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Why Back to Sleep is the Safest Position for Your Baby
Red Nose recommends: always sleep baby on the back.
Key Points on why Back to Sleep is safest:
• Always place baby on the back to sleep and not on the tummy or side. There is an increased risk of sudden unexpected death for babies when they sleep on their tummies and there is a danger of rolling to this position if they are slept on their sides.
• It is important that babies are always placed on the back to sleep. Babies who are usually slept on the back and are placed on the tummy or side for the first time are at an increased risk of sudden unexpected death.
• Once a baby has been observed to repeatedly roll from back to front and back again on their own for several weeks, they can be left to find their preferred sleep position (this is usually around 5-6 months).
• At the critical time of starting to roll it is very important that the sleep environment remains safe
• Babies that can roll should no longer be wrapped
• Babies born preterm should be slept on the back as soon as they are medically stable (out of oxygen).
Success of Back to Sleep Campaigns in reducing SUDI
In Australia, between 1989 and 2014, 4,808 babies died suddenly and unexpectedly (http://rednose.org.au/page/facts-and-figures). Baby deaths attributed to SUDI have fallen by 85% and it is estimated that 9,967 babies’ lives have been saved as a result of Red Nose’s baby safe sleeping campaigns. Evidence suggests that the marked reduction in incidence of babies dying suddenly and unexpectedly can be directly associated with Red Nose’s Australian public health campaigns which promoted safe sleeping practices, particularly advice given to parents to place their baby on their back to sleep1. These findings are consistent with international studies that have reported marked declines in SIDS in countries which have introduced similar public health campaigns to reduce known risk factors.2-5 In 2014 there were 54 SIDS deaths among the 113 SUDI deaths reported in Australia (http://rednose.org.au/page/facts-and-figures).
SIDS is a diagnosis of exclusion and there has been considerable research into the underlying mechanisms which may underpin the known risk factors for SIDS. SIDS has long been believed to be multifactorial in origin6 and a triple risk hypothesis has been proposed to model the current knowledge7 (see The Triple Risk Model for more details). This model proposes that SIDS may occur when a vulnerable baby, such as one born preterm or exposed to maternal smoking, at a critical but unstable developmental period in homeostatic control, is exposed to an exogenous stressor such as being placed on the tummy (prone) to sleep. The model further proposes that babies are more likely to die if all three factors occur simultaneously, and that the vulnerability lies dormant until they enter the critical developmental period and are exposed to an exogenous stressor. SIDS occurs during sleep and the peak incidence is between 2-4 months of age, when sleep patterns are rapidly maturing. The final pathway to SIDS is widely believed to involve immature cardiorespiratory control, in conjunction with a failure of arousal from sleep.2
The evidence for back sleeping being protective against SUDI
There is now conclusive evidence from many countries that sleeping babies prone significantly increases the risk of SUDI (In the late 1980s a peak in SIDS rates prompted several large scale case-controlled studies in a number of countries.8 These world-wide epidemiological studies consistently identified prone sleeping as the major risk factor for SIDS.9-16 In the prone compared to non-prone sleeping positions, the relative risk or odds ratio (OR) associated with SIDS ranged from 3.5 to 9.3.17 In Australia, the recommendation that babies should not be slept prone was made in 1991.18 In 1997 a second expert group recommended that babies be placed on the back to sleep and stressed that propping of babies on their sides should be avoided. These recommendations have been supported in most developed countries and implemented through targeted public health campaigns by national SIDS organisations such as Red Nose in Australia and New Zealand, The Lullaby Trust in the UK, First Candle in the USA.
Since the recommendation of putting babies on their back to sleep there has been, a rapid decline in SIDS mortality which has provided overwhelming evidence of the strong association between prone sleeping and SUDI.1,11,19-23
Studies have identified that the side sleeping position is unstable and many babies are found prone after being placed to sleep on their side. The risks of side and prone sleep positions were similar in magnitude (OR: 2.0 and 2.6 respectively), largely due to infants being placed to sleep on their sides, but found prone24 and the population-attributable risk for the side sleeping position is higher than the risk for the prone position due to a larger number of infants being placed on their side rather than prone to sleep.25-26
Babies who are unaccustomed to sleeping prone are particularly at risk in the prone sleeping position (adjusted OR: 8.7-45.4)24-27 Physiological studies have identified that babies inexperienced in prone sleeping have decreased ability to escape from asphyxiating sleep environments (environments which may block their airway or reduce the ability to breathe) when placed prone.28
Concerns about back sleeping
Risk of aspiration or choking
Some parents and health professionals have expressed concern about back sleeping and the risk of a baby choking in this position. However, careful study of the baby airway has shown that healthy babies placed to sleep on the back are less likely to choke on vomit than prone or tummy sleeping babies.29 In the supine position the upper respiratory airway is above the oesophagus (digestive tract). Therefore, regurgitated milk ascending the oesophagus is readily swallowed again such that aspiration into the respiratory tract is avoided. When the baby is placed on the tummy, the oesophagus sits above the baby’s upper airway. If the baby regurgitates or vomits milk, it is relatively easy for the milk or fluid to be inhaled into the baby’s upper airway leading to micro-aspiration and stimulating receptors leading to cessation of breathing (apnoea).29 Several studies have now shown that the risk of aspiration is not increased by supine sleeping.30-32
There is often particular concern regarding aspiration in babies with gastro-oesophageal reflux. The AAP supports the recommendations of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition which recommends that babies with gastro-oesophageal reflux be placed in the supine position to sleep. In babies with particular rare medical conditions for whom the risk of death from gastro-oesophageal reflux is greater than the risk of SIDS medical practitioners may provide specific advice on sleeping position.33 Elevating the head of the cot while the baby is sleeping supine is not effective in reducing gastro-oesophageal reflux.34-35 In addition, elevating the cot can result in the baby sliding underneath the bedding and is not recommended.36 Pillows or positional devices that position the baby with an elevation and are often marketed for baby reflux, are not recommended due to the risks of suffocation and lack of evidence supporting efficacy.
Positional plagiocephaly
An increase in skull deformity (deformational plagiocephaly and craniosynostosis) requiring treatment has been reported since the Back to Sleep campaign.37 This is reported to be related to the concern that parents had in placing their baby on their tummy at any time, resulting in babies spending long periods of time on their back. In order to reduce the likelihood of skull shape problems, parents are encouraged to place babies prone for ‘tummy time’ from birth when babies are awake and under direct supervision. However, another earlier study demonstrated that there was no significant relationship between supine sleeping and the development of plagiocephaly; the baby’s positional preference and baby care practices used by parents including the frequency of supervised tummy time, played a greater role.38 [For further information about positional plagiocephaly and tips for tummy time see Baby’s Head Shape]
My baby sleeps longer and more deeply on their tummy
Many parents and grandparents report that the baby appears to sleep longer when on the tummy. This is thought to be due to reduced arousal responses.29,39-44 However, arousal and swallowing mechanisms are needed to protect baby’s airway and work best when a baby is placed to sleep on the back.
The back sleeping position is best for newborn babies
Some health professionals and parents continue to place newborn babies on the side immediately after birth in the belief that they need to clear their airway of amniotic fluid and are less likely to aspirate when in the side position. There is no evidence that fluid is more readily cleared in the side position.36 Babies should be placed on the back as soon as they are ready to be placed in the cot or bassinet. It is important that parents observe health professionals placing babies in the supine position as they are more likely to model this practice when they go home.45-48
The back sleeping position is best for preterm babies
Preterm babies are at increased risk for SUDI, including SIDS, compared to full term babies.49-51 Studies in the UK and New Zealand have reported that at least four times as many SIDS infants were born preterm compared to control infants who did not die (20% compared to 5%) and these proportional differences have remained unchanged since the introduction of public campaigns for reducing the risks.52-53 The association between the prone sleeping position and SIDS among low birth weight babies is equal to or stronger than that in babies born at term.27 It has been suggested that if the mothers of preterm or low birth weight infants followed the safe sleeping recommendations and all placed their infants supine in a cot by the parental bed, this would potentially reduce the overall SIDS rate by a further 20% 52.
Preterm babies are frequently placed prone as this position is thought to improve respiratory function and reduce energy requirements. It is common practice for babies requiring intensive care to be placed in the prone position during their acute illness. In one survey, approximately 95% of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurses identified a non-supine position as the best sleep position for preterm babies. This study reported that nurses believed prone sleeping was beneficial for respiratory associated complications, such as upper airway anomalies and respiratory distress as well as non-respiratory complications, such as reflux and inconsolability.54 However, it is likely that these improvements are simply due to babies spending more time in quiet sleep and less time in active sleep, a state associated with increased apnoeas and increased arousability.55-56 The current recommendation is that preterm babies are placed supine as soon as clinically stable, i.e. out of oxygen, and as early as possible prior to discharge from hospital so that their parents are used to them sleeping in this position and are supported with settling their babies in the back sleeping position.
Likely protective mechanism of back sleeping
Body position during sleep significantly modifies both the spontaneous and induced arousals in preterm and term babies, with babies being significantly less arousable when slept prone.39-44 Indeed, it is this perceived deeper sleep that reinforces parents’ tendencies to prefer sleeping the baby in the prone position. Some studies have identified that babies sleep longer in the prone position and have increased quiet sleep, which is a state of reduced arousability.42 The prone sleeping position is associated with higher central and peripheral body temperatures when compared to the supine position.57-58 Cardiovascular control is also significantly altered in the prone sleeping position in both term and preterm babies. Compared to the supine sleeping position, heart rate in the prone position is increased during sleep in both term and preterm babies.40-42,59-63 Studies investigating heart rate variability, a measure of autonomic control of heart rate, have found that at both 1 and 3 months postnatal age, overall heart rate variability is decreased in the prone position during sleep in both term and preterm babies,41,61-62,64-67 suggestive of poor autonomic control in the prone sleeping position. It has been suggested that a reduction in parasympathetic control caused by an increase in peripheral skin temperature in the prone position may underlie the change in heart rate variability.65 Several studies have found that the sympathetic effects on blood pressure and vasomotor tone are decreased in the prone sleeping position.57,59,68-69 Lower resting blood pressure and altered blood pressure responses 57,68-69 and decreased vasoconstrictor ability59 to head-up tilting have been identified in term babies when sleeping in the prone position compared with the supine position. The prone position has also been associated with lower cerebral oxygenation in healthy term babies, a finding which may underpin the reduced arousal responses in this position.70 Studies have also shown that swallowing and arousal, which are essential mechanisms of airway protection, are also impaired in the prone position during active sleep,29 and were improved in the supine position. When challenged with simulated reflux or postnasal secretions breathing rate was significantly reduced when infants slept prone.
The supine or back sleeping position is the safest position for babies to sleep for the first 12 months of life.
The Red Nose Safe Sleeping program is based on scientific evidence and was developed by Australian SUDI researchers, paediatricians, pathologists, and child health experts with input from overseas experts in the field. The 85% drop in SUDI deaths and the 9,967 lives that have been saved is testament to the effectiveness of the program.
For further information phone Red Nose on 1300 998 698.
Suggested citation
Red Nose. National Scientific Advisory Group (NSAG). (2016). Information Statement: Why Back to Sleep is the Safest Position for Your Baby. Melbourne: Red Nose. The first edition of this information statement was posted in August 2016.
View the references for this article here.
Last modified: 27/2/18 |
7 Ways to Generate Genuine Curiosity in Students
by Darla Hays
At a recent faculty meeting, the teachers were asked to share what they would love to have more of in their classrooms. We were to choose one area that we would always want to know more about and improve upon. What was the one topic that was overwhelmingly expressed? Student engagement and curiosity!
What do all teachers and students want? Active, engaged, and curious moments during lessons. Easily requested, but just how do we get there? Today’s fast paced world and even faster moving classrooms mean that to reach students above the din of demands on their attention we need to present information in ways that are inventive. It is no small feat to reach a point of pure curiosity growing in the minds of students.
We can all recall times when it seemed like the students were certainly somewhere far away from the classroom in their minds. One time I saw this happening and I immediately thought of the classic movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I could see the teacher in that movie scribbling cluelessly on the chalkboard and calling out in his now classic monotone voice, “Bueller, Bueller?” Well, I know that if I see those signs—the thousand yard blank stare, the figurative drool running down their chin—within the first few minutes of a lesson, I have to make a change to find the energy and passion in the students in order to hit that “sweet spot” between passions and abilities that Sir Ken Robinson speaks of in The Element.
After all, what good is education if students feel completely disinterested? I have always wanted to be the type of teacher that creates FUN in lessons. I don’t want to be known as ‘Lady Blah, Blah’ or become famous as the teacher version of ‘Be – yawn- say’!
Although we know that it isn’t a perfect science to instill in children a thirst, a full curiosity to know, we still want to hit it more often than not. Over the years in the classroom setting, I have striven to be equal to this challenge.
So, what has 17 years in education taught me about student curiosity and engagement? What gems of observation have shown me the way? What have I learned from fellow teachers and students?
These teacher tricks produce students who are genuinely curious and are practically bursting out of their skin to learn. I-M-A-G-I-N-E!I have learned to set the tone right at the start using a curious question. Either I give the essential question and students write or discuss their thoughts or I have asked them to write their curious question on a sticky note or in their journals. Having a place of curiosity to begin with is a sure fire way to get the thinking going from all brains in the room! It gives the message to kids that to ask, to be a part of the investigation is OK, and is welcome and important! Taking it a step further is to have the students compare their notes after the lesson and discuss their thoughts.
The element of surprise is a great way to keep the energy and pace going! I have been known to suddenly take a stuffed animal off the classroom shelf and use it to pretend to bite a cactus when teaching about plant adaptations. The students didn’t plan on it and they remembered it long afterward. Mission accomplished.
Humor goes a long way in a classroom. Research shows that when students are stressed their mind is blocked to learning and their brain cannot make new dendrites of knowledge. Humor allows the stress or pressure to escape. Just a dose of it is enough and students will relax and open their minds thus allowing them to think creatively and curiously. I have been seen purposely making a mistake and then students will love to correct me and suddenly all ears and eyes are watching! Kids will tell you that I am the teacher that will suddenly start talking in a foreign accent to get their attention and a bit of a laugh. Students will learn the boundaries of having moments of fun and enjoyment mixed with the seriousness of high rigor in lessons.
Making it true to life for students is vital. If they can see their part in the learning and how it will be applied to their lives, if they can make a connection, they will value it and make a true investment. I often use my own family (sorry family members but you are great examples) to give students a real life example of the learning being used in every day scenarios. This is fun and gets them interested in the daily ups and downs of life and how education supports people each day. Besides this, they love hearing funny stories about my family. I will mention a popular TV show or character that relates to their own lives and it not only shows my ‘with-it-ness’ to care about their world but it helps them to also make those connections and CARE about the lesson.
We all know that technology and being constantly plugged in is now a woven thread in our daily lives. The generations growing up in our world are technology immersed in many ways and we can see how much it draws them in! Embracing this fact and using it to our advantage when teaching is a modern day golden path to engagement and curiosity along with an avenue to higher thinking. It doesn’t have to be the ONLY tool in a lesson but it is a piece of the puzzle that students really like.
Students crave being involved and having a voice in the classroom. Allowing them to discuss and share even just with a partner gives them access to aligning with the topics we want them to deeply know. If you were to visit my classroom you would see that there is always a buzz about something. I have learned to ebb and flow with the curiosity of the students. Kind of like going with the current. Sometimes, the driving force is the student and it can often take us there faster and more productively. I have seen how honoring their risk taking builds them all up higher.
Student creativity is like a turbo boost to a lesson. When I see how students interpret information and when I watch them pull their talents together to create, I know how much of the material they are really tapping into. We are really doing them a favor when we invite them to show what they know through creative expression. They will be better prepared for the work world of their future if they can synthesize information and connect a thought to many more thoughts and show it in unique ways. This doesn’t always have to be a big project. In fact, it develops creativity more if it is done in small ways consistently. I love it when I see a student write in the margins of their composition new and fun thoughts. I enjoy stretching them sometimes by just asking them to write 2 questions on the bottom of the paper or challenging them to make a new game or quiz for the class. Even just allowing them to make a word web out to the side of their paper builds their ability to make several connections quickly. I even allow them to doodle on their page in those small moments of wait time only if what they doodle connects to the learning topic.
Letting students create when our time is crunched and we have testing coming up, eep! Is that really possible? Yes!
So, there you have it, my seven wonders of the world of curiosity and engagement. I don’t know how education will look over the next decade. One thing is for sure, I will continue to strive for curious kids in the classroom and take joy in seeing them light up with an honest love of learning. |
Explanation of the RSDLP.
Party, putting the task of freeing the proletariat from the operation of parasitic classes, traditionally the end of the XIX century was called the Social-democratic.Moreover, the ideological basis of Marxism lay organizations of the revolutionary wing.Deciphering "RSDLP" includes sotsdekovskuyu formula, but during its early development platform of the party was much more diverse traditional Marxism.It is allowed to maneuver in a wide range of legal and legitimate forms of struggle to terrorism.This was and disadvantages and advantages of the young Russian Party of Social Democrats.
Create RSDRP
At the end of 1895 was created "League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" is an amalgamation of Marxist groups to coordinate their work.Only three years later on the basis of this organization we were able to work out a common program of the party and declare the occurrence of a single party.The founders of the RSDLP started nine delegates' Union of Struggle "from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and representatives of the Bund (Jewish Labor Union).There was an event in early March 1898 in the city of Minsk.
Then there was a name.Deciphering "RSDLP", five letters, clearly talked about the revolutionary nature of the organization, the Social-Democrats in the slang of the politicians has been synonymous with radical Marxism.
«Iskra" and the first cracks split
It took another two years, and the party moved from declarations to action.At the end of 1900 came the first edition of the newspaper "Iskra", edited by Lenin (Ulyanov VI), assisted by Plekhanov, Martov, Zasulich, Axelrod and Potresov.In the course of this organ revealed serious contradictions in the approach to the methods of the coming class struggle.The essence of the conflict was in relation to the legal struggle and compromise that had to go in its process, as well as discipline.Comrades were arguing, sometimes hoarse, to come to a common denominator could not split was brewing, and the initiator of it was Vladimir Ulyanov, while still quite young (thirty) man with a sparse beard and burning eyes.He insisted on the rapid, revolutionary overthrow the foundations of the "old world", and he objected to intelligently old man Plekhanov, the patriarch of Russian Marxism.
split and the emergence of Bolshevism
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party has existed for seven years, carrying a kind of twofold beginning, Plekhanov, Lenin.But nothing lasts forever.Discussions and debates only deepened the contradictions, making them antagonistic and at the II Congress of the question was put bluntly: who will make a revolution, representatives of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat?Who will be after the class-hegemony?
Lenin and his supporters voted for the dictatorship of the working class, and won with a majority.As a result, the party organization was divided, split, decrypt RSDRP remained the same, but depending on the membership of one of the two factions abbreviation supplemented bukovkoy "b" or "m" in the round brackets.Those who voted in favor of the II Congress of the proletarian hegemony became Bolsheviks and Plekhanov's supporters - on the contrary, the Mensheviks.
program the minimum and maximum program - the two components of Russian Marxism
These arrangements did not stop to take the overall program, consisting of two parts (minimum and maximum).At the very least, to agree that the Russian sotsdeki, is the destruction of the monarchist-landlord order, the bourgeois revolution, the distribution of land to peasants (free of charge) and the provision of a working eight-hour day.And in the future loomed much larger transformation in the course of which the proletarian was to become dictator.This is the maximum, which was calculated by the Bolsheviks.Further progress of public opinion was not in their plans.
Seventh Congress - Rubicon
Completed split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, third, fourth and fifth Party Congress.The Bolsheviks completely expelled the Mensheviks from the Party leadership by 1907.At this point, they were disciplined, cohesive and very active squad, having, in particular, and military wing, capable of leading the underground work and owns the means of propaganda.The Mensheviks such assets could not boast, for which he later paid.
Sotsdeki and war
Party RSDLP survived another internal conflict at the beginning of World War II.At this time, the conditional "front line" was difficult, she shared the Bolsheviks into three main groups: the internationalists, pacifists and patriots.To advocate for the defeat of their country, and in fact, become a traitor, you need to have special personal qualities, it is not everyone can.Here Plekhanov cross the line and failed.Lenin got it.
Social-Democratic Labour Party while the Russian could only be called on a territorial basis.Bolshevik agitators have made tremendous efforts to convince the soldiers that fought for their country should not be, and need to fraternize with the enemy, killing their commanders.Surprises only the softness shown by "bloody tsarist regime" towards caught traitors.In fact, the fate of the country of Lenin and his associates were interested enough, they raved about the world revolution, which seemed to be near, but in fact never occurred.
Why RCP (B) was the CPSU (b)
After seizing power in 1917, the Bolsheviks had serious disagreements with the social-democratic movement, whose representatives in many countries held less radical views, showing "shakiness".The positions of German, French and other European Social Democrats have expressed the desire to use legal mechanisms, in extreme cases, combining them with underground work, and achieve victories by promoting their representatives in the bodies of power through elections.This path is not satisfied Leninists, they understood that in the case of people of the possibility of free will they are unlikely to come to power, because and made a coup, overthrowing the Provisional Government (the fact of its acceleration is absurd, because it was created at a time before the election).
Deciphering the RSDLP ceased to express the essence of the party, and that it is not confused with other associations, in 1918 it was renamed into the CPSU (All-Union Communist Party) with the indispensable bukovkoy (b) at the end, no one doubts that tormented.The first letter abbreviations until 1925 means "All-Russian", and after formation of the USSR All-Union party became.Such it remained until 1952, which marked the onset of the mature Stalinist socialism.This year hosted the XIX Congress, on which the CPSU (b) was renamed the Communist Party, already without small letters in brackets.It was the last name of the Leninist party. |
Rule Misconceptions
Common Little League® Rule Misconceptions: What Parents Need to Know
Throughout the season, in almost every set of bleachers at Little League® fields everywhere, there will be discussions about certain rules and regulations that parents and other spectators have questions about. Here are some of the most common rule misconceptions and answers to help provide clarity.
Must a runner slide into home plate?
No. Little League does not have a “Must Slide” rule for a runner sliding into home or any other base. However, any runner is out when the runner does not slide or attempt to get around a fielder who has the ball and is waiting to make the tag.
How many batters does a pitcher need to hit in an inning to be removed?
There is no rule in Little League Baseball® or Little League Softball® that specifies the number of batters a pitcher hits before they are removed. Also, there is no specific rule that mandates a warning be given.
What is the rule when a player runs out of the baseline to avoid a tag?
Any runner is called out when running more than three feet away from the baseline to avoid being tagged, unless such action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner’s baseline is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base to which he or she is attempting to reach. It is important to note that in order to enforce this rule, the defense must attempt to tag the runner.
Who “owns” first base – the runner or the Little Leaguer® playing first?
Neither. The defense has the right to attempt a put-out and the runner has the right to attempt to possess the base.
Is it a balk/illegal pitch if a pitcher drops the ball on the mound?
In the Little League Intermediate (50/70) Baseball Division and above, it is a balk if runners are on base. In the Little League (Major) Baseball division and below, with runners on base, it is a ball to the batter. In all divisions of Little League Baseball, if there are no runners on base, there is no penalty. In all divisions of Little League Softball, a ball is declared on the batter and the ball remains live and in play.
Can pitchers wear long sleeve shirts and/or sleeves under the uniform?
Baseball and Softball: Any part of the pitcher’s undershirt or T-shirt exposed to view must be of a solid color. Baseball: The pitcher’s undershirt sleeves, if exposed, cannot be white or gray. Neoprene sleeves, if worn by a pitcher, must be covered by an undershirt. Softball: Neoprene sleeves are approved for play unless the umpire determines them to be distracting and must be of a solid color. Pitchers may not wear sweat or wrist/play-calling bands.
Can a pitcher go to his/her mouth on the mound?
In all divisions of Little League Baseball, a pitcher is permitted to bring his or her pitching hand in contact with the mouth or lips while in the 10-foot circle (18-foot circle in the Little League Intermediate (50/70) Baseball Division and above) surrounding the pitcher’s plate, provided he/she distinctly wipes of the pitching hand before contact in the ball. In instances such as cold weather, if both managers and the umpire agree prior to the game, a pitcher can be permitted to blow on his/her hand while in the circle. The penalty for violating this rule is a ball being awarded to the batter. Repeated violations can cause the pitcher to be removed from the game.
In all divisions of Little League Softball, the pitcher is permitted to bring the hand in contact with the mouth, provided the fingers/hand are distinctly wiped off before touching the ball. A pitcher shall not apply a foreign substance of any kind to the ball, pitching hand, or fingers. Under the supervision of the umpire, powder rosin may be used to dry the hands.
What is the rule when a player is attempting to switch from the pitcher position to the catcher position and vice versa?
In baseball, any player who has played the position of catcher in four or more innings is not eligible to pitch on that calendar day. A pitcher who delivers 41 or more pitches in a game cannot play the position of catcher for the remainder of that day.
A player who played the position of catcher for three (3) innings or less, moves to the pitcher position, and delivers 21 pitches or more (15- and 16-year-olds: 31 pitches or more) in the same day, may not return to the catcher position on that calendar day.
EXCEPTION: If the pitcher reaches the 20-pitch limit (15- and 16-year-olds: 30-pitch limit) while facing a batter, the pitcher may continue to pitch, and maintain their eligibility to return to the catcher position, until any one of the following conditions occur: (1) that batter reaches base; (2) that batter is retired; or (3) the third out is made to complete the half-inning or the game.
In softball, players may switch between the pitcher position and catcher position.
When must a coach make an appeal?
Any appeal of a possible playing rule violation must be made before the next pitch, play, or attempted play. An appeal is not considered a play. If there is the potential of a “Batting Out Of Turn” infraction, it must be appealed before a pitch is delivered to the next batter of either team or a play or attempted play.
Does the batter need to avoid being hit by a pitch?
A player must make some type of attempt to avoid being hit by a pitched ball. Determining if an attempt was made is determined by the umpire.
Are hands part of the bat?
No. The hands are part of the batter’s body. Should a ball come in contact with the batter’s hands, an umpire must judge if the ball hit the bat or the batter first; determine if the pitch was in the strike zone, and make the appropriate ruling.
Do Little Leaguers need to play two years in the Minor division before moving to the Major division?
Are sunglasses allowed on hats?
Do all males need to wear an athletic supporter?
Yes. Male catchers must wear the metal, fibre, or plastic type cup.
Is food allowed in the dugout?
There is not a Little League rule or regulation that specifically prohibits it. Allowing food in the dugout should be determined by the local league and/or each team’s manager.
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Empathy for a user’s experience is at the heart of creating meaningful solutions. An empathy map helps your team articulate the user’s perspective.
How To
1. On a piece of flip chart paper or, draw the base empathy map with four quadrants: 1. Say; 2. Do; 3. Think; 4. Feel. You can also use an empathy map worksheet.
2. Notice that “say” and “do” are very explicit and “think” and “feel” are implicit.
3. Review your notes about one user’s experience and walk the map, writing down on sticky notes what the user said, did, felt, or thought.
4. Use another color for another user’s experience.
5. Once populated, step back and reflect on the content. Look for patterns and inconsistencies. What’s at the heart of this experience? Write down these observations and insights.
6. Share your empathy map with some of the people who participated in your research. Do they have new points to add or qualify?
7. From your discussion, you can start writing “How Might We…” or “Ways of…” statements that can seed a brainstorm of ideas.
Empathy Map Worksheet |
Chatino - Kinship
Kin Groups and Descent. The basic kin group among the Chatino is the family. Kinship is cognatic: an individual recognizes a circle of relatives related to him or her by blood and marriage through both mother and father. Although descent is bilateral, postmarital residence is usually virolocal. As a result, groups of male kin often live in close proximity.
Kinship Terminology. Chatino kinship terminology resembles the Eskimo pattern in that a clear distinction is drawn between lineal ascendants and descendants and collateral relatives. All collateral relatives are referred to as ta'a.
User Contributions:
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Phlebotomy Training Harrisburg NC
Phlebotomy is a branch of medical science that deals in withdrawing blood from the body for study, donations or testing purposes. It involves selecting a website on the body, creating a puncture by adding syringe, collecting blood and then assessing the sample correctly. The act of collecting blood from veins is called “venipuncture”. The person who performs the act of withdrawing blood is called phlebotomist. A phlebotomist generally assists the doctors by helping them performing the tests on the blood sample and preparing the clinical report for the patient.
Phlebotomy is a good career track for those persons who wish to assist doctors and surgeons by this means. It does not require any medical graduation degree or background. Anyone who wants to pursue it as a skill can learn it. The objective is to learn the methods with proper care.
The phlebotomist first analyses the patient and selects the website on the body to draw blood. Generally, it is collected from veins as well as the part of skin above it’s selected. It entails distinct procedures for different age groups. For infants, the blood is withdrawn using”heel stick” where as from young adults, sample can be collected by creating a puncture with syringe. All this work is done under medical protocols and under the advice of a trained doctor.
How to Become a Phlebotomist in Harrisburg
Phlebotomy courses are an asset for the individuals who wish to learn the art of withdrawing blood sample from patient’s body for additional tests. With the growing need of blood collection services at various places, the extent and vulnerability of phlebotomy increases simultaneously. Phlebotomists being medical assistants and technicians are fairly hired by physicians and surgeons in hospitals or in blood banks for sample collection. To gain a fantastic experience in the corresponding field, every online program gives a excellent in-depth course. The course includes hourly obligations and an internship part for practical learning also. The specialization in the field can be obtained by anyone who’s at least a high school grad. The task doesn’t require a must have medical history.
Phlebotomy Degree Overview & Career Information
Phlebotomy, since the part of learning, doesn’t necessarily require any medical graduation or degree in the same field. Although, in most places professional doctors or nurses do phlebotomy processes but it’s not that stringent everywhere. Any person in Harrisburg North Carolina who wishes to pursue the course can enroll online for the same. The enrolment is contingent on the location, the individual belongs to. Online enrolment gives students a complete practical and theoretical idea about various practices involved in the process of collecting blood.
The course duration ranges from less than 1 year to two years depending on the capacity of the student to complete the lectures. The coursework also contains an internship part where the students should practice in a medical college campus or under a physician with their guidance. This part of course helps students develop keen abilities to get acquainted with many different issues ranging from patient dealing to safety measures under phlebotomy protocols. The course also involves fundamental medical nomenclatures, anatomy principles, safety measures and all that is required to be a good phlebotomist.
Certificates in Phlebotomy
Courses are helpful for the medical professionals who practice in different cities and wish to become proficient in this field too. To pick the ideal spot to collect blood from the body, to have medical ethics regarding behavior and responsibilities, to follow security measures so that patient does not feel pain, etc. are various areas covered during the course. The course also includes a practical internship or clinical visit tenure to provide students a comprehensive understanding about the behavioral integrity, precautions to be taken and actual procedures. It involves contacting a community clinic or a doctor for the same purpose. It’s healthful and beneficial to have a complete view before actually performing it on patients.
To choose a specific school is a confusing task. The North Carolina students should seek the courses of those schools that are accredited by a regional or national agency of the area. Accreditation is a process where the schools and colleges elect to receive their departmental courses evaluated and the courses meet the standards to provide the students a high quality educational support. There can be a number of accreditation parameters for an institute to fulfill. The accredited bodies assess the faculty standards, infrastructure, lab instruments, quality of education, research programs etc. and tests if the institute passes the accreditation standards. It’s the general criteria for various institutes to be classified on shared grounds. Agencies like these are important to keep a check on the educational services offered by them. Institute with good accreditation ought to be chosen to find course in addition to the certification. Certification course from recognised institutes have greater value and are more suitable for additional courses. Sometimes, the community clinics fail to accept the certified degrees from non-accredited agencies.
Phlebotomy Certification Requirements in Harrisburg NC
The degree in Phlebotomy could be performed from any school or college having courses in the various fields, however, the certification protocols differ from area to area. It depends upon the medical institution and the regional medical guidelines about what is considered a sufficient training for them. The institutes that stipulate the course degree request some training standards and so as to receive your course certified, your course must surpass that threshold. Although, these requirements vary with institutions you search for but to have some idea of certification requirements ahead would save money and time. Moreover, after the classroom course is completed, so as to get a certified degree, you need to qualify the examination. If the course chosen doesn’t include the syllabus and requirements of the examination, it would be tricky to get certified.
What To Expect in Phlebotomy Degree Program?
Phlebotomy programs in North Carolina are regulated by many schools and colleges and the student chooses the course according to his or her reach. The complete program involves theoretical and practical teaching. The practical portion of the course means that the student needs to practice with correct procedures under clinical advice. This may be done in a hospital or a community practice. This stage of the course is vital for the students so that they get an actual exposure to the process before practicing on patients.
Typically, the course includes:
• Information about regulations and rules to be followed closely governed by clinical protocols.
• Fundamental Chemistry and Biology necessary for laboratory works.
• Precautions related to disease and infectious diseases.
When Phlebotomy Training Is Important to Your Future in North Carolina
Phlebotomy is a profession in which the individual learns to draw blood from patients’ body by building a puncture and then collects blood sample. The person who performs this task is called a phlebotomist. It’s a career path for those people that are keen to enter into medical field with or without needing medical background or specialization. It’s a profession, open to any frequent individual with a desire to acquire a career in this area. Phlebotomy training is for these men and women. The training for phlebotomy primitively requires a diploma in high school. It doesn’t need any medical background for a individual pursuing it. The training program covers the basic medical syllabus for the individual to comprehend and know about medical field before actually entering into it. It is a task in which individuals are taught various things related to human anatomy, handling the medical equipment, healthcare precautions etc.. Therefore, in a broad perspective, phlebotomy proves out to be an asset for an individual who wishes to become a medical assistant and technician to perform drug tests and other lab work.
The training for the same can be obtained from various medical institutions which have this course. The students need to enroll in those institutes and start the classes. In many places, the students besides their original graduation program, try their hands in this course so that they have a solid skill before they graduate. For the persons that are involved in some work away from their regional place, online phlebotomy courses are available in several institutes which give the applicants a complete training through video lectures. The term of course extends from seven months to a year depending on the speed the candidate completes his or her credit hours. The practical internship program in Harrisburg is also attached with online courses since all the theoretical and technical knowledge will be imparted through videos, so it is necessary for the students to gain a practical knowledge before actually performing practice on patients. Internships such as this can be done in community clinics or hospitals under physician’s advice and within clinical protocols. It provides students a hands-on experience on the job of withdrawing blood.
Basic Medical Terminology– Before beginning to work as a phlebotomist in Harrisburg, the students are taught some basic terms and are given a broad background about Medicine related terms. Since, the courses are created for a common class of people, like for everyone who wishes to be a phlebotomist but doesn’t belong from medical history, it is crucial to incorporate some basic terminologies for people.
Anatomy– To know about the placement of organs is an important part of training because before inserting a needle, the person needs to be aware of the delicate places and the consequences of collecting blood from there.
Phlebotomy Procedures– The course and the skill do not finish until the student is unknown of the procedural work. The skill involves step by step methodology informing the students about what should be done and what shouldn’t be. Also, the idea is to show people the accurate methods before they could actually practice on patients.
Site Selection– One should know about the proper sites on the body to collect blood from. Not any point on the body can be selected and blood can be removed. The knowledge of appropriate sites and the logic behind selecting the best site is very important.
Handling Medical Equipment– After the collection of blood is completed, another thing to learn would be to deal with the equipment used to collect blood and other related operations. The hygiene of instruments and proper isolation techniques are also covered in the course.
What to Expect in Harrisburg’s Phlebotomy School
Cost of Tuition– The cost of the course opted is a really significant factor behind the choice of school. Not every expensive course provides the best coaching. The quality of teaching is independent of the tuition fees offered by the school or college. Many cheaper courses also provide very good teaching, so, selection of college shouldn’t be based on its own fees.
School’s Reputation- A proper study about the feedback and reputation of shortlisted schools is utmost important. The career vulnerability completely depends upon the caliber and goodwill of the college. An in-depth study about the college and course needs to be done on Internet. You can also have favorable reviews with the doctors and other phlebotomists concerning the standing of the shortlisted schools. This, if done, before enrolling will save a massive amount of savings and capital and can help you get decent course.
Accreditation– Accreditation is the test of educational institution on the typical grounds. It’s essentially certifying the institution on the basis of infrastructure, education provided, faculty members, laboratory equipment, etc.. Online course from non-accredited colleges may not prove out to be that true in legal terms. Some healthcare centres prefer students from accredited institutes over non-accredited ones.
Duration– As per the prescribed schedule, everything takes a proper time. It’s extremely necessary to understand that there’s no shortcut to success. A fantastic amount of time invested in learning will always make you a fantastic practitioner. Courses with short durations might become an obstacle when applying for employment in corresponding field because every post needs a minimum training- span.
Practice– The choice of college in phlebotomy in Harrisburg NC 28075 should also be based on the amount and quality of practice, the course conducts. Before actually withdrawing patient’s blood, ample amount of time ought to be given to practice as you can’t risk and experimentation on patient’s condition. Moreover, to gain confidence before actual work, adequate practice is recommended.
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Wonder and the Spiritual Look For Reality: Ann Druyan on Why the Scientific Technique Is Like Love
Wonder and the Sacred Search for Truth: Ann Druyan on Why the Scientific Method Is Like Love
” We, this individuals, on a small and lonely planet/ Taking a trip through casual space/ Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns/ To a location where all signs inform us/ It is possible and essential that we find out/ A brave and surprising reality …” So starts Maya Angelou’s cosmic clarion call to mankind, among the most lovely and poignant poems ever written– a poem that flew to space, a poem that came from space: a poem influenced by Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot— his lyrical meditation on the landmark photograph of Earth, which the Voyager spacecraft took in 1990 as an afterthought upon finishing its unmatched photographic survey of our Planetary system, and which Sagan spent years petitioning NASA to permit.
The “Pale Blue Dot” photograph captured by the Voyager 1(NASA/JPL)
The Voyager, which had cruised into area thirteen years earlier, brought together with its instruments The Golden Record— a visionary, extremely poetic effort to catch the essence of Earth in sounds and images that would communicate to another planetary civilization across spacetime, and, maybe a lot more extremely in the middle of the Cold War, mirror back to us who and what we are: a single symphonic species.
Tasked with the difficult, inspired work of distilling that essence was the project’s innovative director, Ann Druyan In the course of making up the record, Sagan and Druyan, to their own wonder-stricken surprise, discovered themselves making up a sensational love story with their lives. They invested the staying 20 years of Sagan’s life fathoming and figuring deep space together– writing poetic queries into the origin of comets, thinking up kids’s book concepts, collaborating on the renowned 1980 tv series turned book Universe, which The Library of Congress listed amongst 88 books to have actually formed the nation’s conscience, together with epoch-making accomplishments of guts and vision that have altered the course of culture and the understanding of nature– books like Rachel Carson’s Quiet Spring and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Yard
Art by Margaret C. Cook for a unusual 1913 edition of Leaves of Yard
2 decades after Sagan’s death– decades coruscating with dazzling clinical discoveries that have actually disquieted us into shedding more misconceptions and beholding more of reality– Druyan selected up the thread of marvel to compose and produce a continuation of Universe, starring astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and skyrocketing into these brand-new frontiers of our ever-evolving understanding of area and time.
Tracing our cosmic story– from the cyanobacteria through which life first flowered on our rocky world billions of years ago to our search for life on possible worlds many lightyears away; from the cavern walls on which early people first mapped their spatial collaborates to the Rube Goldberg device of discoveries that resulted in the lasers with which these caverns are now studied; from the symbiotic advancement of plants and the pollinators that feast on them to the Russian scientists who starved to death in a homicidal dictatorship to protect their valuable collection of seeds ensuring our planet’s biodiversity far beyond their life times– Druyan takes up the mission not as a scientist herself but as a lifelong student and steward of the clinical mindscape, a self-described “hunter-gatherer of stories”: stories that begin with the human, with private scientists or teams of scientists, and beget the cosmic, parting the drape to let in a couple of more golden rays of reality, chiseling some precious piece of understanding from the tremendous monolith of the unidentified.
At the center of her extensive reach into past and future is a lucid, luminous look at the truths and obligations today is calling us to rise to– a query into what it would consider us to transcend our human constraints and characteristics so that we might sustain as stewards instead of destroyers of this irreplaceable planet. In a testimony to the basic fact that science is ” a genuinely human endeavor,” Druyan composes:
Science, like love, is a means to that transcendence, to that skyrocketing experience of the oneness of being fully alive. The clinical method to nature and my understanding of love are the same: Love asks us to get beyond the infantile forecasts of our personal hopes and fears, to embrace the other’s truth. This type of unflinching love never ever stops bold to go deeper, to reach greater.
This is exactly the method that science enjoys nature. The vastness of the universe– and love, the thing that makes the vastness manageable– is out of reach to the conceited.
Learning not to confuse the strength of our beliefs for the strength of the evidence is, obviously, one of the greatest, most tough victories of our development– as people, as societies, and as a species. In consonance with the tenets of Sagan’s ageless Baloney Detection Kit for crucial thinking, Druyan offers her easy, elegant formula for telling the two apart:
Test ideas by experiment and observation. Build on those concepts that pass the test. Turn down the ones that stop working. Follow the evidence any place it leads. And question whatever, consisting of authority. Do these things and the universes is yours.
She opens and closes the book with the words of Albert Einstein, spoken at the 1939 World’s Fair, where he had actually gone to leave a time-capsule of wisdom for posterity:
If science, like art, is to perform its mission genuinely and completely, its achievements must go into not only superficially however with their inner significance into the awareness of the people.
The guy whose unassailable vision had actually landed the first human foot on another celestial body understood that in the poetry of reality, every website of wonder, be it art or science, is a portal to truth.
What emerges from Druyan’s Cosmos: Possible Worlds is a rosary of such glittering sometimeses. Complement it with poet Marie Howe’s spectacular ode to the singularity of our cosmic belonging, then revisit physicist Brian Greene on wresting the poetry of presence from an aloof universe and Carl Sagan on how to live with the unknown
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Shalom, shalom; peace, peace in the name of Yeshua. This is Crystal Sharpe and welcome to the Ancient Scrolls program. (December 22, 2019)
Tonight begins Chanukah. This is an observance of lighting candles for eight days. This is done to memorialize the Menorah in the Temple burning eight days on single container of oil. Antiochus Epiphanes placed pressure on the Jews to conform to the Greek standard of living and worshipping their gods. They desecrated the Temple, its furnishings and sacrificed a pig on the Altar of God.
A rural priest, Mattathias, refused the order to accept the Greek gods. He led a revolt and his son, Judah, became leader of the resistance. Over a period of time they overcame the Greeks and then focused on the process of consecrating the Temple and its furnishings. The Altar of the Lord had to be destroyed and a new one constructed. After everything was accomplished they could not light the menorah because there was no olive oil for its cups. It takes eight days to process oil for the menorah. However, a container of oil was located in one of the Temple’s chambers and they decided to use it even though there was enough for only a day. The oil from the single vessel burned for eight days until new oil was processed. This was considered a miracle and a celebration for Israel. (It is said there are a couple of versions of this story.)
Wednesday will be quite a joyous occasion for some folks who celebrate Christmas. For others it will be the season for Santa Clause. For merchants, it is the season for money, money, money.
Some years ago it became knowledge that Christ wasn’t actually born on December 25. The Universal Church, which is the Catholic Church took upon itself to choose a day on which to recognize the birth of Yeshua. I was able to find some research where several days had been offered to commemorate His birth, and so the church finally settled on December 25th.
It is most difficult to be exact on the season of His birth. There are many assumptions, opinions and nothing really concrete to announce the exact day of His birth. Most information that we use for the timing of His birth is mostly circumstantial right now. My belief is that he was born at one of the Lord’s feast.
Some promote Pesach or Passover, others Shavuot/Pentecost, and some prefer Succoth/Feast of Tabernacles in the Hebrew month of Tishrei. This would be around our September-October time frame.
Those who promote Passover prefer Him being born at the season of the birthing of the lambs. According to some who are in husbandry, lambs are born from around May to June which would be in time for Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit. A few did mention lambs may birth in April. As I continued to do research on the different types of sheep, the environment or climate also has influence on their mating or estrus cycle. Also, there were a couple of sites that stated the estrus cycle of ewes could be manipulated by humankind. I don’t understand the degree of that and I don’t want to know. I am a staunch believer in allowing the natural cycle of life have its free course.
So, was Yeshua born at the time of the Passover? Was He birthed at the place called Migdal Tower as some suppose? He could have been. We don’t know. The Word gives us no concrete evidence other than He was born in the town of Bethlehem.
There are those who look to the birthing of the lambs as the possible timing of His birth. He will miss being birthed with the lambs by a month or two, but that may not be an issue, and close enough is close enough. Those people relate Yeshua being birthed at the cycle of lambs is from a statement John the Baptist makes in John 1:29: The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said: “Behold! The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world!” That is enough for some to say Yeshua was born on Passover. But John was announcing not the birth of Yeshua, but His end as a sacrifice for many who would be able receive His atonement blood. Yeshua was born to be a sacrificial lamb on Passover. Just like the requirement was for lambs to be less than a year old for sacrifice, Yeshua was 33 or 33 ½ years of age when He died. Some would say He didn’t fulfill the commandment because He was too old. You see where this can go? But we know from the Word that He was sacrificed for our sins. His blood washes us from our sins, and transgressions. His blood brings us in covenant with YHVH. There is life in the blood, blood does not die. But let’s move on. I am going to go over some history of the place Migdal Tower
When I had gone to Israel, the tour took us to Bethlehem, to the Church of the Nativity. Beneath the church is a cave that is traditionally thought to be the birthplace of Yeshua. St Helena built a basilica over the cave in 339 AD, and then the Church of the Nativity overlaid that. Now after close to 2000 years, there are people who are pointing to another location for the birthplace of Yeshua, and it is Migdal Eder, the Tower of the flocks.
There are two instances of Migdal Eder being mentioned in the Word. The first place to mention Migdal Edar is in Genesis 35. In this chapter, Jacob, his two wives, two concubines, his eleven sons and servants are returning from Beth-El and are traveling south toward Bethlehem.
Verse 16. Then they journeyed from Bethel. And when there was a little distance to go to Ephrath (Bethlehem), Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor. (“little distance” here is chibrath [kivras] and could be read as it is on BibleHub: and there was still a chibrath of land to come to Ephrath. Ephrath is Bethlehem.
Scholars and rabbis struggle with the word chibrath. It could actually mean a little distance meaning close to a mile. Her grave today is situated about a half mile from Bethlehem.
Cambridge Bible for Schools Commentary renders the possibility of chibrath being a proper name Chabratha. Rachel expired in Chabratha, close to Bethlehem.
Also, there are a few who support that the word is understood to mean sieve; when the earth is riddled by the plough like a sieve. My Artscroll Mesorah text reads: This refers to the time of year when the earth is riddled with holes like a sieve—a time when the land is plowed. This follows the winter rainy season, and precedes the intense summer heat.
According to the Codex Judaica, Chronological Index of Jewish History, pg 62-63. Rachel died on the 11th of Cheshvan, around our October-November period.
Kleinman edition, Midrash, Vayishlach; Notes 67. 82, 5 (1)
Verse 17. Now it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, “Do not fear: you will have this son also.”
Verse 18. And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni (this means Son of Sorrow); but his father called him Benjamin (Son of My Right Hand. Both express the titles of Yeshua).
Verse 19. So Rachel died on her way to Ephrath (that is Bethlehem).
Verse 21. Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.
The other passage to mention Migdal Eder is Micah 4:7.
Verse 4. will be our starting point: Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow to it. Many nations shall come and say: “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
3. He shall judge between many peoples, And rebuke strong nations afar off. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
This prophetic oracle concerns the Messianic Age, that He will assemble the lame (the spiritually halted) and gather the outcast (the exiled which is Israel); the two kingdoms: Israel and Judah, it is the ingathering of exiles. Yeshua speaks of a great trumpet (not the last trumpet. There is a great trumpet blast on Yom Kippur) that will signal His angels to collect His elect from the four winds. Matthew 24:31.
Before we go to the next verse, I need to explain a little about Mt Zion. The Hebrew name Tzion (ציון), or “Zion” as it is commonly translated, appears at least 157 times in the Bible. These verses refer alternately to a “Mount Zion,”1 “the daughter of Zion,”2 “virgin daughter of Zion,”3 and many of them are just plain “Zion.”
Besides being popular in scriptural reference, Zion is described as being quite adored by the Almighty, such as in Psalms 78:68, “He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved,” and again in Psalms 87:2, “The Lrd loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.”
Where or What Is Zion?
In other places, such as in the verse, “Mount Zion on which You dwelt,”4 the reference is to the presence of Gd in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.5 The same is true of the verse in Isaiah 2:3: “For out of Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of the Lrd from Jerusalem.” The idea of Torah coming from Zion is a reference to the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court, which held court in the Temple. Generally, however, Zion refers to the city of Jerusalem,6 (and is used in conjunction with Jerusalem), and the entire Land of Israel,7 and metonymically, to the Jewish people. Thus, Gd tells the prophet Isaiah, “And I placed My words into your mouth . . . to say to Zion that you are My people.”8
The same is true of the expression “daughter of Zion,” which is a title of endearment that Gd uses about Jerusalem and the Jewish people, the inhabitants of the land of Zion. Similarly, in Lamentations 4:2, the Jewish people are referred to as “the sons of Zion.”9
Inner Meaning
7. So the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from now on, even forever. 8. And you, Migdal-eder (Tower of the flock), Ophel of the daughter of Zion, they will come (back) to you, even the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.
So this passage is in future reference to the Messianic kingdom. This oracle is speaking on the ingathering of Israel from among the nations at the end of days, or end of this age. The prophet Micah gives the description of YHVH restoring Jerusalem, its Temple and the return of the Davidic Kingdom. David, before he was king, was a sheep herder. Sheep is often a metaphor for Israel.
The sages differ in opinion on what Migdal-eder represents. Some favor it to be a symbol of Yeshua, the Messiah (I favor this, as well), and others allude it to Jerusalem, some to the Temple (because of the pilgrimages to observe the feasts of the LORD.
It was here at Migdal-eder that the children of Jacob were completed at twelve. There were eleven sons born to Jacob until Benjamin was born there, he made the twelfth son. So, here is a pattern that the twelve tribes will be united again as it was at Migdal-eder.
Ophel of the daughter of Zion, they will come to you. Like Migdal, Ophel is a tower or fortress.
These allude to Yeshua being strong towers over Zion, His people
I am at the end of the program.
If it God’s will, I will be here next program. Remember to walk by faith, not by sight. Ask God to cleanse you from unrighteousness every day. Keep your spiritual garments clean from spots, wrinkles and blemishes. Do two things this week: love and forgive. Love God and love your neighbor.
Rico Cortes will sing the Aaronic priestly blessing. |
Although the Athenians escaped the yoke of the Persians, they later fell to the onslaughts of a long-time enemy closer to home—Sparta. In the centuries that followed, Athens was a subjugated city, ruled in turn by Macedonia, Rome, Byzantine emperors at Constantinople, Frankish dukes of the Crusades, and the Turks. When the Greeks gained their independence in 1829, Athens had declined to a small provincial town inhabited by only a few thousand people.
Modern Realities
Since 1834, when Athens became the capital of Greece, the city has grown at a rapid pace. It now covers some 170 square miles [450 sq km], spreading over the Attic plain. Its “fingers” thrust into the distance along the slopes of Mounts Parnes, Pendelikón, and Hymettus. The metropolis shelters more than four and a half million people—nearly 45 percent of the population of Greece. It was built largely without planning or regulation. By one estimate, more than a third of the housing went up illegally, and today just a small portion of Athens is not covered by concrete.
Most of Athens’ modern neighborhoods are of the boxy, poured-concrete style of architecture. The city seems to squat in the sun, with an ancient column protruding here or there, dusted with gray fallout from industry and motor vehicles.
Like many other modern metropolises, Athens suffers from smog. A smog cloud—called nefos by locals—forms a few feet above the forest of television antennas. The smog is eating away the ancient monuments so rapidly that archaeologists once considered erecting a glass bubble over the Acropolis. Pollution warnings are common. When weather conditions trap the smog inside the mountains surrounding Athens, nefos can be deadly to humans. On such days, private cars are banned from the city center, factories cut fuel consumption, the elderly are advised to stay indoors, and Athenians are asked to leave their cars at home.
Athenians vacate the city en masse on weekends. “Jump into your car,” says Vassilis—a seasoned Athenian—as he enjoys a honey-sweet, nut-crusted baklava and a cup of bitter coffee at one of the cafés. “In just a few hours, you will be in the mountains or at the sea.” The implication of this remark is that you can hop into your car and then sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic for a couple of hours before the city gives way to the country.
Cleaning and Tidying Up
However, Athens says that it is serious about cleaning up, and it has a convincing record to prove it. For example, a large section of the city’s commercial center is closed to traffic. Before they were closed, these shopping streets were some of the most congested. Cars moved at an average of three miles [5 km] per hour, the pace of a leisurely stroll. Now trees in planters have replaced nose-to-tail traffic, and birdsongs have replaced the usual background sounds of grinding gears and whining motor scooters. The city has even challenged the traditional Mediterranean life-style, asking workers to stop heading home for a siesta—a habit that effectively added two more rush hours.
Reserved optimism fills the air in the office of Nikos Yatrakos, deputy mayor of Athens. When I mention that it took me two grueling hours to reach his office, he nods in compassion. “But don’t forget,” he is quick to stress, “the 2004 Olympic Games are coming. We are committed to improving the city, and we will do it.” Constantine Bakouris, chief organizer of the games, notes: “We have to [present] the Games well. But in our own vision, we are guided by the day after. . . . We need to do things that we know will last.”
The fact that Athens will host the 2004 Olympics has touched off a wave of unprecedented activity and development. Everywhere, machines are breaking ground to improve the infrastructure and to build roads and venues for the games. A new, ten-mile [18 km] extension to the metro system is almost complete. If all goes according to schedule, in March 2001 the first aircraft will land at the new international airport of Athens, an airport that has been dubbed the most modern in Europe.
Moreover, by the year 2001, a total of 45 miles [72 km] of new freeways will be ready. These will divert traffic outside the center of Athens, and this will encourage the use of public transportation. It is hoped that this will reduce the number of cars in the city center by more than 250,000 per day and cut atmospheric pollution by 35 percent. The new biological treatment program for the wastewater of the greater Athens area promises to improve the maritime environment around the capital. The ambitious goal is, within a few years, to transform Athens into a new city, with an improved transportation system, more pockets of greenery, and a cleaner environment.
A Corner of Old Athens
To many, despite new office towers, renovated boulevards and fountains, smart shops, and lively street life, Athens will always remain a village—spontaneous rather than disciplined, fragmented rather than ordered. The village side of Athens can be found in those parts of the city where houses still have tile roofs and balconies with iron grillwork and pots of geraniums.
To find that Athens, I visit Plaka, the oldest neighborhood of the city, hugging the northern slopes of the Acropolis. There I find a warren of narrow and tilted winding streets, sagging houses, wine shops, stray cats and dogs, tavernas, and pushcarts. The area retains the raucous, carnival character of the past, which draws in the tourists. Tables that sometimes have one leg too short line the sidewalks, along with undersized chairs. The waiters, with menus held open, try to snag customers.
The put-put of motorbikes drowns out the music of the organ-grinder. Whole rows of freshly tanned leather purses hang in front of souvenir shops. Armies of marble chessmen made in the images of Greek gods stand in battle formation, marionettes do folk dances, ceramic windmills turn. It is evident that this corner of the city fiercely resists any attempts at modernization.
Athens by Night—Sights and Sounds
A visit to Athens would be seriously lacking without a sampling of the cultural wealth of the city. Tonight, I decide to attend a symphony with my wife at the restored Roman amphitheater of Herod, located on the south slope of the Acropolis. The pedestrian approach to the theater is a hushed, softly lit walkway under dark silhouettes of pines. The illuminated facade of ocher stones looms theatrically through the trees. We have bought upper-tier tickets, so we climb up the marble steps and then enter through a Roman portal into the amphitheater.
We take a minute to savor the moment—a black velvet sky, a near-full moon behind a wisp of cirrus clouds, and floodlights, which turn the interior of the steep half cone into a brilliant scene. Hundreds of people—looking small and faraway in the vastness of this theater, which can seat 5,000—move along concentric rows of white marble to find their places. The stone seats are still warm from the sun, the same stones that have echoed drama and music and laughter and applause for millenniums.
Also not to be missed are the numerous museums of the city. Most prominent among them is the National Archaeological Museum, with its impressive and thorough overview of Greek art through the centuries. Other museums worth visiting are the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Byzantine Museum. Since 1991 the Mégaron Athens Concert Hall—a majestic marble building with exceptional acoustics—has offered a year-round venue for opera, ballet, and classical music performances. And, of course, you can enjoy Greek folk music in many of the traditional tavernas.
You Are Welcome!
Modern Athens with its famous past faces the pressures of a challenging future. But its people have learned to adjust as best they can with good humor, ingenuity, and philotimo—literally, a love for self-respect. To most tourists, Athens remains a fascinating and culturally rich city. |
THis should be psychology really but we lack a slot for that.
In the special anniversary programme of All in the Mind radio 4 UK, Claudia Hammond looks at developments in neuroscience and how our understanding of the brain has changed. The main theme has been that they now feel that the brain is more plastic later so that adult training is more viable than earlier thought. The all too common idea in the 1930s but still popular in 1970 that no one does any thinking after 30 that Keynes expressed in his 1936 book seems to be as false as the economic theories that he put in that book.
In 1988 scientists predicted that new techniques of scanning the brain that they thought would lead to exciting innovative treatments for diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Researchers were enthusiastic about the possibilities of seeing what went on in the brain. Many had high hopes that this would even help us understand how and why, in many cases, merely imaginary mental health problems develop, that Szasz was most likely right were only merely moral problems anyway.
The programme asked how much progress has been made?
Professor Irene Tracey, Director of the Oxford Centre for functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, and Professor Sophie Scott, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, discuss with Claudia Hammond the major advances in this fast growing field. They also take a sceptical look and ask whether with highly ambitious big brain studies the science is still promising more than it delivers. |
Differences and similarities essays
80 Compare and Contrast Essay Topics for Your Inspiration
As such, you must formulate a strong thesis statement. Comparison and contrast essays apply to everyday life. People use it to compare experiences, people, and products and so on. Therefore, it seems fairly natural and straightforward way of thinking.
What does contrast mean? What about compare?
However, for no clear reason, comparison and contrast become hard in writing, especially if one tries to force it into a five-paragraph essay. Maybe it would become much easier if the purpose and organisation of this essay were put under review. Most comparison and contrast essays serve many purposes as well as develop different tones. The purpose of this essay concerns the following aspects:. All comparison and contrast essays mostly follow one of the two organisational patterns.
If the items under comparison are similar and the focus is only on the few characteristics or criteria, the writer uses the point-by-point pattern, also known as an organisation by criteria. When the items under comparison are not similar or when there are many criteria to consider, the point-by-point is not applicable. The presence of many criteria breaks the essay into many pieces for easy reading. In this case, the block comparison, also known as the organisation by item applies.
The purpose such assignment is to analyse the differences and the similarities between two subjects. A good essay does not merely point out the similarities and differences; instead, it makes good use of this point to make a sound argument about the two subjects. Check examples of compare and contrast essays to ascertain this. It can be somewhat intimidating to deal with this kind of an essay, but you need not worry. A little practice is all that matters to write a great compare and contrast paper. This is how you go about it.
Comparison / Contrast Essays
Once you are done writing, revise your paper for any mistakes. Proofread and edit out anything that is inconsistent with your thesis statement. Make your paper presentable to your audience, which in this case is your instructor. Purpose Most comparison and contrast essays serve many purposes as well as develop different tones. The purpose of this essay concerns the following aspects: Evaluation The purpose here is to which of two items is the best or the most desirable. In this case, the comparison focuses on the advantages of one item and the disadvantages of the other.
It treats the two items as if they are competing. The tone may become more argumentative especially if the writer is trying to prove that his evaluation or judgement is correct.
Steps In Writing A Compare And Contrast Essay
In other examples of compare and contrast essays, some writers try to maintain objectivity by remaining neutral in this comparison and to them, it does not matter which item is the best. Understanding The writer tries to get a clear picture of the items, people, or events by comparing and contrasting them with other items, people, or events that are similar to them. This kind of purpose does not view anything as superior to the others. While London may be better known for its pubs and taste in beer, DC offers a different bar-going experience. With clubs and pubs that tend to stay open later than their British counterparts, the DC night life tend to be less reserved overall.
Both cities share a very expensive cost of living—both in terms of housing and shopping. These high costs create socioeconomic disparity among the residents. Perhaps the most significant difference between the resident demographics is the racial makeup. Even though Washington, DC, and London are major capital cities of English-speaking countries in the Western world, they have many differences along with their similarities.
They have vastly different histories, art cultures, and racial demographics, but they remain similar in their cost of living and socioeconomic disparity. Skip to main content. Unit 4: Types of Writing. Search for:. The purpose of writing a comparison or contrast essay is not to state the obvious but rather to illuminate subtle differences or unexpected similarities between two subjects.
The thesis should clearly state the subjects that are to be compared, contrasted, or both, and it should state what is to be learned from doing so. There are two main organizing strategies for compare-and-contrast essays. Organize by the subjects themselves, one then the other. Organize by individual points, in which you discuss each subject in relation to each point. Use phrases of comparison or phrases of contrast to signal to readers how exactly the two subjects are being analyzed. Licenses and Attributions. CC licensed content, Shared previously. Not Helpful 12 Helpful Start with a hook to draw your reader into the essay.
Introduce your topic with a few sentences that explain what you'll be writing about and end with a sentence that helps you transition into the first body paragraph. Not Helpful 7 Helpful To conclude an essay, you might summarize your argument. Then you'll want to show your reader why your paper is significant and finally, leave them with something new to think about. Not Helpful 27 Helpful Some connectors could start with, "Although," "Even though," "While these are the differences Not Helpful 4 Helpful You may quote the text itself.
Ask your teacher how she prefers you annotate it. Not Helpful 22 Helpful You can read books, as books increase your comprehension skills and your vocabulary. You can also try to engage in conversations with your teachers and peers to increase your vocabulary and discussion skills. Not Helpful 9 Helpful You can say this, "My brother has many traits. He is kind, caring, etc. Not Helpful 24 Helpful It depends on the assignment and the specifications that your teacher gave you.
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Compare and contrast all of these and see if any interesting similarities or differences pop up. If it is relevant to your arguments, you could also give some context regarding to the writers of the poems. Not Helpful 7 Helpful 8. You should choose something you like to do. For example, if you like to shoot, you could compare trap shooting vs. If you like to sew, you could compare two different brands of sewing machines, and if you like to play basketball, compare the rules between girls' and boys' basketball. Not Helpful 8 Helpful 2.
Basic Paper’s Structure
Unanswered Questions. How do I compare and contrast in an essay about servant leadership? Answer this question Flag as Flag as What do I write for the introduction if the topic is given on marketing and human resources? How do I compare two different styles of dance in an essay? How do I compare and contrast character and personality in an essay? How do I compare and contrast in an essay about educational levels? Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.
How to Write Compare and Contrast Essay - EssayMasters
Already answered Not a question Bad question Other. By using this service, some information may be shared with YouTube. Tips Don't rush through your writing. If you have a deadline, start early. If you rush, the writing won't not be as good as it could be. Use reputable sources. While Wikipedia may be an easy way to start off, try to go to more specific websites afterwards.
Many schools refuse to accept Wikipedia as a valid source of information, and prefer sources with more expertise and credibility. Collect your sources. Mark page numbers in books, authors, titles, dates, or other applicable information. This will help you cite your sources later on in the writing process.
Warnings If you have external sources, make sure you always cite them. Otherwise, you may be guilty of plagiarism. Related wikiHows. Article Summary X To write a compare and contrast essay, try organizing your essay so you're comparing and contrasting one aspect of your subjects in each paragraph. Did this summary help you? Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 2,, times.
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By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Co-Authored By:. Megan Morgan, PhD. Co-authors: Updated: October 17, BV Belle Virtucio Sep 8. HB Huma Bukhari Feb AV Alain Vilfort Mar 2, I'm glad that I visited this site! Keep up the good work! AM Aida Mirzaie Aug 19, MM Michaela Mislerov Apr 2, I hate writing essays, but I believe this helped me a lot. Rated this article:. SG Subhashini Gunasekaran Jul 31, I've been breaking my head for days, wish I had taken a look sooner.
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Impeachment: A Civic Reminder
Morgan Kurth, Bleu Print Staff
On the evening of September 24th, 2019, the United States Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, announced that the House would officially be launching impeachment inquiries concerning President Trump.
At a time like this, it is important for us, as students and future voters of America, to have a clear understanding of what impeachment is. The impeachment process begins when the US House of Representatives launches an impeachment inquiry and investigation into a suspected government official with the purpose of gathering evidence regarding their suspected crime. Right now President Donald Trump is the suspected government official. After an investigation, the House members vote on whether or not to formally accuse, or impeach, the official. However, impeachment alone does not constitute an official’s removal from public office. In fact, only two US presidents have ever been impeached, and neither of them were removed from office.
In order for an official to be forcibly removed from office, they must be convicted of high crime in a case in which the Senate is the jury. This case takes place after an official’s impeachment. If the official is acquitted, the impeachment serves as a type of “negative mark” on their record, although they are allowed to continue serving in their position.
Although officials who are acquitted in their trials before the Senate are not forcibly removed from office, it has become commonplace for those investigated prior to impeachment, as well as those formally impeached, to resign from their positions, as they often face deep scrutiny and pressure from the public.
At this point, the US House of Representatives has initiated an impeachment inquiry for President Trump, and committees of the House have begun the investigation process regarding a phone call between Trump and the President of Ukraine. Some are doubtful that the House will be able to pass articles of impeachment before his term ends in January of 2021, but as the president is running for re-election, others believe that any decision reached by the House will affect voters in the next election.
It is currently unclear how much of the investigative process has been completed by the House’s committees, but whatever happens, it is sure to make headlines both worldwide and locally. |
A laparoscopy is a form of minimally invasive surgery. It gives a surgeon access to the inside of the abdomen and pelvis without the surgeon having to make large incisions in the abdomen. In gynecology a laparoscopy is used to diagnose and treat a range of diseases.
During a laparoscopy, a long thin tube with a high intensity light and a high resolution camera at the front called a LAPAROSCOPE is inserted in the abdomen. The laparoscope is inserted through an incision the abdomen. This incision is usually approximately 0.5 inches. The camera and high intensity light at the front of the laparoscope allows the surgeon to see inside the abdomen and the pelvis.
A laparoscopy can help to;
• Diagnose and treat endometriosis, chronic pelvic pains and pelvic inflammatory diseases.
• Diagnose causes of infertility
• Treat urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse
• Evaluate cancer of the ovary, uterus and cervix.
A laparoscopy can also be used to visualize organ damage.
A laparoscopy offers some benefits over normal open surgery. A laparoscopy is less painful than an open surgery. The incisions made are very minimal which reduces pain. Patients recover much faster after a laparoscopy than after normal open surgery. Recovery time takes between a day to a week depending on the reason for the surgery, patient and a few other factors. A laparoscopy also reduces the risk of infection. The small sizes of the incision reduces the chances of bacterial infections. Due to less time spent in the hospital, laparoscopy can also be cheaper than its open surgery counterpart.
Laparoscopy was first developed in the 1970s and the huge advances in technology has seen the procedure to become as effective as normal open surgery. Healthcare professionals around the world that minimally invasive surgeries such laparoscopy is the future of surgery.
At EL-RAPHA Hospitals and Diagnostics, with the latest in medical equipment and a host of experienced doctors and nurses, we offer laparoscopy as well as a range of other minimally invasive surgeries. |
If You Read One Article About Solutions, Read This One
Each country had adopted different taxation methods. The amount of money that one pays as a tax depends on certain things. The system that a country chooses is meant to ensure that everyone pays a fair amount of money. You should submit your pay slip to the tax authority to ensure that there is a fair amount of money is paid as tax.
We are subjected to different tax payments. The common ones are the VAT and PAYE. Each tax is a must to pay, and any failure or default may be punishable by fines or jail time.
Different countries have different levels of tax that is supposed to be paid. The amount of money that is taxable is determined by deducting the deductibles. The money that you get from the sale of production assets such as machineries is also taxable.
The first step is to declare your income for a certain year. You are required to show all the sources where you got your income. Capital gains are also taxable in some countries.
When you submit all the information above, you will have a clear image of the money that you should pay as tax. You can be entitled to a tax refund if it is determined that you have a lot of tax withheld.
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5 Poultry House Construction Guidelines In Different Environment
Housing is very important in poultry farming; its main function is protection, from adverse weather conditions and predators. These two factors are great threats to the productivity of the poultry birds. Building a modern poultry house has guidelines and approaches you must adopt to ensure it enhances the productivity of the birds. This article houses poultry house construction guidelines; the various factors and considerations to make the poultry pen a sustainable one.
Read up:
Many poultry businesses fold up today as a result of the ignorance of the farmer. It is very possible you feed your birds with highly nutritious feed, serve fresh and clean water and follow a strict medical program yet have a poor production.
The productivity of birds does not only lie on the nutrition and health program alone; environmental factors also play germane roles on the productivity of poultry birds. Your chicken pen is the inter-phase between your chicken and the environment; hence, poultry house should be constructed such that it compensates the welfare of the birds.
There are different types of poultry house and several factors have to be considered before carrying out a poultry farm design layout. A poultry house should be constructed bearing in mind the effects of some environmental factors, such as heat, rainfall, etc.; a good poultry house must abate the effects of these environmental factors.
Here are the guidelines you should follow when deciding poultry house construction plans:
1. Orientation of the house:
Did you know that there is a way you must position your poultry house to enhance their productivity and make the birds very comfortable?
Yes, there is.
The longest side of your pen, that is, the breadth, should face the prevailing direction of the wind. This has several advantages. The most cogent advantage that your birds receive from this poultry shed construction plan is even ventilation.
Also, moisture dries up easily in such a poultry house. Ventilation is very important in a poultry farm. It eliminates heat stress and makes the bird comfortable, thus, enhancing their productivity.
One of the ways to ensure good ventilation in a poultry house is it orientates the poultry house in the direction of the prevailing wind.
For you to know the direction of the wind, just throw up a kite and watch where it moves to up the sky, alternatively, set up a small fire watch the direction of the smoke or hold a strand of thread in the air and watch the direction it orientates to. This is one of the factors to consider before setting up a poultry house.
1. Materials used in a poultry house
The materials you use in the construction of your poultry house depend on your financial strength. Poultry house can be made with different materials but you have to bear the purpose of the house in mind. The most prominent purpose is protection, from harsh weather and predators. Ensure any material you will use serves this purpose duly and the poultry farm construction cost must be as low as possible.
1. Ventilation
Ventilation is very important in a modern poultry house. There are several biological processes going on in a poultry house that tends to generate heat; ventilation serves two purposes: elimination of heat stress and drying up of moisture in the poultry house.
Heat stress is very detrimental to poultry birds; it can reduce the productivity of birds greatly and also cause death in severe cases. Also, moisture in a poultry house is not good for the well-being of the birds.
Moisture provides a favorable condition for disease pathogens to thrive, thus, causing disease outbreak in the farm. Ventilation is the principal solution to these threats; proper ventilation eliminates the heat in the farm and also dries up moisture. The poultry house must be designed in a way that is well ventilated.
1. Planting of tree crops
Trees are beneficial entities to humans, especially those that bear edible fruits. However, deforestation is one of the banes of environmental pollution in the world today. Trees are not only good for man; they are as well beneficial to animals.
Trees provide fresh air and also bring a cool sensation to animals. Planting a tree around your poultry house makes your birds healthy, eliminates heat stress, provides a cooling effect and shields your birds from the harsh weather condition.
You can plant tree crops like banana, plantain, orange, mango, etc.; although some of these trees may harbor some pest. This can be controlled with proper security measures, the use of repellants, etc.
1. Protection from predators
Predators can be micro, in form of bacteria, fungi, and others, or macro, in form of snakes. All these can be controlled biologically; there are pest repellants crops you can plant to keep macro predators away from your farm. Also, the use of biosecurity is very important, it eliminates the emergence of micro predators; these are very destructive.
1. Litter material
In our homes, we have carpets and rug to adore the floor, so also in a modern poultry house, litter material serves this purpose too. Litter materials are placed on the floor of the pen to absorb moisture from the birds’ droppings, facilitate easy cleaning and also make the birds comfortable.
Wood shaving is the best bedding material used, others are groundnut husk, a newspaper for chicks, etc.; do not use saw-dust; its small particle size can enter the birds’ eyes and make them blind or cause respiratory disease.
All the aforementioned poultry house construction guidelines must be implemented to achieve success in the poultry business. Feeding alone does not determine the success of a poultry farm; these are structural and environmental aids to poultry birds.
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Author: Agbabiaka AbdulQuadri
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Waste Disposal - the current most environment-friendly method
Waste disposal - the current most environment-friendly method
Waste disposal has been a matter of concern for decades and the problem has been compounded by the humongous waste we are dealing with due to population growth and industrialisation. The main issue is grappling with expeditious and safe waste disposal. And of all the waste produced, the non-biodegradable and toxic wastes can cause potential irreparable damage to the environment and human health if not strategically disposed of. The four existing methods of waste disposal are sanitary landfill, incineration, recycling and composting. Though some advancement is being made in waste disposal methods, they are still not adequate.
Of all the waste disposal methods, recycling is regarded as the most effective current method. Recycling serves to transform waste into products of their own genre through industrial processing. It is environmentally friendly to reuse the wastes instead of adding them to nature.
However, recycling technologies are complex and costly. The recycling operations themselves are not environmentally friendly as they involve transporting, washing, sorting, chopping/shredding/re-melting, etc. Furthermore, the prices for recyclable materials have plummeted because of lower oil prices and reduced overseas demand.
Recycling aluminium is relatively straightforward, profitable and environmentally sound. Making a can from recycled aluminium reduces its carbon footprint by up to 95%. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gases come from just a few materials - paper, cardboard and metals like the aluminium in soda cans. Recycling one ton of metal or paper saves about three tons of carbon dioxide while recycling one ton of plastic saves only slightly more than one ton of carbon dioxide. Looks like we can accomplish more by sorting paper and aluminium cans than by worrying about yogurt containers and half-eaten dinners!
But with plastic, it is not that simple. Plastic is where recycling gets most controversial. While virtually all plastics can be recycled, many aren’t because the process is expensive, complicated and the resulting product is of lower quality than what you put in. The carbon-reduction benefits are also less clear. According to a 2017 Science Advances paper entitled Production, of the 8.3bn tonnes of virgin plastic produced worldwide, only 9% has been recycled.
Recyclable/recycled plastic releases A LOT more CO2. You make the plastic (co2 released), you break down the plastic (co2 released), you make it into a new product (co2 released), you break it down again (co2 released) and the cycle goes on and on.
If recycling means high usage of energy and resources and hence a net environment cost, then it is only a partial solution. Furthermore, many of the products that we think are ‘recycled’ are actually ‘downcycled’. For example a plastic milk carton can never be recycled into another carton but made into a lower-quality item like plastic lumber, which can’t be recycled again.
What about composting and biodegrading?
Most compostable certified food packing is only good for compostability in a commercial composting facility. The issue begins with PLA items. PLA is a plant based plastic, and is used to make cutlery, clear cups and clear deli containers. It requires a certain level of heat to start the composting process and in most home composts, this level of heat is not achieved.
Element Packaging carries not only compostable and biodegradable food packaging but a range that can be home compostable. Element Packaging by default has zero plastic therefore lesser carbon impact. Even if these products go into landfill, they do not have long term harming effects like plastic does.
To help in ensuring that its compostable certified packaging lands in the right place, Element has partnered with First Mile. First Mile collects Element’s biodegradable, compostable and home compostable food packaging waste from individual end users, helps sort it out and sends it to a composting facility. This diverts the waste from the landfill and promotes the use of environmentally friendly packaging |
Custom «the United States Foreign Policy» Essay Paper Sample
the United States Foreign Policy
The United States foreign policy is the way in which the country interacts with foreign nations and sets standards for interaction for the sake of its organizations, individual citizens, and its organizations. US are a super power in the world due to its economic stability and the area it occupies in international politics. The economy of the United States accounts to about a quater of the worlds’ gross domestic production with a military budget equivalent to about 40% of the world’s military budget. The president of the United States determines the national interests and the strategies chosen to safeguard the achievement of goals, controls the foreign policy of the United States and advises the government on the way forward. The current minister for foreign affairs of the US is Hillary Clinton who is in charge of the foreign policies. The foreign policy of the United States of America states that it’s to create more secure , democratic and a prosperous world that will benefit the American people and the world community at large. The government of the US has a duty to safeguard the trade in the international market in order for the people of its nation to benefit. The US business abroad protected through the foreign policy for its people to access international market and brings foreign exchange. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US changed a majority of its policies after the breakdown of the coalition.
The trend involving the US history since the collapse of the Soviet Union is the shift from non-interventionism to a super power and global hegemony that it is today. The collapse saw US create a peace and harmony with all states and nations willing to cooperate with her. United States changed from realistic school to idealist school of thought. In the foreign policy, the US allied with some other nations for development purposes like France in 1790. Later the government of the US signed the North Atlantic treaty in 1949 that brought together the nations to the North of the Atlantic Ocean to an organization for development. At one time, the government of the US engaged in rivalry with the European nations that included Britain as the main rival. Nevertheless, US avoided wars for the stability of their economy. The United States developed a non-interventionist foreign policy in 1932 to 1938 however, Roosevelt continued to support the war on the enemies like Germany and Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt pronounced some major freedoms that the people of the world enjoy that include the freedom of speech and religion, as well as he pronounced the freedom from want and fear. Roosevelt engaged in war with some rivalries that included France, Germany and Italy that he conquered before settling down the stable economy of the United States of America. After the war, US rose up to become the dominant non-colonial economic powers that influence most of the economies of most of the nations of the world.
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The policy change from Bush Sr, to Bush Jr represents a significant break from past US practices however the Bush II foreign policy appear to some observers as a radical departure, On security the policy changes was regarded as the "slime and defend", this policy revealed Bush's true nature of political damage control and not national security.
In the 21st century, the economy of the US has declined following some climatic factors and competition from the allied European Union, China and Japan due to industrial revolution in those nations. The Obama’s foreign policy is to withdraw troops from Afghanistan over a period of five years. President Obama was looking forward to the gross domestic products that are subdued by the war against Afghanistan since the start of the 21st century. The policy was greatly opposed by the US council as they complained increased government expenditure leading to a deficit in the gross domestic products. By reducing the number of troops will reduce the government expenditure and spending. The war on Afghanistan is just a simple task for the United States according to president Obama instead of wasting a lot of time contemplating on what to do about the war. United States is a super power that is respected for its strong economy though if not controlled it can collapse.
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Electrical Appliances
Electrical appliances are everywhere, they have actually ended up being so typical in our lives that it’s hard to believe they rarely existed a century before now. We make use of electricity from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we close our eyes in the evening as well as in many cases even during the night.
It is electrical energy that gives us light, powers our alarms as well as our phones. That unseen power source that flows through wires into our houses enables us to boil the kettle or turn on the coffee machine before we leave the house in the morning, it maintains our space at a comfortable temperature. We utilize it to clean our clothes and our dishes, prepare our food and we can even travel using electric automobiles.
For plenty of appliances in the house, electric is the only available alternative, for some manually operated or gas-powered choices exist, but no matter the alternatives it’s very hard to imagine our lives without electrical power.
When it comes to electric devices, not all devices are created the same. Some models of electrical appliances will require more repair. Whatever device you are looking at there will be numerous choices readily available with a variety of prices, colors, sizes, smart appliance technology as well as levels of efficiency.
What are Electric Home Appliances?
Simply put electricity is the flow of negative electrons from one place to another. Electrical power is everywhere. In towns, people are constantly aware of it, from the devices in our buildings to the powerlines overhead. But, even in the most out of the way areas we still feel electrical power in the form of lightning or static and the electrical waves that flow through our bodies instructing our lungs to breath and our hearts to beat.
Ever since we have had the ability to harness the power of electricity humankind has been frequently looking for innovative methods to create it and make use of it.
Electrical appliances are any appliances in your home where the main power source is electrical energy. Other home appliances, such as gas devices can still need to be wired in and contain electrical elements however the primary fuel isn’t electrical energy. For example, a gas cooker might need an electrical lighter or a gas clothes dryer still needs electrical energy to rotate the drum.
Types of Electrical Home Appliances?
People utilize major electric appliances in our residences for all kinds of common jobs including heating and also cooling our houses, refrigeration, cooking, washing and drying, and also heating water.
Common electric home appliances include:
• Fridges
• Freezers
• Stoves
• Ranges
• Dishwashers
• Air Conditioning Units
• Water Boilers
• Washers
• Clothes Dryers
Naturally there are innumerable other smaller devices that we utilize to make our lives simpler or better in some way such as kettles, microwaves, food processors, juicers, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, humidifiers and coffee makers.
Benefits/Pros of Electric Home Appliances
Electricity and also electric home appliances have undoubtedly changed our lives in the last century. In 1925 just half of us had electrical energy and yet now we can barely imagine day to day existence without it and so find it hard to know what to to during a power failure.
• Electric power is extremely easy to disperse. It may be a big investment to get a gas line however the fall in the cost of solar panels in recent years means you can have electrical power even if you are miles from civilization.
• While gas is harder to replace, electrical power has plenty of viable ecologically sound options and plenty of power companies give consumers the ability to buy eco-friendly energy which serves to boost need and encourage further production.
• Electrical home appliances save huge swathes of time, whether it’s cooking your food, drying your clothes or heating water in order to have a shower, life’s simpler with electrical energy.
• Electrical home appliances keep becoming more and more efficient all the time and it is now easier than ever to select energy saving devices as they actually have labels and the ENERGY STAR rating.
Disadvantages of Electric Appliances
Certainly while electric home appliances have become essential to modern life, no one would desire live without refrigeration or go back to having to light a fire every time they needed warmth, all this simplicity does come at a cost and enhancements in modern technology could mean that alternatives come to be more viable.
• Most electrical power is still created from oil and coal and even green energy sources still have an environmental impact.
• A lot of potential energy is wasted when transforming the energy captured in oil and coal to electricity we can make use of in our houses.
• Electric devices tend to be more complicated and therefore harder to refurbish than mechanical machines.
• Unless you actually have a backup battery or generator, even the best electrical appliances doesn’t operate if you have a power failure.
Is an Electrical Appliance Right for You?
Climate change and continued use of non-renewable energy sources has become a hot subject currently resulting in plenty of reasons to want to lessen your reliance on non-renewable resources by choosing better appliances or conserving energy energy such as better insulation, taking cooler showers and drying your clothes in the sun.
While there are presently plentiful gas reserves in many parts of the United States this will not last forever and even if bio-gas is a possible alternative it still releases pollution into the environment.
Electrical power isn’t becoming obsolete in the near future. While technologies are frequently getting better as to where we get our electricity from electrical energy itself isn’t changing. You may end up harnessing your electric from nature but, you’ll still be able to power your home appliances in the same way.
Additional Types of Appliances
If you are purchasing new devices try to choose the most energy efficient make you can budget for as this will save you richer in the long run and consider smart devices that you can regulate from wherever you are and allow you to properly monitor power consumption. If the wish to use less energy extends to the environmental impacts find out if your utility company provides a green alternative, and if they don’t consider changing provider. |
Whether you skim a blog post, peruse files for work, or browse through a book, you most likely do some type of reading every day. But slogging through dense passages of text can be time-consuming, mentally exhausting, and hard on your eyes. If you want to read faster while maintaining reading comprehension, check out these seven tips.
Viewing a film’s trailer before watching the movie gives you context and lets you know what to expect. Likewise, previewing a text before reading it prepares you to quickly gain an understanding of what you’re about to read. To preview a text, scan it from the beginning to the end, paying special attention to headings, subheadings, anything in bold or large font, and bullet points. To get a big picture understanding, skim the introductory and concluding paragraphs. Try to identify transition sentences, examine any images or graphs, and figure out how the author structured the text.
Strategically approaching a text will make a big difference in how efficiently you can digest the material. First, think about your goals. What do you want to learn by reading the material? Jot down some questions you want to be able to answer by the end. Then, determine the author’s goal in writing the material, based on your preview. The author’s goal, for example, might be to describe the entire history of Ancient Rome, while your goal is simply to answer a question about Roman women’s role in politics. If your goal is more limited in scope than the author’s, plan to only find and read the pertinent sections.
Similarly, vary your plan of attack based on the type of material you’re about to read. If you’re going to read a dense legal or scientific text, you should probably plan to read certain passages more slowly and carefully than you’d read a novel or magazine.
Reading quickly with good comprehension requires focus and concentration. Minimize external noise, distractions, and interruptions, and be mindful when your thoughts wander as you read. If you notice that you’re fantasizing about your next meal rather than focusing on the text, gently bring your mind back to the material. Many readers read a few sentences passively, without focus, then spend time going back and re-reading to make sure they understand them. According to author Tim Ferriss, this habit, called regression, will significantly slow you down and make it harder to get a big picture view of the text. If you carefully and attentively approach a text, you'll quickly realize if you’re not understanding a section, saving you time in the long run.
To increase your reading speed, pay attention to your eyes. Most people can scan in 1.5 inch chunks, which, depending on the font size and type of text, usually comprise three to five words each. Rather than reading each word individually, move your eyes in a scanning motion, jumping from a chunk (of three to five words) to the next chunk of words. Take advantage of your peripheral vision to speed up around the beginning and end of each line, focusing on blocks of words rather than the first and last words.
Pointing your finger or a pen at each chunk of words will help you learn to move your eyes quickly over the text. And it will encourage you not to subvocalize as you read. Subvocalization, or silently pronouncing each word in your head as you read, will slow you down and distract you from the author’s main point.
According to Dartmouth College’s Academic Skills Center, it’s an old-fashioned myth that students must read every section of a textbook or article. Unless you’re reading something extremely important, skip the sections that aren’t relevant to your purpose. Reading selectively will make it possible for you to digest the main points of many texts, rather than only having time to fully read a couple.
Your job shouldn’t end when you read the last word on the page. After you finish reading, write a few sentences to summarize what you read, and answer any questions you had before you started reading. Did you learn what you were hoping to learn? By spending a few minutes after reading to think, synthesize the information, and write what you learned, you’ll solidify the material in your mind and have better recall later. If you’re a more visual or verbal learner, draw a mind map summary or tell someone what you learned.
Approaching a text strategically, reading actively, and summarizing effectively takes practice. If you want to improve your reading speed, use a timer to test how many words (or pages) per minute you can read. As you’re able to read faster and faster, check in with yourself to make sure you’re happy with your level of comprehension.
This Smart Accessory Converts Your Instant Pot Into an Air Fryer
7 Online Tech Course Programs That Will Help You Build New Career Skills
dusanpetkovic/iStock via Getty Images Plus
dusanpetkovic/iStock via Getty Images Plus
It's always a good time to build new career skills, and with these tech-related courses, you can learn anything from the basics of Python to the ins and outs of G Suite. These courses will boost your knowledge of the digital world and help you put some valuable new bullet points on your resume. Many of these courses allow you to read through the materials for free, but if you want to take advantage of graded coursework and earn a certificate of completion to include on your LinkedIn profile or resume at the end, there will be a fee of anywhere from $39 to $49.
1. UI/UX Design Specialization
In this four-class specialization on UI/UX design, you’ll discover how to design digital experiences that users can navigate with ease. Over about four months, you’ll learn the basics of visual communication and you’ll be able to practice gathering user feedback to build intuitive, attractive websites and interfaces.
Sign up on Coursera to take all four courses in this specialization for $49 a month.
2. Python for Everybody
Python is quickly gaining ground as one of the most in-demand programming languages for employers. Plus, its fans say it’s highly readable and approachable for new programmers just starting to learn a coding language. If you want to understand the basics of Python, from 101 principles to more advanced database design, these courses will get you started.
Sign up on Coursera to take all five courses in this specialization for $49 a month.
3. Data Science Professional Certificate
Data science is one of the fastest growing professions in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In this nine-course professional certificate program, you’ll start by learning basic data science methodology before moving into how to use Python and SQL to analyze and visualize data to forecast future trends. IBM estimates that you’ll complete the entire certificate in about 10 months if you commit four hours per week, but the timing is flexible enough to suit any schedule.
Sign up on Coursera to take all nine courses in this specialization for $39 a month.
4. Computer Architecture
This course, taught by an electrical engineering professor at Princeton, teaches students how to design computer hardware that supports powerful software. But be forewarned: This is an advanced class intended for students with extensive knowledge in computer science. If you’re looking for a beginner-level course, this class—also from Princeton—may be a better fit.
Sign up on Coursera for free.
5. AI for Everyone
If you’re worried that artificial intelligence will drive you out of the workforce, this course will help. Over the course of four weeks, you’ll learn the basics of what is and isn’t possible through AI—and you may even gain some ideas for how to use AI to augment your own career.
Sign up on Coursera for $49.
6. G Suite Administration Specialization
Become a Google Cloud expert with this series of courses put together by Google itself. Over about two months, you’ll learn management tactics and security guidelines for using Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, and Calendar. This specialization prepares participants to become G Suite administrators at their respective companies and organizations.
7. Introduction to Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is near the top of the list of skills employers are looking for, according to LinkedIn. In this introductory course, you’ll gain a basic understanding of cloud-based networks and get some practice working with IBM Cloud.
Sign up on Coursera for $49.
|
Travel Clinic Epsom
Cholera is a highly infectious disease which gives rise to very severe watery diarrhoea and ultimately it will lead to dehydration and even death.
Cholera is easily caught by eating food and drinking water which is contaminated with the bacteria, Vibrio Cholerae. and it spreads like wildfire. Locations with poor sanitation or developing nations struggling with war or famine are common locations for outbreaks of cholera. Our travel clinic in Epsom can give you advice about how to stay safe from cholera when travelling abroad with simple steps which will help protect you.
In parts of Africa and Asia, you can catch cholera from drinking water that is not clean, eating food that has been in dirty water particularly shellfish or by eating food that has been handled by a person who already has cholera. The chances of catching Cholera are still relatively slim especially if you follow good hygiene practices and only drink boiled or bottled water and avoid certain foods. There is a cholera vaccine but this is not routinely recommended for holiday travel as good safety protocols are usually sufficient to avoid Cholera in developing countries.
What is the treatment for cholera?
The main treatment is to rehydrate the patient and replace body salts and fluids lost through the diarrhoea. This is done with rehydration solutions and ORS or Oral Rehydration Salts. ORS is supplied as a powder which can be mixed with boiled or bottled water. In bad outbreaks in developing countries, the death rate can be high without rehydration but with intervention, the fatality rate is almost zero. In some cases, IV or intravenous fluids can be used if dehydration is very severe. It is not usual to prescribe antibiotics for Cholera.
At our travel clinic in Epsom, we offer a service similar to those provided by high street pharmacies like the Boots travel clinic. We can offer the latest safety advice with practical measures to help you stay safe from cholera and other diseases on your trip. Take a look at our website |
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Infrared cryogenic blackbody broadband calibration
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) requires all test facilities to have their blackbodies calibrated at the NIST Low Background Infrared (LBIR) facility. The infrared test chambers for MDA are equipped with blackbody sources with pinhole apertures to emulate point sources in space. The NIST LBIR facility provides radiometric calibrations of these blackbodies so that various government test facilities as well as contractor facilities for MDA have a common NIST traceability.
The broadband chamber and the spectral calibration chamber at the LBIR facility are used for calibrating the customer cryogenic blackbodies. These chambers are cooled by closed cycle helium gas at 20 K to provide a background equivalent to space. The absolute cryogenic radiometers (ACRs) in these chambers measure absolute optical power. These measurements combined with the physical dimensions of the various components in the optical geometry are the basis of the calibration.
The schematic above depicts the relevant aspects of the calibration of such blackbodies. The blackbody illuminates a precision aperture of area A1 through which radiation passes to the limiting aperture of area A2 of the ACR input. Radiant power measurements (in watts) are acquired by the ACR for all of the blackbody's various temperature settings and converted to radiance temperatures. Assuming a Lambertian blackbody, the radiance temperature is determined from the following nist-equation deduced from the Stefan-Boltzmann law:
In the above nist-equations, r1 is the radius of the blackbody aperture, r2 is the radius of the ACR defining aperture, R is the distance between the apertures, A1 is the area of the blackbody aperture, E0 is the power, and σ M = 5.67051 x 10-12 W cm-2 K-4 . Because diffraction is introduced by the pinhole apertures, the power, E0, measured by the ACR is corrected. Calculation of the diffraction correction is based on the geometry of the calibration setup.
The calibration report provides the customer with the total radiant power measured at the ACR aperture and the corresponding deduced blackbody radiometric temperature. In general, the blackbody may have many apertures on a wheel and the measurements are done for each aperture and are reported for each of the requested blackbody apertures and the blackbody control temperature settings. A thorough analysis of the Type A and Type B uncertainties in the reported results are also provided. A typical blackbody calibration is described in the article listed below under Selected Publications, "Cryogenic blackbody calibrations at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Low background infrared (LBIR) facility."
Major Accomplishments
The LBIR facility has been providing blackbody calibrations to customers for the last 25 years. The calibrations are performed as special tests based on customer requirements. The current customers are: Raytheon Missiles and Defense for the GM and AB programs, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory for the AB program, and Arnold Engineering Development Complex for the GM program.
Created January 28, 2010, Updated April 8, 2020 |
Metaphor in a Time of Ebola
Ebola virus (
On CNN, Sierra Leone channels Hieronymus Bosch; Ambrogio Lorenzetti reflected in Liberia across the front page of the New York Times. The most widespread epidemic of Ebola in history (as of this writing the number of infections surpasses 16,000) has been raging publically throughout West Africa since May 2014 (though the CDC reports the "index case" occurred a year ago in December 2013). Recurring characters of Renaissance depictions -- angels, devils, the Grim Reaper, the emaciated walking dead -- are recast as nurses in white hazmat suits, hellfire in burning piles of refuse, soldiers with heavy artillery clad cap to boot in charcoal black gear, victims quarantined in slums. There's an apocalyptic flair to the journalistic coverage that infuses those images, speaking to the epidemic narrative of our sociological imagination, rather than documenting the historical outbreak.
I have been following the Ebola coverage closely since June, not with the same sense of impending doom that flooded my Twitter feed or hijacked my "health & medicine" recommendations on Amazon, but on the contrary, because of it. The surreal gravitation of the general population toward superstition, pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, and apocalyptic Biblical narratives reminiscent of the Dark Ages, in an era where accurate information has never been more accessible, confounds in the most fascinating way.
This is somewhat of a default mode for me. I spent five years working as the communications director of a University-based public health program. On the job, I devoted a considerable amount of time investigating the history of epidemics, some of the very wrong thinking and often wrong science that emerged in response, and even accelerated outbreaks. In response to the 1848 cholera outbreak in London, for example, the belief that miasma (foul air) was responsible for disease resulted in flushing contaminants (read: septic pits) into the Thames to get rid of the smells, which happened to be down river enough to flood and infect drinking wells.
While history is marked with adaptive scientific progress as well, direct and indirect responses to outbreaks of the past -- medicine that evolved alongside the virus and bacteria that threaten the species, feats of engineering and technological marvels that shaped modern civilization to broker further protections -- the social narrative is one still dominated by fear. The fact that this narrative seems to have changed little in the through line from the plague to the current crisis in spite of these advances indicates some other kind of pattern at work.
During my tenure, it was drilled into me that fear and misinformation were often as deadly, perhaps even more so at times, than an outbreak itself. As cases appeared in Texas, Ohio and New York, the narrative shifts Renaissance to Romero, underscored by growing hysteria. The Crazies seems implicit in the conspiracy theories that Obama ushered the health crisis into America's borders to justify martial law, as well as the simultaneous xenophobic language that is encoded in the arguments to close borders.
Smoke by werner22brigitte (Pixabay License / Pixabay)
Coverage follows an infected doctor riding a New York city subway to go bowling, a nurse with Ebola who takes a flight to Ohio to try on wedding dresses, a positively diagnosed healthcare worker on a Carnival cruise. Such stories not only eclipse the growing crisis in West Africa, but also bear an eerie resemblance to the narrative unfolding there.
For the purposes of my column, I was more interested in the representation of epidemic, more specifically infectious disease, as it appears in pop culture. No longer relegated to the medical thriller sub-genre (Outbreak, Contagion) that focused on disease itself, contagion spread into mainstream popularity. The astounding success of AMC's The Walking Dead, which syphoned Sunday Night Football audiences with its season five premiere, reached 17.3 million viewers, the highest ratings ever for a cable show is testament to this fact.
In his PopMatters essay "The Contagious Age: Overwhelmed by Vampires, Viruses and Zombies in the 21st Century", Dan Dinello does an exceptional job of documenting how contagion displaced the prevailing post-Cold War anxieties. Dinello describes the glut of “viruses, vampires, zombies" that infect pop culture “as the central monster of of the 21st century" reflecting “our culture's worst nightmares". He details a metaphor that has been so exhausted on present-day social anxieties, sometimes with scientific backing, that it appears the monsters they are projected upon are no longer effective in containing them.
The more closely I followed the Ebola coverage, the more the simulacra of contagion in fiction, film, and games seemed inextricably woven into the mainstream media. A twisted knot tying the anxieties projected on our cultural monsters, with those monsters themselves by way of metaphor, only to be broadcast on nightly news.
Welcome to media coverage in the Age of Contagion.
James Olson in The Andromeda Strain (1971) (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images - © 2011 Getty Images / IMDB)
Untangling these knots is often a kind of puzzle work, where following individual threads leads to an underlying ideological truth, mostly revealed by its omission. (As Slavoj Zizek put it, coincidentally commenting on Michael Crichton's techno-thriller The Andromeda Strain about an alien-induced epidemic, "there is the story and then there is what the story is actually about.") Considering how this exhausted metaphor has served as an impetus to propel us into this strange ignorance of information overload is what had me hunting vampires in the first place.
As Media Matters for America noted in its Ebola coverage analysis, "The truly strange finding was that people who said they were following the story most closely were the ones with the most inaccurate information about Ebola. The more information they consumed about the dangerous disease, the less they knew about it."
In August, prior to any cases found in the US, a Harvard School of Public Health poll found that "four in ten (39%) adults in the U.S. [were] concerned that there would be a large outbreak in the U.S., and a quarter (26%) [were] concerned that they or someone in their immediate family may get sick with Ebola over the next year" (emphasis added). The survey also found that "two-thirds of people (68%) surveyed believed Ebola spreads 'easily' ('very easily' or 'somewhat easily') from those who are sick with it."
A Rutgers-Eagleton poll of New Jersey residents conducted in October had similar findings. It showed 69 percent of respondents were at least somewhat concerned about the deadly disease spreading in the US. As the poll director David Redlawsk said in an interview, "The tone of the coverage seems to be increasing fear while not improving understanding, you just have to turn on the TV to see the hysteria of the 'talking heads' media. It's really wall to wall. The crawls at the bottom of the screen are really about fear. And in all the fear and all the talking, there's not a lot of information."
Into that void, a chorus of latter day snake oil opportunists flooded Amazon. More than 84 self-published e-books on Ebola written by non-medical amateurs hijacked the bestseller list from July to September. Scribbling for a quick buck, the opportunists packed titles with bogus science, misinformation, and conspiracy theory.
Contagion by definition also refers to the transmission of socio-cultural artefacts. It is as apt a concept for depicting the spread of ideas, artistic movements, and cultural norms as it is biological microorganisms. Connotation then, not analogy, worked the terminology into popular consciousness. As the Internet accelerated the spread of information, it also worked the lexicon of contagion into an everyday occurrence: email quarantines, viral videos, contaminated files, and so on.
Social media revolutionized not only how people create and consume information, but also documented how that information was spread with an unprecedented accuracy. The Internet, in its second incarnation as a vehicle for social connections, illustrated how the cultural contagion of information itself spread contact to contact, connection to connection. It presented the capacity for documenting behaviors, trends, and practices, a shift of ideas often in real time, alongside a means of shifting them.
The process, termed social contagion, initially emerged with a sense of trepidation in 19th century France as a way to understand "collective madness" demonstrated by mob violence, civil unrest, and the psychology of the crowd. To the 21st century mind, though, it has come to represent something much broader.
In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the first of its kind action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. In it was an overt call to prioritize behavior-related health issues -- diabetes, binge drinking, cancer, smoking cessation, obesity, among others -- which the public health establishment began promoting as epidemics. Much of this prioritization was based on norm change that was culled from the frontlines of the battle against AIDS in Africa throughout the '80s.
In the absence of vaccination or cure, attention turned toward what could be controlled, shifting social norms and changing behavior. In other words, the science that had been applied to the biological variation of contagion, now could be applied effectively to the second variation with staggering results.
When these ideological frames met emerging technology, whole new incarnations of both terminologies were born.
Disease as Terrorist
As a result, beginning in 2009 - 2010, shortly after the WHO publication, it seemed that everything human had gone contagious. From emotions to habits, including those incidents of “collective madness" that first captivated researchers, mob violence and civil unrest were demonstrated as contagious [I worked on three international projects applying the contagion model to the Arab Spring (2011), the London Riots (2011), and the Kenyan election (2013)]. Happiness, depression, loneliness, voting patterns, among others all became subject of social contagion research.
Fear and misinformation is often as deadly, perhaps even more so at times, than an outbreak itself.
In 2009, sociologist Nicholas Christakis and political scientist James Fowler published Connected, a popularized treatment of collected research findings suggesting behaviors, emotions, and even our body types can be transmitted person-to-person, friend-to-friend like the flu. The researchers have taken some criticism on their determinist zeal, but regardless of the scientific verdict at the end of the data the ideas have gotten out there.
If these trends can be analyzed, behaviors tracked, patterns documented, perhaps they can also be harnessed and shaped. At the end the social contagion continuum -- this unique 21st century manifestation -- are behavioral economics driven marketers, governmental institutions, and others with a stake in controlling the masses.
Which seems as good a place as any to segue back to zombies.
S. William Hinzman in Night of the Living Dead (1968) (IMDB)
In 1968, when the founding father of the modern zombie mythos, George Romero, launched his six films (and growing) living dead franchise with the iconic Night of the Living Dead (NOTLD), he both avoided the “Z-word" and eschewed explanations. While radioactive contamination from a space probe is alluded to as a possible answer for the reanimated dead, the definitive origins were left intentionally ambiguous. Throughout the films protagonists speculate and sometimes debate causes from supernatural to the scientific, but never settle on a root cause.
In the initial Night of the Living Dead trilogy, which Romero contends was how the story was first conceived each released a decade or so apart, the zombies serve as a metaphor for the social anxieties of each period. NOTLD considers the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, and revolution; Dawn of the Dead explores mass consumerism, rampant capitalism, and unchecked greed; Day of the Dead explored Reagan-nomics, the military-industrial complex, and bureaucracy. As a result, the ambiguity of the apocalypse origins actually served this technique, allowing zombies to be an ever amorphous and adaptable metaphor always representing us.
By contrast, the viral origins of Resident Evil franchise (2002), 28 Days Later (2002), World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006) and The Walking Dead series (2010) are so sophisticated in a sense that they form an alternate microbiology in the same fashion sci-fi narratives might adopt an alternate history. In the unfolding gameplay of the Resident Evil franchise, the bioterror produced zombie virus produces mutations and competing strains (t-Virus, c-Virus), which subsequently result in different kinds of zombies with different symptoms.
The genesis of the blood-borne rage virus in 28 Days Later was a lab where Cambridge scientists were trying to control and inhibit aggression, when a mutated version of Ebola was used as a delivery system it reversed the process creating a hyper-human rabies.
Max Brooks' World War Z novel initiates with Patient Zero as it follows the global Solanum pandemic, a rather thoroughly drawn and detailed virus that causes the zombie plague. The subsequent World War Z film uses the Solanum virus and the miraculous last minute cure as its primary plot (and, perhaps, the only actual similarity to the novel).
The Walking Dead (poster excerpt) (IMDB)
The Walking Dead is almost completely anchored by the biological. The revelation that all the characters are contaminated, turning into zombies after death whether they are attacked and bitten or not, plays a crucial role in the plot development over the first three seasons (notably revealed by the only remaining CDC physician Dr. Edwin Jenner, named for Dr. Edward Jenner, the inventor of the smallpox vaccine).
In all four examples, contagion becomes integral to the plot. In some cases almost a character itself. It is at once a standalone metaphor and metaphoric stand-in for broader social anxieties in the same way as Romero's original ghouls. The revelation (and recurring refrain) in the Living Dead franchise is that "they (the zombies) are us (the living)", which makes social commentary (especially when considering revolution, but also consumerism) all the more poignant. In The Walking Dead the revelation and refrain circles back to NOTLD, but with the inverted element that "we (the living) are them (the infected)."
Some of the more egregious reporting offenses in the media coverage of Ebola reveal the broader pattern not only of mixing metaphors, but straining them. Only a day after CNN accused FOX News of being unscientific in its coverage, the network dubbed Ebola the "ISIS of biological agents". This hyperbolic Twilight Zone of a statement provides a loop to the Islamophobic motivated conflation of contagion and terrorism.
In the immediate post-9/11 climate there was a need to differentiate the war on terror from preceding American military engagements. Even before any speculation on bioterrorism or Anthrax scares, terrorism as disease metaphors became a means of making this argument. High-ranking officials ratcheted up rhetoric on infection, contagion, and plague, but the intent was not only to create fear, but also to demonstrate how protracted and seemingly endless this war would be from the beginning.
By cribbing epidemiological language and medical concepts, the ideological framework of the war on terrorism became something dramatically distinct from traditional American incursions. This was not an effort to consider violence through a contagion lens, so much as to repurpose and decontextualize the terminology for political aims.
Closing the loop back on Ebola, this time disease as terrorist, completes the ideological knot. The CNN piece was initially taken from Alexander Garza, former chief medical officer of the Department of Homeland Security, arguing in a New York Times contribution that Ebola was "no ordinary communicable disease" and the "response should mirror anti-terrorism efforts." The argument from CNN, the New York Times, or the Department of Homeland Security secures a false connection between the two concepts.
This conflation is not the only example where the media has fictionalized its coverage. The most bizarre instance I came across involved CNN's Don Lemmon inviting Robin Cook, horror writer and optometrist, to discuss Ebola. Outbreak, Cook's 1987 novel (not to be confused with the 1995 film) featured a fictional Ebola epidemic. Ever the fiction writer, Cook not only provided his thoughts on the CDC response, but also speculated on mutations that contradicted the facts.
Mainstream media's fear mongering is so oft-satirized and totally ubiquitous it seems hardly worth comment, but the handling of Ebola coverage put it on a wholly other level. Factual information that could save lives was often obscured by the spectacle of epidemic as entertainment, while genuine experts took a back seat to the storytellers who could most closely channel the spirit of Armageddon.
And, more than this strange infoglut induced dark age effect, what is absent is a broader dialogue about the weak health systems in developing nations (and solutions that could fix them), social determinants of infectious disease, and the slow response of international organizations and higher-income countries. In their stead, superstition, pseudoscience, conspiracy theory push the social narrative into the realm of fear, not fact. The complexities of scientific and social fact don't make for a marketable, ratings-centric story.
In the meantime, the metaphor of contagion has been so exhausted on the social anxieties it aims to contain it has become virtually meaningless in its ubiquity. Terrorism, bioterrorism, financial crisis, economic collapse, and civil unrest have all been treated with varying degrees of scientific and pseudo-scientific evidence asserting a contagion model with such unrelenting frequency that the monsters these anxieties are projected upon are no longer effective in containing them.
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South African Republic
Sun . 20 Jun 2020
South African Republic
An unspecified view of the value of data
South Africa (Republiek van Suid-Africa, South Africa) is a state in the southern hemisphere of Africa. South Africa borders Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and north-east - with Mozambique and Swaziland. South Africa is located in the Lesotho enclave. South Africa is one of the multinational countries in Africa. National Holiday - April 27 - Freedom Day (1994). United Nations (1945), Member of the United Nations Organization (OEC) (1994). [1]
South Africa is a country that produces nuclear weapons and voluntarily refuses to do so.
1 Nature
2 History
3 Developed Industrial-Agrarian Country in South Africa
4 Population
4.1 Race Structure
5 Languages ​​& Languages ​​Official Names in Different Languages ​​
6 Administrative-Territorial Division
7 Stages
8 Economy
9 Work
10 Links
11 Sources
South Africa is located in the southernmost edge of the South African plateau. The outskirts of the Dragon Mountains (height 3482 m), along the coast of South Africa, occupy the Kap Mountains. Minerals are gold, uranium, tin, manganese, chromite, chrysotile asbestos, copper. The climate is hot and humid with tropical, south-east subtropical. The average temperature in summer is 18 - 27 ° C, in the winter months - 7 ° -18 ° C. The annual rainfall is 150 - 750 mm. The average summer temperature in the south is 13 - 21 ° C. Annual precipitation is 650 - 700 mm; On the eastern slopes of the Dragon 1000-2000 mm, on the Atlantic coast 60-100 mm. Main rivers - Orangheva (with Vaal branch) and Limpopo. Savannah to the east of the country, the evergreen hill subtropical shrubs in the Dragons, and thorn bushes in the inner parts of the country.
The people of modern South Africa have been inhabited since the Ancient Stone Age. The main population is gottenders and bananas. But there is no record of their history of ancient and medieval history. In the 15th century, the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the Dutch set up trade relations with the local people. The Greeks and Englishmen began to colonize this region among Europeans. The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1652. The colony was built up. Since the 70s of the 18th century, the Netherlands and France have been inhabited by many immigrants and by exploiting the local populations. Their descendants were renamed as Africans in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The conflict in the South African region was resolved in favor of the British at the end of the 18th century. In 1806, the Cossack colony passed on to the British. In 1838, the Turks conquered the Zuluns and established the Natal Republic. In 1843, the Natalites became subdued. In the middle of the 19th century, the twin was the two major states - Transwalt and Voluntary Orange Republics. They were recognized by England, Germany and Russia. In the 70's of the 19th century Britain began to occupy the brows and as a result, in 1902 Transwala and Voluntary Orange Republic became the English colony. The flow of Europeans to South Africa was caused by diamonds, golden deposits discovered in the 1960s and 1970s. Foreign companies used the Africans to excavate, build roads and concentrate on special areas (reservations). In 1910, uniting the UK colonies, he established the South African Union (OAO) and gained dominion. Racism and apartheid have been established in South Africa not to be found elsewhere.
During World War I, the CICA's economy advanced and monopolist groups were formed. During the war, the United Kingdom, a UK-backed South-West Africa (now Namibia), a former German colony, began a nation-liberation movement after the war. Unions of trade unions in 1920, the Communist Party of South Africa in 1921. From 1924 to 1933, the local government continued the practice of racism and apartheid.
During the Second World War, CAS took part in the war on the UK side. During the war, the CU developed industries and the economy was rising. The US capital shoved the British capital. The South African Republic was published in 1961 and the country came out of the British Commonwealth. In 1976-1978, racism strikes intensified. In 1979, the government authorized trade unions, and new laws were enacted to allow black races to be employed. In 1984 a new constitution was approved and presidential power was introduced. In the Parliament, Europeans, Indians, Chambers of Commons were created. But the local people remained in an illegal situation. In response to this, the HAC created the United Democratic Front (WMD) in 1983. Mass strikes have begun in the country. In 1988, Bota's government dropped out of power. In 1989, Klerk became president in France. In 1993 the new Constitution of South Africa was adopted. On April 27, 1994, the NK Party won, and on May 9 the National Assembly elected N. Mandela as the President of the Republic of South Africa. In June 1999, new presidential elections were held in the country.
South Africa's industrialized and agrarian country The annual income per capita is around US $ 7490. 85% of the population works in the agricultural sector. South Africa is the world's second largest producer of gold, platinum, chromium, manganese, antimony, diamonds and uranium production. The leading industry sector is mining. South-western oil is extracted. Main areas of coal production are Transwalt, Natal Province, Pink Apricot. The main centers of ferrous metallurgy are Pretoria and Fandersplawpark. Mechanical engineering, chemistry, oil refining, petrochemical, food industry are developed. Metal, metal products, gold, precious stones, industrial products, etc. mechanical appliances, clothing, machinery and equipment, fruit, oil and petroleum products, etc. The main trading partners are USA, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland. It occupies the 26th place in the world. The average life expectancy in men is 50 years, and for women it is 48 years. Racial Composition Black Races 79.4% White 9.2% 8.8% Indian and Asian - 2.6%
The first census in South Africa was in 1911. At the same time, the white dropped to 22%, and the white dropped to 18% in 1980. Literacy rate for people older than 15 years 2003: Men - 87% Females - 85.7% - Languages ​​and country's official names in different languages ​​
Officials in South Africa face 3th after Bolivia (33 languages) and India (21 languages) There are 11 official languages ​​in South Africa: Republic of South Africa (English)
Republiek van Suid-Africa (Afrikaans)
Riphabuḽiki ya Afurika Tshipembe (venda)
IRiphabliki yaseNingizimu Afrika (zulu)
Rephaboliki or Aforika Borwa (tswana)
Riphabliki ra Afrika Dzonga (Tsonga)
Some South Africans (mostly black racists) call the country Azania
administrative and territorial division
South Africa is a united state. Territory of the country is divided into 9 provinces:
Administrative center
Land area
Population, 2011 year
Population density
1 Cape Town Cape Town
4,822,734 (4 persons)
44,98 people / km² (4) (2) (2) br> 372,889 km ² (1) to 1 145,861 (9th)
3,07 people / km² (9th) > 169,666 km ² (2) to 6 562,053 people (3 persons)
38,84 people / km² (6)
94,361 km² (7) to 10,267,300 (2) to 108,81 people per km² (2) br> 129,825 km ² (3) to 2,745,590 (8th) to 21 people / km² (8th)
Northwestern Maikaleng 104 882 km ² (6)
3 509 953 (7th)
33,47 people / km² (7th rated)
18,178 km² (9th) of 12 272 263 (1)
675,12 people / km²
76,495 sq km (8th)
4,039,939 (6th)
52,81 people / km² (3 )
125,754 km ² (5)
5,404,868 (5th)
43 people / km² (5th) < Until 1994, there was a federation in South Africa and divided into 4: Cap province, Orange State, Natal Province and Transwalt Province.
There are three capitals in South Africa, one of which is Pretoria. The Pretoria is considered to be the main capital of the Republic of South Africa as the country's government is located. Parliament is located in another capital of the country: Cape Town. The third capital city is Bloomfontein - the Supreme Court. The South Africa was originally a confederation and its name was South Africa. There are three states in the Union, each with three capital cities: Cape Town, Cape Town, Bloomfontein and South Africa - Pretoria.
South Africa is the most developed country in the African continent and the only country on the continent to join the Third World. The country's GDP in 2009 was $ 505 billion. USD (26th place). The same year GDP growth was 5%, and in 2008 it was 3%. The country's market is expanding, but the country still does not belong to the world's most developed countries. It ranked 78th in the world in purchasing power balance (according to the IMF), the 65th in the World Bank and 85th in the CIA. The country's natural resources are abundant. Telebailing, power and countermeasures are widely developed.
Currency: South African Range, equal to 100 cents. 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 cents and 1, 2, 5 denominated coins, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 denomination banknotes.
Import: oil, food, chemicals; exports: diamond, gold, white gold, cars, vehicles and equipment. Import ($ 91 million in 2008) exceeds exports ($ 86 million) in 2008.
The world's ease of doing business occupies 39th place (according to Forbes magazine), which is part of the ICT International Organization. br> Work in South Africa: 49 mln. only 18 million people Only a person works. 23% are unemployed.
65% of employed people are in the sphere of services, 26% in industry, and 9% are not employed in agriculture.
↑ English Encyclopedia, 7 volumes • Africa • Benin · Burkina Faso · Guinea · Guinea-Bissau · Gambia · Ghana · Cape Verde · Côte d'Ivoire · Liberia · Mali · Mauritania · Niger · Nigeria · Senegal · Sierra Leone · Togo · North Africa · Algeria · Libya · Morocco · Egypt · South Sudan · Sudan · Tunisia Africa - A. Ngola · Equatorial Guinea · Cameroon · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Democratic Republic of Central African Republic · Sao Tome and Principe · Chad · East Africa · Burundi · Djibouti · Eritrea · Ethiopia · Zambia · Zimbabwe · Kenya · Camar · Madagascar · Malawi · Mozambique · Mauritius · Rwanda · Seychelles · Somalia · Tanzania · Uganda · South Africa · Botswana · Lesotho · Namibia · South Africa · Swaziland
Non-self-governing countries | (United Kingdom) · Canary Islands · Madeira (Portugal) · Mayotti (France) · Melilla (Spain) · Reunion (France) · Countries of the freezing area · United Kingdom · United States of America · British Indian Ocean Territory · Sutha (Spain) · Sokotra (Yemen) · Eferse Island (France) · Poundland · Sahara · Democratic Republic · Somalia · Template: Indian Ocean · Template: Peri • Antarctic countries and overseas territories • The World Trade Organization (WTO) • Haiti • Albania • Angola • Antigua and Barbuda • Argentina • Australia • Bangladesh • Barbados • Bahrain • Belize • Benin • United Arab Emirates • Bolivia • Botswana • Brazil • Brunei Darussalam • Burkina Faso • Burundi • Venezuela • Vietnam • Gabon • Guyana • Gambia • Ghana • Guinea-Bissau • Guinea • Grenada • Georgia • Guatemala • Djibouti • Dominica • Dominican Republic • Ecuador • Armenia • European Union • New Zealand • Japan • Jamaica • Zambia • Zimbabwe • Iceland • Israel • Switzerland • Cambodia • Cameroon • Qatar • Canada • Kenya • Colombia • Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic • Republic of the Congo • Costa Rica • Ivory Coast • Cuba • Kuwait • Kazakhstan • United States of America • Kyrgyzstan • China • Lesotho • Liechtenstein • Morocco • Madagascar • Macau • Macedonia • Malaysia • Malawi • Mali • Maldives • Mauritius • Mauritania • Mexico • Myanmar • Mozambique • Moldova • Mongolia • Egypt • Nigeria • Namibia • Nepal • Niger • Nicaragua • Norway • Oman • Honduras • South Africa • South Korea • Central African Republic • Panama • Papua New Guinea • Paraguay • Pakistan • Peru • Philippines • Rwanda • Salvador • Saudi Arabia • St. Vincent and the Grenadines • Saint Kitts and Nevis • Saint Lucia • Senegal • Sierra Leone • Singapore • Swaziland • Suleyman Islands • Suriname • Thailand • Taiwan • Tanzania • Taashu • Togo • Trinidad and Tobago • Tunisia • Turkey • Uganda • Indonesia • India • Uruguay • Jordan • Fiji • Croatia • Chile • Hong Kong • Sri Lanka
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Sleep Problems During Adolescence
December 10, 2019
Sleep problems during adolescence have to do with teens' change of cycle, the production of melatonin and other factors that can affect their daily life. Do you know how to help your teenage child?
Sleep problems during adolescence can lead to fatigue, poor school performance, moodiness, and even depression. This is a stage when adolescents begin to sleep fewer hours. However, their physiology still requires at least 9 hours of daily rest to maintain adequate physical, mental, and emotional health.
In reality, it’s very common for teens not to get the rest they need. As a result, this can have a negative effect in all areas of their lives.
The importance of a good sleep routine
Sleep is an indispensable physiological process, and its role is of great importance in the early development of the brain, in learning, and in memory.
“During puberty, the brain has a second growth surge in which it creates many new neural networks. This occurs between 10 and 13 years of age and continues until the mid-20s. The brain is highly receptive to new information and is receptive to acquiring new skills. For this process to develop properly, people need a good night’s sleep.”
– Medical Journal of Las Condes –
Adolescence is a stage full of hormonal and growth-related biological changes, and this gives a transformation at an emotional, social and psychological level. That’s why it’s so important to sleep enough hours of quality sleep. In this way, a teenager won’t experience sleep problems during adolescence.
Causes of sleep problems during adolescence
As we’ve already said, during this stage young people still need to sleep a minimum of 9 hours a day. However, their internal biological clock doesn’t allow them to fall asleep early. Combined with the fact that at 6 or 7 in the morning they have to get up to go to school, this doesn’t give them sufficient sleep.
This change in rhythm is due to the fact that their melatonin production occurs later than in children and adults.
If we add to this the use of the mobile phone in bed, things can go from bad to worse. The light from these devices can also alter their circadian rhythm, which is the internal clock we were talking about before. When the cycle of sleep and wakefulness begins to affect a teen’s daily life, we call it “delayed sleep phase syndrome.”
Sleep Problems During Adolescence
The main sleep problems during adolescence
Insomnia can strike at bedtime, but also in the middle of the night, when teenagers wake up and can’t get back to sleep again. Poor sleep hygiene is directly related to bad health habits: smoking, excessive caffeine, and alcohol. Even a bad family environment can cause the onset of insomnia.
To some extent, a teenager can have occasional insomnia without this being a problem. However, when the inability to fall asleep lasts more than a month, then doctors consider it to be chronic insomnia. This may be caused by a medical condition or even substance abuse. In this case, we recommend that your child sees a doctor for an assessment.
Restless leg syndrome
This is a disorder of neurological origin in which there is a constant need to move your legs and sometimes also your arms. This tends to go from bad to worse as the night goes on. The consequences of this syndrome greatly affect a person’s quality of life, as it causes fatigue, attention deficit, and hyperactivity, among other things.
Obstructive sleep apnea
This is a disorder that causes people to stop breathing for a few seconds while sleeping. It’s due to an obstruction of the tonsils by an enlarged adenoid. Although it doesn’t always cause them to wake up at night, their quality of sleep isn’t adequate and they wake up feeling tired and irritable.
There are many other conditions that can cause sleep problems. These range from those that require medical attention, such as reflux, through to nightmares and sleepwalking that are very typical in adolescence.
Sleep Problems During Adolescence
How do sleep problems affect adolescence?
• Chronic tiredness and the inability to concentrate
• Depression and low self-esteem
• Moodiness and problems living with others
How can we help our teens to have a good sleep hygiene?
• Establish schedules
• Limit the use of devices
• Promote relaxing activities
Sleep problems during adolescence are quite common, but we would advise you to be alert and to deal with them as soon as they start occurring so they don’t lead to more complex situations.
• Portuondo Alacán, O., Fernández Rivero, C. G., & Cabrera Amigo, P. (2000). Trastornos del suen̈o en adolescentes. Revista Cubana de Pediatria.
• Salcedo Aguilar, F., Rodríguez Almonacid, F. M., Monterde Aznar, M. L., García Jiménez, M. A., Redondo Martínez, P., & Marcos Navarro, A. I. (2005). Hábitos de sueño y problemas relacionados con el sueño en adolescentes: Relación con el rendimiento escolar. Atencion Primaria.
• Merino Andréu, M., Álvarez Ruiz De Larrinaga, A., Madrid Pérez, J. A., Martínez Martínez, M. Á., Puertas Cuesta, F. J., Asencio Guerra, A. J., … Barriuso Esteban, B. (2016). Sueño saludable: Evidencias y guías de actuación. Documento oficial de la Sociedad Española de Sueño. Revista de Neurologia. |
What is Counselling?
What is it?
Counselling is a talking therapy, which is sometimes referred to as psychotherapy.
It is an arrangement between a counsellor and client, who meet regularly with a focus on the client’s emotional and psychological concerns. Public and voluntary sector counselling services may be limited, due to funding availability and waiting lists. Some individuals can afford private therapy, which, consequently can span several years.
Why do we need Counselling?
We do not necessarily need counselling, but research shows that it helps. People seek counselling, when unwanted thoughts and feelings, interfere with everyday functioning. When individuals feel unable to reveal their feelings to the people closest to them, they often find it useful to speak to an impartial person. It can be difficult to find someone to talk to who is skilled in active listening and who refrains from offering the kind of advice, which may not be suitable.
. Individuals can be affected by;
• Feelings of worthlessness, anxiety and/or depression
• relationship difficulties
• a specific event such as a loss or bereavement
• stress in the workplace
• physical illness.
Being the Change
Counsellors are not immune to life’s struggles. An effective counsellor, is not one who appears to be perfect or claims to have all the answers. I am concerned about anyone who makes such a claim. Conversely; the counsellor who is self-aware, comfortably allows themselves to be seen, as a fallible human being and is likely to inspire self-acceptance in the client.
The Proof of the Pudding
Counsellors attend therapy as part of their training, and throughout their careers. This helps them to work through their own difficulties, and similarly, offers the opportunity to experience sitting in the client’s chair.
A Two-Way Process
Successful counselling is a collaborative process which requires input from both client and counsellor. Each therapeutic relationship, is as unique as the individuals who are in it and for this reason; it may take time to find a counsellor, with whom you feel compatible. Each will have their own theoretical approach and intervention methods, however, they should not force you to talk about or try anything you are not comfortable with.
A trustworthy counsellor; who has undertaken the necessary academic training, will of course, be very knowledgeable. This can feel intimidating to a new client. I believe, that an effective counsellor does not use their position, to undermine the client’s autonomy, but acknowledges the client as the expert in their own lives.
What to Expect
You are likely to be feeling a little nervous at first, and you might be worrying about what to expect. It helps to remember that these feelings are understandable in any new situation.
I believe that a good enough counsellor will invite you to discuss these concerns during the first session. It is the counsellor’s responsibility to foster and maintain a supportive relationship, and to avoid destructive criticism, or defensive behaviours.
As you begin to feel safe enough to be yourself, in the company of your counsellor, I believe you can start to achieve greater self- acceptance, along with a renewed trust in your abilities. I also believe you will achieve greater resilience.
Is it For Me?
Counselling raises uncomfortable questions, feelings and memories. Working through these issues, can help you to find acceptance. This in turn, can improve the quality of your day-to-day life and close relationships.
Conversely, you may discard some behaviours, attitudes and relationships which no longer benefit you. Change and loss can be difficult, yet these experiences are often a necessary part of self-development.
If you would like to discuss therapy options with me then please contact me. |
Dementia Care Site Map
Books - Children
The following list of books provide a small selection of children's books on the various aspects of dementia and Alzheimer's.
Each book comes with a review or an introduction of what the book can offer and a link that takes you to a website if you are interested in finding out more or wish to purchase the book.
Alzheimer's Australia have recently lanunched their new children's website for information and resources about dementia. A beautiful range of information for children from pre-school age to late teens
Striped Shirts and Flowered Pants
Striped Shirts and Flowered Pants
Libby and Nana love to read stories and color pictures together. They plant the garden in spring and feed the songbirds. But Libby notices that Nana is forgetting the words in books. She's mixing up the names of birds. She's wearing clothes that don't match.
What's going on? When Libby's parents tell her about Alzheimer's disease, she begins to understand what is happening to Nana. And with their reassurance and help, she finds ways to be with Nana and still do the things they love.
For parents, a note by psychologist Linda Scacco, PhD, offers guidance for helping children cope when a family member has Alzheimer's disease.
To read more on this book or if you wish to purchase the book go to Amazon.
Really and Truly
Really and TrulyWith tenderness, sensitivity, and humour, 'Really and Truly' explores the effect that dementia has on a young boy named Charlie and his family.
Charlie is very close to his grandfather, who loves to tell fanciful stories about pirates, witches, and gnomes that amuse Charlie to no end. However lately, Charlie's grandpa does not have any new stories to tell - in fact, some days grandpa does not even recognise Charlie. A disease has stolen grandpa's memories, his appetite, and even his smile.
Charlie wants so much to make his grandpa smile again that he comes up with a plan to tell him stories - the same ones that grandpa used to tell Charlie to make him laugh! Without shying away from the inevitable heartache that comes from watching loved ones suffer, 'Really and Truly' is a spirited book for young readers struggling to remain optimistic during troubling times.
What's Happening to Grandpa
Dementia Diaries
Dementia DiariesThe Dementia Diaries is a book for young people about Dementia. The Dementia Diaries is the result of the British Prime Minister's challenge on dementia. A challenge to change people's understanding of dementia. To raise awareness across the United Kingdom.
This book follows four young people dealing with dementia in their grandparents, we follow their diaries as they hear of the diagnosis, all the way through to the end. The book looks at dementia from the perspective of a young person, and as such is full of hope and fun and deep understanding. Adapted from interviews with young carers across Kent, the Dementia Diaries' end goal, is to raise awareness of dementia among young people in a way that's fun, shareable and life-affirming.
Always my Grandpa
Always my GrandpaIdeal for parents to read to children facing
Alzheimer's changes in grandparents.
This heart-warming tale describes what it is like to be close to a grandparent who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Daniel and his mom spend every summer with his Grandpa at a cottage by the sea.
However as the summers pass, Grandpa begins to change. Daniel learns that since Grandpa has Alzheimer's disease, he will have trouble remembering all the things that belong to him - his clothes, his words, his memories - and eventually, his own grandson.
To read more on this book or if you wish to purchase the book go to Fishpond.
The Smell of Chocolate
Smell of Chocolate
A poignantly written and illustrated book that tells the story about an old man and his delusional behaviour that is completely accepted by his cheerfully understanding grandson. Together they make a chocolate cake in the middle of the night because the Queen is coming to visit them. Also contains fact file on Alzheimer's disease.
'Back To Blackbrick'
Back to Blackbrick
Why did Grandma put her underwear in the refrigerator?
Underwear in the refrigerator?At age five, Max Wallack learned to cope with his great-grandmother's Alzheimer's symptoms. Forgetfulness was the least of her problems: Max experienced her fears, episodes of irrational behavior, incontinence - even escape attempts. But Wallack didn't just cope ...
Why Did Grandma Put Her Underwear In The Refrigerator? provides insight into what families around the world deal with on a day-to-day basis. Max's easy-to-understand presentation makes it perfect to help teach children about Alzheimer's disease. - Lori La Bey, CEO of Alzheimer's Speaks.
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Mojada: A Medea in L.A. at the Getty Villa
Probably no other ancient play has been produced in modern times as often as Medea. Although it only won third place when it was first performed, it soon became popular, and was one of a set of ten plays by Euripides that were widely known from antiquity through the Middle Ages.
The Athenian audience who attended the festival of Dionysos to see Euripides’s Medea in 431 B.C. was well versed in the legends of Jason and Medea–they wanted to see what the great Euripides would make of them. And he did not disappoint: Medea’s killing of her children and her escape in the chariot of the sun were apparently invented by the poet himself, his personal contribution to epic legend.
The play Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles, being performed at the Getty Villa this fall, is the latest in a series of modern productions and adaptations of the story. Playwright Luis Alfaro moves Euripides’ ancient story to present-day East L.A., changing settings and names but keeping the essence of its characters intact. To understand Mojada, it helps to have a grasp of the story’s ancient roots.
Aerial view of the Acropolis in Athens, with the theater of Dionysos in the foreground
Euripides’ plays were performed in the vast theater of Dionysos, shown in the foreground in this view of the Acropolis. Photo © and courtesy of Hans Rupprecht Goette
Backstory: The Myth of Jason and Medea
The legendary adventures of Jason and Medea form the backstory to the action in Medea and Mojada. Ancient Greek theatergoers would have known the tales well.
Jason is heir to the throne of the Greek kingdom of Iolcus. After his uncle Pelias usurps his father’s place, Jason spends his childhood hidden on Mt. Pelion, raised by the centaur Cheiron (the tutor of Achilles).
When Jason comes of age, Pelias promises to return the throne to him—if he can complete a number of overwhelming tasks. One of these is to find the Golden Fleece and bring it home to Thessaly. The fleece is kept by king Aeëtes at the eastern end of the Black Sea at Colchis, where it is hung in an oak tree and guarded by a vicious dragon. To make the journey Jason builds a strong ship, which he names the Argo, and mans it with a crew of Greek heroes, legendarily known as the Argonauts.
To assure Jason’s success, his protectress Hera causes the sorceress princess Medea, Aeëtes’s daughter, to fall in love with him. Backed by Medea’s powers, Jason is able to yolk two fire-breathing bulls, plow the field of Ares, and sow it with dragon’s teeth. He also overcomes the dragon itself and collects the Golden Fleece.
Faithfully promised to one another (Euripides is not clear on their married state), Jason and Medea set out for Iolkos to claim Jason’s heritage. They are angrily pursued by her family, who seek to reclaim the Fleece, their most precious possession, and exact revenge for her betrayal. In the ensuing conflict Medea kills her own brother, Apsyrtus, throwing chunks of his body into the sea to distract the mourning Aeëtes, who slows to gather up the pieces of his murdered son.
When Jason and Medea arrive in Iolkos, they find the aging Pelias unwilling to yield the throne. His daughters, however, are concerned about his age and seek Medea’s help to rejuvenate him. As a show of her powers Medea cuts up a ram, throws the pieces in a boiling cauldron, and brings it back to life.
This convincing example serves Medea’s cause well, and the women cut up their father to boil him into youth. This time, though, Medea withholds her magic, leaving Pelias dead. But instead of finally attaining the throne, the murderous duo is exiled together with their two sons. They flee to Corinth, where Euripides opens the next chapter.
Mixing Vessel with Medea Departing in a Chariot
Mixing Vessel with Medea Departing in a Chariot (detail), about 400 B.C., attributed to the Policoro Painter. Terracotta, 19 7/8 x 19 5/8 in. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1991.1. Photo: Tim Evanson on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Plot of Euripides’ Medea
The play opens at a fateful moment. Medea, deranged and vengeful, has just learned that Jason intends to marry the princess of Corinth. She laments off-stage while the nurse sets up the story with grave concern, fearful for the future of the boys in the face of their mother’s need for revenge. The Chorus of local women arrive and Medea appears, persuading them to remain quiet about any plans she might make. Creon enters, banishing her from Corinth immediately, but Medea persuades him to give her just one more day.
Jason arrives and, in the face of Medea’s accusations, attempts to convince her that this marriage is best for their family. Aegeus, the king of Athens, visits Medea and promises to provide her refuge if she will help him over his childlessness. Her escape assured, Medea decides that killing her children is the only way to properly punish Jason for his betrayal. She pretends to make peace with Jason and sends the boys to the palace with a gift for his new bride: a gown and tiara soaked in poison.
After wrestling with her conscience, Medea steels herself to the act of killing her children, whose death cries can soon be heard off stage. Jason returns to the house, in shock from the disaster at the palace, only to find a greater tragedy at home. Medea appears above the orchestra like a god (deus ex machine) in the dragon chariot of the sun, holding the two dead boys in her arms. Despite Jason’s desperate pleas, Medea escapes with their corpses, eliminating Jason’s progeny forever.
Cameo with four masks / Roman
Cameo with four masks engraved in Greek with the name “Euripides,” A.D. 1–100, Roman. Sardonyx, 1 1/8 in. high. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001.28.7
Reinventing Medea
Euripides was one of many poets of the fifth century B.C. whose work sprang from the ancient Homeric epic poetic tradition. His plays, in turn, inspired Hellenistic poets of the fourth and third centuries B.C., including Apollonius Rhodius, author of the epic poem of Jason and the Argonauts known as the Argonautica. In the global Mediterranean of the Hellenistic era, Athens was replaced as the center of literary creativity by Alexandria, Egypt, where the Museum (the Shrine of the Muses) held an astonishing quantity of Greek literature in its famous library. Although most of what Apollonius read was lost in the tragic burning of the library, the surviving 19 plays of Euripides (out of 92) continue to inspire today’s playwrights.
Continuing the tradition and mirroring the original Greek text, in Mojada Luis Alfaro has written a play inspired by the city of Los Angeles, a city of cities, a global city of hundreds of languages, a city of immigrants. Taking his lead from Euripides while firmly rooted in the culture of Los Angeles, Alfaro recognizes in the ancient story of Medea and Jason a contemporary narrative of immigrant foreigners in a global society. Alfaro’s interests parallel those of Euripides: experimentation with traditional narratives, the creation of psychologically complex characters, the humanization of heroes, and the crucial significance of family and lineage. |
How to find the valencies of elements by using its distribution of electrons? Please explain the method in simple words. Do you have to study the valencies or is there a simple way of remembering?
PS: There is supposed to be some method of getting the valency after knowing the distribution of electrons. For example the element sodium, $\ce{Na}$ has a distribution of electrons: 2, 8, 1. What is it's valency?
Valency is a concept that describes the power of an element to bind to other elements. There is an official definition in the IUPAC goldbook:
So in principle it is not possible to know the valency just from the electron configuration, but you have to also know the chemistry it performs. It is also noteworthy, that according to this definition all elements have only one value for it's valency.
In the first period, according to the definition, hydrogen is monovalent, i.e. $\ce{H2}$ or $\ce{HCl}$. Helium on the other hand is technically divalent, since $\ce{HHeF}$ was theoretically predicted, see wikipedia. But it is somewhat safe to assume helium is inert and therefore zerovalent.
In the second period, where the octet rule holds, it is the number of unpaired electrons in the valence shell, with the exception of carbon. Unfortunately this is also the period which behaves most different from the rest of the periodic table. So the best way here is to just learn them as exceptions: $\ce{NaCl}$ (mono-), $\ce{BeCl2}$ (di-), $\ce{BCl3}$ (tri-), $\ce{CCl4}$ (tetra-), $\ce{NCl3}$ (tri-),(1) $\ce{Cl2O}$ or $\ce{H2O}$ (di-), $\ce{FCl}$ or $\ce{F2}$, $\ce{Ne}$ is zerovalent.
Below the second row it becomes a little bit more predictable. For most main group elements it is the number of electrons in the valence shell. This obviously coincides with the highest stable oxidation state.
Some examples may illustrate that. For the first group all binary compositions of the alkaline element $\ce{A}$ of the composition $\ce{ACl}$ are known. This is also the maximum of chlorine atoms any of these elements can bear, hence they are all monovalent.
The same applies to the earth-alkalines, $\ce{Ea}$. Here all binary chlorides of the form $\ce{EaCl2}$ are known, hence they are divalent.
For the triels $\ce{M^{(III)}}$, all of the chlorides of the form $\ce{M^{(III)}Cl3}$ are known. However not all of them are very stable, i.e. $\ce{TlCl3}$ (wikipedia). So they are trivalent.
For the tetrels, $\ce{M^{(IV)}}$, the trend continues. The binary chlorides $\ce{M^{(IV)}Cl4}$ are known, even $\ce{PbCl4}$ is quite stable below $0~^\circ\mathrm{C}$ (wikipedia). For Flerovium only predictions have been made, but it's believed to be very unstable in its tetravalent state due to the inert pair effect.
For the pnictogens, $\ce{M^{(V)}}$, all binary chlorides up to and including antimony are known. However, also $\ce{BiF5}$ is known, hence all elements can be considered pentavalent.
For the chalcogens, $\ce{M^{(VI)}}$, all binary fluorides with coordination number six are known. Most prominent is sulfur hexafluoride, for which a chloride counterpart exists. The elements can therefore be considered hexavalent. The tetra chlorides are also stable for all elements of this group, in that case the elements can be considered tetravalent. However, more common are compounds where the chalcogens are divalent, i.e. in the respective hydrogen compounds, $\ce{H2M^{(VI)}}$.
The halogens $\ce{Hal}$ are just amazing, and once you have looked into interhalogen compounds you will most likely remember a lot of them. For chlorine, the interhalogens $\ce{ClF_{\{1,3,5\}}}$ have been reported, making it pentavalent. For bromine, the same holds true: $\ce{BrF_{\{1,3,5\}}}$. Only $\ce{BrCl}$ has been observed. However this makes bromine also pentavalent. For iodine the colourless gas $\ce{IF7}$ has been observed, making it the only heptavalent element of the series. For astatine only a few compounds are known, and the current believe is, that it is monovalent.
For the noble gases, $\ce{Ng}$, there are a few compounds known, and their valency increases throughout the group. While argon can be considered at most divalent due to the discovery of the highly unstable $\ce{HArF}$, the divalent nature of Krypton is undoubtedly proven by $\ce{KrF2}$. Xenon is the most reactive and potent noble gas and it can be considered hexavalent according to the above definition, as of $\ce{XeF6}$ does exist. However, also $\ce{XeO4}$ is known, which would make it octavalent according to a different definition.(2)
Transition metals are a whole different story and it is difficult to find a generalised rule or observation for it, since the IUPAC definition is very strict on the matter. All elements have to be looked at in detail. It will certainly also exceed the purpose of this answer.
Just to illustrate the problem have a look at manganese. There are various compounds known, such as $\ce{MnCl2}$ (divalent), $\ce{MnF3}$ (trivalent) and even $\ce{MnF4}$ (tetravalent). Binary hydrides have not yet been reported. However, there are oxides of various composition, ranging from divalent to heptavalent.
1. The molecule $\ce{NCl5}$, pentavalent, has been theoretically suggested, see wikipedia and references within.
2. A more modern interpretation of the valency concept allows elements to have more than only one value. It is therefore always depending on the compound in which it is looked at. A very brief summary can be found on wikipedia.
The most characteristic chemical property of an element is its valency. There are numerous measures of valency each with its own area of usefulness and applicability. Simple definitions refer to the number of hydrogen atoms that can combine with an element in a binary hydride or to twice the number of oxygen atoms combining with an element in its oxide(s).
(N. N. Greenwood and A Earnshaw: Chemistry of the Elements. Second edition. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997. Chapter 2, p. 27.)
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Look at it this way: The atom needs to have a complete octet in its outermost shell, and will give away/accept electrons to achieve this goal. Sodium, for example, can give away one electron (+1 valency) or accept 7 (-7). Generally accepting more than 4 electrons is hard, so you don't see the latter happening. Similarly, oxygen has $2,8,6$ -- it can accept 2 electrons (-2) or give up 6 (+6, never observed)
Note that the octet rule is not universally applicable. Elements can have multiple valencies, not all satisfying the octet rule. To understand this you need to understand orbital theory first (which will be hard to explain in the scope of one post).
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• 1
$\begingroup$ In addition, I'd advise [OP] to take a look at the Electron Configuration chapter of his book, or at this Wikipedia page about it. $\endgroup$ – Alex Apr 6 '13 at 15:21
There's actually no need to remember the electronic configuration for this, you just need the group number for simple application. Like for metals, the valency is the number of electrons in the outermost or valence shell, and for non-metals and the metalloids the valency is 8 minus the number of electrons in the valence shell. In the strictest sense, valency is like combining power or capacity for bond formation.
Using group number, sodium for example has a valency of 1 since its in Group 1. Chlorine has a valency of 1 because it's in group 7 (8 - 7 valence electrons = 1). As kappi has mentioned, this doesn't apply all the time since only the second period of the periodic table follows the octet strictly.
Using the electronic configuration for this pupose is a bit confusing though.
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Manners and social skills matter everywhere
Manners and Social Skills Matter in School and Sports
Manners and social skills matter everywhere we go. This series I’ve been writing lately has been designed to show the importance of teaching manners and social skills to kids so they learn the best ways of behaving and relating to others in all areas of their lives. We’ve covered communicating, personal manners, and making a great first impression. In my last blog the topics were family, friends, and how rude behaviors impact relationships. Now let’s look at school, sports, and all the other places that kids go every day. As our award-winning song clearly states, “Manners Matter Everywhere.”
School Atmosphere
Research shows that approximately 160,000 kids stay home from school every day for fear of being bullied. That is to say, we need to create a comfortable and safe school environment for our children; a place that kids want to go to every day. When I’ve asked kids what makes their school have a safe, comfortable atmosphere, they have responded with things such as being polite or courteous, accepting or tolerant of kids who are different from them, and being respectful. In addition, they want their school to be friendly, pleasant, welcoming, and most importantly, free from bullying.
To make a school atmosphere safe and comfortable we need to learn to show good manners and respect to both the people in the school, as well as all the different places within a school campus. Moreover, we need to respect or value the efforts of the teachers, staff, and fellow students who make school a good place to learn. Additionally, we need to respect the places, buildings, and equipment in a school as though they were our own. Just as in families, in communicating, and other places we’ve covered, living the Golden Rule can have a positive impact on a school’s atmosphere.
Manners and Social Skills Matter in the Classroom
Most kids go to school to get an education so they can be successful and happy in life. A few kids who come to school to play, have fun, and generally disrupt the classroom, not only don’t learn, but often encounter disapproval from their teachers and other students. They don’t understand the damage they are doing to themselves and others.
Those students who want to learn remember that the teacher is in charge. Above all, they know that they are there to learn. They are grateful for the opportunity to learn, and respect others’ opinions and answers. These students are kind, caring, and show empathy, especially when a fellow student makes a mistake. And, they come to class prepared; doing their work to the best of their ability. Further, they pay attention, listen carefully, and participate in class. If they don’t understand something they ask for help. In addition, they know that rude behaviors have no place in their classroom. In short, they realize that they earn their grade, it’s not a gift; what they get depends on their efforts.
Manners Outside the Classroom
Manners and social skills matter everywhere in a school, even in areas outside the classroom. The locker room is a place where many kids are teased or picked on unmercifully for their bodies or athletic abilities. Respecting the people and the property in the locker room will help everyone get along there. The cafeteria is now a place where many kids who are lacking in good table manners are teased, ridiculed, or excluded. Kids deserve to eat in peace, in a clean, safe environment. Cool Kind Kid spends a lot of time focusing on teaching kids dining skills to eliminate this stress.
On the playground, again respect for people and property guarantee that everyone will be safe and have a good time. Things such as “After You,” allowing someone to go first, and playing fair contribute to everyone getting along. On the school bus, the drivers are in charge; obey them and treat them respectfully. Much bus bullying can be eliminated if kids respect the others traveling with them, or waiting at the bus stop, by avoiding rude, unkind behaviors such as teasing, excluding, hitting, tripping, taking someone’s stuff, or picking on someone.
Manners and Social Skills Matter in Sports
Manners and social skills matter everywhere, especially in sports. Sports are for fun, but sadly, too often they present a challenging, difficult time for some kids. Rude behaviors seem to be the norm in sports today. We see them in the pros, college and high school events, down to those for the youngest kids. It makes sense to establish some rules for kids, and adults, to get along on the both the playing field and in the stands.
Good Manners Rules for Players
To get the most out of our sports experiences we need to be committed to the sport; learning the rules, practicing to be your best, and listening to coaches and officials. We need to be supportive of our team members or partner. Show respect to coaches and players by being on time, not complaining, and playing fairly. Good sports manners include winning and losing graciously, with no bragging or boasting. Most importantly, be a team player, who demonstrates good sportsmanship.
Good Manners Rules for Spectators
Too many kids have been embarrassed by screaming, negative parents at a game that was supposed to be fun. We need to show respect to the coaches, officials, players, opposing team, and other spectators when watching a game. Other good manners rules include arriving on time, and respecting the property, grounds, and equipment. Don’t block someone’s ability to see the game. Cheer for your team without insulting officials or booing players. Be gracious toward the opposition, whether they win or lose. Implement the Golden Rule.
School Rules, Track 14, Cool KInd Kid Award-Winning CD
Manners and Social Skills Matter in Public Places
Manners and social skills matter everywhere we go outside our homes. From our neighborhoods and communities to all the public places we go every day, manners are key to having positive encounters with all types of people. Here’s another question I often ask kids, “Where do manners NOT matter?” At first they look confused, but then realize that ‘alone in their own rooms’ is the correct answer.
My Neighborhood
We all live in a neighborhood, even if our closest neighbor is several miles away. Our neighbors might be just like us, or very different. It’s important to be tolerant, accepting, and respectful of all neighbors so all can line in peace and harmony. Some tips for getting along with neighbors include greeting them when you see them, being considerate of time and noise, treating their property with respect, and certainly, being helpful where you can.
My Community
A community is a wider area than a neighborhood, and can include many neighborhoods. Each person living is a community can show good manners by being aware of the community’s needs and responding to them. People in a community share many things, such as places, resources, and services. Places might include parks, sports fields, hospitals, theatres, shops and schools. In addition, resources can include clean air and electric power. Services can include trash removal, roads, gas stations, military and police protection. To sum up, for everyone to get along in a community the citizens must practice the Golden Rule and show acceptance and respect to all
Places we Visit
Public places manners include a general rule of behavior for most areas we would be going. These include no running, pushing, shoving, or yelling; no teasing, or trying to get others in trouble; and certainly, no fighting or complaining. These apply when going to a movie or live performance, in a museum or gallery, at the mall and in stores, or in houses of worship. They also apply when taking a trip on a plane, train, or in a car. Additionally they apply in professional offices, libraries, elevators and escalators.
Each of these public places also has its own set of rules for interacting with strangers and people you may know in a polite and kindly manner. That is a topic for another post. For now, we need to understand that manners and social skills matter everywhere we go. Listen to this fun song and all the places it says that we need manners. It’s a good reminder for kids as well as adults.
Manners Matter Everywhere, Track 15, Cool Kind Kid Award-Winning CD
Cool Kind Kid Award-Winning CD Song Clips – Free Sample Clips
© Barbara Gilmour
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Understanding Biblical Covenants
In our previous blog we talked about “right standing in a covenant relationship.” To know if we are in “right standing” in a covenant we must have a good understanding of biblical covenant definition. In the mentioned blog we gave a somewhat light definition of a covenant comparing it to a contract. It is a contract, but it is so much more. That is what we shall address now.
Justified by Grace
Like I Never Sinned
Biblical Covenants
The Bible may be considered a middle eastern oriental based document. In the geographical area where the Bible focuses the idea of covenant was very common. Covenants were made in regard to families and businesses and tribes and individuals. Covenants were not taken lightly. There were several types of covenants but the one that we shall focus on is the most important type, the blood covenant.
The blood covenant was the most serious of covenants. It was not taken lightly. We might liken it to what occurred in American history when the states began to expand westward. As they encountered the American Indian there was fierce wars and conflicts which arose. The Indians quite would often seek out a colonist who was willing to work with the Indians and would enter into a covenant of blood in which the colonist and the Indian would cut the palms of their hands and then clasp hands so that their blood mingled together. This was a blood covenant with them and it could never be broken.
The Blood covenant
I mentioned above that the blood covenant was the strongest of the covenants. There were various reasons for individuals and groups of people to enter into blood covenants. Perhaps there was one family or group who were a warring type society but were not adept at agricultural things. Another group or family might be very good and planting and growing crops but had no means of protecting themselves against scavaging groups. The leaders of the two families might decide to enter into a covenant in which the aggressive warring family would protect the agricultural family from scavengers and those who might destroy their crops. In exchange the agricultural family shared their food with them. To secure this covenant the leaders of the two families would share a meal together and at the close of the meal the two leaders would each cut himself and put some of his blood in a goblet of wine. The mixture was stirred thoroughly and then each head of the family drank from the goblet of wine and blood. In so doing they were signifying that they were no longer separate families, but one family.
Blood covenants were not to be broken. Per chance if there was a time that one party broke their part of the covenant, the result was that the other party must and did put the one who was at fault to death. The only remedy for breaking a blood covenant is death. The one who put the breaker of the covenant to death was not called a murderer. Rather, the one who failed to fulfill the covenant was called a “covenant breaker”. That is what the Bible calls a “sinner”. He was not in “right standing” in the covenant relationship.
The Biblical Covenant
In our previous blog we showed how God had set up a covenant with Adam and Eve. As simple as it seemed, it set the parameters of the covenant. They were not to eat of a certain tree and in so doing they would show their love for their Creator and honor Him in so doing. They broke the covenant. They did not fulfill their part of the bargain. The result was death. God in His great mercy delayed the inevitable dying of Adam and Eve, but some animals had to die to provide a covering for them. Death came because Adam sinned. But God, because He is full of grace, promised a redeemer who would fulfill and establish a new covenant in which all mankind could be redeemed. In Genesis 3:15 God promised that there would be One Who would come of the “seed of woman” Who bruise the head of the serpent.
The picture of God’s blood covenant
In Genesis 15 we see where God makes a blood covenant with Abraham. In this instance God told him to get a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle-dove and a young pigeon. He split them down the middle and laid them open in a line. The reason this was done in this manner is because the parties of the blood covenant would literally walk through the bloody carcasses laid in a row and all the while declaring, “May this happen to me if I ever break this blood covenant.” God had made certain promises to Abraham and He wanted to convince Abraham of the assurance that He, The Lord, would fulfill His promises.
But an odd thing occurred. God did not make Abraham walk between the sacrifices. God, alone, walked through the sacrifices making His declarations of promise. There was no greater way of proving His faithfulness than this blood covenant. The ultimate covenant would be sealed when God’s only-begotten Son sealed the New and Better Covenant with His own blood. God assured Abraham with the strongest covenant know to man.
Now God has come to humankind and in the strongest possible way He has sealed an everlasting covenant by which who so ever will may receive all the benefits that God has promised. Just as God did not require Abraham to walk through the sacrifices, He does not require you to fulfill the requirements. Look what He did for Abraham. God caused a deep sleep to come upon him. If you study the scriptures enough, you will find that death for a child of God is only sleep. So, just as Abraham slept(died to himself) so must we die to ourselves so that our Redeemer walks through declaring His fulfilling of the New Covenant and all the promises that comes with it. Those who have received the sacrifice that Jesus paid are free to receive all the benefits of the New Covenant. In 2 Corinthians 1:20 the scripture declares, “All the promises to you, in Christ Jesus, are “yes” and “amen”. We do not have to measure up. We are in Christ and He measures up.
Read the covenant and all its provisions and then shout “Hallelujah” and “Thank You, Lord Jesus”!
It is finished! It is completed! Thank You, Lord!
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Jeffrey Saltzman's Blog
Enhancing Organizational Performance
Wohlman’s Union Problem
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By 1896 Abraham Wohlman, who was getting on in years, was a relatively wealthy man. Originally from Bialystok he was living in Belz, Bessarabia an ancient town going back 1000 years, which at the turn of the 20th century had about 6000 people living within its boundaries. He owned a bookbinding shop and did enough volume that he was able to employ ten workers year-round. In addition to his bookbinding shop he also owned a book store from which he sold text-books and school supplies. He was very lucky to hold a contract with the local school system providing them with school supplies covering the elementary schools to the upper grades of the gymnasia, equivalent to a U.S. high school today. In the late 1800’s Belz, not one of the main population centers in Bessarabia, had no university. (The population of Belz in 2004 was estimated at about 2000 people.)
Though he was living with the hardships and restrictions associated with Czarist Russia, Abraham Wohlman lived a fine life. Married with 3 children (two boys and a girl), he was a very warm and compassionate fellow, who was well respected by and a supporter of his community. He had a nice house located on a side street in town, with a yard large enough that he was able to keep 3-4 cows, some chickens, geese, ducks and to grow vegetables. He provided jobs to others in the community and treated his workers as extensions of his own family, providing them with wholesome meals at his family’s table which they all shared together. When he wanted his two grandchildren to take language lessons, Abraham Wohlman hired a tutor named Benjamin Saltzman, my great-grandfather, to provide private lessons at his house.
A new worker at Wohlman’s, one who had served an apprenticeship as a bookbinder (which was started as young as 11 years of age), but still early career as a craftsman, would make about 8 rubles a month or 96 rubles a year. For some context a small 3 room cottage with dirt floors cost about 400 rubles. Each worker at Wohlman’s had the right to join any political party that they so chose and a great diversity of political thought among the ten workers occurred, each assuming that their choice was the best and trying to convince the others to see things their way. It was a dynamic, thoughtful environment. But for a worker life was hard and economically in general people were not well off as they struggled to put food on their tables and to survive. Benjamin Saltzman had moved his family to Belz from Brateslav after working as a tutor for a number of years, bought a house on the Klezmershe Gesl or street of the musicians (each trade had it own street name) and opened a small grocery store. The store had dirt floors and it was not unusual for thieves to dig under the walls of the store to steal food, for they were hungry – times were tough for many.
A writer describes a first person account of the street itself in the spring– “The frost subsided and the ice began to melt. And the lovely warm spring sun likewise appeared in all its splendor and radiance. And even the Klezmershe Gesl became alive too, with all its mud and slush. It was impossible to cross the street even in the tallest boots. The mud swelled up so that it literally overflowed its boundaries onto the sidewalk, and it would not take long for it to pour into the houses themselves. I think that no other town in Russia had such deep mud as was found in the Klezmershe Gesl in Belz. The mud had respect only for that person who had boots that reached up to his knees.”
Fear increasing entered the lives of the people of Belz. During April 6 – 7, 1903 the Kishinev Pogrom occurred (Kishinev is the capital of the Bessarabia Province where Belz is located). Forty-seven people were killed, 92 critically wounded, 500 injured and 700 homes looted or destroyed during rioting. Czarist authorities did nothing to prevent the attacks until the 3rd day. In October of 1905 a second attack occurred with 19 killed and 56 injured. (As a result of the first attack self-defense organizations arose which limited the number of deaths during the second). Those who were fearful for their safety reported that they “couldn’t go to the police, for we didn’t trust them”.
In 1905 as conditions in Russia continued to worsen, union organizers came to Belz and convinced Wohlman’s workers to join a union that they were setting up throughout the province. The union was pitched as a method by which the conditions of their lives, safety, security and standards could be improved. “Our shop also became involved in “the movement”. And six months later a strike was declared. To tell the truth, not every worker was pleased with the strike, because all those who worked for Wohlman respected him and even loved him. He treated the workers like his own children, and not like strangers”.
The new union that the workers had joined came to the conclusion that it was not right for workers to eat their meals in the home of the Wohlman, to be “treated as his own children”. Further they felt that wages should be raised enough so that each worker could decide on their own where they would eat their meals. By treating the workers as “family”, by having them partake of meals at Wohlman’s own table, and not paying them sufficiently for them to be independent of that somewhat feudal system and able to make decisions for themselves, the union felt that the treatment the workers received held an element of disrespect. Wohlman who had welcomed each employee as family saw it differently and refused to accept such conditions under any circumstances. He was able to provide for his workers at a reduced cost than what he would have to pay them for the same ability, for he fed them partly out of the bounty of his homestead. Providing sufficient wages to each worker to take their meals independently would cost him a greater amount.
One worker in Wohlman’s employ stated, “I can safely vouch that the workers did not enjoy as good a home in their own houses as they did at Wohlman’s. It was for this reason that he did not want to pay his workers for their food, since his house was filled with everything of the best, which cost him very little. And so the strike continued ever more stubbornly, so that it became impossible to reach an agreement.”
He continued, “I realized that the strike will not end very soon while the workers were marching around Wohlman’s house. Each striker had to find his own place where to stay and a place where to eat. I knew full well the difficult position of my family who, in their extremity, looked forward to my earnings from which even earlier I could not lay aside enough for their needs. And the union could give us no help at all. It simply had no money to pay out, for it had been organized only a short while before. I saw that if I stayed here longer I would soon be left without any money at all. This was my greatest problem at the time. I was sure of one thing; when and if the strike were settled I would again get work at the Wohlman’s, since he considered me his best worker and he liked me very much”.
While the details of what caused Wohlman’s union problem differ from the more common ones today the underlying issues are absolutely the same. It would be unusual though not unheard of for workers today to take their meals with the owner’s family as a way for the owner to save money on wages, however the underlying issues that it highlights, respectful treatment, sense of equity – fairness surrounding pay, benefits, control over one’s own destiny are very common causes of labor unrest. The uncertainty of the times with extreme violence breaking out, uncertainty about safety and security as well as poor treatment of the citizenry by those in authority, laid the foundations necessary for fertile union organizing. The strike at Wohlman’s, with workers walking the picket lines, lasted approximately one year. It was then settled with the workers receiving enough of a wage increase that they could choose to eat their meals wherever they wanted. While the strikers did come back to work at Wohlman’s bookbinding shop, what I don’t know from the material available to me is whether they were ever welcomed back at Wohlman’s dinner table.
© 2010 by Jeffrey M. Saltzman. All rights reserved.
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Nerds on Earth
The best place on Earth for nerds.
What made Captain America and Tony Stark punch each other?
What makes Captain America: Civil War so interesting is that it features two individual heroes with very defined–yet veeerrrry different–ethical frameworks. It’s a story of two very good people who can fundamentally disagree to a point that they punch each other. Hard.
Captain America: Civil War isn’t like Alien vs. Predator where you don’t care which of the bad guys win because, you know, it’s an alien fighting a predator. It’s more like Turner turning against Hooch. How could a friendship so pure and perfect ever turn adversarial?!!?
The ethical frameworks of the two characters–Captain America and Iron Man–have been portrayed very consistently in their decades of comic book stories. Story beat to story beat, they’ve stayed true to character.
What’s even more interesting is their ethical frameworks trace back to the halcyon days of Greek philosophy, ethics first pondered deeply by the giants themselves: Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. Listen, I’m not saying you need to wear a toga as you read this article, but I wouldn’t advise against it.
What made Captain America and Tony Stark punch each other?
Let’s get to it. Here are the two popular systems of ethics that frame the decisions of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers:
1. Utilitarialism, which judges the mortality of acts based on their outcomes (or consequences). Acts are moral if they lead to the well-being or benefit of the most people (the needs of the many).
2. Deontology, which judges acts according to their intrinsic moral quality. What’s right is right, in other words.
While we see these ethics play out in each hero’s solo books, it’s through their interactions (and especially their conflicts) within the Avengers team that they best illustrate their different ethical approaches.
In case you haven’t figured it out, Tony Stark is deeply utilitarian. As soon as Tony realized that passage of the Superhero Registration Act (nee: Sokovia Accords), a law requiring all superheroes to register with the government, was inevitable, he tried to get in front of it so he could at least make sure it was implemented his way.
Tony: “If We Don’t Do This, It Will Be Done To Us.”
Tony’s reason for the Avengers signing the Sokovia Accords is harsh, but it makes some sense. More, it’s hard to doubt Tony’s sincere motivation to make things better. And rarely can things be made better without breaking some rules or creating some negative consequences, a utilitarian might reason.
What made Captain America and Tony Stark punch each other? Utilitarianism–Tony Stark’s basic ethical system–judges actions based by the goodness (“utility”) of their consequences. An action that creates more good than bad in the world is ethical, they reason, and the action that creates most good compared to bad is the most ethical (or required). They are looking for the BEST choice in a situation.
However utility or goodness is measured, utilitarianism is based on the common-sense notion that outcomes matter and are important to factor in. In the movie the images of collateral damage from Scarlet Witch’s actions, the fall of helicarriors, and rampages of Hulks weigh heavily on the conscience of a utilitarian like Tony Stark, whose brain is rolling through potential solutions to mitigate those types of negative consequences in the future.
While the concept of utilitarianism is very simple, in practice it can become very complicated because measuring the utility of a wide variety of options is incredibly difficult! In order to evaluate and compare the goodness of different courses of action, a person must trace out all the effects of each choice in order to determine the best choice of action.
Of course, Tony Stark regards himself as a futurist, uniquely able to see the results of any event. “Let me tell you how this will play out…” are words you can almost hear in the voice of Robert Downey, Jr.
But when it comes to monumental decisions like exiling the Hulk or supporting superhero registration, the countless and complex ramifications are impossible to know and therefore impossible to full measure and compare.
As we have seen in decades of comics, Tony can get things wrong. So even a self-styled futurist can make mistakes. And since his decisions are only as good as his predictions, Tony’s inability to always account for the results of all actions sets him up as a target for the hindsight snipes from armchair quarterbacks.
Cap on the other hand is a shining, shield-bearing example of deontology, which judges the morality of actions according to general principles or duties rather than consequences. The conflict between deontology and utilitarianism is often put in terms of the “RIGHT” and the “BEST“, in which the best are outcomes to be maximized while the right is something to be adhered to.
In other words, Tony is looking for the BEST action, while Steve is trying to determine the RIGHT thing to do.
When deontologists (like Cap) judge utilitarians (like Tony) for letting “the ends justify the means,” they are implying that certain means to an end should never be taken, regardless of how good the consequences would be, and there is no compromising on that.
So in a movie scene that was ripped straight from the comics, Cap says you plant yourself like a tree and you tell others to move, he’s saying that once you determine what is RIGHT you stick to that and live with the negative consequences.
A deontologists would have the position that no matter how worthy an end–even saving lives–some measures would not be taken as a matter of principle.
A famous thought experiment in this regard is this question: “If someone could travel back in time, would murdering Hitler as a child be the ethical thing to do, because in doing so, you’d save millions of lives?”
One advantage that deontology seems to have over utilitarianism is that it doesn’t require us to calculate and compare the good and bad consequences of every decision. Cap wouldn’t work out the pros and cons of the above Hitler thought experiment, because murder is wrong, so we’ll just have to live with the consequences of that decision.
What made Captain America and Tony Stark punch each other? But this neglects the complexity of distinguishing right from wrong. When Cap says something to Tony like, “what’s right is right”, his simple languages obscures the fact that a tremendous amount of deliberation and judgement goes into determining what is right in any given situation.
But unlike a utilitarian who would make that decision based upon potential negative or positives effects or the decision, the deontologist weighs various principles and duties against each other.
This is clearly illustrated in the movie. Cap’s principle is that you stick with your friends and they deserve second chances. But another principle would be that you tell your friends the truth. Cap weighed these principles against one another when he decided to protect Bucky and not tell Tony that it was Bucky who murdered his parents.
(An aside: It is interesting that the Black Widow switched from Tony’s side to Cap’s side. Natasha has thrived/survived because she makes the “best” decision in the moment, but has struggled with self-doubt about if all those decisions were the “right” thing to do.)
Furthermore, deontology avoids the contingent nature of utilitarian ethics, by which a change in circumstances can flip a moral judgement one way or the other. Cap was planted like tree, determined to protect Bucky, despite the fact that it was under the circumstances that he was the murderer of Tony’s parents. To a deontologist, though, RIGHT and wrong do not depend on circumstances but on principle.
On the other hand, Tony if often criticized for flip-flopping in his decisions (or criticized post-event for the outcomes of the decision). But changing one’s positions is admirable from a utilitarian point of view. In Tony’s mind, he is adjusting to circumstances and data, doing the BEST he can with the cards he is dealt, even as the cards changed.
So what happened? Well, Cap did what he thought was RIGHT and assembled other superheroes who felt likewise. And Tony did what he thought was BEST and assembled other superheroes who felt likewise.
Then two very good and very sincere men who were simply reasoning the way they knew how to ending up in a tough situation where they punched each other. Hard. |
The Effects of Road Salt on Forest and Lotic Ecosystems
A year-long experiment has shown the negative effects of road salt: now, it's time for legislative action.
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Road salt drastically affects both aquatic and land ecosystems, and yet the usage has not declined. In 2018, the United States used 20.3 million metric tons of road salt(USGS), resulting in a decline of biomass, chlorophyll, biodiversity, and thus overall plant health. Additionally, the toxicity of sodium chloride kills aquatic animals, seen through indicator species and the decline of aquatic populations.
To shed light on the issue and to gain further insight, we completed an experiment to pinpoint the effects of road salt. This was done by automating data through auto-loggers, utilizing transects, and creating lab-yielding data points. This yielded significant data points(e.g a decrease in ecosystem productivity and the declination of root development), but the question, was where do we go from here? The answer to this is 'simply' trying to further publicize the issue. Countless other studies on this problem have been completed, and safe alternatives to road salt have been identified. All that's left then, is to get more people on board with fixing this issue. This will be done by publishing our findings wherever applicable, and making ourselves into an organization. Then, once the issue is well known, we can push for town and then state legislation. This will be completed by organizing meetings with the town board, and if needed, protests. By doing all of this, we will save plants and wildlife, protect cars from rusting, and enable people to push for an issue they believe in.
STEM was a leading factor during the entire experiment. By utilizing STEM, we were able to gather necessary data on biological values. Additionally, plant identification, the measuring of the influx of road salt, and determining what was happening chemically when plants were exposed to road salt, enabled us to ascertain the negative effects of road salt. Further, technology allowed us to efficiently gather the biological values, by using devices such as a Vernier SpectroVis, data loggers, and a weather station. Engineering then allowed us to change bits and pieces of the technology to better suit our needs, such as creating a heating system to allow the rain gauge to measure snow. Finally, math was used to properly analyze the data.
Having lived in the Northeast for all of my life, I've always had to deal with road salt; however, I never questioned the unintentional implications it had. Starting in December of 2018 though, I began to notice that some plants looked sickly after having contact with salt. Then I started to question things, and I took to the internet to see the current research on road-salt. I found that there was a LOT of research, but nothing had been done about it. Questioning why nothing had been done, a partner and I decided to research the effects of road salt to see it for ourselves. We believed that by taking the initiative to invest in something that we were interested in, others would do the same. We wanted to be true changemakers.
In order to do experimentation, we needed funding as our school lacked the necessary equipment. This was achieved by receiving a $5000 grant from the Marjot Foundation, $500 of which went directly to the school's science department. We then worked with the Foundation and our school's meteorology teacher to effectively experiment, before publishing our final report on the Marjot Foundation's website. The newly purchased equipment is being used in various classes, such as meteorology and ecology.
As only a few towns are cutting back on road-salt use, it's apparent that only a few know or care about the issue; thus, by further publishing our research and becoming an official organization, we will be very unique. Additionally, there are organizations such as the Sierra Club which are against Road-Salt use, but that isn't their #1 area of concern. By creating our organization, we will be entirely dedicated to the substitution of road-salt, which will be the first organization in the nation to do so.
In the last three months, we've presented our findings at the NHSEE, and published our final report. This seemed to gain some attention in our community, with local newspapers spreading the news. The hope is that this gave the issue additional exposure and more are willing to stand by it. We've also received first-hand attention from students throughout the school district, all interested in what we were doing. It seemed to me that they didn't realize that they could research/create something that they were interested in, nevermind the data we found. This could act as a segway to future projects.
My hope and plan is to firstly create a 501(3)c organization. This would allow us to gain a following and have a 'face' for the push against road salt. This would also allow us to allocate funds for spreading the word and organizing events. Ideally, this would be completed by the end of July(as it takes 2-12 months to become a 501(3)c). Then, or during that process, we plan on reaching out to well-known organizations to see if they would be willing to partner with us. From there, we would work on getting our organization to be further known. This would be done by hosting forums, conventions, and going to schools throughout the nation to teach kids about road salt.
By having our names and research published in the news, it seems that our classmates have realized that they can make a change. The most vivid example of this was when I was leaving cross country practice early to conduct research. I was stopped by everyone on the team, not because I was leaving, but out of curiosity and excitement. I ended up staying for nearly an hour to explain what exactly we were doing. The excited, and determined looks in their face showed the power of curiosity.
I believe that by partnering with like-minded changemakers we will be able to promote the idea of substituting road-salt. Additionally, other changemakers would provide us with more opinions, allowing us to see from different perspectives.
We would start by showing others the pictures and hard data that shows what road-salt is doing. We would show them that road salt is reducing biodiversity, plummeting chlorophyll levels, and reducing the productivity of ecosystems. Then, we would show them the safe alternatives(e.g. beet juice), and provide them with the data associated with that, which would include rebounds in environmental health. By showing people what's happening, their intuition and analytical minds will connect the rest.
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Hey Christopher! Other than the ecosystem, salt also has potential to harm the roads and vehicles on the roads. I believe that to raise awareness these factors also need to be highlighted and considered. With some research you could work through the calculations and assign a cost value to society for the use of road salt (ecosystem, vehicle damage cost, and infrastructure cost). You might also have to compare the cost of alternatives. Icy roads can offer a lot of hazards and it would be important to verify that the alternatives keep drivers and pedestrians safe (or safer). With this evidence you could develop an even stronger case towards cutting back or eliminating salt use. In addition you might face opposition from salt companies (those who make a living from mining and selling salt for this use). I can see you are committed! What your research has revealed is incredible! Good luck!
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Apple Newton Paved the Way for Mobile Learning
By Cait Etherington
February 27, 2018
Twenty years ago today, Apple announced that it would no longer produce the Newton. What was the Newton? For those who don’t remember, the Newton was the not-so-distance ancestor of today’s iPads and iPhones. At the time, however, the Newton was simply described as a “personal digital assistant” or PDA. While Newton enthusiasts decried its death, in many respects, the end was just the beginning. While relatively short-lived, the Newton paved the way for both mobile devices and the rise of mobile learning.
What Was the Apple Newton?
Apple Newton MessagePad, Model H1000 housed at the National Museum of American History.
A 2013 article in WIRED, aptly described the Newton as follows: “By modern standards, it was pretty basic.” But for the time, the Newton was innovative. It could double as a fax machine and with its stylus, it could even translate handwriting like many contemporary tablets. But as the author of the article, Mat Honan, adds, aspects of the Newton still reflect today’s digital mobile solutions. Years later, there is even a Newton Museum.
So, why was the Newton canceled? There were likely two factors that killed the Newton. First, it was pricey. Naturally, at the time, replacing your notepad or paper calendar, which would likely cost only $10 combined, with a $700 portable computing device was a hard sell. Second, Steve Jobs reportedly hated the Newton.
The Newton Legacy
While the Newton quickly drifted into obscurity, it did not entirely disappear. The device was driven by a 20 megahertz ARM 610 processor with 630 kilobytes of RAM and somewhat shockingly, it was powered by four AAA batteries (yes, like the ones you might pop into a small flashlight or toy). While we’re no longer popping AAA batteries into our mobile devices, the Newton’s ARM processor, in fact, continues to play a key role in mobile computing.
The Newton’s real legacy, however, was the conceptual leap it helped to enact. The history of technology is replete with intermediary steps–moments of transition when old and emerging technologies merge–and the Newton was one of those moments. For the first time, we were given a device that we could carry with us and that had the capacity to do many things. You could use your Newton to look up your contacts, keep track of meetings, takes notes, or do basic math calculations. The Newton, in a sense, was significant because it prepared us for the development of the multi-use devices that now define our everyday lives. While we now take for granted the fact that a phone is also a calendar, camera, video camera, and way to access the web, back in 1991, the idea that one small portable device might do multiple things was still new and revolutionary. The Newton pried open our imaginations and provided some of the hardware needed to set digital mobility in motion.
From the PDA to the eMate
While Newton PDAs were not initially designed for mobile learning, on October 28, 1996, Apple rolled out the eMate, which was one of Newton’s many product lines. As Mike Lorion, at the time vice president of education for Apple Americas, explained on the occasion of the eMate’s release that the device offers a distributed learning environment and in many respects, it serves to extend the classroom. Lorion further emphasized that while making the eMate 300, educators were consulted along the way. As Apple’s press release for the eMate noted, with the eMate, students can now “do most of their critical work wherever they happen to be” and it won’t matter whether they are in a lab, at home, or on the run.
While we are no longer talking about the “distributed learning environment concept,” in many respects, the eMate, one of Newton’s many offspring, represented the first step toward what we now call mobile learning. Combined with the Newton’s broader impact on mobile communications, the Newton undoubtedly played a key role in mobile learning history and more broadly, personal computing and communications. |
Flexible Numerology
This is the last in a series that looks at the underlying technologies that will create improvements for 5G – I looked previously at MIMO antennas and network slicing. Today I look at flexible numerology. Flexible numerology, in a nutshell involves new techniques that allow for changing the width of data channels in a frequency band.
The easiest way to understand the issues involved is to think back at how we used wireless devices in the past. Anybody that ever fiddled with an older 802.11n WiFi router using 2.4 GHz remembers directing different devices in the home to channels 1,6 or 11. While the 2.4 GHz band has 11 separate available channels, most wireless router manufacturers limited the use to those three channels in order to avoid cross-channel interference. They knew that if a home only used these three channels they’d likely not see such interference and would get the maximum performance on each channel. However, the decision to use only those three channels limited the amount of bandwidth that can be utilized. In peak usage situations only 3 of the 11 channels of 2.4 GHz are carrying bandwidth – avoiding interference meant not using much of the available frequency.
It’s easy to think of the channels within a wireless frequency as separate channels, because that’s how they are defined at the FCC. Cable companies are able to create distinct channels of frequency within the controlled confines of a coaxial cable in way to limit interference between channels. But when transmitted in the wild through the air all sorts of interference arises. Anybody old enough to remember watching TV in the 50s can remember times when you could see ghosts of a nearby channel when you were watching one of the low channel numbers.
Our cellular networks have been designed in a similar fashion to the WiFi channels. Within each of the frequencies used for cellular service are channels predefined by the FCC, with buffers between each channel. However, even with the buffers there is cross-channel interference between neighboring channels, and so the cellular carriers have selectively chosen to spread the actual use of frequency in ways similar to how we used channels 1,6 and 11 for WiFi.
Flexible numerology is new goal for 5G that was published with the 3GPP Release 15 standard. Flexible numerology is part of a system for allocating frequency in a new way that is intended to get the most and best use of the spectrum.
5G will use the same underlying method for modulating signals as 4G LTE – orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The OFDM scheme is the current way to try to get the best use of frequency and with OFDM a data stream is split across several separate narrowband channels to reduce interference, much in the same way that we used the three channels of WiFi.
Flexible numerology is going to give the cell site the option to create much smaller narrowband channels within the channels described in the OFDM standard. That’s the magic sauce that will enable 5G to communicate with huge number of devices without creating massive interference.
Consider a situation of two users at a 5G site. One is an IoT sensor that wants to trickle small amounts of data to the network and the other is a gamer that needs bursts of huge amounts of bandwidth. In the LTE network both devices would be given a narrowband channel – the IoT device for perhaps a tiny amount of time and the gamer for longer bursts. That’s an inefficient use of frequency since the IoT device is transmitting only a tiny amount of data. For even the short time that the cell site communicates with that device, in an LTE network the device commands as much bandwidth as any other user.
Flexible numerology will allow assigning a tiny slice of frequency to the IoT device. For example, the cell site might elect to assign 1/64th of a channel to the IoT device, meaning the remaining 63/64ths of the frequency can be assigned to some other purpose to be used at the same time that the IoT device is demanding bandwidth. In a 5G network the IoT device might grab a tiny slice of frequency for a short period of time and barely create a ripple in the overall use of frequency at the cell site.
The cellular network might treat the gamer the same as today but has numerous new options with flexible numerology to improve the gaming performance. It might separate sent and received data and size each path according to needs. It might create a connection for a longer time period than normal to efficiently transmit the needed packages. Essentially, flexible numerology lets the cell site treat every customer differently depending upon their specific needs.
This implementation of flexible numerology for 5G is complicated and will require new algorithms that ultimately get built into the chips for 5G devices. It’s always interesting to watch how new standards are implemented in the industry. I’ve seen numerous papers on the web over the last few months from labs and universities looking at the challenges of flexible numerology. These investigations will eventually get translated into lab trials of devices, and, if those trials are successful make it into the production for both cell sites and cellular devices. This is why a new standard like 5G can’t be implemented immediately. Standards define the problem, and then scientists, engineers and manufacturers take a shot at making the new ideas work (or sometimes find out that they don’t work). It’s likely to be years until the flexible numerology is made to work good enough to be in everyday use in cell sites – but when it does the utilization of frequency will be significantly improved, which is a key goal for 5G. |
4.6. /usr/lib : Libraries for programming and packages
4.6.1. Purpose
/usr/lib includes object files and libraries. [21] On some systems, it may also include internal binaries that are not intended to be executed directly by users or shell scripts. [22]
4.6.2. Specific Options
For historical reasons, /usr/lib/sendmail must be a symbolic link which resolves to the sendmail-compatible command provided by the system's mail transfer agent, if the latter exists. [24] [25]
[22] See below, in the /usr/libexec section, for a discussion of /usr/lib vs. /usr/libexec for executable binaries.
[23] For example, the perl5 subdirectory for Perl 5 modules and libraries.
[24] Some executable commands such as makewhatis and sendmail have also been traditionally placed in /usr/lib. makewhatis is an internal binary and must be placed in a binary directory; users access only catman. Newer sendmail binaries are now placed by default in /usr/sbin. Additionally, systems using a sendmail-compatible mail transfer agent must provide /usr/sbin/sendmail as the sendmail command, either as the executable itself or as a symlink to the appropriate executable.
[25] Host-specific data for the X Window System must not be stored in /usr/lib/X11. Host-specific configuration files such as xorg.conf must be stored in /etc/X11. This includes configuration data such as system.twmrc even if it is only made a symbolic link to a more global configuration file (probably in /usr/lib/X11). |
The History Of The Baseball Cap
Baseball caps are an American past-time all in its own right. People have their favorite daily wear hat, others have expensive collections of baseball caps. However you chose to wear your baseball cap, they have become a staple to most.
Whether it’s a traditional baseball cap or a vintage knickerbocker. From Camo baseball caps to a favorite singer, there are endless styles, colors, and brands available.
So, where did baseball caps come from anyways?
The first club to wear hats at a baseball game was in 1849. The Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York would wear straw hats during their games. This group was made up of mostly working-class men, so the hats they wore were made of straw.
The amateur club, Brooklyn Excelsiors, were the first team to wear the snapbacks, back in the 1860s. Snapbacks are a 6-panel cap with a wide flat brim, the traditional style we see today. The great thing about snapback caps was they were one-size-fits-all because they had an adjustable snap on the back of the hat. The Brooklyn Excelsiors would later become the World Series Champion team, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In the 1890s the pillbox shape hat became a regular piece of the uniform for teams like the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago Cubs. This small hat got its name from the small cylindrical cases that pills used to be sold in because the hat resembled these boxes.
1903 brought us the Spalding hat, with it’s stitched visor. Spalding was already, at this point, a name that baseball players were used to, as they are the leading manufacturer of baseball bats. So their hats quickly grew in popularity.
As the baseball craze was in full swing in the United States in the 1920s. Every MLB team was now wearing their logo on their hats. This started to trickle down to the amateur leagues.
Baseball was America’s past time but the 1940s. Little league and community teams were popping up everywhere. Everyone wanted to be on a baseball team, which inspired local businesses to create them. These small teams wore baseball hats made of latex rubber.
Even during the war hats were very popular. In 1943 the Black Sheep Squadron, a group of WW2 pilots. Promised to shoot down one enemy for every hat MLB gave them.
With the rise of screen-printing in the 1950s, there was a rush of advertising on baseball caps. Big-name companies like Coca-cola and Pepsi jumped on the baseball cap wagon and started giving away hats, to help promote their products.
1954 brought the 59Fifty for the New Era Cap Company. This brand became the official supplier of the MLB 40 years later.
the St. Louis Cardinals wore a pillbox style hat in 1976, trying to keep the tradition, even though modern hats were readily available.
The 1980s saw a huge boost in visors, used mostly by volleyball players, golfers, and tennis stars.
1987 brought with it the Chicago White Sox baggy caps and uniforms. They reinvented the logo cap, but placing a curly cursive “C” on their caps, instead of their name or logo.
The baseball hat craze crossed over to hip-hop artists in the sense of promotional baseball caps, in 1990. This was the turning point for baseball caps when it became trendy to be seen in a snapback cap.
Regardless of how you like to wear your hat, with the ever-increasing use of technology, there are no limits to what hats will show up on the market next. So grab your camo baseball caps and go enjoy the day.
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What is Agile Development?
It might be best to start by explaining what was happening before Agile Development became the latest IT development methodology.
Traditionally, software development has been a systematic, orderly four step process, starting with analysing what is required to complete the task, designing the software, coding, and finally testing. This is called the Waterfall method. This strategy has its own set of problems, because change is often inevitable and its rigid structure doesn’t cope with change too well.
• What happens if time is running out to get the job done? Does the testing phase get reduced, or worse still, bumped altogether?
• How do you really know where you are along the development path at any given moment? This can cause havoc if budgets are being stretched or the agreed deadline is fast approaching.
• What if you get to the end and it doesn’t work? Or it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do? Will there be time or money to make changes that late in the game?
Where Agile Development is different, is all four stages (analysis, design, coding and testing) are happening at the same time for the duration of the process. In a nutshell, little pieces of the software are delivered at various stages along the way, rather than delivering everything at the end, praying it works and is what the client wants. Smartphone apps are a great example of Agile Development. The initial release is merely the first iteration, with extensions being added over time, allowing the end user to update their app as the software is developed.
How does Agile Development work?
1. In collaboration with the client who has requested the software development, the project is broken down into smaller, manageable pieces of user functionality.
2. These smaller pieces are prioritised according to what the client nominates as the most important parts. These are delivered in stages along the way to ensure they work (called iterations), and are what the client requires. The most important parts are developed and delivered first, with each subsequent part slightly less important than the previous, all the way down to the final least important part at the end.
3. The development team starts designing, coding, testing and analysing, with the client providing ongoing feedback so continual improvement takes place.
4. Planning will be far more flexible as you either realise you’re on track in terms of time and budget (which rarely happens), or realise you don’t have enough time and/or money to complete the project as initially hoped. However, because you’re doing the most important parts first, the ramifications aren’t anywhere near as profound, and you can plan and adapt for the best possible outcome.
What are the benefits of Agile Development?
It’s about the people
Instead of emphasising the process of software development, Agile Development emphasises the people involved in the process. Small teams with a wide range of skills come together to create a software solution for the client. In order for them to succeed, they must work together and communicate every step of the way, both within the team and with the client. Getting this outside perspective can help you discover errors and other functionality issues within your code. More experienced programmers can help you figure out how to monitor and manage your logs, which only improves the quality of your code. Often members of the team will find themselves diving in and helping out in areas outside of their area of expertise in order to get the job done on time and on budget.
It’s about the software
Because the software development process is a constantly moving beast, there is little need for detailed documentation. What is the point of creating time consuming detailed documentation, only to have it change constantly throughout the process? Instead, while there is still some planning and documentation, the focus primarily is on software development instead. This means simplifying the process by starting with the most important iterations, getting them right one step at a time, before moving onto the next part.
It’s about partnerships
The beauty of Agile Development is the collaborative effort of all involved. The involvement of the client throughout, combined with enthusiastic professionals who come together to create the software, provides an environment where teamwork is paramount. Every stakeholder feels ownership of the process, and there is a greater chance of everyone being satisfied with the final product.
It’s about flexibility
Instead of sticking to a rigid plan where the final outcome isn’t known until the end, Agile Development is all about constant change. While this concept can be daunting for some, working within a system where change is accepted, expected and easily achieved throughout the process is far more cost and time effective, and increases the chances of creating a final product that is satisfying to the client. This positive eventuality occurs because Agile Development teams work within their means (i.e. time and budget), the integrity of their plans remain intact throughout, and there’s no race to the finish line at the end causing stress and drama (and often mistakes).
At the end of the day, when you take into consideration time parameters and budget constraints, which in turn influence the quality of the final product, the number one measure of success for software development is – ‘does it work’? For those working within an Agile Development framework, you’ll know during every step. For those using the traditional Waterfall method, you won’t know until the end, and by then it may be too late!
For more detailed information about Agile Development, the Scrum framework, and the processes, systems and tools involved, make sure you download our Agile Development document.
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Former African National Congress (ANC) president Thabo Mbeki says Zimbabwe had to delay its land reform processes back in 1990 at least for a decade so that the ANC could successfully negotiate with the apartheid government in South Africa.
Mbeki says at that time the late former President Robert Mugabe wanted to take land from the white farmers and return it to its rightful owners in Zimbabwe.
He says if Mugabe had continued with this process, it would have prevented the apartheid government from surrendering its power to protect the white population.
Delivering the Robert Mugabe memorial lecture in Durban on Tuesday, former ANC president also called on South Africans not to forget countries such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe that stood firmly against the oppressive apartheid government.
“The then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Chief Omega Anyoku from Nigeria then approached President Mugabe to plead with him to not change the Lancaster House Provisions related with the land question. And Chief Anyoku’s argument was that if Zimbabwe did something like that, moved to address the land issue correctly as they need to address it, it would frighten the white population in South Africa and make it more difficult for the ANC to negotiate with them. Could Zimbabwe hold the matter back? And they agreed,” Mbeki explains.
Mugabe and ANC
He says Mugabe and the ANC shared a camaraderie and mutual passion to work in the best interests of both countries.
“One of the cadres and comrades that we should always value as one of the combatants for the liberation of South Africa was President Mugabe and therefore there was absolutely no way in which if Zimbabwe was faced with challenges we would turn our backs. In 2000 there was a referendum in Zimbabwe where a constitution was rejected we were approached by the MDC who said to us can you please speak to President Mugabe. I remember meeting President Mugabe to make that proposal to him, ended up with the global political agreement signed in 2008.”
Watch the video below for more on the story: |
The McCarran-Ferguson Act, passed in 1945, offers a number of benefits to the insurance industry that it would otherwise not possess due to federal antitrust oversight. Among these are:
Exemption from the Sherman, Clayton, and Federal Trade Commission Acts (joint rate-making among property/casualty insurers is one of the activities thus allowed).
Exemption from the “state action doctrine,” which allows for anticompetitive conduct as long as that conduct is part of a state policy and is regulated by a state.
Exemption from the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine, which provides immunity for some joint efforts by competitors to petition the government.
This has led to allegations that, without the protection provided by McCarran-Ferguson to the industry, the activity of joint rate-making by property/casualty insurers might constitute a violation of federal antitrust laws, allowing as it does the aggregation of large amounts of data in order to allow insurers to project losses into the future and thus protect themselves from those losses to the extent required to continue doing business. Such aggregation of data allows for the possibility of rate fixing, but also allows the industry to function without so much risk to social cost (caused by an insurer becoming insolvent and thus unable to pay claims). |
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Want To Improve Your Concentration? New Study Suggests Chewing Gum Can Help
When I was in school gum was strictly prohibited, there was absolutely zero tolerance when it came to munching on the sticky substance. This rule was obviously put in place before we found out about all the benefits gum can provide us.
For starters gum chewing has been proven to help you stay focused on task for a longer period of time. A new research study by Kate Morgan and colleagues from Cardiff University, found that gum works great for concentration in visual memory tasks.
The study took 38 participants and put them into two groups. Both completed the same 30 minute audio task involving a sequence of numbers that were to be placed into patterns. One group was given gum to chew, while the other took the test without it.
The results at first didn’t reveal what they were hoping for, the group without gum were doing a greater job with the assignment, but things started to shift.
Participants that had gum showed much better results towards the end of the half hour, almost having no change in ability from the start, while the “gumless” group showed a very significant drop off.
The author of the experiment, Kate Morgan explained: “Interestingly participants who didn’t chew gum performed slightly better at the beginning of the task but were overtaken by the end. This suggests that chewing gum helps us focus on tasks that require continuous monitoring over a longer amount of time.”
via ScienceDaily |
Pair of studies showed vaccine prevented coronavirus infection in monkeys; produced antibodies
Vials of CanSino’s non-replicating Ad5 vectored COVID-19 vaccine
Chinese researchers have claimed that a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by the CanSino Biologics appeared safe and triggered an immune response. Earlier this week, Massachusetts-based Moderna announced preliminary Phase I data that shows both safety and efficacy for its mRNA vaccine.
The Lancet estimates that around 100 potential active substances are in development worldwide, including in the United Kingdom where a huge vaccine test of over 10,000 people will begin soon. Most adverse events were mild or moderate, with 83% (30/36) of those receiving low and middle doses of the vaccine and 75% (27/36) in the high dose group reporting at least one adverse reaction within 7 days of vaccination.
"We showed that vaccines induce antibodies, and the vaccinated animals are protected either partially or fully", Dr Barouch said, CBS reported.
The first phase of the recombinant adenovirus type-5 (Ad5) vectored COVID-19 vaccine was carried out at several laboratories by the researchers and included 108 participants between the age of 18 to 60 years.
It's not yet clear whether the shot - if it proves effective - will be available in the USA, and the Department of Health and Human Services had not responded to request for comment at the time of publication. Further studies will be needed to confirm whether the vaccine protects against infection.
The researchers tested the volunteers" blood at regular intervals following vaccination to see whether the vaccine stimulated both arms of the immune system: the body's "humoral response' (the part of the immune system that produces neutralising antibodies which can fight infection and could offer a level of immunity), and the body's cell-mediated arm (which depends on a group of T cells, rather than antibodies, to fight the virus).
Researchers in China did find that people who had Ad5 antibodies were less likely to develop a strong immune response to the vaccine. After 28 days, most participants had a significant increase in binding antibodies.
After two weeks, the vaccine produced virus-fighting antibodies across all dose levels, with the highest dose level triggering antibodies in 61 percent of those who took it. Data the company released was limited to a handful of trial participants, so at this point it is largely unknown how effective that vaccine candidate could be, but the company was optimistic.
'The one thing not we're not seeing is a really high neutralizing antibody titer, ' he told
More studies will be needed to determine whether the vaccine can protect against infection in practice.
Encouragingly, none of the 108 patients had serious side effects. The most common adverse reactions were fever, fatigue, headache and muscle pain.
A Reuters poll published Thursday found that a quarter of Americans were not very or not at all interested in getting a vaccine for the virus that has infected more than 1.6 million people in the US. It is not only a problem of manufacturing the vaccine itself with the same degree of quality, after having the vaccine it is necessary to have millions of needles, syringes, tons of cotton, to guarantee that the distribution chains manage to keep the vaccine always in the necessary conditions - of temperature, for example - and to make everything reach each population, prioritizing the most vulnerable people - such as medical personnel, elderly people and people with aggravating medical conditions such as diabetes or heart failure.
So far, the USA government is supporting the development of 14 candidate vaccinations through its Operation Speed initiative. The final results will be evaluated in six months.
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The most dominant State in Europe during 1870 and 1914.
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The most dominant State in Europe during 1870 and 1914 During the Industrial Revolution in Europe, almost all countries began to change a lot. Everything was getting more modern. But during this time the struggle for power between the individual countries also began. Every country wanted to establish "world prestige". All european countries became very strong nationalities and because of this, it is realy difficult to decide, which country the most successful was, seeing that every country have had it's strength and weaknesses. You can only look at one point of view and say which country was the most dominant for this point of view. I'm going to look mainly at the economical point of view and by looking at this point, Germany was the most dominant for me. ...read more.
The USA and Germany dominted the new industry, by 1914 Germans had taken over the lead in drugs, plastics, explosiv, anaesthetics and rubber and was the also leading producer of chemicals. The empire was an econimical flourishal country. During 1890 and 1914 a almost uninterrupted boom surpassed industry and enconomie of the this far leading country, England. Apart from the econmical growth, there was a fast upswing of science and research. Before the first world war, almost every third nobelprize for natrual sciences went to Germany. The advance of hygienic and medecin decreased the infant mortality. So that the population increased again at circa 67 mio. inhabitants, with this Germany was in the fourth place among the sovereign states. ...read more.
Also the attempt to move the middle and low income class into a financial engagement in the german colonies failed. The german colonies have been insignificant as a "settlement area". Under the reign of emporor Wilhelm the 2nd the german fleet was extended, which occupation the emperor passionatal practised. The extension of the fleet was another striving for "world prestige". Likewise the german army was taking a consinderable size, the peacetime army felt never below 400 000 troops. The german army became effeceincy as a byword. Conclusion Altoghether looked, Germany was a economical strong and rich country and was more sucessful with it, than a lot of other countries. "Made in Germany" became an respected "trade-mark" The german army was also very strong and powerful. Because of all the above-mentioned points, I think that Germany was the most economical dominant state in europe, during this period. By Judith Hollmann, lower 6th ...read more.
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1. Hitlers Germany
He posed as the defender of their economic well-being who would destroy the Communists and establish an authoritarian government under which big business could thrive. Although Hitler did receive some money from a few big businessmen before 1933, only a minority of large industrialists supported the Nazis.
The middle classes were caught up between the working classes and the social elites. They had pressures below them from the working classes and from the Industrialists and Junkers above them. Their main aim was to maintain their position. Unification had involved the imposition of Prussian ideologies throughout the newly united Germany, in which Prussia was the dominant state.
1. Soviet State
Party officials reacted quickly, and pressure on the peasants was eased, but not diminished. * The results of collectivisation: A HUMAN AND ECONOMIC DISASTER FOR THE PEASANTRY - For the majority of the peasants and for the economy as a whole, collectivisation was a disaster.
2. Herr Otto Von Bismarcks.
His first political break came in 1847 when he was appointed in place of an ill man to the United Diet. It was in the United Diet that Bismarck emerged as a defender of the monarchy and a Junker reactionary.
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Behavioural Public Policy Blog
The Swedish Exception?
Erik Angner & Gustaf Arrhenius
Stockholm University & Institute for Futures Studies
This gap is perhaps most evident in most of the commentary around the Swedish response to the pandemic. Sweden’s approach is getting a great deal of attention, in part because it is often framed as going against the mainstream. The differences may be overstated but they certainly exist. They are also instructive for everyone who cares about how best to deal with the crisis.
Sweden’s democratic system of government has a more pronounced epistocratic element than other comparable countries. The term means, roughly, rule by experts. By law and by tradition, Swedish politicians can’t tell the various government agencies what to do, and agencies count relatively few political appointees among their staff. This means that many of the day-to-day decisions relating to government business are made by staff hired on the basis of domain-relevant expertise, rather than political connections. “Ministerial rule” is expressly forbidden.
In the case of COVID-19 strategy, this means that many of the day-to-day decisions are made by staff epidemiologists at the Folkhälsomyndigheten (FHM), the Swedish Public Health Agency. In other countries COVID-19 policy is often developed and announced by politicians, with expert input as they see fit. In Sweden, policy is set by a panel of experts and typically announced by the chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, or his deputy. The latter have therefore, to a great extent, become the face of the government during the crisis.
Critics have charged that Tegnell is overstepping his boundaries and that politicians have allowed themselves to be sidelined. These charges reflect a misunderstanding of Sweden’s constitutional framework. These people are just doing their jobs. Other critics claim that Sweden is going against the recommendations of the experts. This is plainly false: the people who call the shots here are in fact experts. (It is true that Swedish experts disagree, just as they do in other countries)
The Swedish strategy follows a playbook that’s been available online since December last year. The document is in Swedish, but the references are mostly to international, English-language literature. The playbook notes (pp. 20–21) that the only tools available during the early stages of a pandemic are “non-medical” interventions; handwashing, self-isolation, school closures, etc. A literature review performed by the FHM concludes that context matters, but that on the whole the evidence for the effectiveness of most non-medical interventions is weak. Only handwashing and face masks have been evaluated with randomized controlled trials, they say, and even then, the effectiveness has been found to be limited.
The Swedish constitution lacks a provision which allows for the proclamation of a state of emergency in peacetime. Elsewhere, governments may in a crisis suspend rights and freedoms by declaring a state of emergency. The Swedish government does not have this option. It could cordon off specific hotspots to restrict movement, but outside of such areas people still have a constitutional right to move around the country. As Mark Klamberg of Stockholm University puts it:
“Sweden has chosen a rule-of-law approach as opposed to an approach where the Sovereign (i.e. the government) is totally unrestrained in time of crisis.”
Critics who deplore Sweden’s so-called lax approach to COVID-19 do not seem to understand that this approach is to a great extent determined by fundamental constitutional constraints.
Fundamental rights and freedoms cannot easily be restricted, so the Swedish strategy is largely spelled out as official “recommendations”. In terms of normative force, these fall somewhere between advice and law. The education system operates as usual, although schooling for those aged 16-18 years and universities have switched to online instruction. People with symptoms of infection, older people, and people at higher risk for severe illness are encouraged to self-isolate. Everyone is expected to work from home if possible. Compliance with recommendations is high, but far from universal. The Stockholm metro can be completely empty during rush hour, and intercity travel during the long Easter weekend was down about 90% compared to the previous year. That said, some people are still out and about, shopping with abandon or enjoying themselves in outdoor cafés.
The central rationale for the Swedish approach is that harsher measures (border closures, school closings, total lockdowns, etc. ) would be ineffective from a public-health standpoint. Consistent with the playbook, FHM argues that there is little solid evidence for the claim that harsher measures would do any good at this stage of the outbreak. They are not trying to prevent harms to the economy by sacrificing public health, as some appear to believe. That sort of trade-off would be outside of the FHM bailiwick. That said, because the FHM is a public-health agency, it is required to take action with a view to improving public health more broadly conceived; not just to minimise COVID-19 related death.
In addition, the Swedish approach is evidently motivated by behavioral considerations. Tegnell has emphasized that a strategy needs to be sustainable in order to be successful; people have to be able and willing to comply with restrictions and recommendations for as long as necessary. The assumption is that people would be unwilling to put up with sharper restrictions for long enough.
Similarly, the authorities are well aware of the fact that harsher measures can backfire. Obviously no policy, no matter how draconian, will have 100% compliance. And it is not obvious that stricter regulations would increase compliance. From the viewpoint of behavioural science, it is well known that sanctions of various kinds – bans, mandates,incentives – can backfire. Swedish public debate reflects this insight. A bicycle-helmet mandate has been discussed for decades but consistently rejected on the basis that the law would backfire. Note that this does not deny that wearing a bike helmet is a good thing in an accident. It is just recognising that there are better ways to get people to wear helmets than to mandate them.
Mandates can backfire.
The same is true of harsher measures to effect physical distancing. Physical distancing is widely recognised as a good thing; there is disagreement about how best to get people to exhibit the behaviour. Due to this explicit behavioural perspective, it is perhaps not surprising that Tegnell has used the language of nudging to describe, and maybe justify, his agency’s strategy.
Will the strategy be successful? No one can yet know. In addition, the answer will depend on the measure of success. At the time of writing (two months after the first detected European cases of COVID-19) Sweden is doing worse that the other Nordic countries in terms of per-capita fatalities related to COVID-19, but better than many EU countries on the continent, including Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK. Sweden’s healthcare system is operating as usual, intensive-care units are not (yet) at capacity, and principles of triage have not changed.
There is a lot of active disinformation, and more or less misleading representations of Swedish statistics in circulation. Some of this seems to reflect ignorance about Swedish conditions. Some seems driven by various preconceptions. Official statistics, updated once a day, are available online.
Many people are dismissing the Swedish approach as an ‘experiment’. The rhetorical force of this move is to make the approach sound vaguely threatening and unethical, since human-subjects research normally requires ethics review, informed consent, etc. But there’s no sense in which the Swedish approach is more of an experiment than that of any other country. Everyone’s operating under conditions of risk and uncertainty in this crisis. An approach doesn’t become any more or less of an experiment because everybody else is trying it at the same time, although herd effects may make it feel that way. (For the avoidance of doubt, FHM action is not ‘research’ under Swedish law and does not require ethics review.)
It is important to recognise that the approach cannot be assessed until after the pandemic has subsided, the temporary measures lifted, and the risk of resurgence somehow controlled. One argument against harsher measures is that they merely postpone the outbreak. Another argument, as we have seen, is that harsher measures are unsustainable for any extended period of time. Will countries who chose stricter policies be able to sustain them for the requisite period of time and then lift them without seeing a surge in cases? If yes, that would support the case for harsher measures. If no, it will undercut it. We won’t know the answer until after this is over.
It is also worth noting that not all differences in outcome can be explained in terms of differences in policy. To some extent outcomes are determined by sheer good or bad luck. Sweden was hit hard partly because Swedes love skiing in the Italian Alps, and the populous Stockholm region was on spring break during a critical window when the coronavirus had already spread widely in Northern Italy but before the gravity of the situation was fully appreciated. Two other relatively populous regions, Malmö and Gothenburg, had their spring break earlier and currently have much lower mortality numbers than Stockholm.
With the benefit of hindsight all countries may identify ways in which their policymakers could have intervened more effectively. For Sweden, the FHM should have been more aggressive in identifying and isolating people who came back from spring break in the Italian Alps. They should have worked more actively with stopping the spread to retirement homes. They should have realised that linguistic and other issues can reduce compliance in immigrant communities. Some of the FHM recommendations are needlessly complicated, and could be simplified. The FHM could have been more transparent with how they reached their conclusions, and they could communicate more actively with the community of relevant scholars in Sweden. The Swedish government could have increased testing ability earlier and started testing random samples of the entire population sooner.
In spite of its failings, and a small number of sharply dissenting voices aside, Swedes in general trust the people in charge of the national response. Public trust in the government and the FHM has increased by 20 percentage points in a single month. Swedes continue to be happy to have experts call the shots. Not because they are perfect – but because the alternative so often is worse. |
One Stud of a Spud: The Potato in Botany, Art, and Human History
(Solanum tuberosum): Apple of the Earth is currently on exhibit in the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum; the exhibit is included with Garden admission and will close on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. In conjunction with the exhibit, the Garden is hosting a special potato dish tasting event with Rob Connoley of Bulrush.
The Potato’s Beginnings
They’re cheap, unattractive, and covered in dirt, but potatoes are the unlikely subject of worldwide affection. In spite of their lackluster looks, the cultivation of potatoes was a bit like striking gold; they’re filling, surprisingly nutritious, and produce crops generous enough to feed a whole village. With a little bit of butter, garlic, and fresh parsley, this food that was once disdained by the wealthy as a working-class practicality has become a beloved treat for people of all backgrounds, with dishes ranging from greasy French fries to delicate croquettes.
The flowers and fruits of a variety of solanum plants. Courtesy of Dr. David Spooner.
The potato is native to the Andes Mountains, where the Moche and Chimú people grew, cultivated, and thrived off of them. When the Spanish arrived in the 1590s and saw the potato for the first time, there were already thousands of varieties. “And that’s what makes a Yukon different from a russet,” says Sachs Museum Curator Nezka Pfeifer. “It’s just a different hybrid.”
The Spanish saw how prevalent the potato was in these peoples’ diets, but they were not intrigued by its culinary potential. Even so, they brought potatoes back with them to Europe because they recognized its value as sustenance. “The potato is an extremely efficient crop, so besides the fact that it can grow in a lot of really weird climates that shouldn’t really support potatoes—like wet and rocky Ireland—it has a ridiculously high yield in terms of vitamins,” Pfeifer says. “It even has vitamin C in it, which is quite unusual for a tuber, as well as a whole slew of other vitamins, like several B vitamins and a ton of minerals.” So, by way of Spanish ships, the potato made its way to Europe for the first recorded time. Still, “they pretty much saw it as worker-peasant food.”
A woman sells potatoes in a marketplace in La Paz, Bolivia, a city in the Andean Mountain range. Though they are now grown worldwide, potatoes are native to the Andes. Photo by Olga Martha Montiel.
Even as the potato kept spreading throughout Europe, it continued to be regarded as little more than a source of nourishment. That began to change with the life of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. Parmentier was a French pharmacist who served during the Seven Years’ War and was captured by the Prussians. While imprisoned, he was served potatoes. At that time in France, potatoes were not eaten by people of any class and were served only to livestock; in fact, it was actually illegal to cultivate potatoes in France at this time.
Upon his release from prison, Parmentier began campaigning for the introduction of the potato into French cuisine. After he wrote essays, gifted a potato blossom bouquet to the king and queen, hosted high society dinners that featured potato dishes, and more, the cultivation of the potato was legalized in 1772. France’s worldwide influence on cuisine made this a huge turning point for the potato, and it began to gain traction as an increasingly respectable part of people’s diets.
Potato flower. Photo via Tropicos®
The Potato in Ireland
The integration of the potato into the human diet continues to be a source of both nourishment and culinary invention, but it has not come without risk. Because the potato is just one species, solanum tuberosum, a lack of genetic diversity makes it highly susceptible to mass disease. This spelled disaster for those who came to depend on it too heavily. The monochromatic potato prints of artist Corina Kennedy, currently on exhibition in the Sachs Museum, speak to the reality of that risk in their reference to the infamous Irish Potato Famine. “What I find really quite poignant is the fact that she used black ink to stamp the potatoes because she’s referencing what the potatoes looked like when the rot hit them,” says Pfeifer. A fungus-like organism called Phytophthora infestans overtook the potatoes and turned them black with blight for about eight years.
Pfeifer also notes that the term “famine” is not really used in Ireland to describe this time period; the Irish tend to refer to it instead as “the Great Hunger.” “There was massive destruction of the crop because of the potato blight, but what really happened was that the English government, which was in power in Ireland at the time, took too long to decide upon ways to help people,” Pfeifer explains. “So, in fact, there was food there, which is why the Irish didn’t like the word famine—there were other crops, but they were getting exported or they were serving other populations, and the government didn’t turn to the solution of soup kitchens or other ways to get people food until way too late.” The Great Hunger disproportionately affected poor Irish Catholic farmers who often depended almost exclusively on their crops (or the crops of the landlords whose farms they worked) for food. Many of those who worked for farmers were locked into those arrangements and found themselves at the mercy of their landlords––some landlords were kinder than others. By the end of the Great Hunger, over one million people had died from malnutrition and related complications.
A print from Corina Kennedy’s No Need Apply. The artwork of two other Irish-American artists, Dornith Doherty and Seamus O. Hames, is also on exhibit as a part of the show.
During the Great Hunger, many Irish Catholics fled Ireland for United States, hoping to find a better life overseas. The title of Kennedy’s piece, No Need Apply, is also in direct reference to the hatred that the Irish faced upon immigrating to the U.S. to escape the hunger in Ireland; upon arriving in America, they struggled to find work in the face of severe prejudice. To this day, many Irish Americans identify as Irish-Catholics, a direct result of how the Great Hunger disproportionally affected that population in Ireland. “All these layers of meaning just really gives you a lot of food for thought on the massive impact that this one humble, little, easily underestimated plant has made on human culture, diet, migration…everything,” Pfeifer notes.
The Potato Today
It’s tempting to see the Great Hunger as a thing of the past, but the reality is that potatoes are still at risk today. Because they are all the same species, another massive wipeout is entirely possible. “There’s definitely experimentation in terms of hybridization and trying to select genes that are more resistant to disease,” Pfeifer says, “but there are few that are truly resistant to the blight.” The potato also faces obstacles in the form of pests, including such bugs as the potato beetle, the glassy-winged sharpshooter, and the hawkmoth; as the world becomes more globalized, such pests are often accidentally transported along with people.
A Solanum tuberosum specimen from the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium. This particular specimen was collected by George Engelmann.
Despite all odds, the humble potato pushes on. Over 1.5 billion people eat the potato annually, and it can be found in nearly every country (excepting on the continent of Antarctica). The satisfying warmth and simplicity of the potato seems to resound with something in the human spirit; it is widely represented in pop culture phenomena such as Mr. Potato Head, potato-themed kitchen ceramics, potato masher collections, and more.
Two kitchen bowls in the form of potatoes. From the Peter Wyse Jackson Collection.
Why is it that we are so drawn to the potato? “It just has this amazing yield, and you can eat it almost exclusively as a food. I think that ancient peoples knew that,” Pfeifer says. “And they are so starchy and filling, so your belly feels really good when you eat them. They have this comforting quality, and they’re easy to multiply into large dishes, so there’s this communal aspect to them, too. People really have a passion for potatoes. I really haven’t met anyone who hates them.”
Kristina DeYong––Digital Media Specialist
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The People Become Like the Leader: A lesson from David and Saul
Saul and David were the first and second kings of Israel respectively and they both had personalities that rubbed off on the people that they led. The stories of these two men, who possessed very different personalities, help to portray the truth that, the people ultimately become like their leader, and this is whether they know it or not. A look at the lives of these two men reveals they had opposite personalities. Saul was a man full of uncertainty and fear and David was a confident and fearless man. This truth was exposed on the day that David fought against Goliath. Saul was the leader of the armies of Israel and should have given his men the courage required to go against the giant but because he was fearful, the entire camp trembled in fear until David showed up and killed the giant. The interesting thing is the way David went about killing the giant; the Bible records that he ran to meet Goliath. While Saul and the entire army ran away from Goliath, David ran to meet him. This incidence clearly shows that one man was fearful and the other fearless; their dispositions ultimately affected the people they led.
One instance that shows how Saul’s fear was passed on to his men is at Gilgal, where he prepared to fight against the Philistines. The Bible records that, all the people followed him trembling. It is not surprising that they followed him trembling, he was a fearful leader and must have been trembling himself; perhaps not outwardly but interestingly even if inwardly it can be sensed and passed on to those who follow.
Another instance is when Goliath boasted before the armies of Israel; the Bible records that when Saul and all Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”
Finally, prior to his last battle, in which he was killed, Saul consulted with a medium to bring Samuel up because he wanted to enquire how the battle would go. Samuel told him without mincing words that he and his sons would be killed in the battle and the Bible records that immediately, Saul fell full length on the ground and was dreadfully afraid because of the words of Samuel. It is little wonder he died in the battle and it is little wonder after he died his men could not carry on fighting rather they took to their heels and fled. He was without doubt a fearful leader and gave birth to men who were equally fearful.
David on the other hand was a mighty man of valour and knew no fear; while he kept his father’s sheep, a lion came and took one of the sheep to kill it; but David ran after the lion, delivered the sheep from its mouth and killed it. The bear came and the same thing happened, therefore, when he saw Goliath intimidating God’s sheep (the armies of Israel) he was not afraid; he simply went out against the giant the same way he had gone out against the lion and bear and slayed him.
David was bold and fearless, so his men were also bold and fearless. When you read the accounts of these men it is amazing the boldness they had; once David was fighting against the Philistines and the garrison of the Philistines at that time was in Bethlehem and David thirsted and longed for a drink from the well of Bethlehem; as soon as he voiced it, three of his men broke through the camp of the Philistines, drew water from the well and brought it to him. Can you imagine going into the enemy’s camp? It takes a very high level of boldness and courage to do that, it is not a feat for the lily livered but this is not surprising; after all they were becoming like David, their leader. Then there was Abishai one of the mighty men who lifted up his spear against three hundred men and killed them; one man killed three hundred men. Indeed, it is a feat that can only be accomplished by the fearless. Then Benaiah (also one of the mighty men) killed two lion-like men of Moab, he also killed a lion. Surprised? No reason to be; David who led them had killed a lion as a young lad so his men must have realised there was really nothing to killing a lion. These are by no means the only accomplishments of David’s mighty men but they do help to buttress the fact that these men were as fearless as their leader, David.
Saul was fearful and so those who followed him became fearful; David was fearless and those he led became fearless. Like it or not, the people ultimately become like their leader.
Eturuvie Erebor
Taking-the-Lead Seminars.
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Monday, November 4, 2019
Achievements of the EU
Achievements of the EU Mao Julin Hay Jean Leang Pisey Kim Chansreynich Hao Kanhamonisopea Bun Kimsour European Union (EU) is a union formed by mainly European countries, which is established in term of economy and politics. Its origin is European Community that formally created in November 1, 1993 which involves with 6 members-Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Netherland. Nowadays, there are 28 members. EU’s headquarter is located in Brussels, Belgium. So far, European Union has reached many achievements such as the promotion and expansion of cooperation with its Member States in economic, trade, social issues, foreign policy, security, defense, and judicial issues. Another major accomplishment of EU is the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) that makes EU succeed in having a single currency (EURO) along with a common monetary policy. EU is famous for its economy on which many countries around the world are being focused. Economic integration is one of the main goals that EU has considered since its first establishment in 1957, and it has a significantly visible success based on fundamentally by a single currency-the Euro. It is a common currency in the circle of euro area that recently can facilitate the monetary circulation in 18 countries of the member states. Interestingly, its achievement of becoming the second largest currency of the world after dollars has pushed the European community’s economy to flourish further. Euro contributes to maintain the stability and prospect of economic society climate, which attract more investment and international or regional trade through the convenient calculation without involving with the foreign exchange rate. The common monetary policy has been adopted in order to acquire greater achievement, common objective and ensure benefits of all euro area states that use euro as their currency. In addition, cross-border trade and investment are the ultimate goal of Euro zone countries. EU removed trade barri ers in order to facilitate the flow of goods and services, which can fill in each other’s gap between the Member States. The common purpose is to increase competition and take away all restriction obstacles of the free movement of goods in the Common Market so that they can accelerate the economic development. The mobility of products, goods and capital facilitate human consumption within the region. Moreover, the free movement of capital is intended to permit movement of investments such as property purchase and buying of shares between countries. All intra-EU transfers in euro are considered as domestic payments and bear the corresponding domestic transfer costs. Another EU achievement is a so-called Custom Union, which was established in an attempt to adopt the common arrangement for imports from other countries based on common external tariff, provides to all members. This effort is made to develop the world trade and facilitate trade beyond border from all countries arou nd the world. What is more important about its achievements is to establish a society with the same rule for different nationalities; for example, people from each country in the name as membership of EU can possibly travel and move freely to settle down, work, retire, or vote, either permanently or temporarily, without any discrimination. For students who want to experience cross-border education. Thousands of students from EU citizen can get a common standard of education simultaneously experience intercultural understanding and good condition of living and studying in other European member states annually. Due to common passport creation, it has been granted to EU people in order to be indicated as EU citizen and move freely.
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Laptop Questions
Why I Test Laptop Thermals At 21°C
I often get asked why I perform thermal testing of laptop and PC hardware at 21°C / 70°F, let’s take a look at why I do this.
How ambient room temperature affects results
Ambient room temperature is simply the temperature within the room you’re testing. Generally, a 1°C increase to the ambient room temperature will result in a 1°C increase to the internals of the hardware that we are measuring.
Therefore, to compare my results fairly between machines, it’s ideal to test within the same ambient room temperature.
There’s more to it than that
At first you might be inclined to think that if I test at 21°C, then you could test another machine at say 30°C and then simply subtract 9°C from the results. This would not be a fair comparison for many reasons.
If a laptop CPU is thermal throttling substantially at say 90°C, lowering the ambient room temperature a little would probably not be enough to remove the thermal throttle. The lower temperature would however affect clock speeds and performance, as lower temperatures would mean slightly less throttling.
In the previous example, taking 9°C off of 90°C isn’t accurate as it doesn’t account for the extra performance that would be gained without or with less thermal throttling. This is why I chose not to test at different temperatures and use Delta-T.
Hardware will also boost differently based on thermal headroom. Even if there is not thermal throttling present, many components will still perform better at cooler temperatures.
Recent upgrades to my testing
In late 2019 I purchased a reverse cycle system for the room I perform all of my testing in. This should allow me to perform consistent thermal testing throughout the year regardless of the season and what the weather is doing.
Reverse Cycle Cooling
Prior to this, my house only had ducted heating/cooling which was limited. Essentially it would control the entire house, which was inefficient, wasteful, and difficult to manage my ambient room temperature.
It’s a good mid point for where I live
I’m based in Canberra, Australia. During winter the interior of my house without heating would be anywhere from 10°C to 16°C. Heating the room I test in up to 21°C isn’t too much extra for when I need to spend a day a week testing thermals.
Likewise, in summer, outside can surpass 40°C here, while the inside of the house will get to 26°C to 28°C or so.
Due to these two extremes I have to deal with throughout the year, 21°C is a decent mid point that I can hit pretty easily and consistently with cooling or heating.
Everyone else is doing it!
Well there’s more to it than that. If others are performing testing at the same ambient room temperature though, it’s easier to compare results. Many other YouTube channels and written media tend to test at 21°C too, so why not standardize it?
Sure, there will of course be other differences, such as whether or not the same workloads are actually run, but it helps remove one of the major differences.
In the end though, 21°C is a nice temperature that I can run my testing room at throughout the year. That’s the important thing for producing results that can be compared with my own data over time.
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Maarit Rivers, Child Therapist
Ph: 0417 462 115
Church Point / Mona Vale
NSW 2105
Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm
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Why a child becomes angry – should I be concerned about it
There are reasons why a child becomes angry and frustrated. It is normal and healthy. It need not to be feared or suppressed. Anger assists changing wrongs into rights. It alerts of problems and dangers, but a child needs to know how to manage and express it appropriately.
Angry child
Angry child. Illustration by Maarit.
A child can learn that anger need not be frightening, unpredictable or overwhelming. Also to understand, manage and express angry feelings in age-appropriate way.
The training to self-calm and master overwhelming emotions starts from babyhood. It continues through childhood.
Why a child becomes angry – the top brain
Why a child becomes angry is simply that young children yet to develop their ‘top brain’. This part of the brain regulates primitive impulses such as anger. When a child explodes with anger, the ‘bottom brain’, (aka the ‘crocodile brain’), has taken control of behaviour. This ‘crocodile brain’ is already mature at birth. When a child is in this state, there is no point in talking. The connection to the regulating ‘top brain’ has been temporarily cut. The child will not understand language nor reasoning. Wait until the child has calmed down. Meanwhile, stop the child hurting itself or others, or damaging things.
Massive development happens in the ‘top brain’ during the early years. It is further modelled during teenage years. The ‘top brain’, however, is not mature until the mid twenties. Further minor remodelling and change happens lifelong.
Environment and parenting influences how the brain develops. Supportive interactions and learnt self-regulation skills can change the child’s brain structure and leads to its behavioural change.
How and why a child becomes angry – a range of reactions
One end of the anger scale is virtual explosion. The other end is crying and directing anger inward. Both harm the child. An explosive child is seen as difficult and adults respond accordingly. Other children will avoid an angry child. This leads to social isolation and feelings of being ‘not good’. Angry behaviour then escalates. Directing the anger inwards leads to high levels of stress hormones. This weakens the immune system and may lower emotional and physical well being.
How and why a child becomes angry – concealing other emotions
Most of the time anger conceals other emotions. These include sadness, anxiety, injustice, sibling rivalry and embarrassment. They may also include hunger, tiredness, illness, pain, disappointment, inadequacy, insecurity, rejection and emotional hurt.
Children learn by observing and doing. Your own behaviour is the best teacher. Stay calm and correct any anger behaviour in yourself. When the storm is over, talk to your child. Let the child find different solutions to the problem. Listen to your child. Practice the new way of being. Explore new ways of calming down and expressing the anger safely.
Children who become angry frequently, inappropriately or too intensely, and/or for long periods need professional help to work out the underlining reasons.
Maarit Rivers’ Therapy for Children uses creative methods to access and grow different parts of the brain. Maarit helps the child to improve the connection between the ‘top brain’ and ‘crocodile brain’. This enables to deal with their anger in a healthier, non-frightening way.
Contact Maarit Rivers now for an initial free consultation for your child at [email protected]
Or call me NOW on 0417 462 115
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Robust immune defenses are the key factors for any living organism to adapt, survive and thrive in their environment.
Our environments have many threats including potentially damaging molecules therefore the immune system represents a survival interface managed by a complex and particular system of organs, tissues, cells, and signaling molecules that sense non-self-antagonists and protect us from damage and disease.
The immune system is an intelligent mechanism that can respond to changes in the environment; however, it does not always work to our advantage and can itself become the root cause of illness. Ensuring it deploys its potent weapons with balance and specificity is the goal when seeking to optimize immunity and health in general.
Nutrition and lifestyle interventions can greatly improve immunity. Though specific conditions require specific interventions, there are several areas of overlap in the pathophysiology of most types of immune dysfunction. For a complete guideline on optimum health through nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress reduction, and support systems, please refer to the Universal Guideline for Human and Planetary health available at
Our Whole Body Defense
Our immune system utilizes a complex series of physiological mechanisms that involve each body system to ensure an appropriate and effective immune response.
The Role of the Lymphatic System
The lymphatic system, or lymphoid system, is part of the circulatory system and the immune system. It is made up of a large network of lymphatic vessels, lymphatic or lymphoid organs, and lymphoid tissues.[i] [ii] It is involved in the production, maturation and transport of immune cells through a clear fluid called lymph (the Latin word lympha refers to the deity of fresh water, “Lympha”)[iii] toward the heart.
The lymphatic system connects the bone marrow, thymus, spleen, lymph nodes, and central nervous system[iv] through lymphatic vessels.
There are many types of immune cells, collectively known as white blood cells or leukocytes. They begin as stem cells in the bone marrow, which become either myeloid or lymphoid progenitor cells. Myeloid progenitors are used by the innate branch of the immune system, such as neutrophils and macrophages. Lymphoid progenitors generally develop into various types of lymphocytes used by the acquired branch of the immune system.
These cells migrate from the bone marrow to other organs and tissues for activation and/or maturation. Immature T cells (or T lymphocytes) and Natural Killer (NK) cells travel to the thymus. Meanwhile, immature B cells (or B lymphocytes) mature in lymph nodes, small but concentrated clusters of immune tissue scattered across the body.
The Immune Barriers
In general, the human body has three levels of immune defense, which interact to form an effective immune response. These are:
1. Barrier and mucosal immunity
The first level is barrier and mucosal immunity provided by our skin, mucosal membranes (e.g. of the gastrointestinal, respiratory, urinary, and reproductive tracts) and also the blood-brain barrier. They represent a physical barrier, produce protective secretions (e.g. hydrochloric acid and mucus) and many of them are also coated in the microbiota, together providing an integrated network of early immune defense. If anything breaches these barrier defenses, white blood cells (leukocytes) of the innate and adaptive immune system become activated.
2. Innate immune system
Our innate immune system is our second level of defense. It is our base immune response, the protective foundation with which we are born. Innate immune cells constantly survey the body for immune challenges and mount a rapid, powerful response. This response can involve inflammation or direct neutralization of a pathogen. Once activated, innate immune cells communicate with the next level of defense to initiate more specialized immune response.
3. Adaptive immune system
This third level is our acquired or adaptive immune system provided by our T and B cells. It is a slower immune response tailored to attack specific pathogens or other non-friendly molecules. This immune response is developed over the course of our lives from exposure to different antigens. The adaptive system has the ability to develop an ‘immunological memory’ which enables specific, targeted action upon subsequent exposure to the same antigen.
[i] Standring S (2016). Gray’s anatomy : the anatomical basis of clinical practice (Forty-first ed.). pp. 68–73. ISBN 9780702052309.
[ii] Moore K (2018). Clinically oriented anatomy (Eighth ed.). pp. 43–45. ISBN 9781496347213.
[iii] Natale G, Bocci G, Ribatti D (September 2017). “Scholars and scientists in the history of the lymphatic system”. Journal of Anatomy. 231 (3): 417–429. doi:10.1111/joa.12644. PMC 5554832. PMID 28614587.
[iv] Louveau A et al. Structural and functional features of central nervous system lymphatic vessels. Nature. 2015; 523: 337-341.
Image by Arek Socha |
Viceroy Butterfly
Kentucky State Butterfly
Viceroy butterfly
Viceroy butterfly; photo by Dan Irizarry on Flickr (noncommercial use permitted with attribution / share alike).
Official State Butterfly of Kentucky
The viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) was designated the official state butterfly of Kentucky in 1990 (Kentucky also recognizes an agricultural insect symbol, adopted in 2010). All State Insects
Viceroy butterflies are sometimes mistaken for monarch butterflies because their wing coloration is similar, but they are only distantly related species. A viceroy butterfly is smaller than a monarch, does not migrate, and has a faster and more erratic flight pattern (monarch flight is more "float-like"). Native to North America, the viceroy butterfly's host plant is willow or poplar (Kentucky's state tree), and their emergence in spring is timed relative to the development of leaves on their host tree (the monarch butterfly's host plant is milkweed).
Viceroy Butterfly 2 |
18 May 2020
Four Kinds of Value
How do we assign value to what we hear? How about this:
1 Zero Value: Me telling me how great I am
2 Some Value: Me telling someone else how great I am
3 Fair Value: Someone else telling me how great I am
4 High Value: Someone else telling someone else how great I am
It’s noticeable that Category 1 describes the majority of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram posts.
When a politician tells you how wonderful they are, it’s a Category 2 statement.
The next level, Category 3, contains counsellors, therapists, proud parents and happy customers – a mixed bag, but certainly worth paying attention to valuable feedback.
And here’s the interesting bit: all third-party references fall into the high-value Category 1. For example, someone recommending a plumber, a friend vouching for a somebody’s job application, and a happy customer speaking to prospect customers.
Don’t tell people how great you are; let someone else do it. |
Women of the Year
Illustration by Neil Jamieson for TIME; Ricardo Hernandez—AFP/Getty
March 5, 2020 6:37 AM EST
Patria, Minerva and María Teresa Mirabal—three sisters from a middle class family, all married with children—may not have seemed the most likely revolutionaries. But living under the Dominican Republic’s brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo in the late 1950s, the Mirabal sisters risked their lives to work in the resistance. During Trujillo’s 31 years in power, the regime violently repressed civil liberties and dissent. The Mirabal sisters helped to organize and grow the underground movement challenging the regime, and were repeatedly arrested for their activities.
Minerva once dismissed her allies’ fears for her life, saying “If they kill me, I’ll reach my arms out from the tomb and I’ll be stronger.” She fulfilled the promise. The state’s murder of the three sisters, aged 36, 34 and 25 on Nov. 25 1960, outraged the public and was a key trigger for Trujillo’s own assassination by a group of dissidents and former allies six months later.
After the transition to democracy in the late 1970’s, the Butterflies, as Dominicans call the sisters, became symbols of both democratic and feminist resistance. A fourth Mirabal sister, Dede, who was less actively involved in the resistance, survived the regime and helped continue her sisters’ legacy until her death in 2014, setting up a foundation and a museum in their name. The U.N. made the date of their death the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. —Ciara Nugent
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The Mirabal Sisters from left, Minerva, Maria Teresa and Patria.
Casa Museo Hermanas Mirabal
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NASA's planet hunter, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which was launched April 18, is still being tested, NASA officials said. TESS will study several thousand stars near the sun, to observe changes in their brightness caused by the passage of planets around them.
TESS will be able to locate planets whose atmospheres can be studied in depth with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which will be ready by 2021. The mission includes the search for methane, oxygen and other gases that can provide valuable information on the formation of those planets.
TESS will replace the Kepler telescope noted mission member said the orbit which it will occupy is very stable and subjects TESS to "low radiation." exposure. NASA's previous planetarium telescope, Kepler, which was launched in 2009, is coming to an end. On July 7, Kepler went into hibernation because it was running low on fuel, CNet reported.
According to NASA, there is no valuable information left to obtain, so hibernation will allow the last adjustments to be made and valuable data will be downloaded here on earth. NASA has already prepared TESS to replace Kepler in the search for new worlds.
TESS is more powerful than Kepler
By operating at full power, TESS will be able to see an area 400 times greater than Kepler observed.
TESS will observe these regions for 27 days, directing their attention mainly to the brightest stars.
TESS identifies the planets by seeing their stars. CNet noted that in its orbit around a star, a planet overshadows their star. If TESS directs the focus to the star, it will be able to detect fluctuations of light, and in this way, it can determine the size of the planet and even the time it takes for the planet to "circle" around its star.
The objective of NASA is to look for planets that, when observed, can provide valuable information about possible extraterrestrial life. This is why they cannot wait for Kepler to die before they optimize TESS.
With this new technology, changes in the brightness of these celestial bodies can be observed with better resolution and at a greater distance.
In this way, valuable information and relevant data will be obtained that, as expected, will provide important knowledge about other worlds.
For now, we just have to wait until the TESS telescope is fully optimized and can start operations with all the power it needs to bring new surprises an information to NASA and humanity. Most likely, TESS will do a better job than the Kepler telescope, which unfortunately came to an end.
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Evaluating Science Robotics Affect Issue
Robotics would be currently the use of technologies to automate and control robots for example mining, medicine, environmental, transport, energy, and much more building structure. It’s necessary for every company to put money into the safety of these staff because it lets them run the company while having less labour at their disposal economically.
The kind of robotics used in virtually any discipline is determined performance by its safety, and impact on modern society and the environment. scholarly paraphrasing tool If an ecological impact variable to get a item was high enough, the firms would do whatever they are able to get rid of the item, while a few might not be pleased to do so since it might take overly enough moment to them.
When evaluating a product’s impact variable, a company ought to take into consideration its cost and whether it may cut back manufacturing expenses if that product have been eradicated out of the workforce. A firm would also need to regard the influence the reduction of this product will be about the bottomline of the company. Product re-usepollution and waste, and also a healthier natural environment are typical things a corporation might like to reduce so as to improve their reputation.
A company may evaluate the impact variable of its services and products by studying where they’re utilized. www.paraphrasingservices.org This may consist of areas like mining gear, health care devices , autos, electronic equipment, or air craft.
A firm needs to be sure to include the influence variable of the products until they buy them they are making. There are.
These facets include things like whether or not the item is environmentally friendly, even if it is secure to utilize, while it’s economical, and the way that it affects the civilization of the community. There are also things including job retention that ought to be taken into consideration as well.
A company would have to be sure they can really come to feel comfortable with plus the merchandise they decide on will have a safety variable which they could expect. http://jobs.gcu.edu/career-services-advisor-ii/job/4201199 A business have to make certain is more safe to make use of.
Every company will have their own reason for selecting a product on the other, but it all boils to the reputation of your company. There are certain ways a company can employ to guarantee they have the very best product.
1 means to get a company to increase their merchandise would be to operate with government organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency. If a company can satisfy with their wants and do their own job to defend the environment they are guaranteed to help produce the right choice.
The perfect way to look at that is to establish prospective goals and goals to your firm, and then look at how they’ll be able to fulfill those aims. Any meeting a company comes a political agency is sure to be beneficial to the organization, as it will assist them understand what they should do in order to ensure their goals are satisfied.
There really are a lot of ways that a firm can begin ensuring their product’s impact variable is your best potential. They simply will need to perform their search and discover which techniques could be best for them. |
(FedTechnology) One particular element of quantum computing that can be seen as both a positive and a negative is its ability to build and break encryption algorithms. This is especially troubling to the government and could have special implications for the military. Plus, there is a very real risk today that individuals may be intercepting and storing encrypted internet traffic now for decryption later, when a large enough quantum computer is available.
Quantum cryptography, also referred to as quantum communication or quantum security, offers a theoretically secure solution to the key exchange problem, namely quantum key distribution (QKD).
The practice takes advantage of the “no change theory,” which dictates that no quantum presence can be interrupted without the interruption being detected. Photon particles generate encryption keys through their properties.
If quantum cryptography makes it a hundred times more difficult for “bad guys” to crack systems and steal the data — or an improvement of exponentially more profound impact — then federal IT decision-makers have a duty as public servants to seriously explore and invest in this technology.
While still an emerging technology in terms of quantum cryptography, QKD, while limited, does exist today in solutions like IBM’s lattice-based cryptographic suite, known as CRYSTALS, Sutor says.
post-quantum cryptography consists of algorithms designed to withstand cyberattacks should quantum computers become powerful enough. Once that happens, says Dustin Moody, a mathematician at NIST, post-quantum encryption will come into play on a large scale.
“For most organizations, quantum encryption or QKD is not what they’re going to need. It’s most likely going to be post-quantum encryption,” Moody says.
One of the next important steps to make quantum-safe cryptography more widely adopted by government and industry, says Sutor, is standardization, which NIST is currently undertaking.
Today, NIST is evaluating post-quantum algorithms with an eye toward choosing a standard for all post-quantum cryptography. |
James Scannell recalls the MV Kerlogue’s Bay of Biscay rescue of drowning German sailors a few days after Christmas in December 1943.
During the 1939-1945 Emergency one of the ships engaged in keeping Ireland supplied with essential items was the 335 gross tons MV Kerlogue, 142 feet length, built in 1938 in Holland for coastal and cross-channel shipping and operated by the Wexford Steamship Company.
On 18th May, 1942, MV Kerlogue was put on the Lisbon run, commanded by Captain James Gaul of Clifford Street, Wexford, with officers holding ocean going certificates and experience.
For the next two years, MV Kerlogue carried agricultural produce from Ireland to Britain, where she received her Navicert or ship’s passport from the British authorities, then carried coal from Britain to Lisbon or a Spanish port, before returning to Ireland with grain, general cargo, fruit, or pyrites from Spain, after calling at a British port for inspection, making these journeys unescorted, alone and out of convoy.
The MV Kerlogue sailed from Lisbon on 27th December, 1943, a day later than scheduled due to the death of a crew member who could not be buried until after Christmas.
Around 9 a.m. on the morning of 29th December, 1943, MV Kerlogue was sailing northwards through the Bay of Biscay, about 360 miles south of the Fastnet and approximately the same distance from Brest, France, when she was circled by two German Focke Wolf Condor long range aircraft which signaled by flashing light ‘SOS lifeboats – follow’ and then flew in a south-east direction firing veray light flares indicating the direction they wished the ship to travel.
Her master Captain O’Donoghue altered his course to that indicated by the aircraft and by 11 a.m. arrived at the scene of battle which had taken place the previous day, encountering a scene of life rafts rising and falling on the rough sea with men on them or holding onto ropes attached to them, and others floating in the water.
The previous day the German Narvik-class destroyer Z27 and two Elbing class torpedo boats, T25 and T26, had been sunk. They had intended to escort Alsterufer, a German blockade runner which had left Yokohama, Japan, on 4th October, 1943 with supplies of rubber, tin, wolfram/tungsten, chinchona, fats, and iodine to France from Japan, and was near the French coast on 27th December, 1943, when she was spotted by an RAF Sunderland flying boat and was subsequently attacked and sunk by a Czechoslovak manned RAF Liberator bomber.
Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own |
Hell on Earth Essay
Submitted By tmd5340
Words: 1580
Pages: 7
Coming home from a busy day of school, the first thing the little girl can think about is the after school snack that is awaiting in the refrigerator and snack drawer. But before she can even put her backpack down and take her shoes off, her fuzzy best friend, who happens to be a German Shepherd, comes scrambling around the corner to greet her with a wagging tail and a tilt of the head that articulates, “You’ve been gone for too long; I’ve missed you”. The little girl responds with a grin, a twinkle in her eye that agrees, “I missed you more”, and open arms, perfect for Fritz to get closer for a belly rub. Fritz turns over on his back, with his legs in the air, for the little girl to itch his favorite spot (Deane). Just as Fritz begins to calm down from excitement of seeing his favorite cuddle buddy, a loud noise crashes upstairs. The clamor triggers a response in Fritz’s mind that turns the lovable dog’s personality into a growling monster. As the girl screams for her mom’s help, it is already too late. The dog pounces onto the innocent girl and opens his mouth with her leg in direct fire. As Fritz bites down, the little girl’s cry tells her mom to hurry down stairs immediately (Deane). My mom, the little girl, has told me countless stories, like this one, about her dog Fritz suddenly changing personalities from the snuggly pillow to a ruthless, snarling monster. Fritz had attacked countless amounts of people and hindered the safety of my mom’s family. My grandparents, feeling rushed buying a German shepherd due to the sudden passing of their dog, went against their better judgment and decided to buy the squished puppy hiding behind the metal fence and small cage from a pet store in a mall. In the beginning Fritz seemed just like any other German shepherd puppy they bought; but after two years of ruthless behavior from Fritz and failed behavior training, my grandparents made the difficult decision to put him down. My grandparents felt ashamed for making that grim behavior, but they knew Fritz could not be tamed and it was for the better (Deane). Fritz’s behavior and psychological problems due to the puppy mill where he was born created a monster disguised in an adorable, fuzzy friend’s body that could not be fixed.
Just like my grandparents, many other people have seen and purchased, the barking, hopeless dogs begging for a home behind the glass wall in a shopping mall. Like Fritz, most of the dogs have been driven to the mall from a disturbing past, a puppy mill. A puppy mill is a sadistic compound where the profit from dogs is the ultimate goal and the treatment and health of the dogs are inhumane and not a priority of the owner. Imagine, a warehouse with objects stacked on top of each other, row after row, abandoned in the dark. In these objects are puppies often starving and dehydrated covered in the feces that dropped from the cages above (Humane Society of the United States). This image is not a nightmare; it is happening across the United States every day.
Without ever seeing daylight or experiencing the freedom to run around, female dogs have two litters a year until the age of 5, when they ultimately wear out. They are part of a continuous cycle of birthing and nursing puppies. Many litters have chronic diseases, rotten teeth, and eye and ear infections. In addition to physical harm, puppies have genetic disorders and many other psychological problems that appear to owners months or years after buying directly or indirectly from a puppy mill. Females that are no longer able to produce puppies are starved to death or set loose to the wild where they are ultimately killed (Sharon).
As citizens of the United States of America we need to take a stand against the coldhearted treatment towards innocent puppies. I am proposing to you, as a citizen of this supposed glorious country, to expose the hidden truth of puppy mills to your legislators and lawmakers. The dogs in these conditions do not have a |
by: Aditi Risbud
Through a recent Moore Foundation grant, Pam and her team are using advanced synthetic biology tools and analysis of environmental samples and data to explore marine microbes responsible for helping maintain balance of the ocean’s concentration of nitrogen. In this installment of Beyond the Lab, Pam describes the wide array of projects she embraces and how "no two days are the same."
What inspired you to become a scientist/researcher?
I'm a child of Silicon Valley. I was born in Atherton and my parents were part of the Stanford community. Our household was very high intellect, shall we say, with a lot of interest in math and science. And then there was also the climate around Silicon Valley at the time, with a huge emphasis on science and technology, and that really spilled over into the public school system.
I spent a lot of time outside playing around with nature and had precocious math ability, which now would be normal, but at the time because I was a girl, was treated as unusual. I went to Encinal School in Menlo Park, CA, and the science teacher there was amazing, and then to Castilleja School in Palo Alto for high school, which is a private all-girls school. Compared to today, everything felt a lot smaller then, but there were lots of things going on. Personal computers were being invented.
In college, at UC Santa Cruz, I had a real interest in the ocean even though I was a chemistry major. I love to sail and surf, and so I’m really passionate about the sea. When I can make the time, sailing is really my passion on this coast. [In her limited spare time, Pam also enjoys sailboat racing and running, and has competed in several Boston Marathons.]
What topics/areas in science are you most interested in addressing?
For the past 15 years or so, I’ve moved from being a cellular and molecular biologist to being one of the practitioners of synthetic biology. There was a friend of my husband’s who organized a group of bioengineers and computer scientists to form a synthetic biology working group. We wanted to find answers to the question ‘How do we make biology faster, more predictable and cheaper to engineer?’ And because I knew this friend of ours, I was invited to participate as the token biologist in that group, which ended up being a fateful coming together of events that was life changing.
The thing about synthetic biology is it means I can work on almost anything. The whole idea that we're drawing from biology to do things that might have some good impact on people, or the world, is something I’m really passionate about. And so I’m always trying to frame things as, ‘Okay, if we study this problem, what will the impact be?’ So that’s kind of the underlying theme.
For example, I have this project we call the bionic leaf, where we’re trying to interface biology with electronics, essentially, to harvest sunlight more efficiently. I like to do things that maybe sound kind of impossible, and of course a lot of times don’t work.
How do your colleagues, postdocs and students help you achieve your goals?
I have an awesome postdoc who’s really leading the effort for our foundation project, Tobias Giessen. He's just amazing. He made all the fundamental discoveries behind that work and then the foundation teamed us up with an ocean scientist, Bess Ward at Princeton University. I’m so excited about working with her and learning from her point of view.
In addition, I have great colleagues who help my thinking around my ultimate goals; in particular, I have to call out my husband, Jeff Way. He's at the Wyss Institute and he’s my partner in everything. What I really enjoy is the opportunity to engage junior faculty in the area of synthetic biology and get them excited about how they might be able to apply some of their fundamental work to applications. And so far, that’s turning out to be really fun.
I founded a new graduate program here at Harvard some ten years ago in systems biology. I really think students should come to graduate school to do research and learn how to do research. Hopefully you get excited about it and you discover something. And whatever you do after graduate school, that skill set will serve you well. I see it as the students and the faculty meeting each other halfway. I’m also a big believer in the empowerment of students, and that they should take more of an active role in guiding their own graduate education.
What gets you going every day (besides coffee) and how do you stay motivated?
One thing that’s really great is no two days are the same. You're not in a rut: something different is happening every day. People sort of lose sight of how privileged we are to do what we do. Barring really specific obligations, I can come into work almost any time, or decide to work at home for a while. When I go to sleep at night, I think, ‘What's happening tomorrow?’
Every day there is a different set of meetings, a different set of people, or I’m traveling. The beauty of what we do is that it’s one of the few professions where you get to travel around the world. I just got back from China. I was also at a meeting in Urbana, Illinois, which was fantastic. I just booked a flight to India. And then you go to places like India or China, and you know you’re going to meet other scientists. I saw these places in China that I never would have gone to on my own. It’s a wacky life.
One thing that kind of holds us in check, I think, is the grant process. So we always do have to be thinking about where the money is coming from, and that probably puts some structure into this whole business. And, I usually do a self-review at the end of the year and clean up my desk and say, ‘Okay, where are we at?’
What are your greatest limitations/challenges as a scientist?
Aside from time? Well, one thing that comes up is how many ideas can you have? On the one hand, you think you have a ton of ideas and these eager young undergrads or grad students or postdocs ready to go. But there’s got to be a reality check somewhere about what you can really do, and what’s worth doing. And I find that to be very stressful. That’s the thing about being an artist or a scientist. You’re up against your own intellect. How much do you question whether something is a good idea or do you just plunge into it and then you find out later that it was not so great after all? And that’s a really hard thing to get right. I mean, nobody really gets it right. There’s a saying that if more than five percent of your experiments are working, you’re not doing the right experiments.
The whole careerism thing is bothersome to me. I was for the most part not much of a careerist and more of a risk taker. But I've grown to accept that I’m a couple of generations separated now. When my students tell me their needs and problems they face—which are sometimes scary—I really want to help them. And the world's a different place. So, at one level it’s easy for me to say, ‘I'll just take a risk and see where things fall.’ I’d love that to be true for everybody, but I appreciate that this is not always the case. I’d love for everyone to be a dreamer, though, so I encourage people to still hold onto the dream.
Read a recent profile of Pam in the Harvard Gazette here.
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An exocortex is a hypothetical artificial external information processing system that would increase a biological brain high-level cognitive processes.
An individual’s exocortex would be composed of external memory modules , processors , IO devices and software systems that would interact with, and augment, a person’s biological brain . Typically this interaction is being conducted through a direct brain-computer interface , making these extensions functionally part of the individual’s mind . [1] [2] [ unreliable source? ]
Individuals with significant exocortices could be classified as cyborgs or posthumans .
The noun exocortex is composed of the Greek-derived prefix exo- , meaning external or outside, and the Latin noun cortex , which originally meant bark but is used in neuroscience for the outer bark-like layer of the brain that is the site of most sophisticated cognitive information processing. It was coined in allusion to the neocortex (literally ‘new bark’), the newest part of the mammalianbrain (in evolutionary history), cognitive abilities, spatial reasoning, and sensory perception. Thus the terminology suggests a progression from reptilian thought (the older parts of the brain) through human (neocortex) to high-level human or even supra-human cognitive processing capabilities (exocortex).
Intellectual background
Computer science roots
Within computer science, the seeds were planted by the DARPA associated researcher JCR Licklider . Within his speculative 1960 paper Man-Computer Symbiosis , Licklider outlined his vision that humans and the new technology of computers, if tightly-coupled together, would prove to complement each other’s strengths to such a degree that many of the pure artificial intelligence systems envisioned at the time by optimistic researchers would prove unnecessary:
Man-computer symbiosis is a subclass of man-machine systems. There are many man-machine systems. At present, however, there are no man-computer symbioses. The aim of this paper is to present the concept and, hopefully, to foster the development of man-computer symbiosis by analyzing some problems of interaction between men and computing machines, calling attention to applicable principles of man-machine engineering, and pointing out a few questions to which research answers are needed. The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resultant partnership machines we know today.
- Man-Computer Symbiosis , JCR Licklider, March 1960.
From this basis, the concept of an exocortex, the direct coupling of the human mind with computers to the leverage of their respective complementary strengths, can be seen as a result of the ever increasing symbiotic coupling between human and computers. quote needed ]
Psychology roots
The exocortex concept also has roots in evolutionary psychology as a result of Donald Merlin of Queen’s University . Donald, in the 1990 book Origins of the Modern Mind and the Future of Modern Minds, an evolutionary model of the mind, from a functional perspective, from its origins in prehistoric apes to the modern human being. Donald Focuses significant attention is the use That modern humans make of external symbolic storage and handling systems-the ranks of technology from cuneiforms , hieroglyphics , and ideograms to alphabetic languages , mathematics and now computers. From Donald’s perspective, these external symbolic systems have been used for the functional reorganization of the human mind.
The externalization of memory [via the use of external symbolic storage systems] has changed the memory of the memory, which is changing the role of biological memory, the way in which the human brain deploys its resources, and the form of modern culture.
- Precis of Origins of the Modern Mind , Merlin Donald, 1996.
Current applicability
Cognitive science origin
In November 1998 the specific term was coined by Ben Houston researcher. [3] [ unreliable source? ] Houston coined the term to concisely Refer to tightly-coupled cognition -level brain-computer interface technology in the spirit of JCR Licklider ‘s original vision. quote needed ]
exocortex (eks’o kor’teks) n. Latin – an organ that resides outside of the brain that aids in high level thinking. This will not be a prominent term until prefrontal neural cortical implants become widespread. (emphasis in original)
- early exocortex definition, Ben Houston, May 2000 [4]
Use in science fiction
Speculative devices which were the definition of exocortices were described in hard science fiction Examples appear in Neuromancer by William Gibson and in The Peace War by Vernor Vinge , both published in 1984. More recently Vinge, in A Fire Upon the Deep and Several Short Stories, described the functional effects of what are essentially several types of exocortices – both those composed of computational elements, and those enabled by high-bandwidth communication between groups of beings. Peter F. Hamilton ‘s Night ‘ s Dawn trilogy also describes in detail similar.
Charles Stross , the Hugo Award -nominated hard science fiction writer, has led the adoption of the term exocortex within science fiction circles. Beginning in 2004, Stressed Elector , a short story published in the September issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction . Stross made more extensive uses of the term exocortex and its derivatives in Accelerando , his 2005 novel. Whereas Stross has an explicit definition of the term, a few passages
About ten trillion humans are alive in the solar system contents, each mind Surrounded by year Exocortex of distributed agents, threads of personality spun right out of Their Heads to run on the clouds of utility fog – infinitely resources computing flexible as thin as airgel – in qui they live. (added added)
- Accelerando , Charles Stross, 2005.
Sometimes he is not certain he’s still human; Too many threads of his life. …. And it’s too early for anyone out there to be trying to hack exocortices … is not it? Right now, the external threads of his consciousness are telling him that they like Annette …. (emphasis added)
- Accelerando , Charles Stross, 2005.
The Wikibooks Accelerando Technical Companion provides this explanation:
An EXOcortex can best be described as a trans-posthuman entity’s brain (or cortex), which exists outside of that entity’s primary computing structure, usually the brain inhabiting a person’s meatbody. For example, a person may have an understanding of the subject of external memory, which is a processor, and that the person ‘s biological brain is in a real sense. ‘ (emphasis in original)
- Accelerando Technical Companion , Wikibooks.
Popular use
While initial recognition of the exocortex concept was nonexistent, this has changed as a result of Charles Stross’s recent publications and the growing awareness of brain-computer interfacing. The term and concept of an exocortex has both been applied and noted by various writers. [5] James Hughen wrote in an essay titled “What comes after Homo sapiens?” that appeared in New Scientist :
To remain the web’s weavers and not its ensnared victims, we must be able to communicate with our electronic exocortex . [6]
See also
• Extended cognition
• Google effect
• List of emerging technologies
• Memex
• The Extended Mind
1. Jump up^ Sotala, Kaj; Valpola, Harri (June 2012). “Coalescing minds: brain uploading-related group mind scenarios” (PDF) . International Journal of Machine Consciousness . 4 (1): 293-312. doi : 10.1142 / S1793843012400173 .
2. Jump up^ Rajguru, Sunil (20 March 2006). “The human race, Version 2.0” . sunilrajguru.com . Living Digital. Archived from the original on 2016-06-21 . Retrieved 2016-06-21 .
3. Jump up^ Katsevman, Michael (2008). “Exploring the Exocortex: An Approach to Optimizing Human Productivity” (PDF) . logarchy.org . Retrieved 28 June 2016 .
4. Jump up^ “Exocortex” . everything2.com . 2000-03-19 . Retrieved 2016-06-21 .
5. Jump up^ Bonaci, Tamara; Herron, Jeffrey; Matlack, Charlie; Chizeck, Howard Jay (June 2014). “Securing the exocortex: a twenty-first century cybernetics challenge”. 2014 IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century (21CW) . Boston:IEEE . pp. 1-8. doi : 10.1109 / NORBERT.2014.6893912 .
6. Jump up^ Hughes, James (18 November 2006). “What comes after Homo sapiens?” (PDF) . New Scientist . 192 (2578): 70-72.
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Mind Your Body Language
Our body language is a powerful indicator of the way we feel and can tell others much more about us than our words ever can. Our tone of voice and body language are extremely important in making connections with people we may not know so well. When we first meet someone it can be a little awkward to get along if we have nothing in common.
Next time you next meet a stranger that you would like to get to know better, try these simple techniques.
Matching Behavior
Look carefully at how they are sitting, the way they are holding their body and what they are doing with their hands or feet.
Try matching their behavior without being too obvious. For example they may be leaning on a table, crossing their legs or have their hands on their hips. You might also find it useful to watch people who are in rapport to see how they naturally match each others behavior. As you become a student of human behavior, you will see that friends or simply those who like each other do these things unconsciously. Sit in a bar or coffee shop and observe the different ways people mirror or match behavior. One picks up a drink and their friend does the same. Or you may see coworkers engrossed in conversation, as one folds their arms the other unknowingly follows suit.
The key is to be subtle. You don’t want to look as if you are actually copying, rather that you are so in alignment that you are in sync with what they are doing. It could be as simple as observing and matching them as they touch their face or adjust a stray hair.
Eye Contact
Sometimes we may feel awkward about looking others directly in the eye if we don’t know them, yet it is often considered a sign of trustworthiness. Learning to hold someone’s gaze just long enough is a skill that can be learned. Again, watch people who are already in rapport and see how natural it is.
Tone of Voice
The key to rapport is understanding that people like people who are like them. Be aware of your tone of voice and tempo. Matching aspects of the voice is a great way to start. If your new friend is speaking softly or slowly, make sure your tone of voice and pace of speech is in alignment. They will instantly feel more drawn to you.
Think about when you meet someone and feel uncomfortable because they are too loud or you just get a bad vibe. It’s often because they are breaking rapport by behaving in a manner that is alien to you at an unconscious level. As we get to know people we make adjustments in our behavior to bring ourselves in alignment with them. We program ourselves to fit in.
I highly recommend that you go out and do some behavioral analysis. See if you can figure out the relationship of those you are observing by the story their body tells. It is not about being fake, it’s simply a short cut to a naturally occurring state. Before long you wont need need to do it consciously. |
Why Harvest Milky Oats?
Milky Oats (Avena sativa) is a popular herb for soothing the nervous system. Oats are cheap and easy to grow in many climates but proper collection starts with good timing. Once the oats have reached their “milky stage”, the forager has to act quickly or the latex will be absorbed into the plant to help the seed head mature. This plant doubles as a nitrogen catching ground cover for gardeners who wish to fortify their fallow ground.
Oat straw, oat bran and oatmeal all possess medicinal qualities in their own rights but as a nervine, milky oats are hard to beat. Milky oats have a high mineral and protein content which is savored in nutritive teas. The anti-depressive alkaloids that have gathered the most attention are trigonelline and avenine. As with many alkaloids, they are not very water soluble so preserving the oats in an alcohol-based tincture is the best way to extract these properties.
Equipment needed
1. Bucket or bag
2. Gloves (optional)
3. Sun Protection
Harvesting and Preserving Procedure
1. Inspect the oats by pinching the oat seed between you fingers to confirm that the latex (milk) exudes freely.
2. Put on gloves to prevent grass from injuring fingertips.
3. Grab a small amount of oats from the middle of the stalk just below section that the seed heads form.
4. Run your hand briskly up the top of the oat stalks while pressing firmly on the stalk with your thumb and forefinger so the oat seed heads fall into your hand.
5. Drop milky oat seed heads into your bucket or collection bag.
6. Once you have harvested enough milky oats, you may process them. Select your processing method.
7. Turning oats into a tincture is simple using our procedure available in this link. Stick to the 1:2 ratio and keep your alcohol content high as oats are very moist. Use 75 percent alcohol to preserve as many minerals are you can or 95 percent alcohol to preserve as many of the anti-depressive alkaloids as you can.
8. Milky oats are very easy to dry in a food dryer or spread on a cookie sheet in low temperature oven for a few hours (check regularly to avoid burning).
9. Be sure to store the tincture and the dried oats in a secured, labeled container far away from sunlight. The flavonoids in oats are susceptible to fading in light.
Thanks to Lovelight Herb Farm for sharing the harvest! |
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Bacteria Hitchhike on Tiny Marine Life
Bacteria Hitchhike on Tiny Marine Life
Why do pathogens settle on animals called copepods?
“One single copepod could carry an infective dose,” Aruda said, “and people were ingesting bacteria-carrying copepods with their water.”
Colwell showed that filtering drinking water in Bangladesh through silk saris—a mesh that isn’t fine enough to filter out bacteria, but that does filter out copepods—decreased the incidence of disease, proving that copepods were disease-carrying agents.
Cholera is transmitted person-to-person, but ultimately, “the cholera comes from the environment, and it seems to come from these zooplankton,” Aruda said. “Copepods carry a lot of cholera bacteria, and seem to enhance the survival of V. cholerae in the environment.
“I thought it was really cool,” she said, “seeing how their work is directly leading to changes on the ground, beyond the lab bench.”
A road to the ocean
The bacterial group Vibrio contains dozens of species, including other species such as Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Vibro vulnificus, which can cause serious gastrointestinal illness and infections in people who eat undercooked seafood or have contact with Vibrio-laden water. But most Vibrios aren’t harmful. Some may even be symbiotic with their host copepods, Aruda said. Researchers in Polz’s lab found that some Vibrios on living zooplankton produce antimicrobial compounds, maybe deterring other microbes.
Aruda is investigating these ubiquitous relationships between copepods and bacteria—from both sides, the copepods’ and the bacteria’s. Fundamental questions remain unanswered.
“Are the bacteria infecting copepods? We don’t really know,” she said. “Most people think copepods are passive carriers of bacteria, basically an inert surface.”
Searching for telltale genes
“Does the copepod recognize different Vibrios and respond differently by activating different genes and producing different compounds to combat or encourage them?” she asked.
If they do, a similar “marker gene” might exist for copepods carrying the cholera bacteria—pointing the way for a test to detect water containing infected copepods and a new method to predict and prevent cholera outbreaks. Inspired by the Colwell’s work in Bangladesh, Aruda relishes the thought that her own research could have beyond-the-lab-bench applications too.
Do bacteria react to copepods?
“I’m looking to see if active and dormant copepods carry different types of bacteria, because their physiology changes so much between these two phases,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out why certain bacteria would want to live on a copepod in the first place.”
“It’s funny how what I used to think was ‘big’ has changed,” Aruda said.
As for marine animals of her own? “My roommates and I have a fish named Freckles,” she said. “That’s all I can really care for now!”
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what is creep of a load cell
What is creep of a load cell?
The creep of a load cell means: when load cell is in stable environment( for example, temperature, humidity) and other changeable aspects keep no change (for example: estable force system, load and other aspects),when load cell is loaded quickly a nominal load and unload the nominal load, within a certain time, the output of load cell changes with time. the normal creep have two types: positive creep, negative creep.
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Drifting techniques
From VDrift
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Drifting can be a very tedious and difficult feat to achieve. Some consider it an art, while others consider it recklessness. This is just a game, so pick up your paintbrush!
About drifting
"Drifting refers to a driving technique and to a motorsport where the driver intentionally over steers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels through turns, while maintaining vehicle control and a high exit speed. A car is drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle prior to the corner apex, and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa), and the driver is controlling these factors." (from Wikipedia) Drifting is caused by a lack of traction to the rear tires. The spinning of the tires causes the vehicle's rear end to "swing" out causing oversteer. Different cars will behave differently due to differences in torque, tire tread, weight placement, and suspension recoil. The spinning of the tires also "pushes" the back end of the car forward, so once in oversteer, it will need to be controlled.
Initiating a drift
There are a number of ways to get yourself into a drift. As said before, weight placement and suspension recoil can affect your traction on the rear tires. Here are some techniques:
Probably the easiest thing to do, but, however, most cars in the game do not have strong enough braking to do this. Just activate the handbrake and it will cause your car to lose traction.
Steer + gas
Ride your gas at a moderate RPM and steer into the corner. Once your front end starts turning, give it some more gas and you will get into an oversteer.
Suspension recoil
Use your suspension to "jump" the car into a drift. Steer away from the corner quickly and steer back in. This will cause a bouncing effect from left to right (or vice versa). Apply the "steer + gas" technique to get into oversteer if not achieved already.
The dip
"Dip" your back tires in the dirt or grass or whatever off the track. This will cause your back end to swing a bit.
Controlling the drift
This is simple to do, but hard to perfect. Essentially, you will only need to steer to get your wheels pointed the direction you want to go. You will also need to control your throttle. The slower your tires spin, the more traction you will have. The opposite happens with faster spinning tires. Control your throttle and be careful not to give it too much juice or you will most likely spin out. Spinning out usually happens when the car is oversteered too much. The tires keep spinning and your car continues to rotate into the turn, but the front end will have too much traction and cause the car to rotate more.
Some cars are easier than others to drift in the game. Excessive oversteer can be a problem for beginners. Lots of torque and traction make initiation and recovery easy.
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HCMV from J Virol
Human cytomegalovirus-infected cell
A number of viruses, especially herpesviruses, block the MHC class I antigen presentation system. It’s been widely assumed that this is for the obvious reason and that it allows the virus to avoid T cell recognition and elimination. But there’s been an awkward lack of experimental support for that assumption, to the point that I’ve begun to question it (and, more productively, to develop experimental systems with which to test it). (See the list of posts below for some of my earlier comment on the subject.)
Now, at last, Klaus Fruh offers actual evidence that this assumption may be correct. 1
This deserves a long post, which it’s not going to get today.2 Briefly, Klaus’s group used a herpesvirus of monkeys (rhesus cytomegalovirus; rhCMV) to test this. This is closely related to the human herpesvirus human cytomegalovirus, which is a ubiquitous virus; the vast majority of humans have it, are infected with it as toddlers, remain infected with it throughout their lives, and don’t suffer any problems with it. It’s a rare cause of a mono-like disease, and it’s a concern in immune-suppressed people (especially transplant recipients), but mainly it seems to be a pretty innocuous hitchhiker.
Previous posts on MHC class I immune evasion
Immune evasion does work
Herpesvirus immune evasion: An emerging theme?
Immune evasion: Who needs it?
Viral T cell evasion in vivo: The vanishing evidence
Immune evasion: What is it good for?
The CMV family of herpesviruses carry a particularly impressive arsenal of anti-MHC class I immune evasion genes. (MHC class I is the target that antiviral T cells, also known as cytotoxic T lymphocytes or CTL, recognize. There’s an outline of the process that permits that recognition here.) Whereas herpesviruses like herpes simplex, or chicken-pox virus, and so on, seem to use only one gene to block MHC class I, CMVs seem to use three or four. This would suggest that this sort of immune evasion is really important for these viruses, but when Ann Hill actually tested that notion in mice3 removing these immune evasion genes had only a very small impact.
Fruh’s group has now done something similar using his rhesus model, and looked at an unusual characteristic of CMVs: They are able to repeatedly superinfect the same host. That is, someone4 can be infected with CMV, can have an apparently effective immune response to CMV, and yet can be infected by a new CMV virus. This is pretty unusual, of course. You’d expect that there would be a vaccine-type effect, in which the natural infection would drive a protective immune response. As far as I know, you don’t often see this sort of superinfection even with other herpesviruses, which is why, for example, the chicken-pox vaccine works.
Virus-Cell Interaction; Joerg Schroeer; Art of Science
“Human cytomegalovirus infected human endothelial cells”
by Joerg Schroeer
They made a pretty drastic mutant of the RhCMV to eliminate all four of the MHC class I immune evasion genes (taking out another half-dozen genes as collateral damage, but they checked that these weren’t confounding the story). This mutant virus, in spite of having completely lost its ability to block MHC class I, was perfectly able to infect monkeys and to set up a long-term infection — just like Ann Hill’s findings with mouse CMV. What the mutant virus was not able to do was superinfection.
Together, our results suggested that RhCMV was unable to superinfect in the absence of the homologs of US2, US3, US6, and US11 because the virus was no longer able to avoid elimination by CTL. 5
But when the pre-infected monkeys had their CTL temporarily eliminated, then the mutant viruses were able to superinfect. What’s more, after the virus got in and set up its new infection, CTL couldn’t clear them, even though the viruses still had no ability to evade MHC class I:
Our data imply that T cell evasion is not required for establishment of primary CMV infection or once the sites of persistence (e.g., kidney and salivary gland epithelial cells) have been occupied, but rather it is essential to enable CMV to reach these sites of persistence from the peripheral site of inoculation in the CMV-immune host. 5
This is really cool stuff. It offers an explanation for why Hill’s group didn’t see an effect for MHC class I immune evasion in their mouse CMV model — they didn’t specifically look at superinfection, though they looked at many other aspects of infection. (Does mouse CMV superinfect as robustly as human?) It also offers an explanation for why experimental CMV vaccines have been ineffective — the immune evasion functions allow the virus to temporarily evade the immune response.
As I say, I don’t think superinfection is so common in other families of herpesviruses, so this may not be a universal explanation for MHC class I immune evasion by herpesviruses; but then, it’s been the CMV system that’s been most puzzling, anyway, so we may not need to go so far to look for answers after all.
2. I’m still chilling with my kids on their spring break, not to mention a dozen other distractions[]
3. Gold, M. C., Munks, M. W., Wagner, M., McMahon, C. W., Kelly, A., Kavanagh, D. G., Slifka, M. K., Koszinowski, U. H., Raulet, D. H., and Hill, A. B. (2004). Murine cytomegalovirus interference with antigen presentation has little effect on the size or the effector memory phenotype of the CD8 T cell response. J Immunol 172, 6944-6953.
Pinto, A. K., and Hill, A. B. (2005). Viral interference with antigen presentation to CD8+ T cells: lessons from cytomegalovirus. Viral Immunol 18, 434-444.
Lu, X., Pinto, A. K., Kelly, A. M., Cho, K. S., and Hill, A. B. (2006). Murine cytomegalovirus interference with antigen presentation contributes to the inability of CD8 T cells to control virus in the salivary gland. J Virol 80, 4200-4202.[]
4. Or some monkey[] |
source:A Special Story for Christmas: 'The Gift of the Magi'
I just can't understand the meaning of the bold sentence above, and I can't convince myself to accept that sentence as clarified —— especially the use of "which"! For there is nothing to choose from!
What's more, it's not a question sentence(without question mark)!
Why don't use "what",which seems much more natural and clarified to me?
It could be punctuated so:
So Della cried -- which led to the thought that ...
which = her crying
The antecedent of which is implicit there rather than explicit.
| improve this answer | |
It is, technically, not a sentence (as traditional grammarbooks use that term) but a subordinate clause, separated from its head clause by a period to coerce a 'pause' in your reading. (Real Writers write for the ear, not for the eye—and certainly not for grammar teachers.)
Specifically, it is a relative clause headed by which, whose referent is the previous sentence, Della cried. You may paraphrase:
So Della cried—and that led to the thought ...
It may surprise you to know that many modern grammars do not use the term sentence at all. Sentence is probably best reserved for analysis of written texts, where it means "whatever stretch of words lies between two full stops", those being periods, question marks, and exclamation marks.
| improve this answer | |
• Very useful and valuable explanation. Thank you very much. – dennylv Dec 4 '14 at 2:49
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Bridging gender gaps?
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Detalles del libro:
Editor:Universidad Nacional de la Plata
Páginas:353 páginas
Tamaño:2.76 MB
In the 1960s two out of ten adult women in Brazil were in the labor force, either employed or actively seeking for a job; half a century later this figure has changed dramatically, climbing to seven out of ten. This pattern has been typical of all Latin American countries, although with different intensities.
Compared to the situation some decades ago, women in the region now allocate a larger share of their time to market activities rather than working at home.
The gap with men in labor market participation remains far from being closed, and it is still larger than in several regions of the world, but its width has been substantially reduced.
Arguably, the strong increase in female labor force participation (LFP) is among the most salient socioeconomic changes in Latin America in the last half-century.
This fact not only implies a profound transformation in the daily life of millions of Latin American women and families, but also has substantial economy-wide labor and social consequences. Poverty, inequality, unemployment and education –just to mention a few social issues– are all affected by a more intense entry of women into the workforce.
Although remarkable, the long-run pattern of female gains has been insufficient to close the gap with males in most labor variables, such as wages, employment and labor force participation. Gender equality in the labor market remains a difficult challenge in the region. While gender gaps in education attainment have been substantially reduced or even eliminated, the region stills performs poorly in guaranteeing equality in the economic and labor dimensions. For instance, while Latin America ranks among the regions with relatively small gender gaps based on the Global Index of the World Economic Forum,1 the performance becomes more mediocre in the Economic Participation and Opportunity Sub index, which captures the gender gap in labor force participation rates, earned incomes, and employment in top positions.
This book highlights a change in the trend of female labor force participation that makes the situation potentially more worrisome: after around half a century of sustained growth, there are signs of a widespread and significant deceleration in the entry of women into the Latin American labor markets. That deceleration seems to have been taking place since the early/mid-2000s, and it applies to all groups of women, but particularly to those married2, and in more vulnerable households. The slower entry of women into the workforce has delayed the closing of the gender gap in labor participation, and makes improbable the fulfillment of the gender-equity Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to female employment. Although this book provides a general view of the issue of female LFP, the recent deceleration is highlighted in several of its chapters.
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Op-ed | Living off the land: Lunar water is key to crewed space exploration
The moon has formed the isolated backdrop for a new era of space exploration. As you read this, there are teams of exploration advocates around the world striving to reach its surface. This goal may be accomplished as early as next year.
This new age is one that is being led not by spacefaring superpowers seeking to fly flags and footprints but instead by numerous private companies, each vying to demonstrate their capability to fly 385,000 kilometers through the vacuous darkness of space and safely soft-land on our celestial neighbor. The rise of such companies follows the renewed focus on the moon by space agencies around the world, spurred on the by the Global Exploration Roadmap, as we prepare once again for crewed deep space exploration. This resurgence of lunar exploration has reached fever pitch and soon these private companies will provide the capability to deploy scientific and commercial payloads to various locations on the moon’s surface for the first time in history.
The price tag to perform such a magnificent feat of engineering? About $1 million per kilogram. Think about that for a second; that’s the mass of just 1 liter of water.
As the space industry continuously vies with the world’s biggest issues for its share of public support (and funding) it is imperative that we do everything we can to lower these costs and deliver milestones that truly benefit those of us left here on Earth. So, with such price tags on our most basic amenities, how could we ever possibly afford to permanently expand humanity’s presence further into space?
The answer lies in going back to the roots of human existence; living off the land. The moon’s barren surface was once described by Buzz Aldrin as “magnificent desolation” and it appears to be exactly that at first glance. But lying within the unmoving surface layers is a treasure trove of resources adequate to nurture a settlement of future explorers.
Among the plentiful resources on the moon are various metals trapped as oxides in the surface material (regolith). These oxides can be used in the coproduction of oxygen and pure metals to provide astronauts with breathable air and sturdy 3D-printed structures in which to shelter from micrometeorite impacts and the constant stream of potentially lethal cosmic rays that emanate from supernova explosions far outside our solar system.
Looking much further ahead, rare Earth metals may also be extracted for use in our advanced electronic devices or even Helium-3 for fuel in our yet-to-be-built fusion reactors. But the most immediate, and to me the most exciting, avenue for resource utilization on the moon is lunar ice.
Water has long been theorized to exist on the lunar surface due to a unique quirk of the entwined orbital geometry between the Earth and the moon. Due to this very stable set up, which has existed for billions of years, the moon’s axis is tilted only 1.5 degrees relative to the sun’s incoming rays. This means that at the lunar poles there exist regions within deep craters that are utterly untouched by sunlight.
This, coupled with the fact that there is little-to-no atmosphere, means that there are extreme temperature differences between light and dark on the moon, upward of 150 degrees Celsius. These unlit regions within craters, referred to as permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs, are now known to host vast quantities of water ice that have been lying in perfect isolation for hundreds of millions of years. Although an exceedingly difficult number to quantify, it is commonly believed that the quantity of water in these PSRs exceeds 100 million tons.
Companies and agencies around the world are already investigating if this lunar water can be successfully and efficiently harvested. If so, it will unlock untold possibilities for our future in space.
The beauty of lunar water is that it may prove to be remarkably easy to harvest with robotic technologies. ESA already has plans to demonstrate this through a proposed mission called Heracles. By utilizing a new NASA-led space station around the moon, the Gateway, which is slated for construction in 2024, astronauts can tele-operate a rover and collect lunar samples for eventual return to Earth. What’s more, many of the transportation companies that intend to fly to the moon within the next few years seek to demonstrate roving capability once on the surface. This means that within the next decade there may be tens of companies with the ability to harvest water robotically in preparation for the return of humans to the surface.
A mission profile which relies heavily on precursor robotic utilization, although perhaps not as exciting as watching a human bounce gleefully across the dusty lunar surface in low gravity, will reduce risks for astronauts. If enough water can be harvested in advance by their robotic companions, astronauts can arrive at a rudimentary base with preliminary supplies, thereby reducing the amount of propellant used at every step in the mission.
With access to lunar ice, we can finally realize our vision of sustainable, affordable expansion beyond low Earth orbit. Of course, the most obvious examples of this are purifying lunar ice through a simple boil-off procedure into drinking water. Or one could use solar arrays to harness the sun’s energy to electrolyze the ice and form oxygen for astronauts to breathe; a practice which is already commonplace aboard the International Space Station. Water will allow us to begin cultivating fresh food, which will have huge benefits for astronaut’s physical and mental health during future missions.
The list goes on. Water is even vital when not being consumed. Due to its high hydrogen content, it can be utilized as an efficient radiation protection to help shield astronauts from the never-ending stream of cancer-inducing space radiation.
In the far future, it will also be possible to convert lunar ice into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to form a rocket propellant with impressive characteristics. By leveraging the moon, or more precisely cislunar space, as a refueling station on the highway to deep space it may be possible to drastically lower the price of space exploration — as we would no longer have to lift hundreds of tons of extra propellant off the surface of the Earth. This point, I should note, is heavily contested due to the difficulties in storing liquid hydrogen over long durations. However, the skeptics would appear to be betting against the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, and his space company Blue Origin—it is no coincidence that their lunar lander, Blue Moon, will rely on a newly developed engine fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
Skeptics aside, there is no doubt in my mind that the moon is the ideal next steppingstone on our global exploration journey. And by utilizing the available resources in-situ, we will gain the ability to greatly reduce the costs of exploring the moon and work toward a truly sustainable and permanent outpost in space. Over the coming decades, and with the right nourishment from national agencies, new deep space industries will mature, and a lunar economy will be born: an economy with lunar water at its heart.
Calum Hervieu is a mission analyst at Planetary Transportation Systems GmbH (formerly PTScientists GmbH), a Berlin-based company that aims to land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon.
This article originally appeared in the Oct. 21, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine. |
Planets and Moons ID: 3618
LRO in Earth Centered and Moon Centered Coordinates
This visualization shows the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) orbit insertion from two different points of view (i.e., coordinate systems): Earth centered inertial coordinates and moon centered fixed coordinates. Orbit trails are shown in bright colors where the orbits have been and in darker colors for where the orbits will be. At any particular time, LRO is exactly at the intersection of the two orbit trail curves. The Earth centered coordinates are in blue and the moon centered coordinate are in orange.
Why are there two different trails?
Because the moon is moving, the moon centered coordinate system is moving. If the moon was stationary with respect to the Earth, both trails would look the same; but since the moon is moving, the moon's trail is always moving and the trails look different.
Think of LRO orbiting the moon. From the moon's perspective, it's just going in an ellipse around the moon. In this case, the observation point (the moon) is moving with LRO. But, from the Earth's perspective, if you plotted out the trail of LRO, you would get a series of loops as LRO goes around the moon and as the moon moves through the sky.
Animating an orbit trail that changes between two discrete coordinate systems is a challenge. A discontinuity arises if you just switch over from one trail to another. To animate a smooth transition one solution is to carefully select sections of the Earth centered and moon centered curves and then morph from the Earth centered curve section to the moon centered curve section while the animation was playing. This technique was used here as well.
Visualization Credits
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Ernie Wright (UMBC): Animator
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LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter)
Data Used:
CPC (Climate Prediction Center) Cloud Composite
LRO-Simulated Ephemeris November 2008
Hipparcos/Telescope/Tycho 2 Catalogue
Terra and Aqua/MODIS/Blue Marble: Next Generation May
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NASA Science >> Planets and Moons |
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State of the Global Phosphorus Cycle
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Session Description:
Roughly a generation ago, environmental scientists began a concentrated effort to document the extent, pace and consequences of human alteration to Earth’s major biogeochemical cycles. Early work stressed the links between carbon and climate, sulfur and acid rain, and nitrogen and a suite of environmental changes. For phosphorus, the concern was eutrophication of freshwater and marine ecosystems. Such work put biogeochemistry on the policy map, with some early positive outcomes, such as the reduction in sulfur emissions in the U.S., and the recovery of the Great Lakes. In the case of the carbon and nitrogen cycles, the problems are far from solved, but the last two decades have brought an explosion of scientific knowledge on how - and why - each cycle is changing, at every scale from local to global. As a result, substantive debates on how to mitigate the environmental threats are now happening in multiple sectors of society.
Yet, compared to the state of our knowledge on C and N cycles, phosphorus lags behind. We know humans have dramatically altered the global P cycle (and continue to do so), and we know that changes in P availability can substantially alter the structure and function of both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. We also know that interactions among the C, N and P cycles are pervasive, and often critical to understand if one wants to predict the behavior of any one of these elements. For example, soil P availability is likely to be a significant determinant of C storage (or loss) in both intact and converted tropical forests. Likewise, P availability can regulate inputs of reactive N to the biosphere, as well as their eventual fate. However, while we know humans are changing the P cycle, we lack a quantitative picture at regional scales of how much, how fast, and in what ways. Such information is essential not only for predicting well-recognized consequences of P enrichment, such as aquatic eutrophication, but also for understanding the ways in which the global C and N cycles will continue to evolve. Finally, useful reserves of reactive P are finite, and the long term sustainability of intensive agricultural systems depends on the careful management of P reserves.
A regionally-specific assessment of the global phosphorus cycle is needed. This activity was identified as a priority at the recent AGCI Workshop Managing the Global N and P Cycles. Like nitrogen, the majority of human-driven changes to the P cycle are linked to modern agriculture, and thus prior assessments of the N cycle will be enormously helpful to the efforts for P. For example, the rise of globalized economies and the biofuel industry over the last two decades have caused massive shifts in agriculture, causing new regional hotspots for reactive N, and a steep rise in global trade of N-containing commodities. We expect to find similar dynamics for P, and can use much of the information assembled for the N assessments as a basis for our proposed work.
The goal of this workshop was to finalize a strategy to complete the assessment, to identify components of the work that individual participants would lead, and to galvanize the entire process.
Workshop Topic (s):
• Land-Use/Land-Cover Change |
Visual Accommodation
Visual accommodation is a reflexive physical process in which the lens of the eye adjusts allowing images to become focused. These changes allow objects to be clear and in focus even when distances are changing. Visual accommodation is like a camera focusing on different points - it is a moving adjustment that puts into focus whatever is centered on at the moment. As you age the lens becomes less flexible and can't adjust as well leading to a loss of visual accommodation.
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HIV and AIDS social issues
In many regions, social issues increase the risk of HIV infection making it difficult to tackle the global HIV epidemic effectively.
Certain groups of people are more affected by HIV than others. Sometimes this is because they engage in high-risk behaviours, while others experience stigma and discrimination that stops them from approaching HIV services.
It is important that these issues are well understood so that specially tailored prevention programmes can be rolled out and target to those groups most at risk of HIV.
Rainbow LGBTI umbrella
HIV disproportionately affects people belonging to certain populations, such as men who have sex with men and sex workers.
close-up portraits of people from around the world
Stigma and discrimination persist everywhere, and continue to prevent HIV services from reaching the people who need them most.
gay pride parade
Homosexuality is illegal in 73 countries. As a result, many men who have sex with men face high levels of homophobia and can't access HIV services.
Woman in India laughing
Tackling gender inequality is key to reducing women’s vulnerability to HIV and achieving wider development goals.
The promotion and protection of human rights is essential in order to ensure an effective response to HIV and AIDS.
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10 August 2016 |
Preparing the Jewish people for their entry into the Promised Land, Moses paints a harmonious picture of one place where all will gather to celebrate and serve G‑d:
And you shall cross the Jordan and settle in the land the L‑rd, your G‑d, is giving you as an inheritance… And it will be, that the place the L‑rd, your G‑d, will choose in which to establish His Name there you shall bring all that I am commanding you: Your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the separation by your hand, and the choice of vows which you will vow to the L‑rd. And you shall rejoice before the L‑rd, your G‑d you and your sons and your daughters and your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite who is within your cities.1
The pilgrim festivals are central to this portion. The Torah commands us how and with whom to celebrate, but there is a glaring omission: although mentioned more than 10 times in the parshah, “the place the L‑rd your G‑d will choose” is left unnamed.
Moses spent 40 years teaching Torah and passing on the mitzvot with intricate detail. He transmitted the highly detailed laws of the sacrifices, including everything from which types of animals may be used to the location on the Temple where the animals should be offered. Yet the place where all this would happen is undisclosed. Why did Moses keep the location of the spiritual capital a secret? Why does the name of the city where the Holy Temple will be built remain a mystery?
Maimonides suggests three possibilities:
If the surrounding nations would know the future site of the Holy Temple, they would fortify the place with their strongest armies in an effort to stymie Jewish worship there.
If the current residents of the Temple Mount would realize the spiritual significance the place has to the Jewish people, they would do all they could to destroy and deface it.
The third reason (which Maimonides favors as the “strongest”) is that the Temple mount is in the portion of Judah and Benjamin. If the other tribes would know that it would not be in their portion, they would begin to quarrel over that spot, each one wishing to host G‑d in their own territory. G‑d solved this problem by only revealing His chosen location after Israel was ruled by a king who would be able to maintain peace even as some tribes were elevated over others.2
A more spiritual answer can be found in the verse where the phrase “the place the L‑rd, your G‑d, will choose” is used for the first time:
But only to the place which the L‑rd, your G‑d, shall choose from all your tribes, to set His Name there; you shall seek His presence and come there.3
“You shall seek His presence,” says the Torah. G‑d will choose Jerusalem only after the people themselves choose a place they feel is appropriate for His home. Only the Jew, who is part and parcel of the physical reality, can create a permanent dwelling place for G‑d in this physical world. Only after King David chose the site of Jerusalem, did G‑d, through the prophet, agree with the choice, establishing Jerusalem, and the Temple Mountain, as the spiritual capital of the world.
The holiness of every place G‑d chose for Divine revelation was temporary. The physical location of Mount Sinai, for example, did not retain its holiness. The one place chosen by humans (who did not wait for a sign from on high, but fulfilled the command to “seek His presence”) was the place that achieved permanent and everlasting holiness.
What is the lesson for us? To become the person we want to be, we cannot wait for inspiration from above. Inspiration alone will not change us for the better, unless we choose to get involved, to become a partner, to contribute to the effort, to do our part to “seek His presence.” G‑d will choose to send you Divine inspiration and success, but it will have a permanent effect only after you do your part in building your spiritual Jerusalem.4 |
Architectural Slants: Tilting Towers and Leaning Buildings
Earlier this week, we learned about the leaning houses of Canada’s Dawson City — the second largest city in Yukon. Website Boing Boing explained the reason for the architectural anomaly:
Many slanted structures shift because of natural phenomenon, but others were intentionally designed to tilt. Bent on exploring this architectural slant, we rounded up other leaning buildings past the break.
Capital Gate, Abu Dhabi
The Guinness Book of World Records certified Capital Gate as the “world’s furthest leaning man-made tower.” The 35-story, Abu Dhabi-based skyscraper stretches an impressive 520 feet into the air, boasts an 18-degree slant, and was built using 49 piles drilled about 100 feet into the earth’s surface. It’s a dramatic, modern wonder to behold.
Gate of Europe, Madrid
The twin towers that make up the Gate of Europe in Madrid look like something out of a sci-fi film thanks to their striking and imposing dark color with electric blue and red outlines. The structures have actually made appearances in several films (like The Day of the Beast and Sivaji), but when they aren’t in front of the camera, the second tallest Spanish towers are simply office buildings. There could be worse fates than shuffling papers in a 26-story, 374-foot tall, 15-degree slanted marvel.
The Dancing House, Prague
Although Prague’s Dancing House (aka Fred and Ginger, and the Drunk House) looks like a cruddy Photoshop job, we assure you that the downtown Nationale-Nederlanden building is the real deal. Designed by architect Vlado Milunić in cooperation with architect Frank Gehry, the slanted building initially caused a big stir since it stands in striking contrast to the baroque and art noveau buildings around it. Milunić’s goal with the design was to convey a kind of yin and yang, symbolizing the transition of Czechoslovakia from a communist regime into parliamentary system.
The Montreal Tower, Montreal
Jutting into the Montreal cityscape at the base of the Canadian city’s Olympic Stadium is world’s tallest slanted structure, The Montreal Tower. The 574-foot high-rise is considered a feat in organic modern architecture, its curved spine mirroring that of plant and animal forms. It also boasts a multi-story observatory with a funicular cabin that climbs to the upper deck for a stunning view.
The Klein Bottle House, Mornington Peninsula, Australia
Architect firm McBride Charles Ryan created this slanted beach house, which was developed with topological mathematics in mind. It’s about a two hour drive from Melbourne, features a central courtyard, grand staircase, and has won several awards for its unique design.
The Bella Sky Hotel and Conference Center, Copenhagen
3XN Architects created these dramatic towers that gently twist and lean away from each other. The exterior triangular pattern, while awesomely psychedelic, was actually intended to minimize solar heat gain and maximize energy efficiency. The Bella Sky is one of the largest hotels in Scandinavia, providing an exceptional view of the surrounding sea and meadows.
Leaning Tower of Suurhusen, Germany
The Guinness World Records once called this late medieval steeple the most tilted tower in the world, but it recently lost that title thanks to our previous entry, the Capital Gate tower in Abu Dhabi. Located in a village in northwestern Germany, the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen beats the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa by 1.22 degrees in terms of unintentional tilting action. So what happened to the 14th-century church? Its foundation of oak tree trunks was built on marshy land and preserved by groundwater. That drained during the 19th century, the wood rotted, and the tower — closed to the public since 1975 — started to shift. This was the Middle Ages, so don’t hold it against them.
Puzzling World and the Leaning Tower of Wanaka, New Zealand
It’s a tourist attraction, but an unforgettable one that features multiple slanted structures, including the Leaning Tower of Wanaka, which balances at a 53-degree angle. The rooms in various buildings are full of mazes, insane optical illusions, and other Alice in Wonderland-esque shenanigans.
Leaning Tower of Nevyansk, Russia
Built during the 18th century, the leaning Nevyansk Tower is mysterious in that no one is certain of its exact purpose, date of construction, or architect. It’s been called a watchtower, bell tower, prison, and even laboratory for secret experiments. Many folkloric legends speculate on its incline — stories that involve famous Russian manufacturer Akinfiy Demidov hurling the architect off the top of the tower, crying walls, and other bizarre tales.
Neuer Zollhof, Düsseldorf
Well-known American architect Frank Gehry designed three separate buildings that make up the Neuer Zollhof in the redeveloped port of Düsseldorf. The slanted style wasn’t just a consideration for the trio’s facade. The floor plans were also given the tilted treatment. The stainless steel exterior of the central building reflects the eye-catching, inclined design of the other two towers and emphasizes the Neuer Zollhof’s wobbly vibe.
Strandkanten, Tromsø, Norway
Near the Tromsø strait is this striking, slanted residential building, which was part of a recent redevelopment plan to concentrate growth in the city’s center and reduce the need for transportation. We just love how it looks like it’s about to tip over into the water.
Menzis, Groningen, Netherlands
A health insurance company dominates this multi-purpose, 12-story building, which is intersected vertically by an atrium, each of the three segments bent 90º in relation to each other. Although an extreme design like this can initially inspire anxiety, the building’s use of natural materials, a surrounding magnolia garden, unique terraces, and multiple water and light design considerations creates a calming atmosphere.
Polaria Museum, Tromsø, Norway
We probably don’t have to explain why the world’s most northerly aquarium in Tromsø, Norway is also known as the Dominoes Building. Its remarkable design represents ice floes that have been pressed up on land by the rough seas of the Arctic. Although the museum’s panoramic cinema sounds like a lovely attraction for visitors, we’d gladly just sit outside and stare at the building instead. |
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Skip to 0 minutes and 1 secondCan we afford to treat all the cancers that arise in our society? There are, obviously, arguments for and against this proposition. The reason people worry about it is that cancer is becoming more prevalent. Now, we have to be careful here. Many of our most important cancers are actually becoming less common in terms of age-specific incidence. So for instance, the incidence, the new cases, of lung cancer have declined substantially in many countries as the smoking epidemic has been brought under control. In our own country of Scotland, there was once a time when 80%, 80% of males smoked. Today, it's less than 20%. So the incidence of cancer has declined.
Skip to 0 minutes and 46 secondsHowever, the improved life expectancy that's happened in many countries, while we've controlled the risks of some cancers mean that many people now live in to an age group where cancer is more common. So the prevalence of cancer and the varieties of cancers have become greater. Allied to that is the awareness that some of the risk factors for cancer have become more common. So just as smoking has declined in Europe and North America, it's become more common in parts of Asia and Africa and some aspects of the diets that we eat in the industrialised world are predisposed towards cancer.
Skip to 1 minute and 30 secondsAlcohol is a risk factor for many cancers and there's no doubt that the cosmopolitan diet of the Western world and alcohol consumption has become more common in many locations. So you put all of this together, the ageing population together with the rising incidence of certain risks for cancer, and the burden of the disease becomes greater. At the same time, our ability to treat it has become much more sophisticated. The mainstays of surgical treatment and radiotherapy have now been added to by a vast array of chemotherapeutic agents, many of which are famously very expensive and the cause of some controversy.
Skip to 2 minutes and 17 secondsAlso, the inflation or the rising cost of many of these technologies outstrip the usual levels of economic growth in countries, like those in Europe and North America. So these factors combine. The expansion in medical technology, the ageing population and the rising risks together with the whole problem of inflation and cost pressures become sometimes extreme. There's also the issue of efficacy. If a new treatment is very expensive and only extends life expectancy marginally, should a wise government fund such an agent? Again, these are controversial issues. Now, the flip side of the argument is an ethical one. It is that human life is more valuable than anything else and that if we can provide a treatment, we're ethically required to do so.
Skip to 3 minutes and 20 secondsThat's a simple and straightforward argument, and it's lined up against these other cost and expansion pressures that I have set out already. Now, the tools we use to provide data to help us make decisions about these issues are, broadly speaking, what we call health economics. And what we do here is we look at the cost and the benefits of treatment. Now, benefits can be thought of in very wide terms and are sometimes difficult to establish. So we use other terms, like cost utility and the most common of these cost utility tools is the quality-adjusted life years. So what this means is that we make an assessment of the additional years of survival, but also the quality of those years.
Skip to 4 minutes and 11 secondsAnd health economists can do studies, which allow us to compare different forms of treatment and the number of quality-adjusted life years that result from them. Now, this has been done and these tables and these data are now widely available for patient groups, for clinicians, for politicians and for policymakers. And in broad terms, there's usually a threshold. If the cost for a single quality-adjusted life year rises too much, pressure comes from government not to fund that agent. Of course, that can be argued against by patient groups who would want that for themselves or for their relatives and that is the nature of the debate we find ourselves in at the moment. How far should we go?
Skip to 5 minutes and 5 secondsIs there a point at which the benefit is really not justified in terms of the cost? And there is no resolution to that. The views of politicians, of clinicians, of policymakers, of patient groups, of their relatives, and, indeed, of the whole population whose taxes fund these things need to be considered. And our societies find ourselves now in quite passionate debates about how we're going to resolve these issues. For those studying cancer, the important thing is to establish the facts as clearly as we can. What is the nature of the disease? What is its likely course? What is the philosophy of treatment we're adopting? And what are the health economic parameters that will help us to make a decision about them?
Skip to 5 minutes and 57 secondsThese are all dilemmas and they're very real and are likely to become more pressing as we go forward.
Health economics
Professor Phil Hanlon outlines some of the key concepts of Health economics in relation to cancer treatment.
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Why Electric Cars Can’t Charge Themselves
We often read in the news about electric car charging solutions being improved again and again. The usual story is that charging is getting faster and easier than ever before. Social media is also awash with other EV stories, though, especially on the subject of emerging technology that will allow electric vehicles to become either self-charging or at least passively charged without us, the drivers, having to do any plugging in.
As common as those stories are and as widely circulated on social media as they are, they do not reflect the current picture in the world of electric cars. The fact is that at this current moment in time, we don’t have either the technology or infrastructure to ensure cars can either self-charge or passively charge. In this article, we will seek to answer the burning question in many people’s minds: why can’t electric cars charge themselves?
Part 1: On EV Self-Charging – What’s out there?
When answering the question on why can’t electric cars recharge themselves, we must consider the question of technology the most. If you are the owner of an all-electric or hybrid car, you may be wondering why we’re talking on this subject, because your car can already self-charge, right?
Regenerative Braking
It’s true that many electric and hybrid cars have clever and innovative systems that can recoup energy as you’re driving along. It’s an ingenious system that converts kinetic energy into electrical energy which is transferred and stored in the car’s battery. It works by the driver pressing on the brake pedal, which prompts the electric motor to instantly switch to “generator mode.” Once in this mode, the wheels transfer energy via the drivetrain to the generator through their rotation. Some of this kinetic energy is captured and stored.
The operative word with regenerative braking is “some” of the energy is captured, not all. It is a great way to keep your car going, especially when driving in the city where you use your brakes a lot. It’s not yet, however, a viable technology to allow the car to fully recharge.
Solar Panels
Another idea that’s already out there is the concept of solar panels on the surface of a car continuously collecting energy and maintaining charge as you go about your daily driving. A team of Dutch developers released the Lightyear, which was based on a model they had previously used in various competitions to create a viable solar-powered car. The Lightyear is nothing short of remarkable, and the Netherlands company has moved from its competition concept to a street-ready car. It contains numerous solar panels all contained under safety glass and can self-charge about 7 miles of distance per hour while the cells are working. This is certainly sufficient if you only use your car to commute or for daily errands, but it’s no good if you plan longer journeys or greater use beyond that scope.
So, when it comes to self-charging, we have great ideas and we are already on the road to that goal, but we have some way to go yet.
Part 2: On EV Passive Charging – What’s out there?
Besides self-charging, the concept of passive charging is also one for which many electric car fans continue to eagerly await. A number of interesting solutions are in the pipeline, two of the most interesting of which are explained below:
Volkswagen Autonomous Charging Robots
No, this isn’t the name of a Volkswagen-sponsored video game, but rather an inspiring and creative solution to the need for EV charging. Volkswagen’s concept is that of a small army of autonomous robots that can be prompted via an app or V2X communication. Once activated, they would drive themselves to the car’s location to charge it up. They could be installed in parking garages and other locations where they can easily reach cars within minutes and offer to charge while you are at work or even just out for a day of shopping.
Inductive Charging
If the robots don’t grab you, then perhaps this possibility will. The concept of wireless charging has already taken hold in the world of smartphones and digital products, and there are now even products that can offer the same thing to your EV. The idea is to charge your car via electromagnetic induction, which works by having a pair of coils, one in the charging unit (transmitter) and one on your car (receiver). Between them is passed an electric current which is captured and stored in the battery. It already works for your smartphone, so why can’t we just do the same with your car?
A problem of infrastructure
With these two options, the problem of infrastructure comes as more important. The technology does indeed exist, but the question is how can we apply it to our aging national infrastructure? It will have to happen in stages, and will undoubtedly take many years to come to fruition. To use the induction technology as an example, here’s how it might look:
Stage 1 – apply the technology on the individual home level, where some products are already available, so you could say we are already at this stage.
Stage 2 – roll the devices out to be installed in parking garages across the country, which won’t require any road closures or major disruptions to the road network.
Stage 3 – extend the rollout to the highway network, where roads could have an entire lane or multiple lanes fitted with the devices, allowing cars to be continuously charging while traveling down the highway.
In Conclusion:
To sum up, the answer to the question in our title comes in several parts:
• The technology isn’t there yet – the best minds in automotive circles are working on it, but there’s still some time to go.
• Not enough political support – until governments are firmly behind the idea, it is unlikely we will see any policy changes that will get us to the stage of self-charging
• Lack of infrastructure – the above point on politics is directly linked to infrastructure since little political support means no money for infrastructure changes
Perhaps it will happen the other way around. As technology improves, perhaps EVs will win greater support from the public and governments. Until then, however, self-charging continues to be a pipe dream.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 maps:
Canada divided into four regions of equal populations (based on 2015 Federal ridings)
Population Density of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Federal districts of Russia as US states with similar population
1914 Argentine census: Percentage of Italian-born immigrants by provinces and territories.
Argentine Population Density
European-born population in Argentina in 1914 .
Structure of the population of Argentina by province
Argentina divided into 24 areas of equal population (1.7M each)
Argentina divided into 4 regions. Each region indicates where 1/4 of the population lives. (Census 2010)
Distribution of foreign-born population in Argentina (2010).
Area and population density between Argentina and European countries (1979)
Non-Slavic/Germanic populations in Russian federal subjects (as a percentage of RFS's total population). Info in the Comments
Population Density of Russian Federal Subjects
Flag map of Russia's federal subjects and countries that have a comparable population density to them.
Percentage of able-bodied population in Russian federal subjects
Argentine Provinces Based on Biggest Cities by Population (Metro Areas)
More than half of the population of Argentina lives in the Blue regions.
Distribution of the Chinese population in Argentina per province
Argentina provinces by population 2010
This heat map reflects the global diversity of ingredients in cuisine, with dark red being the most diverse. Countries with big immigrant populations like the U.S., Argentina, and Australia tend to have the greatest diversity.
Argentine Provinces Divided into Four Equal Population Areas
Argentine Provinces Divided into Three Equal Population Areas
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Something other than the look and taste of foods may be affecting what you order for dinner: how well lit a restaurant is. A new study done by the Journal of Marketing Research found that bright environments can make people more alert. Attentive eaters are more likely to choose healthier foods.
These findings showed that customers in well-lit restaurants were 16 to 24 percent more likely to order healthy foods, such as fish, veggies and white meat, than those eating in dimly lit eateries. The patrons in those low-light restaurants selected desserts or fried foods, ultimately eating 39 percent more calories.
But don’t start making a list of darkened restaurants to avoid just yet. The researchers found there are other factors besides a room’s light level that determine how vigilant diners are.
In follow-up studies, scientists noted that those in either bright or dim restaurants who drank a beverage they thought contained caffeine or were prompted to be alert also chose healthier foods. Researchers then concluded that making more healthful menu choices happens simply because we’re more aware.
Why not try your own experiment? Next time you dine in a shadowed bistro, stay alert. You might find that you subconsciously choose healthier foods. |
European tensions are growing. There is Brexit, a directionless and over-extended Germany, an ambitious but weak France, and a growing regional divide. But the main danger to the European project is democracy.
What is the European Union? The closest concept I can come up with is that of a liberal empire. An empire is a hierarchically structured block of states held together by a gradient of power from a centre to a periphery. At the centre of the EU is Germany, trying more or less successfully to hide inside a “Core Europe” (Kerneuropa) formed together with France. Germany doesn’t want to be seen as what the British used to call a Continental Unifier, even if in fact this is what it is. That it likes to hide behind France is a source of power for France vis-a-vis Germany.
Like other imperial countries, most recently the United States, Germany conceives of itself, and wants others to do the same, as a benevolent hegemon doing nothing else than spreading universal common sense and moral virtues to its neighbours, at a cost to itself that is, however, worth bearing for the sake of humanity. In the German-cum-European case, the “values” that are to give legitimacy to empire are those of liberal democracy, constitutional government and individual liberty, in short, the values of political liberalism. Wrapped into them, to be displayed when expedient, are free markets and free competition, i.e., economic liberalism. Determining the exact composition and the deeper meaning of the imperial value package and how it is to be applied in specific situations is a prerogative of the hegemonic centre – enabling it to extract a sort of political seigniorage from its periphery in return for its benevolence.
Preserving imperial asymmetries requires complicated political and institutional arrangements. Non-hegemonic member states must be ruled by elites that consider the centre with its particular structures and values as a model for their own country to emulate – or in any case they must be willing to organize their internal social, political and economic order so as to make it compatible with the interests of the centre in holding its empire together.
Keeping such elites in power is essential for empire to last; as the American experience teaches us, this may come with costs in terms of democratic values, economic resources, and even human lives. Sometimes ruling elites of small or backward countries seek subaltern membership in an empire, hoping for support from the imperial leadership in pushing through domestic “modernization” projects, against a citizenry that may not be enthusiastic about them. Welcoming their allegiance to its cause, the empire will help them stay in power, by endowing them with ideological, monetary and military means to keep oppositional parties at bay.
In a liberal empire that is supposed to be kept together by moral values rather than military violence, how this is to be done is not necessarily straightforward. Mistakes can be made, on the part of the imperial centre as well as of peripheral ruling classes, who may both overplay their hands. For example, Germany and France together, in spite of more or less surreptitious help from the European Central Bank, failed to keep the Renzi “reform” government in Italy in power against popular resistance. Similarly, Germany is right now turning out to be unable to protect the Macron presidency from the “Yellow Vests” and other opponents to his programme of economic Germanification.
Domestic difficulties are also faced by the hegemonic country itself. Under liberal imperialism its government must be careful to make its pursuit of its country’s national interests, or what it considers these to be, appear to be advancing the general progress of liberal values, from democracy to prosperity for all. In this it may require the assistance of its client countries.
This failed to be forthcoming when in 2015 the Merkel government tried to resolve the German demographic and reputational crisis by substituting unregulated asylum for regulated immigration, for which it had long been unable to get the Christian Democratic Party (CDU/CSU) to legislate. Opening the German borders under the pretence that borders could no longer be policed in the twenty-first century, or alternatively that open borders were demanded by international law, required that the European Union as a whole followed suit. No member country did so, however – some, like France, keeping silent about it, others, like Hungary and Poland, insisting publicly on their national sovereignty. As they broke, for domestic reasons, with the liberal-imperial understanding never to embarrass a fellow government, in particular that of the hegemon, they inflicted a domestic problem on Merkel from which she never recovered.
The event also produced a lasting line of cleavage in the internal-international politics of the empire, between the Centre and the East, dividing “Europe” further by adding to its existing divisions, in the West with the United Kingdom and in the South along its Mediterranean fault line (which became critical with the introduction of the common currency).
Even less than other forms of empire, a liberal empire is never in a settled equilibrium. Rather than a stable state, it is permanently under pressure, from below as well as from its sides. Lacking the capacity for military intervention, it cannot in particular use military power to prevent countries exiting from it. When the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union, Germany and France never considered invading the British Isles to keep them in “Europe”; so far the EU is indeed a force of peace.
From a German perspective, however, an amicable British departure might have undermined imperial discipline, as other countries unsatisfied with the imperial regime might have considered leaving as well. Even worse, if a British exit would have been prevented by meaningful “European” concessions in exchange for staying, other countries might have asked for renegotiation of an acquis communautaire deliberately written to be forever non-negotiable. So the choice for Britain had to be between remaining without concessions – the Canossa solution – and leaving at very high cost to itself. On the other hand, Britain had in many cases helped Germany escape from an all-too-tight French embrace, balancing French statism with a, for Germany, healthy commitment to free markets. With a British exit, that balance would be lost. France knowing this, it obviously insisted on tough negotiations, with the hidden, or not-so-hidden, agenda to make the British stick to their decision to leave. Taking advantage of German concerns over imperial discipline, France apparently got its way in spite of rivalling German concerns over having to cope with French ambitions in the absence of British support. It remains to be seen whether giving in to France was another short-sighted short-term opportunistic Merkel-style decision that will cost Germany dearly in coming years.
As to the UK, to the extent that its decision to leave was driven by nationalist as distinguished from either pro- or anti-socialist concerns, it may amount to a historical mistake. Brexit leaves France as the only nuclear power in the EU, and the only one with a permanent Security Council seat to boot. German objections to French leadership ambitions in a more tightly integrated EU drawing on German economic strength will now find less weighty support among the remaining membership. With Britain outside, France may hope to become the European unifier, trying to pressure Germany into a French-style European state project (“a sovereign France in a sovereign Europe” – Macron). Blocking such a development from the outside may turn out to be more difficult than sabotaging it from within. Remember how hard de Gaulle tried to keep the United Kingdom out of what was then the European Economic Community, arguing that Britain was not “European” enough.
Governance of an empire is inevitably also driven by geostrategic in addition to economic and ideological concerns, in particular on the empire’s territorial margins. Stabilizing border states on the extreme periphery is needed not just for economic expansion, although this is essential for an empire with a capitalist economy. Where an empire borders at another empire, expansionist or not, it tends to be willing to pay an even higher price for keeping cooperative national governments in or kicking uncooperative ones out. National elites that can threaten to break away and change sides should be able to extract more expensive concessions, even if their internal politics are quite unsavoury – viz. countries like Serbia or Romania.
Here, finally, military power comes in, as distinguished from the “soft power” of “values”. While a liberal empire would find it hard to use force on a wayward populace, it may protect friendly governments by enabling them to adopt a hostile nationalist posture toward a neighbouring country that feels threatened by the advancing empire; or it may provide cover if countries chose to adopt such posture. In return for this, a hegemonic power may get concessions, for example in the form of support on issues contested among member states. Viz. the Baltic States keeping silent on the admission and allocation of refugees in exchange for Germany building up its military and deploying it so that it threatens Russia.
Countries and their citizens at the centre of a liberal empire may hope to rule without recourse to military power. But ultimately this is an illusion; there cannot be hegemony without guns. It is in this context that the falling-in-line of the Merkel government with American and NATO demands for a near-doubling of German military expenditure to two per cent of GDP must be seen. Its real significance is not related to NATO but to the EU. If the two per cent goal was actually attained, Germany alone would be spending more than 40 per cent more on arms than Russia, and all of that spending would be on conventional weapons. Probably this would contribute to keeping countries like the Baltic States and Poland in the European Union flock, making it less attractive for them to place their bets on the United States instead. While it might enable Germany to get Eastern European EU member states to give up or moderate their opposition on “value” issues, such as refugees or “marriage for all”, it would also, unfortunately, give Russia good reasons to upgrade its nuclear arsenal (as Russia is doing right now) and encourage countries like Ukraine to take a more provocative stance toward Russia.
France, which already spends the magic two per cent on its military, might hope for a doubling of German military spending detracting from German economic prowess (although it is apparently also hoping for French-German cooperation in arms production and exports). More importantly, in a European army, as demanded by Macron and supported by German European integrationists, including the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the significant increase in German conventional capabilities that the two per cent would buy would compensate for the French weakness on ground troops, due to a disproportionate share of French military spending having to be devoted to the Force de frappe – an instrument that cannot easily be deployed against Islamist militants in West Africa trying to interrupt French access to uranium and rare earths.
The European empire, German or Franco-German, is not just liberal but neoliberal. Empires impose a uniform social order on their member states, which is or resembles the social order of their centre. In ‘Europe’ the domestic political economies of member states are governed by the four freedoms of the internal market and by a German-style common currency, the euro, which according to the Maastricht treaty is obligatory for all EU members. In this respect, the EU conforms strictly to neoliberal internationalism as conceived and historically updated by Friedrich von Hayek. Its central idea is isonomy: identical legal systems for formally still sovereign nation states, instituted on the premise that they are required to make international markets function smoothly.
The Achilles heel of neoliberalism, as we know from Friedrich Hayek and Karl Polanyi, is democracy. Isonomy and a gold-standard monetary regime require that the reach of popular-majoritarian democracy into the political economy be strictly curtailed. National governments within a neoliberal empire must be able, without fear of electoral punishment, to expose their citizens to the pressures of integrated international markets, for their own good — although they may not see it like that — and for the good of capital accumulation. For this the empire must endow these states with institutions, national and international, that help them keep electoral politics at bay. To be a weak state in relation to the market, a neoliberal state must be a strong state in relation to social forces demanding political correction of market outcomes. The concept for this is authoritarian liberalism, a political doctrine whose origins go back to the Weimar republic and the friendly encounter between neoliberal economists and the future ‘crown jurist’ of Nazi Germany, Carl Schmitt.
Authoritarian liberalism uses a strong state to protect a free market economy from political democracy. In the EU this is accomplished by internationalisation: the construction of an institutional setting in which national governments can turn over national economies to rule-setting international bodies, like ministerial councils and supranational courts or central banks. They relieve themselves of the responsibilities to their citizens, which come with national sovereignty, that they can or will no longer discharge.
Among the instruments that internationalism offers is what political science calls multi-level diplomacy. The negotiation of international mandates that national executives can import into their domestic politics, declaring them to be immutable due to their multilateral origin. It is an attraction of (neo)liberal empire for national elites that they are able to rely on such tools, especially when a stagnant financialised capitalism can no longer generate the optimistic expectations required for its legitimacy. This is how Peter Ramsay explains why Remainers among the British ruling class fight so hard for British membership in the EU: ‘Instead of the nation within, those governing elites look outwards to supranational intergovernmental arrangements for their authority … The EU is a voluntary empire made up of states that are in denial of their national character: in denial of the fact that the state’s authority derives from the political nation’.
Being hegemon in a liberal empire is far from easy, and in fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that Germany will not for long be able to do so. This is not only because overextension has always been a deadly temptation for empires, as last exemplified by both the Soviet Union and the United States. As to Germany in particular, the popular mood there is still essentially pacifist, and the constitutional prerogative of the German parliament to regulate even small details on the deployment of German troops will not be given up, not even to Macron, the glamour boy of the German political mainstream. Whether Germany post-Merkel will actually be able and willing to deliver on the two per cent is an open question.
There will also be a need for imperial side payments to the Mediterranean countries that suffer under the German hard-currency regime, and for “structural funds” supporting the Eastern European states and their “pro-European” political class. With France suffering from low growth and high deficits, it is only Germany that will be asked to chip in, the required order of magnitude easily exceeding its abilities. Note also that what since the refugee episode of 2015 has become the biggest opposition party, the AfD, while nationalist, is so only in the sense of isolationist and anti-imperialist – and is for this reason, branded by German liberal imperialists as “anti-European”. With benevolent reading, leaving aside for a moment the party’s disgusting fits of historical revisionism, AfD nationalism amounts to unwillingness to pay for empire, with corresponding willingness to allow other countries to do their own thing; see the party’s strong belief in appeasement instead of confrontation in relation to Russia, a belief it shares with the left wing of the Linkspartei. There are nontrivial similarities here with the Trumpist America First sentiment, which at least originally was isolationist rather than imperialist, a sharp departure from the liberal imperialism of the Clintons and Barack Obama.
1. On the question of hegemony see Perry Anderson, The H-Word: the Peripeteia of Hegemony, Verso, London/New York, 2017.
2. See Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: the End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass), 2018.
3. See Wolfgang Streeck, ‘Heller, Schmitt and the Euro’, European Law Journal, vol 21, no 3, Hoboken (New Jersey), May 2015.
4. Andrew Gamble, The Free Economy and the Strong State: the Politics of Thatcherism, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1988.
5. Robert D Putnam, ‘Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games’, International Organization, vol 42, no 3, Cambridge, summer 1988
6. See Peter Ramsay, ‘The EU is a default empire of nations in denial’, London School of Economics blog, 14 March 2019.
Author: Professor Wolfgang Streeck
Link to the original article:
Image: Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
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What is a Data Centre?
A data centre is a physical facility that companies use to house their business-critical applications and information. As companies evolve, it is essential to think long-term about how they can maintain the reliability and uptime of their business-critical software systems.
Data centres are often described as a singular thing. Still, in reality, they consist of a multitude of components such as servers, storage as well as support infrastructures such as network, power management, backup generators, cooling systems (HVAC), fire detection & suppression and user access control.
The support infrastructure can consume up to 80 per cent of the total capacity of a data centre.
These systems need to be managed by a 24/7/365 team of skilled IT technicians and moving systems from dedicated hardware in-house can often reduce the burden for IT teams.
Choosing a data centre for your business model can be crucial, as data centres can be indispensable for large corporations and even small and medium-sized enterprises are following the trend.
Moving to a data centre offers excellent flexibility in both terms of storage, network infrastructure (often 100GB+ speeds) and availability of remote agents.
Colocation in a Data Centre
One of the most well-known types of data centre hosting is known as colocation. Colo (colocation data centre) is a room that a data centre rents out to companies. Colocation is great for companies that wish to manage their hardware, yet utilise data centres excellent features such as fast fibre internet and backup network/power/cooling systems.
Companies that wish to use colocation will manage all components in the room, such as servers, storage systems, security and firewalls, while the data centre manages cooling, network and power systems.
The relocation, expansion, or consolidation of data centres is a complex process that must be weighed against the long-term viability of an organisation as a whole, as well as its financial and operational viability.
With these considerations in mind, more and more companies are finding that colocation can provide the solution they need without having to manage their own data centres. Also known simply as "colos," data centre colocations are services provided by companies that provide shared, secure storage space for hardware related to data storage and other devices.
Corporate customers engage Colo businesses in ways similar to how customers store equipment in their homes or offices, such as a garage or warehouse.
Colocation customers typically rent storage space, typically in server cabinets, from data centres. They fill the server cabinet with their hardware, and network and power is provided into the cabinet.
Data Centre Types
A data centre can be defined by its various levels of reliability and resilience, sometimes referred to as its levels.
Some data centres are assembled from shipping containers, also known as "data centre boxes," which can be moved and used when needed.
Small businesses can work with multiple servers and storage arrays networked in server rack cabinets or small rooms, while massive warehouses can be filled with data centre equipment and infrastructure.
In 2005, the US Department of Energy's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a report entitled "Defining a Data Center: A Comprehensive Guide to Information Security and Resilience," which helped shape the role of data centres in the United States and the global economy.
Cloud Providers and Data Centres
With cloud hosting and virtual servers, companies can use private cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) over colocation, eliminating the hardware costs and management.
Cloud service providers provide virtualised data centres to take on the role of the traditional data centre and networking company in the global economy.
These providers share virtual network and storage servers between multiple companies and shift storage, workload and processing from server to server as needed.
Since the services they provide, including networking, server provisioning and firewall management are delivered via software rather than hardware, they are known as "software-defined" data centres.
Virtualisation and the cloud transform the data centre, enabling it to react flexibly and responsibly to load fluctuations in real-time and manage large amounts of data.
A virtualised data centre also gives companies more flexibility in selecting their hardware, as cloud-based infrastructure and service platforms (IaaS) run on a variety of different hardware.
Combined with private or public clouds, using virtual data centres and infrastructure enables companies to save money on space and power in physical infrastructure.
Software-defined data centres can be cheaper - more effective than building and maintaining a physical data centre.
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Bias can be characterized as the preference for an opinion based upon a particular viewpoint as compared to other possible viewpoints about ideas, objects, people, or groups. This exercise emphasizes the contradictions inherent in the idea of bias. The exercise lists ten types of common biases. There is a mixture of biases in the list - some are biases towards something and others are biases against a particular feature. But not all types of Bias are included because of the difficulty in stating them as questions.
On the right side of the list are two columns headed Keep and Reject. Assuming that you have a choice in the matter, check Keep if you want to retain your current bias, and Reject if you would prefer to live your life without that particular Bias. Check neither if you are unconcerned either way about the bias.
For example the first bias in the list is “Bias towards your best friend or spouse”. I happen to think my wife is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. But I concede my bias in forming that opinion. I know this because indisputably not everyone would agree with me. I am equally sure that I would not want to wake up one morning and find I no longer had my bias towards my wife. So I would check the column marked Keep.
The list contains some tricky questions and note that there are no right or wrong answers as the purpose of the exercise is simply to make you think.
Bias Type
1. Bias towards your best friend or spouse
2. Bias towards your immediate family
3. Bias towards your friends
4. Bias towards your religious or atheistic beliefs
5. Bias towards your tendency for empathy
6. Bias towards your understanding of the world
7. Bias against the religious or atheistic beliefs of others
8. Bias against the lack of empathy in others
9. Bias against the way others understand the world
10. Bias against the obnoxious
If you are like most people you will have just chosen to keep some of your biases despite their potential to create so many complications. Congratulations you obviously appreciate one of the problems with bias and you are ready to move onto the next exercise below.
A typical definition of Bias is: a prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. But who determines what is fair or unfair. I prefer: a persistent judgment about ideas, objects, people, or groups based upon a particular viewpoint, as compared to other reasonable viewpoints. Bias becomes an issue when spoken or acted upon so others are substantially affected. A simple preference or personal choice does therefore not count as a bias.
Do these statements constitute bias?
1. “I like cheese”
2. “I don’t like spinach”
3. “Spinach is the most healthy vegetable”
4. An attempt to persuade by unbalanced comments
5. An initial reaction to a person who looks different
6. An overt lie (not a white lie)
1 & 2: The first two statements are clearly matters of opinion so cannot be considered to be biases. 3: The third statement is perhaps an overstatement but it would be difficult to claim it is biased unless the comment was meant to demean or influence someone who held a more balanced view. Then it definitely would be a bias. 4: Unbalanced views can be shown to always contain bias. 5: Not a bias because something that it different or unusual will always catch our attention and cause a reaction somewhat different from those things that are more familiar to us. It does however present a very definite potential for bias. 6: This is a bias (see later). |
If French is the language of love you can be certain that English is the language of opportunity. Mandarin may have the highest number of speakers but English is in fact the most widely used language on planet earth. There are at present 196 countries in the world and 60 of these use English as their first language. It is also the official common language of the EU, NATO and the United Nations. Approximately 1 billion people are learning the language and 1.5 people speak it already.
Being able to communicate effectively in English will help you in every aspect of your life. For those who travel frequently, will find that businesses based in tourism will use English as the primary language used to communicate. You will be able to travel to a vast amount of countries in the world and never have to worry about what you are going to eat or where you will have to stay. It is also common in countries that do not use English as their first language, to communicate with you using English as its deemed to be the “common language” meaning that many people know how to speak it.
Studies of 5300 employers in 38 different countries have shown that over 50% of employers will offer a better employment package to a potential employee who can speak English and that in every industry surveyed that there is a gap between the English language skills the current employees possess and the English language skills required in that field of work. This proves that there is still a huge demand for the skill and that employers are willing to compensate for the attribute.
English is often referred to as the “language of business” and if you wish to enter this field then knowledge of English is essential. It means that you will be able to attend and participate in international business. When more than one language is present between companies it is common practice to revert to English to conduct business.
Even if you do not wish to attend university or progress your career it’s worth noting that 95% of internet web pages are written in English. Not being able to read English will seriously limit the amount of knowledge and information available to you globally.
English isn’t just to be considered for education and business however, the majority of pop culture is dominated by the language. The vast majority of films are made in Hollywood and therefore are written and performed in English. Say goodbye to badly dubbed movies and enjoy them as they were intended to be enjoyed.
It can also not be forgotten the wealth of literature there is written in English; Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens and perhaps even more recently Rowling. Do not deny yourself access to these works of genius by limiting yourself.
It can be intimidating deciding you want to learn a new language and there has to be an acceptance that the only way to be good at it, is to practice, practice, practice. However, there is one last key point regarding why you should learn English.
It is actually one of the easier languages to learn contrary to what some may believe. For example there is no masculine or feminine in English and the language does not possess accents. You never have to worry about a “la” or an “El” or being able to drill your letter R like a motorbike. It will take hard work and it will require dedication and practice, but it is guaranteed that with English what you put into learning you will make up for in earning.
If perhaps, you are not ready to enter the workplace but wish to further your education, it may be of interest to know that if you wish to attend the highest performing universities in the education league tables for example; MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Stanford, if you are not a native English speaker you will have to pass a proficiency exam to prove your English is at a high enough level to attend these universities.
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oil ●●●●●
تلفظ آنلاین
Oxford 3000 vocabularySPEAKING vocabularyWRITING vocabularyCOLLOCATION
oil /ɔɪl/ noun
روغنکاری کردن ، چربی ، مرهم ، نفت ، مواد نفتی ، نقاشی با رنگ روغنی ، روغن زدن به ، روغن کاری کردن ، روغن ساختن ، علوم مهندسی: روغن ، عمران: نفت ، معماری: نفت ، شیمی: روغن ، بازرگانی: نفت ، علوم نظامی: روغن زدن
: oil (to)
معماری: روغنکاری
مهندسی صنایع: تولید: روغن - مواد نفتی
[TahlilGaran] Persian Dictionary
Synonyms: lubricate, grease
[TahlilGaran] English Synonym Dictionary
I. oil1 S2 W1 /ɔɪl/ noun
[Date: 1100-1200; Language: Old French; Origin: oile, from Latin oleum 'olive oil', from Greek elaia 'olive']
1. NATURAL SUBSTANCE UNDER THE GROUND [uncountable] the thick dark liquid from under the ground from which petrol is produced ⇒ crude:
a rise in the price of oil
the importance of protecting our oil supplies
an oil refinery (=factory where oil is made purer)
2. FUEL [uncountable] a smooth thick liquid that is used to make machines run easily or is burned to produce heat:
Check the oil level in your car every week.
The heating system runs on oil.
LIQUID FROM PLANTS [uncountable and countable] a smooth thick liquid made from plants or some animals, used especially in cooking or for making beauty products:
cooking oil
olive/vegetable/sunflower etc oil
coconut oil shampoo
Fish oils are supposed to help relieve arthritis.castor oil, cod-liver oil, linseed oil
4. PAINT oils [plural] paints that contain oil Synonym : oil paints
in oils
I usually paint in oils (=using oils).
burn the midnight oil at burn1(20), ⇒ pour oil on troubled waters at pour(8)
[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English
II. oil2 verb [transitive]
1. to put oil onto part of a machine or part of something that moves, to help it to move or work more smoothly:
The bicycle chain needs oiling.
2. to put oil or cream onto your skin, for example to protect you from the sun:
I asked Simon to oil my back for me.
3. oil the wheels British English to help something to be done in business or politics successfully and easily
[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English
I. used as fuel/to make machines work smoothly
ADJ. heavy | light | crude | refined | offshore | engine, fuel, heating, lubricating, motor | linseed, paraffin Use a rag soaked in linseed oil.
QUANT. barrel | film a rod coated with a film of oil
VERB + OIL extract, obtain, produce | drill for The company is drilling for oil in the North Sea.
discover, find, hit, strike | pump | export, import | burn, use | change (in a car, etc.) | soak sth in | smell of The place smelled of paint and oil.
OIL + NOUN company, producer | industry, production | drilling, exploration | field, rig, well | drum | tanker | refinery | prices, revenue | slick, spill, spillage a seven-mile-long oil slick off the Scottish coast
[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary
II. used in cooking
ADJ. cooking | polyunsaturated | rancid | coconut, cod liver, fish, groundnut, olive, sesame, sunflower, vegetable a bottle of extra virgin olive oil
VERB + OIL heat | boil sb/sth in, cook sth in, fry sth in | drizzle, pour Toast the bread, rub with garlic and drizzle over a little olive oil.
PREP. in ~ Fry the potato in a little sunflower oil.
⇒ Special page at FOOD
[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary
III. used as a cosmetic/medicine
ADJ. aromatic, fragrant, scented | essential extracting essential oils from flowers
body, hair | baby, bath | aromatherapy, massage | castor, evening primrose, lavender, etc.
VERB + OIL massage/rub into, massage/rub sth with She rubbed a scented oil into her hair.
anoint sb/sth with The sick were anointed with oil.
PREP. ~ of oil of rosemary
[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary
discover/find oil
Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938.
How does a company go about finding oil and getting it from the ground?
hit/strike oil (=to find oil when you are digging for it)
The engineers drilled down a few hundred metres until they hit oil.
The Ohio Oil Company struck oil on May 3rd.
drill for oil
Plans to drill for oil off the New South Wales coast have recently been revived.
produce oil (=to have natural areas of oil, and take it out of the ground)
The US does not produce enough oil to meet its own needs.
extract oil formal (=to take oil out of an area)
the difficult process of extracting the oil
crude oil (=oil in its natural state)
the price of crude oil
refined oil (=oil that has been treated by an industrial process)
They had exported refined oil.
offshore oil (=found under the sea, not far from the coast)
The company has the technical capabilities to produce offshore oil.
heavy/light oil
2,000 barrels of heavy oil are produced a day.
The oil corporation announced the discovery of another field of light oil.
oil prices
The increase in oil prices has prompted warnings of a global recession.
the oil industry
He works in in the oil industry.
an oil company
YPF was the state oil company in Argentina.
an oil producer (=a country which produces oil)
The Soviet Union is the world's largest oil producer.
an oil refinery (=a place where oil is treated by an industrial process)
an oil refinery in Perth
oil production
a fall in US oil production
an oil spill (=situation in which oil comes out of a ship or other container into the sea)
a terrible oil spill near the Shetland Islands
an oil crisis (=situation in which there is not enough oil, and the price of oil is very high)
The world is facing an oil crisis.
an oil rig (=structure on land or in the sea with equipment for getting oil out of the ground)
an oil rig in the North Sea
[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary
See: pour oil on troubled waters
[TahlilGaran] English Idioms Dictionary
TahlilGaran Online Dictionary ver 14.0
TahlilGaran : دیکشنری آنلاین تحلیلگران (معنی oil) | علیرضا معتمد , دیکشنری تحلیلگران , وب اپلیکیشن , تحلیلگران , دیکشنری , آنلاین , آیفون , IOS , آموزش مجازی 4.22 : 2179
4.22دیکشنری آنلاین تحلیلگران (معنی oil)
دیکشنری تحلیلگران (وب اپلیکیشن، ویژه کاربران آیفون، IOS) | دیکشنری آنلاین تحلیلگران (معنی oil) | موسس و مدیر مسئول : |
Sialocoele in a dog
Several aspirates were taken from a unilateral submandibular swelling in a 4-year-old, male entire Labrador.
Fig 1. Large clumps of pale blue-grey mucoid material are present, consistent with saliva. This is interspersed with moderate numbers of foamy macrophages.
Fig 2. Chronic haemorrhage is a common finding, characterised in this figure by haematoidin (golden yellow pigment) and haemosiderin (green-blue pigment).
Final Diagnosis
This is the typical cell picture associated with a salivary mucocoele (sialocoele). |
Lake Ugii is a fresh watered lake located in steppe. It covers 25 square km in area, 7 km long and 5 km wide. The lake is 15 meters deep at its deepest point. Ice sheets form over Ugii Lake between November and May. Researchers have discovered 14 different species of fish, 27 species of floating plants, and 48 species of floating animals. It is a stopover point for more than 150 species of migrating water birds. The lake was registered as a part of the east-north Asian international network system that protects goose and duck flocks, due to the large populations of cape barren goose and a spoon bill in the lake. Also the lake is worshiped so locals prohibit women to get into the water. In 1971, Ramsar convention registered Ugii Lake as a protected water ecosystem. |
• Sunday, June 7, 2020
Guesstimated Production in WW II
Discussion in 'Military History & Tactics' started by samjok, Jul 31, 2011.
1. samjok
samjok FULL MEMBER
New Recruit
Jul 29, 2011
+0 / 17 / -0
Guesstimated Production in WW II:
World Population in 1939 (millions): China 515, India 378 (in 1939 it included Pakistan and Bangladesh), USSR 170, USA 131, Germany (including Austria, etc,) 84, Japan 71 (plus 23.4 Koreans), UK 48, Italy 44, France 42, Brazil 40, Poland 35, Romania 20, Philippines 16, Czechoslovakia 15.3, Canada 11.3, South Africa 10.2, Hungary 9.1, Holland 8.7 (plus 69 from the Dutch West Indies), Belgium 8.4, Greece 7.2, Australia 7, Bulgaria 6.5, Malaya 4.4, Denmark 3.8, Finland 3.7, Norway 3, Lithuania 2.6, Yugoslavia 2, New Zealand 1.6, (these countries didn´t fight, but had: Spain 25, Mexico 20, Iran 14.3, Argentina 9, Portugal 6.5, Sweden 6.3, Switzerland 4.2).
1939 Steel Production (million tons): USA 51.4, Germany 23.3, USSR 18.8, UK 13.2, France 6.2, Japan 5.8, Italy 2.3, Canada 1.4, Australia 1.2, India 1. Note the absurdity of India with 378 million people, inexpensive labor and plenty of ore producing only 1 million tons and Australia with 7 million people producing 1.2 million tons. In contrast in 2009 India would produce 11 times more steel than Australia, although India no longer includes Pakistan and Bangla Desh and has no access to British investors, as it did in 1939. This provides a glimpse at the extreme inefficiency of British colonial government in India.
Japan’s wartime steel production peaked in 1943 at 9.6 million tons, but in 1945 Japan produced only 120,000 tons.
Germany’s steel production also peaked in 1943 at 38 million tons, in 1944 it dropped to 31.33 million (a remarkable amount, considering the massive bombing inflicted on German industry.
Incredibly, US Steel Corporation alone employed 340,000 people in 1943 and produced over 30 million tons. The total US production reached 89 million tons in 1943. So the steel industry alone probably employed over 1.2 million people in the US.
America alone produced 320,000 airplanes during WW II!. Including about 100,000 fighter planes (including night fighters), 40,000 twin engine bombers and transport planes (mostly C-47, B-25 Mitchell, PV-1, Douglas A-20, PBY, etc,), over 35,000 four engine bombers & cargo planes (mostly Liberators and Fortresses and a few thousand Super Fortresses and C-54s) and many single engine bombers, torpedo planes, transport, liaison, spotting, rescue and reconnaissance airplanes. About 55,000 of these planes were especially sturdy aircraft carrier units, designed to resist the impact of the landings in near collision conditions.
Guesstimated Airplane Production During WW II:
Axis: Reich 119,000, Japan 76,000, Italy 11,000, Romania & Hungary 2,000 Total 208,000 (practically no 4 engine bombers)
Allies: US 320,000, USSR 157,000 (36,000 Sturmoviks, 25,000 Po-2 biplanes), GB 131,000, Canada 16,000 Total 608,000 (about 50,000 of which were 4 engine planes made only by the US and GB. Note that GB alone produced 10% more planes than Germany, 15,000 of them with 4 engines)
Guesstimated Average Flight Hours Before Combat for A Pilot (in Germany, Italy and Japan the time decreased as fuel and pilots became more scarce, while it gradually increased in the USSR, US and Britain as more pilots and fuel became available):
Axis: Reich 250, Italy 180, Japan 150
Allies: US 400, GB 350, USSR 220
Guesstimated Tank & Self Propelled gun Production:
Axis: Reich 60,000, Italy 3,000, Japan 3,000. Total 66,000 (only 6,000 Panthers and 1,347 Tigers and 492 King Tigers)+3,600 captured vehicles that they used in the war
Allies: USSR 99,000, US 83,000, GB 28,300, Canada 2,600: Total 213,000
Guesstimated Submachine gun production:
Axis & Finland: Reich 1.6 million, Italy 400,000, Finland 80,000, Japan 25,000 Total 2.105 million
Allies: USSR 7 million, US 780,000, GB 620,000: Total 8.4 million (4 times more than the Axis)
Guesstimated Mortar Production:
Axis: Germany 74,000, Japan 29,000, Italy 22,000 Total 125,000
Allies: USSR 200,000, US 105,000, GB 103,000 Total 408,000 (3.3 times more than the Axis)
Guesstimated Machine gun Production:
Axis: Reich 680,000, Japan 380,000, Italy 160,000 Total 1,220,000 (by far most of them 8 mm or below)
Allies: US 2,670,000, USSR 1,477,000, GB 297,000, Canada 252,000, Total 4,666,000 (3.8 times more than the Axis, mostly 7.62 mm
over a million 12 mm)
Guesstimated Rifle Production:
Axis & Finland: Reich 7 million, Japan 4 million, Italy 1.8 million, Finland 300,000 Total 13.1 million
Allies: USSR 9 million, US 9 million, GB 6 million Total 24 million (Most of the American rifles were semiautomatic and over a million automatic)
Guesstimated Artillery Production:
Axis: Reich 159,150, Japan 13,350, Italy 7,200, Hungary 447 Total 180,147
Allies: USSR 516,000, US 257,000, GB 124,000, Canada 10,000 Total 907,000 (5 times more than the Axis)
Guesstimated Military Truck Production:
Axis: Reich 346,000, Japan 166,000, Italy 83,000: Total 595,000
Allies: US 2,380,000, Canada 815,000, GB 480,000, USSR 197,000 Total 3,872,000 (6.5 times more than the axis)
Guesstimated Men and Women at Arms Throughout the War (million):
Axis, etc,: Reich 19, Japan 6, Italy 3 (joined the allies in 1943), Romania 0.7 (joined the allies in 1944), Hungary 0.6 (joined the allies in 1944), Finland 0.5 (joined the allies in 1944), Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania 0.5 Total 28,300,000 (German women served mostly in Flak)
Allies: USSR 24, US 12, China 7, GB+Canada, Australia, NZ, etc, 6 India 5 Total 54,000,000 (not including 2 million Frenchmen and 1 million Poles, most of whom only participated for a few months and over 2 million partisans and resistance fighters: Poles, French, Filipinos, Chinese, Yugoslavs, Indonesians, Malays, Vietnamese, Norwegians, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Dutch, Danes, Greeks, Soviets, etc, and other allies: Brazilians, etc,)
Guesstimated Fleet Aircraft Carrier Production (141 American and 25 British light or escort carriers not included):
Axis: Japan 16 Total 16
Allies: US 22, Britain 14 Total 36
Guesstimated Destroyer Production:
Axis: Japan 63, Reich 17, Italy 6 Total 86
Allies: US 349, GB 240, USSR 25 Total 614 (7.14 times more than the Axis)
Guesstimated Submarine production:
Axis: Reich 1,141, Japan 167, Italy 28 Total 1,336 (3.16 times more than the Allies, very successful before 1942, became almost suicidal in 1943).
Allies: US 203, Britain 167, USSR 52 Total 422 (American subs & mines wiped out most of the Japanese merchant fleet)
Guesstimated Merchant Shipping Tonnage Production:
Axis: Japan 4.15 million Italy 1.4 million Total 5.62 million (Germany used mostly captured ships from Norway, Holland, Denmark, etc,)
Allies: US 34 million, GB 6.38 million, Canada 3.74 million Total 44.12 million (7.85 times more than the Axis)
Guesstimated Cruiser Production:
Axis: Japan 9, Italy 6, Reich 2 Total 17
Allies: US 48, GB 32, USSR 2 Total 82 (4.8 times more than the Axis)
Guesstimated Oil Production (million metric tons):
Axis: Reich 33.4 (23.4 of them synthetic), Romania 25, Japan 5.3, Hungary 3.1 Total 66.8
Allies: US 833, USSR 111, GB 91, Canada 8 Total 1,043 (15.6 times more than the Axis!)
Guesstimated Coal Production (million metric tons):
Axis: Reich 2,420, Japan 185, Italy 17, Hungary 7, Romania 2 Total 2.631
Allies: US 2,150, GB 1,441, USSR 591, Canada 102 Total 4,284 (Note that the huge USSR produced 2.44 times less coal than the UK and 3.6 times less than Germany)
Guesstimated Military Deaths (millions):
Axis, etc,: Reich 5.5 (1.3 million in the last 4.5 months), Japan 2, Italy 0.5, Romania .4, Hungary .4, Finland .2 Total 9
Allies: USSR 10.8, China 3.8, Yugoslavia .5, UK .5, US .5, India .2, Canada .1, Australia .1 Total 16.1
Guesstimated Civilian Deaths (millions):
Axis, etc,: Reich 2.1, Japan .7, Rumania .4, Hungary .3, Finland .1 Total 3.6
Allies: China & Taiwan 15, USSR 13, Poland 4, Indonesia 4, India 2, French Indochina 0.7, Yugoslavia 0.7, Czechoslovakia 0.4, France 0.4, Greece 0.3, Holland 0.2, Philippines 0.2, UK 0.1 Total 40.9
America also produced 35.000 landing craft, over 600,000 jeeps, thousands of railroad engines, hundreds of thousands of railroad cars, 6 million tons of bombs, 42 billion rounds of ammunition, 24 million uniforms and boots, 8 million helmets, hundreds of thousands of parachutes, billions of tons of grain, meats, eggs, dairy products, vegetables, fruits, steel, non ferrous metals, etc, and most importantly, besides producing prodigious amounts of invaluable supplies for all the allies, the US simultaneously developed and produced the atomic bomb.
The Allies had a proximity fuse for antiaircraft shells, but the Axis’ countries didn´t.
The Reich also produced 6 million Panzerfaust and 289,000 Panzerschreck.
The myth of the inferior German aviation gasoline during WW II: The same gasoline can be rated at 100 octane with a lean mixture and at 130 octane with a rich mixture. The allies used the rich rating and the Germans the lean rating. Accordingly, in 1944 the 100 octane German gasoline was equivalent to the 130 octane American gasoline. Incredibly, today’s American avgas is rated at 100 octane with a rich mixture, so that the supposedly inferior German gasoline of 1944 is much superior to todays avgas. This shows how little we really value quality over quantity. Higher octane gasoline allows for higher compression ratios, which produce more power with the same engine displacement and fuel.
Industries and activities employing more than a million people each during WW II in the US:
1)Steel, 2)Military Trucks, Jeeps, cars, etc,3)Aviation, 4)Smelting & Forming of Copper, Aluminum, Zinc, Tin, Lead & Other Nonferrous Metals, 5)Artillery, Tanks & Self Propelled Guns, 6)Munitions, 7)Machine & Submachine Guns, Rifles, Bazookas, Mortars, etc, 8)Sulfuric & Nitric Acid, Insecticides, Fertilizers, Explosives & Other Chemicals, 9)Building Merchant Ships, 10)Building Naval Ships, 11)Machine Tools, Hand tools, Cutting Tools, Abrasives, etc, 12) Mining, 13)Bolts, Nuts, Nails, Rivets, Welding Rods, Solder, Glues & Other Fasteners, Wire Mesh & Barbed Wire, 4)Lubricants, Paints, Solvents, Primers, Electroplating, etc, 12)Food Processing (pasta, dairy products, canned meats, fruits and vegetables, ham, K-rations), 13)Transportation, Freight, Packaging, Loading & Unloading, 14)Fabrics, Leather & Glass, 15)Uniforms, Boots, Helmets, Bayonets, Canteens, Blankets, Tents, Quanza Huts, etc, 16)Instrumentation, gauges, measuring equipment, 17)Medical Supplies, 18)Lumber, Plywood, Sheetrock, etc, 19)Crude Oil & Refineries, 20)Cement, Gravel, Sand & Stone, 21)Post, Paper Mills, Telephone, Printing, Telegraph, 22)Planning, Logistics, 23)Cigarettes, Low Alcohol Beer, Sodas, Candy Bars, Instant Coffee & Cocoa, Potato Chips, Booze, Soap, Water Treatment Plants, Water Tanks, Boilers, Pumps, Compressors, etc, 24) Manhattan Project, 25)Farming (crops), 26)Fishing, Cattle, Pigs and Poultry.
The miraculous production achieved in the US was made possible by long work hours, millions of housewives, single women and foreign workers and by very efficient production methods, which allowed millions of men to join the navy, army, air force, etc, over a million women also served as nurses, office workers, transport pilots, ferry pilots, etc,
Germany used 2.75 million horses, the USSR 3.5 million horses. The US used no horses in France or Germany and a few thousand in Burma, Italy, etc, A jeep can two a 5" gun much faster and for longer distances than horses can and with less fuel.
Throughout WW II the Soviets received about 2,050 Hurricanes, 1,020 Spitfires, 4,700 Airacobras, 2,100 P-40s, 2,400 Kingcobras, 203 P-47s, 5,000 Douglas A-20s, 866 B-25 Mitchells (18,339 planes in total), 2,000 Railroad engines, 4,100 Sherman tanks, over 300,000 Ford and Studebaker trucks, 51,000 Willys MB jeeps, 11,000 railroad cars, millions of tons of high octane aviation fuel, food, steel, explosives, boots, etc, The Iranian railroad alone transported 5 million metric tons of supplies to the USSR. In total the USSR received 178 million metric tons. In contrast, the Germans had to relocate many Luftwaffe units from the USSR to North Africa in the winter of 1942 (during the Battle of Stalingrad), lost over 25,000 airplanes on the western front and their factories, rail road centers, power plants and cities were consistently bombed, which greatly contributed to the defeat of Germany in the USSR. During 1944 the Germans lost on average 1,000 planes per month to the eastern allies and 400 to the Soviets.
2. samjok
samjok FULL MEMBER
New Recruit
Jul 29, 2011
+0 / 17 / -0
It is unfortunate that this forum does not allow editting after a while. I want to correct a mistake in the production of submachine guns, where I had neglected the 1.5 million Thompsons produced:
Guesstimated Submachine gun production:
Allies: USSR 7 million, US 2.2 million, GB 620,000: Total 9.82 million (4.7 times more than the Axis) |
An Analysis of THE MOST LAMENTABLE ROMAN TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS (Shakespeare) / TITUS ANDRONICUS by William Shakespeare / TITUS / An Essay on TITUS ANDRONICUS (Shakespeare) by Joseph Suglia
An Analysis of The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare)
by Joseph Suglia
“Does man kill or torture because he has come to the conclusion that he has the right to do so? He kills because others kill. He tortures because others torture… I kill because you kill. You and he and all of you torture; therefore, I torture. I killed him because you would have killed me if I had not. Such is the grammar of our time.”
—Witold Gombrowicz, Diary, Volume One, 1953
In his 1927 essay “Seneca in Elizabethan Translation,” T.S. Eliot called The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of Titus Andronicus “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written, a play in which it is incredible that Shakespeare had any hand at all.” Whether Shakespeare had any hand in the play is unknown, though I suspect that the insert Act Three: Scene Two, which concerns muscicide, was not inked by the Bard. However, we do know something about the hands of the play’s characters. One of the characters of the play, Lavinia, ends up with no hands at all, and her father, Titus, ends up with only one hand. Moreover, Lavinia is reduced to tongueless inarticulacy, and the flesh of two teenage boys is baked into a pie that is fed to their mother. All of this is to suggest that The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare’s goriest, grisliest, ghastliest play, a work that telegraphs and anticipates Jacobean Tragedy, Grand Guignol, Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, and splatter cinema.
Fresh from a ten-year battle against the Goths, Titus Andronicus is implored by his son Lucius to sacrifice “the proudest prisoner” of the enemy [I:i]. At the opening of the text, the Goths, the immigrants of the play, are the enemy; at the end of the play, the immigrants will become the friends of the Andronici and will overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Saturninus. We are reminded that the incursion, the influx, of the Goths will lead to the breakdown of imperial Rome on 24 August 410 C.E.[1]
Titus orders Tamora’s son Alarbus to be killed. The son is brutally sacrificed—his limbs abscised, his intestines fed to the flames: “Alarbus’ limbs are lopp’d, / And entrails feed the sacrificing fire, / Whose smoke, like incense, doth perfume the sky” [I:i]. The ritualistic disembowelment and dismemberment at the beginning of the play initiate a revenge series. The Queen of the Goths, Tamora, will exact her revenge against Titus. Her reckoning is a form of exchange. In exchange for the death and mutilation of Alarbus, the tongue of Titus’s daughter, Lavinia, is excised and her hands are severed off; Titus’s sons Quintus and Martius are decapitated. The maimed bodies of Lavinia, Quintus, and Martius correspond to the maimed body of Alarbus—anatomical parts of three children are torn off in exchange for the lopping off of the limbs of the child of the rival family.
A bloody pattern unfolds—one revenge leads to another revenge. The decapitation of Titus’s sons will, in turn, lead to the decapitation of Demetrius and Chiron. One plate of heads replaces another plate of heads. Such is the logic of revenge: Revenge is exchange. And yet the acts of reckoning do not equalize one another.
The attacks on Titus’s children take place in the forest. “The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf and dull,” says Aaron to the future rapists and mutilators Chiron and Demetrius [I:i]. The forest is a place of uncivilized desires, of desires far from the ritualized boundedness of civilization. The forest is not a locus amoenus. (A locus amoenus is an innocently pleasant site in a work of literature.) As we know from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It, the forest in Shakespeare is a place of deception, of dissimulation, of lying, of self-masking, of delusion, of chimera.
Titus dramatizes insanity, which allows Tamora and her sons to underestimate him. Disguised as Revenge, Rape, and Murder, respectively, Tamora and her sons are incompetent dramatists, whereas Titus is an inspired dramatist. In the 1999 cinematic interpretation of the play, directed by Julie Taymor, Titus hatchets off his hand with a meat cleaver in the kitchen—presaging his final self-staging as a cook in the hyper-stylized, meta-theatrical vengeance against Tamora and Saturninus. He dramatizes revenge at the end of the play, in a space that is a theatre, a banquet hall, and a kangaroo court all at once. The play-within-the-play is an ambush dinner, a prandial revenge. Choreographed revenge leads to imperial succession—at the beginning of the play, Titus Andronicus declines the emperorship. At the end of the play, his son Lucius assumes the emperorship.
Why should Titus be more sympathetic than Tamora? Why does Titus have the right to vengeance—and not Tamora? Does she not have equal cause?
Titus doesn’t seem to care about his son Mutius, whom he summarily slays out of duty to the emperor, who, in turn, has no problem betraying his own people by marrying the queen of the enemy, but Titus does care about his only daughter, Lavinia, after he learns that she has been mutilated and (later) learns that she has been violated. Only after Lavinia is raped and mutilated does Titus becomes a full, empathic human being. Paternal filicide is supposed to be accepted by the audience with relative equanimity; the violation and mutilation of one’s daughter by strangers is supposed to outrage that same audience.
Consider that the slaying of Mutius takes place onstage, whereas the violation and mutilation of Lavinia take place offstage: The visibility of Mutius has the effect of making Titus appear more sympathetic to us than Tamora, I would argue, since what is seen is more manageable, more tolerable, than what is unseen. What is unseen is always more horrifying than what is seen—our imagination exaggerates the unseen to obscenely grotesque proportions. The one truly horrific mutilation—that of Lavinia—takes place offstage and is nothing to laugh at. The fact that Lavinia’s violation and mutilation take place offstage make these acts unspeakable—as she is rendered an unspeakable presence.
It is not Aaron the Moor who initiates the sequence of retaliations. One of the Romans says that Aaron incited the series of vengeances, the blood-saturated revenge series, but this is not so: “Give sentence on this execrable wretch / That hath been breeder of these dire events” [V:iii]. It is not Aaron who breeds the dire events of the play—it is Titus Andronicus himself! It is Titus, again, who orders the killing of Alarbus, the dismembering of his arms and legs, the engulfing of his viscera in flame. Why, then, should we spectators and readers care more about Titus than we do about Tamora? Both Titus and Tamora say to their children, to paraphrase: If you love me, you will kill my enemies.[2]
Lavinia endures a terrible glossectomy and a terrible dismemberment: Again, her tongue is cut out, and her hands are cut off. What remains of her power of speech? Only tormented and inarticulate groanings. She cannot phonate, but she can communicate in other ways. That is to suggest: She is afflicted with aphonia (the inability to vocalize), not with agraphia (the inability to write) or with aphasia (the inability to communicate).
Marcus teaches his niece how to write. He takes his staff and writes his name in the dirt. He then encourages his daughter to imitate his scrawl: “Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain” [IV:i]. She then takes the staff in her mouth and guides it with her stumps and writes out the name of the heinous crime that was committed against her and the names of the heinous criminals.
Lavinia’s body becomes a book that is readable by her father. The word is made mutilated flesh. Titus is able to read her tears. Titus the Father knows that his daughter is a “[s]peechless complainer” [Ibid.]. Her body becomes a “map of woe, that thus doth talk in signs” [Ibid.]—her body has a language, even though that language is silent. “I understand her signs,” Titus says of Lavinia’s soundless weeping [III:i]—Marcus’s napkin can never dry her tears. When she kisses the decapitated heads of her brothers Quintus and Martius in Act Three: Scene One, this is a sign—if this is not a sign, then what is a sign?
By becoming her interpreter, Titus has become a strong parent for the first time in his life, both father and mother at the same time. He vocalizes what his only daughter cannot. He is the interpreter of her spastic mutism, of her mute language. “I can interpret all her martyred signs,” he says [III:ii]. The father will “wrest” from his daughter an “alphabet” and “learn to know [her] meaning” [Ibid.]—and Lavinia’s body is a sign of martyrdom. For to be a martyr means to give testimony, to write. Self-sacrifice is absolute loss; martyrdom is self-loss that enhances a cause or a program. In the case of Lavinia, her rape, mutilation, and eventual killing lead to a revolution—much in the way that the rape and suicide of Lucretia did (I will return to this point below).
With her father’s hand in her mouth, Lavinia still has the power of language—the power of silent language, of writing, which is always silent. The hand in the mouth—is this not the perfect symbol for writing? The vocalization of her written language is under the guidance of her father, her interpreter, who still has the power of speech.
Wittgenstein writes, “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.” Though I am not a Derridean, this line of Derrida against Wittgenstein seems a propos to the context: “What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.” Lavinia writes when she does not speak—this might mean that writing is something other than a substitute for speech. When she inscribes words on the dirty ground with a stick that is guided by her tongueless mouth and her handless arms, Lavinia makes the names of the crime and the criminals readable, even though her mouth is silenced and even though she is deprived of the ability to write with her hands: “Stuprum. Chiron. Demetrius” [IV:i]. Her tongue and her hands are erased, and yet she still produces language—again, with the guidance of the father.[3]
There is one moment in the play, however, in which the father’s temporary inability to speak mirrors the daughter’s inability to speak. What does Titus do when he learns that his daughter has been hideously mutilated, to the point at which she can no longer speak, when he learns that his son Lucius has been exiled from the city of his birth to the otherlands, the shadowlands of the Goths, when he learns that his sons Quintus and Martius have been falsely accused of a crime and then executed, when he learns that he has been tricked into chopping off his own hand to save their lives, in vain? He laughs. Indeed, he erupts in maniacal laughter: “Ha, ha, ha!” [III:i]. Titus gives up all pretensions of comfort and enters wordless despair, an abyss of non-verbality. From that abyss comes vengeance; his laughter issues in the spawning of the plot of revenge. Non-verbal expression—wordless laughter—corresponds to Lavinia’s wordlessness. Her silence corresponds to her father’s non-verbal-yet-signifying language: “Ha, ha, ha!”
It is not the case that laughter is an inappropriate response to the irremediable. Laughter might be the only appropriate response to the irremediable.
This raises the question of the status of humor in the play. Some audiences find it funny to watch Titus, Lucius, and Marcus squabble over whose hand should be severed (in Act Three: Scene One). What makes this scene so morbidly hilarious and hilariously morbid to them is the contrast, the incongruity, between the hyper-seriousness of the context and the silliness of the conversation. Some audiences find it funny to watch Lavinia clutch her father’s severed hand in her teeth (Titus: “Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth” [III:i]). The humorousness of such scenes highlights and intensifies the play’s seriousness; the humor does not erode the seriousness. Shakespeare knows well that his jocoserious play would become ludicrous if it were humorless, if it were uninterruptedly serious. Without humor, there can be no seriousness. Why is this? Because humorlessness is laughable.
Is it inappropriate when Marcus rhapsodizes and poeticizes upon discovering his niece hideously disfigured in the wood? Strangely, there are literary critics who think that it is. I don’t think that his soliloquy, the longest in the play (it is forty-six lines, longer than Titus’s soliloquy as he slices the throats of Chiron and Demetrius, which is thirty-nine lines long), is inappropriate (as some other critics do); I do think of it as a coping mechanism, as a means of coming to terms with trauma, as a means of coping with the violation and mutilation of his niece. Still, it must be written: Marcus speaks on his niece’s behalf, whereas Titus speaks in her behalf.
To return to the main argument: Lavinia is hyper-literate, even after her disfigurement. One should contrast Lavinia’s superior reading skills with the illiteracy of the children of Tamora. The dull-witted Chiron and Demetrius cannot interpret the meaning of Titus’s citation of Horace, though Aaron can. When the voices of Chiron and Demetrius are silenced (they are gagged by Publius; this is their metamorphosis, their becoming-bestial), this answers to the silencing of Lavinia. Lavinia, says her father, is “deeper read and better skilled” [IV:i] than those who waste their time on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These days, only graduate students read the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
Shakespeare is reminding us of the ineluctableness of language. Language is not reducible to the organ that we normally associate with language: the tongue (speech, phonē). Shakespeare is suggesting that language is not phonocentric; he might even be suggesting that language is graphocentric, which is to suggest that written language is more fundamental than speech.
Even though she is tongueless and handless, Lavinia still has the power of language—in the form of writing, of graphē, of hypergraphia, of graphomania.
Lavinia inscribes words upon the Earth. She is metaphorized as a storm cloud—a cloud that gives forth rain. She writes with her tears upon the Earth. Her tears are the ink, and the Earth is the paper upon which she is writing. Lavinia writes upon the Earth with her tears and thus revivifies, rejuvenates, refreshes, renews, revitalizes the Earth. Her tears—her sufferings and the accusations against her attackers, her assailants, her assaulters—will bring about a transformation of the City of Rome. She will transform the Holy Roman Empire—it will be reconfigured into a Gothic-Roman state, a republic that welcomes and integrates outsiders.
Lavinia is a figure of democracy and of democratization.
There are at least three literary and historical references that frame the rape of Lavinia:
a.) We are reminded of the rape of Lucretia.[4] Shakespeare, after all, would write his poem “The Rape of Lucrece” in 1594, almost exactly the same time as he wrote this play. The rape of Lucretia led to the driving-away from Rome of the last of the kings of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, whose slobbering, sinister, psychopathic son Sextus raped the poor girl. She killed herself out of shame. The plebeian Lavinia is here placed in the position of a figure of republicanism and anti-tyrannousness. Just as the tyranny of the Tarquins is expelled from Rome, so will the tyranny of Saturninus be.
b.) To accuse her attackers of the crime of rape, Lavinia opens a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and turns over the pages with her stumps until she arrives at the Rape of Philomela.[5] Now, there is no mystery of what happened to her. Every tragedy contains anagnorisis, and this is the moment of recognition: “Lavinia,” her father asks her, “[W]ert thou thus surprised, sweet girl, / Ravished and wronged as Philomela was…?” [IV:i].[6] This recognition comes by way of reading. Tereus was married to Progne yet burned with mortal lust for her sister Philomela, whom he raped in the forest; then, he plucked out her tongue and left her for dead in a cabin in the woods. Philomela, however, survived and wove a tapestry that both identified the crime that was committed against her and revealed the identity of her rapist. Both sisters exacted a dreadful revenge against Tereus by killing his son Itys and feeding the offspring to the father in the form of a pie. Swallowing one’s own offspring, of course, will inspire Titus’s prandial revenge against Tamora, in which he forces Tamora to cannibalize, to engorge her sons Chiron and Demetrius. Tamora is conned into consuming her issue, conned into ingesting her offspring, conned into digesting her discharge, much as Tereus was. What is interesting about Shakespeare’s reinvention of the Philomela myth is that his Lavinia points to a passage in Ovid—making her a reader and a teacher of reading. She, after all, is the Young Lucius’s reading teacher. Marcus says of the boy’s aunt: “[S]he hath read to thee sweet poetry and Tully’s Orator” [IV:i]. Tully’s Orator is a book of rhetoric. The point here, I think, is that Lavinia is not merely a writer; she is one who teaches how to write well.
c.) The myth of Diana and Actaeon appears and reappears throughout the play. Bassianus mock-wonders of Tamora, whom he accosts with Lavinia in the forest, if he is looking at the Goddess Diana herself: “Or is it Dian, habited like her, / Who hath abandoned her holy groves / To see the general hunting in this forest?” [II:ii].[7] Tamora will become Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, quick-transforming the interloper Bassianus into a metaphorical stag that is torn to pieces by her metaphorical bloodhounds. Bassianus is the cuckold. He spies on the naked bathing goddess, exposing her in her divine nudity. Of course, in the myth, the goddess does not assume any particular female shape—she is mutable, transformative—which means that Actaeon is spying upon not the goddess herself, but rather upon a hollow image, before being rent to pieces by her bloodhounds. The bloodhounds, in Shakespeare’s play, are Tamora’s sons, who murder Bassianus and make of him a cuckold (they be-horn him, fastening metaphorical antlers upon his head). After she catches Actaeon spying on her divine nudity, Diana screeches: “Tell that you saw me here bathing naked—if you can tell at all!” Lavinia, voyeuse, will be robbed of the power of speech. Female voyeurism is a rare subject—but it is presented in Shakespeare. Actaeon thus figures both Bassianus and Lavinia.[8]
Why the removal of hands? Heidegger gives us a possible answer in What Is Called Thinking? / Was Heißt Denken?:
The hand is a peculiar thing. In the common view, the hand is part of our bodily organism. But the hand’s essence can never be determined, or explained, by its being an organ which can grasp. Apes, too, have organs that can grasp, but they do not have hands. The hand is infinitely different from all grasping organs—paws, claws, or fangs—different by an abyss of essence. Only a being who can speak, that is, think, can have hands and can be handy in achieving works of handicraft.
We now know that some of Heidegger’s comparative anatomy is false. Chimpanzees do have hands—they even have opposable thumbs—and some animal biologists tell us that chimpanzee hands are more complex than human hands. The next passage is more interesting. Heidegger goes on:
But the craft of the hand is richer than we commonly imagine. The hand does not only grasp and catch, or push and pull. The hand reaches and extends, receives and welcomes—and not just things: the hand extends itself, and receives its own welcome in the hands of others. The hand holds. The hand carries. The hand signs, presumably because the human being is a sign.
The English translation is wrong at this point, and I have corrected it. In the German, the text reads: “Die Hand zeichnet, vermutlich weil der Mensch ein Zeichen ist.” Heidegger continues:
Two hands fold into one, a gesture meant to carry the human being into the great oneness. The hand is all this, and this is the true handicraft. Everything is rooted here that is commonly known as handicraft, and commonly we go no further. But the hand’s gestures run everywhere through language, in their most perfect purity precisely when human beings speak by being silent. And only when human beings speak, do they think—not the other way around, as metaphysics believes.
So: Humankind is practiced through the hand. The hand is not an implement of the human; the hand holds within itself the essence of the human. The hand is the distinguishing trait of human essence. The hand is not a form of property, something that belongs to us; the hand has us. Only that being which has language is handed. Language is not language without the hand. Only with the hand does the human come about; the hand is the essential ground of humankind.
Is there a relation to the word without the hand? It seems not. There is, for Heidegger, a co-belongingness between word and hand. There must be a hand in order for human language to be. This means that writing is more fundamental than speech, than phonē.
When hands are removed, the intention is dehumanization.
So many have declaimed that The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of Titus Andronicus is a bad play that people believe that it is a bad play. It is, I would argue, one of Shakespeare’s ten greatest plays, but it does contain some weaknesses.
There are some rather weak puns: “Deer” is rhymed with its homophone “dear” in Act Three: Scene One. And yet even this pun is defensible. Marcus calls Lavinia a “deer,” whereas Titus calls his daughter a “dear.” For Marcus, Lavinia is a wounded sylvan beast; for Titus, she is a darling. For Marcus, Lavinia is a premature corpse (“This was thy daughter”), whereas for Titus, she is a living human presence (“so she is“) [emphases mine]. The parechesis of “throats” and “threat” in the same scene is not very strong. (Parechesis is the repetition of the same sound in quick succession.)
Titus offers to chop off his hands before he is prompted to do so, even before Aaron comes by: “Give me a sword, I’ll chop off my hands too” [III:i] and “[S]hall we cut away our hands like thine [Lavinia’s]?” [Ibid.]. Titus offers to hack off his hand before he is given the fake opportunity to redeem his sons by hacking off his hands. But his sons are unrehabilitatable in the eyes of the emperor. The overplay of “I-will-cut-off-my hand” derogates from the power of the moment in which Titus is actually tricked into hacking off his own hand.
Worst of all are the final two lines of the play (in the Arden edition, not in the MIT online edition):
[Tamora’s] life was beastly and devoid of pity, / And being dead, let birds on her take pity [V:iii].
This is bad writing. One thing that I tell my students is never end two successive sentences with the same word. When writing verse, never rhyme the endings of the lines of a couplet with the same word.
Rhyming a sound with itself (holorhyming) is never a good idea. Consider the closest thing that our time has to Shakespeare, the great poet Justin Bieber. In his otherwise masterly ballad “Yellow Raincoat,” from the 2012 album Believe, Bieber intones these lines:
Well never do I ever do I ever want this to phase me
Well never do I ever do I want this thing to make me
Rhyming homophones is an infelicity; rhyming a word with itself is an even more infelicitous writerly fault. Shakespeare is a slightly greater poet than Justin Bieber, and there might be justification for his rhyming of the word pity with itself. What if Shakespeare wants to evoke Lucius’s lack of pity for Tamora by repeating the word pity? The repetition of the word might drain the concept of its significance. Lucius’s coldness, his glaciality, might mean that he is no more compassionate than Tamora.
The desire for revenge is the desire for superiority over another human being. By inflicting pain on the revengee, the revenger demonstrates his or her superiority over the revengee. This explains why the most selfish, the vainest, the most egoic human beings also tend to be the most vengeful. However, as Schopenhauer reminds us in Parerga and Paralipomena, “[J]ust as every fulfilled wish is more or less unveiled as a delusion, so too the desire for revenge.” The word delusion is in English in the original text, which is mostly written in German.
Why is the desire for revenge a delusion? I would submit the following: The avenger is dependent on the avengee. Doesn’t revenge make the avenger dependent on the consciousness of the avengee? If you seek revenge on someone, are you not dependent on the person on whom you wish to avenge yourself?
Try not to place yourself in a position in which vengeance is necessary. What if my “revenge” were one day ineffective? What if my acts of “vengeance” were in vain? What if the objects of my “vengeance” were indifferent to my actions and inactions?
If the object of “revenge” is indifferent to the avenger, the avengee has won and the avenger has lost. This means that the avenger is emotionally enchained to the emotional state of the avengee. Revenge means that one is dependent on the object of vengeance, “drinking poison and expecting the other person to die,” as the Buddha says. Or holding on to hot coal and expecting the other person to be burned, as Confucius says.
The desire for revenge is an obsession with the other human being who, imaginarily or not, has wounded us. But revenge only enlarges that wound.
In the third scene of the fourth act, there is a great deal of talk of justice, which, like revenge, is often conceived as a form of exchange. As his kinsmen are drawing their bows, Titus says that there is as little justice in the sea as there is on Earth. And he also says, in Latin, “Terras Astraea reliquit,” which means: “Justice has left the Earth.” A just world would be one in which the Romans join forces with the Goths and create a democratic republic in Rome, a republic that would welcome and integrate immigrants. But currently, in Act Four, there is no justice under the moon, there is no fairness, there is no one-to-one exchange.
Consider this: For the death of Alarbus, Quintus, Martius, and Bassianus are killed (three for the price of one), Lucius is banished, Titus is conned into hacking off one of his hands, and Lavinia is ravished and mangled. There is no equitableness, and justice would mean fair exchange of one thing for a thing of equal value. The counter-revenge of Titus and his tribe does not posit equivalence between the losses that they have suffered and the violence that they have inflicted on Saturninus and Tamora. In The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, the desire for revenge results in the almost total self-destruction of the revengers and their families.
In revenge, there is always a remainder.
Dr. Joseph Suglia
[1] Lucius is banished to the otherlands of the Goths, but unlike Coriolanus (who is explicitly referred to in the play, in Act Four: Scene Four), he is not scuppered by one of his parents. Lucius, unlike Coriolanus, wages a war against Rome, the city of his birth, and crashes its gates—with the approval of one of his parents, his father Titus. I am revising this essay in 2019, at a time of seismic immigration crises throughout Europe. Since the Goths assist Lucius in overthrowing a corrupt dictatorship, we can safely infer that Shakespeare’s great play is friendlier to immigration than his own later Tragedy of Coriolanus will be.
[2] Tamora: “Revenge it as you love your mother’s life, / Or be ye not henceforth called my children” [II:ii]. Titus: “And if ye love me, as I think you do, / Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do” [III:i].
[3] Chiron: “Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so, / And if thy stumps will let thee, play the scribe” [II:iii]. / Demetrius: “See how with signs and tokens she can scrawl.” But she can write, even though her hands are now stumps.
[4] In Act Two: Scene One, Aaron says: “Lucrece was not more chaste / Than this Lavinia, Bassianus’ love.” In Act Four: Scene One, Titus asks: “What Roman lord it was durst do the deed: / Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst, / That left the camp to sin in Lucrece’s bed?”
[5] Marcus, upon finding his niece in the wood, already identified her with Philomel: “A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met, / And he hath cut those pretty fingers off, / That could have better sewed than Philomel” [II:iii].
[6] And later: “Far worse than Philomel you used my daughter, / And worse than Progne I will be revenged” [V:ii].
[7] Tamora’s response: “Had I the power that some say Dian had, / Thy temples should be planted presently / With horns, as was Actaeon’s, and the hounds / Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs. / Unmannerly intruder as thou art” [II:ii].
[8] In the shelter of the wood, Aaron says to his forbidden lover Tamora: “[Bassianus’s] Philomel must lose her tongue today” [II:ii]. Bassianus’s Philomel is Lavinia, of course. |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The underbanked is a characteristic describing people or organizations who do not have sufficient access to mainstream financial services and products typically offered by retail banks and thus often deprived of banking services such as credit cards or loans. The underbanked are characterized by a strong reliance on non-traditional forms of finance and micro-finance often associated with disadvantaged and the poor, such as cheque cashers, loan sharks and pawnbrokers.
Many people who are classified as underbanked may also have a language barrier, such as migrant workers, be unable to access banking facilities due to distance, such as the elderly, or simply feel uncomfortable using automated teller machines.
The underbanked are a distinct group from the unbanked, who are characterized by having no banking facilities at all.[1]
Small countries have less banking provision than large countries, even allowing for the smaller size of their economies.[2]
There are many microfinance initiatives such as the Grameen Bank that aim to improve the provision of banking and financial services to poor communities.
See also[edit]
1. ^ Retsinas, Nicolas Paul; Belsky, Eric S. (2005). Building assets, building credit: creating wealth in low-income communities. Brookings Institution Press. p. 299. ISBN 978-0-8157-7409-9.
2. ^ Hanson, James A.; Honohan, Patrick; Majnoni, Giovanni (2003). Globalization and National Financial Systems. World Bank Publications. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-8213-5208-3.
Further reading[edit] |
Transplanting Seedlings - Knowledgebase Question
Salt Lake City, UT
Question by kam_73
April 15, 1998
I have started a variety of seedlings and they are ready for transplanting outdoors. After I harden them off, what should I fertilize with? Should I put fertilizer in the bottom of the hole before planting the seedling? Also, a neighbor told me about something you put in the soil to lessen the shock effect on the plants--what is this?
Answer from NGA
April 15, 1998
It would be easiest on the transplants to go into soil that is well amended with compost, aged-manure, or leaf mold. Just spread 3-4 inches of organic matter over the garden bed and dig it in to a depth of 6-8 inches. Then dig your holes and plant your seedlings, making sure that they're watered immediately after planting. There's a solution you can purchase that's supposed to ease transplant shock, (Vitamin B) but it's far easier to plant on an overcast day, or late in the afternoon, so the plants have time to adjust before receiving full sunshine. If you expose the roots of the plants to as little air and light as possible, and if you water immediately after planting each one, they shouldn't suffer transplant shock.
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I was reading the sentence
Ich war gerade dabei die Tür abzuschliessen. Da hast du angerufen.
and I worked out that it meant roughly
I was just about to close the door. While doing that, you called me.
I want to ask about the function of the word dabei. I know that dabei can refer to a specific noun (i.e., as it was happening). But what is the specific use of dabei here? Does it refer to anything in the first sentence?
• 3
Note: Die Tür schließen = to close the door. But: Die Tür abschließen = to lock the door. – Hubert Schölnast Mar 16 '19 at 8:27
"Dabei" is expressing what the continuous form in English does - As German doesn't have that, we need to express concurrency of events using this (or other) adverbs.
A proper translation to English would be
I was closing the door when you called.
"dabei" is referring to the predicate here.
| improve this answer | |
• is this similar to "dabei sein" – vik1245 Mar 13 '19 at 21:30
• 4
@BobSmith Similar to "dabei sein" + <infinitive>. "Der König heiratete und ich war dabei" is a different usage. – tofro Mar 14 '19 at 7:30
• A somewhat regional, very colloquial structure (Rheinische Verlaufsform) is similar to the progressive form: "Ich war die Tür am schließen, als du anriefst." – Cacambo Jan 4 at 18:42
Dabei is derived from the preposition bei. Here, dabei refers to the following infinitive clause: die Tür abzuschließen.
An alternative wording is:
Ich war beim Abschließen der Tür.
Dafür and dagegen can be used in the same way:
Ich war dafür, die Tür abzuschließen.
I was in favor of locking the door.
| improve this answer | |
In German there are no continuous tenses. In English you can make a difference between
I locked the door.
I was locking the door.
I German both is
Ich habe die Tür abgeschlossen.
When you want to tell that you was locking the door when the phone rang, it is:
Ich habe die Tür abgeschlossen. Da hast du angerufen.
You have two possibilities to translate this into English:
1. I locked the door. Then you called me.
2. I was locking the door when you called me.
If you want to make clear, that it should be #2, you must use some workaround. A very common way is the phrase
Ich war gerade dabei etwas zu tun
This phrase has no exact translation into English, because when you use this phrase in German, you always can use a continuous tense in English.
In our example you can build this sentence:
Ich war gerade dabei die Tür abzuschließen als du mich angerufen hast.
In this sentence the accusative object of anrufen (mich) is optional, and if you want you can use da instead of als, but then the relative clause must be converted into a full clause, which means, that the auxiliary verb hast must move to position 2. And then you get:
| improve this answer | |
You have seen a lot of answers which used many words to actually explain what to be in the process off means.
In other words, this form of dabei sein,
Ich war dabei, x
simply means
I was in the process of x
Here, x is die Tür abzuschließen = locking the door.
| improve this answer | |
Let's not forget the very common usage of "dabei" in constructions like the following (I'm stating the whole thing in English, with the exception of the word "dabei," so that it's absolutely clear to English-speakers):
The U.S. spends billions of dollars each year for welfare. Dabei there are other, much more cost-effective methods of helping people in need.
In such constructions, "dabei" means "and yet, in this context (or 'regard' or 'respect')."
| improve this answer | |
• 3
Welchome to German SE! An English sentence with a single German word is is somewhat confusing, could you also post the sentence in German? – Philipp Mar 15 '19 at 17:13
• 2
You are talking about a completely different construction. Your posting does not answer the question. – Hubert Schölnast Mar 16 '19 at 7:35
• Yes, it is a different construction (though I wouldn't say COMPLETELY different). – Alex Mar 23 '19 at 14:19
• >>could you also post the sentence in German?<< Die Vereinigten Staaten geben jährlich Mrd. $ für die Wohlfahrt aus. Dabei gibt es andere, kosteneffektivere Methoden, den Menschen zu helfen. – Alex Mar 23 '19 at 14:20
Your Answer
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What Is Anxiety And Everything You Need To Know?
Anxiety is your body natural inbuilt safety and protection mechanism that automatically responds to a stressful or a perceived threatening stimuli or situation.
Everybody feels a bit uncomfortable at times. But if you have been experiencing prolonged periods of worry, anxiety or stress then it could be a sign that you have an anxiety disorder.
Anxiety is the most common mental health issue and each year the statistics are showing that google gets more and more searches about anxiety related disorders.
Those who worry a lot or suffer with anxiety tend to:
• Keep it to themselves
• Think that they are one of only a few who suffer with anxiety
• Think that there must be something wrong with them because they cannot seem to control their mind, feelings and emotions
The real truth is, you're not alone and there is nothing physically or mentally wrong with you that cannot be fixed and overcome.
The honest facts are; every single human being will experience anxiety to a certain degree at times, but for many their levels of anxiety can become out of their control.
If you suffer with prolonged periods of worry, doubt or anxiety then for your own sake, health and optimal wellbeing it is in your very best interests to spend some valuable time learning and finding ways to overcome your anxiety.
Because although you are perfectly normal, it does indicate that you have a problem that you need to learn about and overcome.
The most important thing to know about anxiety is; the sooner you start to work on overcoming your anxiety the easier it will be for you to free yourself from its grips.
Anxiety can be treated
The good news is, anxiety is not something that is set in stone and although you cannot have the guarantee that you will never feel anxious again you do not have to suffer with persistent and high levels of worry, stress and anxiety.
For many years the thinking was; once you had engrained a fear within your brain that fear would remain an active part of you for the rest of your life.
However, recent scientific research regarding neuroplasticity has revealed that we all have the ability to rewire our brains and dissociate and desensitise our fears and anxieties.
Why this is great news for you is anxiety and fear are is a learned behavior and association and what can be learned can be unlearned and dissociated.
Once you fully understand and learn what is actually causing your anxiety and what you can do, to overcome it you will have the tools and ability to replace feelings of fear and anxiety with blissful and wonderful calm and feel good feelings.
The biggest reason why anxiety is becoming a huge and seemingly growing problem that affects a lot of people all around the world. Is simply through a lack of understanding and awareness.
As soon as you begin to understand how your mind and body works you can then begin to reduce and bring down your anxiety levels so you can return back to your natural and resting state of inner peace, flow and calm.
One of the main reason why so many people are left struggling and suffering with their mind, feelings and emotions and for many people they're suffering on an almost daily daily basis.
Is because most of us have never taught how to manage and process our feelings and emotions.
So unless we decide to learn the valuable information ourselves then the chances are we are never going to learn what we really need to know.
The consequences of not knowing why your feel anxious and what causes your anxiety and how to reduce it and overcome it.
Can result in a lifetime of worry and anxiety that can have a devastating effect on your wellbeing and whole quality of life.
Because not only does anxiety feel unpleasant and uncomfortable.
It can severely hold us back and prevent us from being ourselves and doing all the things that we really want to do.
Yet there really is no need for anybody to remain stuck in a constant state of anxiety, worry and stress.
Take A Look At Our Best Anxiety Cures Recommendations
Symptoms of anxiety
The symptoms of anxiety can be broken down into four categories:
• Emotional
• Physical
• chemical
• Psychological
The emotional symptoms of anxiety are the non physical sensations that can feel a bit unpleasant feelings or frightening as well as feelings of nervousness and fearful anticipation.
The physical symptoms of anxiety are:
• Tensing of the muscles
• Racing and pounding heart
• Sweating
• Shallow or rapid breathing or shortness of breath
• Hot flushes or heat and redness in the face
• Feelings of nausea or butterflies in the stomach
• Tightening of the throat
• Trembling or shaking
• Dizziness
• Headaches
• Dry mouth
• Changes in our body posture and stance
The psychological symptoms are all those what if thoughts or all the what if imaginings and predictions.
The chemical feelings associated with fear and anxiety are the stress hormone cortisol and adrenaline which triggers all the physical sensations and feelings.
Everybody is different, which could mean that you display all of these symptoms of anxiety or just a few of them.
What causes anxiety?
Your brain is an association and pattern matching mechanism that stores and connects everything that has happened to you including all your fears, beliefs and negative memories.
The reason why it does this is to try and protect you and keep you safe so you avoid having the same negative emotional or bad physical experience again and we call this mechanism anxiety and fear.
Where do our fears come from:
• Our parenrents, family, peers
• Our societal conditioning and programming
• Our negative or traumatic experiences
• Our negative beliefs, doubts and worries
The seeds of your anxiety could be planted in a negative or traumatic experiences. An example of how your mind and body operates could be:
Let's say you had a very scary and bad experience whilst you were flying on a plane.
Your mind would then record all the context of that experience as well as the feelings you were experiencing at the time and it then associates the two together and it will then form a bad neural memory and a fearful association with flying.
So anytime you learned that you had to fly again. Your mind will try to grab your attention and it will do this by flashing images and sounds in your mind of all those what if scenarios or thoughts of the worse case scenario, like the plane crashing.
As soon as you learned that you had to fly again, your brain would use anxiety and the emotions associated with fear.
The reason it does this is to try and make you avoid going on another flight because it has learned to associate flying as being a potential risk to your life. This is what is known as a learned fearful behavior.
Because your brain has learned to link flying with being a potential risk to your life, it has attached your fight or flight response to flying.
Once a fear and an association of danger has been formed they will remain a part of you until you dissociate your fight or flight response away from flying.
The fearful and emotional, subconscious part of your brain that controls your fight or flight response does not deal in logic nor is it capable of thinking for itself.
It only deals with feelings, associations and emotions. This is why logic or reasoning does not really help to try and overcome your fears and anxieties.
The emotional fear center of your brain works by doing and repeating.
This means the more you worry and imagine the worst case scenario and blow it all out of proportion the more intense your will make those negative feelings and fearful associations.
Because when you constantly worry about something that might happen in the future your mind will learn to associate that situation or thing as being threatening or a risk.
This will cause you to feel anxious leading up to the event or situation and when the times come for real it can cause panic attacks, intense feelings of fear or high levels of anxiety for you.
Instead of worrying and imagining the worst case scenario it can help to think about or imagine the best case scenario or what is most realistically likely to happen.
Otherwise your mind will use these neural programs and associations as a gauge to determine how you should react in the future and they will cause you to keep operating in the same fearful ways.
Your mind is a very powerful tool and not only does it have access to everything that has previously happened to you it can use these programs to try and anticipate what might happen in the future.
You can also create a fear by using your imagination to traumatise you or you can create a fear by watching or learning that something might be a potential risk to you.
Using the example again of developing a fear of flying. If you were about to go on a flight and you watched a movie about an air crash disaster our you saw a plane crash on the news.
This can cause you to worry about your forthcoming flight which can create a fear of flying which can cause you a lot of anxiety leading up to your flight.
You can attach anxiety to just about anything and once those neural associations have been formed they will become deeply ingrained within your psyche.
Unless you change these negative beliefs, associations and patterns nothing will ever change and your will carry on responding with fear and anxiety.
Can anxiety kill you?
Many people who suffer with high levels of anxiety and panic attacks worry that they are going to have a heart attack because the symptoms of fear can be quite upsetting.
Although a severs panic or anxiety attack can feel very frightening to some people they cannot harm or kill you.
(However, if you're having any worrying symptoms about your health especially your heart check it out with your doctor immediately or dial the emergency service)
Although an anxiety attack is very unpleasant, no harm is coming to you. What can lead to health related problems is when you are having prolonged periods of worry, stress and anxiety and you do nothing about it.
Because long term and persistent worry, stress and anxiety can lower your immune system, they can be potentially very bad for your health and they can lead to many other obsessive disorders and other illnesses.
Mind and body feedback loop
Anxiety is not all in the brain and your physiology, emotional state and posture can play a huge role in how you think, feel and respond.
If you have been going through a prolonged period of worry, self doubt, insecurity, stress or anxiety for quite some time and many people can get stuck in a fearful and stressful state.
You can develop general anxiety disorder or obsessive thinking and obsessive behaviors.
This is where your mind keeps playing the same old worries, anxious thoughts, doubts and repetitive and obsessive thoughts and imaginings over and over again.
This can hold you constantly stuck in a negative, anxious and fearful state where you never really allow yourself to return back to those blissful and beautiful feeling states.
The longer you remain stuck in these dense and low vibrational states the more your fears and worries will expand, grow and spill over into other areas of your life.
When you're in a stressful and tense state, your mind will switch over into survival mode and it will become on high alert to danger.
When you're coming from a place of fear your confused mind will constantly scan for threats and because your senses cannot find any real threats.
Your brain will create them by using your old past negative or traumatic experiences and the feelings of fear itself and those anxious thoughts and imaginations will become the new threat that needs defeating or avoiding.
When you stay stuck in a fearful, anxious and worried state you will start t become over sensitive to danger and all the little harmless day to day situations, things and events will take on irrational fearful associations.
Persistent and long term anxiety suggests that your emotional set point is set to high to react with fear.
Learning how to calm your mind and defuse those emotionally arousing anxious thoughts will help you to reduce and overcome those persistent anxious thoughts and imaginings.
If you suffer with repetitive anxious thoughts or obsessive thinking patterns and obsessive behaviors.
Then this means that you are allowing your thoughts, feelings and imaginings to rule you and to control your actions and behaviors.
Your mind and feelings have become the dominant voice and master and you have to force and override your mind to accept that you're not going to let you anxiety and thoughts to stop or prevent you from doing or saying the things that you want.
Start to become the stronger and dominant voice and in time the fearful voice will start to become weaker and you will become the master of your feelings and emotions.
The one thing that will prevent you from ever overcoming your anxiety is by using avoidance or safety tactics.
Anxiety and fear can feel very uncomfortable, but it can not stop you from doing what you want to do.
If you can learn to accept and be OK with a bit of discomfort and you learn to accept your feelings of discomfort, you embrace it and feel it and then you remain firm or you do what you want despite how you feel, then the fear will soon subside.
Avoid trying to control your feelings, just accept them, feel the feelings and allow them to continue.
Tell your fear that you're not going to stop me from doing what I want then you will start to become the master of your feelings and emotions and you will set yourself free.
Physical movement, serotonin boost and deep relaxation
As we have already mentioned your mind and body are connected, physically, psychologically and emotionally and they all interact and affect each other.
Because of your powerful mind and body connection it is extremely important that you take good care of yourself.
Because how you feel and how well you look after yourself can have a huge impact on how your anxiety levels.
Your muscles and anxiety connection
Your muscles are connected to your fight or flight reflex mode, this means if your muscles are stiff or tense especially your neck and shoulder regions then you will tend to have more tense and anxious thoughts and fearful reflexes.
If you are genuinely being attacked for real, your muscles will tighten so if your muscles are tense or stiff then this will confuse your mind and it can cause your mind t assume that you're about to be attacked, so your mind will scan for the threat.
Your posture and anxiety connection
Your body posture can also have a direct impact on your thoughts, feelings and anxiety levels.
Because your posture and body is also linked to your flight or flight reflex mode and response.
Your automatic fight or flight reflex response is your bodies natural response to any life threatening situations.
If you suffer with general anxiety or high levels of anxiety. Then this instinctive and automatic response can become an habitual way of responding, very often to non threatening or very low risk situations.
Along with all the other symptoms of stress and fear this instinctive and fearful response has been designed to prepare our bodies to either run away or fight of any attacker.
Part of this pattern of behavior is where our body shortens in stature where we become shorter.
During this reflex response. Our head becomes pushed forwards, we hunch up our shoulders and our arms, body and legs become tense and flexed.
Any time you are put in a stressful, fearful or challenging situation, we can habitual and instinctively go into this fight or flight reflex response.
Learning techniques like:
• "The Alexander Technique"
• "Tai Chi"
• "Yoga"
Can help you to return back to your natural confident, calm, balanced and happier state.
If you allow your head to drop forwards or if you allow your body to collapse then this is also linked to a submissive or surrender posture of insecurity and fear.
Another part of your fight or flight reflex is the fight stance and posture. This is where you life up your head and chin, you pull your shoulders back and your stick out your chest to make you look bigger and more powerful.
If you go into this state a lot then this can again confuse your brain and it can interpret this stance as your about to be attacked.
Good poise, balance, alignment and good organization of the body is the key to feeling more powerfully confident, relaxed and happier as demonstrated in the excellent video below.
Serotonin and feel good emotions
It is now thought that people who suffer with anxiety and low feeling moods and very often the two are closely linked together have low levels of the feel good endorphin serotonin.
The opposite state to anxiety and low moods are happy and calm feel good endorphins and emotional states.
Exercise and physical movement
Anxiety is not just a psychological condition, because anxiety and worry trigger physical, chemical releases, responses and symptoms in your body.
Many people with anxiety and persistent worry stay stuck in a stressful and tense state of being and because they do nothing about their anxiety.
Their brain triggers the constant release of adrenaline and the stress hormone cortisol which keeps their body stuck in an almost constant state of stress and tension.
Stress and tension in your mind and body is the biggest enemy that you'll ever have to face and it causes the most damage and destruction to your wellness, wellbeing and quality of life.
Your body is a very complexed but wonderfully designed mechanism and system that when it is working in a state of complete balance and harmony.
Then it can become your greatest tool that will lead you towards feelings better wellbeing, wellness and a state of inner peace, calm and free flowing and beautiful feeling energy.
Regular exercise and relaxation is extremely important to reduce your anxiety levels as well as helping you to strengthen your all important feel good, mind body connection that is essential for your optimal wellbeing, wellness and quality of life.
You have not got to spend hours in the gym but any form of physical movement or activity can do wonders for you and help you to burn of all those toxic stressful toxins in your body.
Deep relaxation
Relaxation and feelings of calm speaks for themselves because they are the polar opposite to fear, anxiety, worry and stress.
If you suffer with any of these symptoms then relaxation i a must and necessity for you.
Any forms of deep relaxation techniques can be of great help and benefit for you or anybody you know who suffer with anxiety or worry.
Relaxation calms your body and restores some much welcome relief and blissful feelings of inner peace, harmony and balance.
Some of the best methods of relaxation are:
• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Hypnosis
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Why Do Dogs Stink When Wet?
It’s counterintuitive: You give your dog a bath, and he comes out smelling worse. Why do dogs stink when they’re wet? The answer is pretty gross: The pungent scent is triggered by the excrement of living microbes on your dog.
“The smell on the skin of dogs is a result of normal microorganisms that live on the healthy skin and hair of dogs,” says Jennifer Schissler, DVM, assistant professor of dermatology at Colorado State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Fort Collins. “These organisms produce volatile chemical byproducts. When your dog gets wet and as she dries, evaporation ensues and releases these volatile compounds into the air so you can smell them more readily.”
The waste from these microorganisms (bacteria and fungi, such as yeast) has little or no scent when dry. But when water dislodges the acrid organic compounds, one whiff of that wafting stench assaults our olfactory senses like, well, critter dung.
Related: So Apparently Dogs and People Share the Same Kinds of Bacteria
Bacteria and yeast thrive in dark, moist, warm conditions, like those under a dog’s fur, so all dogs have some malodor when wet. While unpleasant to us, dogs like stinky things, so the funk probably doesn’t bother them (and may even attract them). And the aroma is not considered harmful to your dog or you.
Fungus among us
There are anywhere from 350 to 16,500 bacteria per square centimeter of dog. That sounds unhealthy, but it’s actually normal.
“All healthy dogs have microorganisms on their skin, which is why even dogs with a very healthy coat and who are quite clean still produce the distinctive wet-dog smell,“ says Dr. Schissler, a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Dermatology (ACVD).
Before you start thinking your dog is a walking Petri dish, consider that about 100 trillion microbes live on and in the human body (collectively they’re called the microbiome). The human microbiome can weigh as much as 5 pounds, and humans shed 38 million bacteria every hour.
We can never completely eliminate microbes from our dog’s skin — and we shouldn’t, says Christine Cain, DVM, assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia. In this case, warm and fuzzy — the very attributes that make a dog an attractive host for microorganisms — is a different kind of feel-good story: That bastion of bugs helps keep the skin healthy.
“There are several studies looking at the bacterial population of the skin and how this shifts with certain diseases,” says Dr. Cain, an ACVD diplomate. “It highlights that the diverse population of microbes on the skin may serve a protective purpose and that shifts in these microbes may have a role in disease promotion.”
Who’s the stinkiest? Double-coated breeds, such as the Shetland Sheepdog (long, thick fur takes more time to dry). Dogs with prominent skin folds, such as the Chinese Shar-Pei (bacteria and yeast thrive in poorly ventilated areas) Dogs who drool, such as the Bloodhound (moisture trapped in hair and skin creates a microbe breeding ground)
Sink the stink
“I don’t think there is an effective way to completely prevent or eliminate dog odor,” Dr. Cain says.
But there are canine products — both over the counter and prescription — that can decrease or mask odor. They include scented shampoos, conditioners, sprays and spot-ons, some of which contain botanical extracts, essential oils and essential fatty acids.
Regularly brushing your dog and keeping his fur trimmed help speed drying time and prevent odor and dirt from becoming trapped. And always dry a wet dog as thoroughly as possible.
Spring’s arrival brings outdoor play and gardening, so be vigilant about keeping your dog away from feces and manure; contact with them leads to more bacteria on the skin (and bacteria is the main reason stools smell).
Related: Wondering How Often to Bathe a Dog? It Depends on These Factors
Bottom line: “If your dog has wet hair, expect the doggie smell, as all dogs normally have microorganisms in their coats,” Dr. Schissler says.
I told you it was gross. But at least now you know that wet-dog smell is universal and not unhealthy. And it’s not your fault — or your dog’s. You can’t get around bathing your dog, and now that you know there are living organisms crawling all over his skin, you probably want to. Right after you bathe yourself.
Top photograph: Holly Hildreth
Read Next: Why do dogs howl?
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Pope in a Sentence 🔊
Definition of Pope
The highest official in the Catholic Church
Examples of Pope in a sentence
On Easter, the pope conducted several masses for the Catholic people in the area. 🔊
After Pope Benedict decided to step down, he was replaced by Pope Francis from a selection of highly religious Catholic people. 🔊
As the pope walked around, everyone bent over and kissed his ring as a sign of respect to the Catholicism. 🔊
When the man became a cardinal, he hoped to become the pope in a few years through the selection process. 🔊
Tourists would visit the Vatican City so that they could see the pope and attend a papal mass. 🔊
Other words in the World religions category:
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English to Bengali Meaning :: scallywag
Scallywag :
অকর্মণ্য ব্যক্তি
- অকর্মণ্য ব্যক্তি
Show English Meaning
Noun(1) a white Southerner who supported Reconstruction policies after the American Civil War (usually for self-interest(2) a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel(3) one who is playfully mischievous
Show Examples
(1) that scallywag of a son of yours(2) And the owner of the property was no doubt a scallywag , trying to defraud the lessee of his money, and threatening to ‘throw [his] things on the street’.(3) Any scallywag could have lifted my letters out hoping to find something of value.(4) One of the essential skills is identifying the difference between a potential threat, and a hapless scallywag .(5) Haven't the old and the middle classes always felt terrorised by gangs of young, uncouth scoundrels and scallywags loitering in the shadows of our cities?(6) I also know that if any of these so-called scallywags of the public eye were to sit down and have a one to one conversation with me - they wouldn't last a minute.(7) To hardened scallywags in uniform, Lacson vows, in rather dramatic language: ‘We shall scorch the earth beneath you.’(8) Both events have been held here for the last 12 years and, of course there are occasional minor incidents, but to say we attract scallywags who do this kind of thing is quite wrong.(9) Deliver us a white knight, a true and brave soul who can rid us of scoundrels, scalawags and in-it-for-themselves special interests.(10) And what of this UN gang where cs so desperately wants us to appear hip and cool - what are those scallywags up to?(11) I shall not need a horror mask when I open the door to the young scallawags who come trick or treating on Hallowe'en.(12) She said: ‘He always wanted what he called his scallywags around him, and he had them at the end.’(13) Despite the unfamiliarity to the town, Virginia already began to understand that Port Royal was a developed trading town rather than a metropolis such as London, prone to scallywags and dirt, but also housing the finest of Englanders.(14) Take off your masks, all you scallywags , and release the politics.(15) The problem with the young scallywags of today is that they don't have any respect for their elders and betters.(16) Parts of Soho have a slightly seedy reputation, but we decided that being shown around responsibly by two adults would effectively remove the possibility of the two scallywags getting into mischief.
1. rascal ::
2. imp ::
3. scalawag ::
English to Bengali Dictionary: scallywag
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Carbon study sets benchmark for waste management emissions
Wirral Council has reduced carbon emissions from its household waste and recycling operations by nearly 31,000 tonnes in what is thought to be the first impact assessment of its type.
Credit: JustASC /
Credit: JustASC /
In addition, the council has more than tripled its recycling and composting rate, from 12% in 2005-6 to just over 40% in 2010-11. The findings come from a carbon impact study undertaken by Biffa, which has managed Wirral's waste collection services since 2006.
The research was carried out last year to assess the positive and negative effects of landfill methane production and related power generation, emissions from transport and MRF processing, and any displacing offset emissions.
It was discovered that the CO2 impact of Biffa's recycling and waste services produced a net benefit equivalent to nearly 31,000 tonnes. As part of the research, the impact of landfill gas was calculated, along with transport emissions, MRF recovery processes and windrow composting.
Data analysis was also undertaken on Wirral's waste and recycling composition, which comprised around 76,000 tonnes of landfilled waste, 31,000 tonnes of dry recyclables, almost 19,000 tonnes of organic recyclables, and 2,370 tonnes of street sweepings.
The study concluded that landfill-only waste disposal would produce 17,588 of CO2 - in comparison Wirral Council's recycling efforts would have reduced carbon output by 12,370 tonnes, generating an overall CO2 reduction of 30,960 tonnes.
Commenting on the finding's Biffa's municipal director, Roger Edwards, said the calculation shows that maximising recycling and diversion from landfill actively contributes to cutting carbon outputs.
"When local authorities persuade residents to recycle more, they often do so primarily because they have to hit government-mandated targets. But we should never forget that the underlying prime reason for recycling has always been for sound environmental reasons, such as reducing dependence on virgin raw materials and cutting CO2.
"The Wirral analysis proves what can be achieved and gives us an excellent analytic model for the future."
Carys Matthews
Waste & resource management
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Cleaning technology
Cleaning processes make a significant contribution to the efficient use of natural resources. By reducing the mass flow rate due to the removal of undesired components the following process stages can be relieved. At the same time, the feed material is prepared for further processing steps. For example for applying optical sorting clean surfaces are necessary to identify the materials and therefore washing processes are necessary.
Essential for the appropriate selection process is a detailed analysis of the sample material. This will be examined regarding to its material composition and material properties and then characterized on the basis of the results. This results in the requirements for the selection of a suitable cleaning process.
In our test facility different test equipment for the various tests are available, with which materials can be studied at laboratory scale. Other working tasks are in the range of system optimization regarding to energy and water consumption as well as machine development. |
How to find a object in a NodeList in JavaScript
As web developers, there are plenty of situations where we want to traverse the DOM and find specific elements.
So, how exactly do we find an object in NodeList in JavaScript? Well, let’s say we query the DOM for all instances of a paragraph.
const nodes = document.querySelectorAll('p');
We now have a NodeList with a whole host of objects.
Since a NodeList is not actually an Array, how we traverse through it is not initially obvious. However, we can accomplish this with relative ease after converting the NodeList to an array and using some manipulation methods.
The latest ES6 way:
const foundParagraph = Array.from(nodes).find((node) => node === nodeRefToFind);
// note: nodeRefToFind must be the exact object you are looking for
We convert our paragraph NodeList into an Array using Array.from. And use .find() to match the desired item.
Alternatively, we can get the index of the desired item in the Nodelist:
const index = [], nodes[nodeRefToFind]);
// 2
And with the index we can retrieve from the NodeList:
Gareth Dunne
Senior JavaScript Engineer and creator of JSdiaries. Passionate about the latest in web technologies and how it can provide value for my clients. |
What is Arthritis?
Arthritis also called Joint inflammation , Joint pain. Arthritis is the inflammation(swelling) of the one or more than one joints. Arthritis is presented as having pain, swelling and stiffness of the joint. Arthritis increases with age and more number of joints get inflamed with the progress of the disease.
Yet, it is more common in women. Arthritis is the disease found in people as they get older.
What are the causes of Arthritis?
Arthritis is one of the major causes of disability.
There are various types of Arthritis. The causative factors for different arthritis differ considerably.
The causes may include depending on the type of arthritis, autoimmunity, infection, decencies, genetic, etc.
What are the types of Arthritis?
Osteoarthritis :
OA is one of the most common type of arthritis. It is a form of degenerative arthritis.
It is caused due to degeneration of the cartilaginous structure on the ends of bones. The bones rubs against bone causing excruciating pain , swelling develops and stiffness persists.OA is progressive disease causing limited mobility.
Rheumatoid Arthritis:
RA is a form of Inflammatory Arthritis. It is an auto-immune disease. Rheumatoid Arthritis is caused due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors , a reason for autoimmunity.
There is joint erosion, severity of pain, swelling and stiffness. In RA patients, other parts of the body also are involved eventually.
Psoriatic Arthritis
Psoriatic Arthritis is a complication of Psoriasis an autoimmune disease presenting itself on the skin. PA is also a form of Inflammatory Arthritis. The cause for Psoriasis is yet not known and Psoriatic Arthritis develops as a complication to a poorly treated or untreated Psoriasis in a person.
Infectious Arthritis:
If arthritis develops due to some infection of the joint by the intrusion/invasion of Bacterium, Virus or Fungi. The signs and symptoms remain the same, which are pain, swelling and stiffness. High grade fever may or may not be found associated with Infectious Arthritis.
Gout is a another form of inflammatory arthritis. Increase in uric acid level in the blood of some people causes Gout. It is common in males than females. Genetic , dietary and lifestyle factors lead to Gout Arthritis.
Reactive Arthritis:
Reactive Arthritis is a form of inflammatory arthritis . Mainly the joints of knee, ankle and toes are affected. Along with the joints, eyes , skin and urinary tract are involved. It is caused by the entry of bacteria into the blood.
There are more than 50 other types of Arthritis; some of them are :
• Burisitis
• Tendinitis
• Haemochromatosis
• Spondylitis
• Ankylosing Spondylitis
• Lupus
• Vasculitis
• Systemic Lupus Erythematosis
• Systemic Sclerosis
What are the symptoms of arthritis?
Based on gender and age wise would be better…
People of all ages, sexes can have arthritis. It is one of the most common diseases. The common arthritis symptoms are the characteristic Pain, Swelling and Stiffness. All these lead to decreased mobility of joints,disability.
What are the complications of arthritis?
Usually Arthritis is ignored most of the times, assuming the pain will subside. Arthritis when lately diagnosed leads to chronicity of the complaints. Pain irritates the patient and joint immobility leads to poor quality of life.
Arthritis is a progressive disease. From one or two joints, the disease involves multiple joints. Arthritis of long standing starts affecting the other parts of the body. Some of the types of arthritis may have to go for joint replacements. Osteoporosis of the joints may cause bending of the long bones and sometimes breaking of the bones.
What is the treatment for Arthritis ?
There are a number of homeopathic specific medicines for different types of arthritis. There are remedies for inflammatory type as well as degenerative type of arthritis. Homeopathy gives instant relief to the pain. In-depth analysis required for homeopathic mode of treatment enables to chose right remedy for the exact type of arthritis and such a prescription heals the pain , swelling and stiffness of joints.
Positive Homeopathy Clinics have come across cases ranging from simple pain in joints to most severe and chronic diseases involving the joints. All the experience and expertise is utilized to treat Arthritis of every type in Positive Homeopathy Clinics. A comprehensive regulation of medicinal dosages with the varied signs and symptoms peculiar to different types of arthritis are dispensed to provide cure to the patients.
Case Studies
• A 32 year old female, Swetha , is referred to you for evaluation of acute onset arthritis of hands, wrists, knees, and feet, as well a pruritic rash. The symptoms have been present for 3 weeks and her family physician found that she had an ANA of 1:160 and negative rheumatoid factor. She is sent to you with the diagnosis of SLE.
Examination: mild symmetric polyarthritis of hands, wrists, and feet. erythematous rash on the trunk. Otherwise unremarkable.
• A 22 year old male, Naveen , comes to the ER c/o a 3 day hx of right knee pain. The pain has become progressively worse to the point that he is unable to bear weight on it at all.
Examination: temperature 38.0. right knee flexed to 30 degrees. He will not allow you to flex or extend the knee. It is warm, and there is redness as well as tenderness around the knee.
Frequently Asked Qustions
What is arthritis?
Arthritis is a name for a group of conditions affecting the joints, muscles, and connective tissues of the body. Arthritis causes pain and stiffness of the joints, and can significantly affect quality of life
Is rheumatism different to arthritis?
Not really. Rheumatism is just a more general word that was used in the past. It described pain in your bones, muscles and joints. We know more today about problems with bones, muscles and joints, so we use words like back pain, arthritis
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