Bird Nests Blocked Ventilation System/ Get rid of pigeons Bird nests built in chimneys and ventilation systems can not only spread diseases through the system, but can actually block airflow which can have horrible consequences. A bird’s nest was almost lethal in a town in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, when eight people were taken to hospital after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning – a bird’s nest was blocking an outside air intake, causing carbon monoxide levels to rise in the house. Sandia Heights Diseases carried by pigeons. • Pigeons carry mycotic, (airborne) diseases. • They carry bacterial and protozoan diseases. • They carry various worms which live in their feces. • They have fleas which carry disease. • Pigeons walk in their own feces. • They walk back and forth then perch on your window sill, or patio furniture. • You touch it? You may be infected. Sandia Heights Mycotic Aspergillosis is probably the most well-known air borne disease. It is caused by fungi which live saprophytically in pigeon feces. You don’t have to touch the feces. Breathing it in is enough. This disease poisons the victim’s blood and it causes death. Cryptococcosis infects the brain. It is caused by yeast carried in the intestinal tract of pigeons and deposited in their feces. As pigeon coops are full of this yeast, inhalation is likely. Histoplasmosis is so powerful, and so difficult to detect. This is why so many people die of it. Sandia Heights Bacteria Erysipeloid most often starts with a cut. You don’t know where you got the cut. It hurts. Listeriosis is especially dangerous for pregnant women. One of the scariest is Yersiniosis. It is a plague-like disease and indistinguishable from appendicitis. Many unnecessary appendectomies are performed. A perfectly healthy appendix is removed, and the patient doesn’t get better. Sandia Heights Protozoan Toxoplasmosis is attracted to brain tissue. It can cause mental retardation and death. It destroys the brain. Chlamydiosis is another disease which imitates the flu. Sandia Heights Paracitic There are parasitic worms which live in Pigeon feces. Called bilharzia, bilharziosis or snail fever, although having a low mortality rate, schistosomiasis often is a chronic illness that can damage internal organs and, in children, impa growth and cognitive development. The dangers of raising pigeons in Sandia Heights What makes raising pigeons so dangerous is that all the diseases they carry mimic more ‘popular’ maladies. Unless your physician is specifically informed that the you are raising pigeons, and directs his or her attention to the dangers thereof, (and many are not particularly aware of pigeon borne diseases), the wrong treatment is dispensed. How to keep birds away in Sandia Heights / Traditional Solutions Sandia Heights Bird Repellents: Just one application of our industrial strength bird-repellent and you’ll drive off the birds that are infesting your Sandia Heights premises now and prevent new birds from taking over. Sandia Heights Bird Spikes: Sandia Heights Bird Netting Sandia Heights BirdSlide: Sandia Heights Shock Track The Bird Repeller in Sandia Heights Sandia Heights Bird Chase Super Sonic Leave a Reply
Dive Dry with Dr. Bill #369: Zebra... Perch... Chub Last week I wrote about the halfmoon, a member of the sea chub fish family Kyphosidae. I thought this week I'd keep it in all in the family and write about a relative, the zebra "perch." Yep, yet another fish commonly referred to as a perch... but nothing like the perch I used to catch when I sat on the dock while managing the waterfront at a sports club back in my Chicago high school days. And, yes... those were the days. My entire guard staff was composed of lovely ladies... but I digress (as usual). You're here to read about zebras... er perch... I mean zebra perch. This sea chub species is known by us scientific types as Hermosillo azurea. The species has been recorded from the mouth of the Klamath River in northern California south past Cabo San Lucas and into the Gulf of California. There they are mostly found in the northern and central region of that body of water, known to many as the Sea of Cortez. Now since Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca was the conqueror of the Aztec Empire and brought much of Mexico under Spanish rule, I wonder how the native people down there feel about this name. But again I digress... back to zebra perch. They are another species of schooling sea chub generally found in shallow water above 25 feet. They are often seen around kelp beds and off both rocky and sandy bottoms. Zebra perch may reach up to about 18" in length. The body is a light gray in color, appearing almost bronze at times. It has 9-10 dark vertical bars on each side. Looking closely at the mouth you can see the similarity with other local sea chubs like the halfmoon and opaleye. They have a bluish spot on the operculum or gill cover, and may have a dark patch at the base of their pectoral fin located on the side of the body near the front. Many other species of chubs have scales on their heads, but this species lacks them. The teeth in their jaws are fixed, unlike those in some other, mostly tropical sea chubs. The diet of the zebra perch was described as being partially herbivorous (a half hearted vegetarian) to "feeding on marine algae" to having a diet of macro (big) and micro (small) algae on the bottom. Fortunately my research uncovered a study of their dietary habits right here off Catalina Island. I'm going to elaborate on these findings because they offer insight into fish diets and morphology. Researchers Sturm and Horn determined that the zebra perch was almost entirely herbivorous with less than 1/10th of one percent of their food in the form of animal tissue. I could never survive such a diet... I tried to be strictly vegetarian back in the late 1970s. Ugh! Of the algae found in the stomachs of these fish, red algae dominated at over 88% while brown algae were just under 8% and green algae constituted a mere 4% of the total. The single most important dietary component were the filamentous red algae species in the genus Polysiphonia (sorry, no common name). Since this alga is a very minor component of the seaweeds on rocky reefs, this means zebra perch are very selective feeders. If they were your kids, you'd refer to them as "fussy eaters." We scientists would say this species has a very narrow niche as far as food goes. They were found to digest certain species of brown algae like the introduced Sargassum muticum which has high levels of polyphenolic compounds, organic chemicals that usually ward off herbivores. Herbivorous fish often have long, coiled digestive tracts to digest the algal or plant material. That of the zebra perch is four times as long as the fish itself. Hmmm, just how do they pack all that in there? Algal meals are digested in two ways. In the stomach, digestive acids are used to break them down. Then in the gut or intestinal tract, these fish use the same basic mechanisms as a dairy cow. Bacteria break down the matter through fermentation. However, to the best of my knowledge they do not chew their cud. Zebra perch seem to be much more active swimmers than their local sea chub relatives. In fact, I'd almost refer to them as almost frenetic as they speed past me underwater, darting around in almost unpredictable ways. Their halfmoon brethren seem much more sedate by comparison. Like the other sea chubs in our region, they are pelagic spawners, releasing their eggs into the water column where they are fertilized. Although they are often seen in small schools, on one occasion I observed a group of possibly thousands of these fish swimming by me at Long Point. I assumed this was a spawning event so I turned my camera on to capture a little "mating." The larvae drift in the plankton until they are ready to settle out. One very interesting observation I've made is seeing young zebra perch apparently cleaning other fish like topsmelt. Perhaps the juveniles need a bit more animal protein in their diet than the adults. The sea chub family is largely tropical in distribution. Scientists have noticed that sightings of zebra perch in the southern California Bight have increased in recent decades. It is believed that this may be due to oceanic warming as part of global climate change. As the waters in our region increase in temperature, the geographic range of the zebra perch may expand northward. We've also had sightings in Lover's Cove of the blue bronze chub, another warmer water sea chub species. Of course I'm still waiting until the waters warm up enough to find coral reefs in the dive park. Yes, I know... "wishful thinking." I'll just have to visit a few tropical dive sites this winter and make believe! Individual zebra perch showing the species' features including the typical sea chub mouth; zebra perch in small group and in dense spawning cluster. This document maintained by Dr. Bill Bushing. Material and images © 2009 Star Thrower Educational Multimedia
Bookmark and Share Front Back A form of twisted-pair cable that supports 1000Mbps or 1Gbs throughput at 100 meter distances. Often called Gigabit Ethernet. Another form of twisted-pair cable similar to 100Base-T. A type of coaxial cable. Often used to connect systems to backbone trunks. 10Base2 has a maximum span of 185 meters with maximum throughput of 10Mpbs. Also called thinnet. A type of coaxial cable. Often used as a network�s backbone. 10Base5 has a maximum span of 500 meters with maximum throughput of 10Mpbs. Also called thicknet. A type of network cable that consists of four pairs of wires that are twisted around each other and then sheathed in a PVC insulator. Also called twisted-pair. 802.11i (WPA-2) An amendment to the 802.11 standard that defines a new authentication and encryption technique that is similar to IPSec. To date. no real-world attack has compromised a properly configured WPA-2 wireless network. A form of wireless authentication protection that requires all wireless clients to pass a gauntlet of RADIUS or TACACS services before network access is granted. acceptance testing The transfer of information from an object to a subject. access control list (ACL) access control matrix A table of subjects and objects that indicates the actions or functions that each subject can perform on each object. Each column of the matrix is an ACL. Each row of the matrix is a capability list. The formal declaration by the Designated Approving Authority (DAA) that an IT system is approved to operate in a particular security mode using a prescribed set of safeguards at an acceptable level of risk. ACID model The letters in ACID represent the four required characteristics of database transactions: atomicity. consistency. isolation. and durability. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) A subprotocol of the TCP/IP protocol suite that operates at the Data Link layer (layer 2). ARP is used to discover the MAC address of a system by polling using its IP address. The means by which a processor refers to various locations in memory. administrative access controls The policies and procedures defined by an organization�s security policy to implement and enforce overall access control. Examples of administrative access controls include hiring practices. background checks. data classification. security training. vacation history reviews. work supervision. personnel controls. and testing. administrative law Regulations that cover a range of topics from procedures to be used within a federal agency to immigration policies that will be used to enforce the laws passed by Congress. Administrative law is published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). administrative physical security controls Security controls that include facility construction and selection. site management. personnel controls. awareness training. and emergency response and procedures. admissible evidence Evidence that is relevant to determining a fact. The fact that the evidence seeks to determine must be material (in other words. related) to the case. In addition. the evidence must be competent. meaning that it must have been obtained legally. Evidence that results from an illegal search would be inadmissible because it is not competent. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) The encryption standard selected in October 2000 by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) that is based on the Rijndael cipher. advisory policy A policy that discusses behaviors and activities that are acceptable and defines consequences of violations. An advisory policy discusses the senior management�s desires for security and compliance within an organization. Most policies are advisory. alarm triggers Notifications sent to administrators when a specific event occurs. analytic attack An algebraic manipulation that attempts to reduce the complexity of a cryptographic algorithm. This attack focuses on the logic of the algorithm itself. The operation (represented by the ^ symbol) that checks to see whether two values are both true. annualized loss expectancy (ALE) The possible yearly cost of all instances of a specific realized threat against a specific asset. The ALE is calculated using the formula ALE = single loss expectancy (SLE) * annualized rate of occurrence (ARO). annualized rate of occurrence (ARO) The expected frequency that a specific threat or risk will occur (in other words. become realized) within a single year. Application layer Layer 7 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. application-level gateway firewall A firewall that filters traffic based on the Internet service (in other words. application) used to transmit or receive the data. Application-level gateways are known as second-generation firewalls. asymmetric key Public key cryptosystems that use a pair of keys (public and private) for each participant. Messages encrypted with one key from the pair can only be decrypted with the other key from the same pair. asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) A cell-switching technology rather than a packet-switching technology like Frame Relay. ATM uses virtual circuits much like Frame Relay. but because it uses fixed-size frames or cells. it can guarantee throughput. This makes ATM an excellent WAN technology for voice and video conferencing. The exploitation of a vulnerability by a threat agent. The loss of signal strength and integrity on a cable because of the length of the cable. The process of verifying or testing that the identity claimed by a subject is valid. Authentication Header (AH) An IPSec protocol that provides authentication. integrity. and nonrepudiation. authentication protocols Protocol used to provide the transport mechanism for logon credentials. Authentication Service (AS) An element of the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC). The AS verifies or rejects the authenticity and timeliness of tickets. A process that ensures that the requested activity or object access is possible given the rights and privileges assigned to the authenticated identity (in other words. subject). automatic private IP addressing (APIPA) A feature of Windows that assigns an IP address to a system should DHCP address assignment fail. auxiliary alarm system An additional function that can be added to either local or centralized alarm systems. The purpose of an auxiliary alarm system is to notify local police or fire services when an alarm is triggered. A communication medium that supports only a single communication signal at a time. The minimum level of security that every system throughout the organization must meet. Basic Rate Interface (BRI) An ISDN service type that provides two B. or data. channels and one D. or management. channel. Each B channel offers 64Kbps. and the D channel offers 16Kbps. behavior-based detection An intrusion discovery mechanism used by IDS. Behavior-based detection finds out about the normal activities and events on your system through watching and learning. Once it has accumulated enough data about normal activity. it can detect abnormal and possible malicious activities and events. Also known as statistical intrusion detection. anomaly detection. and heuristics-based detection. Bell-LaPadula model A confidentiality-focused security model based on the state machine model and employing mandatory access controls and the lattice model. best evidence rule A rule that states that when a document is used as evidence in a court proceeding. the original document must be introduced. Copies will not be accepted as evidence unless certain exceptions to the rule apply. Biba model An integrity-focused security model based on the state machine model and employing mandatory access controls and the lattice model. birthday attack An attack in which the malicious individual seeks to substitute in a digitally signed communication with a different message that produces the same message digest. thereby maintaining the validity of the original digital signature. This is based on the statistical anomaly that in a room with 23 people. the probability of two of more people having the same birthday is greater than 50 percent. block cipher A cipher that applies the encryption algorithm to an entire message block at the same time. Transposition ciphers are examples of block ciphers. A block cipher that operates on 64-bit blocks of text and uses variable-length keys ranging from a relatively insecure 32 bits to an extremely strong 448 bits. x of y cards Next > >> >\|
Maintaining Good Dental Hygiene One of the most beautiful accessories to adorn your face is a smile. Though there are ways of professionally improving the state of your teeth, it is up to you to take care of them on a day to day basis. There are proper habits you can adopt that will contribute to healthy teeth. Another way is consuming a balanced meal full of nutrients to nourish them. Regular brushing of teethWe’ve been taught the merits of brushing since we were young. This is a habit that we take on to adulthood as well. Teeth should be brushed after we wake up and before we go to sleep. You can brush again in the afternoon after a heavy meal. There are a few things you should remember while brushing. That is, the bristles of the toothbrush should be at an angle of 45 degrees near the gum line. They should be in contact with the teeth and gums. You should take care to replace your toothbrush every three to four months. Regular flossingFlossing will help remove food particles that are hard to reach with the toothbrush. You can floss once a day, ideally when you go to bed at night. You should take care when brushing and flossing if you’re wearing braces. You can consult a braces specialist to learn how to take care of braces or retainers. Avoiding tobacco and limiting soda, coffee and alcoholTobacco will result in bad odour and discoloured yellow teeth. If you’re a frequent user, you can get the help of tea, candy or coffee to mask the bad breath. But coffee and also soda and alcohol contain phosphorous. Phosphorous can help to maintain healthy teeth. But overconsumption of the mentioned beverages can cause the levels of phosphorous to rise. This will deplete the level of calcium in the body leading to tooth decay and gum disease. You can go for healthier alternatives such as milk and tea. Visiting the dentist regularlyYou should maintain frequent visits to a dental clinic in Singapore at least twice a year. This is important particularly if you’re wearing dentures, braces or retainers. Sometimes the oral tissue might become inflamed due to such measures and you will need an expert opinion on how to care for them. Consume calcium and vitaminsCalcium is important for teeth and bone growth. Some foods that contain calcium are milk, broccoli, yoghurt, fortified orange juice, cheese and other dairy products. Calcium supplements are another option. Phosphorous is also needed for strong and healthy enamel. You can get your phosphorous requirement through fish, meat and eggs. Vitamin B, copper, iron, zinc, potassium, iodine and vitamin D will contribute to healthy teeth as well.
First published March 14, 2001 Growing environmental problems threaten the very basis of Haitian society CAMBRIDGE, MA, Mar. 14 - March Environmental degradation has damaging effects on Haiti, the poorest in the Americas. It harms the health of the estimated 7.8 million Haitians, enormously reduces economic productivity in the Caribbean country, and leads to the loss of "amenities." Amenities are harder to measure (i.e., on a scale of zero to ten, with zero as no opinion and ten extremely costly) than costs to health and productivity. But they may be valued just as highly by participants, say, 500 men and women or sample of the population of study, in a relevant research study, using a six-question-ten-point scale survey instrument (questionnaire), including the research question (the Y dependent variable), provided by the researcher to collect primary data, which he may than analyze, evaluate and compare to determine the many other ways in which the people of Haiti would benefit from the existence of an unspoiled environment. sbates3.jpg (6719 bytes) One of Port-au-Prince's trash-filled streets. videoVisualize Haiti's environmental problems The health of millions of Haitians is threatened by contaminated drinking water, resulting from long outdated and trash-filled opened sewers. As a result, diarrheal diseases, including malaria, have killed an exorbitant number of Haitians. So, too, the high number of tuberculosis cases, many of them (relevant) drug-resistant, that Haiti continues to register can, in part, be attributed to the problem of sanitation. Other effects of water pollution are apparent. They include trash-filled beaches, foul-smelling waterways, swams of dead fish, and floating debris, especially after days of heavy rains. "Economic development and sound management are complementary aspect of the same agenda. Without adequate environmental protection, development will be undermined; without development, environment protection will fail." World Development Report 1992 Dust, fumes generated by hundreds of thousand old cars, which if Haiti had competent elected leaders would probably fail the emission test, and extremely hot outdoor and indoor air, with a nauseating odor, all have caused illness and death on an enormous scale. Soil erosion has caused economic loses of an incalculable percentage point of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Most of the country's land suffers from salinity, which results from erosion, causing food production to plummet, as the population continues to grow (more than 2 percent annually) at an accelerated rate. Since wood is the main source of fuel for nearly all Haitians, a higher percentage of the land is expected to be deforested in the near future. The multiplying effect will certainly be added-soil salinity, further reducing the country's (Haiti, where 62 percent of the population is underfed, is the third hungriest country in the world after Afghanistan and Somalia, said a recently published United Nations report) food production capacity. But a team of Haitian lawyers, architects, botanists, university professors, including the owner of Habitation LeClerc, Katherine Dunham, a 91-year-old American choreographer and anthropologist who went to Haiti in 1936 to study local dance traditions, remain hopeful. Something, at least on a small scale, can be done to address the growing environmental problems facing Haiti. They are currently trying to raise the capital needed, though their previous efforts proved to be vain, to pay for the cost of rescuing Habitation LeClerc, a 50-acre (20-hectare), situated in Port-au-Prince's despicable slum of Martissant, from the environmental degradation that continues to threaten the very basis of Haitian society. Like many buildings in the U.S. are reputed for having being the residences of the long assassinated civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, to include the late and first U.S. president Georges Washington, for example, so are many of Habitation LeClerc'. One of Habitation LeClerc's edifices was the private residence of Napoleon Bonaparte's sister Pauline in colonial times. The late and former American first lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, later Jacqueline Onassis, including Mick and Bianca Jagger, slept in its hedonistic hotel when they visited Haiti, in the 1970s. But today, unfortunately what used to be Habitation LeClerc, including its buildings and Botanical Gardens: stately palms, sky-high ferns, bamboo, and several mapou trees believed to be sacred by most of the estimated 7.8 millions Haitians who practice voodoo, is rather a metaphor for the environmental problems facing Haiti. Territorial bandits, mountains of trash (the heights of most mountains of trash seem to be greater than most of the country's mountains), pigs have eased their way up to and over the walls of the buildings and Botanical Gardens, causing most of the plants to be near extinction or die. The unpleasant results of a recent examination of the state of Habitation LeClerc, honestly carried out by a "de minimus" number of Haitian citizens who happen to be persons of high culture, a privilege in a country where the literacy rate is only 15 percent, are truly representative of the estimated 7.8 million Haitians' opinions about the Caribbean nation's other major problems. Haiti has rampant crime rates; high rates (85 percent) of unemployment and underemployment at Third World depression levels; high rates of economic inequality; and government gross incompetence - all severely affecting Haiti and its people. What is the opinion offered by many Haitian environmentalists concerning the mass internal migration the Caribbean Republic continues to experience? "Such a problem is like a 'Domocles sword' hanging over Haiti," they say. The explanation is most of the peasants, having very little or nothing at all to do in the countryside have migrated to the cities in search of a better life, causing further environmental problems, since the cities were not built to accommodate their present number of residents. If there are other major problems Haitians are concerned about they are drug trafficking and perpetual gross human rights violations, as the United States State Department International Narcotics Report 2000 and United States Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2000 respectively suggest. The dons and drug gangs of the slums are often more heavily armed than the police, preventing sanitary workers believed to be police officers from venturing into their territories. Foreign citizens interested in Haitian affairs would agree that the results of the recent examination of the state of Habitation LeClerc can easily help understand how nearly all Haitian inhabitants of the Caribbean country feel about dehumanizing poverty that they have been long forced to endure, too. "The present deplorable condition of Habitation LeClerc is an example of Haiti's tragedy, one, which end seems not to be in the foreseeable future, since Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the contestable president, does not have an economic and political plan, convincing us Haiti will, even in the distant future, enter the pantheon of respectable nations, which an acceptable quality of life, among many others, as defined by the World Bank, is a prerequisite for," said many Haitian scholars. That's also bad news. Like many other Third World nations, Haiti must attempt to do what may be found to be impossible: design a successful plan after first embracing democracy to address the multitude of environmental problems that threaten the very basis of its society. Yves A. Isidor is an economics faculty member at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth who has served in the capacity of economic adviser through his firm, Cambridge Financial Corp., to several socially responsible multinational corporations and foreign governments. He is also the spokesperson for We Haitians United We Stand For Democracy, a Cambridge, MA.-based nonpartisan political pressure group. RELATED SECTION: Energy and Environment ., the scholarly journal of democracy and human rights More from Main Columns Books And Arts Miscellaneous
Home Discussion Topics Dictionary Almanac Signup Login (1) A set containing all and only the members of two or more given sets (2) The shape or manner in which things come together and a connection is made (3) Make contact or come together "The two roads join here" (4) Cause to become joined or linked "Join these two parts so that they fit together" (5) Become part of; become a member of a group or organization "He joined the Communist Party as a young man" (6) Come into the company of "She joined him for a drink" (7) Be or become joined or united or linked "The two streets connect to become a highway" "Our paths joined" "The travelers linked up again at the airport" From , from , from Proto-Indo-European *yeug- “to join, unite”. 1. To combine more than one item into one; to put together. The plumber joined the two ends of the broken pipe. We joined our efforts to get an even better result. 2. To come together; to meet. Parallel lines never join. These two rivers join in about 80 miles. 3. To come into the company of. 4. To become a member of. Many children join a sports club. Most politicians have joined a party. 1. An intersection of piping or wiring; an interconnect. 2. An intersection of data in two or more database tables.
NASA technology aims to save commercial airlines fuel, time 23 September 2015 Two passenger airlines are to test NASA-developed software designed to help air carriers save time and reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions. The TASAR application can be seen in the far right screen (photo: NASA/David Bowman) During the next three years, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines will use the Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) application, to make 'traffic aware strategic aircrew requests' (TASAR). "TAP connects directly to the aircraft avionics information hub on the aircraft," says David Wing, TASAR project lead at NASA’s Langley Research Centre in Hampton, Virginia. "It reads the current position and altitude of the aircraft, its flight route, and other real-time information that defines the plane's current situation and active flight plan. Then it automatically looks for a variety of route and/or altitude changes that could save fuel or flight time and displays those solutions directly to the flight crew." TAP can also connect with the aircraft's Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) receiver and scan the ADS-B signals of nearby air traffic to avoid potential conflicts in any proposed flight path changes, making it easier for air traffic controllers to approve a pilot's route change request. For airlines with Internet connectivity in the cockpit, TAP can access information - such as real-time weather conditions, wind forecast updates and restricted airspace status - to further increase flight efficiency. The software is loaded on a tablet computer, which many airline pilots already use for charts and flight calculations. Wing and his team have tested the TASAR software twice aboard a Piaggio P180 Avanti aircraft, a high-performance technology test bed owned and operated by Advanced Aerospace Solutions, LLC of Raleigh, North Carolina. The system worked well on its initial test flight from Virginia to Kentucky, according to its test pilot, former airline captain, William Cotton. "We used it to make a route change request from air traffic control, which they granted," said Cotton. "We got a short-cut that saved four minutes off the flight time." Even four minutes of flight time shaved off of each leg of a trip made by an airline could result in massive fuel and time savings, according to researchers. The software provided similar results as flight tests continued in the northeast corridor. A second round of flight tests was recently completed to ensure readiness for operational use by partner airlines. The TASAR flight tests came after a dozen pilots provided feedback on the technology in a simulation at the University of Iowa Operator Performance Laboratory in Iowa City, Iowa. In addition, aerospace systems manufacturer Rockwell Collins of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, analysed TASAR to make sure it is safe and can be readily certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration. Developers say the new technology won't require changes to the roles and responsibilities of pilots or air traffic controllers. NASA researchers expect this and other aviation technologies under development will help revolutionize the national airspace system, reducing delays and environmental impacts and improving passenger comfort and efficiency, even as the demand for air travel continues to grow. Print this page \| E-mail this page
What Is Hydroponic Gardening and How to Do It? Gardening is the passion of so many people and for the ones who want to keep up with the latest trends in this domain, it is vital to learn about the hydroponic principles. They are as easy as it gets and can do a lot of good to your concept of gardening. The hydroponics requires plants to grow without the use of any type of soil. This might sound a little bit strange at first, but it is actually a good way to keep the plants watered and fully provided with food. Everyone knows that the function of the soil is to give nutrients and support the roots of the plants. This means that plants actually use the water and the food that is in the soil. In the case of hydroponics, the plants are given the proper nutrients and support for their roots but with no soil. In this way, they have better access to them. Most people are interested in this new type of gardening; so there are plenty of online support and resources to make their quest easier. You will need to be sure that you respect certain conditions in order for the gardening to be successful. 1. The Plants In a hydroponic garden you can grow medicinal plants, flowers of veggies. Most popular ones are orchids, cucumbers, peppers or tomatoes. Starting a garden is easy as you need to first buy the seeds of the plants that you want to grow. 2. The System The hydroponic systems are of six types. You will need to choose the right one for the garden. In order to choose the best one, you will need to take into consideration the following factors: budget, garden size, lighting, medium, and so on. In this way, you will be able to pick smartly. 3. The Garden The next thing to do is to decide upon the size of your garden. This will determine the levels of air circulation, water, electrical power and the needed systems in order to produce them. The water has to have the right pH level so that the plants get the necessary nutrients. If you go for indoor gardening, you will need an entire system based on electrical power. 4. Various Accessories You will need to get a variety of accessories according to the complexity of your garden. Among all, these will contain meters, water pumps, fans, light sources. In most cases, it is excellent to demand assistance from someone who already has a hydroponic garden. 5. The Light If you decide to have a hydroponic indoor garden, you need to be aware that light is a vital element. Choosing the ideal lighting system needs to be done according to the room which is designed for the plants. You will need to provide a light similar to the sun so that the plants have the right conditions to grow. 6. The Nutrients The nutrients in a hydroponic garden come from prepared solutions. As you will not use soil, you need to make sure that the plants get all the elements that they need. 7. The Environment The new type of gardening will replace the classic soil with an ideal environment, which is excellent for the plants. You may want to ensure a proper medium for growing so you will need to use a substitute which is benefit to plants. Hydroponic gardening could be the new type of plant growing solution as it demands no actual soil. The resources are little and on a small space, many types of plants can grow. This solution is certainly more of the future than of the present, but it sure has its fair share of popularity among gardeners. Leave a Reply
Exploring the Gospels back \| next The word "gospel" comes from an Old English word that meant "good tale" or "good news." Today the word "gospel" is used to describe the four New Testament books that present the life of Christ. The 4 Gospels Matthew is the gospel of the kingdom. It was addressed to Jews to show that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the "King of the Jews." Mark is the gospel of miracles. Mark's fast-paced account was written to a Roman audience. Mark portrayed Jesus as God's suffering servant. Luke is the historical gospel. Luke emphasized the humanity of Jesus, and portrayed Christ as the "Son of Man." John is the gospel of belief. John was written to the world to show that Jesus was the "Son of God." Gospels at a Glance: A chart showing fast facts about the gospels, including authors, audience, dates, and key words. back \| next
Advantages of cloning Advantages of Cloning 1. Benefits to modern medicine:- Even today, the full potential of stem cells has not been fully explored. The issue of stem cells has led to controversy because embryos are generally used and they have to be destroyed for the cells to be used. However, a number of researchers believe that stem cells will eventually change the face of medicine as we know it. Given the fact that the cells can be manipulated to mimic other types of cells, this can provide new ways to treat diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. 2. Animals can be used for a supply of organs for transplant:- Cloning also offers hope to persons needing organ transplants. People requiring organ transplants to survive an illness often wait years for a suitable donor. In many cases these patients die waiting, as there are long lists of people requiring organs. Theoretically, cloning could eliminate this by producing more animals that can act as suitable donors. Pig livers have been successfully transplanted to human beings, as an interim measure until a human liver is found. Additionally, cloning of these animals not put a burden on the world’s food supply. 3. Infertile couples can have children:- The infertile through cloning have the chance to have a child of their own. Infertile women can have their own babies with the help of this technique by implantion of the cloned babies into their bodies. This can eliminate the mental and physical pains among the infertile couples. 4. Reverse the process of aging:- Cloning is being touted as a future answer to reverse the effects of aging. The anti-aging market is a prime target because it is already a multibillion industry. 5. Prevent animals from becoming extinct or endangered- Despite the best efforts of conservationists worldwide, some species are nearing extinction. The successful cloning of Dolly represents the first step in protecting endangered wildlife. 6. Improve food supply:- Clones of animals and plants can be more resistant to diseases and of better quality. Cloning could provide a means of cultivating plants that are stronger and more resistant to diseases, while producing more. The same could happen to livestock as well where diseases such as foot and mouth disease could be eradicated. Cloning could therefore effectively solve the world’s food problem and minimize or possible eradicate starvation. Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
Latest News Backdoors are necessary to strengthen national security by Joanne Lee Written by Samuel Tse After the recent terrorist attack at the San Bernardino Inland Region Center, the FBI launched an investigation, only to find that the iPhone used by the suspect in the case was locked. Due to the safety mechanisms put in place by Apple, the FBI could not guess the password until they unlock the phone, with the iPhone deleting all of its data after a certain number of password retries. This led to the FBI asking Apple to create a key to disable the phone’s self-destruct function, allowing the FBI to unlock the phone. Apple refused. The FBI did eventually unlock the phone without assistance from Apple and dropped the lawsuit, but the question of whether federal agencies and law enforcement should or shouldn’t have free access to locked devices still remains. Government agencies and law enforcement should have access to locked electronic devices because they have the right to uphold the law and to properly solve crimes. By allowing law enforcement to access devices, they can use possible evidence in the devices to help solve the cases like the San Bernardino terrorist attack. This valuable information can go a long way in convicting suspects with information such as locations of suspects at the time of the crime and communication between them. The victims of crimes should also be given justice and a just ending for their loss. In addition, without the evidence from electronic devices, the suspects may not be able to convicted, allowing them to walk free without any consequences. The FBI is not asking for the key to unlock iphones in order to do whatever they want with it. They have justified reasons to search devices. Even the U.N. has stated that undermining encryption is okay for security and safety purposes. The FBI can also use the program Apple creates to solve other crimes involving Apple products. Apple products are being used more and more around the world and it is only right for criminal investigation units to be able to access those devices to solve crimes. Nowadays, communication of information happens through the use of technology and if FBI cannot use that information for their cases, they are at a severe disadvantage. The FBI can also use the program to prevent potential terrorist attacks. Although backdoor access to devices can affect the overall security of devices, it is more important to have security over our own lives than security over our devices. By having access to devices, federal agencies a better chance to prevent terrorist attacks. Surveillance of our devices has worked in the past. During a House Intelligence Hearing in 2013, the head of the National Security Agency at the time, Keith Alexander stated that the NSA has helped prevent “potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11.” Would we risk the safety of our friends and family so our phones have added security? Apple has stated that allowing the FBI the access the iPhone is a violation of our privacy. They say that compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. But Apple’s and private corporations’ stance is too absolute. Not giving the FBI the ability to access Apple’s devices sets a negative precedent that we can never sacrifice privacy for security. We should value public safety above all, even at the cost of a bit of privacy. Apple can protect their customers by having limitations to how the government can use the program to unlock iPhones. The FBI would not be able to access the devices unless they have it physically in custody, which is unlike the NSA spying program, where they could monitor devices even when they do not have the devices physically. Allowing the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to have access to our devices can go a long way in protecting American citizens. With backdoor access, law enforcement can effectively prevent possible terrorist attacks and crimes. Our own safety and security as the citizens of the United States should be our priority, not the security of our devices. Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s %d bloggers like this:
The Real Value of Emotional Intelligence (Infographic) Having a high IQ is great if you are going to take tests for the rest of your life. Your Emotional Quotient, or EQ, is going to have a greater impact in your real-world success in life. Here’s what you need to know. Reactance is the desire to do the opposite of what is requested or advised, due to a perceived threat to freedom of choice. Reactance can occur when someone is heavily pressured to accept a certain view or attitude. Reactance can cause the person to adopt or strengthen a view or attitude that is contrary to what was intended, and also increases resistance to persuasion. People using reverse psychology are playing on at least an informal awareness of reactance, attempting to influence someone to choose the opposite of what they request. Psychological reactance occurs in response to threats to perceived behavioral freedoms. An example of such behavior can be observed when an individual engages in a prohibited activity in order to deliberately taunt the authority who prohibits it, regardless of the utility or disutility that the activity confers. An individual’s freedom to select when and how to conduct their behavior, and the level to which they are aware of the relevant freedom—and are able to determine behaviors necessary to satisfy that freedom—affect the generation of psychological reactance. It is assumed that if a person’s behavioral freedom is threatened or reduced, they become motivationally aroused. The fear of loss of further freedoms can spark this arousal and motivate them to re-establish the threatened freedom. Because this motivational state is a result of the perceived reduction of one’s freedom of action, it is considered a counterforce, and thus is called psychological reactance. Freedom is not an abstract consideration, but rather a feeling associated with real behaviors, including actions, emotions, and attitudes. Reactance also explains denial as it is encountered in addiction counselling. Research demonstrates that a counselor can drive resistance levels up and down dramatically according to his or her personal counseling style. Use of a respectful reflective approach described in motivational interviewing and applied as motivation enhancement therapy, rather than by argumentation, the accusation of being in denial, and direct confrontations, lead to the motivation to change and avoid the reactance elicited by strong direct confrontation. Self-reflection is not spending hours contemplating your navel. No! It’s: What are my values, and what am I going to do about it? This is not some intellectual exercise. It’s all about self-improvement, being self-aware, knowing myself, and getting better. There are three ways that periodic self-reflection can strengthen leadership, as well as some of prompts. Know Your Priorities—and Where You Fall Short. Anybody in a managerial position has two basic responsibilities: prioritize what must be done, and allocate resources to get those things done efficiently. But how can you possibly prioritize or allocate if you haven’t figured out what really matters? Self-reflection allows us to understand what is important, and focus on what might be done differently. Baxter was focused on increasing its growth rate. Other firms were making acquisitions right and left, while Baxter was not. So they stepped back, and asked, if we want to grow externally, what are other companies doing that we aren’t? It turned out that the companies that were growing successfully had diverted resources from their core operations to establish large business-development departments. Baxter at the time had a much smaller department. But until taking time to research and reflect on the matter, they didn’t realize we needed a larger team of people who could fully dedicate themselves to this issue. Of course, after priorities have been defined, it is important for action to follow. To prevent a gulf between word and deed, one writes out his self-reflection each night, creating a record of what he has done and what he says he will do. He also checks continuously with family, friends, and close colleagues to ensure he is holding himself accountable and not living in some fantasy land. Minimize Surprise. Members of the United States military are excellent role models for self-reflection. They forecast and plan obsessively in order to do one thing—minimize surprise. Quality, safety, and compliance standards are, of course, essential to minimizing the possibility of disaster. But we were self-reflective enough to realize that it could happen. So, when it did happen, we weren’t confused. And self-reflection need not mitigate only out-of-the-blue disasters; it also prepares leaders for more routine, but no less insidious disappointments. A head of a publicly traded company, for instance, knew that not every quarterly performance was going to be positive. To assume that performance is going to go up every single quarter—that’s not really logical. And by the way, when the drop does happen, what are you going to do about it? Preparation has the added benefit of reducing anxiety about the possibility of things going wrong. The reason many, many people have trouble balancing their lives is that they have not been self-reflective enough to figure out what they’re trying to balance. Build Stronger Teams. Self-reflection’s effects go beyond the self. If I don’t know myself, is it possible for me to lead myself? I doubt that. If I can’t lead myself, how could I possibly lead other people? Strong leaders not only practice self-reflection themselves; they also encourage their teams to do so. I have a responsibility to develop every single person I touch. And of course, a self-reflective team is a team that has its priorities straight and arrives prepared to deal with any setbacks. So if one of his employees is bouncing around like a lunatic, he meets with him to establish the value of settling down for a moment, taking a breath, and considering what’s important. If I’m going to help you develop as a leader, one of the first things I’m going to try to do is to help you understand the tremendous benefit of self-reflection. Next Steps. How can leaders get themselves, and their teams, practicing self-reflection? How a person reflects, he says, is a personal matter. But leaders—and leaders-to-be—carve self-reflection into their daily routine. It takes only 15 minutes, and we all have 15 minutes somewhere in the day: during a commute, during exercise, during a cup of coffee. In fact, as an added benefit, reflection can lead to finding more time for what is important. Still convinced you cannot fit self-reflection on your calendar? That’s often an excuse to avoid an uncomfortable exercise. There could be a pretty big difference between what you say is important and what you’re actually doing, and you may not want to confront that. There’s one debilitating behavior that most of us fall victim to with great regularity: listening to critical voices in our heads. Whether they originate from external criticism or our own fears and doubts, these negative voices tell us we’re not good enough, kind enough, or productive enough. Echoing negative thoughts inside our heads increases our chances of depression, isolates us from others, and inhibits us from pursuing goals. We need five positive voices for every one negative voice we carry around in our heads to feel balanced, happy, and productive. Here’s how to move past negativity and into productivity: • Look for the positive. We often assume that the biggest potential for improvement lies in fixing our weaknesses, but amplifying our strengths is also important. People who use their strengths daily are six times more engaged, and strengths-focused teams are 12.5% more productive. Instead of only asking about what you did wrong, request positive feedback too. Ask, “What did you like about my presentation?” or “What worked well for you in this pitch deck?” • Hear the positive. Take it in. Many of my clients will ask for positive feedback but only start taking notes once the negative feedback starts. Jot down the positive feedback so you know what to replicate. It also cues the feedback giver that positive feedback is just as important to you as areas to improve. • Dig in to understand the positive. Allow yourself to lean in and explore praise. Think of a compliment someone paid you recently. What did you do in response? Did you make excuses? “I was lucky.” Did you minimize it? “I had a lot of help.” At best, you probably said, “Thank you.” In contrast, what do you do when someone makes negative comments? You ask questions and even request examples. Turn a compliment into an opportunity to gather concrete examples of how you’re effective. For example: “I’m so glad my workshop was helpful to you. What about it was helpful? What did I do that helped you learn?” • Believe the positive, and act as if it were true. Even if you somehow work yourself up to following the three steps above, you might still have a hard time believing what people say about you. Maybe you wonder about the feedback giver’s ulterior motive. Instead, believe what they’re saying might actually be true. Find the people who have your best interests at heart and who you can count on to tell you the truth. When you hear their voices over and over again, you’re more likely to see the positive themes and internalize them. Make it a daily practice to shoot for a five-to-one ratio. You may not keep a precise count of how many positive and negative voices you’re allowing inside your head each day, but once you start to stockpile positive comments, you’ll notice a difference in your energy level and output. With a full tank, it’s easier to pass on the goodwill and be a positive voice for others. Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
Informative Speech Galapagos Islands Outline Essay 791 Words Jul 3rd, 2013 4 Pages Galapagos Islands Purpose: To inform my classmates about the Galapagos Islands. Thesis: The Galapagos Islands are located in the eastern Pacific Ocean, a beautiful and exotic place for your next vacation. Organizational Pattern: Topical I. Introduction A. Attention Getter: Have you guys heard about giant tortoises? They live in the Galapagos Islands, one of the most beautiful places on Earth. B. Relevance: Most college students want to go on vacation once they graduate from college and usually travel within the U.S. Why not travel to an exotic place outside the country?[VISUAL AID] C. Credibility: I lived in Ecuador the country the islands belong to and saw a lot of documentaries about the islands and some of my …show more content… From June to November the water and air temperature are colder because of the Humboldt Current, this is nutrient water that attracts fish and sea birds. The sky is filled with clouds, wind is stronger and seas a bit rougher.[VISUAL AID] 5. 97% of the land is designated as National Parks. f. Visits can be made only to specific visitor sites with certified naturalist guides. g. The Galapagos National Park monitors visitors and ecological conditions. h. Different sites are known for specific scenery, vegetation and wildlife. Transition: I hope you are all excited about this place by now! B. Planning a trip 6. It’s possible to get to the islands by boat, but mostly all visitors travel by air for convenience. i. Flights depart from the main cities of Ecuador which are Quito and Guayaquil. j. Airlines like TAME and AeroGal offer flights to the islands. The average flight it’s about $425 for a roundtrip. k. There are two main airports in the islands, in Baltra and San Cristobal. l. Upon arrival a fee has to be paid for the park, $100 for adults and $50 for children.[VISUAL AID] 7. Now what items should you bring with you.[VISUAL AID] m. Let’s start off with clothing, bring light clothes… More about Informative Speech Galapagos Islands Outline Essay
What were some very important political and social/cultural events of the Roman era? Expert Answers bullgatortail eNotes educator\| Certified Educator Gladiatorial combat was one of the most famous pasttimes in ancient Rome. Individual gladiators would often fight to the "first blood" or even to the death, which was often decided by a signal from the emperor. Animal fights, either between animals or including gladiators, were also common. The Circus Maximus was another popular event in which chariot racing or horse races were featured. The Circus (stadium) was often flooded, in which sea battles were fought in front of crowds as large as 385,000 people. Markets and gambling were also a part of events at the Circus--a stadium which was used for more than a thousand years. Popular sports included field hockey, handball and an early form of soccer. Music concerts were also a popular distraction, often staged in amphitheaters or in an Odeon, a building specifically used for musical events. Romans also attended theatres, gymnasiums, libraries, public baths and shops that were often housed all under one roof in huge buildings such as Trajan's Forum. Public executions were also attended by thousands. Political assemblies, such as the Comitia Calata, allowed Romans to witness various proclamations and attend feasts. Access hundreds of thousands of answers with a free trial. Start Free Trial Ask a Question
posted by . Any web sites that will have a brief, informative biography of John Calvin?? About his life and influence on Calvinism.. Thank you! Respond to this Question First Name School Subject Your Answer Similar Questions 2. Science 3. History 4. history 5. History Can you give me some web sites were, I can find this information at? 6. math Survey five Web sites that contain mathematical activities, manipulatives, or lesson plans for fractions, decimals, or percents. Prepare an annotated bibliography for each Web site, along with a brief explanation of why each site is … 7. English Can someone please give me sites to find out the history of the Winter Olympic games. I only need a brief history about it in point form. Thanks :-) 8. GEN 105 · Conduct online research regarding the strongest of your multiple intelligences. Find three Web sites that accurately describe that intelligence. If you identified more than one intelligence, choose one. Your classmates review your … 9. History What impact did Martin Luther and John Calvin have upon the perceptions and events of the Old World? 10. lit class what is the allusion in the passage from a letter written by a world war I veteran in the mid 1920's well we are finally getting what we richly deserve. the adjusted compensation act law. Even Calvin Coolidge wouldn't put his john … More Similar Questions
Edgar Allan Poe Author Edgar Allan Poe Full Name: Edgar Allan Poe Profession: Author Why Famous: Considered part of the American Romantic Movement, and best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction, and was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. Born: January 19, 1809 Star Sign: Capricorn Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts, USA Died: October 7, 1849 (aged 40) Married Life • 1836-05-16 US writer Edgar Allan Poe (26) marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm Historical Events in the Life of Edgar Allan Poe • 1831-03-06 Edgar Allan Poe removed from West Point military academy • 1841-04-14 1st detective story published, Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in Rue Morgue" (April 1841) • 1845-01-29 Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Raven" 1st published (NYC) • 1849-10-03 American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death. Famous Authors
Dismiss Notice Dismiss Notice Join Physics Forums Today! What does b indicate for y=(A^x)^b 1. Aug 26, 2009 #1 what does b indicate for y=(A^x)^b i was thinking it should be the rate of rate of change or something, idk. 2. jcsd 3. Aug 26, 2009 #2 [itex]y=(A^x)^b=(e^{\ln A \cdot x})^b=e^{b \ln A \cdot x}[/itex] So b is a part of (along with lnA) of the exponential rate of growth (or decay). 4. Aug 27, 2009 #3 so wat does b indicate for y=e^(bx) 5. Aug 27, 2009 #4 User Avatar Science Advisor What do you mean by "what does b indicate? It is a number multiplying x! It is true that, for that particular function, y'= be^(bx) so y'= by. In this particular example b is again what Euclideus said: "the exponential rate of growth (or decay)". (He said that it was part of that along with ln A in e^(b ln(A) x) so you have just replaced his "b ln(A)" with b. 6. Aug 27, 2009 #5 its an assignment question. you have T=A*e^(-kt) and the question asks, write down the value of k as a percentage and explain what this value indicates. i thought if i figured out what b in y=(a^x)^b was i could explain what k is. hence why i put it here and not in the homework section. i have been trying to figure this out and i have some complicated excel tables going and stuff. but i still couldnt get it. 7. Aug 27, 2009 #6 If you change k how does this affect the curve? 8. Aug 27, 2009 #7 you are probably required to find out the percentage decrease of temperature per unit time. this is analogus to the radioactive decay where we say "half life" which is technically the time taken for 50% decay. so in that case the percentage decrease per unit time wud be = 50/(half life). it means that in next 1 second that percent of matrial wud decay. i think you should now try to figure out yourself what to do next. more explaination would be spoon feeding Similar Discussions: What does b indicate for y=(A^x)^b 2. Origin of y=mx+b (Replies: 7)
Changes in Ocean Behavior Prosilica GC2450C in Ocean Sedimentation Study München, (PresseBox) - The US Geological Survey (USGS) is renowned worldwide for its studies on the environment. The organization aims to provide reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth. One of its divisions, the USGS Coastal & Marine Geology Program (CMGP) focuses on research on the coastal and marine environment such as river and ocean sedimentation. The program has three field centers in the US, Wood’s Hole - Massachusetts, St Petersburg - Florida and Menlo Park / Santa Cruz - California where this current project is based. Sand grains study One of the project’s objectives is to capture close-up color images of sand grains in order to study their coarseness and how their size influences resuspension of sediments by waves and currents. The team will be looking to develop a theoretical model to predict how the sea-bed morphology off the Californian coast line might change over time and, in the longer term, study changes in ocean behavior. The USGS has undertaken similar projects in the past (e.g. Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center’s study of sediments in the Colorado river), however this is the first time that the organization has used a camera with Gigabit Ethernet technology. System set-up The Prosilica camera used in this system is the 5-megapixel GC2450C (color model) with Gigabit Ethernet output. The camera, which features the high-quality Sony ICX-625 CCD image sensor, was selected by the team at the CMGP for its excellent image quality, high sensitivity, low noise, high resolution (2448 x 2050) and ultra-compact size (33x46x43mm). The GC2450C is set-up inside a 30.5cm (12”) long and 9cm (3.5”) outside diameter stainless steel pressure housing with 5mm (.2”) thick acrylic windows fitted with a light ring to ensure even lighting around the main target area. The pressure housing itself is mounted on a custom-made tripod which is operated (i.e. raised and lowered into the ocean) by a hydraulic system. The system is linked to a PC located off the Santa Cruz wharf via a 100 meter (300ft) long Cat-6 cable. The GC2450C is fitted with a macro-lens. Technical challenges After being tested at the marine facility in Santa Cruz, where technicians were working on camera focusing, a crucial matter for this project as the team will be studying sand grain particles measuring approximately a few tenth of a millimeter, the system has now been moved to the ocean just off the coast of Santa Cruz, California where it will be lowered at the bottom of the ocean every hour or two depending on conditions to capture aerial view images of sand grains. In the event of a storm the camera will be set to image more frequently to observe the higher activity. Other sensors will monitor other factors such as turbidity, solidity, concentration and grain size of particles and wave pressure to further study all the elements influencing sedimentation. Link Prosilica GC2450C Johann-G.Gutenberg-Str. 20 D-82140 Olching Phone +49 81 42 / 4 48 41-0 Fax +49 81 42 / 4 48 41-90 Sales in Germany and Austria Press releases you might also be interested in Weitere Informationen zum Thema "Forschung und Entwicklung": Künstliche Intelligenz: mehr Arbeitsplätze als -verluste Laut einer Studie des Marktforschungsunternehmens Gartner werden bis 2020 mehr Arbeitsplätze durch Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) geschaffen, als dadurch verloren gehen. Vor allem die Gesundheitsbranche soll profitieren. Der größte Jobverlierer wird die Produktions- und Fertigungsindustrie sein. Subscribe for news An error occurred!
Ancient stargazers noted that there were five star-like objects that moved relative to the fixed stars. Most of the time, these so-called "planets" moved westerly from night to night, just as do the fixed stars. However, occasionally they would loop around in the sky and move towards the east from night to night. This phenomenon is known as "retrograde motion". In May and June of 1999, Mars was close to Spica in the constellation Virgo. When I checked the movement of Mars using the program Skyglobe, I found that Mars would move close to Spica in early June and then move "backwards" as it began a retrograde loop. On May 19 I started a series of photos to record this phenomenon. All the photos were taken on Kodak Gold 800 print film using an exposure of approximately 10 seconds with a 55 mm lens at f/2. The negatives were scanned and a small part containing Mars and a triangle of stars was cropped from each image. The triange has Spica at its lower right corner and 74 Virginis at its upper left corner. A plastic template was made showing the four stars in the triangle and the size and orientation of each image was adjusted so that the triangle was always the same. The rectangle cropped from the negative was always the same size, 100 x 115 pixels. Having a fixed pattern of stars from image to image makes it very easy to see how Mars moves relative to the stars. One last bit of image processing was to reduce the color variation from picture to picture. Most photos were taken between 10 and 11 PM EDT, but some were taken earlier and some were affected by moonlight. It was possible to adjust the color of all the moonlit images except for the one taken on 5/25/99, when the moon was close to Mars and Spica. The pictures taken earlier in the evening were too blue to match to the others, so they were left alone.
1 Analysis on Ralph Waldo Emerson at EssayPedia.com Essay info Contact us Instant Quote Type of work: 275 words/page Price: $0 Make an order Our Prices 14 days per page 10 days per page 6 days per page 3 days per page 2 days per page 24 hours per page 12 hours per page 6 hours per page 3 hours per page Similar essays Write my essay on "Analysis on Ralph Waldo Emerson" Analysis on Ralph Waldo Emerson Jessica Linton Critical analysis on American literature I analyzed a selected poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson titled "Bacchus" written in 1847. In this poem I believe that he accurately depicted a metaphorical piece about everyone buying into things that weren't worth buying into, and jading their chance to boost themselves further in life. It sounds much like today, but was more realistic in the 1800's because it was spread by people and writings, real experiences, not television etc. Emerson starts out the poem with "Bring me wine, but wine which never grew". This to me expresses his need to thirst for things, which were true and solid. Truth is a reoccurring theme in many of Emerson's literary works. He wants knowledge, but things that have never been thought of before, ideas not yet conceived and put forth into motion in the world. He continues the poem with "Let its grapes the morn salute from a nocturnal root, which feels the acrid juice of Styx and Erebus". This represents the evil side of the world Emerson saw. He sensed that when people delved into things to gain more insight and connotation, they were withdrawn. He uses "grapes" again to show that this is linked to his first advance towards attempting to render new worldly ideas. All throughout the poem "Bacchus", Emerson uses wine to represent the "thirst" that people (mainly him) had for new, yet inspiring, not flippant, things in the world. He wrote "We buy ashes for bread; we buy diluted wine; give me of the true…". As I said before he used truth a lot, as a pure term to represent great knowledge, which he thought everyone could do with some taking of. "We buy ashes for bread…". This statement means they took part in things they didn't need. They accept authorities, and life "ingredients"... "Analysis on Ralph Waldo Emerson." EssayPedia.com. Jan 21, 2018 View full text essay on Analysis on Ralph Waldo Emerson 3 (603 words) Literature / English Plagiarism level of this essay is: 96% Order this essay written from scratch Right Now! Leave Your comment Enter symbols below: Captcha Image
Presentation is loading. Please wait. Presentation is loading. Please wait. Lecture Four Bhagavad Gita Lecturer: Wu Shiyu. Outline I. This session begins with a review of the first three lectures. A. Great books are books that. Similar presentations Presentation on theme: "Lecture Four Bhagavad Gita Lecturer: Wu Shiyu. Outline I. This session begins with a review of the first three lectures. A. Great books are books that."— Presentation transcript: 1 Lecture Four Bhagavad Gita Lecturer: Wu Shiyu 2 Outline I. This session begins with a review of the first three lectures. A. Great books are books that speak to us individually and represent books and authors that have made history. These books have lived past their time and can influence our lives and events today. Great books have a great theme, are written in noble language, and are able to speak across the ages. 3 B. The course is developed around eternal themes: God, fate, good and evil, the meaning of life, and how people live their lives in pursuit of truth. The books discuss duty and responsibility; law, justice, and government; love and beauty; courage, honor, and ambition; our relationship to nature; and our definition of education. 4 1. Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers From Prison is the work of a man in search of truth who found the courage to resist evil and who gave his life in the pursuit of good. His ideas have lived on despite Hitler’s attempt to crush them. The civil rights movement of the 1960s found special relevance in this work. 5 2. Homer’s Iliad offers wisdom to us today in such central themes as God, fate, and the meaning of good and evil. It also teaches how to live life with courage while understanding the virtue of moderation. It is the first great work of classical Greek literature that has come down to us. 6 3. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius represents the summation of Greek thought on God, fate, and good and evil. The Roman Empire of Marcus Aurelius, which was the Roman Empire of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., was the cultural heir of Greece, and Marcus Aurelius wrote the Meditations in Greek. The writings of Marcus Aurelius represent the culmination of the transformation of the god Zeus from the capricious and lecherous master found in the poetry of Homer to a god who is associated with absolute truth and good and who is equated with nature, is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-seeing. 7 C. In the same way that the Romans were the cultural heirs of the Greeks, the United States of today is the cultural heir of Europe. 8 II. The culmination of an image of god as a vision of truth can be found perhaps as early as 500 B.C. in the Bhagavad Gita, the “Song of God.” This work was a product of classical Indian civilization. 9 A. Around 1800 B.C., the flourishing civilizations around the Indus River were overrun by invaders from the west. B. The language of these invaders was Sanskrit, also the language of the Bhagavad Gita. Sanskrit was related to Persian and more distantly to Greek, Latin, and the Germanic languages. 10 C. These invaders, who called themselves Aryans, meaning “nobles,” imposed their rule by conquest. From warfare and destruction came a new civilization that produced rich poetry, including the Bhagavad Gita, in an epic form. 11 D. The religion of this people was Hinduism, a polytheistic religion that rejects the notion that the world of the gods is finite, but is willing to recognize any new divine power capable of rendering supernatural benefits to the community of worshipers. All nature was seen as a manifestation of the divine. Sacrifice is fundamental to this worship; it can be used to offer homage to the gods in return for their blessings and to avert evil. Individual gods can take many forms. As in Homer’s Iliad and the writings of Marcus Aurelius, this polytheistic notion of the divine can foster an image of one all-powerful and universal god. 12 III. The Bhagavad Gita is part of a longer work, the Mahabharata A. It is a poem that presents an epic story of warfare. B. Its author is unknown C. The warfare in the Bhagavad Gita is a symbol of the ongoing conflict of life and the struggle for the wisdom to live life in a way that is meaningful to us as individuals. It is the struggle between two warring tribes; it is also a struggle between right and wrong and between good and evil. D. At the beginning of the story, Arjuna, the hero, does not understand the nature of his struggle and wishes to withdraw from the war. 13 IV. Truth is a central idea of the Bhagavad Gita. A. The first word of the Bhagavad Gita is dharma, or “truth.” B. In this allegory, Krishna, the charioteer of Arjuna, is also the image of the supreme god of the universe; Arjuna is everyman, the soul. Krishna explains to Arjuna how he must travel the battlefield of life. 14 C. Gandhi’s statements reflect the theme of the Bhagavad Gita. Gandhi said that it is more important to believe that truth is God than that God is truth. Truth comes first. D. Krishna’s message to Arjuna is that Arjuna must be steadfast in the truth and must fight the battle of life understanding what truth is. 15 V. The Bhagavad Gita also explains that behind the changing formations of the divine, there is one underlying divine being who is all and that Krishna is one of his manifestations. A. God’s presence is everywhere throughout all things in the universe. B. In the Bhagavad Gita, God makes himself visible in his true form to Arjuna. This God is everywhere throughout the universe. The universe is contained in one atom of this divine being, and in every person, there is a part of this divine being. 16 VI. After this glimpse of the majesty of God and the understanding that God is all, an individual can come to an understanding of his or her role in the universe that God has created. That role is our soul. 17 A. This idea contrasts with the viewpoints seen in both the Iliad and the Mediations. Marcus Aurelius was unsure of the existence of the soul; if it did exist, he believed that it came to an end at death. For Homer, this life is what we have and we must live it. B. In the Bhagavad Gita, the soul endures, is eternal, and is divine. The task of mankind is to purify the soul and gain wisdom and truth so that the soul can gain ultimate liberation. 18 C. This ultimate liberation is the next step. The body is seen as a prison; bodily desires are the result of false knowledge and false wisdom (for example, the desire for power and wealth). Wisdom enables a person to begin to shed false desires. 19 1. The path of wisdom is to lead us to a stage that frees the soul for eternity from the bondage of the body. 2. Power leads to no ultimate liberation; after death, an individual becomes some other creature. 3. The fate an individual earns through making choices affects that individual for many cycles of death and rebirth. 4. The Bhagavad Gita is about making the correct choices through wisdom. Earthly actions are good or evil and have enduring consequences. Choices using true wisdom allow a person to ultimately gain eternal liberation. 20 D. Wisdom consists of understanding karma, which means the task that an individual has been assigned by God. Karma is the role and the task of the individual. The choice to accept karma must be made with full realization of the difficulty of performing one’s duty. Krishna teaches Arjuna that his duty is to fight this war. 21 1. A person who renounces his or her assigned task is doomed to eternal reincarnation and suffering. 2. Accepting the assigned task with fear also leads to endless cycles of reincarnation. 3. Accepting the task with a whole heart allows a being to rise a step or two. 4. Accepting the task with supreme spirit and a fully dutiful conscience and understanding can lead to ultimate liberation and the pure bliss of unification with God, which is ultimate freedom. 5. The decision to follow the assigned way can bring a being to liberation. Even the greatest sinner can be liberated by doing his or her task to the utmost. 22 VII. The religion of the Bhagavad Gita is not a renunciation of life. It is the call to learn the ultimate meaning of life. The Bhagavad Gita answers the questions of God, good and evil, and fate. It also deals with truth, duty, justice, and love. 23 A. God is all, God is eternal and everlasting, and God pervades the entire universe. B. Good is following the mission of one’s life. C. On the subject of fate, the Bhagavad Gita indicates that every individual and particle of the universe has a destiny. An individual must have the wisdom to know his or her destiny. D. Truth is everything and all things. E. Duty and responsibility are assigned by God and may lead away from what other people recommend. 24 F. Ultimate justice lies in every particle of the universe willingly and joyfully carrying out the will of God. The Bhagavad Gita does not separate the world, God, fate, life, and government. They are all mingled in the total vision of the world and justice. Justice is not of men but is part of the divine order. The person of justice is unshakable and steadfast in the truth. 25 G. Love led Krishna to take form in this world so that Arjuna could see him. An individual’s love is to become absolutely immersed in the divine; to do that, one may forsake all things and put oneself on God’s path. 26 VIII. The ultimate message of the Bhagavad Gita is that God has created many roads to the truth; each person must find his or her own road. 27 A. These roads may include ritual sacrifices, a life of religious piety, contemplation and study, or struggle for liberation. Gandhi understood that his path was to struggle for the liberation of his country. B. The Hindu never seeks to absolutely define the world of the gods. There are many different forms of God, and each one may have a role in leading one individual to an understanding of truth. C. The form or ceremonies of God are not important. What is important is the understanding that God is truth. That understanding gives one the courage to live life and follow karma. 28 IX. The Bhagavad Gita, like the Divine Comedy, is one of the greatest works of education ever composed. It leads from the darkness of a life without meaning to the clarity of God’s wisdom. 29 X. The civilizations of classical Greece and classical India may have had some contact with each other. However, classical Indian civilization has little regard for history or for concrete knowledge of the past. Although similarities exist between the vision of divine glory in Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Bhagavad Gita, the classical Indian view would be that these similarities represent eternal and enduring wisdom that is deeper than history. 30 谢谢！ Similar presentations Ads by Google
Houses Exactly where Solar Panels Come Typical Solar Power SystemQuite a few individuals believe that dwelling solar power systems are at some point going to replace fossil-fuel based energy sources as the way that most men and women energy their residences. Most panels are created to create a max of 14-16 volts when connected to your method and the panel is rated at 12 volts. Mainly because far more people today are turning to solar energy for their future power source there are companies that are marketing merchandise that are made utilizing solar power. Variables to take into account are how a lot of folks will be traveling with you, how large your unique model of RV is, and what activities you anticipate making use of your RV for. A charge controller regulates and monitors the amount of electricity flowing into and out of the system which will preserve your batteries lifespan and not permit them to be completely drained. The electrical energy generated by a solar electric technique is low voltage direct current (DC) although most dwelling electrical needs are for higher voltage alternating current (AC). This is equivalent to just shy of 23 hours worth of sun shining on the solar panels. You can also locate DIY solar panel kits at big residence improvement and hardware retailer retailers, like Lowe’s, Property Depot and Costco The advantage to shopping at brick and mortar stores is that educated pros can aid you determine the size of kit you will will need, such as the quantity of panels, for your estimated power desires. When you use electrical energy and gas you may possibly have a low price up front but in the end you finish up paying for it from now on. With solar power you could have an initial investment to turning your household into solar power but after that you have no reason to spend for it any further, unless you use electric or gas for a back up heating supply. Solar energy is extremely essential and offers a natural way to heat, acquire electricity and water with just a small extra effort. Solar systems call for no particular skills to operate, no assembly, practically no maintenance, and of course, they’re wonderful for the environment! The fall back is that you never have any batteries to allow you to shop electrical energy so even though you are saving income from your electricity bills you are nevertheless quite reliant on the energy enterprise. The solar panels are covered by a 5 year warranty on energy output and all other parts are covered by a a single year warranty on workmanship and against defects. Cabin kits commonly supply enough energy to power lights, a television, microwave and computer, and hold your cell telephone charged. Alternatively of a connection to the grid, there can be. Solar power – Types of systems This includes acquiring power from solar energy with an optional generator as backup. You can really feel fantastic recognizing that your household getaway or road trip is not polluting the wonderful scenery that you purchased your RV to get pleasure from in the initial place.
A Brief History of Wearable Computers Google Glass Gone are the days when a ‘compact computer’ filled an entire room or when a laptop required a chunky external battery to be considered as a ‘portable’ option – these days, most of us are walking around with smart-phones which have many hundreds of times the processing power of the Apollo lunar landing computers, but how far away are we from truly ‘wearable’ computing technology? Roulette à la ‘James Bond’ The earliest example of a wearable electronic computer was devised by a mathematician in the 1960s, who developed a small counting machine, which was designed to predict the results of roulette spins; this required some cooperation between a group of users in order to be effective, with one data-gathering lookout transmitting the wheel spin speed data via electronic switches hidden inside their shoes; the data in question was a coded signal, consisting of musical notation was then sent to a better’s earpiece; this system proved to be outrageously effective when tested in some of the top casinos of the day in Las Vegas. Moore’s law in full effect The ‘cheating’ equipment from the 1960s evolved into more advanced shoe computers which seen active use throughout the 1970s and 80s – miniaturisation became ever more advanced in all kinds of electronic devices during this era, with these type of covert activities helping to push the boundaries of what was possible when it came to hiding computers within a persons’ clothing. Say hello to the cyborg on your street In the early 80s, advances in camera and electronic technology meant that systems could be mounted onto a helmet, (complete with antennae) with the rest of the kit being loaded into a backpack: by the end of the 90s, these devices had become much more discreet, with the equipment now resembling a pair of nifty shades (all other components being hidden within or under the wearers’ clothing) – the purpose of such devices was to allow users to record a POV-style visual diary of their daily lives(this has become known as a ‘Cyborglog’) as well as to use the glasses as a kind of heads-up-display, when the cameras were combined with a projection device and user interface, such as a chorded keyboard. What kind of computer would ‘Dick Tracy’ wear? The 2000s seen wearable computing take its first steps towards becoming a tangible reality outside the academic world: Seiko and Fossil had previously launched wristwatch form-factor computers in the late 90s: these devices were essentially miniaturised PDAs, but the concept of using a wristwatch for something a lot more advanced than just reading the time was a concept straight out of a ‘Dick Tracy’ comic book! What does the future hold for wearable computer technology? With advances in computer technology steadily being made, processors are getting smaller as they increase in power: this is an exponentially rising trend, which is not expected to cease until the 2020s, so we have a lot more wearable tech to look forward to, as long as powerful companies and institutions continue to advance this field: with the likes of Google’s ‘Project Glass’ currently in development, we can expect heads-up displays, hands-free interaction via speech and even integration into standard eyewear to be commonplace in only a few short years. Fred Reid is a technology blogger who works as a consultant for Computrad
Congress for Kids Print this Page Citizenship Quizzes Independence Constitution Legislative Branch Executive Branch Judicial Branch Elections We Are Free! Uncle Sam would like you to make a list of the rules and responsibilities that you needed when you were part of a community, but no longer need now that you are the only person left on earth. Read through the following list and complete the attached worksheet by entering your list of rules and responsibilities in the text boxes that follow. Rules and responsibilities at school Rules and responsibilities at home Rules and responsibilities in your neighborhood Rules and responsibilities with friends You will begin to understand that when you live with other people in a city or community you have responsibilities as a citizen. Every citizen has rights, privileges, and duties that wouldn't exist if you were the only person on earth or in your community. Software Requirement: The latest version Adobe Reader [Download Here] Directions for Sending PDF Worksheets Upholding community responsibilities and individual rights are equally important. Thus, as in any community, certain rules of behavior and conduct are necessary. The Dirksen Congressional CenterCopyright 2008
PhysLink.com: Physics and Astronomy News Original publication date: Friday December 11, 2009. Suzaku Catches Retreat of a Black Hole's Disk GX 339-4, illustrated here, is among the most dynamic binaries in the sky, with four major outbursts in the past seven years. In the system, an evolved star no more massive than the sun orbits a black hole estimated at 10 solar masses. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada 'When a lot of gas is flowing, the dense disk reaches nearly to the black hole,' said John Tomsick at the University of California, Berkeley. 'But when the flow is reduced, theory predicts that gas close to the black hole heats up, resulting in evaporation of the innermost part of the disk.' Never before have astronomers shown an unambiguous signature of this transformation. In September 2008, nineteen months after the system's most recent outburst, the team observed GX 339-4 using the orbiting Suzaku X-ray observatory, which is operated jointly by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA. At the same time, the team also observed the system with NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite. Instruments on both satellites indicated that the system was faint but in an active state, when black holes are known to produce steady jets. Radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array confirmed that GX 339-4's jets were indeed powered up when the satellites observed. Despite the system's faintness, Suzaku was able to measure a critical X-ray spectral line produced by the fluorescence of iron atoms. 'Suzaku's sensitivity to iron emission lines and its ability to measure the shapes of those lines let us see a change in the accretion disk that only happens at low luminosities,' said team member Kazutaka Yamaoka at Japan's Aoyama Gakuin University. 'We see emission only from the densest gas, where lots of iron atoms are producing X-rays, but that emission stops close to the black hole -- the dense disk is gone,' explained Philip Kaaret at the University of Iowa. 'What's really happening is that, at low accretion rates, the dense inner disk thins into a tenuous but even hotter gas, rather like water turning to steam.' 'This doesn't tell us how jets form, but it does tell us that jets can be launched even when the high-density accretion flow is far from the black hole,' Tomsick said. 'This means that the low-density accretion flow is the most essential ingredient for the formation of a steady jet in a black hole system.' News Story Origin and Copyright: NASA : http://www.nasa.gov Original news release:
Gene find could lead to healthier food, better biofuel production November 22, 2010 Natalia Dudareva, a distinguished professor of horticulture, and Hiroshi Maeda, a postdoctoral researcher in Dudareva's laboratory, determined that the gene is one of 10 responsible for phenylalanine production in plants. Understanding how the amino acid is produced could provide a strategy to increase or reduce that production. "In plant tissues where we want to lower lignin content, we may be able to block these pathways," Maeda said. "In cases where you want to increase the amount of phenylalanine, we could do that as well." "This gene had almost identical gene expression patterns as the known phenylalanine-related genes," Maeda said. To test the find, Dudareva and Maeda used the E. coli bacteria. They overexpressed the protein encoded by newly discovered gene and detected the expected enzyme activity. They also decreased the gene's expression in petunia flowers and witnessed a reduction in phenylalanine production. "We provided both biochemical and genetic evidence that the gene is indeed involved in phenylalanine biosynthesis," Dudareva said. "It completes the pathway." Dudareva and Maeda's findings were published in the early online version of the journal Nature Chemical Biology. The National Science Foundation funded the research. Writer: Brian Wallheimer, 765-496-2050, Sources: Natalia Dudareva, 765-494-1325, Hiroshi Maeda, 765-496-6268, Prephenate Aminotransferase Directs Plant Phenylalanine Biosynthesis Via Arogenate Hiroshi Maeda, Heejin Yoo and Natalia Dudareva The aromatic amino acids L-phenylalanine and L-tyrosine and their plant-derived natural products are essential in human and plant metabolism and physiology. Here we identified Petunia hybrida and Arabidopsis thaliana genes encoding prephenate aminotransferases (PPA-ATs), thus completing the identification of the genes involved in phenylalanine and tyrosine biosyntheses. Biochemical and genetic characterization of enzymes showed that PPA-AT directs carbon flux from prephenate toward arogenate, making the arogenate pathway predominant in plant phenylalanine biosynthesis. Ag Communications: (765) 494-2722; Keith Robinson, Agriculture News Page
about this program book club contact us Selection Info & Discussion Guides The Secret Life of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd Discussion Questions Publisher's Discussion Guide Had you ever heard of "kneeling on grits" before? What qualities did Lily have that allowed her to survive, endure and eventually thrive, despite T. Ray? Who is the queen bee in this story? Lily's relationship to her dead mother was complex, ranging from guilt, to idealization, to hatred, to acceptance. What happens inside a daughter when she discovers her mother once abandoned her? Is Lily right- would people generally rather die than forgive? Was it harder for Lily to forgive her mother or herself? As a Christian, what would you have said to Lily? What compelled Rosaleen to spit on the three men's shoes? Did something in her finally say "Enough!"? Can you imagine yourself in her situation? What does it take for a person to stand up with conviction against brutalizing injustice? What did you like best about Rosaleen? Had you ever heard of the Black Madonna? What do you think of the story surrounding the Black Madonna in the novel? How would the story be different if it had been a picture of a white Virgin Mary? What does the Bible say about this? Many women in our society are isolated from other women. Why is it important that women come together? What did you think of the "Calendar Sisters" and the Daughters of Mary? How did being in the company of this circle of females transform Lily? May built a wailing wall to help her come to terms with the pain she felt inside. Even though we don't have May's "condition," do we also need private and public "rituals," like wailing walls, to help us deal with our grief and suffering? Compare this to Christian traditions; how are they the same or different? How would you describe Lily and Zach's relationship? What drew them together? Could you appreciate how taboo their love was in the South in 1964? Did you root for them to be together? Project into the future. Does Lily ever see her father again? Does she become a beekeeper? A writer? What happens to Rosaleen? What happens with Lily and Zach? Who would Zach be today? Publisher's Discussion Guide No recipes available. Suggest one now! Visit the Author's Site Book Selection Archives E-Mail this page to a friend Forward to a Friend Book Club Find a local Woman to Woman Book Club Chapter! Book Select Archive
It turns out we’re more like bats that we ever imagined, for just as we can call dibs on the last slice of pizza, bats can call dibs on the bugs they’re about to eat. MDConnects reports that biologists at the University of Maryland have discovered that male brown bats can use a special sound known as a “frequency-modulated bout” (FMB) that lets nearby bats know that they’ve put in a claim on a particular piece of food and thus letting them know to stay away. Apparently this ultrasonic call is produced exclusively by flying male brown bats while foraging as the scientists found female brown bats did not emit any such sounds. “When two males flew together in a trial, it was not uncommon for each bat to emit FMBs,” researcher Genevieve Spanjer Wright tells MDConnects. “We found that the bat emitting the greatest number of FMBs was more likely to capture the mealworm.” This is a remarkably civilized way of divvying up food for a creature that has traditionally had a reputation for being dark and sinister. If only we could install a similar mechanism within humans during Black Friday shopping to keep them from trampling over one another at Wal-Mart.
Forced Evaporation of Wastewater What is Forced Evaporation? Forced evaporation is heating wastewater with a heat source, causing it to boil and vaporize. The vapor is vented to the atmosphere or recaptured through a condenser/chiller. A volume reduction of up to 95% can be achieved, leaving only the residual solids or sludge to disposed of. Evaporation rates range from 3 gallons per hour to over 100 gallons per hour depending on the size of the evaporator, type of heat source and humidity levels. Components of Forced Evaporators: There are four main components to most forced evaporation systems: a heat source, a wastewater reservoir, a steam vapor evacuation system, and a control system. Heat source options include natural gas, liquid propane, electric or steam heat. The wastewater holding reservoir is usually insulated, and constructed of mild or stainless steel. Holding capacities range from 50 gallons to over 500 gallons. The steam evacuation system is a blower or inline draft-inducing fan. It is critical for maximum evaporation rates to remove the vapor quickly and efficiently. The control system operates the evaporator. This system controls the level of the liquids, the temperature, and provides a series of safety controls to prevent to high of temperature or over-flow conditions. What Can You Evaporate? Many waste streams are mainly water. Disposal costs can be cut by as much as 95% by reducing the volume with evaporation. The list of what can be evaporated is almost endless. Aqueous cleaning solutions, rinse water, water based machining coolants, acid and caustic baths, air compressor condensation, floor scrubber water, and mop bucket water, etc. are some common waste streams currently being evaporated. What Should Not Be Evaporated? Most water testing laboratories of evaporators offer a Material Stream Assessment (MSA). This test, along with your Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), can tell you if your waste stream is a candidate for evaporation. Effluent that should be avoided are high concentrations of flammable liquids with a low flash points, waste streams with high levels of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) and any wastewater stream that contains more than trace amounts of Mercury. Because of Mercury’s low boiling point, it should not be evaporated because of air pollution emissions. Waste streams with high amounts of suspended or dissolved solids should only be evaporated in units designed for easy clean out. Highly corrosive effluent should only be evaporated in units constructed of high nickel content chloride resistant alloys such as SM0254 or ALGXN. Recovery and Disposal of Residual Solids: Your individual waste stream will determine the amount of residual solids or sludge left after the evaporation process. The water content of these solids will vary by unit design and manufacturer. Unwanted recovered solids should be tested to determine the proper method of disposal. A Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test will tell if your residual solids are landfill able or must be hauled by a licensed waste hauling contractor. Non-leaching materials such as HB-7 spill grabber, peat moss or other adsorbents may be added to your residual solids to make them non-leach able and landfill able. You will need to contact your local sanitary refuse company on their disposal handling requirements. The feasibility of recovering certain substances from the wastewater is determined by the value of the recoverable substance. Recovery of gold, silver, copper or titanium and other valuable metals can aid in the repayment of your investment. Permitting: The need to permit evaporators varies from state to state and from local and county air sheds. You will need to contact your local Air Quality Control Board to see if permitting is necessary. The Material Stream Assessment will help you in the application portion of permitting. In many cases no permitting is necessary or can come under existing permits. Sometimes a permit for wastewater evaporation is not necessary, but a permit for a gas fired appliance is required. Construction Materials: Several factors dictate the type of construction materials used. Wastewater, when heated, can be very corrosive. When pH levels are very high or very low or the chloride content is high, selecting the proper construction materials is critical. For a waste stream with low corrosively, high calcium, or oily water, mild steel is used successfully. As the corrosively increases, the use of stainless steel or exotic chloride resistant alloys is required. It may be possible to lower the corrosively in pretreatment by lowering or raising the pH level of the waste stream. Types of Forced Evaporators: The five most popular wastewater evaporation systems are listed below. There are other systems available but not presented in this paper. Under Floor Heating-This design transfers the heat from an insulated heat chamber through out the entire floor. The heat source options include natural gas, liquid propane, or electric heat. Immersion Tube-This type of design uses a heated tube under the solution as a heat exchanger. The heat source is usually natural gas, liquid propane or steam. Submerged Combustion-Submerged combustion is similar to an immersion tube. The difference is the small holes in the top of the heat bubble, allowing bubbles of hot gases to come in contact with the solution. The heat sources are usually natural gas or liquid propane. Direct Injection-Evaporation is achieved by spraying wastewater directly into a natural gas or liquid propane flame. Thermal Oxidation-This is also known as an incinerator. The thermal oxidizer burns the wastewater more than evaporating it. Operating temperatures are as high as 1400 degrees Fahrenheit. Sizing and Design Considerations: The first thing to consider when sizing an evaporator system is how much wastewater you generate per hour. It is easy to make the mistake of sizing your systems evaporation rate too close to your actual waste stream flow. There are several factors to take into consideration, which directly affect overall evaporation rates. Most manufactures rate their equipment using clean water as a standard when setting their maximum evaporation rates. As the solids content of the wastewater increases, the evaporation rate will decrease. When evaporating high solids waste streams, extra time is needed for more frequent clean outs. If you are going to evaporate high solids waste streams, choose a unit that is ergonomically easy to clean. Another factor to consider is heat up time between evaporation cycles. Heat up times can vary due to the ambient temperature of the waste stream and the type and thermal efficiency of the unit. As the thermal efficiency of the evaporator goes up, so does the purchase price of the unit. Average costs per gallon to evaporate start at 3 cents per gallon and may go as high as $1.00 per gallon, depending on the design and energy costs. Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
Fibromyalgia Awareness Day Fibro Awareness HOPE May is Fibromyalgia Month, and May 12th is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day, the day chosen to raise awareness and knowledge of this debilitating chronic illness. Statistics vary-depending on who you ask, and many individuals are misdiagnosed… sometimes for years, but it is believed 5-7 million people suffer from Fibromyalgia. The National Fibromyalgia Syndrome Association believes the numbers are as high as 12 million to 20 million. What is Fibromyalgia? The word “fibromyalgia” is a combination of Greek and Latin that essentially means fibrous tissue/muscle pain. Therefore, the very meaning of the word says volumes about the condition itself, with the keyword being “pain.” The Mayo Clinic provides a very broad summary of the symptoms, which include: • Widespread pain – this is typically characterized by a dull ache that lasts for at least three months. “Widespread” from a medical perspective means that the pain and/or tenderness is on both sides of the body and is also both above and below the waist. • Fatigue – If a patient with fibromyalgia can sleep at night (insomnia is very common), they frequently wake during sleeping hours due to pain. No sleep or poor sleep causes fatigue during waking hours and can make it difficult to function and focus. Furthermore, fibromyalgia patients also have other disorders such as sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome which are additional reasons for waking frequently throughout the night. • “Fibro fog” – Cognitive impairments such as difficulty concentrating on mental tasks, feeling “hazy,” or the inability to think clearly. • Other problems – And here’s where it gets crazy. The list of symptoms that fall into the category of “other” are varied, but include conditions such as headaches, abdominal cramping, anxiety, depression, burning sensations either on the skin or from within, IBS, intense itching, muscle and joint pain, as well as hypersensitivity to pain, medications, cold weather, foods, physical touch, and more. Let’s not forget random sensations of cold and tingling, mood swings, abnormally painful menstruation, joint stiffness, a feeling of pins and needles, muscle spasms, and delayed onset muscle soreness. Researchers claim that fibromyalgia is far more common in women than men. However, as the criteria have ceased focusing on the number of tender points a patient has, more men are being diagnosed as well. In fact, fibromyalgia has not been recognized as an actual problem for all that long in the United States. Thankfully, pharmaceuticals have been approved and used for several years now that are specifically directed to fibro patients, with varying results. Diagnosing it has been tough because it’s so difficult to pin-point a problem due to overlapping symptoms and the similarity of fibromyalgia to other conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. That is to say, many people have depression, or IBS, or muscle spasms, or fatigue, or joint stiffness. This makes diagnosis difficult! I was misdiagnosed. Three of my sisters AND our mother were misdiagnosed. My two older sisters and I also have osteoarthritis (joint replacement queens!), but our younger sister has Lupus and our mother has Scleroderma – and the younger sister and mom both have Raynaud’s Syndrome and implanted defibrillators. Mom has a pacemaker too. Obviously, there is a genetic connection… it just hasn’t been discovered yet. I’m personally curious about the benefits of finding the genetic link because in my family’s case – five members have Fibromyalgia, and our symptoms, pain issues, and even treatment plans are nothing alike. This can also be said of any of ten individuals with Fibromyalgia… or a hundred. Perhaps the biggest obstacle Fibro sufferers face is we do not look sick, and this is something we have in common with individuals who live with other chronic illnesses like Multiple Sclerosis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Doctors, family, friends and coworkers can all be skeptical and unsupportive simply because you do not look as bad as you SAY you feel. It’s a struggle. Things are improving… rapidly in some cases. Where Fibromyalgia was considered a psychological condition just a few short years ago, it’s now recognized for the neurasthenic musculoskeletal pain syndrome it is. This is encouraging. Doctors and healthcare providers are becoming more aware AND informed. This is major. Fibro patients are no longer considered hypochondriacs or fakers and brushed aside with a bottle of pills. There is no cure for Fibromyalgia. But different courses of treatment are being found successful for some patients. Think you may have been misdiagnosed, or are suffering in silence? Answer this fibromyalgia questionnaire and share the results with your doctor. Knowledge is power and we all need to be better informed. Fibromyalgia is classified as a rheumatologic neurologic disease and the best doctor to diagnose it is a rheumatologist… but primary care physicians can be successful in diagnosing and treating Fibromyalgia also. The National Fibromyalgia Association is a great resource in helping individuals with every aspect of their condition including community resources and finding a fibro-knowledgeable physician in your area. Some information shared from Image from SewCream/Shutterstock. , , , , 1. #1 by Bette A. Stevens on May 12, 2017 - 8:18 am Liked by 1 person You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s %d bloggers like this:
Classifying and Analyzing Analogies Bruce N. Waller Analogies come in several forms that serve distinct functions. Inductive analogy is a common type of analogical argument, but critical thinking texts sometimes treat all analogies as inductive. Such an analysis ignores figurative analogies, which may elucidate but do not argue; and also neglects a priori arguments by analogy, a type of analogical argument prominent in law and ethics. A priori arguments by analogy are distinctive, but--contrary to the claims of Govier and Sunstein-they are best understood as deductive, rather than a special form of non deductive reasoning. analogy, deductive, figurative, inductive, T. Govier, legal realism, C. Sunstein Full Text: ISSN: 0824-2577
Intelligence Quotient Percentile Chart Here is the table of IQ reference scores and their meaning. The Intelligence Quotient reference Chart or table is used to determine the IQ percentile range of an individual. IQ or Intelligence Quotient is a total score which is derived from one of the various standardized tests that are designed to assess the human intelligence. The abbreviation 'IQ' was coined by the psychologist William Stern, a German psychologist and philosopher. Check out the below IQ Score table and find out how smart you are. IQ scores are used for educational placement, assessment of intellectual disability, and evaluating job applicants. IQ Reference Table IQ Score RangeCategoryTypical Ability 0-24Profound Mental RetardationLimited or no ability to communicate, eat, bath, dress and toilet. 25-39Severe Mental RetardationLimited ability to communicate, eat, bath, dress and toilet. No academic skills. 40-54Moderate Mental RetardationSome independent self-help skills and very basic academic skills. 55-69Mild Mental RetardationUsually able to dress/bath independently and can do simple jobs. Elementary school academics. 70-79Border LineMay live independently with difficulties. Can perform simple and repetitive jobs. 80-89Low AverageCan complete vocational education and live independently. 90-109AverageCan complete high school graduation and college with difficulty. 110-119High AverageTypical level of college graduates. 120-129SuperiorTypical level of persons with doctoral degrees. 130-144GiftedCapable of understanding highly, complex academic material. 145-159GeniusException intellectual ability and capable of looking beyond known facts. 160-175Extraordinary geniusExtraordinary talent like Albert Einstein english Calculators and Converters
Skip to main content In this Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 photo, Chinese paramilitary policemen stands guard in front of a sculpture of the ancient philosopher Confucius on displayed in near the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China's capital. The mammoth sculpture of Confucius was unveiled this week off one side of the giant plaza, the political heart of China. It's a curious juxtaposition for a site that's heavy with Communist history _ Mao's body is interred in the middle of it and his giant portrait hangs at one end. Andy Wong/The Associated Press/Andy Wong/The Associated Press Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher condemned by Mao Zedong as an enemy of China's Communist Revolution, is now sharing space with the Chairman on Tiananmen Square. A 9.5-metre-high stone statue of the sage was unveiled this week in front of the National Museum of China on the eastern edge of Tiananmen. The wizened image of Confucius, emerging from a base of solid rock, is locked in permanent meditation not far from the mausoleum where Mao has lain in waxy state since his death in 1976. The place of honour on China's most famous square - just southeast of the Forbidden City gate where Mao's portrait hangs - caps a remarkable comeback for the philosopher once derided as preacher of "feudal mentality." At the unveiling, Confucius was hailed by National Museum of China curator Lu Zhangshen as "the symbol of traditional Chinese culture, with a far-reaching impact across the globe." Story continues below advertisement Born in 511 BC, Confucius and his teachings weren't always so popular with Communist Party officials. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and '70s, being named as a follower of Confucianism could lead to a death sentence. Statues of the great teacher were torn down and Confucian temples were ransacked by Mao's Red Guards. A campaign attacking one of Mao's rivals for his supposed Confucian leanings was dubbed "the most important matter for the whole party, the whole army and the people of the whole country." In recent years, however, the Communist Party and many ordinary Chinese have quietly moved to re-embrace Confucius - particularly his emphasis on ethical behaviour and respect for authority - as the country searches desperately for a post-Maoism ideology. "For the government, there's appeal in a philosophy that preaches harmony at a time when a yawning rich-poor gap and anger at corruption have fuelled instability," the Shanghai Daily wrote on Friday. The government has opened some 320 Confucius Institutes in 96 countries around the world (including nine in Canada) over the past six years, a soft-power effort aimed at spreading Chinese language and culture around the globe. The slogans of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao - particularly the government's stated aim of building a "harmonious society" - draw on Confucian sayings rather than the angry class rhetoric of Mao. Last year, the government backed Confucius, a big-budget movie biography starring Chow Yun-Fat. When the film did poorly at the box office against James Cameron's Avatar, the official State Administration of Radio, Film and Television cut the number of screens on which Avatar was being shown by nearly half. "I think the reason that Confucianism is being revived is precisely because there are so many problems in China that need some sort of answer. There's a need for an increased sense of social responsibility … people sense a kind of moral vacuum," said Daniel Bell, a Canadian scholar who teaches political philosophy at Tsinghua University in Beijing and is the author of China's New Confucianism. Prof. Bell said the government's overt embrace of Confucius began in 2004 with the launch of the Confucius Institutes and took on a semi-official nature when quotes from The Analects of Confucius - rather than anything written by Marx or Mao - were used to open the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The statue is nonetheless a surprising gesture, Prof. Bell said, due to the sanctity of Tiananmen Square, which unlike the rest of Beijing has stood almost frozen in time for decades. Story continues below advertisement The new addition was immediately popular with tourists and passersby. "The Chinese are a nation without a religion. We believe only in ourselves," said a 48-year-old businessman and former soldier who gave only his family name, Zhang. "Mao's theories, to speak frankly, are not as tolerant as those of Confucius. It's a lucky thing to see [the statue of Confucius]now in Tiananmen Square." Report an error Editorial code of conduct Licensing Options
Tabular Data and the Use of Tables in XHTML Use tables for data, not layout in XHTML Close-up of numbers printed on paper (Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images) Tabular data is simply the data contained in a table. In HTML, it is the content that lives in a table's cells—i.e., what is between the <td></td> or <th></th> tags. Table contents can be numbers, text, images, and a combination of these; and another table can even be nested inside a table cell. According to the W3C: "The HTML table model allows authors to arrange data—text, preformatted text, images, links, forms, form fields, other tables, etc.—into rows and columns of cells." Source: Introduction to tables from the HTML 4 specification. The key word in that definition is data. Early in the history of web design, tables were adapted as tools to help lay out and control how and where web page content would appear. This could sometimes result in poor display in different browsers, depending on how browsers handled tables, so it was not always an elegant method in design. When to Use Tables to Display Content When Not to Use Tables to Display Content Do not use tables if: Don't Be Afraid of Tables mla apa chicago Your Citation Kyrnin, Jennifer. "Tabular Data and the Use of Tables in XHTML." ThoughtCo, Jan. 13, 2018, Kyrnin, Jennifer. (2018, January 13). Tabular Data and the Use of Tables in XHTML. Retrieved from Kyrnin, Jennifer. "Tabular Data and the Use of Tables in XHTML." ThoughtCo. (accessed January 22, 2018).
Skip directly to content Environmental performance The totally closed system of the Rendall process underlies its superior environmental performance. Importantly, it eliminates all but one of the adverse environmental consequences customarily associated with conventional oil shale retorting processes, most of which are inevitable and unavoidable consequences of the processes themselves. In particular, the Rendall process will avoid fugitive emissions of noxious and biotoxic volatile organic compounds [including aromatics, heterocyclics and dioxins], sulphur dioxide and fine dust particles. Carbon dioxide is the unavoidable exception emitted by the Rendall process, arising in exhaust gas emissions, but at only one-third or less of the rate from conventional retorting processes. Moreover, most of the carbon dioxide output from the Rendall process could be captured for sequestration, if necessary and if a suitable method is then available at economic cost. Organic sulphur compounds inherent in the oil shale kerogen are converted to hydrogen sulphide in the process off-gas, and then recovered as merchantable elemental sulphur by a standard oil refinery technique. The Rendall process also eliminates the need for large volumes of water characteristic of conventional retorting processes, in which water at rates of up to 2 tonnes per barrel of oil is used to quench the hot shale residue on its discharge from the retort to avoid auto-ignition in air. Finally, the Rendall process also avoids the infamous “popcorn effect” associated with conventional retorting, whereby the volume of spent shale residue is significantly greater than that of the oil shale, as mined. Moreover, unlike the refractory shale residues from retorting, spent shale from the Rendall process is readily amenable to further processing to recover mineral by-products and produce cement. Any spent shale left over from further processing would be aggregated and returned to mined-out areas for backfilling with the overburden. Mine backfill and restoration can be carried out while mining and ore processing proceeds.
A utilização do software E-Chemical como ferramenta educacional de Química Andre de Oliveira, Ana Gomes Abstract. The use of technology in the current educational setting can be a mechanism to promote more dynamic and interactive classes for students. With each passing day, school-age youngsters are becoming increasingly computerized, so using educational software in the classroom can be a way to use something that students like as a way to aid in their learning process. The proposal of this article is to discuss the development of an educational software applied in the discipline of Chemistry to make the student learn about the periodic table and its divisions through a game named "E-Chemical" where it should be said which divisions exist in the Periodic table of elements. Texto completo: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5753/cbie.wcbie.2017.355 • Não há apontamentos.
Monday, August 01, 2005 A Colorful History A.J. Jacobs, in his book The Know-It-All, touches upon a concept that I found interesting: there have been many groups in human history identified by a particular item of clothing and its color. So I thought, why not compile a brief list of such for the edification of the vast Toner Mishap readership? Fun, and educational! The Yellow Turban Rebellion The Yellow Turban Rebellion, sometimes also translated as the Yellow Scarves Rebellion, was a 184 A.D. peasant rebellion against Emperor Lingdi of the Han Dynasty of China. It is named for the color of the scarves which the rebels wore around their heads. The Red Hat Sect The Lotus Bodhisattva founded the Red Hat Sect based on the Lotus of Good Law of the Tantric Lotus Division, emphasizing the Tathagata Ambitabha's profound-observing wisdom to be the fundamental wisdom. [B2: “Whah?”] The Yellow Hat Sect The Yellow Hat Sect was founded and set up by Tsong Ka Pa, in the late 14th century. It’s just like the Red Hat Sect, except for a tronger focus on discipline, which is considered to be necessary for achieving the self-realization of purity and enlightenment.. Incidentally, Tsong Ka Pa is always portrayed seated, in a pointed yellow cap with long earflaps. Usually smiling. The Redcoats The usual uniform of British soldiers during the 18th and 19th centuries was a red coat and white breeches. The epithet “Redcoats" was used throughout the world, but is particularly associated with the American revolution. The term is still used in Ireland to refer to the British Army, and sometimes to all British people. The Red Shirts During the Italian Risorgimento (the unification of Italy in the late 19th century and early 20th century), the volunteers who followed Giuseppe Garibaldi in southern Italy were called the Red Shirts (Camicie rosse) because of the color of their shirts. If they’d had more money they would have had red pants, too, but complete uniforms were beyond the finances of the Italian patriots. The Blackshirts The Blackshirts (in Italian, “camicie nere”) were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. Inspired by Garibaldi's Redshirts, the Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as reformers, but their methods became harsher as Mussolini's power grew, and they used violence, intimidation, and murder against Mussolini's opponents. The ethos and sometimes the uniform were later copied by others who shared Mussolini's political ideas, including Nazi Germany’s Brownshirts and Blackshirts (see below). The Brownshirts The Sturmabteilung (German for "Storm Division" and usually translated as stormtroopers) functioned as a paramilitary organization of the German Nazi party, playing a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s. SA men were known as brownshirts from the color of their uniform (and to distinguish them from the Nazi SS, known as blackshirts). The Blackshirts (again) Nazi Germany’s Schutzstaffel were colloquially known as "Blackshirts," although in fact they wore black tunics with brown or white shirts. The Blackshirts (and again) Sir Oswald Mosley in the United Kingdom organized the British Union of Fascists, also known as (say it with me) "Blackshirts." The Greenshirts Plínio Salgado’s Brazilian fascist group had as its uniform green shirts. The Silver Shirts The Silver Legion of America, commonly known as the Silver Shirts, was an American fascist organization founded by William Dudley Pelley in 1933. The Blueshirts Also known as the Army Comrades Association, the Blueshirts was an Irish political organization set up in the 1930s. Its opponents accused it of being the Irish Free State's equivalent of Hitler's Brownshirts and Mussolini's Blackshirts, given that Blueshirts leaders all wore Fascist-style blue-shirts and gave the Roman salute. The Black and Tans Hmm. OK, the name doesn’t mention the trousers, from their comes… but I’ll make an exception and include them. The Black and Tans, more properly known as the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, was one of two paramilitary forces employed by the Royal Irish Constabulary from 1920 to 1921, to suppress Sinn Féin and the IRA. A lot of men joined, so they were short on uniforms; new recruits were issued khaki army uniforms (usually only trousers) and dark green RIC or blue British police surplus tunics, caps and belts. This mixture gave rise to their nickname, the Black and Tans (in Irish, na Dúchrónaigh), from the name of a famous pack of foxhounds from Limerick. The name stuck even after the men received full RIC uniforms. The Green Berets Officially known as the United States Army Special Forces, the Green Berets is a Special Operations Force of the U.S. Army trained for unconventional warfare and special operations. The force was founded by Aaron Bank and their official headgear is the green beret. The Shirtless Ones Yes, no color is specified – but how could I leave this one out? In mid-20th century Argentina, Juan Domingo Peron brought together trade unions into a para-fascist militant organization known as "the shirtless ones" (in Spanish, the "descamisados"). (I added this to Wikipedia.) Stephen (aka Q) said... On a much lighter note, the Red Hat Society is a contemporary example. The group challenges the notion that older women should always be "proper" in behaviour and, in general, fade quietly into the background. The group was inspired by "Warning", a poem by Jenny Joseph: When I am an old woman I shall wear purple And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter. … And make up for the sobriety of my youth. So members of the Red Hat Society put on flamboyant red hats and meet in public for a little low-key hellraising. I'll never be an old woman, but the concept has always amused me. Good for them, I say. Attila said... Or this: "a Purple Revolution in Iraq, an Orange Revolution in Ukraine, a Rose Revolution in Georgia, a Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon." OK, cedar may not be a color and a tulip is a flower, but you get the idea. Also, in Israel, orange is the color of the opponents of disengagement. Jack Ruttan said... What about the "sans culottes?" Also, the Bluestockings, come to think of it. rexcurrydotnet said... 1. Dr. Curry showed that the USA's early Pledge of Allegiance (to the flag) used a straight-arm salute and it was the origin of the salute of the monstrous National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis). Dr. Curry helped to establish that it was not an ancient Roman salute, and that the "ancient Roman salute" is a myth. The myth is still repeated in modern efforts to cover-up Dr. Curry's discoveries about the Pledge's poisonous pedigree. 2. The original Pledge began with a military salute that then stretched out toward the flag. Historic photographs are at and at In actual use, the second part of the gesture was performed with a straight arm and palm down by children casually performing the forced ritual chanting. Professor Curry showed that, due to the way that both gestures were used sequentially in the pledge, the military salute led to the Nazi salute. The Nazi salute is an extended military salute. 3. Francis Bellamy (author of the "Pledge of Allegiance") and Edward Bellamy (author of the novel "Looking Backward") and Charles Bellamy (author of "A Moment of Madness") were socialists. Edward and Charles were brothers, and Francis was their cousin. Francis and Edward were both self-proclaimed National Socialists and they supported the "Nationalism" movement in the USA, the "Nationalist" magazine, the "Nationalist Educational Association," and their dogma of "military socialism," and Edward inspired the "Nationalist Party" (in the USA) and their dogma influenced socialists worldwide (including Germany) via “Nationalist Clubs.” The Pledge was the origin of the Nazi salute. "Nazi" means "National Socialist German Workers' Party." A mnemonic device is the swastika. Although the swastika was an ancient symbol, Professor Curry discovered that it was also used sometimes by German National Socialists to represent "S" letters for their "socialism." Curry changed the way that people view the symbol of the horrid National Socialist German Workers' Party. Hitler altered his own signature to use the same stylized "S" letter for "socialist" and similar alphabetic symbolism still shows on Volkswagens. Professor Curry showed that many modern myths use a false belief that Nazis called themselves "Nazis." The myths cause widespread ignorance of the eytmology of the word "Nazi." Party members called themselves "National Socialists," not "Nazis."
Quotes from the book The Psychology of Perspective and Renaissance Art by Michael Kubovy. "One should avoid thinking of perspective as a method that mimics, in some sense, what we see." "Central projection is a somewhat more general geometric transformation than perspective." "We might conclude that only disparate images seen by the two eyes can produce the sort of vivid experience of depth we are discussing. Such a conclusion would be premature, as we shall presently see. Indeed, on might say that the reason we do not see vivid depth in pictures (wether viewed with one eye or two) is not because they fail to fulfill the necessary conditions for such perception, but rather because pictures bear two kinds of incompatible information, information about the three-dimensional scene they represent, as well as information about their own two-dimensionality. It follows that if we could rid ourselves of the latter, the former should produce a vivid and compelling experience of depth, as stricking as stereopsis." "Brunelleschi's use of a peephole in his first demonstration was instrumental in producing a compelling experience of depth for two reasons: First, it increased the effectiveness of the illusion by forcing the viewer to place his or her eye at the center of the projection of the perspective (thus making the picture a projective surrogate for the scene); second, it reduced the viewer's information regarding the flatness of the picture plane." "And this implies that the Brunelleschi peephole can give rise to an illusion so strong that it could properly be called a delusion." "Rosinski et al.'s experiment confirms Pirenne's hypothesis: If the subjects can see the picture plane, perspective is robust; if they cannot, perspective is not robust. In other words the availability of information regarding the location and the orientation of the plane is necessary and sufficient for the robustness of perspective." "This observation suggests that although the standard claim about trompe l'oeil -- namely that it requires the representation of an object of shallow depth -- is true enough, it fails to do justice to the psychological complexity of the phenomenon. It is perhaps correct as a statement of a necessary condition for the occurence of the trompe l'oeil effect, but it leaves the question of the effect's sufficient conditions unmasked." "Although we have shown that some distortions do take place in the perception of paintings that are viewed by moving observers, it is the robustness of perspective that emerges most clearly from our analysis. As we will see presently, it is this robustness that is probably the most important justification for not using Brunelleschi peepholes to view perspective paintings." "The Alberti window differs from all others in that it functions properly only if it is not completely transparent: We must perceive the window in order to see the world." "Perhaps it is not the wide angle of the view per se, but rather local features of the depictions, that cause these pictures to look distorted." "The visual system, so tolerant of variations in the representation of vertices of cubes, is completely intolerant of variations in the representation of spheres." "So perspective, as it was practiced by the artists, was far from being an inflexible system. Because it was subordinated to perception and because different kind of objects were made to obey the laws of central projection to different extents, a unifying concept such as Alberti's window cannot do justice to the subtleties and complexities of Renaissance perspective." "We cannot arbitrarily change the way we perceive optical information, nor can we arbitrarily change our motor responses to it, regardless of time or effort we might invest in doing so." [c.f. experiments on people subjected to reverted vision] "Even though perspective has a very sturdy geometric and perceptual foundation, which makes it, in some sense, the best method to represent space on a flat surface, the question of wether perspective is "true" is far less important than the inquiry about how perspective was put to use by Renaissance artists in an artistic context."
Offhand comments can expose underlying racism, UW study finds Blatant racism is easy to identify -- a shouted racial slur, a white supremacist rally, or the open discrimination, segregation and violence of the pre-civil rights era. Such statements, uttered intentionally or inadvertently, draw upon stereotypes and are linked with racism and prejudice, according to a University of Washington-led study. The research is believed to be the first of its kind to explore microaggressions from the perspective of those who commit them, and suggests that whites who are more likely to deliver microaggressions are also more likely to harbor some degree of negative feeling toward blacks, whether they know it or not. The concept of microaggressions has garnered greater attention in today's political environment, explained lead author Jonathan Kanter, a UW research associate professor of psychology. "Our study results offer validation to people of color when they experience microaggressions. Their reactions can't simply be dismissed as crazy, unreasonable or too sensitive," Kanter said. "According to our data, the reaction of a person of color -- being confused, upset or offended in some way -- makes sense, because they have experienced what our data show: that people who are more likely to make these comments also are more racist in other ways." The study appears online in the journal Race and Social Problems. For this study, the team, with the help of focus groups of students of color from three universities, devised the Cultural Cognitions and Actions Survey (CCAS) and administered it to a small group of students -- 33 black, 118 white -- at a large public university in the Midwest. The 56-item questionnaire asks the white respondent to imagine him- or herself in five different everyday scenarios involving interactions with black people, such as talking about current events, attending a diversity workshop, or listening to music. The respondent then considers how likely he or she is to think or say specific statements. For black respondents, the wording of the scenarios and questions was revised slightly to assess whether they would experience racism. Each of the statements included in the survey was deemed at least somewhat, if not significantly, offensive by black students. In the "current events" scenario -- the one that yielded the highest percentage of "likely" responses from whites -- respondents were to imagine talking about topics in the news, such as police brutality and unemployment. More than half of white respondents said they would think or say, "All lives matter, not just black lives," while 30 percent said they might say, "I don't think of black people as black," and 26 percent said they were likely to think or say, "The police have a tough job. It is not their fault if they occasionally make a mistake." More than half of black respondents identified each of those statements as racist. Responses on the CCAS were then related to several validated measures of racism and prejudice, to determine if one's likelihood of making microaggressive statements was related to these other measures. An additional scale controlled for social desirability -- the idea that respondents might answer in ways that put themselves in the best possible light. The statement that yielded the highest statistical relation to other measures of racism among white respondents came from the "diversity workshop" scenario, in which a class discusses white privilege. Though only about 14 percent of white respondents said they were likely to think or say, "A lot of minorities are too sensitive," the statement had the highest correlation with negative feelings toward blacks. Nearly 94 percent of black respondents said the statement was racist. The correlations between statements and attitudes are averages from the study sample, Kanter said, and so the results do not address the intentions or feelings of any one person. "It doesn't mean that on a case-by-case basis, if you or I engaged in microaggressions, that we have cold or racist feelings toward blacks," he said. "But the study says that regardless of the intention behind a microaggression or the feelings of the specific person who uttered it, it's reasonable for a black person to be offended. On average, if you engage in a microaggression, it's more likely that you have cooler feelings toward black people, and that whether you intended it or not, you've participated in an experience of racism for a black person." In many ways, overt racism has declined gradually since the civil rights movement, Kanter said, and white people often assume that because they do not utter racial slurs, or perhaps are well-versed in and value social justice, that they do not have to worry about engaging in racist behavior themselves. "It can come as a bit of a shock to a lot of white people that their behavior and attitudes are under scrutiny," said Kanter, who pointed out that as a white male, he has had to confront realizations about his own behavior over time. "The nature of how we're looking at racism is changing. We're now able to look at and root out more subtle forms of bias that weren't focused on before because explicit racism was taking a lot of the attention." Taken in isolation, the size and location of the study sample limit the generalizations that can be made, Kanter said. But the idea behind the CCAS is to use it elsewhere and adapt it to focus on other racial and ethnic minorities so as to better understand racism and develop educational tools to combat it. The survey has since been used at the University of Washington, he added, where early results are very similar to those reported in the published article. University of Washington
It's Getting Harder to Source Metal for Electric-Car Batteries, Report Says The race to build more electric cars is straining supplies of cobalt. Kevork Djansezian via Getty Images Automakers have ambitious plans to fill their lineups with electric cars and hybrids, but they could face a major roadblock, according to Bloomberg. Because while the number of battery-powered cars automakers want to build appears to be limitless, the amount of metals that go into the batteries is finite. When BMW announced electrification plans that included an all-electric X3 and Mini model last September, the going rate for 21 kilograms (46 pounds) of cobalt, which is the amount needed for the average electric-car battery pack, was under $600. It's now approaching $1,700, according to Bloomberg. The need for cobalt, which is typically combined with nickel and manganese in electric-car batteries, puts automakers in an uncomfortable position. Cobalt is relatively scarce; current reserves may not even be adequate to meet anticipated demand for electric cars. Replacing every car on the road with a Tesla Model X would require twice the current global reserves of cobalt, according to a study commissioned by mining company Glencore Plc. But automakers feel pressured to build more cars with batteries in order to meet stricter emissions standards, giving the suppliers a lot of power. There are ethical issues as well. Most of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where corruption is rampant and so-called "artisan miners" mine cobalt by hand. Many of those miners are children. Automakers have made efforts to ethically source materials for electric cars, but given that the Congo accounts for 60 percent of world cobalt production, that might be tough. Many of the mining companies working in the Congo are Chinese, as are most of the refineries that process it. The Chinese State Reserve Bureau reportedly stockpiles the metal. That could be a boon to China's domestic auto industry, but could also make it more difficult for foreign companies to access the supply. The news isn't all bad, though. Bloomberg noted that a similar spike in demand for palladium occurred in the early 2000s but eventually died down. Palladium is used in catalytic converters, but automakers were able to find ways of reducing the amount needed. Changes to battery chemistry, such as increasing the amount of nickel, could reduce the need for cobalt. For now, though, automakers will likely be at the mercy of the cobalt suppliers.
References in periodicals archive ? In the native range, hosts and their parasites are usually coadapted as a result of the long history of coevolution, so that parasites are rarely highly virulent to their hosts (May & Anderson 1983, Taraschewski 2006). Seed size, life span and germination date as coadapted features of plant life history. Through the selective process, mutually supportive components of ideologies will naturally emerge as coadapted complexes.
, , , , seniors and sun protectionEveryone needs to protect their skin from the sun and seniors are more at risk. As we age, skin thins, becomes dryer, elasticity decreases, the skin can tear easily and the number of cells that produce pigment decreases leaving the skin pale and translucent (even skin of color). This causes the skin to be more vulnerable to the sun’s damaging rays. If you were brought up during an era where applying baby oil mixed with iodine was popular or thought because you had darker skin and did not think you needed sunscreen, today your skin may be leathery, dull, weather-beaten and showing signs of aging (sun spots or solar lentigines). Though we cannot erase the ravages of time, but here are some helpful tips to help protect what you have: • Bathe or shower every other day to avoid dry skin and do not use extremely hot water. • Moisturize daily (whether you bathe or not) to help the skin retain hydration. • Avoid long exposure to direct sunlight as much as possible. We do need Vitamin D from the sun to stay healthy, but be sun savvy and wear a full spectrum sunblock and apply it often. • Maintain good nutrition and drink plenty of water. Dehydration can cause the skin to become fragile and not heal properly if an injury occurs. • If you are diabetic, the skin is more prone to bacterial and fungal infections and the skin may be slow to heal. • Do not use harsh soaps or astringents because they can over strip the skin and leave it dryer. Even hand sanitizers, as good as they are, can leave the hands dry. Apply a moisturizer after using a hand sanitizer to keep the hands soft. Knopp, L. (2013). Morning Star Publications, “Senior Care Connection: Summer Skin Protection for Seniors”. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from:
Brain health exercises... The new frontier for ageing well A healthy brain will allow you to live a longer and happier life. However instances of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are becoming increasingly common among older adults. Keeping your brain active is one way you can aid the prevention of such diseases for longevity and a healthy mind. “Brain health” is a combination of physical health and cognitive fitness. The physical health of your brain is determined by how well you take care of your overall health and body, especially your heart. Your brain requires 25% of the blood pumped by your heart, therefore maintaining a healthy heart through exercise and diet is vital. Cognitive fitness is the brain’s ability to reason, remember, learn, plan and adapt. Under conditions where the brain is challenged in specific ways such as attention, perception, thinking and language, new neuron connections and pathways are developed. Here are my recommendations to revitalise and maintain your brain health: Stay active Ad. Article continues below. Daily movement is essential for brain health – the healthier your heart is, the healthier your brain will be. This does not have to involve intense exercise or gym workouts. Keep active in your daily routine, like choosing to put away the car keys when you can walk instead. Along with maintaining a healthy heart to assist your brain, research indicates that exercise has positive benefits for the hippocampus, a brain structure that is important for learning and memory. Getting the right amount of quality sleep is something that is often overlooked. The “right” amount is between 7.5 and 9 hours a night. When you sleep, your body goes into a mode of self-maintenance where breathing and heartbeat rates slow down, injury healing occurs and your immune system regains its strength after a day of fighting off potential disease. Eat well Maintaining a well-balanced diet is essential to brain and overall health. There are several specific “smart” foods which have been shown to increase the chances of maintaining a healthy brain. These include blueberries, wild salmon, nuts and seeds, avocado and whole grains. Try incorporating these foods into your daily diet to reap the benefits. It is also ideal to avoid smoking and excessive alcohol consumption (no more than 1-2 standard drinks per day). Ad. Article continues below. Keep mentally agile by learning something new Learning a new activity or skill engages many different parts and pathways of your brain. You could learn to play a musical instrument or speak a foreign language, or even teach yourself to use your non-dominant hand. Doing such activities can drive your brain to make positive changes and will help you develop many dimensions of brain function, including listening and control of refined movements. The key to a healthy brain is to have a healthy lifestyle in which you continue to challenge yourself to learn new things and take on new tasks. Brain health cannot be improved by anything in isolation, and requires the combination of several life habits. Incorporating the recommendations above will allow you to be in a great position to contribute to the health of your brain and in the prevention of brain disease for ongoing wellness into your later years. What brain exercises do you enjoy? Crosswords? Sodoku? Something else? Tell us in the comments below…
Discuss the form and content of Guy de Maupassant's story "The Necklace." Expert Answers carol-davis eNotes educator\| Certified Educator Guy de Maupassant, a French writer, often provided a morality lesson in his stories. Influenced by Chekhov and O. Henry, Maupassant also offered an ending that had a surprising “twist.” This is true in his story “The Necklace.” The point of view of the story is limited omniscient third person. This is an important aspect of the story. To keep the reader in as much suspense as the characters, the author restricts the point of view; therefore, the reader does not know that the necklace has little value. A sad, dismal tone pervades the story. The main character has such a limited scope of reality that it is Mathilde Loisel who dominates the story and the mood. As the story progresses, her character transforms from an immature, whiny young woman into a harden woman who rises to the occasion to pay her debt. Elements of the short story The protagonist of the story is Mathilde Loisel. She is a very unhappy, beautiful, young woman who feels that she deserves a better life and situation. Her long suffering husband obviously loves her because he tries so hard to please her. They live in a small apartment which is not as nice as Mathilde would like. They do have enough money to have a maid. Rising Action Monsieur Loisel gets an invitation to a grand party that he hopes will please his wife. Not surprisingly, she complains that she cannot go because she has nothing to wear. Taking some money that he had saved for himself, he buys her a new dress. Again, she fusses that she has no jewelry to go with her dress. She borrows a beautiful necklace from a friend, Madame Forestier. After the party, Mathilde realizes that she has lost the necklace. She and her husband retrace their steps looking everywhere for the necklace. Finally admitting that the necklace is gone, Monsieur Loisel takes his inheritance and borrows the rest to buy a necklace that looked the same as the one that Mathilde had lost. Mathilde returns the necklace to her friend. Falling Action For the next ten years, the Loisels live in dire poverty. They move into a small, dingy apartment. Monsieur Loisel works three jobs. Mathilde does all of the housework. At the end of the ten years, they are debt free; but Mathilde has lost her beauty. Both of the Loisels are tired and will probably never recover from these hard years. In Mathilde’s defense, she rises to the occasion. Rather than gripe and moan, she does the work necessary to keep her house going and take care of her hard working husband. Mathilde goes out for a walk and meets her friend from which she borrowed the necklace. She tells her friend the truth about the loss of the necklace and what they had to do to replace the necklace. Madame Forestier, surprised at hearing the saga of the necklace, relays to Mathilde that the necklace was only costume jewelry and worth nothing. Mathilde Loisel is a dynamic character. She changes and grows as a person throughout the story. It is sad that the Loisels did not consider telling Madame Forestier the truth. This would have completely changed their lives. Rather than face up to the difficulties of telling the truth, they chose to try to handle the situation alone.
Phosphate-Buffered Saline or PBS Solution How To Prepare Phosphate-Buffered Saline Solution Phosphate-buffered saline or PBS is isotonic to human body fluids. Phosphate-buffered saline or PBS is isotonic to human body fluids. Eugenio Marongiu / Getty Images PBS or phosphate-buffered saline is a buffer solution that is particularly valuable because it mimic the ion concentration, osmolarity, and pH of human body fluids. In other words, it's isotonic to human solutions, so it's less likely to cause cell damage, toxicity, or unwanted precipitation in biological, medical, or biochemical research. PBS Chemical Composition There are several recipes to prepare PBS solution. The essential solution contains water, sodium hydrogen phosphate, and sodium chloride. Some preparations contain potassium chloride and potassium dihydrogen phosphate. EDTA may also be added in cellular preparation to prevent clumping. Phosphate-buffered saline is not ideal for use in solutions that contain divalent cations (Fe2+, Zn2+) because precipitation may occur. However, some PBS solutions do contain calcium or magnesium. Also, keep in mind phosphate may inhibit enzymatic reactions. Be particularly aware of this potential disadvantage when working with DNA. While PBS is excellent for physiological science, be aware the phosphate in a PBS-buffered sample may precipitate if the sample is mixed with ethanol. A typical chemical composition of 1X PBS has a final concentration of 10 mM PO43−, 137 mM NaCl, and 2.7 mM KCl. Here's the final concentration of reagents in the solution: SaltConcentration (mmol/L)Concentration (g/L) NaCl 1378.0 KCl 2.70.2 Na2HPO4 101.42 KH2PO4 1.80.24 Protocol for Making Phosphate-Buffered Saline Depending on your purpose, you may prepare 1X, 5X, or 10X PBS. Many people simply purchase PBS buffer tablets, dissolve them in distilled water, and adjust the pH as needed with hydrochloric acid or sodium hydroxide. However, it's easy to make the solution from scratch. Here are recipes for 1X and 10X phosphate-buffered saline: to add (1×) Final concentration (1×)Amount to add (10×)Final concentration (10×) NaCl 8 g137 mM 80 g 1.37 M KCl 0.2 g 2.7 mM 2 g 27 mM Na2HPO4 1.44 g 10 mM14.4 g100 mM KH2PO4 0.24 g 1.8 mM 2.4 g 18 mM CaCl2•2H2O0.133 g 1 mM1.33 g 10 mM MgCl2•6H2O 0.10 g 0.5 mM 1.0 g 5 mM 1. Dissolve the reagent salts in 800 ml distilled water. 2. Adjust the pH to the desired level with hydrochloric acid. Usually this is 7.4 or 7.2. Use a pH meter to measure the pH, not pH paper or other imprecise technique. 3. Add distilled water to achieve a final volume of 1 liter. Sterilization and Storage of PBS Solution Sterilization isn't necessary for some applications, but if your are sterilizing it, dispense the solution into aliquots and autoclave for 20 minutes at 15 psi (1.05 kg/cm2) or use filter sterilization. Phosphate-buffered saline may be stored at room temperature. It may also be refrigerated, but 5X and 10X solution may precipitate when cooled. If you must chill a concentrated solution, first store it at room temperature until you are certain the salts have completely dissolved. If precipitation does occur, warming the temperature will bring them back into solution. Shelf life of refrigerated solution is 1 month. Diluting a 10X Solution to Make 1X PBS 10X is a concentrated or stock solution, which may be diluted to make a 1X or normal solution. A 5X solution must be diluted 5 times to make a normal dilution, while a 10X solution must be diluted 10 times. To prepare a 1 liter working solution of 1X PBS from a 10X PBS solution, add 100 ml of the 10X solution to 900 ml of water. This only changes the concentration of the solution, not the gram or molar amount of the reagents. The pH should be unaffected. mla apa chicago Your Citation Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Phosphate-Buffered Saline or PBS Solution." ThoughtCo, Jul. 11, 2016, Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. (2016, July 11). Phosphate-Buffered Saline or PBS Solution. Retrieved from Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Phosphate-Buffered Saline or PBS Solution." ThoughtCo. (accessed January 22, 2018).
The Revolt Of Mother Essay Research Paper The Revolt Of Mother Essay, Research Paper In ?The Revolt of Mother,? written by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, along with the narrator, we can experience how human beings communicate. Time and setting are the most important definitions of a person?s life. A person cannot change the time he lives in. He lives in the present, the past, or the future. However, his place in location, he is able to choose himself. If a person lives in a city, on a farm, in the mountains, or by the ocean?this can define the nature of his daily activities and even his character. The heroes of this story lived nearly a century ago. They resided on a farm. This was a time when there weren?t a lot of modern accommodations. That?s why Mother and Father had to do everything themselves. Mother raised the children, milked the cow, and cooked the food, which she produced on her own farm. Father also had many responsibilities, such as tending to the animals and farming. They both worked a lot?completed their own given tasks. This separates them from each other, and at the same time, adds to their character. To all his wife?s questions?what he?s doing, what he?s building?Father has one answer, ?Ain?t got nothin? to say about it.? The reader wonders why Father does not share his thoughts with his wife. Maybe he thinks that she is not able to understand the necessity of building another barn. His reticence and stubbornness pushes his wife away form him. She does not show her pain. She remembers his promise, forty years ago, to build a more spacious house for their family, when her daughter Nanny brings it up. ?Mother, don?t you think it?s too bad father?s going to build that new barn, much as we need a decent house to live in?? A woman, like any mother, loves her children. Furthermore, if the child is weak, the mother?s love for the child increases, with addition of compassion. ?She?s got considerable color, but there wasn?t never any backbone to her. ?she ain?t fit to keep house an? do everything herself. She?ll be all worn out inside of a year.? She searches for, and finds, who to share her pain with?her husband. ?I?m goin? to talk real plain to you; I never have sence I married you, but I?m goin? to now. I ain?t never complained an? I ain?t goin? to complain now, but I?m goin? to talk plain.? Her character changes. She becomes more certain in her decision to change the way she lives, to make it better for her daughter?s sake. However, Father has the same comforting answer for her, ?I ain?t got nothin? to say.? There are two opposing feelings inside her?the love for her husband and the compassion for her daughter. She wants to improve the living conditions of her family, but at the same time, she doesn?t want to upset the husband she loves. ?However deep a resentment she might be forced to hold against her husband, she would never fail in sedulous attention to his wants.? Fate answers this question. There are two well-known sayings, ?You can?t run away from your fate,? and ?A person determines his own fate.? This is exactly what happened to our heroin. When Father left the farm for a short time, Mother took a stand. She, with the help of her children, transferred all their belongings from the old house into the new structure. ?Nanny and Sammy [the son] followed their mother?s instructions without a murmur?Nanny went back and forth with her light load, and Sammy tugged with sober energy. She bravely changed her family?s situation. She provided her daughter a place to have a wedding. ?It looked almost as home-like as the abandoned house across the yard had ever done.? For the past forty years, Mother quietly completed her chores around the house, and then some. She never revealed her character or tried to get her own way. Because of this, the house was always peaceful. The children grew up in a calm, gracious atmosphere. In this action of ?moving,? she unmasked her true self. Her?s is a very good quality in a woman. The ability to give in, let something go, to forget, is a very important trait and essential in a joint life of a couple. But the husband has to possess this as well. Father did not have an easy character to deal with. He did a big part of the work for the family. He worried about the expansion of the farm. In their time, machines did not work the field or water the plants; there were no buttons to push and make it easier, as there are today. Despite all this, however, Father never took his hardships out on the family. He answered his wife?s questions with silence. His mistake was that he didn?t explain, to his wife, the necessity of building a new barn. He didn?t include her or make her his equal. In fact, she had to find out from her son what her husband was doing. His way of answering his wife gives off a feeling of indifference. Forty years of a life together is a long time. Therefore, these two people, Mother and Father, love each other a lot. This is why, when Father returned home, there wasn?t a big commotion. He saw that life was better for his loved ones. Moreover, it made him sad to see how long he didn?t get it?that his wife was unhappy. ?Why, mother, I hadn?t no idee you was so set on?t as all this comes to.? ДОБАВИТЬ КОММЕНТАРИЙ [можно без регистрации] перед публикацией все комментарии рассматриваются модератором сайта - спам опубликован не будет Ваше имя: Хотите опубликовать свою статью или создать цикл из статей и лекций? Это очень просто – нужна только регистрация на сайте. opyright © 2015-2018. All rigths reserved.
Koodiyaatam a traditional art form of Kerala. Koodiyaatam means combined acting which signifies Sanskrit drama presented in the traditional style in temple theatres of Kerala and is the only surviving specimen of the ancient Sanskrit theatre. This time my visit to the God’s own country gave me the opportunity to see this marvelous act of Koodiyaatom. The act turned me wordless. Koodiyaatam has an attested history of a thousand years in Kerala, but its origin and evolution are shrouded in mystery. It seems that Kutiyattam is an amalgam of the classical Sanskrit theatre of ancient India and the regional theatre of Kerala. It is believed that Kulasekhara Varman Cheraman Perumal, an ancient king of Kerala, who ruled from Mahodayapuram reformed Koodiyattam, introducing the local language for Vidusaka and structuring presentation of the play to well defined units. He himself wrote two plays, Subhadraharana and Tapatisamvarana and made arrangements for their presentation on stage with the help of a Brahmin friend of him called Tolan. These plays are still presented on stage. Apart from these, the plays traditionally presented include Ascaryacudamani of Saktibhadra, Kalyanasaugandhika of Nilakantha, Bhagavadajjuka of Bodhayana, Nagananda of Harsa, and many plays ascribed to Bhasa including Abhiseka and Pratima. The Kutiyattam performance was confined to the temple precincts of Kerala in specially constructed theatres called Kutampalams. The 2,000 year old Sanskrit drama tradition Kutiyattam, performed in Kerala, southern India, strictly follows the Natya Shastra Natya Shastra is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music. It was written at an uncertain date in classical India and is traditionally attributed to the Sage Bharata. The Natya Shastra is incredibly wide in its scope. While it primarily deals with stagecraft, it has come to influence music, classical Indian dance, and literature as well. It covers stage design, music, dance, makeup, and virtually every other aspect of stagecraft. It is very important to the history of Indian classical music because it is the only text which gives such detail about the music and instruments of the period. Thus, an argument can be made that the Natya Shastra is the foundation of the fine arts in India. The most authoritative commentary on the Natya Shastra is Abhinavabharati by Abhinava Gupta. The Natya Shastra delineates a detailed theory of drama comparable to the Poetics of Aristotle. Bharata refers to bhavas, the imitations of emotions that the actors perform, and the rasas (emotional responses) that they inspire in the audience. He argues that there are eight principal rasas: love, pity, anger, disgust, heroism, awe, terror and comedy, and that plays should mix different rasas but be dominated by one. Each rasa experienced by the audience is associated with a specific bhava portrayed on stage. For example, in order for the audience to experience sringara, the playwright, actors and musician work together to portray the bhava called rati. The main musical instruments used in Koodiyattam are Mizhavu, Kuzhitalam, Etakka, Kurumkuzhal and Sankhu. Mizhavu, the most prominent of these, is a percussion instrument which is played by a person of the Ambalavas Nambiar caste, accompanied by Nangyaramma playing the kuzhithalam. Koodiyattam has been performed by Chakyars and by Nangyaramma. The name Koodiyattam suggests a combined performance of Chakyar and Nangyar. The main actor is a Chakyar who performs the ritualistic Koothu and Koodiyattam inside the temple or in the Koothambalam. Chakyar women, Illotammas, are not allowed to participate. Instead, the female roles are played by Nangyaramma. In the modern world, the late Natyacharya Vidushakaratnam Padma Shree Guru Mani Madhava Chakyar has been the best-known face of Koodiyattam. He was known for mastery of Rasa Abhinaya with special reference to Netrābhinaya. He has been a major force in popularizing Koodiyattam by taking it out of the Hindu temples, performing across India with his troupe, and teaching it to non-Chakyar caste members. He has also adapted, choreographed and directed well-known plays such as Kalidasa’s The Recognition of Sakuntala, Vikramorvaśīya and Mālavikāgnimitra; Bhasa’s Swapnavāsadatta and Pancharātra for performance in the Koodiyattam style. Mani Madhava Chakkiar’s disciple and nephew Mani Damodara Chakyar is also a renowned Koodiyattam performer of traditional devotional Koodiyattams, such as Anguliyanka, Mattavilasa, Mantranka, Ezhamanka. 1. Nair Said, It will be absolutely wrong to say that Mani Madhava chakyar brought he marjor changes in Koodiyattam. He is one of the main trios of Koodiyattam legends – Painkulam Ramachakyar, Ammannur Madhava chakyar and Mani Madhavachakyar. It is Painkulam Ramachakyar who brought Koodiyattam out of temples and made it possible for the common people see. He made necessary modifications in the ‘Aharya’ – costumes. Comparing to Painkulam Ramachakyar, Mani Madhava chakyar has less contributions in the field of koodiyattam. Add a comment
Dennis Shirley. (1997). Community Organizing for Urban School Reform. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. 352 pp. Lauren Richter University of Pennsylvania Recently, a rather unconventional approach to school reform has captured the attention of many interested in public education. The movement originated in the unlikely state of Texas, which has otherwise had a rather undistinguished past with regard to education. Texas's ongoing reform experiment reflects the revolutionary partnership between influential community organizations and local schools united to transform the nature of school reform. Their accomplishments are raising new questions about the future direction of the school reform movement. In his book, Community Organizing for Urban School Reform, Dennis Shirley contemplates the contribution of community organizations-exemplified by a group called the Texan Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)-to the contemporary dialogue of school reform. He claims that by failing to address the larger social context afflicting schools, traditional models of reform are destined for failure. Ultimately, Shirley argues that Texas's reform efforts are deeply rooted in the democratic tradition of public education in America. Community Organizing for Urban School Reform is the story of an unlikely state, forging an unexpected alliance; resulting in perhaps the most logical approach to school reform in decades. Urban public schools are in a state of crisis. Yet, Shirley contends that for the past dozen years, reformers have continued to make the same mistakes. Premised on the misconception that fixing education means fixing schools, reformers have done "nothing to coordinate education within the school with development within the community" (p. 2). Shirley accuses current reform efforts of treating schools as isolated institutions, insulated from the political realities of their neighborhoods. Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities, likened these restructuring reforms to "little more than moving around the same old furniture within the house of poverty" (as quoted in Shirley, p. 2). Shirley argues convincingly that reform efforts that ignore the deterioration of people's lives will do little to confront the economic dislocations, political estrangement, and social disorganization that characterize urban communities. Shirley's understanding of public education informs this interpretation of the purpose and promise of school reform. He reasons Public schools in the United States were born out of the conviction that education is not an individual affair but a public matter, one of deep import for the cultivation of social order, civic liberty, and democratic vitality (p. 4). By interconnecting civic and democratic capacity and public education, Shirley establishes the foundation for his endorsement of community organizations as vital instruments in the development of social capital. Shirley "emphasizes the potential of civic action to improve academic achievement in low-income urban neighborhoods" (p. 27). He characterizes school reform as a movement requiring activism and democracy. Stressing the public's responsibility to each and every child, he insists it is not enough to restructure individual schools; instead you have to reform the public who is responsible for education. To his credit, Shirley's hopeful musing on democracy and civic responsibility as a means to reclaim American ideals of equality in education leaves the reader with a feeling of optimism regarding the future of education. For readers interested in the historical background and theoretical framework of the social action that the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation promotes, there is a thorough treatment in the second chapter. For those more inclined to get to the heart of the case studies, Shirley welcomes them to go immediately to the following chapters. In my opinion it would be a great disservice to the reader's understanding of community organizing to entirely skip the second chapter. Essentially, "the particular historical influences and philosophical underpinnings which guide Texas IAF work provide much of the clout and direction which render the case studies comprehensible" (p. 32). This section reveals the systematic foundation of the Texas IAF, thus dispelling the mystique of community organizing. The Texas IAF's school reform exemplifies a unique form of parental engagement which surpasses typical parental involvement by using concepts of citizenship to stimulate political action. Texas IAF organizations "self-consciously promote social capitalization", and shrewdly use schools as a base for the political revitalization of the community (p. 75). Shirley claims that the IAF organizations have used their collaborative relationships to develop legitimacy and to promote reciprocity and mutual accountability. Additionally, the IAF organization is enormously committed to developing natural leaders from the community to fill the leadership roles of the organization. Yet, despite Shirley's accentuation of the importance of leadership training sessions, there is never any explanation on how these leaders are trained. I remain curious to know why it has remained un-addressed in Shirley's discussion. The Texas IAF is a faith-based organization, making it even more revolutionary in the public education dialogue. Shirley himself advocates the organization's religious institution base. He confesses that his "own interpretation is that the organizations' structures and intentions are parallel to the 'two aspects of the church's life that are both demanding and inseparable: universality and the preference for the poor'" (p. 45). Shirley argues that IAF organizations' social base in religious institutions has positioned them as a potent catalyst for both educational reform and neighborhood revitalization. The author suggests, "we reconsider the cultural taboo that implies that discussions about politics and religion are breaches of decorum and inappropriate topics in public schools" (p. 259). However, not all of us are prepared to embrace this possible resource for educational reform. Despite predictable sensitivities to bridging schools and church, there is also the issue of exclusion. While Shirley addresses the ramifications of faith-based organizing, he stresses the advantages of an institutional base such as churches. Shirley does not dwell on the issue, though his thoughtful analysis warrants acknowledgment. Community Organizing for Urban School Reform looks at four schools in the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation's "Alliance Schools" network. Shirley's case studies are a pleasure to read. The book moves at an enlivened pace in its middle section, with each case flowing effortlessly into the next. Shirley mixes honest observation with fair analysis, and the findings reinforce the methodology and rationales discussed earlier in the book. Shirley's cases reflect the gradual shift of the IAF reform strategies towards internal school issues. Individually, each school had its share of highs and lows. No two schools used exactly the same strategy to exactly the same end, thus suggesting a significant degree of flexibility inherent in IAF reform methods. These examples illustrate the effects of "community-based political power mobilized for public school reform" (p. 295). It seems fair to say that the Industrial Areas Foundation's achievements present a compelling challenge to the existing theories of the education reform. Shirley offers an assessment of the problems and criticisms that face community organization models of reform. According to the author, principals and other members of the faculty can often be the most resistant to change. Most of the people who resist community-based reform efforts are motivated out of some fear. Teachers fear job security and destabilization of the learning environment, neighborhood parents fear that community-based organizations threaten their individual relationships with teachers, and husbands even come to resent wives for rebelliousness. Additionally, Shirley briefly mentions other social and economic factors that sometimes make neighborhood schools rather resistant to change. Though his discussion of obstacles is interesting, it does not reflect the same level of insight and analysis, as do the other sections. Shirley's critique is far more thoughtful than his discussion of the obstacles. However, his method of identifying a criticism and then defending the IAF somewhat compromises his objectivity. The reader is left with the impression that despite criticism, Shirley will continue to fully endorse the IAF strategies, thus making identifying the critiques seem moot. That being said, Shirley does manage to raise some interesting considerations. School reform does not exist in a vacuum. Reformers can no longer afford to pretend that education can be free of politics. Education is all about power, and it's time that the schools and communities started wielding some of their own. Shirley insists that, "most educators and school reformers try to keep politics out of the discussions about schools-as if that were possible or desirable in a robust democracy" (p. 284). Shirley's convictions are deeply democratic. He celebrates the relational power that the IAF has gained from the systematic development of social capital, and he praises each school's broad-based community collaborative as a manifestation of principles of democracy. Shirley's democratic idealism is refreshing and invigorating, and it inspires the passion that distinguishes his work. Dennis Shirley's Community Organizing for Urban School Reform raises a number of questions and challenges to the current philosophies of urban school reform. Shirley insists that the success and popularity of the Industrial Areas Foundation's "Alliance Schools" challenge reformers to reconceptualize American public education. Reformers must begin to think outside the schoolyard, and engage the community as a catalyst to improve urban schools. Texas's revolutionary reform experiment presents a compelling counter-example to the current rhetoric of privatization. Shirley's examination of the Texas IAF reform effort thoughtfully argues for its inclusion in the contemporary context of school reform. Community Organizing for Urban School Reform is a must-read for those frustrated with the current direction of urban school reform. Lauren A. Richter is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. She specializes in American History and Urban Education, and has done considerable coursework in the field of community organizing and school reform.
Sewer Origins Old Lifting Station The city of Charleston began digging its first sewer system in the Fall of 1894, and the first operational pipes were laid in some of the old walled city. This very simple system involved running pipes at angles underground so that sewerage would flow to certain holding tanks, which would then be lifted beneath the surface by pneumatic pumps into a discharge pipe that would carry it to the surrounding rivers through charcoal-imbedded filters meant to clean the refuse. The original “lifting station” opened in the Spring of 1895 was located at the corner of Church and Water streets, where this massive iron manhole plate still stands. It was excavated down to 15 feet below the surface for collection of sewer, which is remarkable considering Water Street is former Vanderhorst Creek. The project was begun during the administration of mayor John F. Ficken, and succeeding mayors J. Adger Smyth, Robert Goodwyn Rhett, and John P. Grace, the pipes expanded throughout the city, and citizens were encouraged to pay the fee to tap into the new system. Until the early 20th century, Charleston had thousands of outdoor privy houses downtown that spread disease and stench, and the modern flush toilets offered a giant leap into the modern era by discharging into pipes that could move sewer elsewhere. Of course, this didn’t completely solve the pollution problem, as waste water was dumped indirectly into the Ashley and Cooper rivers until 1971, when the Plum Island waste treatment plant went into operation under Mayor J. Palmer Gaillard, and has since been affectionately known as “Gaillard’s Folly” or Charleston’s “johnny on the spot.” Corrigan Gallery Existential Jukebox By Duke HagertyAlthough Charleston is proud of its time-honored traditions and the classic shapes of its architecture, the city has also been known for its non-conventional spirit. Local artist Lese Corrigan added an alternative aesthetic to old Queen Street seven years ago this Saturday, with a gallery that offers a much different perspective than the predictable prints of The Battery and Rainbow Row. The Corrigan Gallery celebrates its 7th anniversary Saturday with an open invitation for art lovers to enjoy lemonade and explore creations of numerous artists whose images are consistently absorbing, thought-provoking, and inclined to push the envelope. Artists featured at the Corrigan Gallery include local surgeon Duke Hagerty, who was my next-door neighbor as a boy on Legare Street. Duke’s art work is a delightfully chimerical blend of shape,color, and symbolism as his “Existential Jukebox” shows. In coordinating with the Charleston Fine Art Weekend in November, the Corrigan Gallery will present a show entitled “Over the Edge”, featuring some of the body of work that Lese has created over the past 25 years in Charleston. Other featured artists at the Corrigan Gallery include Karin Olah, Jennie Summerall, Paul Mardikian, and Gordon Nicholson. The gallery is at 62 Queen Street in the French Quarter, and is a great stop during the quarterly French Quarter Art Walks. Blooming Brugmansia Brugmansia Sauveolens Of the many colorful plants and trees that accentuate Charleston’s historic architectural beauty is the distinctive “Angel’s Trumpet”. This flower is very distinctive, blooming in the late Summer with massive, drooping orange petals in gardens such as the one at 31 Legare Street. The House at 31 Legare dates to 1789, and is famously known for a the ghost of a man killed in a deer hunting accident centuries ago who supposedly haunts the drawing room with his presence. Ironically, the Angel’s Trumpet, whose scientific name is Brugmansia Sauveolens, is famous as an hallucinogen. It comes from tropical regions of South America, where it was boiled in teas by primitive tribes to create hallucinatory effects believed to link them to the afterlife. The flower was named for Dutch botanist Sebald Brugmans, and considering the Dutch propensity for getting high, this connection seems very appropriate. Brugmansia was not grown in North America until the mid 19th century, so some of the old Charleston ghost stories may have been induced by native hallucinogenic plants such as the Jimson weed, which once grew throughout the city. Apparently, cows, goats, and horses were grazing on the Jimson weed doing some might strange things in the streets, so the city passed and ordinance in the 1750’s requiring property owners to remove it under punishment of fines. Fortunately, you won’t get fined for growing the Brugmansia in your Charleston yard. Just be warned that the hallucinations from ingesting this plant can be very unpleasant, and we don’t need any more ghosts in the old city. Historic Waterworks The Middleton-Pinckney House on George Street represents the high-water mark of Charleston wealth in the post-Revolutionary period, and ironically was literally pumping tons of water daily one hundred years later. The 1796 Federal-style structure was built for wealthy widow Frances Motte Middleton, who later married Gen, Thomas Pinckney. Both came from powerful, influential families that prospered from rice plantations that made Charleston among the wealthiest cities in colonial America. The outer elegance would survive Civil War and Charleston’s economic decline, but the spacious interior was gutted for steam powered shafts that pumped water through pipe mains first created throughout the city by the early 1880’s, as the old mansion became home to the city water utility. Until the post-Civil War period, shallow wells and rainwater had been Charleston’s water supply, and the populace suffered from water-borne diseases spread by germs that festered in the city’s heat. A new artesian well system was successfully completed in 1878, allowing for the pumping of 3 million gallons daily from a huge reservoir behind the house. In 1933, a public swimming pool was built on the property, and was used until 1963. By that time, Charleston’s water supply was primarily derived from the Edisto River, but the artesian flow continued until the 1980’s when the underground aquifer dried up. The Middleton-Pinckney House is now home to administrative offices for Spoleto USA, Charleston’s annual international arts and music festival, and presumably it is a welcome signal from the past if the roof springs an occasional leak. Wickliffe (Lucas) House John Hume Lucas House Many people from long-time Charleston families have attended formal parties at the Wickliffe House on Ashley Avenue. The 1850 house is now property of the Medical University of South Carolina, and is rented out for weddings and other formal functions that rekindle memories of the grand balls that epitomized society in the antebellum South. The house was built by rice planter John Hume Lucas, whose family owned Hopsewee Plantation on the banks of the Santee River. Hopsewee had been home to Thomas Lynch, Jr., signer of the Declaration of Independence, and was sold to Lucas in 1844. Like many wealthy rice planters, Lucas spent the hotter Summer months in Charleston to avoid the swarms of mosquitoes along the Santee River delta. When the Lucas(Wickliffe) house was built, it stood overlooking the Ashley River, and was cooled by the prevailing westerly breezes that blow through Charleston. Across the street, the Lucas family was entertained by marching soldiers at the Federal arsenal, which would later become home to Porter Military Academy, the now the Medical University. Although the waterfront area has long been filled in and is now crowded with towering hospitals and research facilities, the old house retains its antebellum aura with grand piazzas overlooking a still-substantial property, and inside, massive ballrooms where the cream of Charleston society once mingled. Miss Alicia Rhett’s Gift Doing some research the other day, I came across a letter written by Charlestonian Alicia Rhett in 1943. For those who are not familiar with Miss Rhett, she played India Wilkes in “Gone With The Wind”, and was a world-class portrait artist here in Charleston for many years from her Tradd Street home. When the new Dock Street Theatre was being constructed in 1936 on Church Street in the old Planters Hotel building, Miss Rhett was very much involved in the decorations and planning. Her letter describes the varying details she added to the theatre, which was replicated to look like the 18th century Dock Street Theatre that had disappeared after the Revolution. Miss Rhett personally hung drapes in the upstairs boxes and added artistic details to the theatre lobby, as well as creating the distinctive seal of King James VI featured above the stage curtain. The symbolic “order of the garter” includes the unicorn of Scotland and the Lion of England, representing the union of those countries in 1707, and is embellished with French slogans “Dieu et mon Droit” and “Honi sont qui mal y pense”, meaning “God and my right” and “Foolish are those who think badly(of others)”. The notable symbol was first displayed in the Charleston area at the old Goose Creek church in the early 1700’s, and was chosen for the Dock Street Theatre replication project as part of a myriad of motifs throughout the theatre property that incorporate classic architectural themes from Charleston’s past. By the way, Miss Rhett is still with us at age 98, now living in a nursing facility but, according to her nephew, still possessing the sharp mind that provided so many Charlestonians with lasting images of their families. The Hanging of Issac Hayne Saturday August 4th marks one of Charleston’s most somber anniversaries – the hanging of Col. Isaac Hayne. A rice planter from Colleton County, Hayne was commissioned as an office in the South Carolina forces fighting for independence against the British. Hayne was among the thousands of soldiers trapped in Charleston during the second British siege in 1780, and was captured and paroled. Under the terms of parole, an officer was allowed to return to his home under the condition that he not take up arms again, under the punishment of death. But Hayne, who was an accomplished soldier with outstanding leadership, was put in an awkward position by the British in 1781, as fortunes were turning in favor of the Revolutionary cause in South Carolina. The English demanded that Hayne take up arms for the British, or be subjected to house arrest at his Walterboro plantation. Hayne chose the threat of death rather than change his convictions, and considered the British offer tantamount to violating the terms of parole, once again joining the American ranks. He was captured again, and held in the basement of the Exchange building at the foot of Broad Street that still stands today. Found guilty of treason, he was marched through the streets of Charleston to the gallows at White Point, encountering sobbing citizens along the way who begged the British not to hang one with such honorable standing in the city. Hayne’s hanging not only helped inspire South Carolina’s patriots to drive the British out within the year, it also gave rise to a famous ghost story. According legend, Hayne passed the house of his sister on the way to the gallows, and she called out to him to please come back to her. Her supposedly promised that he would return, and there have been claims that his boots can be heard marching down Broad Street at the dead of night. Rutledge House Memories John Rutledge House It Ain’t Haint or Haint Blue Sky Blue Piazza Ceiling Northside Manners Window overlooking piazza The “single house” construction that dominates historic Charleston features houses one room wide that typically stand very close to each other. This creates a common situation that is seen in quite a few locations in the city, where the side piazza is only a short distance from the windows of the house next door. In north-south situations such as 86-94 Church Street, the piazzas are all on the south side, where the door that opens into the house leads to a hall in which there is a staircase. In these narrow halls, the north-running stair turns halfway on a landing and proceeds south again to the second floor, and usually the landing is lighted by a northside window. From this landing window, overlooking the open expanse of the piazza next door, there is a natural tendency to linger and look over at what’s going on at the neighbor’s house. Traditionally, Charlestonians would spend many hours on the piazzas on pleasant days – socializing, relaxing, or enjoying time with family. This made it very easy for overly-inquiring minds to eavesdrop on family secrets, arguments, or romantic interludes that were not meant for the public, and tarnish the city’s reputation for politeness. So, there developed the saying “northside manners”, in which it was considered proper behavior to refrain from listening or viewing from that north staircase window on the south piazza privacy next door. I do remember in our “side hall” single house on Legare Street, the stair configuration was somewhat different, but the tempting northside windows were there, overlooking the southside piazza at number 10. With seven children in our family who were accustomed to passing information up and down the four-story house at the top of our lungs, it couldn’t have been much fun for those adults trying to have a peaceful cocktail under our watchful eyes and ears. So I remind myself and others that, should they linger overlooking a southside piazza, please remember your northside manners.
Online GK Series Multiple Choice Questions and Answers on HTML \| Page-23 111 To seperate single list, use A <ol> and </ol> B <ul> and </ul> C <li> and </li> D All of the above Answer: Option [C] 112 To created a numbered list, use A <il> B <ol> C <ul> D <li> Answer: Option [B] 113 Which of the following is italic tag A <LI> B <II> C <IT> D <I> Answer: Option [D] 114 HTML is simple than D None of the above Answer: Option [A] 115 Why should you specify a background color if you are using an image for the actual background of your page ? A So the text shows up better B In case the image doesn’t fit right C The background color will be shown until the image loads D None of the above Answer: Option [C] Useful Computer Science EBooks
Today in History: January 25 \| HistoryNet MENU Today in History: January 25 What Happened This Day In History. January 25 1533 Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn. 1787 Small farmers in Springfield, Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays, revolt against tax laws. Federal troops break up the protesters of what becomes known as Shay’s Rebellion. 1846 The dreaded Corn Laws, which taxed imported oats, wheat and barley, are repealed by the British Parliament. 1904 Two-hundred coal miners are trapped in their Pennsylvania mine after an explosion. 1918 Austria and Germany reject U.S. peace proposals. 1919 The League of Nations plan is adopted by the Allies. 1929 Members of the New York Stock Exchange ask for an additional 275 seats. 1930 New York police rout a Communist rally at the Town Hall. 1943 The last German airfield in Stalingrad is captured by the Red Army. 1949 Axis Sally, who broadcasts Nazi propaganda to U.S. troops in Europe, stands trial in the United States for war crimes. 1951 The U.S. Eighth Army in Korea launches Operation Thunderbolt, a counter attack to push the Chinese Army north of the Han River. 1955 Columbia University scientists develop an atomic clock that is accurate to within one second in 300 years. 1956 Khrushchev says that he believes that Eisenhower is sincere in his efforts to abolish war. 1959 American Airlines begins its first coast-to-coast flight service on a Boeing 707. 1972 Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, announces her candidacy for president. 1972 Nixon airs the eight-point peace plan for Vietnam, asking for POW release in return for withdrawal. 1984 President Reagan endorses the development of the first U.S. permanently-manned space station. Born on January 25 1759 Robert Burns, Scottish poet (Auld Lang Syne, Comin’ Thro’ the Rye.) 1882 Virginia Woolf, English author (Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando). 1933 Corazon Aquino, president of the Philippines.
Kidney Institute research focuses on paracellular transport of salt July 13, 2016 By Greg Peters Lei Pei and Alan Yu Lei Pei and Alan Yu For the past 15 years, Alan Yu, M.B., B. Chir., director of the KU Kidney Institute at the University of Kansas Medical Center, has been immersed in a complex scientific world filled with paracellular transport, tight junctions and claudins. Yu and his research team have spent years drilling down into the granular world of how our kidneys perform at the cellular level. What they have discovered is that something called paracellular transport is a key to how efficiently the kidneys use energy to keep us alive. Why is this important? Gram for gram, kidneys are one of the biggest energy consumers in the body. And if a person's kidneys aren't working efficiently, they risk developing a serious condition called ischemia from a lack of oxygen, which could lead to death. Yu's latest kidney research has been published in the prestigious Journal of Clinical Investigation - the official publication of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. This marks the third time in as many years that research from the KU Kidney Institute has been included in the journal. "We think this an important sign that we here at KU are leading the charge in translational research," said Yu, who came to KU Medical Center from the University of Southern California in 2011 to lead the Kidney Institute. Drilling down Not many people know it, but the kidneys are one of the body's leading consumers of oxygen. In fact, only the brain uses more oxygen per gram of tissue than the kidneys, so it's important to keep them running efficiently. Because kidneys are such energy hogs, it makes them susceptible to a serious condition called ischemia, which is a lack of oxygen that can cause death. In humans and other animals, sheets of cells known as epithelia separate many parts of the body. For example, skin is an epithelium. Tiny tubes within the kidneys, known as tubules, are also epithelium. These sheets of cells act as barriers, but they also transport materials in an attempt to regulate the makeup of an organ. The gaps between epithelial cells are sealed by tight junctions. And contrary to what their name might imply, tight junctions are actually leaky. They allow materials to get through in a process known as paracellular transport. Claudins, meanwhile, are proteins that form channels for paracellular transportation to take place. So why are there leaks between epithelial cells at all? That was the first question Yu's team set out to answer. More specifically, why do they exist in the kidneys? Kidneys filter blood in the body, allowing certain substances, including sodium (salt), to pass through. Much of the sodium is later reclaimed or reabsorbed in the kidney tubule by the protein claudin 2 via paracellular transport. Salt is essential in keeping the kidneys hydrated, which is key to their health, so reclaiming the sodium would seem to be a necessity. To test this hypothesis, Yu asked Lei Pei, a doctoral student in physiology from China who works in his lab, to investigate whether mice who had claudin 2 genetically removed had a salt-wasting trait - or were not retaining enough sodium. The thought was that if the mice lost a lot of salt in their kidneys, perhaps they would become dehydrated and possibly die. So Yu's team, which included associate professor Timothy Fields, M.D., Ph.D., removed the claudin 2 from the proximal tubules of the kidneys in the test mice to see what would happen. But the mice did not die. So the takeaway from all this is that it appears claudin 2, the proximal tubule and paracellular transport are not essential for the regulation of salt in the kidney, Yu said. The big find So if salt-wasting wasn't the answer, then what? As with much good science, one failed hypothesis led to another discovery. Pei's test results pointed researchers to something else of importance. What they discovered was that when claudin 2 was absent, the kidneys could still transport salt, but it took a lot more energy and consumed much more oxygen. "In essence, paracellular transport is like an energy-efficiency mechanism, and when you don't have it, your organs consume too much oxygen," Yu said. "Oxygen is needed to generate energy within cells." So Yu's team tested whether mice with claudin 2 removed would develop ischemic injury to their kidneys. The short answer is yes. What they found was that the kidneys of the test mice were much more susceptible than the kidneys of normal mice. This confirmed to the researchers that paracellular transport - although not an absolute must for kidneys to survive - does play a role in making kidney function more energy efficient. It also helps regulate the organ's function, so it won't use more energy than necessary and risk ischemia. A new theory Going forward, the team is now considering whether a kidney, which should under normal conditions be able to protect itself after sustaining an injury, might not be able to if an individual has a defect in paracellular transport in the kidney. This problem could lead to even greater injury. Yu said it is unclear at this point whether there are naturally occurring variations in the activity of the paracellular transport pathways in humans, and whether some people might have defects that make them more susceptible to injuries to their kidneys. In a broader context, Yu said, these recently published research findings will be of particular interest among the epithelial biology community because it asks why things have evolved the way they have in the human body? He further speculates that because tight junctions occur in almost all multi-cellular organisms, they must somehow be crucial to the very existence of the organism. But exactly how is still up for debate. That might be a question for Yu's next research journal article. Last modified: Oct 20, 2016
Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Monday, January 22nd, 2018 A Day to Remember A Day to Remember This is an ultimate privileged moment for the people of Afghanistan at large to celebrate the 19th of August, one of the most precious and proud moments in their long rich political and cultural history to remember the freedom of their nation being achieved more than nine decades back with the support of their great HEROES from the Great Britain. Perhaps, it creates an atmosphere to look back at the history and as well as to the future of this great country Afghanistan, and the people that across the country are striving to build their country again with much more enthusiasms while strengthening their relationships with the citizens from many nations, joining together in a shared vision and mission of a secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan soon in the future Inshallah. Historically, Afghanistan has passed the worst time during the Soviet Union war and the recent Taliban Regime that had pushed Afghanistan decades of years backwards but still the people of Afghanistan have not lost hope in the face of great challenges. We see progress on the ground with the support of the great international community that is still fighting with intention to promote peace and planting the seeds for long-term progress for the wellbeing of our country. Afghanistan like every other countries, celebrates its freedom "Independence Day" achieved from the Britain on August 19th. Being a war-torn country, the independence day of Afghanistan has lost much of its sheer and elegance in the due course of time and imposed with terrorist attacks, insurgency and even prone to natural calamities. The land of Afghans has been the melting pot of Eastern and Western cultures and terribly affected the social and cultural growth of the country. Afghanistan has been invaded by numerous rulers including Alexander the great, Mongol rulers and Turkish Empire, however Ahmad Shah Durrani in the eighteenth century annexed many of the neighboring territories and made Kandahar its capital. Afghanistan achieved full independence from the reigns of British Empire on August 19th 1919 and the day embodies the rich historical and cultural aspect of the country. However, soon after, under the kingdom Amanullah Khan who was believed to be a unique Afghan King whose reformist ideas, vision and mission were at least a century ahead of the very time he was living. And thus, one of his core reforms was to grant and encourage full women rights which included abolition of Burqa and forced seclusion of women's freedom of press, mandatory and education for all the citizens of Afghanistan, abolition of slavery and forces labor, fighting corruption, injustice, creation of first Afghan constitution, civil rights guarantees, national ID for each Afghan citizens, establishing of a democratic legislation assembly, abolition of all privileges for the Tribal Chiefs and Royal Family, and the secularization of Afghan Judicial System based on the ideals of French Revolution's Liberte, Egalite, and Fratermite as opposed to Islamic Shaira laws which resulted in Islamic fundamentalists' successful revolt against him. Hence, he has served Afghanistan in the best way of all times, introduced everything to the people of Afghanistan that they were lacking, freedom, freedom of thoughts, ideas, opinions, justice for all, and a strong stable democratic country where everyone had the right to ask him his/her right. As we are going to celebrate our country's Independence Day in upcoming Aug 19, 2011, there comes a question, and it may be knocking in the mind of each of you which remained unanswered as we see the country is going deeper day by day in a insecure place in the course of Insurgency growth and their accelerating tactical planned attacks on the key officials. In this regard, one wonders, when Afghanistan becomes a real safe and peaceful country. And then, will Karzai act smarter and courageous enough than what he did in the last couple of years as an Afghan President, to reincarnate himself as the 21st century Amanullah Khan to rescue Afghanistan from the ongoing death-grips of the so-called Islamic fundamentalists, Warlords turned politicians, the Tribal Chiefs in their drug infested fiefdoms, corrupt Afghan officials with suitcases full of dollars bound for Dubai, and the ever increasing violence and injustices against Afghan women, children and against the powerless people. And thus, will he put an intensive concern over the poor and helpless widows begging along the streets to feed the orphan children whose fathers have sacrificed their lives for the sake of this great country. Is he really willing to pay attention to those disabled people left from the Soviet war? We must salute those great loyal fighters who have devoted their lives for the sack of this country today we are proudly living in. 19th August, will be the best day of all which reminds of how the past people were united with each other, honest, sincere and with one hand fighting for this great country. Ever since my childhood, I have only seen destruction, killings and bloodshed in my homeland; I was always looking forward to seeing a prosperous, stable and a civilized Afghanistan because in an advanced country, people can acquire proper education and their rights and live with peace, justice and a life of dignity with the best standard of education which eventually leads to cultural and political awareness as well as rational policy making. It is not only, there are million and thousands of youth like me wondering alike. Educated and equal rights based approached nations learn to develop a sense of patriotism and responsibility towards their country, nation and humanity at different levels of their education and responsibility. A rational and educated person may never inconsiderately betray his own country just as no one would ignorantly burn down his own home. More importantly, people nurturing their responsibility for their country but should also realize that patriotism and nationalism are two different concerns that we must know. Patriotism should be on the sound state of integrity, truthfulness and loyalty to a country and its people. Patriotism should be a strong sense of responsibility that nations nurture in themselves to make their country a better place for all to live, defend its borders, and nation from looting, assault, exploitation and invasion. People should nurture a feeling of responsibility towards their country or the country of their birth; however, this pride should not lead to the extreme nationalism, which may lead to wars and massacres. Today our country is facing tremendous rates of challenges, of violence, corruption, terror movement, and injustice, violation of human rights, tormenting of human freedom, and killing of expressing opinions and thoughts and freedom of getting education. These all lead the people towards an unhealthy competition with other nations that often leads to unnecessary wars. This sort of behaviors inevitably leads to traumatic events that involve a destruction of peace and a violation of human rights for a country and its nation. This sort of extreme nationalistic sentiments happened in Afghanistan over the past three decades, which inevitably led to traumatic events that entailed the destruction of peace and violation of human rights. In addition to above mentioned thoughts, history has recorded the physical and emotional pains that extreme nationalists created for all in Afghanistan, which led to brutal ethnic cleansing in the country. Everyone suffered during the severe wars in Afghanistan, especially women and children. So, everyone needs to know that extremism in any form is dangerous and can lead to negative outcomes. By violating other people's basic rights and neglecting other nationalities, languages, races, and religions out of the ignorant pride of extreme nationalism, it is possible to reduce humans to beneath the level of animals. As human beings we are capable of training animals to perform certain tasks, but by simply learning these lessons, they do not become human; however, if humans embrace ignorance and cruelty, they abandon the circle of humanity. I believe that people should nurture their love for their country. To put into a nutshell, I shall state to say that it is a proud moment for us to celebrate our past and get ideas of our past united personalities and their sacrifices for the betterment of this great country. And I hope our history teaches us of unity and brotherhood to decorate our country with our own united hands. So be the one that your country feels proud of. Go Top
Bernard Swysen, a French cartoonist, depicts a young man that enters a staffing company and asks how it works. After getting the explanation, he walks out the door to start his own temp agency. July 14 is the date of the French national holiday Bastille Day, that marked the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. A new revolution is needed in France to reform laws that punish employers at every step. Few organizations are willing to hire full time, and now even the temporary staffing sector is in crisis. Tags: Industry, Staffing company, Temp agency, France, Bernard Swysen, Bastille Day, Employment crisis, French cartoonist, French Revolution
After choosing an enlarger, the most difficult buying decision that a darkroom worker can make is choosing among the multitude of enlarging lenses available. Many never make this decision, opting to use the discount lens that often comes packaged with their enlarger. But depending on what it is, there are several good reasons to swap out that original lens. Unfortunately, unless an individual has a background in physics and hands-on experience with many lenses, the choice ends up being based on hearsay, rumor, and what the salesman behind the counter has to sell. Here's some points to consider when comparing the various enlarging lenses that can be used for subminiature work. Focal length is usually defined as the distance from a lens' optical center to its focal point. But such definitions have little practical application in the darkroom. Mst of use think about focal length as the area of coverage. A wide angle lens takes a lot in, while a telephoto magnifies the image. It's somewhat the same with enlarging lenses -- with a twist. Start by remembering that with enlarging lenses, the focal length will determine how big a print you'll get on the baseboard. The shorter the focal length of the lens, the greater the magnification. In fact, it's the exact opposite of the typical camera lens! For example, at two feet above the baseboard, a 50mm lens with a 10x14mm negative will produce a print about 4 x 5 inches. With a 25mm lens in the same situation, you'll get an 8 x 10 inch print. With a 50mm lens you'd need to raise the enlarger negative stage to four feet above the baseboard for an 8 x 10! An easy way to think about this is to imagine your negative inside the camera with the light coming from BEHIND the negative. A 25mm lens will spread the light out much wider than a 50mm lens at the same distance. And that's what happens on an enlarger! To keep the enlarger head at a manageable height, the rule of thumb is to get a lens equal to (or only slightly longer than) the diagonal of the film format in use. This means that if you use more than one subminiature format, such as Minox and half-frame, you will want to get one enlarging lens for each format. A lens that produces good-sized prints for the half-frame format will yield prints that are too small from a Minox negative. In addition, all enlarging lenses are designed to give their best performance at a particular magnification. If you are using a 50mm lens to make Minox enlargements, you are actually using the lens at a very high magnification. This will surely degrade the image to a certain extent. Many lenses will let you know what magnifications it is best for. Of course the less expensive lenses won't provide you with this information, but they are usually optimized for about 8x -- a 3x5 inch print with a 10x14mm negative, for example. Another vital specification about an enlarging lens is its coverage -- how big a negative it can "see". Usually, the longer the focal length of the lens, the larger the negative it will cover. Fortunately for those with overburdened memories, the numbers here also generally follow the "diagonal of the film format" rule. That is, a 15mm (or longer) enlarging lens will cover Minox film, lenses in the 25mm-28mm (or longer) range will cover the various 16mm formats, and lenses in the 28mm-35mm (or longer) range will cover half-frame images. But every rule has exceptions, and lenses shorter than or longer than the normal focal length are sometimes useable when they shouldn't be, and sometimes not useable when they should be. Manufacturers can make an enlarger lens with wider or narrower coverage. For example, the super-quality 30mm f2.8 Minolta CE lens will not cover a half-frame negative even though the diagonal of the half-frame negative is 30mm. The 30mm 2.8 Computar DL, on the other hand, will cover full-frame 35mm images (43mm diagonal). Go figure. How can you tell if a lens will cover a particular format? Without the owner's manual, you can never know for sure. When buying a used lens, make sure you can return it -- no questions asked. Along with focal length, the maximum aperture of a lens is a fundamental parameter of its design. Large maximum apertures ("fast" lenses) are not as important in the darkroom like they can be when you're taking pictures, but a faster lens will provide more light to the baseboard for easier focusing and composing. For example, a 30mm f2.8 lens produces a brighter image that is usually easier to focus than a 30mm f4 lens will. But a lot depends on the brightness of your enlarger's light source. If you have a very bright enlarger head it can actually be too bright to focus at the maximum aperture. Keep in mind, however, that all enlarging lenses provide their sharpest image when stopped down two to three stops -- most f2.8 lenses are sharpest at f5.6-f8. When opened all the way for focusing, the image will not appear as sharp as it will stopped down. In addition, it will not provide optimum sharpness if used at the maximum aperture. Another reason to focus at the actual f-stop -- as opposed to the maximum f-stop -- is focus shift. All lenses suffer from it to some extent, but some lenses are much worse than others. Aside from the issue of negatives popping from the heat generated by the enlarger light source (not a big issue with submini negatives, but something to watch for, and a good reason to use a heat-absorbing glass if using a condenser head) the point of focus can change when the lens is stopped down. This is overcome -- some would say masked -- by the increased depth-of-field when stopping down, but it's a good idea to test your lens for this affect. First, focus your image with the lens wide open. Now stop-down two f-stops. The image should get dimmer, but sharper. Now refocus the lens, slightly, to see if you can get it even sharper! If you can, your lens suffers from lens shift. The degree to which an enlarging lens is designed to correct optical aberrations and the quality of its construction determine its ability to produce sharp images. Defects such as distortion, edge light fall-off, and chromatic aberration (the inability of a lens to focus red, blue, and green light to a common point) are all corrected to some degree in all lenses. Simple, inexpensive lenses usually do the job least well, while more complex (and inevitably more expensive) lenses come closest to perfection -- assuming they are constructed correctly. In short, when it comes to enlarging lenses you usually get what you pay for. An inexpensive lens rarely outperforms one of moderate price, and the latter is unlikely to outperform an expensive lens. The reason is that more complex lens designs usually perform best, and it costs the manufacturer more to build such lenses. The number of elements gives you a good idea of the optical sophistication of the lens. Generally, the more elements a lens has, the more corrected it is for aberrations. A lens element is an individually ground lens. Elements are assembled in various combinations to achieve a desired optical effect. When two or more elements are combined to act as one lens component, they are called a group. Of course, even well-designed lenses can be poorly constructed and produce poor results. A study by Darkroom Photography several years ago, found that about one out of every three enlarging lenses showed significant construction defects that significantly impacted the results. More interesting was that this poor quality control was just as likely to occur with expensive lenses and did not vary from one company to another. The costly lenses are more difficult to manufacture and suffer the same failure rate as less-costly, but easier-to-manufacture lenses. I bought a new Minolta 30mm 2.8 lens many years ago which never focused correctly. When I got fed up and sent it back to Minolta, they corrected the problem -- misaligned elements. Some of the optical aberrations of a lens you can test for yourself are light fall off and resolution. How the lens is used is the most important part of eliminating image aberrations. Using a lens without knowing its optimum aperture will ruin more images than anything else. An inexpensive lens used at its optimum aperture will outperform the most expensive lens that is used stopped down, for example. There are three common configurations in enlarging lenses on the market today. The least expensive lenses are of the three-elements in three-group (3/3) design. These lenses perform well for making black-and-white enlargements up to 11 x 14 inches. But attempting higher magnifications or color work will result in diminished sharpness and contrast. These 3/3 lenses are a good bet for the budget-minded photographer who is not interested in making big prints or color, especially for a format that you use only occasionally. Make sure that you test these lenses for their optimum aperture and stick to that aperture. The second enlarging lens type is moderately-priced and has four elements in three groups (4/3). That extra element in the design provides for improved contrast and resolution, and these lenses are a good choice for the photographer who needs more versatility from a lens for regular submini work, bigger prints or color endeavors. The most expensive category of enlarging lenses, the six-element in four-group (6/4) variety, will gives excellent performance in both high magnification and color applications. Such correction is not attained without some penalty, however. Not only are these lenses much more expensive (current warehouse prices for 6 element f4.0 28mm lenses are over $400) these lenses have a restricted magnification range in which they can provide their near perfect optical correction. If you shoot extensively in a particular format, if you want super-sized enlargements, or if you do a lot of color work, you should consider one of these optics. Here are some sample shots with three lenses of the central portion of a 35mm negative at extreme magnification. The images you see are approximately a one inch square section from what would be a 24x36 inch print -- that's a two by three feet print! With prints this big we are able to examine the grain structure directly to determine picture quality: Samigon 35mm f3.5 (3 elements / 3 groups) Rodenstock 35mm f4.0 (4 elements / 3 groups) Minolta 30mm f2.8 (6 elements / 4 groups) f2.8 -- -- f3.5 -- -- Since the resolution of the computer screen cannot show fine detail and will only show the largest discrepancies in the images, we will add a few comments. The Minolta will be used as a point of comparison -- the gold standard. In general, we see two factors affecting the quality of the results -- the accuracy of the f-stops setting which affects the exposure and the optics of the lens which determines the print sharpness. The Minolta (6 elements/4 groups) results are top-notch. Perhaps the most amazing thing is how fast this lens is and how good the quality is open all the way. The results are very slightly sharper at f4.0 and f5.6 (compared to f2.8). The results start to soften very slightly at f8.0. This lens is optimized for 26x enlargements and this one is only a 10x print. Results show that f2.8 through f8.0 are all useable apertures. Exposures are exceptionally consistent from f-stop to f-stop. The Rodenstock (4 elements/3 groups) also shows fine results but with more limitations. At f4.0 the exposure is noticeably lighter, suggesting that the maximum aperture is a little less than f4.0 (f4.2?). The results are a little less sharp as well. Stopping down to f5.6 shows results as sharp as the Minolta at that aperture. At f8.0 the results start to soften. In other words, with this lens, stay as close as you can to f 5.6 and you will get top-notch results. The Samigon (3 elements/3 groups) showed good results for the money. The Samigon is, by far, the least expensive lens in this crop. Open all the way to f3.5, the results are slightly soft and the exposure is a little light. Stopping down to f4.0, improves both of these factors. At f5.6, the sharpness continues to improve and is only a little less sharp than the Minolta. By f8.0, the sharpness starts to drop and so does the accuracy of the f-stop. If you are going to use a lens of this type, make sure you stick to f 5.6 and don't make prints larger than 11x14. Overall, these are exactly the types of results we would expect to see. The more elements in a lens, the more useability at more aperture settings. The lens will also be useable over a wider magnification range and may even have a wider aperture. It might also have more convenience features. But the occasional user who does not make large prints can be quite happy will a less expensive lens. Some manufacturers provide half-stop clicks on their aperture rings for finer control. Others provide illuminated aperture rings so you can change settings more easily in the dark. A new innovation is to provide click-stop override so that the lens may be operated without click-stops. This feature is useful when you're using a color analyzer and want to precisely "null" the meter. Some lenses also offer a stop-down lever. With this feature, you set the lens aperture with the lights on and can easily switch between full aperture (for focusing) and stopped down (for exposure). But look at convenience features last. A lens with lots of features, but poor quality, is not a bargain at any price. Normally, enlarger lenses do not attach directly to the enlarger. They operate like screw-mount camera lenses, but they are screwed into a metal board that is then attached to the enlarger. But short focal length enlarger lenses can sometimes have trouble "mating" enlargers. If you are using an enlarger that was designed for subminiature work, you probably will not have a problem. For example, the Minox enlarging lens was designed to be used on a Minox enlarger. But enlargers that were designed for larger formats, such as 4x5 or bigger, were not designed with the smaller formats in mind. These enlargers frequently have a limit to how close the lens stage can get to the negative stage, and if it can't get as close as the focal length of your submini lens, it won't focus. One solution to this problem is the use of recessed lens boards. These allow the lens to get closer to the negative. But these are expensive, hard to find, hard to order, and your enlarger company may not have made one that will fit you lens. Even if you find one, you are not out of the woods. Some lenses are too fat (or some recessed boards are too narrow) to work together. In addition, once you get the lens on the board, it's hard to see the f-stops (you may have to count click-stops), and it can be difficult to get your fingers on the aperture ring (the things we go through for our subminiature cameras!). Submini enlarger lenses can be very small. One reason for this is that they don't need to be big, but they are sometimes made smaller to fit into recessed boards. Unless you have big fingers, this is not a huge problem, but these smaller lenses sometimes comes with smaller thread sizes which can be a problem. The "Leica" mount (39mm screw mount) is most common, but many submini lenses (some of the best) come in other size threads, such as 32.5mm and 25mm. Your enlarger company may not have made a lensboard with this thread size or if they do it may not be a recessed type. You have solutions. First, some lens companies make step-up rings to increase the size of the thread size to 39mm, although these may be hard to find. If all else fails, get an undrilled lens board -- just about everybody makes these -- and have it drilled at a local machine shop to match your lens. Top-notch enlarging lenses for subminiature work aren't always expensive, especially if bought used. Remember that used lenses, like all used darkroom equipment, has not been exposed to the elements like regular camera gear can be. Much of the time, the darkroom equipment has seen little use. But whether you decide on a new or used enlarger lens, make sure that it comes with a no-questions-asked return policy. Test the lens as soon as you get it, compare it to the results from other enlarger lenses, and return it if it doesn't stand up to your needs. An enlarger lens should last a lifetime. For the formats that you use the most, it pays to invest in a lens you'll be satisfied with. Here is a list of some enlarger lenses that have been made over the years and that are suitable for submini work. It is NOT a complete list (please send any additions to us), nor is this list any sort of recommendation. Generally speaking, the more elements the enlarging lens has, the better quality print it will make. And it will maintain that quality over a wider range of f-stops and maginifcation settings. Unfortunately, you cannot determine the number of elements by the maximum aperture, the price, the company name, or any other external characteristic. If you have more information than that listed here, please contact us. Some of these lenses are still in production. Those that are not can be easy to find or difficult depending on how many were produced. Usually, the more expensive lenses are harder to find since fewer were produced. Coligar 35mm 3.5 39mm 3 ? Amcam Pritz 35mm 3.5 39mm 3 ? Axomat Mirar 35mm 3.5 ? ? ? Beseler Beslar 35mm 3.5 39mm 3 12x Beseler Beslar 25mm ? ? ? ? Bogen Voss 25mm 3.5 39mm 4 10x Bogen Voss 38mm 3.5 39mm 4 10x Bogen Voss 35mm 4.0 39mm ? ? Cambron Cambron 35mm 3.5 ? ? ? Coligor Coligor 35mm 3.5 ? 3 ? Computar Computar DL 25mm 2.8 39mm 9 ? Computar Computar DL 30mm 2.8 39mm 8 16x D.O. Industries Fujinon EP 38mm 4.5 39mm 6 10x D.O. Industries Dyotar 38mm 4.5 39mm 4 ? Escot Escot 25mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Fotolarger Elgeet 25mm 2.5 ? ? ? Gami Officine Galileo 30mm 4.0 ? ? ? Goerz Minilux 25mm 4.5 ? ? ? Ilex Ilex 25mm 3.5 ? ? ? Meopta Mirar 20mm 5.6 ? 3 6x Meopta Anaret 30mm 4.0 ? 4 ? Minolta Rokkor E 25mm 3.5 39mm 4 ? Minolta Rokkor E 30mm 4.5 39mm 4 ? Minolta Rokkor CE 30mm 2.8 39mm 6 26x Minolta ENLA unit with Rokkor E 30mm 2.8 39mm 6 ? Mamiya ENLAHEAD unit (model 1) with 25mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Mamiya ENLAHEAD unit (model 2) with 25mm (?) 3.5 39mm ? ? Mamiya ENLAHEAD unit (model 3) with 25mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Minox Micro-Minox 15mm 3.5 special plate ? ? Omega Wollensak 25mm 3.5 ? ? ? Olympus F Zuiko E 38mm 2.8 39mm 6 ? Omega Omegaron 25mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Omega Omegaron 35mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Ponder and Best P&B 35mm 3.5 ? ? ? Perfex Perfex 25mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Perfex Perfex 35mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Pritz Pritz 35mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Rodenstock Trinar 20mm 2.5 ? 3 ? Rodenstock Omegaron 25mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Rodenstock Omegaron 35mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Rodenstock Rogonar S 25mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Rodenstock Rogonar S 35mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Rodenstock Rodagon 28mm 4.0 32.5mm 6 20x Rodenstock Rodagon 35mm 4.0 32.5mm 6 10x Rodenstock Ysaron 25mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Rodenstock Ysaron 35mm 4.0 32.5mm 4 20x Rolyn Coronar S 35mm 2.8 25mm 6 ? Rolyn Corygon 35mm 2.8 25mm 3 ? Samigon Samigon 35mm 2.8 39mm ? ? Samigon Samigon 35mm 3.5 39mm 3 ? Schnieder Componon S 28mm 4.0 25mm 6 10x Schnieder Xenon 28mm 2.0 25mm 6 ? Schnieder Componon S 35mm 4.0 25mm 6 10x Spiratome Spiratone 35mm 3.5 39mm 3 ? Taylot Tayon 35mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Telesar Telesar 35mm 3.5 39mm 3 ? Testrite Perfex 35mm 3.5 39mm 3 ? Thimble Thimble 25mm 3.5 ? ? ? Tominon Tominon 35mm 4.5 39mm ? ? Ultima Ultima 25mm 3.5 ? ? ? Vivitar Vivitar 35mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Yashica Atoron unit with E-Yashinon-DX 21mm 3.5 39mm ? ? Wollensak Raptar 25mm 4.5 39mm ? ?
amanda_franc3a7ozo_at_the_runner_sports-2Abstract: The paper is oriented on the area of “wellness gastronomy” with the focus to show the parallels between incorporative style towards food consumption, in family abuse, and while consuming natural sources. The basic psychological approach is objectification and dominancy towards weak and vulnerable beings and environment. When a living being became an object in front of our eyes it can be punished, slaved, or devoured any time. The tactless and aggressive behaviour of the Western societies based on this logic that is an expansive patriarchal style of behaviour that is going to enslave and possess whatever is on the way. Today economical and environmental disasters can be driven back to this attitude. Keywords: Wellness gastronomy, eating patterns, psychological character, incorporation, abuse, consumption. 1.1 Wellness nutrition characteristic Wellness nutrition and wellness gastronomy is committed to further harmonious composition of food, nutritional balance, and harmony of flavours, colours and ethical sourcing. For the same vein, it is also in the book “Foundations of Wellness” (Reger-Nash et al., 2015) indicated the Wellness optimal eating plan, emphasizing the main food groups. It also contains the principles of safe food and shopping recommendations, and what types to avoid. Wellness nutrition helps in the prevention of acute and chronic diseases and potentiates not only physical, but also mental development, it cannot only strengthen your mental stability, but also increase resistance to infection and increase work efficiency. The basic task is to ensure optimal intake of energy and nutrients in the form of macro- and microelements, as appropriate to the age, health and lifestyle. For the exact definition of Wellness nutrition will be defined (Škvařil, 2015): 1. Nutrition food quality from multiple perspectives, which will have dominant influence on the health and performance of boarders. It has a new impact on the human psyche. Today we use the total practical division of food and food seasonings. However, this current distribution contains a number of significant errors. For example, the foods include sugar and the seasonings include mushrooms. In fact, it should be the opposite. Therefore it will be necessary to repair the system or introduce other, which would allow simplified orientation in the quality of food. 2. Structure of food cooking and culinary adjustments in terms of not only the sensory appeal of these dishes, but now also in terms of the impact on the health, vitality and mental boarders. The result should be simple rules for combining ingredients in the food and especially the rules for the different ways of flavouring. 31 3. Combination of repasts in each dish (minimum: appetizer, main dish, curvature, drinks) from the perspective of the impact of combinations of food on health, exercise and mental wellbeing boarders. 4. Manners of dining in terms of individual support and influence on psyche of boarder. 5. Wellness Nutrition, which will be realized in wellness gastronomy, then we will be able to integrate into a lifestyle that leads to diet in order to enhance the quality of life to a level that we can consider as wellness status. It will therefore be even define the concept of living and quality of life from the perspective and requirements to achieve wellness status. Wellness gastronomy in the context with vegetarian or vegan nourishment is a popular new way of diet in EU and Western societies. In this paper we are focusing on to show the psychological and social aspects of nourishment specially the symbolic connections of eating meat and happenings in the family, society and environment. We would like to find some connections that show the same base for acting destructively in these different levels of research. The health aspect of vegetarian nutrition is an individual and even more a physiological level that is thoroughly researched by medicine. In this paper the individual level is not discussed but we stress more the supra individual level. The pollution of environment and the problem of global warming, furthermore the overconsumption of the Western societies’ population threatens to incorporation of the Globe (Sabate 2001). If we want to deal with the problem on a more sophisticated sociological-philosophical level the recent researches on family abuse justified this approach (Herman 1997). From this point of view the second generation of feminism looked for and found connections between terror in society, politics, and in family abuse and the nourishment (Adams 1999). 1.2 Character and its formation due to socialisation and social background Psychological characters are formed by the parents with the help of social values. These conglomerates of attitudes, behaviours, ideas and values are built up through the birth. We say that we suck these values with the mother milk. Even more: “We are going to be what we eat.” In this way thought Sigmund Freud (1962), who differentiated the human development according to activity of erogenous zones like oral, anal, phallic, and after a latent phase genital. Freud’s approach, especially in the first two phases contains the nourishment as a gross factor and the social behaviour that is connected to it. So he formed 5 types for the oral character of the adult:  Incorporative  Clinging  Biting or cannibal organization  Spitting out  Extruding or excluding. Freud’s concept shows the early pattern of behaviour of nourishment connected to the behaviour of adulthood. It is similar to the social characters of Eric Fromm. Fromm (1976) postulates the same as Freud: the character is formed according to the social background. His characters are as follows:  Incorporative dependent type  Incorporative aggressive type  Owner or proprietor type  Marketing type  Humanistic type. And finally one more scientist who reduces the types and queues up three possibilities. Angyal (1965) discussed the characters from the 32 viewpoint of the connection to environment. He distinguished the characters like:  Heteronomy  Autonomy  Homonomy. These are the subduing or dependent, the dominant, and the balanced characters. Each can be recognized by its behaviour towards the social and natural environment. The main goal of the study is to show parallels between nourishment and human behaviour. Qualitative Content Analysis of documented research studies transformed in subject selection in the form of reference reduction combined with empirical praxis. The paper main goal is exploring and discussing from the view of possibilities of psychological approaches showed a special connection between input and character. Input can be a gross factor like solid food but also subtle information that comes from the social field. The latter depends how the child is basically nourished. Vegetarian ideas rooted in the historical times. In Egypt or in the Hindustani civilization nourishment was vegetarian. They respected life as it is. So was with the great ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, Platon, or Pythagoras (Guthrie 1979). Škvařil (2015) states that if a state of wellness be evaluated from the perspective of yoga then it is good to declare parameters, which should be achieved in this way. The author argues that the way to a state of wellness is almost completely disappeared requirement for internal change that according to ancient teachings seems to be a key condition to achieve a state of wellness, “bliss harmony and performance potential”. The author also confronts Yoga Vedanta philosophy that understands the concept of bliss and happiness. From that it can be guessed that the permanent bliss achieves stronger buying a car or an attractive holiday or a salary increase or improvement of cleanliness of the environment and about certainly not merely a massage or the sauna (Škvařil, 2015). “Wellness” state and “Sattva” state as synonyms The history is closest to the concept of “Wellness” the mentioned concept of “Sattva”. Sattvic state in itself joins two opposites: high performance and harmony. “Sattva” is a Sanskrit word that defines the first of three “guns”: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. According to this theory everything in the universe and human life is formed on the basis of these the above-mentioned three fundamental principles (qualities, characteristics). Sattva-gun is characterized of the enlightenment, purity, knowledge, balance and harmony. Rajas-gun is a substance or energy of motion, creation, action and development. Tamasgun can be described as low energy or energy decay, ignorance, destruction, stagnation, disease and congestion. In terms of compatibility with the concept of wellness can Guns defined as follows: (analyzed according texts of Škvařil, 2015 and Skarnitzl, 1994) – Sattva – a state of deep inner peace and at the same time the fullness of power that allows, if necessary to move in an instant from deep calm and relaxation to the maximum shortterm and long-term performance. After execution performance can get back into the state of peace very quickly and balance. – Rajas – the great state of internal restlessness but also a sense of energy, which typically allow only short-term performance and thus short-term satisfaction. Inner restlessness creates then not putting full of bliss. – Tamas – a state of rest due to a lack of energy that even with big incentive not allow any energy consuming activity. That is the state of darkness or inertia. 33 Sattva diet According to the classical record Bhagavad Gita the Sattva diet “presents nice heart and mind, which stabilizes the body and gives a long life, strength and health of mind and body. It promotes happiness and love for all creatures.” Sattva food is any natural food that has a calming effect that is easily digested and if you eat it in moderation. These foods should be fresh, harvested at the appropriate time, a reasonably long storage, free of harmful chemicals and are free of unhealthy foods or their ingredients. Ayurveda (“Knowledge of life” – the traditional Indian system of medicine) is considered sattva diet as the most suitable for supporting strength, vitality, powerful mind and a good mood, lasting youthfulness and longevity. Sattva food opens consciousness, psyche is fed into a state of harmony. Sattva food: fresh, juicy, light, oily, nutritious and sweet-tasting foods. They are: wheat, rice, barley, milk, honey, brown sugar, green vegetables, leafy vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. Sattva diet contributes to achieving high-quality mental state and the desired positive personality qualities – attentive, kind, peaceful, comprehensive, balanced, warm, intelligent, independent, empathetic, positive, compassionate, loyal, tolerant, generous and calm. Rajas diet According to the classical to the “Bhagavad Gita” rajas diet is the one who “brings misfortune, misery and disease”. It consists primarily of pungent, sour and salty tastes, and what is too hot, crisp and dry, causing a burning sensation. ” Rajas food is too spicy, heavy and contains foods that have a heating effect, such as: spicy spices, chilli, garlic, onion, paprika, ginger, tomatoes, cheese, ripe eggplant, some beans, meat, fish, seafood , eggs, alcohol, tea, coffee, cigarettes, sugary foods, beverages with citric acid and carbonic potatoes and similar salted junk foods, fried and baked foods. People attracted to this type of food are physical or emotional imbalanced. In a healthy rate of moderate tendencies are “Rajas” needed for survival, as maintaining the energy potential in the exercise. Highly developed rajas features such as sensuality, motivation, ambition, imagination, wrath, jealousy, mania, egoism and impulsivity lead to a character that is typical of unreliability, stubbornness, greed, anxiety and the need for constant distraction. “Rajas personality” is hyperactive and can remain for longer balanced. Tamas diet According to the classical to the “Bhagavad Gita” the “Tamas” diet is one that “is an old and corrupt, which is tasteless and has an unpleasant odour, also residues and foods that do not look good.” Tamas food is hard, cold, dry, tasteless, rotten. From a modern gastronomy here is sorted frozen semi-finished products and food prepared in a microwave oven. For tamas food are considered especially canned and preserved, processed, semi-heated, leftover food, overcooked food, strong alcoholic beverages (spirits), strong medicines, meat. “Tamas” diet reinforces in personality pessimism, ignorance, greed, laziness, doubts, criminal tendencies, lack of human understanding, feelings of inferiority. The above allocation of food is not completely uniformed. For this reason, these criteria should be understood as approximate. Objective evaluation for wellness gastronomy is necessary to build on the current scientific knowledge about the quality of food, diet and health promoting knowledge about the impact of food and dishes on the vitality and power simultaneously to induce the state of wellbeing, peace and harmony boarder. Wellness gastronomy has very important findings in the field of psychology, nutrition and health psychology. Wellness diet should promote improved quality of life. It can be assumed that the actual wellness gastronomy can achieve wellness secure state, but that is only one of the important conditions to achieve it. It thus appears that for measurable and long-term primarily the result of the influence of wellness gastronomy is necessary nutrition wellness inclusion in the system of diet-style spa, which then no longer ensure the attainment and maintenance of quality of life that could be considered a state of wellness. For this reason it is essential definitions 34 of “quality of life” and “lifestyle” to allow conscious lifestyle management, which ensures achieving wellness status (Škvařil, 2015). So call “Traditional” nourishment is meat based diet since the meat is included in most of the dishes. This is due to the social welfare that is always a sign in every era that luxury consumption is the social ideal. Social ideals are luxury, consumption, and pronto. All these stand for satisfying human needs for material comfort. These ideals need matter and gross energy. That ends in consumption the environment, wars, and aggression. To have enough power needs oil and mineral potential, and water, etc. This is the competition for the matter on this globe regardless of the consequences (Lorenz 1974). Supra-individual analogies To find subtle analogies between nourishment and social values is not an easy case. Since majority of the Western population consume meat based diet it is a natural tendency to have resistance to understand this topic. Livestock Eating meat and aggression can be analysed as the way of handling animals. To understand this connection we should observe the changes from a life of an animal to an object of food. Livestock production is hidden from our eyes. Animals are stuffed in minimized spaces of meadows, hutches, trucks to end up in the slaughter houses. They exist as properties. Their suffering is for the joy of human’s satisfaction. But a consumer in the supermarket does not think about the story of a sausage or a bacon. There is a gap between the mutton and the jumping lamb. This process is well built to be hidden for lulling human emotions. Children are deeply hurt when their Easter bunny is served for the Sunday lunch (Akers 1993). If we do not know something we are not responsible for. And if the mass do something it is not necessary to think over its righteousness. So are general psychological self-defensive mechanisms to maintain our self-esteem. Eating meat means incorporating lives that gives the satisfactory feeling to have control over nature and natural sources. It can be called the sense of being the Creator. Family abuse We can find the same analogy in family abuse. Though it seems to be far but psychological dynamics are similar. Aggression against women and children are “popular” topic for modern psychological and sociological research. It seems that abuse is the main cause of certain syndromes like borderline disorder, schizophrenia, antisocial behaviour, etc. Victims are always the weak and vulnerable. Aggressor is mainly the gross and dominant. So are the social roles in the patriarchal society: men suppress women and children (Herman 1997). The process is the next. Make the weak your property and slave. Let her be emotionally and materially dependent. Thank that you can externalize your aggression. Your anger punishes your property if it disturbs you. It can be light verbal punishment or deadly brutal slain. The main psychological method is objectification and aggression behind the curtains. Rules are in the hands of men, regulations are too. It is again the position of the Creator (Adams 1999). Environmental consciousness Meat eating as a larger area stands against the environment. It demands 3-10 times more energy to get the same amount of nutrition from meat than from plant origin. To be able to present these resources we consume the environment. Main cause of deforestation is meat industry. So is with water consumption. If the water used by meat industry were not subsidized, a hamburger would cost 35 US$ instead of less than a buck (Halweil and Nierenberg 2004). We could enumerate more data but the essence is that meat based diet is not sustainable even for the Western world let alone the whole Globe. We consume the environment through consumption of meat 35 products. We pollute the environment through the consumption of meat, and we abuse the natural resources through consumption material goods (Renner 2004). But all these destruction are hidden from our eyes since a long chain of production hides all the sufferings and abuses of the Earth and its inhabitants. We again do not care and behave as rulers. Psychological essence of aggression is objectification of a living entity or ecological system. The outer object as already our property can be treated as we wish. So is our projection of anger onto the possessed “object”. Final act is incorporation or devour as an act of consumption. This method is justified by law against animals. The same method is used in family abuse though it is not justified. It is the same way of treating other nations in the name of justice for getting their natural sources either by war or by tricky contracts. And this is how we approach the nature to consume and control it (Adams 1999). An important sector of “SelfTransformation” is “Wellness Nutrition”. This term was defined in the Czech Republic in the 1st National Conference of “Wellness gastronomy” in Kroměříž in 2015. The definition declares that the Wellness diet should be in terms of a positive impact on human health is always freshly prepared food in organic quality and a significant proportion should have a raw diet (fruits, nuts, vegetables, milk, muesli, etc.). Only fresh diet represents properly enzymes that are catalysts of biochemical processes in the human body (bone structure, muscles, and haematopoiesis). In contrast, the semi-heated meals, meals care, foods with chemical additives have a negative impact on human health and cause mental and physical weakness and fatigue. This is how a person feels after the mental and physical are very closely related to its diet (Krejčí, Hošek, et al., in press) Starting from eating patterns and forming of the human character we quickly approached till the consumption as the source of human happiness. This is an attitude of an oral character that cannot stand equality. For this character things should be under control, emotions should not be mutual, weak and vulnerable beings must be ruled. The patriarchal society gives such possibilities that destruction of animals, family members, other cultures, and environment is accepted, even more: celebrated. Today’s heroes are blessed with cunning and aggressive logic that devour the diversity of manifoldness. As Erich Fromm (1976. p. 37.) says “…the wish to devour the entire world, the consumer is the eternal suckling, crying out for its bottle.” and “I am what I have and what I consume.” Fortunately ecological development is at its borders since pollution and natural disasters cost more and more. This will awaken businessmen and politicians to create new ways of approach to nature and to renew our ideals of consumption. We should find new ways of living and new ideals that the future generation can have a good example for surviving on this planet. Adams, C.J. (1999): The Sexual Politics of Meat: a Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Akers, K. (1993) Vegetarian Sourcebook. Denver: Vegetarian Press. Angyal, A. (1965) Neurosis and Treatment. A Holistic Theory. New York: Wiley. Freud, S. (1962) Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books. Fromm, E. (1976) To Have or to Be? New York: Harper and Row. 36 Guthrie, W. K. (1979) A History of Geek Philosophy – Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Cambridge University Press. Halweil, B., Nierenberg, D. (2004). Let’s See What We Eat. In: The State of the World. New York: Worldwatch Institute. pp. 94-127. Krejčí, M., Hošek, V., et al. (in press) Wellness v životě moderního člověka. Prague: Grada. Lorenz, K. (1974) Civilized Man’s Eight Deadly Sins. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Olah, A., Kallai, K., Vadnai, Z. (1985) Reformkonyha. Budapest: Mezőgazdasagi Kiado. Reger-Nash, B., Smith,M., Juckett, G. (2015) Foundations of Wellness. Champaign: Human Kinetics. Renner, M. (2004) Towards a Less Consuming Economy. In: The State of the World. New York: Worldwatch Institute. pp. 128-158. Sabate J. (Ed.) (2001) Vegetarian Nutririon. New York: CRC Press. Skarnitzl, R. (1994) Poznáváme své já. Praha: Melantrich. Škvařil, J. Wellness gastronomie. Available on: Tibor Kökény: Wellness Gastronomy and Supra-individual Connections of Nourishment. Acta Salus Vitae, 2015, vol.3(2) pp. 30-36.
How Sleep Problems Make Asthma Worse? If you are already dealing with Asthma, it can get further worse if you have sleep-disrupting problems, such as sleep apnea and snoring. Read ahead, and you can find out the problems that may affect your Asthma adversely. Asthma attacks may appear as deterrents in your daily chores, but they can also impose a threat for a basic necessity, which is an adequate amount of sleep. The research shows that there is a connection between Asthma and other sleep problems, including snoring. Thus, to keep your asthma in check, you must pay attention on how to cure snoring. If you are yet not familiar with the facts how these two things can be interlinked, following are some reasons to prove it. • Increased Mucus: While you are sleeping, your airways tend to narrow that causes an increase in the airflow resistance. This may activate coughing, which in turn can lead to more tightening of the airways. If there is an increase in the drainage from sinuses, it can also activate Asthma in the sensitive airways, which can impact Asthma condition badly. Thus, if you are snoring, it is a sign that your airway is too narrow and you should find an effective snoring cure to keep the problem at bay. • Reclining Position: Sleeping in a reclining position can also incline you towards nighttime Asthma related problems. Many factors might be associated with this, like the build-up of secretion in the airways, decreased lung volumes, increased volume of blood in the lungs, and increased airway resistance. • Snoring: A stuffy nose is said to be the reason behind various sleeping problems. Not just it affects your sleep but also causes breathing problems. It can make snoring as well as sleep apnea worse. On the top of that, it also aggravates the Asthma symptoms. Thus, to keep Asthma in check, it is highly necessary to cure snoring. • Sleep Apnea: Sleep Apnea is one of the major sleep disorders, in which one stop breathing altogether for a certain period. And, due to this reason, the lungs fail to get enough air. It also causes an increase inflammation in the bronchial tubes, which in turn triggers the Asthma symptoms even more. • Internal Triggers: Irrespective of the hours you are sleeping at, Asthma symptoms still get worse. If you have been working a night shift, you can still get Asthma attacks in the day while you are asleep. Asthma has nothing to do with the hour of the day. According to some researchers, there might be some of the internal triggers that affect Asthma related problems during sleep. Not just these, but there are some of the other factors as well that play an important role in affecting your Asthma while you are asleep. For instance, if you are sleeping in an air-conditioned environment, it may cause heat loss from the airways. This loss can trigger Asthma as well. Apart from these, you need to keep your sleeping disorders in check if you are dealing with Asthma and you don’t want it to get worse. For that, you can start from adopting some snoring cures and leading a healthy lifestyle. Leave a Reply
Will Technology Ever Stop Advancing? Dear Curious Aztec, Will there be a point in time where technology will NOT be able to get faster or continue advancing? —@grapeee_SODA viz Twitter Wow, first question this column has tackled, and it’s a doozy. Strap in, because before we’re done we’ll be exploring the edges of space and time. But first, let’s get our terminology straight. “Technology” has a few definitions, but let’s work with this one: Technology is anything built or configured using information to achieve some practical purpose. Information—any information—can be encoded as a series of 1s and 0s, with each binary digit called a bit. Got it? OK. Sculptor Michael Salter’s Big Styrobot with Little Buddy. Over the years, a number of mathematicians and information theorists have set out to quantify the relationship between technological progress and our ability to compute information. The most famous of these is probably Moore’s law, named after Intel honcho Gordon E. Moore, which states that the number of transistors per microchip doubles approximately every two years. It’s not really a law in the way physicists and mathematicians use that word, but it’s held pretty well true over the past several decades. It accurately predicted that processing speed, memory capacity, and a handful of other useful markers of technological progress would grow exponentially between the 1960s and today. But will Moore’s law always hold true? I called Vernor Vinge, San Diego State Emeritus Professor of computer science and Hugo Award–winning science fiction author to ask him. He said that even though we’ve frequently encountered apparent bottlenecks in the progress of technology, we’ve found ways around them. “There’s a theoretical limit to the number of bits per second you can transmit over, say, a phone line, and it’s a very well thought-out and strict limit,” Vinge said. “We’ve far exceeded that, but we didn’t exceed it by breaking the laws of physics. We did it by changing the characteristics of the communication channel.” In other words, what humans have always excelled at is finding ways around technological limitations by building new technology. “So my short answer is: In the absence of physical disaster, I suspect that technological progress will continue for some time,” Vinge said. So far, so good. But then he went on: “After that, it might be impractical for us mere humans to assess the nature of future progress.” Sculptor Michael Salter stands before his spongy overlord, Giant Styrobot, at the San Jose Museum of Art in 2008. That sounds ominous. Vinge, it turns out, is one of the founding fathers of an idea known as the technological singularity. It sounds like something straight out of science fiction—and indeed, Vinge has written several books about it—but he and other futurologists believe that sometime in the not-too-distant future, humans will create an artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence. After that, pretty much all bets are off and all predictions are moot, as human beings won’t be able to comprehend the designs and maneuverings of that superintelligence. “The analogy I like to use is that it would be like us explaining our technology and society to a goldfish,” Vinge said. Glub glub. While that is an unsettling notion to some, including your Curious Aztec, know that this is a highly controversial suggestion. Experts from fields ranging from computer science to neuropsychology disagree vehemently on when, or even if, a technological singularity could occur. Many scientists think it’s pretty far out there, but then again, a number of them take it seriously. But putting aside arguments over the singularity, either we or superintelligent computers or some other intelligence out there in the galaxy likely will continue to create and innovate and build new technology well into the future. How long can any of us keep it up? Let’s go back to the idea that technology is essentially applied 1s and 0s. Well, the properties of subatomic particles can also be described in 1s and 0s. Based on estimates of the age and temperature of the universe and the relationship between matter and energy, a number of physicists have worked out theoretical upper limits to the information content of the universe. The universe, they say, contains between 1090 and 10120 bits. No one can tell you when we (or someone or something else) will hit that upper boundary, but it’s going to happen eventually, quadrillions of years in the future. Unless, as Vinge points out, a speculation by theoretical physicist and polymath Freeman Dyson comes to pass: “Perhaps one of the late-term projects of our ultimate descendants will be engineering the immortality of the universe,” Vinge explained. If that happens, then the answer to your question is no. Otherwise, yes—when either supercomputers take over or we literally run out of information in the universe. Told you it was a doozy. Do you have a question for The Curious Aztec? E-mail him at thecuriousaztec@sdsu.edu, leave him a tweet @TheCuriousAztec, or leave a message on SDSU’s Facebook page. You stay curious, San Diego State. Leave a comment Filed under Research, The Curious Aztec Leave a Reply WordPress.com Logo Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
C. S. Lewis on Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on 2 June 1953 in London. C. S. Lewis chose not to attend the festivities because the weather was not great, because he did not like crowds, and because he was not in the mood to dress up. Instead he stayed at home and watched the event on TV (it was the first fully televised coronation). A month later Lewis reflected on the coronation in a letter to a friend (Letters, 3:343): by Tony Reinke Popular posts from this blog When God turns a deaf ear on prayers What does it mean to live a godly life? Women of the Bible: Adah and Zillah
Séminaire Digiplante — 05/12/2016 — 11h30 Xiangtuo Chen Model-driven and data-driven approaches in Plant yield Prediction December 5th, 2016 11:30 AM In agriculture research, the Crops Yield Prediction (CYP) is always an important topic. Normally, the agricultural planners should estimate the yields for all crops before the planting season. However, it is always difficult to do such a job because the Crop Yield Prediction depends on a lot of interrelated factors, like their genotype or the environmental condition where they are planted. What’s more, the farmers’ decision has also great influence on the Crop Yield, such as land preparation, irrigation, sowing date or using fertilizers. Sometime, the market can also influence the farmer’s decision. Yield prediction traditionally has relied on farmers’ long-term experience for specific fields, crops and climate conditions, which can be inaccurate. Simple estimators, such as the average of several previous yields or the last obtained yield, are also used. Nevertheless, crop yield varies spatially and temporally with non-linearity, introducing large deviations from one year to another. Thus, more efficient methods have been developed, which can be classified as crop growth models and data-driven models. So in this presentation, we try to make a comparison of these two principal approaches for Crops Yield Prediction. Comments are closed
Monday, June 11, 2012 needs of animals research project A very basic characteristic of the inquiry process and project based learning is that students use a variety of ways to represent their learning. How do you teach them the "ways" first? Grade 1 French Immersion students need so much scaffolding! This project is one way that students can demonstrate their learning. Once students use a strategy at least once, they can add it to their bank of "projects". By the end of the year students will have a repertoire of many ways they can show their learning. There are several digital apps that my student are familiar with, this post will cover a hard copy project. This research project is inspired by the foldables and lapbook ideas I see on pinterest. I think that by having young students generate small manageable pieces of information, rather than a lined page of writing, the work is more manageable, broken into smaller steps, and easier to share and display with one another. Legend and explanation of clear targets can be found here. Here are the clear targets listed in "I can" statements for this unit of study taken from the Alberta Program of Study for Science. In retrospect I should also include the targets for other subject areas that this project will address. This sheet goes in an envelope on the back of the project/folder to be consulted during the project and once it is complete. This an important communication piece for parents and self-evaluative piece for students. It clearly shows them what is being studied and what the expectations are. Students can identify where they are at in their learning. I have left space to jot in which project or lesson addressed each outcome and space for teacher or student notes. This single project won't address every outcome. As a planning tool I plot out on this sheet how many weeks each outcome or project might take to investigate - it's the beginning of a long range plan. Here is a completed project geared for grade 2 targeting the learning outcomes associated with the science curriculum "small crawling and flying animals". The students choose their own animal after a whole group study of the general characteristics of insects. The first task is to draw your critter and label as many parts as possible. Students have had previous experience with the "project" I call "bits and pieces", you can read the post about that here. Inside, students answer their own questions about habitat, diet, and predators. Along the top students generate a "big" question. This is something the students really wants to tknow about the subject. In this case the student had indicated that this would be a manual for people who were worried about scorpions and wanted to know where they might hide and if they would sting. Once they got the hang of it students liked the true and false section best. This is where the work could really be differentiated and students could show what they know. This part adds an interactive aspect to the project. The small circle flip book is where students answer their "big"question. Stood up and opened the projects are like mini science fair projects with artifacts displayed in front. The true false cards are left out on the table and students and parents can try to put them in the right envelope (students wrote the answer on the back with any further explanations). This is a template meant for grade 1. The format is the same but the pieces reflect the grade 1 outcomes associated with the needs of animals. For grade 1 the students also generate a "big" question that is along the top of the folder. The flip book on this page is for classifying animals based on visible characteristics such as adaptations for survival; la fourrure, les écailles, les plumes, les griffes. In the example I made I put standard classification groups but the Program of Studies asks students to classify based on the criteria I just mentioned. Students can find images of their own animals to sort (magazines), draw them or use the collection I have included (coming soon). My collection includes insectes and amphibians so students may have to be selective about what they will include in their project and decide if some creatures don't fit any of their 4 categories, whatever they may be. For the grade 2 template students used the 2 envelopes to make up true and false questions about their critter. For grade 1 students classify a collection of creatures as domestic or wild (an outcome in the program of studies). The flip book on this page for grade 2 is used to show the life cycle of the insect (or other small crawling and flying animal). For grade 1 students use this space to identify the basic needs of the animal, where do they live, what do they eat, how do they breathe. Be sure to go to the next post for step-by-step instructions to help you and your students begin your research. Students decide how they'll sort or classify their animal collection. Here are a few ideas or headings they may use, either in a folder as above, a flipable, or a booklet. A few ways we classified animals. I found it best to stick to the learning outcome suggestion that students sort by visible characteristics. Some students wanted to sort their animals as mammal, reptile and so on in a booklet. These photos are my moc-ups. I always try out the project first to see what students might need. Students also added their own drawn animals, animals they found in magazines, pictures their friends had drawn, their pets. I forgot to photograph the student booklets. We wrote some characteristics of each group of animal together as you can see on the mammal heading with the rabbit on it. No comments: Post a Comment
What does elaborate mean? It means something that has been executed with a lot of detail to minuteness. Noun: –elaborateness Adjective: -nonelaborate Sentence Examples: – • Are you looking to plan an elaborate shindig? If so, then it is time for you to dismantle your plans and look into some other avenue of celebration. • If you want to go for a wedding, do not wear an elaborate dress, where something that you are comfortable in without any compromises on the fashion. • With just simple ingredients, my mother has the capability of making an elaborate dish. • When it was the turn of the defendant for cross examination, he went on an elaborate rant on how he was nowhere in the scene of the crime. However, CCTV footage had led to the defendant being held guilty by the jury. • The Christmas lights in our house were elaborate, so much so that some of the neighbors started complaining about the brightness. · We always undertake elaborate decorations during the Christmas season in the outside of our house. It leads to a lot of Christmas cheer.
Ecology and Radical Economics — Chris Gaal Regardless of what they say on Earth Day, corporations must be interested in one thing above all else--making a profit. Wages are a cost to be minimized so that corporations can maximize their profits. So too, the protection of nature is a cost to be minimized in order to ensure a profit; not just any profit, but the largest profit possible. Even in the case of well-meaning environmentally conscious executives who don't want to dump pollution into the river, or who want to put a scrubber on the smokestack, competition will ensure that they will go out of business if they act upon their conscience. This is a fact of the market, irrespective of the personalities involved. Thus competition is the engine which drives environmental degradation. The search for profit is a fact that also requires a great deal of waste. Profits are higher on commodities that wear out faster, and need to be replaced. For example, the first light bulbs lasted 10,000 hours, but to sell more and make a bigger profit, the ones put on the market only lasted 1,000 hours.(1) Profits are also maximized by minimizing the choices available to consumers, even those who would choose to consume "green." For instance, mass transit is not a choice available to consumers in this society because the auto related industries have structured a dependence on automobiles, roads, and petrochemical infrastructure. In 1935, Los Angeles had the largest mass transit system in the world, with 3,000 quiet electric trains that carried eighty million passengers a year. General Motors and Standard Oil bought the system and disassembled it, creating a forced reliance on automobiles and oil. The costs of freeway construction and air pollution were "externalized"--shifted onto the public. This example was repeated again and again by the corporate players in auto, oil, rubber, and concrete until 88% of the nation's electric streetcar network was dismantled.(2) The majority of research and development funding for sustainable alternative sources of energy in the mid-seventies wound up under the control of a few large corporations such as Westinghouse, Grumman, Exxon and Arco.(3) These companies were careful to do nothing that would have threatened the interests they had already invested in coal, oil, and nuclear energies. Arco, for example, bought up solar energy patents to make sure that no productive investment would take place. Similarly, agribusiness and the chemical industry seek to keep us dependent on destructive mono-crop agricultural methods which cause topsoil erosion, require a great amount of pesticides and chemical inputs, and are easily managed by centralized corporations. In fact the monocrop corporate farm is being cemented into place almost everywhere, especially in the Third World where such methods are imposed to increase food exports in order to service foreign debts. A perfect example of deregulation in Washington is found in the "Council On Competitiveness," made up of six cabinet officials under Dan Quayle. In 1989 this body blocked a proposal by the EPA to require 25% of lead batteries to be recycled, they forced through more than 100 changes in the provisions of the Clean Air Act to make it weaker, and recently sought to redefine "wetlands" in order to gut the Wetlands Protection Act.(4) Corporations resist regulations as a matter of economic necessity, and both major political parties, caught up in the logic of competitiveness, are increasingly unwilling to represent any other interest. The complicity of the government in helping corporations stay "competitive" in this way is shown by the ease with which corporations capture government agencies by having people from the industry placed in charge. This cynical necessity is what led Ronald Reagan to appoint John Crowell Jr. to be Assistant Secretary of Agriculture--the agency which oversees the Forest Service. This man had made his career as a corporate lawyer for Louisiana-Pacific, one of the largest purchasers of federal timber. His deputy was Douglas MacCleery, an analyst for the pro-industry National Forest Products Council.(5) Under their influence, the Forest Service vastly increased the amount of timber sold from public lands at a loss subsidized by tax dollars. The EPA leadership has had a similar revolving door with industry. If it is also possible for corporate interests to capture large environmental organizations through tax deductible donations, then they will certainly seek to do so. Large lobbying organizations in Washington need money to carry out their operations; however, with massive corporate donations they are not as willing to push for reforms which might endanger their finances. Groups such as the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society, and the National Wildlife Federation have substantial corporate contributors which include ARCO, Exxon, British Petroleum, Waste Management, Westinghouse, Weyerhauser, Dupont, General Electric and many other known offenders.(6) Us Against Us Apart from this, in a capitalist market there is a dynamic of downward spiral, as communities and countries bid against each other, each attempting to offer more favorable conditions to attract corporate investment; conditions like lower wages, tax breaks, and lax regulation. The current moves toward free trade are certain to exacerbate both environmental and social problems. In order to attract investment, and build exports to service their debt, Mexico is offering extremely cheap labor, as low as four dollars a day, along with the lack of enforcement of environmental regulations in the maquiladoras along the border. Meanwhile, U.S. workers and their communities are forced to compete with those conditions or lose jobs as factories relocate. The result is a downward "harmonization" of social and environmental conditions to the lowest levels anywhere. While Mexican workers have seen their wages decline, and their environment deteriorate as the result of their government's policies, communities in the United States and Canada have had to offer concessions to keep investment from disappearing. Some communities in the U.S. are already forced to court known hazardous industries such as nuclear waste dumps simply to maintain jobs and a tax base after a decade of de-industrialization. Meanwhile, the National Toxics Campaign has characterized the U.S.-Mexico border region as a "2000 mile long Love Canal." According to their video Border Trouble, companies operating maquiladora plants cannot account for 90% of the toxic waste generated there over the past twenty years, and many dangerous toxics such as xylene, and heavy metals are found in backyards and city streets. Worse, the free trade zone along the Mexican border is a glimpse of a future in which both environmental protection and social programs are subject to the pressures of deregulation so that multi-national corporations can increase their profits. If the regime of free trade extends, and the U.S. has its way in the GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) negotiations, then environmental protection will be subject to a rollback which legislative strategies will be nearly powerless to stop. Attempts by one country to pass a law which would call for stiffer regulation than another country may even be considered a violation of free trade. Already because of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, "Canadians have been forced to abandon measures to protect the threatened Pacific salmon. Canada is also prevented from restricting the sale of its water resources to the USA even in times of local water scarcity. Moreover the Canadians have been forced to bring their pesticide regulations in line with far laxer U.S. standards. Canada's ban on the sale of irradiated food has also been judged illegal, as have Canadian proposals to reduce emissions from lead, zinc, and copper smelters."(7) 1. Gorz, Andre, Ecology as Politics; South End Press, Boston MA; 82. For more information about this point see Vance Packard, The Waste Makers. back to text 2. Betz, Charles, "Blood, Oil, and Ecology," Green Committees of Correspondence. back to text 3. Ibid. back to text 4. "Quayle Oozes From The Swamp," Tony Wesolowsky, The Guardian, New York, NY; Sept. 18, `91; 9. back to text 5. "Capitalism and the Ancient Forest," John Bellamy Foster; Monthly Review, Volume 43 #5, October 1991; 6. back to text 6. Tokar, Brian, "The Selling of Environmentalism," Z, February 1990. back to text 7. "The Uruguay Round: Gunboat Diplomacy by Another Name," The Ecologist, Vol. 20 No. 6, November/December 1990; 204. back to text January-February 1993, ATC 42 Post new comment • Lines and paragraphs break automatically. More information about formatting options By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.
7 Food Preservatives That You Must Avoid Bread, margarine, juice, wine, aren’t these food items you eat often? Did you know that these basic food items could bring about countless problems to human health including cancer, weak immune systems, and even mobility concerns requiring wheelchair accessories for daily activities? Yes and it is all because of the use of harmful preservatives. These days, preservatives (which are actually meant to preserve food) are found in high concentration in not only fancy convenient food items, but in all regular foods that we consume day and night. Read through the following and understand some of the most common preservatives and their harmful outcomes: Benzoates: It causes allergies and can damage brain cells. It is commonly found in sodas, fruit juices, flour, beer, margarine, some shampoos and even dog food. Bromates: These may lead to diarrhea. It is also believed to null the nutrients present in food and is found in almost all types of breads. Lately, it was discovered in a popular bottled water too which resulted in the recall of the product. (As you read this you’re checking the bottled water in your drink holder aren’t you? Good.) BHA and BHT (Butylated Hydroxyanisole and Butylated Hydroxytoluene): It is suspected to be a carcinogen that generates cancerous cell. Commonly, it is found in canned meats, beer and snack items. Mono- and Di-glycerides: It leads to birth defects as well as some cancers. Most snack items such as cookies, candies, pies, cakes, peanut butter, vegetables with sauce, margarines and dry roasted nuts all contain this chemical. Nitrates and Nitrites: It is used for preserving meat and is believed to cause Cancer. Propyl gallate: It initiates birth defects and damage to liver. It is present in everything including chewing gum, pickles, sauce, vegetables and most meat products. Sulfites: It brings about allergies, headaches, heart palpitations and cancer too. It is found hidden in corn syrup, cornstarch, wine vinegar, wine, and dried fruits. Hence, try and avoid frozen, dried, hydrated, canned and boxed foods and beverages and consume only fresh foods such as fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood etc. in their place. Additionally, while picking any food product that contains an expiry date irrespective of whether it is frozen, dried, hydrated, canned, boxed or even fresh, check the label in detail and make certain it does not include any dangerous preservatives even in minute level. Take care and be watchful, life is precious, isn’t it? Leave a Reply
Mosiah - Chapter 21 Critique Setting: Limhi's people are defeated by the Lamanites but Ammon arrives and converts the Nephites per Mormon dating calculations of 145 to 121 BCE America. Verses 1-4: AND it came to pass that Limhi and his people returned to the city of Nephi, and began to dwell in the land again in peace. And it came to pass that after many days the Lamanites began again to be stirred up in anger against the Nephites, and they began to come into the borders of the land round about. Now they durst not slay them, because of the oath which their king had made unto Limhi; but they would smite them on their cheeks, and exercise authority over them; and began to put heavy burdens upon their backs, and drive them as they would a dumb ass-- Yea, all this was done that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled. Note: Sidney Rigdon brings his story full circle. Verses 5-8: And now the afflictions of the Nephites were great, and there was no way that they could deliver themselves out of their hands, for the Lamanites had surrounded them on every side. And it came to pass that the people began to murmur with the king because of their afflictions; and they began to be desirous to go against them to battle. And they did afflict the king sorely with their complaints; therefore he granted unto them that they should do according to their desires. And they gathered themselves together again, and put on their armor, and went forth against the Lamanites to drive them out of their land. And it came to pass that the Lamanites did beat them, and drove them back, and slew many of them. Note: The fictional king Limhi wasn't able to govern his people wisely. Verses 9-12: And now there was a great mourning and lamentation among the people of Limhi, the widow mourning for her husband, the son and the daughter mourning for their father, and the brothers for their brethren. Now there were a great many widows in the land, and they did cry mightily from day to day, for a great fear of the Lamanites had come upon them. And it came to pass that their continual cries did stir up the remainder of the people of Limhi to anger against the Lamanites; and they went again to battle, but they were driven back again, suffering much loss. Yea, they went again even the third time, and suffered in the like manner; and those that were not slain returned again to the city of Nephi. Numbers 14:41-43 And Moses said, "Now why do you transgress the command of the LORD? For this will not succeed. Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the LORD is not among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned away from the LORD, the LORD will not be with you." Verses 13-15: And they did humble themselves even to the dust, subjecting themselves to the yoke of bondage, submitting themselves to be smitten, and to be driven to and fro, and burdened, according to the desires of their enemies. And they did humble themselves even in the depths of humility; and they did cry mightily to God; yea, even all the day long did they cry unto their God that he would deliver them out of their afflictions. And now the Lord was slow to hear their cry because of their iniquities; nevertheless the Lord did hear their cries, and began to soften the hearts of the Lamanites that they began to ease their burdens; yet the Lord did not see fit to deliver them out of bondage. Note: These "Nephite" Jews should have offered animal sacrifices. Numbers 15:1-5 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you have come into the land you are to inhabit, which I am giving to you, and you make an offering by fire to the LORD, a burnt offering or a sacrifice, to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering or in your appointed feasts, to make a sweet aroma to the LORD, from the herd or the flock, then he who presents his offering to the LORD shall bring a grain offering of one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with one-fourth of a HIN of oil; and one-fourth of a HIN of wine as a drink offering you shall prepare with the burnt offering or the sacrifice, for each lamb.'" Note: Farming didn't succeed in North America until technological advances came along. Farming was once the chief way of life in nearly every country. For example, the typical American family of the 1700's and early 1800's lived on a small farm. The family raised cattle, chickens, and hogs and grew corn, fruits, garden vegetables, hay, and wheat. Everyone in the family worked long and hard, but the results were often disappointing. Most families produced barely enough food for themselves. This situation began to change during the last half of the 1800's--and it changed remarkably during the 1900's. 2002 World Book Encyclopedia. Note: Farming would not have succeeded without manpower. Verses 18-19: Now the people of Limhi kept together in a body as much as it was possible, and secured their grain and their flocks;And the king himself did not trust his person without the walls of the city, unless he took his guards with him, fearing that he might by some means fall into the hands of the Lamanites. Note: Grain or wheat was not in the Americas until the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Wheat was brought to the Americas by explorers and settlers from many European countries. In 1493, Christopher Columbus introduced wheat to the New World on his second trip to the West Indies. Wheat from Spain reached Mexico in 1519 and Argentina by 1527. Spanish missionaries later carried wheat with them to the American Southwest. In Canada, French settlers began growing wheat in Nova Scotia in 1605. 2002 World Book Encyclopedia. Verses 20-22: And he caused that his people should watch the land round about, that by some means they might take those priests that fled into the wilderness, who had stolen the daughters of the Lamanites, and that had caused such a great destruction to come upon them. For they were desirous to take them that they might punish them; for they had come into the land of Nephi by night, and carried off their grain and many of their precious things; therefore they laid wait for them. And it came to pass that there was no more disturbance between the Lamanites and the people of Limhi, even until the time that Ammon and his brethren came into the land. Note: The Nephites were not godly people. Note: Sidney Rigdon brings his story full circle. Note: Sidney Rigdon brings his story full circle. Note: Sidney Rigdon brings his story full circle. Note: Sidney Rigdon brings his story full circle. Note: Sidney Rigdon forgot his story and pure gold returned to the ore! Note: Gold needs to be refined out of ore. There are several methods of extracting (removing) gold from ores. The method used depends on the type of ore. However, all the methods are designed to expose valuable minerals to the surface of the ore, to extract gold and any other metals that may be in the resulting mixture, and to purify the metals that are extracted. Processing about 10 short tons (9 metric tons) of ore yields as much as 1 troy ounce of gold. 2002 World Book Encyclopedia. Note: Sidney Rigdon brings his story full circle. Note: Sidney Rigdon blundered in the 1830 edition using king Benjamin by mistake. Note: Jesus Christ established the church of God not Alma. Note: Sidney Rigdon now picks up his story where Mosiah chapter 8 left off. Numbers 15:8-11 "And when you prepare a young bull as a burnt offering, or as a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, or as a peace offering to the LORD, then shall be offered with the young bull a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with half a HIN of oil; and you shall bring as the drink offering half a hin of wine as an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD. Thus it shall be done for each young bull, for each ram, or for each lamb or young goat." Numbers 15:14-16 "And if a stranger dwells with you, or whoever is among you throughout your generations, and would present an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD, just as you do, so shall he do. One ordinance shall be for you of the assembly and for the stranger who dwells with you, an ordinance forever throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the stranger be before the LORD. One law and one custom shall be for you and for the stranger who dwells with you." Verses 33-34: And it came to pass that king Limhi and many of his people were desirous to be baptized; but there was none in the land that had authority from God. And Ammon declined doing this thing, considering himself an unworthy servant. Therefore they did not at that time form themselves into a church, waiting upon the Spirit of the Lord. Now they were desirous to become even as Alma and his brethren, who had fled into the wilderness. Note: The church was not formed until Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out. Note: Baptism was not delayed in the true Church of Jesus Christ. Note: Have you been delivered from the bondage of the LDS church?
TOC Previous Next A+A-Print Chapter 11: Patriotism, Politics, and Citizenship Patriotism, love for one’s country, is a moral obligation for citizens. (Love for the other regional communities of which one is a member is analogous to patriotism, and also is an obligation.) But patriotism is love for the true good of one’s country; it is not immoderate nationalism. Patriotism requires that citizens fulfill a variety of relevant responsibilities. Among these, for Catholics, is defending and spreading the faith in their own nations, as is resisting the dominance of secular humanism, which harms the nation by destroying community. Citizens are obliged to be dutiful and law-abiding. The moral claims of citizenship should neither be slighted nor overestimated. The common good shapes political society and also limits it; and it is the common good which grounds authority and all the duties of citizens. As citizens, Catholics should take an active part in public affairs, adhering to the principles of Catholic social teaching. While this political role is primarily the responsibility of the laity, the Church’s teaching specifies a number of purposes they should pursue, including religious liberty, equal justice for all, justice with respect to human life, the protection of marriage and the family, economic justice, and international justice and peace. Citizens also have a duty to vote conscientiously, and sometimes to participate more actively in politics. All just and applicable laws should be obeyed, but even a just law can be inapplicable in unusual circumstances. One should not comply with an unjust law which is at odds with moral obligation, but otherwise various goods sometimes require complying with unjust laws. However, there is a presumption, not easily rebutted, that laws are just and applicable. Citizens should cooperate with the criminal justice system, reporting probable crimes, cooperating in official investigations of crimes, giving testimony in court, and serving conscientiously on juries. While supporting the just punishment of criminals, Christians should oppose the use of the death penalty. Citizens ought to pay their taxes. The fact that tax laws are more or less unjust or that some public funds are misused usually does not justify nonpayment. No war can be just unless several requirements are met, and a development of the Christian tradition in modern times makes it clear that aggressive war is excluded; but a war can be just if all the conditions are met, and citizens should participate in such a war as the law requires. However, participants in a just war should not choose to kill or harm anyone. Moreover, a nation’s deterrent strategy can make its military actions unjustifiable. Christians almost always should refuse to serve in an unjust war.
The intriguing discovery was made during aircraft tests trials of NASA’s Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) lidar technology set to be launched on the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) in 2017, that aims to monitor changes in polar ice. “There’s very little margin for error when it comes to individual photons hitting on individual fiber optics, that is why we were so surprised when we noticed these abnormal features on the lidar imagery,” explains Nathan Borrowitz, IceBridge’s project scientist and sea ice researcher with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “As of now we can only speculate as to what these features are but the launching of ICESat-2 in 2017 could lead to other major discoveries and a better understanding of Antarctica’s geomorphological features” he adds. Although NASA scientist Nathan Borrowitz claims the infrared images are definitely intriguing, other experts claim they are clearly the proof of ancient human engineering A human settlement buried under 2.3 km of ice Leading archeologist, Ashoka Tripathi, of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Calcutta believes the images show clear evidence of an ancient human settlement beneath the ice sheet. archeo-india“These are clearly features of some sort of human-made structure, resembling some sort of pyramidal structure. The patterns clearly show nothing we should expect from natural geomorphological formations found in nature. We clearly have here evidence of human engineering. The only problem is that these photographs were taken in Antarctica under 2 kilometers of ice. That is clearly the puzzling part, we do not have any explanation for this at the moment,” he admits. “These pictures just reflect a small portion of Antarctica’s total land mass. There are possibly many other additional sites that are covered over with ice. It just shows us how easy it is to underestimate both the size and scale of past human settlements,” says Dr Tripathi. Remnants of a lost civilization Historian and cartographer at the University of Cambridge, Christopher Adam, believes there might be a rationnal explanation. The map of Turkish admiral Piri Reis in 1513 AD shows the “ice less” coastline of Antarctica “One of histories most puzzling maps is that of the Turkish admiral Piri Reis in 1513 AD which successfully mapped the coastline of Antarctica over 500 years ago. What is most fascinating about this map is that it shows the coastline of Antarctica without any ice. How is this possible when images of the subglacial coastline of Antarctica were only seen for the first time after the development of ground-penetrating radar in 1958? Is it possible Antarctica has not always been covered under such an ice sheet? This could be evidence that it is a possibility” he acknowledges. « A slight pole shift or displacement of the axis of rotation of the Earth in historical times is possibly the only rational explanation that comes to mind but we definitely need more research done before we jump to any conclusion.” ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2), part of NASA’s Earth Observing System, is a planned satellite mission for measuring ice sheet mass elevation, sea ice freeboard as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics, and is set to launch in may 2017. 10 Comments on "Antarctica: NASA Images Reveal Traces of Ancient Human Settlement Underneath 2.3 km of Ice" 1. Earth has been hit by meteors and obviously a few larger objects like an asteroid that left a huge it could have been knocked of its axis in the past..destroying old cities ,civilizations. 2. Fernando Chacon \| January 8, 2016 at 2:34 am \| Reply How many times has life thrived,only to be brought down again by changes in weather. This cycle will continue. Human civilization is a lot older than we think. So is man. 3. afartinthewind \| January 7, 2016 at 10:39 pm \| Reply Anyone interested in this discovery should look up Graham Hancock’s books “fingerprints of the gods” and “magicians of the gods”. He has been exploring the mystery of missing ancient civilizations for the better part of 30 years and touched on this very topic back in the early 90’s. 4. This article fails to mention that the Piri Reis map from 500 years ago was copy by the Turkish admiral from several other much older maps. Also, another possibility is tectonic shift. While gradual, who can say for sure that aren’t forces or events in our universe that could cause a cataclysmic shift? The “city” could be extremely old, possibly from a prior civilization now destroyed. • John Macconnor \| January 9, 2016 at 2:40 pm \| You better read more about the Piri Reis map. It is not a copy of anything and entirely authentic work waaay ahead of its time. • The map was created from much older maps. He even mentions that fact in the margins of the map itself. If memory serves me, the maps in which this one was comprised were at the library at Alexandria and were in poor condition, and if he hadn’t made this map the info would’ve been lost forever. • Sounds like you need to read A LOT more about the Piri Reis map John, actually if you had ever read anything at all about it you probably wouldn’t have said what you just did, sheesh lol. 5. How ancient could it be? • We need to accept, Antarctica was a relatively warm and forest covered ‘continent’ while the land bridge remained between it and South America/Australia/South Africa… Once the land bridge finally broke, ocean currents were enabled to completely circle the South Pole and the climate there rapidly became cold and frozen. There are the remains of ancient trees in Victoria, Australia, which are pine trees from that era far distant in the past. In terms of Time Scale, there are also some interesting conclusions which may be inferred from data obtained by the WMAP survey of Universal Space, and the connection between Spacial Gravity and Earth Time. Leave a Reply to JimPas Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.
MATH 260 DeVry Week 4 Discussion Latest Downloading is very simple, you can download this Course here: Contact us at: MATH 260 DeVry Week 4 Discussion Latest MATH 260 DeVry Week 4 Discussion Latest MATH 260 DeVry Week 4 Discussion Trigonometric Functions (graded) Trigonometric functions are some of the most important functions that you will explore. Remember that they are periodic, so they have many real-world applications in studying various kinds of waves and frequencies. Here are some questions that we will address. Please post answers in this thread. 1. What are the formulas for the derivatives of the trig functions? 2. How do we use them to find derivatives of more complex functions involving trig forms? 3. How can we use the trig identities to rewrite functions so that we can apply the basic formulas? 4. What are real-world applications for trig functions, particularly those that come from your program? 5. Explain how you can use the derivative to explore these applications. Please feel free to use examples from the homework to illustrate your answers.
Explore Case Studies Diebu County ICCAs, China In China’s Diebu County, five ICCAs share both a common history and the responsibility for conserving the area’s rich biodiversity. Together, the Protection Forests of Zhizi village, Baiyun village, Yangbu village, Genggu village and Houxizang village conserve an area spanning more than 20km2. Collectively, they number 350 households and over 2000 individuals. History and Activities The land has been managed by the local communities since 1958. In 1980, land use conflicts caused the communities’ traditional management practices to cease. However, in 1982, the communities recovered these management practices, leading to the expansion of the area of forest under community management. The local temperate coniferous forests are home to over 500 higher plant species, over 200 vertebrate species, and nearly twenty endangered animal species. These include the Asian black bear, musk deer, sika deer, takin, goral, chestnut-throated partridge, blue-eared pheasant and giant panda. The communities’ objectives range from protecting the spiritual and sacred value of the land, to cultural and traditional preservation, to maintaining and enhancing their natural resources. Each ICCA includes an area of forest where no natural resource use is permitted. Taken together, this amounts to an area of almost 6km2. Use of resources beyond these areas is largely restricted to subsistence and cultural use. Management and Governance Each of the ICCAs is managed by an elected village committee. The communities’ management practices are passed down orally from generation to generation. Threats and Challenges A lack of legal recognition means that the communities lack capacity to optimise their management of the area and adapt to changing threats. There is a need to develop their management skills and understanding of environmental protection techniques. Those responsible for decision-making, in particular, would benefit from benefit from enhanced technical capacity.
Skip to definition. Noun: heterogamy ,he-tu'ró-gu-mee 1. That form of alternate generation in which two kinds of sexual generation, or a sexual and a parthenogenetic generation, alternate; - in distinction from metagenesis, where sexual and asexual generations alternate 2. The process of fertilization in plants by an indirect or circuitous method; - opposed to orthogamy Derived forms: heterogamies Encyclopedia: Heterogamy
In Brief In the ongoing battle to clean up Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, Toshiba is deploying a novel robot that's a bit like a scorpion. • Toshiba wants to deploy the device to help determine the condition and location of melted-down fuel in the reactor, which is too dangerous for workers to enter. The effort is part of decommissioning work at the plant that’s expected to take decades. • The robot is 54 centimeters long, and can put itself right-side up if it topples over. It has a joint near its middle that allows it to raise its tail like a scorpion, bringing a camera and LED lights to bear on its environment, complementing another camera and LEDs in its nose section. • The video feed will be used by operators using devices resembling PlayStation game controllers. Control signals are sent to the robot through a wire. The 5-kilogram (11-pound) machine also has a thermometer and a dosimeter. It can withstand about 100 Sieverts per hour of radiation for 10 hours.
XQuery for the Non-Expert – Query In the last post, I discussed the nodes() method in my XQuery for the Non-Expert series. With this next post, we’ll be looking into the query() method. The main use for the query() method is to retrieve child elements by browsing down to lower levels of an XML document. Sometimes when the nodes() method is used to browse through an XML document you need to retrieve the XML fragment that was queries. The query() method can be used to return the XML fragment. Query Syntax The general syntax for the query() method is query ('XQuery') The XQuery statement that directs the query() method how to browse the XML document or fragment. For a more detailed explanation of the XQuery statement, read my post on the nodes() method. The query() function is called as a method off of the column that contains the XML data. This method can be called the SELECT statement. Query Setup To illustrate the two methods listed above for using the query() method let’s setup a table with an XML document. Run the following query to get everything setup for the examples below: IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#QueryExample') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE #QueryExample CREATE TABLE #QueryExample XMLDocument xml INSERT INTO #QueryExample VALUES ('Sears Tower SELECT XMLDocument FROM #QueryExample Now that we have something to play with, lets dig in and use the query() method. Query Example For the first example, the query() method will be used to retrieve all elements nest under some of the parent elements. In the query we will return the Room elements that are under the Building and Floor elements (“/Building/Floor/Room”). The XQuery for this will look similar to the following: SELECT XMLDocument.query('/Building/Floor/Room') FROM #QueryExample The query() method above is used in the SELECT statement and browses down from the Building root element to the Room element two levels down. The query results will be as follows: The XML output is the following: These results are quite different than they were for the nodes() method. With nodes() each XML fragment was broken out to it’s own row. Where with the query() method all of the elements that match the XQuery string are returned in a single XML fragment. The other manner in which the query() method can be used is to replace the XQuery statement in the method call with a period, or two. When a single period is used for the query() string it returns the XML fragment in the XML column. If two periods are used the XML fragment is returned with its parent elements. To demonstrate this change the query to the following: SELECT c.query('.') OnePeriod, c.query('..') TwoPeriods FROM #QueryExample The query results will be as follows: The XML output with a single period query() method is the following: The XML output with two periods query() method is the following: As you can see in the results, the query() method returns the XML fragment that was shred by the nodes() method of the query. This is very useful when shredding and trying to display XML data in a query results when there is a need to determine if the nodes() method is returning the correct information. Query Wrap-Up Nothing else to really add to the query() method. If anything in this post needs further clarity, please comment below. I expect that as time goes on I will update and expand this post as I learn more about how to leverage the nodes() function.
WMO and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development The year 2017 has thus far witnessed a remarkable number of weather- and climate-related disasters, from a series of powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic basin to floods in West Africa and Asia to severe droughts in the Horn of Africa, Sri Lanka, South Africa and elsewhere. Growing populations, poverty and precarious dwellings in deserts, flood plains and low-lying areas leave many countries increasingly vulnerable to such disasters. A major storm or drought can cut the annual GDP of a developing country by as much as 30%. Countries lacking infrastructure and capacity for adequate early warning systems or effective climate services are particularly exposed to risk. Investing in these systems and services can therefore make an essential contribution to national development. There are many challenges to overcome. In this issue of the WMO Bulletin, leading experts explore how weather, climate, hydrological, marine and related environmental services are assisting countries to implement the United Nations 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While each article focuses on a particular SDG, the authors clearly recognize that the 17 SDGs and the 2030 Agenda provide a single integrated programme for action. The cross-cutting nature of the SDGs is a major reason why WMO and National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) are actively building and strengthening partnerships with other communities, sectors and disciplines. The demand for accessible and accurate services will continue to grow in the years ahead. With 2017 on track to be one of the warmest years on record, and greenhouse gas concentrations rising to dangerous levels, this increased demand is being driven in good part by concern over climate change and the changing patterns of weather, hydrology, storms, flooding and drought. It further reflects the recognition that natural disasters undermine the long-term stability of societies and economies, often setting back progress on sustainable development by many years. Our weather and climate services must also respond to new human vulnerabilities resulting from mass migration, the expansion of megacities, coastal development, and other socio-economic trends of the 21st century. To do so effectively, NMHSs need greater recognition from policymakers, and they need to be further integrated into national development plans. This is essential to ensure that all countries are able to reduce the risks and maximize the opportunities linked to weather, climate and water, thereby achieving the SDGs. Fortunately, continuing advances in weather and climate science and in technology will enable the WMO community to provide continuously improved services. The tools of our trade include enhanced observations, collaborative research, innovations in service delivery, user engagement, technology transfer, capacity development, technical training, new partnerships and public outreach. The WMO community is committed to providing today’s decision-makers and those of future generations with the information and services they need to manage an increasingly complex and challenging environment. Petteri Taalas Share this page
中級 577486 分類收藏 Tired? We all know the feeling. Irritable, groggy, and exceptionally lazy. Chances are, you didn't sleep enough last night. Or the past few nights. But what exactly is enough sleep? And, more importantly, can you ever catch up on it While the very function of sleep is still debated by scientists, we do know that it's necessary to function efficiently and productively. After all, we spend 24 years of our lifetime sleeping. It had better be important. Researchers have tested how much is required each night by assigning groups of people to four, six, and eight hours of sleep over extended periods of time. After 14 days, those with eight hours of sleep exhibited few attention lapses or cognitive issues. However, those with six or four hours of sleep showed a steady decline. In fact, after only two weeks, the six hour group showed a similar reaction time to a person with the blood alcohol concentration of 0.1%, which is considered legally drunk. The four hour sleepers suffered even more, occasionally falling asleep during their cognitive test. In both groups, brain function decreased day-by-day almost linearly, with no sign of leveling off. Scientists have dubbed this cumulative effect as sleep debt So can we recover from it? After a night or two of little sleep, studies show that the body and brain can fully recover with a few nights of good sleep. However, with long term sleep deprivation,on the scale of weeks to months, the recovery of cognitive function is much slower, requiring many more nights of quality sleep. On the time scale of months to years, it's unknown whether brain function could be fully repaired or if it causes permanent damage. Paradoxically, with chronic sleep deprivation, your sleepiness or how tired you feel does eventually level off, meaning that you become less and less aware of your objective impairment over time. So how long should you sleep? Most studies tend to show that 7-8 hours of sleep is the average ideal for humans. Apart from the cognitive issues, individuals who consistently sleep less than seven hours a night have an increased risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Not to mention, a 12% higher risk of death. on the flip side, studies have shown that while sleeping more than eight hours does not impair brain function, it also carries an increased risk of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes, and a 30% increased risk of mortality. So too much sleep may also be a bad thing. But variation most certainly exist, and our genetics play a large role. In fact, individuals genuinely unaffected by only six hours of sleep were found to have a mutation of a specific gene. When scientists genetically engineered mice to express this gene they were able to stay awake for an extra 1.2 hours than normal mice. It turns out these short sleepers have more biologically intense sleep sessions than the average person. Ultimately, while it's important to know the ideal average of 7-8 hours exist, let your body and brain help you figure out its own needs. After all, no one shoe size fits all. If you want to know how to get better quality sleep each night in order to conquer the hurdles of sleep deprivation, we have some tips and research for you over on ASAPThought. You can find a link in the description below to that video. Thanks to audible.com for giving you a free audio book of your choice at audible.com/asap. Audible is the leading provider of audio books, with over 150,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature. We recommend the A Song of Ice and Fire series,which the Game of Thrones TV show is based off of. It's kept us up through the nights and caused a lot of lost sleep. You can download this audio book, or another of your choice,for free at audible.com/asap. And with a subscription, you get one free book a month, so you can read the whole series. Special thanks to Audible for making these videos possible. And subscribe for more weekly science videos! 到底要睡多久才是足夠的呢？How Much Sleep Do You Actually Need? 577486 分類收藏 Anni 發佈於 2018 年 1 月 2 日 Demi Dai 翻譯 Ariel Lee 審核 1irritable 0:02 irritable 的意思是「易怒的；急躁的」，用在醫學上來講的話，也可以表示「易感受刺激的；過敏 (性) 的」可以看到 irritable 的前面是 irrita，這個字根在拉丁文裡面的意思是「使發怒；激起；刺激」。相關的字還有：irritate，他是動詞，意思是「激怒；使疼痛或發炎」。 Don't wash your face too much cause that could irritate your skin. 2catch up 0:12 catch up 顧名思義，「抓上」，意思是「趕上；了解近況」。常用於商業界有人沒參加到會議需要同事幫他 catch up 一下進度，以及遇到老朋友「聊聊近況」也是用 catch up When I work harder, I can catch up with the naturally talented. We should catch up sometime. I'll talk to you later, okay? 這邊再介紹幾個 catch 的相關片語： catch on 意思是「理解；變得流行」 [Sans Serif] didn't catch on immediately, but would eventually get really big. catch fire 「著火」 3cumulative 1:02 這個字的意思是「累積的；漸增的；(紅利、利息等) 累計的」 Try to avoid getting 7143 abdominal X-rays back-to-back, which is enough cumulative radiation to kill you. 試著不要連續照 7143 張腹部 X 光，那已經可以累積足夠殺死你的的輻射量。 4level off 1:32 這個片語的意思是「(升或跌之後) 呈平穩狀態, 做水平運動」 Once it is full make sure [the chocolate] is going right into the corners, and then level off the top. 拆開來看，level 除了我們平常在打電動遊戲時可以當作「關卡」，還可以當作「水平、平等」。比方說，level crossing，照字面上的意思是「平面交叉」，實際上的意思是「平交道」。【聽音樂學英文】可愛力量大：笨笨的死法 (Dumb Ways to Die) (歌詞/lyrics) 5consistently 1:46 相信大家都看得出來，這個字是由形容詞 consistent 「一致的；始終如一的」加上 ly 變成副詞的形式，意思同樣是「一致地；始終如一地」。而想說「與……一致」時可以使用片語 be consistent with I would like to suggest a pay increase to keep my hourly rate consistent with the market rate for my services. insistent：「堅持的」，同樣是堅持的，這裡的堅持比較不容反對，執意要做某事的感覺。而 persistent 比較像持續一直去做。 The coach is insistent that the team is going to win the grand final. 6on the flip side 1:54 flip 作動詞的時候意思是「輕輕地投擲和拋出；轉動；揮動」，on the flip side 的意思是「另一方面」，就好像你把硬幣或唱片之類的東西翻面，去看他背面長怎樣的感覺。 Don't worry about finding a date. Or, on the flip side, try to stridently assert the fact that you're single. 再介紹一個有關 flip 的用法。 flip out 的意思是「過度激動甚至有點發瘋」 I would bring over my friends who were like clearly gay men and my parents would like flip out that I was gonna get impregnated in the time that we were playing Wii U. Wii U 的時候他們就會自行腦補我挺著一個大肚球的小劇場，然後對我大發飆。文/ Henry Lin 1. 1. 單字查詢佳句收藏 2. 2. 單句重複播放 3. 3. 使用快速鍵 4. 4. 關閉語言字幕 5. 5. 內嵌播放器 6. 6. 展開播放器 1. 英文聽力測驗
Animal instincts at play during Mediation This insightful article was featured in ADR Times and provides a number of interesting points that could be noted by the discerning mediator, negotiator or manager for consideration during ‘conflict’ discussions. Research in neuroscience has generated numerous insights into the way humans process information, experience emotions, and make decisions. More recently, scientists have begun to understand how these behaviours are related to brain activity. Using imaging technology like fMRI, scientists can actually see what our brains are doing when we engage in various behaviours and complete various tasks. While these neuroscience and neuroimaging studies have broad relevance, they also shed light on decision-making processes that is especially relevant to the dispute resolution context. Richard Birke, associate professor of law at Willamette University and director of the Willamette Centre for Dispute Resolution, has distilled several practical recommendations for negotiators and mediators from this growing body of research. Interested readers should consult his article in the Ohio State Journal of Dispute Resolution (25:2 2010, pp. 477-529). Here, I will summarise just one of the most compelling practical lessons for mediation to flow from Birke’s fascinating review. After the mediator’s opening remarks, most mediations proceed to a storytelling phase where the parties each have uninterrupted time to talk about their perspectives of the conflict. The conventional wisdom here is that telling one’s story is cathartic for both parties, particularly because the mediation setting allows for greater expression of emotions and needs than does the court setting. Ideally, this opportunity increases participant satisfaction with the process and in turn the durability of future agreements. The parties’ opening statements – because they may highlight the parties’ more intangible needs that could be addressed through non-monetary means – are also believed to generate ideas for settlement. Further, by providing an opportunity for the parties to “vent,” the storytelling phase may put them in a mind-set more conducive to making concessions and agreements. Recent brain research calls some of this conventional wisdom into question, according to Birke. You may be familiar with the ground breaking work of behaviourist pioneers Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner, who conditioned fear responses in animals. In their experiments, animals were exposed to a painful event (electric shock) at the same time as an inconsequential event (a light coming on or a bell ringing). After repeated exposure to these two stimuli, the animals became conditioned to expect pain to result from the inconsequential event. The light or bell became a conditioned stimulus that generated the same fear response as the actual electric shock. These experiments helped us understand behaviours associated with conditioned fear, but recent work by NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has revealed more about the underpinnings of conditioned fear behaviour in the brain. When neurons in a person’s brain fire (i.e., release a particular chemical) and stimulate other neurons, a chain reaction called a neural network is formed. Once a network has formed, the brain activity associated with that particular chain reaction can be repeated by the person more easily. Birke cites the example of pathways formed by repeated hand-eye movements; their frequent repetition facilitates actions like typing or piano playing, a phenomenon commonly known as muscle memory. Recalling an event actually reengages the same neural pathways that were engaged by the original experience. Pathways that are associated with extremely vivid experiences can become so durable so quickly that the experiences can be recalled in great emotional and sensory detail without repetition long after they occurred. LeDoux found that neural networks created as a result of fear are some of the most durable in our brains. Once a fear pathway is created, it is unlikely to go away or even become less intense. The evolutionary advantages of this quality are evident, but it is often ill adapted to modern life. For example, think of a time when you were startled by the loud noise of a passing truck. Yours is a conditioned fear response resulting from the association your brain has made between loud noises and painful injury. A similar noise alone can rapidly re-engage the neural pathways associated with fear of pain. Interestingly, this process can occur before you are consciously able to tell yourself, “It’s ok, there is no truck about to hit me.” In fact, with the help of chemical tracers, LeDoux found that fear travels two neural paths – one path to the body and one path to the brain. He discovered that the path to the body is actually faster, meaning that before we even know we are afraid, blood has reached our legs to prepare us for the freeze/fight/flight reaction. More importantly, the part of the brain that is activated by fear – the amygdala – is one of the oldest parts of our brain, in evolutionary terms, and assesses pain, pleasure, and threat in the present. The prefrontal cortex evolved later and is responsible for complex reasoning and future-oriented decision-making. It turns out that while our amygdala is activated in the name of survival, we have a hard time accessing our prefrontal cortex. In other words, fear activates our “animal brains” and makes it harder for us to think clearly. What does all this mean in the mediation context? According to Birke, “there is every reason to believe that a person who retells in detail an event that is painful or traumatic fully relives that trauma in their neurons.” In mediation, this means that the brains of parties who tell their conflict stories will – for a period – be controlled by their freeze/fight/flight instincts (amygdala) and thus will be less able to consider new options for action (prefrontal cortex). This is certainly not the ideal mind set for parties when they are being asked to explore interests, brainstorm and generate creative options. So what’s a mediator to do? How to balance the potential benefits of having parties tell their conflict stories early in the mediation with the knowledge that doing so may place the parties in a less resourceful state in which they rely on instinctual urges associated with a bygone era of human evolution? Birke suggests two simple interventions that a mediator can use to manage this conundrum. First: take a break at this stage in the process. According to Birke, “after a party experiences the trauma/catharsis of telling their story, it is a very good time for a coffee or lunch break, and it may even be the case in some disputes that it is a good place to end for the day.” I might extend this to suggest that regular breaks throughout the mediation are advisable, as emotional triggering is likely not limited to the storytelling phase of the process. Of course, some mediations take place in settings where frequent breaks are not terribly practical. Particularly in court-referred work where time is short and a premium is placed on reaching settlement in short order, a break may not be feasible. Birke’s second suggestion might be more amenable; when a break is not possible, “one technique to consider when faced with a party who seems to be emotionally flooded is to call that party’s attention to their breathing.” Mindful breathing invites parties to engage in a present tense activity, and this can help to reengage the parts of the brain responsible for control and regulation and can make it easier for parties to weigh offers less reactively. (The privacy of caucus may be the better setting to encourage parties to focus on their breathing.) Ultimately, whether or not mediators decide it is useful to introduce breaks or mindful breathing into their process, they should take away from recent neuroscience research additional reasons to be patient with parties and to be circumspect about the ease and speed with which they can recover from revisiting emotional events in order to make well-reasoned decisions in mediation. As neuroscience research continues to advance, there are likely to be additional insights that shape our understanding of best practices; the reflective practitioner is urged to stay tuned! by Dr. Heather Hancock How can we help- On the Table Consulting creates and implements a wide variety of communication and management consulting services, including organisational process development, executive andleadership development, and conflict resolution workshops. On the Table Consulting offers mediation to facilitate conversations involving personal andworkplace conflicts. On the Table Consulting assists people and teams to have conversations. Conversations to resolve conflict impartially, objectively and in a timely manner. Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
Sir Isaac Newton Numbers Guy Smart Badge Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion applied to everything except his body on the dance floor! One of the most inventive scientific minds of all time was almost never to have been. Sir Isaac Newton was born prematurely by almost 3 months in January of 1643 in England. To make matters worse, his father died soon after and his mother fell in love with a man who disallowed Isaac from living with them. That's colder than the celestial bodies he studied with his practical telescope! If Sir Isaac Newton had a trendy t-shirt it would read "Isolation Is The New Black". When the Black Plague broke out in Europe, Newton could not keep going to school so he moved back in with his parents. During the next 18 months while working almost entirely in isolation, he developed calculus, optics, and the theory of gravity at the age of 26! We all need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask "What are we doing with our lives?" Credited as the father of physics and calculus, he also tried to create gold. This ancient craft known as alchemy was pretty much black magic in a laboratory where scientists hoped to turn pretty much anything into gold. Science today has a version of alchemy where crap can be turned into gold - it's called Auto-Tune for talentless, but beautiful pop stars. You know that sweet Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon album with the prism turning white light into the whole color spectrum? Yeah, Sir Isaac Newton figured that out along with the fact that if you play that album backwards during The Wizard of Oz it turns you into a hippie with conspiracy theory tendencies. Pretty smart dude! It's time for another installment of "Your Kindergarten Teacher Lied and Is a Hack!" Newton was popularly known for the anecdote that an apple fell and hit him on the head while he was theorizing (something you and I do not do). After rubbing his mullet, he received an epiphany for his theory on gravity. Yeah...that was all a lie. He thought it would sound good for publicity so he went with it. Turned out he just looked out the window and saw some fruit fall one day (#lamesauce). Still, Newton's got gravity on lock! Like many great geniuses, Newton was eccentric, had questionable hair, a stutter and zero self-confidence. One can only assume that while the rest of the human population focused on the areas he lacked, he was busy excelling in math and falling behind in manners, appearance and hygiene. Newton even had to be convinced by a friend to publish his idea of "calculus" because he thought it would receive lots of criticism and that might hurt his feelings. Newton's best friend actually turned out to be one of his worst enemies. His dog, Diamond, knocked over a candle in his laboratory and ignited a fire that destroyed 20 years worth of work. Just think how many more math and science courses you would take in high school if it were not for Diamond's tail wagging uncontrollably when Sir Isaac said "treat!" Despite being a leader in the Scientific Revolution, Newton still kept close ties to the Church. So close that he was buried in one! Newton was buried in 1727 near his pal Charles Darwin in one of the most famous churches, Westminster Abbey. He was influenced by the greats and he influenced greats that followed. He unequivocally changed the field of mathematics forever and advanced the field of optics. Numbers Guy Smart Badge: Sir Isaac Newton
PSYCHOTHERAPIES - everything that comes to mind without any... View Full Document Right Arrow Icon PSYCHOTHERAPIES A. Insight Therapies 1. Psychoanalysis: often called "Freudian therapy", psychoanalysis is the classic lie on the couch and tell me about your childhood approach. The main idea behind psychoanalysis is that there is a constant struggle between the conscious and unconscious, which often results in maladaptive behaviors, problematic, conscious thoughts, etc. Any observable symptoms of an illness or problem are signs of conflict between different aspects of personality (i.e., struggle between the id, ego, and superego). For example, a person may feel stress due conflict between the id which may want to pursue some attractive person for sexual pleasure, and the superego which reminds the person that they are married and it would be wrong to do such a thing. In addition, there are many techniques that a psychoanalyst may use to help identify the underlying issues, including: a) free association - the therapist will present a word or phrase to which the client is to just say anything and Background image of page 1 Unformatted text preview: everything that comes to mind without any filtering of thoughts. The therapist then tries to identify the problems from the associations made. For example, if a therapist says "mother" and the client responds with "overbearing, caring, disciplinarian, tells me I can don;t anything right, etc. .." it would be fairly easy to identify a problem. b) dream analysis - Freud believed that dreams were the windows to the unconscious. To understand what is going on in the unconscious mind and what could be causing conflict with the conscious mind, one could examine the content (both latent and manifest) of the dreams. c) interpretation - once a therapist has acquired lots of information from the client using the techniques above, the therapist can then begin to try to make sense of it all and figure out what the causes of the problems may be. Thus, the therapist attempts to "interpret" the information.... View Full Document {[ snackBarMessage ]} Ask a homework question - tutors are online
Who is Tiresias and what is his role in 'The Waste Land'? Expert Answers Michael Otis eNotes educator\| Certified Educator Tiresias is a figure from Greek mythology and literature, the blind soothsayer who appears in Book xi of The Odyssey. Being the most renowned prophet of the non-biblical world and cursed by the gods to live a transgendered existence for seven years until turned back into a man, Tiresias was a useful figure to a wide variety of authors, both ancient and modern, including T.S. Eliot who identifies him (according to the author's own notes) as playing a key role in The Waste Land. The question for readers is this: what feature of Tiresias allowed Eliot to incorporate Tiresias into his landmark poem of the early twentieth century? The answer seems to lie in his having been both man and woman. In other words, in his own self and in his own myth he served as a kind of bridge between the classical world and modernity - just the sort of thing Eliot was looking for. The reader observes this in the section of The Waste Land where the clerk and the typist appear. In Section III, "The Fire Sermon", the unnamed typist goes about her life in a mechanical way, in a kind of bondage to the industrial god. The poet intends her to be an archetype of all modern women. In the same way, the clerk who in Section III arrives home to a supper of "food in tins", exemplifies the modern working man. Both the male clerk and the female typist inhabit the lowest place - not in terms of wealth or society, but in terms of their humanity. Later in this section of the poem, Tiresias recounts how "he has walked among the lowest of the dead", thereby establishing his connection with both sexes which have been rendered subhuman by modernity. Thus, reimagined in the poem, Tiresias serves as a unifying figure in The Waste Land, linking the ancient and modern worlds, rebuilding a myth of unity in the modern world. In The Waste Land, so full of despair and disorder, the reimagined Tiresias reactivates his ancient role - that of prophet. In this mythological context, Eliot appears to indicate that the state of the waste land will not always be perpetual; it will give way to the great unifications of The Four Quartets.
Workshop: Anatomy of the thorax Basic concepts in anatomy, through the special case of the thorax The terminology used by clinicians to describe the anatomical features they are referring to can be confusing, especially if non-field experts are unfamiliar with the sequential way anatomists order what they see. An understanding of the standard approach to anatomy and knowledge of the basic anatomy of the body by systems or regions can help to achieve an accurate translation. We will introduce these concepts, using the case of thoracic anatomy. The thorax comprises three main areas: chest wall, respiratory apparatus, and heart. Although the gross anatomy of these systems can be studied individually, knowledge of their functional relationship is essential in order to understand the concepts described in medical texts. Special problems that arise in the language used to described diagnostic images will also be mentioned. Developer/Facilitator: Philip Bazire, MD Description: The workshop will be divided into three sections: 1) Basic anatomical concepts and terminology; 2) Gross anatomy of the chest wall, respiratory system, and heart; 3) Imaging studies: x-ray, CT, MRI, and ultrasound/echo-Doppler. Translation and editing examples will be worked into the presentation, and anatomy resources available in print and on the web will be assessed. Who should attend?: Translators and text editors with an interest in medical translation will benefit from an understanding of the basic concepts of anatomy and will acquire a greater specific knowledge of the anatomy of the chest, with a particular focus on function. Outcome skills: • Become aware of “systems” organization of anatomy and how different systems interact in the same region. • Recognize the concepts of relative position in anatomy and imaging. • Be equipped for more efficient online research to solve language-related anatomy problems. Pre-meeting information: Participants are encouraged to bring examples of difficulties they have encountered in the translation of anatomical or functional concepts relating to the heart and lungs. They are also welcome to send their examples to the facilitator beforehand in order for a more detailed response to be prepared than might be feasible during the workshop itself or for possible inclusion in the presentation. About the facilitator: Philip Bazire is a surgeon with training both in England and in Spain and has worked as a medical translator since 1998. I forgot my password
In 1900, less than 10% of families owned a stove, or had access to electricity or phones, and the Model-T was still a full decade away Screen Shot 2012-04-07 at 1.03.40 PM.png But you can't measure a century's progress by numbers alone. It's not just that life expectancy at birth has grown from 49 years in 1900 to 78 today, but also the quality of our lives has been improved by law (e.g.: new safety and anti-discrimination laws), by culture (e.g.: women's ascent in college and the workplace) and by technology. That's why this graph below from Visual Economics, which shows the adoption rate of new technologies across the century, is one of my new favorites -- and a cousin to this beaut, which Alexis made viral ... technology adoption rate century.png ... Click it. Print it. Take your time with it. That's a lot of linear data. One way to parse it is to ignore everything at the top and trace your eye along the 10% line: -- In 1900, <10% of families owned a stove, or had access to electricity or phones -- In 1915, <10% of families owned a car -- In 1930, <10% of families owned a refrigerator or clothes washer -- In 1945, <10% of families owned a clothes dryer or air-conditioning -- In 1960, <10% of families owned a dishwasher or color TV -- In 1975, <10% of families owned a microwave -- In 1990, <10% of families had a cell phone or access to the Internet See full coverage There is a strain of conservatism that suggests that the march of technology has made life so good for people at the bottom that we don't have to worry much about income inequality. Tens of millions of Americans are living in poverty, "but it's okay, because they have more microwaves than ever before," is an argument that exists, and is widely persuasive. It's accurate to say today's poor own stuff that yesterday's poor wouldn't recognize. But the ubiquity of microwaves doesn't displace the moral obligation of the richest country in the history of the world to protect people who literally can't afford food to put in that microwave. Medical bankruptcy is hardly alleviated by the falling price of flat screen televisions.
fork me on github technical docs Cortex-M3 clock sources As you may know, any digital circuit can be either combinational or sequential. And all modern microcontroller, including lm3c, consists of circuits of both types. A simplest example for combinational logic is just a boolean expression like B = not A. This expression does not compute value of B, but rather states that B is an inverted value of signal A. In electronics world this means that once a signal comes to input A it is immediately appear on output B. On other hand sequential logic requires and an additional input, which moves circuit from one state to another. In microcontrollers an example of such an additional signal is a clock. The microcontroller lm3s has a few base clock sources. IOSC - an internal oscillator which run at 12Mhz. It does not require any external components to be used but on other hand it is not accurate. ARM Cortex-M3 clock sources MOSC - main oscillator. It is accurate but in oposite to IOSC it requires an external clock. So in order to make use of it you need to connect either external crystal or clock-generator to the controller. Internal 30kHz oscillator typically used during deep-sleep modes because it has very low power consumption. Main clock tree of the controller is depicted on the figure above. Such a complex clock system allows you to choose that clocking scheme which is best fit to your current needs. Initially, when the controller just have powered up, it uses IOSC as it system clock. So the controller firmware (your application) can start executing without any external components. During startup phase the application can reconfigure clock-system. For instance, it may enable MOSC using external 6Mhz crystal. Then use MOSC as a source for 400Mhz PLL and finally select 400Mhz/2/SYSDIV as a source for system clock. As you can see, in order to correctly setup the clock-system the firmware need to write data into a bunch of different registers. So to make developrs life a little bit easier CMSIS library for LM3s controllers provides SystemInit function, which does typical clock initialization. And it’s behaviour can be configured by changing settings in hw/lms_config.h file. Please note that despite clock configuration is done during start-up phase the application can reconfigure clocks at any time. For instance, you may want to switch to low power internal oscillator right before the controller goes to sleep mode and then when it wakes up reset 40Mhz PLL as system clock.

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