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Do blueberries need lime? Do blueberries need lime? Do blueberries need lime? What do blueberries need to survive? Site Selection for Blueberry Bushes • Light: Full Sun to Partial Shade. • Soil: Moist, acidic, organic, well drained soil. Highbush blueberries require a soil pH of 4.0-5.2. ... • Pollination: Blueberries are self-pollinating. However, cross-pollination produces a better crop, creating larger berries and larger yields. Are blueberries lime hating plants? Blueberries are ericaceous (lime-hating) plants. They belong to the genus Vaccinium which also includes cranberries and bilberries. Blueberries cannot be neglected, but they are certainly worth the effort and a well grown mature plant will produce more than 5 lbs of fruit per plant. Do blueberries like it wet? Do blueberries like Epsom salt? Epsom Options If your blueberries need magnesium, Epsom salt grants temporary relief. In deficient soils, broadcast 1/4 cup of Epsom salt in a 10-inch diameter around the plant, and water thoroughly. If high pH is the real culprit, extra magnesium in the soil won't help, and Epsom salt's sulfur doesn't affect pH. Are hydrangeas lime hating plants? Your soil type not only influences what you can grow, but it can also have an effect on the leaf and flower colour of some plants: hydrangeas are a well-known example. ... This is specially formulated for rhododendrons, azaleas and other lime hating plants and will be perfect for your hydrangea if you feed it regularly. What kind of soil do blueberries need in the desert? Blueberries need a specific environment to be successful. First, they need an acidic soil pH at around 4.5-5.5. Here in the Phoenix area of Arizona, we are in Zone 9, and we have a rather alkaline soil at 7-8. It’s for this reason that blueberries can’t survive in the ground in a desert climate naturally (only in a pot). What kind of berries do not like lime? Many types of popular berries also prefer a more acidic soil environment to flourish, so they won’t react favorably if you add lime. Among those, we’re singling out blueberry bushes, strawberries, and raspberries. The same can also be said for grapes which again, thrive in more acidic conditions. Are there any drawbacks to growing blueberries? Which is the best dessert with blueberries in it? This dairy-free dessert is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser and is even freezer-friendly Blintz is the Russian name for a thin pancake often wrapped around a filling These little puds look deceptively sweet, but they contain a sponge bursting with berries and the sauce is deliciously tangy Related Posts:
Last updated Chinte (珍手) (Japanese: "Rare Hand" or "Unusual Hand") is a kata practiced in Shotokan. [1] It is a very old kata originating from China. Its mixture of standard movements and rarely seen techniques, vestiges of ancient forms, give this kata a special appeal. Particularly dynamic, with its alternating strong and slow passages, Chinte is unique also in the presence of a number of circular techniques, despite the preference in Shotokan karate for linear movements. It is a kata of close-distance self-defense techniques. The somewhat peculiar closing movements allude to the absorption of the power of the waves by the sand, which is a symbol of the return to tranquility after the violent storm. [2] [3] Some believe the final three movements, a series of backwards hops, were added to bring the kata back to the original starting place in order to facilitate competition, because they are not present in the other versions of the kata practiced by other styles of Japanese Karate. Alternatively, it could be that the final movements were dropped by other styles because their meaning was lost. One interpretation of the final movements is that an opponent's grab to one's chest is secured and then the hops are used to apply one's body weight to break his wrist. In Seiyo Shorin-Ryu Karate, the last three hops are replaced by taitoshi (body leg drop) followed with a series of blocks, a kick and punch. Related Research Articles Karate Martial art Shotokan Karate Shodan Style Shotokan is a style of karate, developed from various martial arts by Gichin Funakoshi (1868–1957) and his son Gigo (Yoshitaka) Funakoshi (1906–1945). Gichin Funakoshi was born in Okinawa and is widely credited with popularizing "karate do" through a series of public demonstrations, and by promoting the development of university karate clubs, including those at Keio, Waseda, Hitotsubashi (Shodai), Takushoku, Chuo, Gakushuin, and Hosei. Gōjū-ryū Style of karate Wadō-ryū Style of karate Wadō-ryū (和道流) is one of the four major karate styles and was founded by Hironori Otsuka (1892-1982). The style itself places emphasis on not just striking, but tai sabaki, joint locks and throws. It has its origins within Tomari-te karate, but also gains influence from Shito-Ryu and Shotokan, however it was massively influenced by JiuJitsu, which explains the emphasis on concepts such as tai sabaki, noru and nagashi sabaki. Kyokushin Combat sports organization Kyokushin Karate (極真) is a style of stand-up fighting and was founded in 1964 by Korean-Japanese Masutatsu Oyama. "Kyokushin" is Japanese for "the ultimate truth". It is rooted in a philosophy of self-improvement, discipline and hard training. Its full contact style has international appeal. Kumite Martial arts grappling technique Ji'in, Jion, and Jitte form a group of kata used in Shotokan and other karate styles, beginning with the same characteristic kamae of the left hand covering the right, which apparently has roots in ancient Chinese boxing. Their origin is thought to be from the Tomari-te school, however Hirokazu Kanazawa speculates that the Jion kata were devised in the Jionji 慈恩寺, the Jion temple, where martial arts were famously practiced. From there, Kanazawa believes the Jion kata were spread into the Tomari region. Hangetsu (半月) is an advanced kata practiced in Shotokan karate. It originates from the Naha-te school. The first part is executed slowly with strong breathing, stressing the development of the hara, or energy field. This sequence shares a strong similarity with Seisan. The second part of the kata is more dynamic in its execution, with an explosion of punches as well as graceful mae geri. Due to the shared principles of expansion and contraction, Gichin Funakoshi substituted Hangetsu for Sanchin in the Shotokan curriculum. Mastery of this kata rests on mastery of hangetsu-dachi which is characterized by its semi-circular step movement of the back leg to the center, and then forward. The kata consists of 41 movements. The older Okinawan version of this kata is known as Seisan. Gojūshiho is a kata practiced in karate. Gojushiho was developed by Sokon Matsumura, one of the key founders of Okinawan martial arts and named it "Uesheishi", which literally means 54 methods in Chinese. In some styles of karate, there are two versions of this kata - Gojūshiho Shō and Gojūshiho Dai. An advantage of the two versions of the kata is to better master the difficult techniques presented therein, but not without facing some confusion, for many sequences are the same and others only slightly different. The embusen of both Gojūshiho Shō and Gojūshiho Dai are nearly identical. Gojūshiho Shō begins straight off with a wide variety of advanced techniques and, as such, is highly recommended for study. Gojūshiho Dai consists of many advanced open-handed techniques and attacks to the collar-bone. Bunkai (分解), literally meaning "analysis" or "disassembly", "is a term used in Japanese martial arts referring to process of analysing kata and extracting fighting techniques from the movements of a 'form' (kata). The extracted fighting techniques are called Oyo." Gosoku-ryu Style of karate Gosoku-ryū (剛速流) is a style of karate which was founded by Takayuki Kubota. Gosoku stands for hard and fast, which suggests a combination of techniques both from the fast and dynamic Shōtōkan style as well as from the strength-focused Gōjū-ryū style. Kūsankū (kata) Open hand karate kata Kūshankū also called Kūsankū (クーサンクー) or Kankū-dai (観空大), is an open hand karate kata that is studied by many practitioners of Okinawan Karate, specifically styles related to Shuri-te. In many styles, such as Shotokan, there are two versions of the kata: Kūsankū-shō and Kūsankū-dai. The name Kūsankū or Kōsōkun (公相君) is used in Okinawan systems of karate, and refers to Kūsankū, a Chinese diplomat from Fukien who traveled to Okinawa in the 1700s. In Japanese systems of karate, the kata has been known as Kankū ever since it was renamed in the 1930s by Funakoshi Gichin. This kata is also practiced in Tang Soo Do as Kong Sang Koon (공상군) in Korean according to the hangul rendering of the hanja 公相君. Most schools of Tang Soo Do only practice the "Dai" version a handful do practice both the latter and "Sho" versions. Passai, also Bassai (バッサイ), is the name of a group of kata practiced in different styles of martial arts, including karate and various Korean martial arts, including Taekwondo, Tang Soo Do, and Soo Bahk Do. There are several variations of these kata, including Passai sho (拔塞小) or minor Passai and Passai dai (拔塞大) or major Passai. The kata are generally known as Passai in Okinawan styles of karate and Bassai in Japanese styles, although Gichin Funakoshi originally spells the name of this form パッサイ (Passai). In Korean, the kata have several names: Bassahee, Bal Se, Pal Che, Palsek, Bal Sae, Ba Sa Hee, and Bal Sak. The kata focus on the idea of changing disadvantage into advantage by strong and courageous response, switching blocks and differing degrees of power. The feeling of kata should be precise, with fast execution of technique and attention given to appropriate balance between speed and power. Passai kata are usually classed as intermediate. The karate kataSeisan (十三) literally means '13'. Some people refer to the kata as '13 Hands', '13 Fists', '13 Techniques', '13 Steps' or even '13 killing positions'; however, these names have no historical basis. Chitō-ryū Style of karate Chitō-ryū (千唐流) is a style of karate founded by Dr. Tsuyoshi Chitose, (1898-1984). The name of the style translates as: chi (千) - 1,000; (唐) - China; ryū (流) - style, school, "1,000 year old Chinese style." The character (唐) refers to the Tang Dynasty of China. The style was officially founded in 1946. Naihanchi (ナイハンチ) is a karate Kata, performed in straddle stance. It translates to 'internal divided conflict'. The form makes use of in-fighting techniques and grappling. In Shorin-Ryu and Matsubayashi-ryū Naihanchi Shodan is the first Ni Kyu although it is taught to Yon Kyu occasionally before Evaluations for the Ni Kyu rank. It is also the first Shorin-ryu and Shindo jinen-ryu kata to start with a technique to the right instead of the left. There are three modern kata derived from this. Some researchers believe Nidan and Sandan were created by Anko Itosu, but others believe that it was originally one kata broken into three separate parts. he fact that only Naihanchi/Tekki Shodan has a formal opening suggests the kata was split. Karate kata Kata practised in karate Shorin-ryu Seibukan, also known as Sukunaihayashi, is one of the many Okinawan Shorin-ryu styles of karate. Enpi (燕飛), also frequently transliterated as Empi, is a kata practiced by Shotokan and other karate styles. Enpi means Flying Swallow. The table contains a comparison of karate styles. Some of the distinguishing features are listed, such as lineage, general form of stances, the balance of hard and soft techniques, and the number and names of kata forms. 1. "Black Belt". December 1996. Retrieved 10 January 2015. 2. Grupp, Joachim (2002). Shotokan Karate Kata. ISBN 9781841260914 . Retrieved 10 January 2015. 3. "Black Belt". February 1989. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
Theoretical Models of Disability by Cam N. Coulter Posted on April 26, 2021 accessibility Universal access icon: a stick figure with a circle around them There are a number of different theoretical models that we use to understand disability. What are the most common models that you are likely to come across? 1. The Medical Model 2. The Social Model 3. The Functional Solutions Model 4. The Biopsychosocial Model 5. The Economic Model 6. The Society Identity or Cultural Affiliation Model 7. The Charity Model What are the basic concepts behinds each of these models, as well as their strengths and weaknesses? Which of these models best align with the principles of accessibility and universal design? What are some practical examples of these models in our lives? The Medical Model Under the medical model of disability, disabilities arise from various biological impairments or diagnosable health conditions. The medical model emphasizes individuals’ impairments and limitations and is often concerned with “healing” the person or mitigating their impairments through professional medical care. Strength: In clinical, medical settings, this way of understanding disability can help make sure that patients get the health care they need. The medical model of disability can also be used for legal purposes, such as clearly determining who qualifies for certain benefits. Weakness: The medical model over-emphasizes the individual and overlooks the fundamental roles that society and environments play in creating disability. Additionally, if people’s disabilities don’t meet strict definitions, those people might not qualify for medical care or other benefits. Also, medical interventions can be a great deal of hassle for a person with a disability, as well as incredibly costly. We see the medical model in action when someone with a disability is diagnosed by a medical professional with a health condition and then offered treatment or a cure for their condition through the health care system. The Social Model The social model of disability emphasizes mismatches between individuals’ capabilities and the demands of their environment. While under the medical model, disabilities are created by various impairments, under the social model, people are disabled when their environment is not designed to meet their needs. In this case, impairments don’t directly cause disability. Instead, people are disabled by poorly designed environments. Adherents to the social model of disability typically won’t deny that people have various impairments, medical conditions, or differing abilities that can present challenges. However, under the social model, those challenges on their own don’t cause a disability. Instead, the mismatch between a person’s abilities and their environment creates a disability, not an impairment in and of itself. Strength: The social model forces us to think about the roles we all play in creating (or preventing) disability. By creating accessible environments (physical, virtual, and social), we can greatly improve the experiences of people with various impairments or limitations. Likewise, when we fail to do so, it’s on us. In this way, the social model helps remove barriers for and end stigmas against people with disabilities. For these reasons, I think the social model of disability aligns closely with the principles of accessibility and universal design. Relatedly, when we design our shared environments to be accessible to people with disabilities, we also benefit all sorts of other people and use cases. This trait of universal design is known as the curb-cut effect. We added curb-cuts on sidewalks for the benefit of people with disabilities, but many other people use curb-cuts as well, for things like bicycles or heavy luggage. When you approach disability from the social perspective, you also benefit people with situational limitations. Weakness: If you look at disability strictly from the social model, you may overlook other aspects of disability, such as the biological or the cultural. We see the social model in action when buildings are designed to be wheelchair accessible or when websites are designed to work with assistive technologies such as screen readers or switch controls. By carefully and inclusively creating our built environments, we can include rather than disable people. The Functional Solutions Model The functional socials model of disability looks at disability as a practical problem to be solved, often through innovative assistive technologies or adaptive strategies. The functional solutions model somewhat aligns with the ideals of accessibility, as it is concerned with finding ways to increase access and independence for people with disabilities. However, I think the functional solutions model best aligns with the field of assistive technology (how do you come up with a solution to begin with?), and the social model best aligns with the field of accessibility (how can you scale those solutions throughout society?). Strength: This model of disability is focused on helping people with disabilities in practical, direct ways and supporting them to be more independent. Weakness: This view can be too narrow or myopic at times, overlooking the role of broader social change. (Yes, it’s super cool that some wheelchairs can climb stairs, but also, why didn’t we build a ramp?) Additionally, many functional solutions (assistive technologies) are prohibitively expensive. We see the functional solutions model in action when an engineer create new assistive technologies or when we 3D-print braille dice. Biopsychosocial Model The biopsychosocial model is probably the most complicated, nuanced framework for understanding what disability is. This model is the basis for the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), a framework which is often used by occupational therapists. I understand the biopsychosocial model as a perspective that incorporates and integrates the medical, functional solutions, and social models. This model recognizes that disability is “a complex phenomena that is both a problem at the level of a person’s body, and a complex and primarily social phenomena. Disability is always an interaction between features of the person and features of the overall context in which the person lives.” Under this model, disability arises both from a person’s health conditions as well as contextual factors, such as their environment. What does that mean in practice? Biological impairments are real things, which merit professional medical treatment and care. Those impairments create activity limitations, difficulties an individual may have in performing certain tasks. To help with these limitations, an individual may be given assistive technology, adaptive strategies, personal assistance, or rehabilitation therapy. Because of their impairments or activity limitations, an individual may also experience participation restrictions, problems participating in everyday life situations. To help with these restrictions, we need universal design, anti-discrimination laws, and general social inclusion. Strength: This model is nuanced and can be used to address disability from a variety of levels. It can also be applied to both prevention and intervention. Like the medical model, the biopsychosocial model can be used to create definitions and qualifications for legal purposes. Weakness: It’s a little complicated to wrap your head around at first. It may also overlook the insights of the social identity/cultural affiliation model. We can see the biopsychosocial model in action when an occupational therapist (OT) helps someone learn to use an assistive technology and later when the OT advocates for web accessibility. The Economic Model The economic model is concerned with how disability impacts an individual’s ability to work. By extension, this model may also be used by employers to analyze “productivity” or by the state to plan welfare programs. Strength: This model is sensitive to the reality that many people with disabilities are unemployed and require social assistance. Weakness: This approach to disability overlooks many other aspects of disability and can also create a stigma against people with disabilities, labeling them as “needy.” We see the economic model in action when an employer wonders if someone with a disability would be “as productive” as someone without or when people creating welfare systems assume people with disabilities require economic support. The Social Identity or Cultural Affiliation Model People with disabilities often have similar life experiences to each other, experiences that others in society may not understand. The social identity or cultural affiliation model of disability pays attention to how people with disability can have a shared culture and take pride in their membership in this group. Strength: This model encourages people to accept their disabilities and view them as a point of pride. It can lead not only to self-empowerment but also to political power for people with disabilities. Weakness: For some people with disabilities, it is not easy to accept their disabilities or take pride in it. There are many different types of disabilities, and not everyone with a disability identifies as being in the same social group. We see this model in action when Deaf individuals showcase Deaf pride and create or support Deaf culture. The Charity Model Under the charity model, disabilities are viewed as tragic or unfortunate, and people with disabilities may be viewed as inspirational for living with their impairments. Relatedly, people with disabilities are viewed as needing assistance, and providing that assistance is seen as morally laudable. Strength: This perspective inspires people to donate time and money to support people with disabilities. Weakness: This perspective objectifies people with disabilities, turning them into “inspiration porn.” This model can also perpetuate ableism and existing inequalities, as it applauds people who donate without necessarily challenging them to make society more equal and accessible. We see this model in action when nonprofits attempt to fundraise by emphasizing the hardships of living with a disability. Imaged created by Cam Coulter. Icon by mikion on the Noun Project. Share on Twitter 100 Days of A11y
02 June 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, its emergence, global spread and the crisis there from is inseparably linked up with the character of neoliberal accumulation today. As is widely recognised, its origins are rooted in profit-driven corporate capital’s unbridled plunder of nature and consequent invasion and intrusion in to wild life ecosystem leading to spill-over of viruses to humans and their subsequent mutations. That is, most of the zoonotic viruses and consequent highly infectious diseases coming up one by one during the neoliberal period are rooted in increasing disruptions in ecosystem and biodiversity. The entire health care system under capitalist-imperialist system being driven by profit motive, this pandemic has given rise not only to a health crisis but also to an unprecedented economic collapse given the globalised character of world today. Many concerned and well-meaning scholars, political scientists and economists the world over envisage the outcome of COVID-19 pandemic as more deadly and destructive than that of all previous crises including even world wars. In particular, while the world is celebrating the 75th year of the end of Second World War, COVID-19, with both US and UK under its highest death tolls, has exposed the political-economic and social bankruptcy of the Anglo-American led capitalist-imperialist system of more than two centuries. Many observations and hypotheses on this aspect based on the emerging trends are pouring in from various quarters. Coming specifically to the political-economic situation, with GDP growth rates in US and Europe being in the negative territory and everything including production, trade and commerce, travel and tourism, etc. coming to a halt, world economy has entered in to a frozen state that is more dreadful than the Great Depression of 1930s prompting analysts to characterise the situation as an “Ice Age”. From a political economy perspective, COVID-19 has totally disrupted the foundations of globalised production, both its supply and demand chains. Initial estimates by Bretton Woods Institutions made in April indicate a contraction in global GDP by around $ 9 trillion (equal to the combined GDP of Germany and Japan) during 2020. However, according to latest IMF forecast, while the GDP of China, which could bring the pandemic under control and resume economic activities earlier, is set to grow by 1.2 percent, world GDP will be minus at around -6.0 percent with France, Germany, UK, US and Japan witnessing negative growth rates of -7.2, -7.0, -6.5, -5.9 and -5.2respectively. On May 6 at Brussels, Paulo Gentiloni, EU Economic Affairs Commissioner has drawn a more damaging picture of the Eurozone economy with the growth rate reaching – 7.7 percent in 2020. According to more recent estimates, the GDP of Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is expected to shrink by 6.3 percent in 2020 - the biggest contraction since 1949. And the case of the neo-colonially dependent Afro-Asian-Latin American countries inhabited by world’s poorest, the situation is gruesome. An analysis in the third week of May by Goldman Sachs predicts a historic shrink of the Indian economy by 45 percent in the second quarter of 2020 and a 5 percent decline of its GDP during the financial year 2020-21, whereas India’s Reserve Bank puts the country’s growth rate in the negative territory in the current financial year. The consequences of this economic pandemic including unemployment, poverty, deprivation, etc. among other things are turning out to be unimaginable and unmanageable within the imperialist system. According to ILO predictions, global unemployment will be 1500 million this year while the number of absolute poor who lack even the minimum income to have a meal is going to reach the staggering figure of 1000 million, 40 percent of them being Indians. It also envisages a dreadful situation of $3.4 trillion drop in working class incomes across the world. Interpreting the pandemic as a “child rights crisis”, UNICEF has warned that an additional 6000 children could die daily from preventable causes over the next six months (1.2 million deaths in 6 months) as COVID-19 weakens global health systems. On the other hand, global inequality today is the highest with 8 superrich corporate billionaires led by Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) gobbling up as much wealth as that of the bottom 50 percent of world’s population. In the same vein, highlighting the destructive levels of inequality prevailing today, Oxfam Report (2020) estimates the total wealth of world’s 2153 billionaires as equal to 60 percent of the world people at the bottom. And neoliberal-corporatisation policies that continue unabated even during the pandemic are constantly channelling more wealth in to corporate coffers. In this context, though concrete studies are yet to come, many trends in global political economy and international relations which were evident on the eve of the pandemic have become more pronounced and well-defined now. Obviously, while World War II ravaged the entire world including the economies of all other imperialist powers including Britain, it did provide an excellent opportunity for US imperialism whose war-damages were minimum to gain maximum out of the war. For, during World War II, the entire US economy had geared toward the most concentrated application of science and technology for war-oriented production ranging from agricultural and industrial products to weapons of mass destruction. As a result, together with the confluence of many other factors, when the war that wiped out 75 million people from earth came to a close, US accounted for almost half the GDP of the capitalist world together with three quarters of the total global gold reserves. It finally enabled US financial oligarchy and its think-tanks to devise the political-economic and military blueprint required for transforming US as the supreme arbiter of post-war neo-colonialism replacing Pax-Britannica with Pax-Americana. Now the pandemic has become a historic turning point that exposed the bankruptcy of this pre-eminent role of US imperialism both in terms of the highest number of casualties and on account of its abject inability to take leadership role in a critical situation that brought the whole world to a standstill. It also laid bare the unbridgeable gap between the agenda of a tiny ruling elite leading neoliberal-corporatisation on the one hand and the interests of the working and oppressed majority of the world over on the other. At the same time, in view of the weakening of US, the situation is also witnessing a reduction in the power gap between the US and China, the latter so far exporting medical ‘aid’ to more than 80 Covid-battered countries including the US. However, in the absence of a well-defined global power leadership, the emerging post-pandemic situation points to a bipolar imperialist configuration led by China and US in the immediate future and towards a further weakening of the latter thereafter, a trend which is fully in conformity with the twenty-first century trends associated with the laws of motion of finance capital. The Collapse of the ‘American Dream’ By the 1870s, the US had transformed as world’s leading economic power through the concentration and centralisation of production and growth of finance capital though Britain was still holding its “empire upon which the sun never set”. The formation of US Steel Corporation and Standard Oil as world’s first billion-dollar companies led respectively by Morgan and Rockefeller catapulted the US as the world leader in finance and manufacturing by the turn of the 20th century. Along with its industrial and financial superiority, surpassing Britain by this time, the US also became number one in world trade, capital export and as world’s creditor together with the concomitant political and military dimensions. As the most powerful capital exporting imperialist power and as world’s major creditor, dollar also became a major reserve currency along with pound sterling and WW II saw only its logical culmination when the former completely replaced the latter’s role as international vehicle currency and as one of the main instruments of US neo-colonial hegemony for seven-and-a-half decades. Now this position is being challenged, a process that started much before the pandemic. On the eve of COVID-19 itself, i.e., by the end of 2019, based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), China with a GDP of $27.3 trillion had surpassed the US having a GDP of $21.44 trillion. While China’s trade volume was estimated at $4.43 trillion, that of US was $3.89 trillion, around 80 percent of the former. In 2000, 80 percent of the countries of the world was trading with US; today it is only 30 percent while China today has 60 percent of the countries of the world as trading partners. By the first quarter of 2020, the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership-- composed of 10 ASEAN countries plus China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea) and Russia had become China’s largest trading partners comprising around 50 percent of its global trade. Of course, China’s capitalist transformation as cheap labour-based “workshop of the world” and its comparative advantage in global trade over the US following its integration with global market as world’s biggest exporter are all much-discussed topics. The recent US threat of cutting off Chinese supply chains including the reported move to shut out Huawei’s 5G out of US seems to be rhetorical only. For, the supply chains of almost 80 percent of US industries at present have direct or indirect links with China. In the sphere of medical supplies, the US dependence on China is even up to 90 percent, an aspect well-exposed in the context of COIVID-19. In the sphere of capital export too, China with its specific neo-colonial interests has overtaken the US as is evident from the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative which in terms of its size and extent is larger than the erstwhile Marshall Plan (or European Recovery Program) of the US that acted as the driving force for post-war reconstruction of war-torn Europe. Envisaging a capital export worth $1 trillion that lasts till 2049 and spanning Asia, Europe, Africa and even Latin America, the OBOR aims at infrastructure build-up such as roads, ports, airports and so on in host countries along with the usual neo-colonial controls underlying such deals. At a time when Trump and his think-tanks were characterising the pandemic as “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu”, Chinese export of 31 tons of much-needed medical equipment including ventilators, masks and protective units when Italy was at the zenith of the pandemic had been of immense help to it which was effectively reciprocated by Italy by signing the OBOR initiative characterising the same as a “train that Italy cannot afford to miss.” A number of regional economic arrangements and trade agreements led by the US are either crumbling or weakening in the background of the relative decline of it in international affairs. In the context of the pandemic, several international groupings likeG7 and G20 supposedly led by US are also in disarray. The collapse of the Tans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is just another example. Even the US-led NATO is losing its cohesion and EU is planning its own independent European military arrangement. On the other hand, China after joining WTO by the turn of the 21st century is ingeniously working on many regional and international arrangements led by it or is coming to the leadership of many using its emerging political-economic clout. In fact WTO provisions also favour regional trade agreements as a “gateway” to internationalisation of capital and market. In this context, a best example is that of RCEP, one of history’s biggest Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that came into being towards the close of 2019.Now, as the leading imperialist power in the grouping, China is in a position to dump its cheap products in RCEP that encompasses one-third of global GDP. Though at a different level, Chinese imperialist interest is predominant in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), BRICS, etc. while the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) led by it is a powerful entity several times bigger than ADB, the Asian economic arm of US. Chinese imperialism has even started emulating Rockefeller-Ford philanthropies as is evident from the prompt provision of a medical aid comprising 500000 test kits and 1000000 masks to Africa by the Alibaba-funded Chinese Charity. Of particular relevance, however, is with regard to the collapse of the “oil empire” so assiduously built up by US imperialism since the turn of the 20thcentury. More than a century of US history comprising West Asian geopolitics led by it is interwoven with the specific role of oil right from the days of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, erstwhile biggest international monopoly, as already mentioned. American finance capital from the very beginning has been maintaining its profit rates high by indulging in oil speculation. No doubt, the formation of OPEC in 1973 and the sudden four-fold increase in the price of oil at the zenith of the Cold War was a temporary setback for US imperialism. However, within a short time, the US succeeded in manipulating the dependent West Asian countries of OPEC by persuading them to hold their earnings in US banks in the form of “petrodollars”. This enabled US not only to revive dollar from the stagflation of the 1970s but also to boost the profits of US military-industrial complex on the other. Obviously, this situation is altering at an alarming speed now. The days of “oil imperialism” are numbered. Contrary to previous predictions on oil as leading energy source lasting for another two-three decades are now called in to question. Research and economic application of non-polluting, alternative and non-conventional energies such as solar and wind are fast advancing. Biggest US and European hedge and pension funds that turned to oil speculation as a reliable source of profit in the aftermath of the 2008 global meltdown are in crisis as crude oil prices are secularly deteriorating. Following abrupt fall in demand in the context of the pandemic, during the third week of April 2020, the world for the first time witnessed the historic fall of crude price below zero in US futures market for oil. While the sustenance of oil producing countries is at stake, many financial oligarchs mainly in US whose principal source of neo-colonial plunder has been artificial hike in petroleum price and its speculation are in crisis. To be precise, the collapse of the “oil empire” will have far-reaching repercussions for US imperialism whose emergence and transformation as the biggest imperialist power has been intertwined with the history oil. The whole set of institutional arrangements such as the UN system, the Bretton Woods institutions, global military alliances and world-wide military bases that framed the political, economic and military foundations of the US-led post-war neo-colonial phase of imperialism are also facing a relative decline in their striking power. Probably, this is more evident in the UN system together with its Functional and Regional Commissions and a number of Specialised Agencies such as ILO, WHO, FAO, UNICEF, UNESCO, etc. which the US tried to use as political-ideological tools in the neo-colonial-neoliberal offensive. With veto power in the Bretton Woods twins (IMF and World Bank) and the US hold over them is conspicuous, the same over UN institutions and agencies was often camouflaged and subtle either through intervening in the selection of their CEOs or manipulating the funds due to them. However, in recent years, new trends are emerging. A best example is that of WHO which in this critical time of the pandemic has refused to toe the US line and of late has overtly displayed its affinity towards China, following US accusations of it being too China-friendly. In continuation of US flouting many crucial WHO guidelines regarding the pandemic, trump administration has suspended its UN-mandated $50 billion annual contribution to WHO. But this has led to a further isolation of US imperialism in international community and even the western US allies including EU and Germany in particular have vehemently disagreed with Trump and issued statements in support of WHO. At the same time, promptly taking advantage of the situation China came forward injecting an extra-$30 million in to the agency, a quantum jump from its pledged contribution of $ 20 million. This is not an isolated case. While China is very prompt and regular in accomplishing its payments to UN and its affiliated agencies, the US seems often refraining from committing its mandated contributions. For instance, the existing US due to UN budget is $1165 million while its dues towards various UN peace-keeping tasks come to around $1332 million. In this situation, when even erstwhile allies of the US have openly expressed their displeasure over Trump’s handling of the UN and its agencies, China is tactically making use of the situation towards its global reach. Of course, the US still remains as history’s mightiest military machine in terms of both the stock of weapons of mass destruction and the readiness to deploy it in accordance with its imperialist agenda. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had unequivocally proved that no ruling class on earth can ever surpass the criminality and terrorism unleashed by US imperialism. This characteristic of the US is not specifically connected with WW II or that of post-war neo-colonialism led by it. For, the whole trajectory of US ascendancy as the supreme imperialist power had always been filled with loot, plunder, horror and genocide. It perpetrated holocausts upon holocausts on defenceless and innocent people as documented in the extermination of Red Indians, slavery on African- Americans, mass genocides on people of Pacific Islands and in superimposing “imperialism without colonies” over Latin America before ascending as supreme arbiter in the post-war neo-colonial world order. During the post-war period too, with 800 military bases in 80 countries and a nuclear arsenal large enough to wipe out the world many times over, the geopolitical tensions, terror and wars, both cold and hot, imposed on world people by US imperialism have surpassed everything that preceded. Even today, when US imperialism is confronting a historic downturn which is inherently connected with the laws of motion of capital and the specific form of neoliberal accumulation, its annual military expenditure (2019 estimates) with $732 billion comes to 38 percent of the world total. China with $261 billion comes second and India, US’ junior partner with $71 billion is third in the list. However, in view of the crumbling political and economic foundations of crisis-ridden US imperialism, its capacity to sustain this huge military expenditures and maintain its military hegemony is doubtful. Protectionist trade wars as well as geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific between US and China have sharpened during this period. For the first time in history, a US Navy Destroyer in South China Sea was forced to retreat following Chinese military intervention. Of course, no one can deny the fact that with accumulated weapons of mass destruction and backed by huge military expenditure, the US still remains as the biggest war machine in the world. As history underscores a decaying empire will never go down from its dominant position without a fight. No doubt, the situation definitely calls for appropriate global level intervention on the part of progressive- democratic forces Probably, the most crucial issue that accelerates the decline of US imperial reach is with regard to dollar itself. Omnipresence of the dollar that provided American finance capital an unparalleled opportunity for neo-colonial control has also been the most conspicuous expression of US hegemony. Being the only generally acceptable currency for international transactions, countries had to hold dollar as unit of account, medium of exchange and store of value. While other countries have to forego real resources for dollars, as the issuing country of dollar, the US could print any amount of dollar and purchase from or invest in any part of the world. US could finance its aid programs and military adventures out of the printing of dollar. Governments and central banks the world over were bound to keep their reserves in dollars and so on. However, obviously and logically, there is another side of the picture. That is, this dollar-denominated international arrangement has become an obstacle and at many times came in to conflict with the interests of other imperialist powers contending with US imperialism. Moreover, the underlying and badly needed symbiotic relationship between dollar as vehicle currency on the one hand, and US as world’s leading trader and capital exporter on the other, has already been broken—a repetition of what happened to pound sterling during the final decades of colonialism when Britain was still continuing as formal colonial leader. To be precise, today dollar continues as the international currency not based on the economic strength of US but only because of the absence an alternative arrangement. It is in this context that imperialist China’s efforts to deal with US interference in international monetary transactions assume strategic political importance. China had already started using its currency Yuan along with local currencies in trade with its closest partners comprising almost half of the global trade volume. The transactions here are settled through the CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payments System bypassing the SWIFT(Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications headquartered in Belgium since 1973) network payment system that uses dollar as the medium of cross-border settlements and therefore alleged to have a partisan approach to US in sharing financial information. Along with this, China is in the process of launching a digital or crypto-currency called e-RMB (e-Renminbi) for circumventing the role of dollar in global transactions. The digital currency/cyber money developed with the involvement of Chinese digital giants like WeChat and Alipay has already become acceptable in many Chinese cities and is widely used for almost all transactions including salary payments. In the present international monetary system in which dollar is the numeraire, many countries are already fed up with US interference in their transactions. For such countries, the internationalisation of digital Yuan will be very attractive. Revealingly, with the application of ‘digital intelligence’ through such technologies as blockchain, the Chinese digital currency is designed in such a manner as to accomplish total non-interference from the Chinese Central Bank and this is expected to strengthen the general acceptability of ‘Chinese digital Yuan’ among the international community. If the Chinese initiative becomes successful and digital Yuan starts functioning, it will erode the role of dollar as world’s main reserve currency. Parallel to this, China is also planning to divest its trillions worth of dollar-denominated foreign exchange through outright write-off of loans of its closest partners or purchase of foreign assets or as OBOR investments abroad. Meanwhile, as per reports, the US also is planning a counter-offensive by developing a digital dollar project. No doubt, as manifested in the assassinations of Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, US imperialism will go to any extent to eliminate any threat attempting to replace the dollar with another viable international medium of exchange. The multi-faceted and concerted China-bashing and Sinophobia now unleashed by Trump administration is to be viewed in this perspective. However, according to latest information, France has successfully tested a digital euro, and similar experiments are going on in Japan, Canada and UK. No doubt, the outcome of such simultaneous emergence of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) including their use in global interbank settlements will be nothing short of a “gunning for the dollar” from rival contending centres. A Pandemic Turned in to a Catalyst Towards “Digital Imperialism”? This international situation forms the background to the emerging post-pandemic political-economic trends. When the COVID-19 battered world economy came to an abrupt halt, the only sphere that worked overtime was that of the internet and digitisation. To put it differently, in the absence of cross-border digital flows, the economic outcome of the pandemic would have been more horrific. That is, when COVID-19 disrupted everything and disconnected the world, it was the digital or cyberspace that kept the world moving. Of course, in the beginning of the pandemic itself, China with its advancements in robotisation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies succeeded in designing a suitable App to track and trace corona patients. In the course of the global virus-spread, several countries subsequently emulated it by devising their respective apps (Arogya Setu App in India is an example). Along with this many digital spheres including cashless payments and transactions also got a boost during the pandemic days. Among the fast-emerging frontier technologies including robotisation, AI, medical and bio-technologies, probably, digitisation is today’s fastest-moving. Though emerged in 1990s,digital flows were practically non-existent till the close of the 20th century, while during the past two decades, digitisation has undergone an exponential growth. With just 100 gigabytes (GB) per second in 2002, world digital flows (Global Internet Protocol Traffic) rose to 2000 GB per second in 2007. The aftermath of 2008 global meltdown imparted a further boost to this process such that digital flows rose by more than 20 times during the past decade reaching 46000 GB per second by 2017. According to UNCTAD, it is expected to shoot up to 150700 GB by 2022. However, in view of the specific developments during the pandemic, the digital growth rate is likely to outstrip UNCTAD’s estimate made in 2019. Today, US and China together account for around 75 percent of all patents related to digital/blockchain technologies and digital companies from both hold 90 percent of the market capitalisation value of the world’s digital platforms. As per a Mckinsey study, the value of China’s e-commerce transactions is larger than the value of those of France, Germany, Japan UK and US combined while as a percentage of GDP, China’s digital economy at about 30 percent is still below that of US. Digitally deliverable service exports now comprise more than half of total global service exports. Share of digital economy now ranging up to 16 percent in global GDP is a bigger contributor to GDP than the centuries-old transport sector comprising road, rail, shipping and air traffic. And every economic activity having a digital component today, digitisation has become inseparable from social life. That is, in addition to transmission of data or streams of information and ideas in their own right, digital flows have become essential for enabling the movement of tangible goods, services, finance. Obviously, in the pandemic situation, digitisation has been unleashed as a strategic tool with governments and health officials in using digital interactions as a substitute for physical interactions. It enabled not only tracking and tracing patients but even for remote-location diagnoses by using new avenues of robotisation and in measuring body temperature, pulse rate and even oxygen levels through AI and for treatment through telemedicine. The pandemic time also witnessed an unprecedented transmission of valuable streams of information and data flows-enabled movement of goods, services and communication along with the use of video conferencing, remote or home-based work, and a host of online/mobile services. However, behind this apparent and open use of digital technologies by far-right and neo-fascist regimes, from a political economy perspective two aspects are of crucial significance – one, how digitisation is used as a political tool in the move towards a deep state and two, how it intensifies corporate accumulation through an unprecedented super-exploitation of the working class. Regarding the first, political use of the crises as an opportunity or excuse for circumventing the established democratic procedures is not all new with fascist regimes. As already noted, China could contain the initial virus-spread in Wuhan by developing appropriate phone apps by grasping the extent of infections through tracking, locating and quarantining corona patients. It was also made mandatory on the part of people to download it enabling the authorities to track their entire movements. Within a short while South Korea, Singapore, Israel and Italy followed by various neo-fascist regimes of Europe also evolved similar softwares/apps attached to mobile phones. Interestingly, such digital interventions aimed to help medical and health personnel are now effectively used by police and intelligence agencies which may later be used as coercive instruments for serving the fascist agenda of the far-right regimes against political opponents and struggling people. Many governments that developed such phone-based softwares in gross violation of people’s privacy for tracking their movements and involvements in the guise of the pandemic have hinted at the continuation them as a surveillance tool even in the post-COVID situation. A best example is that of the Indian regime which has already declared that it will continue with the Arogya Setu App developed in the context of COVID-19. The Modi government which is systematic in its drive towards a deep state has now made this App mandatory for citizens to download it as an e-pass for travel across India. That is, those who lack the required smartphone capable of downloading the App will be denied the constitutional right of free movement as a citizen. Thus like the CAA and NRC, the Arogya Setu App also implies a disenfranchisement and outright denial of citizenship rights to 75 percent of Indians who lack smartphones. According to latest information, world’s leading digital giants Google and Apple are actively engaged in a mobile software updation enabling governments to develop appropriate Apps for a foolproof tracking of their citizens. Secondly, along with this direct political use of digital software as an effective fascistic tool by neo-fascist regimes, the multi-dimensional economic repercussions arising from digitisation is far-reaching. The role of the internet in internationalisation of production and global corporatisation or financialisation with the advent of neo-liberalism is a much discussed issue. However, unlike the 20th century, along with imparting new dimensions to financial speculation, it has also become possible by 21st century imperialism to instantly transform physical activities like manufacturing into fluid digital data that can be stored, retrieved and distributed globally. This has enabled profit-driven finance capitalists and corporate MNCs to bring about qualitative changes in both global production and international division of labour. The consequent reorganisation of production while leads to unprecedented wealth concentration in “Silicon Six”(Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft) and similarly placed Chinese companies like Alibaba and Tencent, the working class under new forms of surplus value extraction is going to be subjected to hitherto unknown levels of super-exploitation. Corporate media has already started talking on how post-pandemic work-place is to be re-arranged. It is argued that many professions can be moved online avoiding face-to-face-meeting and travel; that daily commuters will be told to work from home through video-conferencing or video calls or via other online platforms and in self-isolation, that wages also can be made digital through mobile biometric payments and so on. Online shopping and e-commerce, cloud business and services are to get new booming and as a manifestation, the fortunes of Amazon like companies that already gained much from the Corona crisis are sky-rocketing. A pervasive digital culture pertaining to education and research and a flourishing of online courses are also in the offing. Even the film industry is planning to re-orient towards direct to home releases using online platforms like Amazon. This emerging trend in many social realms is likely to continue in the post-Covid situation without any let up. As is obvious, in the guise this ‘digital culture’, corporate capital is unleashing a systematic disruption in the collective bargaining power of the workforce. That is, on account of the specific character of the service sector (that today comprises more than two-thirds of the global GDP) having relatively more white-collar professions, digitisation (with its emphasis on home-based work, etc.) has made it easy for capitalists to deal with employees on an individual or personal basis. Together with this, digitisation coupled with the new advancement in processing technologies that makes it possible to decentralise or decompose production into several stages has enabled corporate capital to devise a neoliberal version of the “putting out system”(pre-capitalist production system widespread in Western Europe in which merchant employers “put-out of materials to rural producers who worked in their homes)of transplanting ‘toxic’ and cheap labour-based stages of production to the dependent countries. This is speeding up a new division of labour in material production both at the global and regional levels leading to super-exploitation of workers and toiling masses through various arrangements for organising labour such as ‘flexible specialization’, outsourcing, assembly lines, etc. To be precise, through what is called ‘informalisation’ or ‘disorganisation’, of the workforce, “digital imperialism” is swiftly reinforcing its global reach ensuring the highest rate of profit at minimum cost mainly through pushing down wages using digital platforms and tools. No doubt, while the capitalist-imperialist system is engaged in a global reorganisation in all spheres of life through digitisation, and when the international Left in general is weak, the poor and oppressed people are increasingly driven to the peripheries and are denied access to even means of life. That is, the so called “digital relations of production” have become a concrete expression of the class relations at the international and national levels. The “digital divide” (a term used to highlight the situation of vast majority of people in Afro- Asian-Latin American countries who lack internet- a 2017-18 Study on internet availability in India amidst Modi’s “digital India” hype found that only 27 percent of Indians have internet accessibility with wide variations across classes, gender and regions) or the “digital gap” between and within countries that is subsumed under the neoliberal-corporatisation and under existing property relations is leading to more and deprivation of the poor and widening of inequalities. To be precise, digitisation and robotisation that are being shaped by informal/unorganized, unpaid/underpaid and hence super-exploited workers and oppressed people are now becoming inexhaustible avenues of plunder and exploitation by finance capital today. At the same time, there is a concerted attempt in corporate media to manipulate political opinion and superimpose a culture of silence to disguise this biggest-ever extraction of surplus value by capital. However, while acknowledging the due role of the rapid advances in digitisation, robotisation, AI, IoT (Internet of Things), and blockchain technologies, a closer analysis will make it amply clear thatthe centrality of production, commodity trade, military-industrial complexes, etc. are decisive and the determining force in society. At the same time, while there are no substitutes for material production and physical interactions among people, the relevance new technologies that enable imperialism to bring about a reorganisation of production cannot be glossed over. The consequent new division of labour superimposed on the working class and the possibility intensified surplus value extraction according to national and local specificities and many diversities today are resulting in an unprecedented growth in the ranks of unorganized or informal working class including refugees and migrants as the most “wretched” social class on earth today. It is the urgent task of the revolutionary left to have a concrete analysis of this globalised production process and growing accumulation of monopoly profits from super-exploitation of workers from a Marxist perspective. The problem is not that of new technologies, but of social relations or, as Stephen Hawking had said, the manner in which the gain from technological efficiency is appropriated by capitalists and how it is denied to the workers and broad masses of people. The most urgent political question and organisational task that the Left and democratic forces have to take up today centre around this crucial issue. As outlined in the preceding observations, the emerging international situation is being shaped by a bipolar configuration between US and China in which the other imperialist powers will perform the role of third parties in consonance with their self-interest. Though US imperialism is much weaker, declining and relatively isolated, as history shows, declining empires will not go down peacefully. On the other hand, the ‘neoliberal virus’ has totally exposed the political-economic and social bankruptcy of capitalist-imperialist system as a whole. The pandemic has laid bare the diverging gap between interests of the billionaire financial elite indulging in terribly destructive plunder of nature and labour on one side, and the needs and sustenance of the working class and broad masses of people on the other. In this context, the likelihood of bureaucratic-capitalist led imperialist China with its specific neo-colonial methods of operation ascending to number one position in imperialist hierarchy leading to more intensified global scramble for markets, spheres of capital export and sources of raw materials will only result in a change in the form of neo-colonial plunder while, in essence, the laws of motion of capital shall still be prevailing. That is, the crisis is systemic and is integrally linked up with the overall dominance of the imperialist financial relations over world people and a mere retreat of one imperialist power yielding space for another will not alter the loot and plunder that are going on. Of course, we cannot be oblivious of the extreme destruction that may emanate from the sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions irrespective of whether the global set-up is bipolar or multi-polar. And international Left and struggling forces must be prepared to effectively utilise the contradictions among the ruling classes both internationally and nationally. Meanwhile, regardless of a probable shift in global power balance, the pandemic in all its details has clearly revealed that the continuation of the rotten and exhausted imperialist system itself will be threatening to the very sustenance of humankind. Since space for manoeuvre within the system is fast-depleting, scope of neo-Keynesian proposals seems to be very limited. What is required is a counter-offensive with a comprehensive political program from people-centred, bottom-up approach on the part of the Left and struggling forces to overthrow the more than three-century old capitalist-imperialist system that is reversing the hard-erned rights by people on the one hand, and at the same time rotting and becoming anachronistic on the other. Such an alternative shall be capable of effectively and appropriately coordinating both international solidarity national struggles against imperialism and its local chieftains. No doubt, until being thrown away, the system will keep linger on to the end putting heaviest burdens and untold miseries on the backs of humankind.
Federal and states civil forfeiture statutes authorize law enforcement agencies to seize private property, ranging from sums of cash to cars and houses, merely on suspicion that a crime might have been committed. No hearing is held prior to seizure, which occurs abruptly without any notice or warning whatsoever. Although civil forfeiture doesn’t draw criminal charges against the owner, it does deprive him of his property without due process based solely on an officer’s “reasonable suspicion” And a portion of the assets seized typically is retained by the police departments who seized the property in the first place. These practices have been abused by many police departments, but people are fighting back. Americans from all sides of the political spectrum have started to expose the dangers of civil forfeiture. The Heritage Foundation held a panel to discuss Civil Forfeiture reform earlier this year, and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle in the Senate and the House have introduced legislation to reform the federal civil forfeiture laws. Reforms of state laws have also been called for. To be sure, civil forfeiture has helped cripple organized crime, but it has been abused to deprive innocent citizens of due process and their property, violating norms enshrined in our founding documents. Certainly this is an area of the law in need of reform.
Delegates have struggled to agree on key issues such as protected ocean space and how to preserve an The biggest sticking point was a division between developing and industrial nations over working out a system to fairly share in genetic resources, such as medicine extracted from plants. The UN Convention on Biodiversity meeting, held in Nagoya, south-west of Tokyo, has agreed on 16 of 20 strategic goals for 2020 but failed to reach consensus on the most contentious targets, including how much ocean space to set aside as protected. Government ministers tried to hammer out final agreements and avoid the kind of collapse that befell last year's UN climate talks in Copenhagen. "It's a race against the clock to get something agreed upon," said Nathalie Rey of Greenpeace International. "Everybody's saying we can't go home empty-handed. So there's real pressure to make this happen." One of the conference's key goals is to set measurable targets that will slow or halt the rate of extinctions and damage to ecosystems from pollution, over-exploitation and habitat destruction. Scientists warn that unless action is taken to prevent such biodiversity loss, extinctions will rise and the intricately interconnected natural world could collapse with devastating consequences, from plunging fish stocks to less access to clean water. Decisions at the conference must be reached by consensus, meaning even one country can block agreements. And as is typical of such meetings, some countries strike deals with other nations, seeking progress in one area in exchange for their support in another. Delegates were unable to agree on how much of the world's oceans to designate as protected, which could range from a marine sanctuary to areas where sustainable fishing is allowed. The draft text contained three figures - 6%, 10% and 20%. Concerns about how to pay for executing such targets was also an obstacle.
Skip to main content A Culture of Safety: The Job Hazard Analysis By November 7, 2014August 22nd, 2018Uncategorized One of the important steps in creating a culture of safety is to utilize the job hazard analysis. A job hazard analysis or JHA identifies potential hazards related to each step of any job or specific task that has the potential to cause serious injury. Supervisors and staff who perform the tasks should work together to develop the analysis. Supervisors are responsible for writing the JHA, keeping it on file, training affected staff, and enforcing work rules. Staff members who actually use the equipment should participate in the analysis because they are the most knowledgeable about the hazards and have direct control over them. Priority should be given to jobs that have: • The highest injury rates • The most “near misses” • Potential OSHA violations • Complex instructions where written procedures would be beneficial The benefits of performing a JHA are that it helps identify previously undetected hazards and increases the job safety knowledge of those participating. In addition, communication between workers and supervisors is improved and acceptance of safe work procedures and the appropriate identification and use of PPE (personal protective equipment) is promoted. The job hazard analysis is an invaluable tool for managers and supervisors to use in meeting their obligation to prevent employee exposure to health and safety hazards. By reducing or eliminating hazards, the result will be fewer accidents and better Workers’ Compensation experience which can mean lower premiums. You can find an OSHA booklet regarding JHA’s here. If you have questions or need help getting started, call Aisha Hartford, Director of Client Services at 800-462-6435 for support.
Global Computer Chip Shortages Hit Maryland Businesses The computer industry is facing one of its greatest challenges in recent years, a global computer chip shortage. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an end in sight very soon Get Your Free Instant & Immediate Quote Global Computer Chip Shortages Hit Maryland Businesses The computer industry is facing one of its greatest challenges in recent years, a global computer chip shortage. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an end in sight very soon. Predictions have been made that it could be a year or two before the supply can keep up with the high demand. There are chips in practically everything electric you own, from your phone to your car. There are even chips in things you have that you would not expect, such as your washing machine, gaming systems, and refrigerator. These tiny pieces pack so much power, but they are now in critically short supply. New and used car prices are on the rise in Maryland. Nissan, General Motors, and other car manufacturers have produced fewer vehicles and had to halt some of their production due to a shortage in computer chips. In July, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, stated that chip shortages would affect sales of its phones and iPads. Computer Chip Shortage Maryland What Are These Computer Chips? The chips, also known as semiconductors or microchips, serve as the brains or heartbeat of our electronics. They are tiny technological wonders, but these chips are packed with billions of transistors. The transistors can be compared to a gate, making the decision to allow electrons to pass through them or not allowing them to pass through. The number of manufacturers currently creating these chips has declined severely. Only a few companies are able to make these chips. The foundries are largely expensive to set up and orders for these chips have to be placed in advance. The COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, political tensions, etc. all have had an impact on the global chip supply chain. TSMC is the world’s largest chipmaker, and it is the organization responsible for manufacturing the processors used by AMD, Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and some Intel products. However, TSMC’s products are getting more expensive every day due to the global computer chip shortage. TSMC has plans to increase the prices of its advanced chips by about 10 percent. The price of less advanced chips will be raised by about 20 percent. Why Is There A Chip Shortage? As the world was turned upside down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many factories were shut down, leading to chip manufacturers being unable to meet supply demands for months. During that time, the demand for consumer electronics led to a ripple effect throughout the supply chain. More and more orders were being made, and the orders began to pile up as manufacturers found it difficult to create enough chips that would meet the new levels of demand. Unfortunately, the backlog created by the shortage began to swell. Companies have to make predictions on the number of chips that need to be produced and order them in advance from one of a handful of chip manufacturers. It could take up to six months for a chip order to come in. The demand for chips is so high that manufacturers are unable to make enough chips to meet the demand at this time. What will this mean for consumers? This means consumers will soon see higher prices for fewer goods. Many parts of the manufacturing and transportation supply chains do not have the capacity to handle this backlog, pushing the supply chain deeper into further crisis. How Will The Chip Shortage Impact Maryland Companies? Many businesses typically order multiple computers and other devices a few weeks before hiring new employees or replacing outdated equipment. With chip manufacturer lead times spanning into several months, Maryland companies have to project their needs out to ensure new hires have the equipment they need to start work and that existing employees have the new computers and devices they need to replace the old ones. Placing orders for new equipment for new employees, replacing malfunctioning and outdated equipment, and supporting end-of-life IT needs have become burdensome. If a company has several clients or customers in need of new equipment and there are shipping lags in technology shipping, it can have an increasingly negative impact on those clients and customers. When employees are not equipped with the technology they need to fulfill their daily responsibilities, projects may be delayed or projects will be ended completely. Companies may also need to increase their IT budgets to accommodate the rising prices during this low-supply period. IT teams may also need to widen their preferences of manufacturers to meet the growing business needs. However, we understand that when you factor in more manufacturers in the equation, more challenges will arise, but it may be something that more companies will choose to do as a decision has to be made between rapid productivity and support in the future. The shortage even has an impact on businesses that are not directly associated with computer chips. One of the questions that businesses will need to have the answer to is how will business technology be used? The use of business technology will determine a variety of things, such as storage and power. However, the computer chip shortage has led to businesses having to adapt to whatever is available for the time being. How Can Your Maryland Business Meet Your Needs During The Shortage? Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for computer chips was growing rapidly, especially as more advanced and sophisticated technologies have become even more integrated into our world. One of the viable solutions is to increase semiconductor production. Ordering the right business technology can be a challenge during these times. Under existing conditions, many businesses do not have time to wait for productivity to increase and for warehouses to be reloaded. Businesses can either monitor the availability of their technological needs during this shortage or be adaptable to the manufacturers’ availability. Advantage Industries advises clients on the best way to navigate these issues and helps clients take the best actions so they will not have to make last-minute decisions, whether it relates to computer equipment or other IT-related services. Are you prepared to navigate the chip shortage and avoid a technology shortage in your business? Contact Advantage Industries today to schedule your consultation.
Connecting Texans to information and resources for mental health and addiction Mental Health Navigation Line 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. M - F Get Help Now Borderline Personality Disorder Search for Providers « Go Back to Common Mental Disorders What is Borderline Personality Disorder? Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious psychiatric disorder marked by unstable moods, self-image, thinking and behavior. Most people who have BPD suffer from: • Problems with regulating emotions and thoughts • Impulsive self-damaging behavior • Unstable, intense relationships with other people. Some people with BPD experience severe symptoms and require intensive, sometimes in-patient, care. Others may benefit from outpatient treatment alone, and some may improve without any treatment. How Common is Borderline Personality Disorder? An estimated 1.6 percent of adults in the United States have BPD in a given year. BPD usually begins during adolescence or early adulthood. Some studies suggest that early symptoms of the illness may occur during childhood. It affects individuals of every race, ethnicity and economic status. Symptoms typically decrease in intensity with age, subsiding by the time people reach their 40s or 50s. Signs and Symptoms Individuals with BPD typically exhibit several of the following symptoms: • Noticeable mood swings with periods of intense depressed mood, irritability and/or anxiety lasting a few hours to a few days • Impulsive behaviors that are potentially self-damaging, such as excessive spending, sexual encounters, substance use, shoplifting, reckless driving or binge eating • Inappropriate, intense or uncontrollable anger • Recurring suicidal threats or non-suicidal self-injurious behavior, such as cutting or burning oneself • Unstable, intense personal relationships, sometimes alternating between “all good” idealization, and “all bad” devaluation • Chronic boredom or feelings of emptiness • Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment • Paranoid thoughts, delusions or temporary psychosis Seemingly mundane events may trigger symptoms. For example, people with BPD may feel angry and distressed over minor separations from people to whom they feel close, or to sudden changes in plans. Suicide and Self-harm As many as 80 percent of people with BPD have suicidal behaviors, and about 4 to 9 percent commit suicide. They may also engage in self-harming behaviors in an attempt to regulate their emotions, express their pain or punish themselves. These include cutting, burning, hitting, head banging, hair pulling, and other harmful acts. Although self-harming behaviors do not signal a desire to die, some of them can be life-threatening. Borderline personality disorder is diagnosed by mental health professionals following a comprehensive psychiatric interview and discussion of symptoms. This process may involve talking with the individual’s previous clinicians, review of prior records, a medical evaluation, and when appropriate, interviews with friends and family. In some cases, co-occurring mental illnesses may have symptoms that overlap with BPD, making them difficult to distinguish from BPD. Many people with borderline personality disorder who receive proper treatment improve over time and experience fewer or less severe symptoms. Long-term, outpatient psychotherapy is the primary treatment approach for individuals with BPD. Psychotherapy, or “talk” therapy, helps them recognize and learn to control their behaviors and mood swings, and process negative thoughts and feelings. Although medications can help treat specific symptoms and stabilize mood swings, they are rarely effective without a foundation of therapy. Psychotherapy is typically the cornerstone of treatment for people with BPD. The types of psychotherapy used to treat BPD include the following: • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT can help people with BPD identify and change core beliefs and/or behaviors that underlie inaccurate perceptions of themselves and others, and their problems interacting with others. CBT may help reduce a range of mood and anxiety symptoms and reduce the number of suicidal or self-harming behaviors. • Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). This type of therapy is considered the most well-researched and useful treatment for borderline personality disorder. DBT teaches skills to control intense emotions, reduces self-destructive behaviors, and improves relationships. It encourages practicing mindfulness and incorporates individual and group therapy. Research studies have shown it can reduce suicide in people with BPD. • Schema-focused therapy. This type of therapy combines elements of CBT with other forms of psychotherapy that focus on reframing schemas, or the ways people view themselves. It is based on the idea that BPD stems from a dysfunctional self-image that affects how people react to their environment, interact with others and cope with problems or stress. Therapy can be provided one-on-one with the patient, or in a group or family setting. Therapist-led group sessions help teach people with BPD how to interact with others and how to express themselves effectively. No medications have been approved by the FDA to treat BPD, and there is little research showing that they are necessary or effective for people with this illness. Although medications do not cure BPD, some may be helpful in reducing specific symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, impulsiveness or aggression. Co-occurring Conditions NIMH-funded research indicates that some 85 percent of people with borderline personality disorder also meet the diagnostic criteria for another mental illness. Women with BPD are more likely to have co-occurring disorders such as major depression, anxiety disorders, or eating disorders. In men, BPD is more likely to co-occur with disorders such as substance abuse or antisocial personality disorder. 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The Manhattan Project Kathy McCarthy's Interview Printer-friendly version Kathy McCarthy's Interview Kathy McCarthy served as the Director of Nuclear Science and Engineering responsible for research in the area of advanced nuclear energy at Idaho National Laboratory. In this interview, she discusses the role of nuclear power in establishing secure sources of energy as well as the challenges of promoting nuclear power as safe and environmentally beneficial. She also explains the evolving technologies of nuclear reactors, and how the U.S. compares to other countries in terms of nuclear power development. Manhattan Project Location(s): Date of Interview: September 15, 2004 Location of the Interview: Idaho Falls McCarthy: My name is Kathy McCarthy. I’m Director of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and my organization is responsible for research in the area of advanced nuclear energy, and also for the fuel cycle work that supports nuclear energy. In that capacity, what we’re doing is looking to the future. Where do we need to go with energy production? Why do we need to do that? If you look right now at world energy needs, let’s take fifty years from now. In fifty years, because we want to bring the developing countries up, we will need to increase our energy production by about two and a half times the existing world production. That’s a lot of additional energy. What’s the best way to do that? Well, nuclear is a wonderful way to do that when you’re looking at increasing energy by a significant amount. Because nuclear is sustainable, so it can provide energy for many generations beyond now. It’s economic, and it’s extremely safe. Right now, in the United States, 20% of our electricity is generated by nuclear, and worldwide that number is closer to 30%. But it’s a big part of our current energy production. From an environmental point of view, it makes sense to expand energy using nuclear, because nuclear energy is environmentally friendly. We’re looking at the next generation of nuclear power plants. Our existing power plants, we typically refer to as Generation II, the ones that are built in the United States. In some other countries, especially Asian countries, they’re starting to build what we would call Generation III reactors, really just the next step in the nuclear energy design. The reason for that is it’s like any other field, where you’re always trying to improve things. Each generation, our goals are to make the plants even safer. We want to rely on things like natural systems, gravity, to be able to shut a reactor down in the case of an unexpected event. You always want to improve economics, and you want to make sure that what you’re doing is friendly to the environment. Generation III plants are being built abroad. The United States is focusing on doing work on the next generation, what we call Generation IV nuclear reactors. Again, what we’re doing is trying to make improvements in all of these things, to make them simpler. That adds into economics, and adds into safety, too. You want this system to be as simple as possible. That way, when you go through the licensing process, it’s much easier to prove that this thing should be built, it can be economic, it can run safely. That’s what we’re in the process of doing. We’re also supporting the Generation III work. That’s primarily the responsibility of industry, if you look at Generation III, if they’re willing to move forward with that. We do support that to some extent. Our emphasis is really on Generation IV. Then if you look at what we’re doing here at the INEEL [Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory]—soon to be the INL, when we combine with Argonne West, we will become the Idaho National Laboratory—our role is to really lead this research forward. What we want to do is help to get things moving. There’s the support to Generation III, but then the emphasis on Generation IV. We’re looking at building a nuclear plant, the next generation nuclear plant, here at the INEEL, and this is to be deployed somewhere in the 2017 to 2020 timeframe. This is a really exciting time for us, because we believe this is really what the industry needs to push things forward. We want to show that the licensing process is simpler than it used to be. Therefore, that makes it a better investment for the utilities, because they don’t have to wait so long between when they construct to when they actually can operate. The idea is, this would really jumpstart the industry and move things forward. Kelly: How many plants do we need to make to meet the United States’ energy needs, would you project, over the next 100 years? McCarthy: Yeah. You know, I don’t know actual numbers. If you look at the worldwide need, if you’re trying to add two and a half times the current generating needs, I think worldwide there are—actually, in the U.S. there are about 103 operating plants. Worldwide, obviously, there’s more than that, but you can easily do the math on that particular number if what you’re trying to do is increase two and half times beyond what we have currently. One of the things that’s really important in this is, we want to be less dependent on foreign oil and gas, and that’s a national security issue as well as an economic issue. Nuclear energy is one of the ways that we can do that. As soon as you decrease your dependence on foreign oil and foreign gas, that makes for a more secure environment. It makes for a more secure world. In addition, you want to try to lessen the difference between the haves and the have-nots. The United States is certainly in the realm of the haves, and our energy consumption is on the order of 300 to 350 gigajoules per capita. Compare that to the world average, which is 67, and the developing world, which is 20. What we want to do is bring all those people up, at least to around 100, for the world average. Again, from an environmental point of view, you want to do that with something that doesn’t add to the greenhouse gas problem. You want to do that with a kind of energy that’s sustainable for our children and our children’s children and beyond. Nuclear energy is really the energy source that can provide that, in a widespread sense, in the larger picture. Kelly: One of the things you’ve mentioned as a key criterion for the future is safety. Can you talk about how would you characterize the safety that we have now in a plant, and how will it differ in the future? McCarthy: Okay. Our existing plants, if you look at the nuclear industry in the United States, it’s an extremely safe industry. Very, very few off-normal events, and even the ones that we have had, the plants have responded very well. Take for example, Three Mile Island, which is the accident in the United States that people tend to point to. Even with all the things that went wrong, we did not have significant consequences from that. We didn’t have lasting consequences from that. But what we’re trying to do with each generation is make that safety case even simpler, and make the overall safety better. For example, in the next generation nuclear plant, which is the plant that we hope to build at the INEEL in this 2017 to 2020 timeframe, that’s an extremely safe plant. If there were some sort of an off-normal event, it would automatically shut itself down. Even if you were to lose all of the cooling, it still would automatically shut itself down so that you would not have a release of radioactivity. Those are the types of things that we’re building into the plants. Rather than having a system that a human needs to turn on, you want to rely on things that happen naturally. That’s really the emphasis in this next generation of plants. Kelly: In the early decades, there was a lot of testing that showed that very thing. In the loss of fluid testing in 1986 with the EBR-II [Experimental Breeder-Reactor II], they tested and it shut itself down. So, you’re just incorporating what we knew into this. Why didn’t they incorporate that into these other generations? McCarthy: If you look at the plants that were deployed in the United States, we have primarily light-water reactors. These are water-cooled reactors. Some of the tests that you’re referring to, for example, the liquid metal reactors, had a different kind of coolant. The existing plants do rely on systems, basically, to kick in to cool things down if there’s an off-normal event. This next generation won’t do that. We’re even looking at some water-cooled reactors. There is something called the supercritical water reactor, which is basically just our existing light-water reactors running at higher temperature and higher pressure. That’s advantageous, from an economic point of view. But even those reactors now are being designed with these built-in systems, so they automatically shut down if there were some sort of an off-normal event. So, we don’t have to rely on some system working or on human intervention. Kelly: Larry Ubronda yesterday talked about the early years of commercial development of the reactors and that there were lots of varieties. It was like going to a car shop and you could buy a 4-door or a 2-door or a convertible or whatever, there was so much variety. But that caused problems in operations when every plant’s different. McCarthy: Right. Kelly: What are we doing in the future about that? McCarthy: One of the things that we’re doing is really trying to focus on a few designs. The idea being, you have a design that’s approved by the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission]. You get all the approvals in place so that design is basically approved, should a utility want to build it, rather than having several different types. Any time you have a lot of different types of a particular—it doesn’t even have to be a reactor—but a particular item, it costs more to manage those, because everything is a little bit different. We’re focusing on basically what’s called a thermal design and a fast design. The thermal versus fast has to do with the speed of the neutrons. What’s important there is what you build reactor out of has an influence on the neutrons and how quickly they move through the material. We’re looking primarily at what are called thermal reactors. They have the slower neutrons for energy production, also for hydrogen production, not only electricity, but also hydrogen. We’re also looking at selecting, around the year 2010, a particular fast reactor design to focus on. The main purpose of the fast reactors is in transmutation of waste, so basically, recycling fuel. All of that is aimed at using a repository, such as Yucca Mountain, to the best advantage possible. You want to use that space in there as efficiently as you can. We really are focusing on a thermal design and on a fast design, and it’s for the very reason that you had brought up. From an economics point of view, from a licensing point of view, it’s simpler if everybody’s focusing on the same types of designs. Kelly: If I followed this—the fast design, which is really a breeder reactor. McCarthy: Not necessarily. Kelly: No, not necessarily? McCarthy: No. You can design your fuel to give you either a breeder reactor, which is where you’re producing more fuel than you’re using, or, you can bring that conversion ratio, as it’s called, down to around one, which means basically you’re equal, you’re not producing additional. With certain fuel, you can even have it below one, and then you’re consuming rather than breeding. The fast reactors don’t have to be breeder reactors, although in the United States, the fast reactor program in the past has focused on breeder reactors. EBR-2, for example, was a breeder reactor and a breeder reactor program. Kelly: I guess I’m just not clear then—what’s the connection between these fast reactors and Yucca Mountain? McCarthy: Okay. Yucca Mountain, we’re hoping to get licensed. Yucca Mountain is very important for the nuclear industry, because to move forward, we really do need to show that we can handle waste. From a technical point of view, I believe we’ve certainly done that. From a political point of view, I think we’re not quite there. You have a certain amount of space in Yucca Mountain, and you don’t want to have to build a second Yucca Mountain. If we look at the waste that we’re producing with current reactors, Yucca Mountain can handle that. If we’re going to have a significant increase in nuclear generation, we need to look at, “How can we minimize the waste that’s going into Yucca Mountain?” There are a couple of ways to do that. We can do reprocessing, separation, making new fuel, running it through our existing reactors, through our light-water reactors. But that doesn’t give you an efficient, what’s called a burn on some of the actinides, some of the material that you want to reduce. When you take spent fuel, fuel that’s come out of a reactor, it has undergone transmutation. In some cases, you’ve got material produces a significant amount of heat, and there’s also material that produces a significant amount of radiotoxicity. What you want to do is, minimize that. With less heat and less radio toxicity, you can put more into Yucca Mountain, because the limits on Yucca Mountain are based on the heat and the radio toxicity. In a light-water reactor, to some extent, you can do some of that recycling. But if you really want to get rid of the bad actors efficiently, you want to have these faster neutrons. Because the faster neutrons will transmute the material to things that are less radio toxic and are giving off lower heat. That’s where the fast reactors come in. They can absolutely produce energy also. They don’t have to be used only for this waste issue. That’s an area they can provide, that a thermal reactor isn’t as efficient with. Does that make more sense? Kelly: Yeah, that’s very good. Who is going to make these decisions? What role will the public have, if any, in looking at weighing these different options? McCarthy: If you look at what we’re doing right now, the next generation nuclear plant is a really important focus for Generation IV and for this thermal reactor. There will be, I’m sure, a lot of public interest in it. It’s really our job, as people working in the nuclear industry, to go out and educate the public. If you look at how things were handled the first time around, we didn’t do a very good job at that. I mean, it made sense to us, and we just thought it should make sense to everybody else. But we have a very big effort at the INEEL now to give presentations to the community. Many of us talk with various Chamber of Commerce. We go to universities and talk there. Try to give presentations at meetings that aren’t traditionally attended by nuclear engineers, in alternative energy, for example. We’re trying to get the word out. That’s one thing that we’re doing. With respect to some of this downselect, around the year 2010, the U.S. wants to downselect from the fast reactor designs that are being looked at right now, to one in particular that they will concentrate the research on to move forward. Kelly: To what extent are you looking to other countries’ models, such as the pebble-bed [reactor] experiments in South Africa? McCarthy: Very much. Everything that’s done now, particularly in the technical world, is international. Generation IV research is really no different. There’s the Generation IV International Forum, and that’s made up of several countries that are all working together on this research. Now, each country has their own particular take on things and their own research that they’re doing. But we typically share the results, and we have many collaborations going with other countries. You had mentioned the South African project. We’ve had a lot of discussions with them. The fuel that they’re using is very similar to the fuel that would be used in the next generation nuclear plant, this gas-cooled reactor that we want to build here. The South Africans have some interest in the United States doing some testing, and that could potentially be tested in the advanced test reactor out at the INEEL site. We’re also having discussions about codes and models and that type of thing. For example, if you take the RELAP5 [Reactor Excursion and Leak Analysis Program] model that was developed here at the INEEL, that’s used worldwide. It’s looking at systems and fluid-flow and that type of thing, already used worldwide. It’s definitely a worldwide effort collaborative. McCarthy: The nuclear program is very much an international program, the nuclear energy research program. We’re working through what’s called the Generation IV International Forum to develop many of these designs. One example is the South Africans, who are actually not part of the Generation IV International forum. But they are right now building—or have plans to build—a gas-cooled reactor, what’s called a pebble-bed reactor, where the fuel, which is about the size of a billiard ball, actually moves through the core. We have been in communication with them quite a bit, because that particular fuel is very similar to the fuel that we would use in the next generation nuclear plant at the INEEL. They have some interest in us doing tests in our advanced test reactor with that fuel. We’ve also had some discussions with them on codes that we’ve developed that could be applied to that. That’s one example of how we collaborate internationally. Another example is on the next generation nuclear plant that we’d like to build here. The French are very interested in that, and so we do have discussions. In all cases, while there is this international collaboration, each country has its own particular view of how it should be done, and particular research that they’re focusing on. But, like most technical things nowadays, the nuclear energy research is to a large extent international and collaborative. McCarthy: The next generation nuclear plant has two roles. One is to show electricity production economically, and the other is to produce hydrogen. The exciting thing about this is, during the times when electricity can be sold at a higher rate, utilities can use this plant to produce electricity. At times when the demand for electricity is less, the plant can be used to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen is extremely important, because it can be used as a transportation fuel. It’s a very significant way that we could decrease our dependence on foreign oil imports. This plant that we’re building will have this dual focus. And, there are many different ways that hydrogen can be produced, and were looking into many different ways: chemical means, but also we’re looking at what’s called high-temperature electrolysis. This is really the simplest thing to look at, because electrolysis, everybody learns about in their college chemistry classes. What we’re doing is boosting the temperature up and we can produce hydrogen more efficiently, so on the order of 50% efficiency rather than some of the lower efficiency that—regular electrolysis on the order of 30%. When you look at hydrogen production, we produce a significant amount of hydrogen in the U.S. right now. It’s used to treat crude oil—for example, to sweeten it, they add hydrogen. But the hydrogen that we’re using now is produced with fossil fuels, and that isn’t really what you want to do in the future. We want to, first of all, decrease our dependence on imports of oil, and we also want to do it with a process that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. With nuclear, we can do that. We can produce this hydrogen without producing any greenhouse gases, and it’s a way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil imports. It’s, again, really important for national security. Kelly: Can you comment on how safe is this? What have the past practices generated in terms of releases that might be of concern? How has the Site dealt with this? What’s the future look like? McCarthy: Okay. In the United States in commercial nuclear power plants, we have had no significant releases. Chernobyl, and the type of reactor that Chernobyl is, is something that we would not build in the United States. That particular reactor had no containment. The types of reactors that we build in the United States and that we’re assisting the other countries with now, too, because, of course, it’s extremely important that worldwide nuclear energy is safe. We’re really focusing on these safety systems, and education is important here. Because people have a tendency to be afraid of what they don’t understand. If you take, for example, when cars were first introduced, people weren’t interested in having a car, because they were afraid of it. There are a lot of people who would much rather drive across the country than fly. But on the other hand, flying is really much, much safer, if you look at the statistics. Perception is very important, because for a person, perception is reality. What we need to do is make sure we get the information out there [on] how extremely safe our existing plants are running, and how what we’re doing in the new designs are going to make them even safer. It’s very important that people understand all of the issues, not just the electricity generation, but also the waste generation and how we can deal with that waste, how that waste can be safely handled and dispositioned. All of these things are extremely important. I think where we really need to start is in the schools with the kids at elementary age. Because by the time they get to junior high and high school, they’re already not aware enough of science in general and certainly nuclear. They start to form opinions based on what they hear, often things that aren’t substantiated. Those of us in the nuclear industry need to be as vocal as the anti-folks, because we need to get our word out. We can’t just sit back and assume that everybody’s going to get out the textbooks and read. We’ve got to go out and educate people and help them to understand. I’m a mother and I have two children, and we live here in Idaho Falls, and I am absolutely comfortable with building a reactor out there. I’m absolutely comfortable with what’s been done out there in the past. I look at it, for my children, this is extremely important. This is really their future that we’re talking about. What I want to do is help to leave them with a world that’s safer, and with a world that they can do what they need to do and go off in the future and accomplish things. I don’t want to leave them with a legacy that they need to later take care of. Nuclear energy is really what is going to help provide for all the future generations. Kelly: Great. That’s motherhood. You’re probably also a nuclear engineer. McCarthy: Yes. Kelly: I don’t which is more compelling. That was good, very good. Have you lived in Idaho Falls all your life, or are you someone who’s come in for this project? McCarthy: No, I’ve lived here since 1991. I was actually involved in fusion energy research, originally, and that’s what I came here to do after graduate school. And then got involved in management, and now I’m overseeing both fission energy work and fusion energy work. I came up here following the fusion program and ended up being here at a really exciting time for the Site. I mean, it’s absolutely wonderful. To put things into perspective, I graduated from high school—and now you can calculate my age—I graduated from high school in 1979, which is the same year that the Three Mile Island accident happened. But I had a high school professor who was very interested in nuclear power, and he used to talk about it. I liked math, so I thought, “I’ll do engineering. Nuclear engineering sounds interesting.” I went into that as a freshman in college, and just became fascinated with it. I started out doing it because it was challenging, and I thought that it would be interesting. I really stuck with it, because I think it’s the right thing. I really think it’s the right thing for the world. Even through all the things that have happened—I was trying to arrange my PhD exams sitting in a professor’s office at UCLA, when he got a phone call about Chernobyl. He looked at me and said, “Do you speak Russian?” I said, “No.” He said, “Well, then I don’t have time right now,” and he chased me out. All those things were happening while I was in the course of my studies. But I stuck with it, because I really feel like it’s the right thing. Nalezny: I’m curious. When you go out and you do these public presentations, if you had to pick like three key points that you’re trying to leave people, what are you trying to leave those groups with when you talk to them? Kathy McCarthy: If I tried to think of what would be the three main things that I’d want an audience to be left with after I go and talk to them, one is that nuclear power is absolutely safe. The second one is that from an environmental point of view, nuclear power is absolutely what we need to reduce greenhouse gases and avoid potential global warming. The third thing that I would want to leave everybody with is that from a national security point of view, our energy security is extremely important. We want to reduce our reliance on foreign gas and oil imports, and nuclear is the way to do that. It can help us both with electricity production, and it also can provide hydrogen, which can help us to reduce our reliance on oil for transportation fuels. Those are really the three main messages. Nalezny: And now you’re speaking to the fourth grade class, and Cindy is your fourth-grader. Can you explain to her in terms that they would understand, how does nuclear energy work? How does that reactor make power? McCarthy: The way that nuclear energy works is: you have a material – a fuel. Uranium, for example, is the primary fuel that we used in existing reactors in the United States. That is what’s called a very heavy element, so it has a lot of neutrons and electrons. What you want to do is, you absorb a neutron in that [atom], and that makes it break into smaller pieces. If you were to add up all the mass that you end up with, if you weigh everything, you’d find out that the weight is less than what you started out with. Well, that weight has been converted to energy, and it’s like [Albert] Einstein’s E=mc2.The mass has been converted into energy, and that’s how nuclear power works. That’s about as simple as I can do it. Kelly: Good. Pretend that I’m your nephew when he was in the 10th grade. Because this is confusing to everybody, because the history of atomic power was started with the bomb, the two collide in people’s minds, or coincide. If you can explain how the two are different, and why reactors should not be thought as so dangerous as about to explode any moment. McCarthy: Okay. The way that nuclear energy works and how that’s different from a nuclear weapon is: nuclear energy is produced in a controlled manner. You’re releasing heat, but you have mechanism built in. For example, when that fuel starts to heat up, you start producing fewer neutrons, and therefore, you’re causing fewer of the reactions and producing less energy. In a nuclear weapon, you have energy being produced in a very, very quick manner. A nuclear power plant has all of these controls in place so that you can’t have a runaway reaction. You can’t have the reaction continuing, this chain reaction that just builds on itself, because you have all these mechanisms that are built in so that it will shut itself down. From a public relations point of view—and really, a public perception point of view—what people have been exposed to more is the atomic weapons that were dropped to end World War II. People linked that then with nuclear energy, which came later, which is built on the same principles, although there are very, very significant differences between the two. When the bombs were dropped at the end of World War II or ending World War II, that was something that the public all knew about. Everybody was very aware of it. Then we put our energy into producing nuclear power. What we didn’t do was advertise that. We didn’t put the word out. So the perception that people had in their mind tended to be much more linked towards the nuclear weapons that they understood about. Typically, people fill a vacuum with misinformation, and so if there isn’t information out there, this is how rumors get started. We had the Three Mile Island accident, for example, and we didn’t do a very good job of getting the word out that this did not have significant adverse consequences. What did get out was the information about this terrible thing that was happening there. Scientists, frankly, don’t like to get out in the spotlight. They don’t want to be out there talking to the public. They want to be there working on their computers or doing their experiments. We didn’t provide enough information so that people could understand what actually happened. We’re doing everything that we can think of to change that perception. The nuclear engineers and a lot of the people that we hire at the INEEL, we also give them training so that they can go out and talk to the public. We encourage that. One of the things that we do is, we try to watch the editorials in the major newspapers, and when there’s something that comes up that’s anti-nuclear, a lot of times we’ll try to correct the misinformation if there’s misinformation there. We also try to be more proactive and get good press on nuclear, get newspapers and reporters interested in the good things that we’re doing in nuclear, so that that information gets out. Not just in reaction to somebody saying something against nuclear energy, but really just getting out there so that people start to get used to it, start to get more accustomed to it, become familiar with it. Nalezny: Before I got involved in this, I couldn’t have told you that Idaho had a hand in any kind of atomic anything. From the people we’ve talked to—people even on the other side of the state—don’t always know what’s going on. Can you give us some idea of exactly how far-reaching the accomplishments in Idaho have been? Where they reach? Where you find the results of all the effort and innovation as you go forward? McCarthy: Sure. The work that has been done at the INEEL since its inception—I think back in the ‘50s is when that was—has really brought forward nuclear energy. We are responsible for a significant amount of the nuclear safety work that was done to support the deployment in the United States. But not only is it used in the United States, it’s used internationally. We’ve developed codes that are used in Europe and in Asia and other countries to help design and to predict and to support the licensing case for reactors. The work that’s been done here has really been far-reaching. The INEEL, which was called the Reactor Testing Station when it first was cited, was originally put there, originally cited, to help bring nuclear energy forward. That was really our role, and we’ve been extremely, extremely instrumental in that. If you look at energy development, it’s the INEEL that played the major role in that, just as some of the Albuquerque labs have played the major role in weapons development. It’s a similar kind of thing. From a nuclear energy point of view, the INEEL is really the leader, has been the leader. Now, when we’re moving things forward again, it’s kind of like getting back to our roots, to a large extent. What we’re running into is that you’ve got the folks who are involved in those early programs who are retiring or have already retired, and they’re taking with them a body of knowledge that really hasn’t been transferred to the newer people that have been coming in, because we haven’t had programs that we could use their knowledge on and transfer that knowledge. Well, that’s changing. Now, we’re getting those programs in; we’re starting to do that work again. We’re bringing back some of those folks, who are still around, and involving them in that work, and having them mentor some of these younger people. We’re at a point where we’ve already lost a lot of knowledge, but we haven’t lost it all. It’s extremely important that these programs move forward now so that we can take advantage of that before they’re not around anymore to do that. Like with anything else, it’s really important that we don’t forget the history here. What we did in the past is important, even in what we’re doing now and in how we’re designing these new reactors. When you look at a lot of the experiments that we are planning now and that we’re carrying out to support this new research, it’s taking advantage of what we’ve done in the past. We’re certainly not starting over. The work that was done back then is just as valid now as it was then. In addition to talking with folks who have been involved in that, we’re also making sure that we’ve got all the reports and the documents that have the information that was so important in developing nuclear energy. Because it still has bearing in what we do today. We don’t want to forget about that. It’s really important, I think, for the community to know what we’re doing. For the community to understand how important Idaho has been to nuclear power in the past, and what an instrumental role that it’s playing as we move forward. I think there are a lot of people who aren’t aware of what we’re doing here. I was over in Boise several months ago, and people are very interested. They want to know. I think that rather than waiting for them to ask, we need to make sure that we’re getting out, not just to the Idaho Falls community—which tends to be pretty aware of what we’re doing—but to the surrounding communities, whether that be Jackson or across the State of Idaho over in Boise. We need to make sure that we’re spreading that word, so they understand the significant role that we’re playing.
What is the link between blood pressure, blood sugar and eye health? Having problems with your eye health can be related to having high blood pressure and high blood sugar. It’s important to keep your blood sugar levels under control. People who do not control their blood sugar levels are four times more likely than people with close to normal levels to develop eye health problems, according to the American Diabetes AssociationOff Site Icon (ADA). Your vision can also become temporarily blurry if you have high blood sugar levels, according to the ADA. High blood pressure can cause damage to the blood vessels in the retina, according to the National Institutes of HealthOff Site Icon (NIH). The higher your blood pressure is and the longer it has been high, the worse the damage to your eyes can be. The other issues high blood pressure can cause to your eyes, according to the NIH, include: • Blocking the blood supply in the arteries that go to the retina • Blocking the veins that carry blood from the retina • Damaging eye nerves because of poor blood flow Smoking adds another risk to damaging your eye health, so if you have diabetes and smoke, choosing to quit smoking would be the best option, according to the ADA. For more information about how eye health is affected by blood pressure and blood sugar, talk with your doctor. Learn more:
chickens-pair-close-up-2.jpgChicken (gallus gallus) belong to the family phasiandae and are one of the most domesticated animals. Although they are generally believed to have evolved from the wild red jungle fowl of India, the scientific name for the chicken is contested. Chickens are less than 70cm (27.6 inches) standing and have an average weight of 2.6kg (5.7 pounds). Chickens are omnivores, their diet consists of a mixture of both plant and animal matter, apart from the typical seeds and berries, chickens have been known to eat mice and lizards! Chickens have been used in research for a long time, in fact, they were the first animals to be used to demonstrate inheritance, they were also the first animals to have their genome sequenced. They are currently not the most commonly used in research, only making up 8% of the animals used in research in the UK. Why are chicken used in research? Because chickens have been domesticated for such a long time, there is a lot of information available on their physiology which is very useful for researchers. Chickens lay eggs, which means their embryos develop outside the mother’s body. This allows researchers to monitor the development of the chick at every stage including development of the nervous system, limbs development and cell migration. What types of research are chicken used in? Chickens have been historically important to the study of diseases including cancer. In the early 1900s, Peyton Rous discovered that a virus could cause cancer. He discovered this by grinding up tumour cells from a hen and filtering out the tumour cells and bacteria. The presence of tumours in the new chickens he injected his preparation into showed that “a minute-parasitic organism” was causing the tumours. With a better understanding of what happened to these chickens, scientists now refer to the type of virus that Rous described as a retrovirus. Chickens are also important in producing vaccines. Ernest Pasture came up with the method of making vaccines by growing and inactivating viruses and bacteria in chicken embryo and fertilised chicken eggs. The virus is injected into the allantoic fluid of the egg. This allows the virus to replicate and the fluid that has the viruses are harvested and purified. This method was used to develop vaccines for chickenpox, smallpox, and yellow fever and other infectious diseases. Chicken egg-based vaccine production has been used for a long time and continues to be used along with other methods to produce vaccines. How are the chickens looked after? The use of animals in research is highly regulated, an important part of that regulation is ensuring the animals are housed and cared for correctly. Research shows that chickens should be housed with appropriate and sufficient environmental enrichment and space. 10 Facts about chickens Find out more about chickens in research with our 10 facts infographics! Egg based vaccine production: https://www.immunology.org/chickens-egg-1931 Peyton Rous cancer causing virus: http://centennial.rucares.org/index.php?page=Cancer#:~:text=In%201911%20Peyton%20Rous%20(1879,cells%20in%20the%20connective%20tissue. Chicken housing: https://awionline.org/sites/default/files/publication/digital_download/AWI-ComfortableQuarters-2015.pdf Chickens in research: http://www.animalresearch.info/en/designing-research/research-animals/chicken/#:~:text=Why%20study%20chickens%3F,the%20body%20of%20the%20mother. Chicken: https://a-z-animals.com/animals/chicken/
«The land climate behaves like an athlete on steroids» 15 октября, 2021 от hiteck Выкл The heat that beat all the temperature records in the western part of Canada last month and in Siberia last year was caused by a high rate, not the intensity of global warming, established scientists from Switzerland. This means that in the coming decades, there will be even more dangerous for man bubbles of extreme temperatures. Until now, studies of the influence of global warming on heat waves mainly reduced to comparing the current level of temperature with a certain reporting period. However, the speed of change is also extremely important, he believed Erich Fisher, a climatologist from the Higher Technical School of Zurich, and his colleagues. It compares the current state of climate on the planet with high advances. In the usual situation, records are established with difficulty and the bill goes on the fraction of seconds or millimeters. However, it is worth athletes to start taking doping, as their indicators grow sharply and much. «Now the climate behaves like an athlete on steroids,» he said. The heat that came to British Columbia has reached 49.6 degrees Celsius last month, more than 5 degrees exceeding a record mark of past years. The current warming paces — about 0.2 degrees Celsius for 10 years — will continue at least over the next 10-20 years, regardless of how quickly humanity will be able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, the cause of global warming, For the current pace of greenhouse gas emissions, the world will continue to heat up, and the average temperature will grow by 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, compared with the pre-industrial period. Temperature records indicate that the earth is heated with an unprecedented speed for human civilization. That the heat waves will behave not as in the past, Hayk +
Travel Reference In-Depth Information great patron of the arts, as borne out by the numerous scrolls and paintings blotted with his seals, indicating that he had viewed them - you'll see plenty in the Forbidden City. His fourth son, the Emperor Yongzheng (1678-1735), ruled over what is considered one of the most efficient administrations ever enjoyed by China; as well as cracking down on the corruption that had plagued the rules of previous emperors, he formed the Grand Council, a high-level body whose policies went on to shape much of Qing society. He was succeeded by Qian- long (1711-99), whose reign saw China's frontiers greatly extended and the economy stim- ulated by peace and prosperity. In 1750, the capital was perhaps at its zenith, the centre of one of the strongest, wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. It was at this time that the extraordinary SummerPalace was constructed. With two hundred pavilions, temples and palaces, and immense artificial lakes and hills, it was the world's most remarkable royal garden, and, along with the Forbidden City, a magnificent symbol of Chinese wealth and European expansionism and the First Opium War In the late eighteenth century expansionist European nations were sniffing around Asia, look- ing for financial opportunities. China's rulers, immensely rich and powerful and convinced of their own superiority, had no wish for direct dealings with foreigners. When a British envoy, LordMacartney , arrived in Chengde in 1793 to propose a political and commercial alliance between King George III and the emperor, his mission was unsuccessful. This was partly be- cause he refused to kowtow to the emperor, but also because the emperor totally rejected any idea of allying with one whom he felt was a subordinate. Macartney was impressed by the vast wealth and power of the Chinese court, but later wrote perceptively that the empire was “like an old crazy first-rate man-of-war which its officers have contrived to keep afloat to terrify by its appearance and bulk”. Foiled in their attempts at official negotiations with the Qing court, the British decided to take matters into their own hands and create a clandestine market in China for Western goods. Instead of silver, they began to pay for tea and silk with opium , cheaply imported from India. As the number of addicts escalated during the early nineteenth century, China's trade surplus became a deficit as silver drained out of the country to pay for the drug. The emperor sus- pended the traffic in 1840 by ordering the destruction of more than twenty thousand chests of opium, an act that led to the outbreak of the First Opium War . This brought British and French troops to the walls of the capital, and the Summer Palace was first looted then burned, more or less to the ground, by the British. Cixi and the Second Opium War While the imperial court lived apart, within the gilded cage of the Forbidden City , condi- tions in the capital's suburbs for the civilian population were starkly different. Kang Youwei, a Cantonese visiting in 1895, described this dual world: “No matter where you look, the place Search WWH :: Custom Search
Exploring Art Is Everywhere! Concepts with the Alameda County Arts Commission We are midstride in the Art IS Education programming this March. Check out the variety of programs and activities this month incorporating the Art is Everywhere! Theme. These programs are based on three activities that anyone can do from anywhere. They encourage us to use our creativity to engage with our world in new ways. You can find them playfully illustrated on the paint-at-home watercolor sheet, as guided audio experiences on the Listen Inn library phoneline, and topic guides for deep dive explorations into the library's collections, and experience them in upcoming virtual events. For those curious to know about the concepts informing these activities, Violet Juno from the Alameda County Arts Commission has shared their expertise with us here: Make a Frame with Your Hands The first activity is look around for what is interesting to you by making a frame with your hands. This frame is an easy yet powerful artist’s tool that allows us focus on the world around us with new eyes. It helps us to slow down, see something we hadn’t noticed before, savor the joy of discovery, and feel the power of deciding what does and does not go in the frame. Explore Object Art The second activity is to collect and arrange objects to tell a story. For example, you might have run across a stack of rocks or a driftwood structure in nature or a picture on social media of items (from a backpack) arranged in a grid. These simple arrangements are satisfying to look at while also telling a story about the person who made it and their environment. It’s possible to do this wherever we might be! Try arranging the things on a table into a grid or collecting items from nature to making a picture—perhaps a shape or object. Whatever you like! Trying this for ourselves allows us to feel the spark of making something new out of whatever is around us. Hunt a Poem The third activity is to create a poem by mixing and matching words around us. Let your eyes roam around your space to find two objects. What words could you use to describe these objects? Now what happens if you mix up them up? What funny or strange combinations could you create? What could happen next—what adventure could these objects go on? How does the poem end? Anything is possible in a poem! You get to decide what happens. Poetry helps us take a playful perspective on our world. The Art is Everywhere activities are an invitation to reconnect with the wonder of trying something new and experience the delight of taking a moment to look around to see that art is indeed everywhere! Maybe try #SpinePoetry which is a poem using the titles found on the spine or narrow edge of the books. Grab a few books and see which title feels like a beginning, a middle and a end. Read them in order, and Voila! You have a poem! Share Your Art! We’d love to hear about your creation process and catch of glimpse of what you worked on. Share here in the comments or in our social media spaces on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Art is Everywhere Activities and Programs • Pick up a free paint-at-home watercolor sheet at AC Library locations. • Join in fun, online community events for all ages. • Call the Listen Inn phoneline to hear guided Art IS Everywhere activities. • Use the Resource List to learn about theme-related books and links.
Three Reasons Private Schools Can Help the Education Gap Created by the Pandemic Westminster School, a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade private school located in Annandale, Virginia, offers students from all backgrounds the opportunity to access the educational resources they need to succeed. As the educational gap increases due to the pandemic, the school firmly believes private schools are uniquely positioned to help students and parents bridge this gap. What Is the Education Gap? The COVID-19 pandemic has changed multiple aspects of people’s lives, which include education and work. Many children spent most of 2020 either in a virtual classroom or not learning at all. According to this assessment, this contributed to 63 percent of parents feeling their child was behind academically, compared to a normal school year. (Half said a little behind, and another 13 percent said quite a bit behind.) Additionally, only 51 percent of parents were extremely or very confident their child is well prepared for the next grade. According to this US Department of Education report, children in public K–12 schools during the pandemic experienced significant barriers to meaningful access and opportunities. This included problems ranging from a dip in daily instructional time to a curriculum not designed to teach new material but only to review what was already taught. Taken in aggregate, this multitude of challenges public schools experienced contributed to a widening educational gap for many public school children. What Advantages Does a Private School Offer? Motivated by pandemic-related educational issues, many parents decided to transition their children from public school to private school. Based on their size, structure, and governance, private schools present several advantages, and these have helped children maintain a standard of learning and enter the new school year better prepared than their public school peers. Reason #1: More Time to Prepare Most public schools had to wait for confirmation about school closures and openings from their state officials. This led to uncertainty in public school staff, as well as students and parents. Because these public schools were waiting for an official word on how the school year would progress (in-person, virtual, or hybrid), they weren’t able to spend that time properly preparing for what the upcoming year would bring. Because private schools knew their learning plan for the upcoming year, they could dedicate the necessary time preparing for that academic year, identifying ways to remain open safely during the pandemic, and implementing those plans—all well before opening their doors. Reason #2: Increased Agility One significant differentiator between public and private schools is the structure of governance. While public schools must navigate many levels of bureaucracy and must comply with federal regulations that don’t always meet the needs of individual schools, private schools are much nimbler and more agile. This difference becomes more pronounced and impactful in an event like a pandemic. A public school must prepare, communicate, and implement any plan with the input and thoughts of many stakeholders. This takes time and often leads to differing opinions, which further stalls progress. A private school, however, operates with internal governance and far fewer hurdles. Based on size and structure, plans can be made and changes can be implemented more efficiently and effectively. Reason #3: More Class Time Almost 95 percent of private schools were able to open their doors during the pandemic, as opposed to 38 percent of public schools. Virtual schooling is undoubtedly better than nothing, but in-person class time provides more direct interaction with peers and teachers, both of which help students academically, socially, and emotionally. Teachers are also better able to direct their classes in person, and they can more easily adjust their lessons in real-time to suit the needs of the class. (For a discussion of in-person and digital learning and their relative pros and cons, see this article. For the specific benefits of in-person learning for preschoolers and very young learners, see this discussion.) Sending children to school also positively affects parents. Most parents aren’t trained or equipped to teach their children at home, and juggling family and work responsibilities can take a toll. Private schools, by virtue of offering in-person classes, can take a significant amount of pressure off the entire family. About Westminster School Westminster School is a private school located in Northern Virginia. It was founded in 1962, and it is committed to helping children excel, in academics and in all other aspects of life. The school’s teaching staff and administration work closely with parents to form a “golden triangle” that provides a structure of mutual support and respect. For more information about how the school plans to address the education gap, follow them on Facebook, call the school at (703) 256-3620, contact them via email at [email protected], or visit the campus at 3819 Gallows Rd. Annandale, VA 22003.
The Seminoles of South Florida called themselves Mayas until the 1950s! The Miccosukee and Sokee Migration Legend The Origins of the Chickasaw and Creek Peoples – Part Eight by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner Another one of those facts that are hidden from the history books . . . The only reason that the United States does not have a federally recognized tribe, named the Mayas, is that the Bureau of Indian Affairs refused to accept that name, when the indigenous people of South Florida applied for separate federal recognition in 1950. They were afraid that the Mayas in Mexico and Guatemala would use this as an excuse to immigrate to the United States. Until that time, the indigenous people of South Florida called themselves, Maya. The federal government wanted one tribe in Florida, named Seminole, and thus lumped all Native Americans together, whether they spoke Itsate (Hichiti) a Maya dialect or Muskogee. The majority spoke Itsate. That is why they moved from Georgia to Florida instead of Alabama. To please the Feds, the more traditional members, reapplied, using the name of their capital town, Miccosukee, and were ultimately accepted in 1962. Miccosukee Dancers Etymology and Genetics We should make one thing very clear. Although linguistics and genetics reveal a multiple ethnic origin for such tribes as the Creeks, Uchee, Sokee and Miccosukee, many centuries of mixing with American Indians have resulted into genetic profiles that most labs would label Mesoamerican. Not knowing the cultural histories of these peoples, they explain the non-American Indian genes to post-Columbian mixing. The vast majority of Mayas in Mexico did not call themselves by that name until they were told that was their name by the Spanish in the 1500s. Only one tribe . . . living in the 1400s on the northern tip of Yucatan and the southern tip of Florida, called themselves the Maia or Lake People. The letter Y is used for the English Ī in Spanish. Maia has evolved into the modern Creek word for a lake or pond, maia or mia. Ironically, the Miccosukee don’t even know the meaning of their own name. It is the mid-twentieth century mispronunciation of the Itza Maya words, Mākō Sōkē, which means “King of the Sokee.” The Sokee were one of the most advanced indigenous peoples, living north of North America. In Mexico, they are known as the Zoque, Soque or Soke. They were the progenitors of the so-called Olmec Civilization, but also later participated in the Maya Civilization. The ancestors of the Miccosukee were refugees from the Aztecs, who migrated from Tabasco State, Mexico to northeastern Georgia. Their kingdom stretched from the Broad River (Sokeehatchee), near Elberton, GA . . . northward to the headwaters of Soque River on the slope of Chimney Mountain, an inactive volcano near Batesville, GA. Sokee, Soque and Zoque are all correctly pronounced, Zjhō : kē. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, it had come to mean “civilized,” because of the Sokee’s profound impact on the so-called Olmec and Maya civilizations. However, ultimately the word is Gamla Norska from the coast of Norway and means “Sea People.” It is word used today, written in Bok Mol Norska as Sjøge, for the Sea Sami, an indigenous Eurasian people of northern Norway. Even today, the Sea Sami strongly resemble the Uchee (Yuchi) Indians of Georgia and Oklahoma. Only some of the Sokee immigrated to Florida. Others intermarried with their neighbors or moved to the region around Auburn and Opelika, Alabama. One band moved to Haywood County, NC and was led by the famous Cherokee conjurer, Junaluska. The Thlophlocco Tribal Town in Oklahoma is descended from the Sokee of Northeast Georgia . . . So also, are many of the Snowbird Cherokees in Graham County, NC. Families in the Southeastern United States (such as my own) and in Mexico, who are descended from the Sokee, will carry a strange combination of Maya, Panoan (Peru), Sami (Scandinavia), Finnish, Karolian (NW Russia) and Basque DNA. The Sokee’s long journey from Tabasco, Mexico ended at the foot of Chimney Mountain, a dormant volcano in NE Georgia. Hot gases from under the mountain in 2018 and 2019 killed the vegetation on the top of the peak. Introduction to John Lazelle’s newspaper article The author, John E. Lazelle, in 1917 was a teacher at the Indian Town School near Palm Beach, Florida. He apparently became the first educated white man to be allowed to live among the Miccosukee Seminoles. He makes it very clear that the Miccosukee were a separate ethnic group than the majority of member tribal towns of the Creek Confederacy. All Itsate-speaking Seminoles at that time in Florida, considered themselves to be Mayas and called themselves Mayas. The other members of the Creek Confederacy were described as descendants of earlier Mesoamerican bands, who immigrated to the Southeast from southern Mexico then mixed with various “savage tribes.” It is highly unlikely that the Miccosukee migrated to the Southeast in response to Spanish oppression in Mexico as stated by Lazelle. Far more likely is that they emigrated out of Mexico because of the blood-thirsty attacks of invaders from Central Mexico or the wild Chichimeka from northern Mexico. When the Spanish first explored the Florida Peninsula in the 1500s, two tribes occupied the region from the Everglades southward. They were the Maia in the southeast section, whose capital was Maiami (How Miami got its name) and the Calusa in the southwest section, whose capital was called Calusa. Relationship with other Creek Migration Legends Readers may recall that Tamachichi (who had a pure Itza Maya name) told James Oglethorpe that his ancestors came from across the ocean from the south and first settled on a large lake in southern Florida . . . Lake Okeechobee. They then lived in a marshy area where there were many reeds. That was probably either the headwaters of St. Johns River or the great expanse of tidal marshes in Georgia. They then settled at the mouth of the Savannah River, before moving inland to the Ocmulgee River. However, a much larger population of Itza Mayas lived in the Georgia and North Carolina Mountains. They undoubtedly came up the Chattahoochee River because their capital was in the Nacochee Valley, which is the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River. The original Creek Migration Legend settles once and for all, who the Florida Calusa were. It calls the Upper Tennessee River, where the Upper Creeks concentrated, the Calusahatchee (Calusa River) River. The Florida Calusa were originally a band of the same people, who migrated from the Orizaba Volcano to the Upper Tennessee River. The Migration Legend mentions that while they were living at the mouth of the Yamapo River in Veracruz, their people split into two bands. The Migration Legend makes nor further mention of the other band. The indigenous names in the article below are neither Muskogean nor Itza Maya. They are Mixtec-Zoque words. The religious traditions are entirely different than those of the Muskogee Creeks or the Hitchiti Creeks. They create a different understanding of the Southeast’s indigenous history. An Indian Town School still exists, but it is now focused on the education of migrant workers’ families, most of whom are indigenous peoples from Latin America. It is now called the Hope Rural School. Their website is: The second part of this important article is a translation of a report published by the Institutio Nacional de Antropologia E Historia de México on the religious beliefs of the Zoque. It matches perfectly the statements made by Lazelle and the fact that the Georgia Zoque journeyed up the Chattahoochee River until they encountered a smoking volcano at the head of one of the Chattahoochee’s principal tributaries. Note that the Sokee Wind Clan (Sawa Kora) became the Sawakli Tribe of the Creek Confederacy. I am currently focusing much my research on the region where the Soque and Itza Maya refugees first settled. A video on this research follows. Site Plan of Soque – Capital of the Sokee/Miccosukee Architectural rendering (based on LIDAR) of the acropolis of the Soque capital, where the village of Batesville, GA is now located. A recent History Channel program grossly distorted my renderings and edited the voice track to give viewers very different answers to questions asked me than what I actually said. To add salt to the wounds, I was swollen up like a balloon because of then coming down with an intestinal infection or food poisoning . . . I was having trouble walking because of injuries from being struck by lightning the previous summer . . . my bed buckle broke, so I was having to hold my pants up by sticking my hands in my pockets and the night before, Hurricane Zeta had knocked out all the electrical power, telephone lines and cellular towers in my community. Some days, it just don’t pay to get out of bed! Palm Beach Post ~ March 1, 1917 The Seminole Indians of Florida by J. E. Lazzelle The writer spent a number of months recently with a race that refuses to associate with American people, and when asked the reason why, respond “Esta hatke helnaugus loxi ojus,” which means in our language “White man no good. He lie heap too much.” This exclusiveness they carry out to the very letter. The people that I refer to are the Seminole Indians of Florida. The only time they have anything to do with white people is when they wish to trade with them, and then they talk strictly trade, and those who have tried can testify that if one should ask hem a question that could, in any way, be construed as personal, in an inconceivably short time you will be looking at the Indian’s back quite a distance away. Several hundred years ago the ancestors of the same Indian live in Yucatan, Mexico, as the ancient Aztec, or Montezumas, or probably still more ancient Mayas, a highly civilized race, who lived in Mexico just prior to the Aztecs, who in those days were in the highest stage of civilization of any Indians found on the American continent. Over four hundred years when Cortez and band of Spaniards were sweeping through Mexico, conquering and making slaves of the Aztecs, this band of perhaps six or seven hundred descendants of the Nicascusco (Miccosukee?) Tribe of the Ancient Mayas left their native country of Yucatan; followed up and beyond the Gulf of Mexico, through Mexico and the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and finally the southern part of Georgia, where they were found by the English living along a large number of creeks; hence they were called the Creek Indians. They had attached themselves to other earlier descendants of the ancient Mayas and a large number of savage Indians they came through in their wanderings. Those Mayas adopted the savages’ ways as the best mode of existence in their wanderings, and for this reason, they were called savages with all the rest of the American Indians. About the beginning of the nineteenth century these Mayas decided to leave their old comrades, the Creeks and set down by themselves in Florida. The Creeks resented this division, and calling them what they considered a very bad name – a quitter . . . a runaway . . . or in their language a “Seminole” – – hence the Florida tribe of Seminoles. In the year 1835 all the Indians were ordered to leave their native land and go at once to the Indian Reservation, Oklahoma. The Creeks and all other tribes went, but these Florida Seminoles positively refused to go, and the result was what is known in history as the “the Seminole Indian War” which lasted seven years, and without doubt the most troublesome and disastrous of all the numerous Indian wars in this country. At the end of the war a large part of the Seminoles were transported to the west. As history puts it, “But it was not until 1858, when the entire body of Seminole Indians were removed, that the war was declared at an end.” So, it is supposed that present Florida Seminoles do not exist, at least legally. These Mayas’ first experience with the Spaniards caused them to believe that the whites were all full of treachery, lies and deceit, and whose main object was to eventually make slaves of them. So, when the United States government officials ordered them to go to the reservation west of the Mississippi, they took for granted that they were to be taken into slavery. And the treachery, broken promises, and broken treaties have, as they think, confirmed them in their first impression of the whites. In a general way, it has been driven home to them by almost all actions of the whites toward them. Is it any wonder that they refused to go to Oklahoma, when ordered to Oklahoma by the government officials? There is a popular saying in the United States, “There is no good Indian, but a dead Indian.” Every rule must have its exception, however, and if there ever was a “good Indian” Jim was that one. There were seven of them, of the sub-tribe of Tigers, of the Seminoles. Jim was their tribal chief, took a wife from the Gopher Turtle family; hence his name Jim Gopher. When Indian marries, he always takes his wife’s name. Jim got the idea in his head that as game was getting very scarce, and that the fertile lands of the Everglades were being slowly but surely all taken up by the enterprising whites who hold the deeds for all of it, that in a comparatively short time his means of making a living would be taken from him, and that the only thing he could do, and also his children, would be to secure an education, and get his living the same as the whites. So he made arrangements for six of the Tiger Tribe and himself also to attend school at Indian Town, Palm Beach County, Florida. And more apt pupils, I never saw. At noon we would eat our dinners out in the yard under the shade of a pine tree or live oak, and during one of these noon hours Jim again proved he was an exception to another fixed rule, for he talked, and whoever heard of a Seminole Indian talking? In the month or more that I had known him before noon in question, he not spoken a hundred words all together, nor did he talk again after that time. So I came to the conclusion that his outburst of talk was caused by what happened to strike his interests. He had evidently mentioned tribe lore which ears could gather in at their Shotkataw, or Green Corn Dance, in the council of his elders, and he is very proud of the age of his people; their achievements in the past; and their history, dating back to the very genesis of the world. It was this story, or legend, of the creation of the world that he had learned from the wise men of his tribe about which he told us that noon-time . . . possibly the longest that any school teacher gave in Florida before . . . told us with fine scorn of our white skin, our inferiority, our racial youth, with the hot sun of that noon day flickering down through the lofty pine under which we sat, lighting up his expressive eyes. Here is the Hava Supi legend as Jim told it: There were two gods, To-Chee-Paw, the good god, and Ho-ko-Man-Tu, the bad god. One day they came to earth. It was very new, and there were no animals on it, no fish in the waters, no birds in the trees, and the clouds were still lying on the ground. To-Chee-Paw and Ho-Ko-Man-Tu started to walk about the earth to see what they could to make it a pleasant place for them to live in, but the clouds got in the way of their feet and the clouds and pushed down them over their heads as far they could reach. After they had fixed the clouds up in the sky, and saw how beautiful the world was, To-Chee-Paw, the good god, said to Ho-Ku-Man-Tu, “Why don’t we make some living things to dwell in this beautiful place? Ho-Ku-Man-Tu being a bad god, thought it was too much trouble to do anything as good as that, but he said to To-Chee-Paw, “Do it yourself, if you want to, thinking that he would wait and see what the animals would look like. Perhaps he could make them bad and make them worship him instead of To-Chee-Paw. Too-Chee-Paw, was much pleased, and started in right away to make the animals and birds and fish. He made them all good. They all talked the same talk, played together, and were friends. He made male and female of each kind, and he made the Red Wolf, the wise animal, who should give advice and counsel to the rest of the animals, and he called him Kamahvi; and he would take him with him whenever he walked about the earth to talk with him and so learn from the Red Wolf what all other animals were talking about, and thinking and wanting, for To-Chee-Paw wanted all his creatures to be happy. *The writer used the word coyote instead of Red Wolf. However, there were no coyotes in Florida until the 1970s, while the Red Wolf is indigenous to Florida, Georgia and Alabama. One day, Kanahvie, the Red Wolf said to To-Chee-Paw, Oh To-Chee-paw, why don’t you make another animal in your own shape, smaller of course, but still to look like you? Then when you are away on a far journey, I could have someone to talk to and take council with. The idea pleased To-Chee-Paw, and he right away made a man, and called him, Kathetie-Kanahvi, which means “taught by the Red Wolf,” for it was arranged the coyote should take the first man and introduce him all he knew about the world and everything in it. Katatheti-Kanahvi, the first man was very strong and handsome and good, and he learned quickly, and grew more and more each day to look and talk like To-Chee-Paw. He loved all the animals and they loved him, and at first he was very happy. By and by though, he noticed that all the other animals had mates. They were all in couples and little animals were coming, and the animal fathers and mothers were very happy and busy with their children, and he began to wonder why he, of all animals, was all alone without any mate. He began to feel lonely, seeing the happiness of the others, and he spoke to the Red Wolf and said, “Why can’t I have a mate and some little ones?” Please ask the good god, To-Chee-Paw to let me have a mate to love and be a mother of some little men and women. And while you are asking him that, please ask him if I could not have also have a few friends like myself, in the image of To-Chee-Paw.” The wise Red Wolf saw To-Chee-Paw soon after and told him what Katatheti-Kanahvi had said. The good god laughed and said, “I made only one of him because there is only one of me, but I suppose he is lonesome, and so I will tell him how to get a mate and also some friends. Send Katatheti-Kanahvi to me.” The Red Wolf did so and then, To-Chee-Paw, hidden from sight, speaking to the man from the top of a lofty mountain said, “Katheti-Kanahvi, first man created by me, I have heard your prayer and will answer. Go you to a place, which I shall tell to the Red Wolf and to which he shall direct you. There build a stone house of four walls, but with only one door and no roof, so that the sun my reach it’s every part. Then go into the forest; cut ten logs of goodly thickness and as long as your own height. Take these with the walls of the stone house you have built and lay them on the ground in a row. Then cut eleven logs of a lesser thickness, and of a length reaching to your chin, as they stand on end. Place these in another row within the house. Then cut ten logs of still lesser thickness and half as long as the first logs and place them in another row inside the walls, and then cut still another ten half the length of the second row of logs and still smaller thickness than any. “ “Six days shall finish your labors, and on the seventh day you must rest and do no kind of work. Warn the Red Wolf that he, nor any animal, bird nor fish shall make a noise of any kind to disturb the work, which I To-Chee-Paw, shall do on this seventh day, which is my day. Let it be known that this is my wish. Obey and all will be well.” The man arose from his knees and in fear of the great voice went in search of his wise friend, the Red Wolf, thankful in his heart. Kanahvi took him to a spot on the shore of a river and for the time of six days and nights, he worked and cut the logs and put them in rows, according to their size, all carefully laid in the stone house. In this word the Red Wolf grew more and more interested every day until the morning of the seventh day, when the first man, obeying To-Chee-Paw, was asleep and resting quietly. The Red Wolf could not resist the temptation to peep into the house where the logs lay, bathing in the warmth of the sun. What he saw took his breath away. The logs were slowly changing. First, they split half way up, then a knob grew on their upper end, then a they split part way on each side, the pieces growing slowly into arms, the lower parts into legs, the knobs into head, until by and by fully formed men and women, boys and girls, took their places where the first log of each size lay. Then they began to move and sit up, to roll their eyes, and then to stand, until the room inside the walls got so crowded that some of the living men, women and children were forced against the logs that were still changing. When the Red Wolf saw all this he went loco . . . got crazy . . . and howled with fear. His howl awoke the man, who quickly kicked the Red Wolf for breaking the command of To-Chee-Paw by making a noise on the seventh day, and that is why the Red Wolf is ever seen by a man with his tail between his legs. With the howl of the Red Wolf, the logs stopped changing. Then Katheti-Kanahvi, the man, picked himself a mate and never was lonely any more, for he had friends of his own kind and children of his own, just like the other animals, and that’s how people came on the earth. In the sunlight’s glow filtering through the pine trees, I mused on the strange similarity between his legend and the Biblical story, six days or periods of creation, and the one day set apart for quietness and rest. Just as I sat musing on this, the voice of someone cut the silence with, “Say Jim, what became of the logs tha were left over?” Jim, with scorn in his voice, replied, “Bark all came off . . . rot . . . no good. Ho-Ko-Man-Tu, bad god, make white man of these.” The largest Sokee town in Veracruz, around 500 BC. Traditional Creek architecture and town planning was almost identical to that of the Olmec Civilization. Many cultural symbols, found at Etowah Mounds, can also be found in much older Sokee towns in Mexico. Zoque Religion by Laureano Reyes Gómez The Zoque’s Deities The ancient religion of zoques is animistic. They believe in a constellation of gods, all of them alive, often young, exalted, who never die and are extremely powerful. Depending on the human behavior observed in earthly life, deities can provide rewards or punishments. They usually appear in pairs under the figure of male or female, or male or female. When the deity is feminine, she is perceived as extremely beautiful physically, and of greater power than man. In fact, in the native language there are two words to refer to the beautiful, the beautiful, the pleasant, and even the tasty: suñi and sa’sabö. The first expression is in common use; the second, of reverential use, and is reserved for the deities. Only the gods can be given the category of exalts; humans have to settle for being simply beautiful. The residence of the gods is in the Underworld, although they make a presence in earthly life at their will or through human invocation. According to the perception zoque there are three underworlds and an earthly world; all these spaces coexist simultaneously, that is, they are worlds parallel to earthly life, with the difference that in the various underworlds time does not exist, since it is frozen, trapped in eternity; 2 this is one of the reasons why their gods never age, 3 unlike the Catholic saints, many of whom are represented as elders, who, in addition to getting tired, run the risk of dying and, consequently, losing power, As it is said, it happens with San Marcos Evangelista, who, given his advanced age, “already tires”. The first underworld is called Tsu’an (literally: “the threshold to the night”), and it is the world of Charm. There will live the people who died in war or natural phenomena. It’s a party world, everything is eternal happiness. There is no disease, sadness, old age, worries and other earthly sorrows. This territory is governed by Kotsök pöt or Kotsök yomo (Kotsök means “hill”, pöt, “sir”, and yomo, “married woman”); that is, the “Owners or Lords of the Hill”). In Christian perception this element was used to replace it with the figure of the patron saint, as we shall see later (see below, page 9). The second underworld is known as I’ps töjk ( “labyrinth”). It is the place where people who died of natural causes will live, including babies who lost their lives at an early age and mothers who died during childbirth. In this underworld there is a court composed of thirteen elders that is responsible for judging the new resident, according to the behavior observed in the earthly life; the public attending the trial are their former neighbors, now residents of I’ps töjk; consequently, they know the new host, and can support or sink the suspect. The Grand Court is composed of thirteen elderly members, of whom six will defend it and six more will accuse him, while the thirteenth element has the delicate task of issuing the final verdict. If he had an exemplary life on earth, as a prize he will occupy a position in the power structure, and could reach the status of a great official in this underworld; On the other hand, if he had bad behavior in earthly life, as punishment he will go to prison, whose walls are made of gold. The time in I’ps töjk is stuck. The residents rewarded for their good behavior in earthly life enjoy eternal happiness. The tools of farming and cooking come alive by themselves, and it is they who do the work. The third underworld is known as Pagujk tsu (“midnight”). This territory is reserved for suicides. It is a world of shadows. Its residents insistently seek the exit, but they do not find it, since they are here by their own choice. They suffer anguish and loneliness. The time is frozen. The deity that governs this underworld is Ka’uböt (ka’u means “death”, and böt can be translated as “person”, “entity”): the personification of death. Ka’uböt retains its residents in its territory, envelops them in a sea of shadows. With the process of evangelization, the Zoque native religion underwent substantial changes, and, in the best of cases, merged with the Christian elements. Most of the time, those who followed the clandestine practice of the native rituals, at the moment of being surprised, were accused of idolatry. However, to evangelize the natives, the Spaniards used some figures similar to the ancient pre-Hispanic gods, and gave them Castilian names. Obviously, there were difficulties in making references, since each conception starts from different cultures. For example, in the zoque conception, deities are always identified as a couple, sometimes they are bad, sometimes they are good. When the deity Zoque was identified in his role as evil, they did not hesitate to catalog it as the devil, and thus, the devil, according to Báez-Jorge, used several “disguises” (2003). Different ways of identifying it emerged then. Few figures fit so well into the Christian religious structure, as we shall see below. “El Malo” was the epithet used by the Hispanic missionaries to refer to the Devil (Báez-Jorge, 2003: 446). In the native language several forms are used, although there is a generic term that defines it as such: Ya’tsi bö (Ya’tsi is equivalent to “bad”, is the agentive: the Bad). However, there are many other ways to refer to the “bad”, one of the most important which we quote below: Jokoisto (Joko is equivalent to “smoke”, isto, “mirror”), that is to say, Smoky Mirror, god of war. This god has as its main characteristic that it does not grant mercy yet the enemy surrenders, and destroys it without compassion. It is invoked to infuse courage, courage, mercy, strength and thirst for revenge. The evangelizers found sufficient reasons to consider Jokosito under the figure of evil. Mönku ‘(Mö is equal to “ray”, n is a possessive marker of second person in singular, and ku’ means “tree”). That is, Lightning of the Tree, name with which the lightning-man is known. The Tree Ray is conceived as a very strong elder, who lives in the treetops and walks naked. To become lightning, it jumps skywards screaming and lands in the clouds. 4 There are four types of ray-men in the zoque conception, which are distinguished by color, origin and actions, namely: the Blue Ray is benevolent, comes from the North and causes abundant rains; the White Ray comes from the South, and acts when there is heat causing droughts; it is considered typical of the “dry” rays, which can fall on a sunny day without a harbinger of rain; the Green Ray “appears” in the East, and is accompanied by northerly, thunderstorm and hurricane winds; finally, the Black Ray, which is the west, terribly destructive, and responsible for fires, although it shows a certain preference for impact on Catholic churches. 5 Reasons abound, in the Christian perception, to consider it the Devil himself. However, according to the zoques, the “Devil” could be invoked in his role of lightning man to propitiate or stop rains. The wife of the ray, whenever it is associated with water, is the frog. This double conception makes the “costumbrier”, from the Christian representation, an ambivalent being; however, for the latter, his rite of invocation is not to evil, but to the god of rain, to fertility. A terribly male female entity is Nöwayomo (Nö is “water”, way is a locative: “native of”, and and “married woman”). It could be translated as “Woman born of water”, although locally this character is known in Spanish with the name “Little Mermaid”. It is believed that in reality Nöwayomo is a viper, and likes to seduce men by posing as the bride, wife or lover. She walks naked freely on the banks of the rivers, and it is seductive. The man falls into temptation, but Nöwayomo keeps a surprise, because he has a jagged vagina. Evidently, this character is identified as a variation of Satan or the snake-devil. Another personage of the zoque worldview that fitted perfectly into the Christian iconography was the conception of the tona or tonalli, companion animal or alter ego, interpreted under the figure of the “guardian angel”. In the indigenous conception, both the alter ego and the person are interdependent: one takes care of the other and both run parallel lots. In zoque vision, an individual could have up to 13 “guardian angels” or companion animals. Depending on the combination of animal types, they may be strong or weak, shy or cowardly, timid or extroverted, of diurnal or nocturnal customs, and all these elements define the personality or character of the individual. The conception of the tona was not completely demonized. A very important female deity is Sawaoko (Sawa is “wind”, Oko means “grandmother”, in her reverential form): “The grandmother-wind”. She is an extremely beautiful woman; Her hair is long, about three meters long. To cause winds dance by spinning his long hair, and the noise it produces is “wis, wis”. The winds can be harmful or beneficial, according to each circumstance. There are many other deities, however, we cannot fail to refer to the owners of the hill, rivers, disappeared people, pantheons, caves and many other sites considered “charming” or “sacred”. They are the aforementioned Kotsökpöt or Kotsökyomo. They are masters and masters of everything that exists in the soil and subsoil, and their riches are endless. 6 Water, natural gas, oil, precious stones and clay used for pottery are especially considered “treasures”. They are considered fertility gods or Mother / Father Earth. They are used to request abundant harvests and various riches. Everything seems to indicate that the figure of the “Lord of the Hill” was used by the evangelizers to replace it with the image of the patron saint of the town, since both basically fulfill the same functions. Thus, for example, in Chapultenango the Virgin of the Rosary is sometimes equated with the Lady of the Chichón volcano. Like the versions that Señor del Cerro equates to the devil, because it is presumed that he gives riches in exchange for the soul of the benefited subject. Invocation to ancestral deities The invocation to ancestral deities are ceremonies that are developed under three well-defined socio-religious planes: the private dimension, the public dimension, in religious contexts, and the public social, through cultural diffusion events, as a sample of Zoque folklore. Private events usually take place in houses, mountains, caves and other places considered “sacred” or that have “charm”. The public religious celebration takes place mainly in the church, the hermitages and the pantheons. And the public social, as already mentioned, through cultural events, usually of an official nature. With regard to private events, given their nature, we have few records of idolatry dating from the colonial era, which account for the process of evangelization to which the indigenous people of the region were subjected. 7 However, we recently rescued a prayer from a peasant to Señor del Cerro, when he began his agricultural work. As an example of public ceremonies of invocation in religious contexts, we have the case of the eruption in March and April of 1982 of the volcano Chichón, a situation in which the “costumbreros” invoked the Lady of the Volcano to appease her anger. Finally, public social events take place in exhibition spaces of native folklore, usually sponsored by official bodies. Let’s see the ceremonial development in each socio-religious space. Invocation of fertility to the Lord or Lady of the Hill The Lord or Lady of the Hill is, as its name says, the spirit of the mountain, master, master and lord of all that exists in it. It is conceived as an extremely rich and powerful person, who is especially used in requests for fertility. It is very fertile, and is also considered as the “Mother Earth”. It is common that to this spirit the “costumbreros” usually identify it with the name of the patron saint of the town. Each important hill has its owner, whether male or female. In Chapultenango, for example, the Gavilán hill is believed to be governed by a very handsome and powerful young man called Saspalangui (Saspa is an adjective that means “exalted”, and langui, is a proper name); that is, “Langui el excelso”. Saspalangui is very much in love, and courts other feminine hills; especially he keeps love affairs with the owner of the hill Tsitsungotsök (Cerro Chichón, that is, the Chichonal volcano). The meetings between Saspalangui and the Lady of the Volcano are very scandalous: she often trembles, roars the mountain and throws fumaroles; They can be considered explosive encounters. In short, to obtain abundant harvests Mother Earth is invoked. Sometimes food is offered, “only the heart, the liver, the eyes and the brain were used, which were placed in a new clay pot and, if possible, decorated with paintings of animals such as the monkey, the eagle, the armadillo, the butterfly and the jaguar “(Reyes, 2007: 33). In the 1970s, following the construction of the Chicoasén dam, the archeological rescue report recorded fifty-three caves, of which twenty-three contained archaeological remains (basically pottery) and eighteen had cave paintings, all in red. In all these places the ancient peoples went to make offerings and rituals of invocation to their deities (at present groups of zoques continue carrying out ancestral rites in the Sumidero Canyon). Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Google photo Twitter picture Facebook photo Connecting to %s
The Arc Flash Numbers You Need to Act On Stay Informed You’ve heard of arc flash. You’ve even heard some numbers. And while it’s easy to remember that an arc flash is three times hotter than the surface of the sun, it’s not so clear why that matters, or what your facility should do about it. Sure, the sun is insanely hot, but it’s also really far away. It’s easy to believe that the threat of arc flash is that far away – but it’s not. For facilities that haven’t done their due diligence, that threat is already inside the building. Let’s leave aside the industry estimates of costs (like hospitalization, litigation, productivity losses, equipment damage, fines) and look at numbers that help you understand arc flash. Incident energy, fault current, and clearing time may seem technical at first, but a basic picture will help you understand the risk of arc flash and evaluate proposals that mitigate arc flash risk for your facility. Statistics Don’t Save Lives, Good Decisions Do If you’re wondering how serious of a problem arc flash is, you might look up how many incidents happen in a year. You can find averages including 7,000 burn injuries and 400 fatalities. Estimates in studies range from 3,500 to 30,000 arc flash incidents a year. From a national, statistical point of view, that’s not a common occurrence. Maybe that makes it sound less concerning. From a safety point of view, though, we want it to be as uncommon as possible. Arc flash is deadly and debilitating. Searing heat, explosive pressure, piercing shrapnel, blinding light, deafening sound waves, toxic gases – we want zero of that in the workplace. Understanding and good engineering help us all keep arc flashes uncommon. In this article, we’ll explore incident energy and the factors that feed it. With those basics under your belt, you can take a deeper dive with our webinar series, Pulling the Curtain Back on Arc Flash. Incident Energy The incident energy is a calculation of the energy that could be released by an arc flash event. An arc flash is different than an electrical shock, although both happen when power goes where it’s not supposed to. Shock happens when power passes through the body. Arc flash happens when power jumps through ionized air and back to the system, or something ungrounded, or to ground. Because the resulting arc travels through the air, which is more resistant, a tremendous amount of thermal energy is released. When an arc flash study looks at the system, it calculates the incident energy to model how severe an event would be. Technically, the incident energy calculated by the arc flash equations is thermal heat. But that heat is so hot (remember: three times the surface of the sun), that it causes all the other hazards, including blast pressure, concussive sound, and shrapnel. Calculating the incident energy is the main goal of arc flash study. When you understand how much energy can be released, you can plan to mitigate the danger that energy poses. One way to do that is with personal protective equipment. However, PPE isn’t a guarantee, and it doesn’t do anything to reduce the severity of the energy released – it just helps meet the risk. An engineered solution does more than meet the risk, it reduces the risk by finding ways to reduce the energy. That depends on understanding the variables that feed the incident energy. Two of the most important variables there are the available fault current and the time it takes to clear the fault. Understanding the Variables The available fault current is the measure of how much current could jump out into that arc. If you’ve ever shorted a 9-volt across your tongue for a laugh, you know the available fault current there is relatively low. To be clear, that tingle in your tongue is a shock, not an arc flash, but the available fault current is still low, and therefore so is the incident energy. On the other hand, the main switchgear for a large facility has much more current flowing through it. The available fault current is high, and so is the incident energy. The available fault current can be different depending on what part of the system you’re looking at. The fault clearing time is how long it takes for the system’s protection equipment to trip and stop feeding energy to the incident. In the case of a short in your home, a circuit breaker would trip, stopping that flow of energy. A faster fault clearing time means less of the available fault current can feed the incident energy. So why wouldn’t you want all systems to trip immediately? The short answer is that the system still has to do the work it’s designed to do, without tripping constantly. And each part of the system exists in context: for instance, you want protective devices closer to the fault (think of that as “downstream”) to trip faster, and devices closer to your main feeders (more “upstream”) to trip slightly slower, so a fault can be cleared locally, instead of shutting down the entire building. A Quick Reminder Before we talk through how those numbers inform your decisions, it’s important to note that calculating incident energy isn’t just a technical concern. Codes regulating arc flash safety can have the force of law. OSHA takes willful violations seriously. Lack of compliance with codes (such NFPA 70E) can lead to fines, liability, and forced shutdowns. An arc flash does not just happen and go away. It impacts your business, and it permanently impacts the families and lives of those involved. What do you do with those numbers? Now that you understand the basics of how available fault current and clearing time relate to the incident energy, and how that informs arc flash risk, the question is how to use those numbers to make informed decisions. For instance, to mitigate risk, you can reduce the available fault current or you can reduce the fault clearing time. The first step, of course, is making sure you get those numbers. Arc flash studies must be done every five years, and whenever significant upgrades are done. With the incident energies known, you can make sure you: • Label equipment correctly • Set appropriate arc flash boundaries • Update safety procedures and safety training • Provide appropriate PPE and the training to use it correctly You’ll also want to make sure all your electrical system information is up to date and available. One-line diagrams should be clear and correct. Protective device settings should be accurately recorded. Maintenance practices should be updated, especially for protective devices, and a clear schedule for testing equipment for proper grounding, and testing the grounding system itself, is put in place. Ensuring that your fault protection systems work properly is paramount. Remember, if the fault clearing time is longer, the incident energy increases. Consider developing an arc flash safety plan to be communicated across your organization. Engineering a Safer Solution With your arc flash study complete, you can make sure that the right PPE and procedures are in place to meet the risk of that incident energy. But the better you understand your system, the safer you can make it. An arc flash study also gives you the information you need to improve assets, processes, and efficiency. Sometimes the most effective way to reduce incident energy, and therefore risk, is to engineer a new solution for that system. Hear directly from our arc flash safety experts in our webinar series New call-to-action
Culture Costume and Dress 5-7th May 2021 Birmingham UK “The symbologies of the typical costumes of the ‘Rainha Das Rosas’ competition in Barbacena, Minas Gerais, Brazil “ (Glauber Soares junior, Isadora F Oliveira, Fabiano E A Batista and Ítalo J M Dantas) July 13th, 2021 Report by Robyn Westcott The ‘Festa Das Rosas’ festival began in the city or Barbacena, Brazil in 1968. A flower festival, that honours the city’s culture and history with the title event being the ‘Rainha Das Rosas’ a pageant that crowns the queen of roses. Isadora described that herself and fellow researchers were looking into symbols used in beauty contests and the evolutionary process of the costumes, whilst identifying how they reflect the time and place. She explained that they were to use the study of material culture, observational video graphic review as well as interviews to obtain information on the subject, specifically focusing on the case study of contestants in the ‘Rainha Das Rosas’ competition. Rainha Das Rosas When immigrants from Germany and Italy came to the city of Barbacena, to escape the European economic crisis following WW2, they began to grow flowers as a source of income. This became a key part of the economy of which the city still relies on today, as a major supplier to states such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Since the 1970’s, the city has become nationally-known as ‘the city of roses’. In 1968 the ‘Festa Das Rosas’ festival began, honouring the important position that flowers have within the community. The event has many different activities and is has become a bustling and important practice since its conception. The main event is the ‘Rainha Das Rosas’ where women in the community dress up in beautiful, lavish costumes. Inspired by their heritage of European medieval peasants, they are adorned with roses to compete for the title of the ‘queen of roses’ – a symbol of tradition, beauty, glamour and status. The competition over time has evolved, becoming more lavish, professional and glamourous as sponsors have become involved and the competition has become more prestigious. However, artifacts passed down through generations are still used and families tend to have major involvement in helping to choose the wearer’s costume, thus helping to retain its traditional and cultural roots. But, although our clothing is embedded within our culture, it still evolves and adapts over time, becoming diluted and the original heritage begins to slowly fade. The research undertaken hopes to delve deeper into why certain symbologies are used and to better understand the influence culture has on costume used in pageantry and how these change over time to evolve to their social climate. I look forward to seeing the findings of this paper and learning more about the intricacies and influences involved in such costumes. Watch the paper here: CCD2021 \| » Symbolic Dress
Cleft Lip & Palate Cleft lip and/or palate occurs 1 in 600 live births in the United States, making it the most common birth problem. Children born with a cleft lip and/or palate and related disorders may face a variety of challenges in areas to include: feeding, hearing, dentition, resonance, speech production and language, facial growth, vision, learning and psychosocial issues. For these reasons, it is critical that care is provided in a team environment working with a multitude of specialists. As a main focus of the FCI practice and the most common craniofacial birth defect, our team has performed thousands of surgical procedures for cleft lip and palate repair.
Proceedings of the New Zealand Ecological Society (1953) 1: 1- 2 Biological communities: The historical factor in plant communities Report to Annual Meeting W. R. Philipson [First paragraph(s)...] The history of any botanical community is often as important in explaining its composition as are the environmental factors which form the normal study of ecology So the ecologist will need to consider problems of plant-distribution, just as the plant-geographer must take into account the ecological requirements of the species. In a study of a collection of plants made in a rain-forest in central Colombia it became evident that the community could be broken down into a number of geographical elements. Some plants spread far into the Amazon forest, some were confined to the Andean slopes, some ranged north into Central America, and so on. The most interesting element was a small group of plants characteristic of certain abrupt and isolated mountain systems which stretch across the northern part of South America. They separate the water-systems of the Orinoco and the Amazon, and lie in the Guianas, Venezuela and Colombia. These mountains have been found to have certain floristic resemblances, and as they are all eroded remnants of a former continuous plateau, the attractive theory has been suggested that their floras resemble each other because they are residues of a former widespread plateau flora, now immeasurably reduced.
The Leo Frank Hoax: Interview With the NOI Research Group Interview With the NOI Research Group: The Jewish Hoax of Leo Frank The emergence of Donald Trump after the contentious 2016 presidential election has heightened racial rhetoric and tensions in America. The controversies over the national anthem, the police shootings of unarmed Blacks, and the Civil War monuments have forced a reexamination of the history of racial oppression in America. Jewish people were particularly incensed by the protesters who displayed Nazi symbols and chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Within the angst-filled Jewish commentary a largely unfamiliar name was invoked over and over. That name was Leo Frank—a Jewish B’nai B’rith leader who was lynched in 1915 for the murder of a young Gentile girl, a crime his supporters say he did not commit. A Black man, Jews say, was the real murderer, and they present Frank as a Jewish martyr who paid the ultimate price as a victim of white racism and bigotry. Frank’s killing is considered by Jews to be “the worst case of anti-Semitism” in America’s history. But a new book by the Nation of Islam probes the Leo Frank case and casts serious doubt on that century-old Jewish point of view. NOI researchers say the commonly believed story of Leo Frank is based on falsified data, cunning propaganda, and outright deception, and has little at all to do with the known facts of the case. Further, that falsified Jewish history is being dishonestly used by Jewish leaders for political and racial advantage. We sat down with the researchers of The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 3, subtitled “Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man,” to learn more about this largely unknown case. Describe for us the murder and how it developed into such an explosive case. Leo Frank managed a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, and he was also the president of the southern regional chapter of B’nai B’rith, the most prominent Jewish secret society. Thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was one of about 120 child laborers working in the factory. She operated a machine that attached the metal band that holds the rubber eraser to the wooden pencil. On Saturday April 26, 1913, when the factory was deserted, the little girl came to the office of Leo Frank to get her pay of $1.20. In very much the same way as Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is accused of doing, Frank used his power as the factory boss to lure her to a back area and attempt to sexually assault her. Mary resisted and in the struggle Frank struck her and knocked her unconscious, and then strangled her to death. He left a trail of clues leading to himself, so within a few days of the murder he was arrested. He was later tried, convicted, and ultimately sentenced to death. After two years of legal appeals Frank was kidnapped from his Georgia prison cell and lynched. He is claimed to be the only Jew ever lynched in America. Jews also claimed that somebody else committed the crime and that Frank was unfairly tried and that he was the victim of “anti-Semitism.” The case became an international cause célèbre for Jews—as infamous as the O.J. Simpson case. And just as with the O.J. case the story of Leo Frank has immense racial overtones. You mentioned Harvey Weinstein—his method of targeting young girls seems chillingly similar to the Leo Frank scenario. Very much so. Frank found himself in the identical predicament that Weinstein is in. According to testimony at his 1913 murder trial, many of Leo Frank’s own female employees testified about how he had tried to corner them and about how he had proposed sexual acts to them. One by one these teenagers took the witness stand and spoke of his lewd behavior. One employee said he had looked through a keyhole to find Frank performing oral sex on a woman—right in the factory! Another said Frank had offered her money for sex. The testimony was so explicit that the judge had to clear the courtroom of women. What’s worse, after this barrage of salacious stories, Frank’s lawyers argued that his behavior was not wrong—that it was a sign of more liberal times! One even said, “Deliver me from one of these prudish fellows that never looks at a girl and never puts his hands on her…” Another telling similarity between Harvey Weinstein and Leo Frank is that all the girls that Frank hunted down were all Gentiles, and that caused much resentment among the white men of Georgia. Weinstein, at least so far, seems to have adopted that familiar M.O. in his targeting of young women. What does the case have to do with Black people? The Leo Frank case is much like the Plessy-Ferguson or Dred Scott case is to Black people—it is a pillar of Jewish identity. And from the very beginning of this landmark Jewish case, Blacks were intimately involved. At first, Jews said a Black night watchman at the factory named Newt Lee was the real murderer. He was arrested and almost lynched, until he was found to have an iron-clad alibi. Then the Jews said that the real murderer was another employee, a Black man named James Conley, who was a sweeper at the factory. The night watchman you mentioned, Newt Lee—how was he implicated in the case? Newt Lee was working that night and in the early morning, during his rounds, it was Lee who found the body in the basement. He alerted the police and they—seeing a Black man near a dead white body—immediately arrested him. Incredibly, Frank’s own legal team actually planted a bloody shirt at Newt Lee’s home to make him look guilty. At the same time Lee’s factory time card, which gave him a strong alibi, was mysteriously altered to show that he had had the time to commit the crime. Only Frank and his crew of lawyers and hired detectives had the ability to frame Newt Lee like that. When the newspaper reported that a bloody shirt was found at Lee’s home, it almost got an innocent man lynched. Luckily for Lee, Frank’s legal eagles and private eyes did such a sloppy job at planting the shirt that the police were not fooled at all and suspected Frank even more. This is the point in the case where the people of Atlanta came to believe—and rightly so—that Leo Frank was the murderer. Tell us more about James Conley. What is his involvement in the Leo Frank case? James Conley was the most pivotal individual in the whole case. He was a 29-year-old Black man and a janitor at the pencil factory, and the Jews say he essentially teamed up with Atlanta, Georgia’s white police and white prosecutors to falsely charge and condemn his employer, Leo Frank. For a century Conley has been portrayed as an enemy of the Jewish people—maybe the first “Black anti-Semite.” James Conley, falsely charged with the murder of a white gentile girl. And because there is a Black man in the midst of such a historical Jewish tragedy, it was incumbent upon us to ferret out the truth of the matter. Was Conley a murderer, or was he being set up to take the fall for Leo Frank’s crime? Black scholars—up until now—have left Conley hanging, as it were. He is owed a fair analysis. Is he the first “Black Anti-Semite” or an innocent victim of a Jewish smear campaign? How did James Conley go from factory janitor to “black anti-Semite”? Conley says that on the day of the murder Frank ordered him to be a lookout stationed on the first floor as Frank—a married man—“Weinsteined” young females in his second-floor office. Conley said that he had performed that lookout service for Frank several times before, so he was well familiar with the assignment. When an unsuspecting Mary Phagan came in that day to get her pay, she went upstairs to her boss’s office not knowing she was walking into Frank’s trap. Moments later Frank called Conley upstairs in a panic, explaining that he had accidently struck and killed the girl. Frank then ordered him to help him conceal the body in the basement and swore him to secrecy. As a Black man in 1913 lynch-mob Georgia, Conley did as he was told. But as the case became a front-page sensation, Conley came to believe that Leo Frank was about to scrap their agreement and pin the murder on him. So Conley confessed to the police about his role in helping Frank conceal the body. His statement was so detailed and the details matched the physical evidence, and thus Conley became one of the strongest witnesses against Leo Frank. It must be noted that a grand jury with five Jewish members (including at least two from Frank’s own synagogue) indicted Leo Frank before Conley came forward. So the evidence clearly pointed to Frank’s guilt before Conley said a word. But once Conley spoke up, Frank and his legal team—and Jewish leaders and scholars for the last 100 years—have used every bit of their wealth, power, and clout to pin the murder of Mary Phagan on the Black man James Conley. Why is the Nation of Islam interested in this case, a Jewish case? Leo Frank, the only Jew ever lynched in American history. He murdered a 13-year-old white gentile girl and tried to blame his crime on two Black men. When studying the historical relationship between Blacks and Jews, we find that the 1913-1915 Leo Frank case is a turning point—a watershed moment. It is claimed that Leo Frank’s lynching caused Jews to feel more sympathy for the oppressed condition of Blacks in America. They say it compelled Jews to join the Civil Rights Movement and caused them to form the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL). They say it led to the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan as an “anti-Jewish” organization. In fact, none of that is true. But what IS true is that the Leo Frank case is the first use of “Black anti-Semitism” as a Jewish battle cry, and it marks the beginning of a hundred-year campaign by Jewish leaders to aggressively control and curtail Black progress. Jews insist that Blacks ignore the lengthy history of Blacks and Jews prior to the case and begin our relationship with them at the moment of Frank’s lynching in 1915—when we presumably were “united” in this tragedy. And if you examine the literature on the Black–Jewish relationship, it most often begins right at the very point of the Leo Frank case—as if nothing of historical significance preceded it. Also, Leo Frank was not of the rank-and-file Jewish citizenry. As the B’nai B’rith president he was arguably the most important Jew in the South. Jews considered him as having, in effect, diplomatic immunity within the white rulership of the Jim Crow South, so his arrest, trial, and conviction shocked, offended, and activated Jews at the highest level. And they have sought to exonerate Frank ever since, but at Black people’s expense. How did all the propaganda affect your approach to this case? Our first view of the Leo Frank case accepted the prevailing opinion of Jewish scholars that Frank was innocent and wrongly convicted of murder, but there were red flags about how the case was being presented. We had to wade through reams of propaganda in order to get to the raw data, the primary documents. But once we did, it became clear that not only was Frank guilty of the rape and murder of Mary Phagan, but he and his Jewish defenders had taken anti-Black racism to an entirely new level. There is no real doubt that Frank murdered Mary Phagan. Four separate investigative agencies—including the two detective firms hired by Leo Frank himself—concluded that Frank was guilty of the murder. A grand jury with five Jewish members indicted him. At least two of those Jewish men were members of Frank’s synagogue and one of them was a B’nai B’rith official! A 12-man jury of his fellow white men needed only a couple of hours to reach a unanimous guilty verdict. Once Blacks and whites decide to examine the ample evidence in the case, the conclusion that Frank was guilty is unavoidable. What makes the Leo Frank trial problematic for Blacks? Jews worked hard to pin the murder on two separate Black men. And then the Jewish leaders argued publicly and openly that (1) testimony from witnesses was invalid if they were Black, and that (2) Frank was innocent because murder and rape were “negro crimes.” Had the Jews succeeded in establishing those profoundly racist legal doctrines, crimes in America from then on would have been color-coded, and Blacks would be considered legally incapable of telling the truth! The fact that it was the Jewish community that advanced this wickedness makes the Leo Frank case a landmark case and irreversibly alters our understanding of the Black–Jewish relationship. Atlanta Constitution newspaper headline. Frank declared murder a “negro crime” and thus pronounced himself innocent. Plus, the conduct of the trial by Frank’s defense was appalling. During jury selection Frank’s attorneys eliminated all the Blacks because they wanted to have an all-white jury; they attacked Blacks in open court, calling them “niggers” and “smelly” and “liars.” Frank’s attorney said that if you “hang a nigger in a hopper he’ll drip lies.” He asked one witness if he “ever smelled a nigger.” He told the court that they had “never known of a nigger” to leave sausage on a plate. Frank’s attorneys said that unlike the Jews Blacks were “a law-breaking race.” Their defense appealed almost entirely to the “racial responsibility” of the all-white jury to exonerate a fellow white man. It is a testament to the sheer power of Jews that they were able to take a trial that may have been the most atrocious example of anti-Black race hate in the American judicial system and turn it into their most egregious example of anti-Semitism. Now Leo Frank is even being promoted as a Jewish civil rights icon, even though pure white supremacy was his courtroom defense! Yes, the Leo Frank trial was and is problematic for Blacks. Was there a cover-up in this case? A whole lot is being covered up in this case. Most people who have heard of the case have been told that Frank was in effect dragged out of a synagogue and tried at a Klan rally. But that was not the case at all. Frank, after all, was a prominent white man and a respected community leader in Atlanta—and he was treated as such by the police, prosecutors, and press. Jews in the South were honored members of the white community. They helped create the court system that enforced the legal inferiority of all Blacks. They never, ever had to face the racism that Blacks suffered. Most people are not being told that there was blood and hair evidence, that Frank changed his alibi several times and lied constantly to police, that he was a womanizer who sexually harassed his girl employees, and that he claimed he couldn’t remember simple things. He hired private detectives that went around planting evidence and bribing witnesses to change their testimony. At his own trial Frank refused to be sworn on the Bible. Yes, there is a LOT that Jewish writers have covered up about the case, including Frank playing the race card to play to the white jurors’ prejudices about Black men. Most damning of all are the racist extremes that Frank and his B’nai B’rith associates were willing to go to free Leo Frank. How did the Nation of Islam Research Group become aware of the Leo Frank Case? Since at least 1959, Jewish leaders have targeted the Nation of Islam for destruction. And since 1983, Jews in America have ill-advisedly attacked The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, labeling him an “anti-Semite,” and they have unleashed a barrage of hatred and slander against The Minister and ALL Blacks who love and respect him. Minister Farrakhan’s response was to send his scholars into the libraries to examine the actual history of Jews and their historical behavior with respect to Black people, and it is an ugly picture indeed. Their extensive involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the marketing of the products of slavery was documented for the first time, as was their deep involvement in the Jim Crow South. When The Minister published this secret history in 1991 and again in 2010, it shocked most Blacks and Jews. The reaction of Jewish leaders was to deny, deny, deny—but ironically most of the scholarship used by the NOI had come from Jewish historians, rabbis, and Jewish leaders themselves. We only quoted high-ranking and well-respected scholars like Korn, Wiznitzer, Marcus, Raphael, Brackman and others who had documented horrible truths about Jewish slave-trading, but had only shared that knowledge among themselves. Even with that damning historical evidence, Jewish leaders insisted that the Nation of Islam was misleading the world. Blacks, they said, ought to look at the Leo Frank case as the BEST example of the plight of Jews in America. And it is they who demand that Blacks view Jewish history through the prism of Leo Frank. And so we respected that Jewish request and performed the most extensive analysis of the case ever done. But the result is an even more devastating a blow to the propaganda that passes for Jewish history. In 536 pages, we show that most of what is believed about the case is a carefully crafted lie. What makes the Leo Frank case relevant today? Why should anyone care about this case, this history? The Leo Frank case marks the spot in Jewish history where they in effect weaponized the charge “anti-Semitism” to punish and destroy their enemies. It is the point when Jews moved to commandeer Black leadership to make Blacks serve Jews’ political purposes. The Messenger of Allah, The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, says that in effect the civil rights movement was foisted upon us and is really a “hypocritical trick,” used to deceive us and defer our movement toward a full and complete freedom. The Leo Frank case is one of those tricks. For example, Leo Frank’s crime happened at a very significant time for American Jews. The Federal Reserve was being established, as was the ADL. Both the Ku Klux Klan and the civil rights movement developed with the great assistance of Jews. So the Leo Frank case offered a chance to generate a victim-of-“anti-Semitism” storyline as cover for these other moves they were making at the time. Was anti-Semitism involved in the Leo Frank Case? If so, how so? Incredibly, this case is seen as the most egregious case of anti-Semitism in the history of America. Yet the records prove that anti-Semitism was almost entirely absent from the trial and its aftermath. The first time religion was introduced into the trial was through the bigotry of Frank’s own mother. She made a nuisance of herself at the trial, even standing up and cussing out the prosecutor, calling him a “Christian dog.” We document at least three cases where Leo Frank hired people to incite “anti-Semitism” in his trial so that he could “play the anti-Semitism card” in his effort to free himself. So flagrant is this deception that we must ask how and why it has been allowed to stand for so long. It only proves that Blacks must examine history for themselves, no matter how strongly held the prevailing opinion and dogma may be. How the case has long been spun proves that some of the greatest liars in world history are historians—promoters of the Western world’s fairy tales. When we Googled Leo Frank we found that he is being constantly referenced in articles and commentaries on today’s issues. Why are today’s Jews so passionate about the Leo Frank Case? The Leo Frank case allowed Jews to reinvent and redefine themselves in America. Before the Frank case Jews were firmly a part of the slave-trading class of racial oppressors in a society that scapegoated Blacks and accepted the Jewish people as fellow Caucasians. Leo Frank gave them a chance to wipe that slate clean and start over in a biblical role as an American victim—the “despised and rejected” (Isaiah 53:3) for 400 years in a land not their own (Genesis 15:13). You can’t be a slave-trading white supremacist people and maintain your image as God’s “Chosen.” So Leo Frank as a victim of a brutal lynching allows Jews to claim that the Jewish people as a whole were victims, rather than the victimizers that history proves they actually were. That is why most popular histories ignore the Jewish role in America between Columbus’s voyage in 1492 and the Civil War and Reconstruction of the mid- and late 1800s. They have hidden that history and demanded that we begin noticing the Jewish presence in America in the 1910s. In very much the same way that Jesus started time over again, Leo Frank the martyred hero allows Jews to claim that their American birth certificate reads August 17, 1915—the day Frank was lynched. The case has been made into a play titled Parade, which seems to be performed all over the world. Alfred Uhry, playwright and promoter of the Leo Frank hoax. A society’s founding fables must be constantly reinforced if its citizens are going to react according to the wishes of its rulers. The Parade script provides that reinforcement for Jews. It is written by Alfred Uhry, the same Jewish man who wrote that unwatchable slavery nostalgia movie Driving Miss Daisy. Even in the three-word title, Uhry gives you the Black man’s job and function—a driver—without a reference to his humanity or even to his name. He is a servant to the more important Jewish woman, “Miss Daisy,” who has both a name and a respectful title. This is how Hollywood has misrepresented us, and, again, reinforced racial relationships. Uhry won a Tony for Parade because it tells Jews that they are the primary victims of America, and that Blacks are among their oppressors. He falsely represents James Conley as the murderer of Mary Phagan and he portrays Blacks as having aligned with whites specifically to persecute “the Jew.” Absurd. Alfred Uhry’s claim to fame: Driving Miss Daisy. Considered to be a prime example of Hollywood’s demeaning racist roles. Plays have to be examined, just like the Confederate statues. The ADL started out looking at plays, movies, books to ferret out and eliminate the defamation of Jews—it is in their founding charter. So those old movies have to go. Hamilton has to be reassessed. Over time, Black actors—much like the NFL’s Black athletes—will refuse these demeaning negro roles and “take a knee,” as it were. This would force Jews to play those demeaning roles in burnt-cork blackface—just like they used to. Parade defames Black people and cannot be allowed to stand. What do you think Alfred Uhry’s motive was? Parade play is the main source of false Leo Frank propaganda. Parade is a Jewish fairy tale—no more truthful than the story of Santa Claus or Washington’s cherry tree. In a sense Alfred Uhry does us a service, because Blacks must know how the theater and movies have been manipulated by Jews to effectively scapegoat our people. Parade demonstrates just how far they will go to make Blacks the villains. Leo Frank pointed his crooked finger at two Black men, which almost led to their lynching. He also accused a white Gentile man of the crime, and Frank’s team of thugs tried to hire a Black woman to poison the main Black witness. The lengths they went to free Leo Frank were beyond belief. None of Frank’s criminal acts make it into the Parade fairy tale. In fact, Parade uses precisely the same formula as the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which told the world that Blacks were a lethal threat to American civilization. It should come as no surprise that Jews were the financiers, promoters, and distributors of that movie, which is so racist that it is still used by the Ku Klux Klan as a recruitment film. How many other books written about this case? Any movies? The NOI’s book would make a fantastic movie! There are about a dozen books and hundreds of articles on the Leo Frank case—nearly all of them following the racist Jewish storyline of an innocent Leo Frank who paid the ultimate price for a rape and murder committed by a Black man. A TV movie with Jack Lemon and Charles Dutton was produced in 1988, and a PBS “docudrama,” The People v. Leo Frank, was made in 2009. A movie that corrects the history and that tells the story of those who purposely twisted the case would make a very powerful feature film. We’ve always understood that the Jewish people were the “best friends” of Blacks throughout our history. How did we get it so wrong? If we examine the origin of Black people’s belief that Jews were our friends and allies in our freedom struggles, we find they use the Myth of Leo Frank as their “proof.” Until the Nation of Islam’s books on the Black–Jewish relationship, Black scholars have not dared to look carefully into that claim. Unfortunately, they have allowed Jewish scholars to simply invent a false history and bum rush it into all our history books. For instance, in many books on lynching Leo Frank is the only person named as a victim, even though more than 4,000 Blacks were brutally lynched in America! And just like that, Leo Frank—a white man—is made the symbol of American racial terrorism. In some books the KKK is made into an anti-Jewish phenomenon and racism is merely an afterthought to the Klan—even though no other Jews were ever lynched. Through the Leo Frank case, Jews have simply stolen our history—like Jacob stole the birthright of his brother Esau in the Bible. They’ve swapped their photo for ours and used our I.D.s, to the point that we, Blacks, have been duped into believing a false history. As Malcolm X once famously said, “we’ve been took, hoodwinked, bamboozled.” What is most striking about the case is how every aspect of the Jewish community rallied around Leo Frank—from the rank and file with their letter-writing campaigns to the upper echelon of Jewish leadership. Their persistence is to be admired, even though the hard evidence clearly shows Leo Frank to be as guilty as sin. Yes. For them it was not about his guilt or innocence but in pushing a “cover” narrative that Jews can use to advance their own political and economic agenda. It is a narrative that helps them stick together as a people and—even more important—it runs interference as they pursue their political and economic agendas. It is now clear that most Jewish leaders and supporters may have known that Frank was the murderer of Mary Phagan. But their mangling of BLACK history is unacceptable. For Frank to be innocent a Black man must be guilty—and that is unacceptable. It is also fascinating how Jews and white Gentiles seem to have split over this case. Yes. This case marks the point where Jews turned most viciously against white Gentiles. The Jewish people had been so well accepted in the South by the Gentiles that some Jews actually believed that Dixie was the Jewish Promised Land. It was in the South where Jews had made an incredible fortune in cotton and slavery. So white Gentiles were completely blind-sided by this Jewish scorched-earth effort to free Leo Frank at all costs. Jews even slandered the whole state of Georgia with the charge of “anti-Semitism,” which, we found, was non-existent; indeed, our research shows just the opposite: Southern whites have always been philo-Semitic. For instance, nearly all the previous writings on the case claim that a white mob stormed the trial chanting, “Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you!” In many books and articles these are the only words quoted in the whole case. Yet, there was no mob! There was no chanting! Frank partisans simply made it all up. We have a section in the book that lists all the authors that published some version of that lie, including the ADL, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and newspapers like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and many, many others. That ONE SINGLE LIE is what Jews have pointed to for over a century to prove that they faced violent oppression in America. Yet it has no basis in fact at all. Quite remarkable. Your use of primary documents makes this book groundbreaking—was it difficult in your research to access the original sources? The original documents of the Leo Frank case are really an unexplored treasure trove that unlock the most confidential operations of the Jews’ highest leadership circles. As the Jewish leaders fought to free Leo Frank, a considerable amount of data about their private activities poured into the public record—information that is so extensive and so revealing that its very existence is unique in the annals of Jewish history. In much the same way as the slave-sale advertisements in our book Jews Selling Blacks unmask Jewish slave-dealing in the harshest way, so too does the Leo Frank case offer a unique window into the thinking and strategizing of the leaders of the Jewish people. We examined the newspaper accounts, court records and filings, interviews, private investigators’ reports, and Jewish leaders’ private correspondence. Plus, we accessed a significant amount of information held in private archives and libraries, material that previous authors and researchers missed or purposely ignored. All of that is uncovered in the book. The Nation of Islam goes against the scholarly grain in its revelations about the case—any backlash? We expect that there will be much Jewish objection, but there is not much that can be disputed, given that the book’s thesis is supported so strongly by official documents and legal records. It is unlikely Jewish leaders will like seeing this history exposed. The Jewish newspaper Forward published an article this summer in which it interviewed Boston University professor Dr. Jeffrey Melnick. He is author of a book about the Leo Frank case, Black–Jewish Relations on Trial. He begins his interview with a surprising admission: “I’m clearly in a strange position of agreeing with a lot of what the Nation of Islam has to say…” In fact, Dr. Melnick was asked directly whether he felt Frank was really guilty. He answered, “I studied all I could and I can’t figure it out still.” Dr. Melnick still has his job, and yet we are still “anti-Semites”! Ironically, Jews falsely throwing around the “anti-Semitism” charge all started with the Leo Frank case. Our book is so detailed and our range of source material is so extensive that Jews have “chosen” to sit this one out, and they cannot find a negro to push out front to repudiate it. Just as with the two previous volumes of The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews series, Jewish historians have shown that they are not equipped to deal with scholarship at this level. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan demands intelligence and accuracy and, above all, TRUTH. While Jewish leaders were viciously slandering him, The Minister sent his scholars into the libraries—not into the gutter. Had we responded from the gutter, it would have been how traditional academia trained us. Min. Farrakhan gave us the intellectual weaponry to prevail in our research. For those who are already students of the case, what does the Nation of Islam say in the book that is new? We really bring an entirely new approach to the case. For instance: • We show how Frank’s lawyers maneuvered to force “anti-Semitism” into the courtroom where none existed. • There were two mysterious notes left next to the body that were written by the murderer. We hired a handwriting expert to analyze the notes and we found many clues that lead right to Leo Frank. • We chronicle how the national Jewish leaders took over the case, concocted a public relations campaign filled with racist lies and slander—with the Jewish-owned New York Times at the helm—and foisted it onto the public. • We analyzed Frank’s trial defense, which was explicitly racist and openly anti-Black. • We look deeply into the shady motives behind Governor John Slaton’s commutation of Frank’s death sentence. • We examined in detail not only the dubious pardon that the state of Georgia gave Leo Frank in 1986 but also the dubious claims of Alonzo Mann, who came forward after 70 years of silence to say he saw Conley with the body of Mary Phagan. It turns out that his new statements hurt Leo Frank far more than they help him. • We look at the illegal actions of Frank’s hired private eyes, who intimidated witnesses, planted evidence, and even hatched a murder plot against James Conley. • We look into the Jewish leaders who came to Frank’s defense and their real motives for taking on this case and a man they knew was guilty. • We looked into the group who is claimed to have lynched Leo Frank—The Knights of Mary Phagan—and uncovered some very strange and suspicious details that raise questions about who actually lynched the man. • We found that Frank’s stay in prison was almost luxurious—not the “anti-Semitic” nightmare that has been claimed. Our goal was to introduce the case to a new generation who are more and more interested in this so-called Black–Jewish relationship and how it has affected Black progress. And to do that effectively we had to get to the bottom of who killed Mary Phagan. Was the murderer a Black man or a Jew? It is only a matter of time before the falsehoods and lies that we have uncovered change the history of the Leo Frank case—and thus the Black–Jewish relationship—forever. You seem to be saying that Leo Frank may not have been lynched by white gentiles at all…? We believe that it is still a mystery who actually lynched Leo Frank. Nearly every account of Frank’s lynching says that a vigilante group called the Knights of Mary Phagan committed the act. But beyond a single mention of this group in the New York Times two months before the lynching, no record exists of this group anywhere. The Times was owned by a Jewish southerner named Adolph Ochs, who had actually joined the Leo Frank propaganda campaign. So the so-called Knights of Mary Phagan may have been planted to make a Gentile group take the fall for a lynching that was very likely committed by Jews themselves. That may seem outrageous, but by the time of his lynching many people—including his Jewish supporters—came to believe Leo Frank was better dead than alive. Frank had such an offensive personality that his main Jewish supporter said that when he first met Frank, he impressed him as “a sexual pervert.” Think about that: Leo Frank was that repellant to his friends and advocates at his very first meeting with them! The man was Albert Lasker and he paid millions (in today’s money) for Frank’s defense, but he privately admitted that he was not even convinced that Frank was innocent. Frank’s repulsive personality just did not jibe with the angelic international image Frank’s public relations team had created for him—that of a humble, innocent, and suffering Jesus figure. That whitewashed image of the man conflicted with the actual character of the man and so, by the time of his lynching in August of 1915, the man himself had outlived his usefulness. A measure of how expendable Leo Frank was to the Jewish community might be gleaned from his gravesite in New York. It is a remarkably tiny and non-descript headstone for someone who is considered a beloved Jewish martyr. Aside from that, Frank was a president of the B’nai B’rith. One would think that someone who had reached his level of significance would be honored by a grave as magisterial as those surrounding his. We think that it is a sign of Jewish contempt for the man himself. But Frank’s image—as manufactured as it is—lives on. Are there any surviving members of the Frank family? How do they feel about the NOI’s recent book on the case? Aside from his wife, Lucille Frank, and mother, there were no other immediate family members involved in the trial. Frank was buried in Brooklyn, where he grew up, and nothing more was heard from his family since. His victim, Mary Phagan, has relatives who have taken up her cause. They have always believed that Frank was guilty. Interestingly, Mary’s grand niece was named after her—Mary Phagan Kean. As a young girl herself, she learned of the tragedy and began her own quest for the truth. Ms. Kean wrote a book published in 1987 titled The Murder of Little Mary Phagan and she, like us, examined the official records of the case. She concluded that Leo Frank was her great aunt’s murderer. We would venture that the Phagan family might appreciate the detail we have brought to our case analysis. At least we hope they would. Thank you! More NOIRG articles on the Leo Frank Myth: Note: The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews Series can be purchased here:
Paying a â€œClimate Debtâ€? Last month, Senator John Kerry introduced the International Climate Change Investment Act of 2009, which is intended to “fund efforts to reduce deforestation, deploy clean energy technologies, and increase adaptation capacity in developing countries.” In addition, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States would contribute to a climate change fund amounting to $100 billion a year by 2020. Apparently based on dubious assumptions of higher global temperatures by 2100, politicians on the federal level are aiming to hand over a significant sum of money from hard-working Americans to developing countries. Many climate change alarmists and developing countries alike have stated that the United States and other developed countries are the primary cause of global warming because of our release of greenhouse gases over the past century. Many more are advocating a policy of paying back our “climate debt” to developing countries and have advocated for global wealth redistribution, such as “rich” nations handing over 1% of their annual GDP to developing countries. This would amount to $140 billion a year just from the United States. For some, it seems that “saving the planet” from climate change has other perks as well. Supporting doomsday scenarios could end up being quite lucrative for developing nations since, according to Sen. Kerry’s bill, the American taxpayer would “provide predictable, stable, and sufficient financing to support global climate change goals.”
From radical new materials to embedded sensors that track medical conditions, e-textiles have become a medium for better living. Today’s fabrics redefine high-performance with easy care, durability for everyday living, and microprocessors. Self-cleaning fabrics one of the most welcome improvements. While they don’t actually launder themselves, through the magic of technology they do repel water and dirt with such a high level of efficacy that they seem to self-clean. This is accomplished with nano particles that allow manufacturers to embed hydrophobic and anti-bacterial treatments to keep the surface free of dirt and oil. Check out these videos on the amazing properties of hydrophobic cloth. Another area of high-tech fabric getting attention is recycled materials, especially recycled plastics. Adidas has developed a running shoe that is made from ocean plastic. They claim that 11 plastic bottles from a beach somewhere go into each shoe. That’s a great example of the recyclability of plastic. This appeals to the idea of a circular supply chain with recyclables processed into new garments. Clothing and shoes can now be made with a 3-D printer and have the potential to use recycled plastic. Due to the nature of the process, nothing is wasted. For now, the printing process is more suited to semi-rigid garments but in the future there will be more refinement to create imaginative and humanistic clothing. As sensors become cheaper and more connected through Bluetooth they will be embedded into more everyday things. For example, “electric yoga pants” not only has the power to capture the imagination but they are also an actual product. Manufacturers embed small, vibrating motors that help the practitioner hold a pose correctly. There is also clothing designed to control devices, such as your phone, by using gestures on the surface. Want to answer your phone or start a playlist? Just use a gesture on your sleeve to begin. There are also a variety of socks, vests, and sports bras that will monitor your vital signs during a workout or hexoskin for medical monitoring. Colour-changing fabrics are an exciting extension of electrified clothing. Special wires woven into the material react to small electrical inputs by changing colour. The effect is a textile that can be programmed to change colour on the weft and the weave using an app. Want to a plaid sofa? No problem! Use the app to change the upholstery pattern. Another setting controls the hue to enhance mood or alertness. The home of the future will include smart textiles that communicate with us and our devices. Imagine coming home to furniture that doesn’t get dirty and has the ability to change colours and patterns. It might be 3-D printed in your living room by the maker with small adjustments, so it fits just right in its intended spot. The upholstery may be created to your specifications from ocean plastic or any other raw material you want. And, if you fall asleep after supper, it might vibrate gently after a few minutes to wake you up. It seems we are limited only by our imaginations on how to use connected, higher performance fabrics.
Successful and blameless postmortems can turn incidents into a gift of learning and prevent repeat mistakes. The word ”postmortem” can mean both the process and its artifact: the document in which you describe the incident, its resolution and what could be done to prevent it from happening again. Why run a postmortem? Your system is much more than your IT system. It includes parts of the real world: yourself, your fellow engineers, your boss, your users, your vendors, space, and the worst of all: time. This complexity makes it difficult to predict, let alone to prevent, failures. Incidents will certainly happen: you want to benefit, not be harmed, from them. “Antifragile systems benefit (to some degree) from uncertainty, disorder, error, time…”[1] In failure, a system reveals new information about itself, particularly hidden relationships between components. Imagine a simple system with 3 components A, B and C, with the following properties: • A connects to B, • A connects to C, • there is no visible relationship between B and C, • every process spawned by A opens a connection to both B and C Your mental model is the following: Suddenly, B starts to slow down. This causes A to keep many open connections to C, eventually causing it to drop new incoming connections. When A can’t open new connections to C, it starts failing as well. You have discovered a hidden relationship between B and C. Your new mental model is: Your ideal postmortem would produce a document that describes how to change the system to prevent the problem from happening again. Otherwise, if it does happen again, explain how to reduce the impact and get to a faster resolution. When to run a postmortem? When your system suffers an incident that hurts you enough. In theory, you should do it for every incident. In practice, you probably don’t have infinite resources allocated to this, so you could start by focusing on incidents impacting directly customers and/or stakeholders. You should run it as temporally close as possible to the incident, maybe even start during its resolution, so that everybody’s memory is still fresh. Describe what happened Clearly state the impact of the incident: • who? • what? • for how long? Give a timeline of events and communication between people involved, relating to the incident. Try to find the root cause, insofar as it is actionable: • the five whys • prefer practicality over “truth” • document how you got to the root cause "There is an important difference between truth and utility."[2] Involve the whole team if you can, so that you have as much brainpower as possible, everybody learns, and you will hopefully resolve the incident before it cascades downstream. "Problems are swarmed and solved, resulting in quick construction of new knowledge."[3] Suggest improvements to the system If it happens again: • document the mitigation steps so that someone else could do it faster • what could be done to minimize the impact Pay attention to information flow, feedback, and delays to communication: • did we get notified of the incident early enough? • did the right people get notified? • did the right sub-systems (e.g. autoscaling) get the right feedback? "Changing the length of a delay may make a large change in the behaviour of the system."[4] Don’t blame people If you start naming and shaming, people will have an incentive to hide information, which undermines the whole process. Don’t dig too deep The is no real boundary between your system and the rest of the world. It is a continuum. In your quest for the root cause, you may be tempted to reach far into territory you have no control over, which has rapidly diminishing returns. What to do with the document? Remember that the objective is to help yourself and your organization learn: • make your postmortem documents searchable, • as widely available as possible (without compromising sensitive information), • understandable by the intended audience (engineers, stakeholders, users, …) Here is a list of public (and verbose) incident postmortem documents: 1. Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012) 2. Data & Reality, William Kent (1978) 3. The DevOps Handbook, Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, John Willis (2006) 4. Thinking in Systems, Donella H. Meadows (2008) About the author Camille Hodoul is a JavaScript and PHP developer living in Grenoble, France. You can learn more about his work on his website.
group of chemical compounds Pentene is the name of alkenes with the formula C5H10. They are hydrocarbons. In total, there are five different pentenes. Pentens occur in cracking processes and in natural gas. Pentenes are used for polymerization, and for the synthesis of isoprene, amyl alcohols and Alkylphenols. Amyl alcohols are used as stabilizers in the production of Chloroform and Dichloromethane to stop phosgene from being made.
The consequences of trade union power erosion University of South Carolina, USA, University of Durham, UK, and IZA, Germany one-pager full article Elevator pitch Union density in selected countries, Key findings Trade unions under certain bargaining structures can have favorable macro consequences by being less aggressive in their wage bargaining. Trade unions can have favorable micro outcomes by stimulating worker voice. Trade unions can facilitate contracting where there are benefits to a long-term relationship between the employer and the worker. Trade unions have historically reduced wage inequality. There has been a reversal of adverse union effects, where observed. Trade union monopoly power is bad, and its exercise may lead to a misallocation of resources. The basis of pro-productive union effects is vague while there exist alternative, non-union voice mechanisms. Governance procedures are not exclusive to union regimes and by design may lower rent-seeking behavior injurious to firm performance. Unions may no longer reduce wage inequality or support redistributive policies. Reductions in union power may directly underpin a reduction in the disadvantages of unionism. Author's main message To the extent that unions have been found to have negative effects on net, their decline might be deemed no cause for concern. However, even in these circumstances, “on net” is not a sufficient guide for policy. Rather than a hands-off approach, the general goal should be to stimulate value-enhancing choices by firms and workers, while limiting the downside of rent-seeking. Union density is in retreat. Data for 25 advanced countries indicate that union density has fallen in 24 out of 25 countries over the last 20 years, and in 23 out of 24 countries in the last 30 years. Even if we cannot yet speak of convergence—the Nordic countries being the main outliers—there has been an unambiguous decline in unionism (see Figure 1). Sustained decline can be equated with a diminution in union power, despite pockets of union strength. Union density, 1970-2010 This paper discusses the consequences of this erosion along macroeconomic and microeconomic contours. Although the evidence on union effects is mixed, it can be argued that union decline may give little immediate cause for concern. Even so, two indicators typically associated with union decline—heightened earnings inequality and a potential shortfall in employee voice—occasion more concern. Discussion of pros and cons Collective bargaining and macroeconomic performance In discussing the macroeconomic effects of unions, it has been conventional to draw a distinction between union membership, union coverage and bargaining structure. Union membership refers to union density, the fraction of the workforce that is organized. Union coverage refers to the fraction of the workforce that is covered by collective agreements. The latter proportion generally exceeds the former because wages negotiated by unions are often applied to non-union workers via extension agreements. Bargaining structure refers to the level at which wages are determined. It ranges from decentralized bargaining at firm level, through intermediate bargaining arrangements (agreements between industry-wide unions and employers’ associations that establish a floor of wages at the industry level), to centralized bargaining procedures (negotiations between labor and employer confederations that set national wage norms). The three “systems” may be said to apply in Anglo-Saxon, continental European and Nordic nations, respectively, although membership and typology are in reality more fluid than this. Moreover, a given structure can mask differences in the practice of collective bargaining, such as the degree to which there is coordination in bargaining. From the outset, union density and union coverage were associated with adverse outcomes in contrast with initially more favorable results for bargaining structure and coordination. Focusing on the latter, one important study found evidence of a non-linear relation between bargaining level and the change in employment/unemployment, as well as the Okun Index (the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate), when comparing the period 1965–1973 with 1974–1985 [2]. Others, however, reported that countries with coordinated bargaining structure experienced relatively lower equilibrium unemployment rates, although typically the fitted relation was now linear (rather than hump-shaped). A modern review of the coordination literature, embracing the various elements of bargaining structure, examines 28 studies, which it breaks down into 174 sub-studies (where the unit of analysis is the relationship between a specific measure of bargaining coordination and an individual performance measure) [3]. Abstracting from whether the associations are linear or non-linear, on a simple head count 45% of the sub-studies support the view that coordination works—either by lowering price inflation, unemployment (or a conflation of the two), or by raising employment and productivity, among other things. But the results vary considerably by outcome indicator. Critically, the more sophisticated the estimation technique employed in the study, the more elusive the empirical relationship between bargaining coordination and economic performance. Another result is that coordination benefits, where observed, are more likely in the 1970s and 1980s than the 1990s. Further, while initially it was thought that coordinated systems were better able to react to or otherwise absorb shocks, more recent research discounts this purported dynamic benefit, although bargaining coordination may well mitigate the harmful effect of union density on unemployment. On balance, then, union density and union coverage are associated with unfavorable outcomes, while coordination points more to a reduction in the disadvantages of (strong) unionism than indicating a direct effect on the economic aggregates. All this is rather thin gruel. But an interesting recent development—the contingency hypothesis—argues that the success of coordination/centralization is contingent on the governance capacity of the bargaining parties at higher levels to bind lower levels (so-called vertical coordination). This ability is captured by state-based provisions for the legal enforceability of collective agreements and a peace obligation during the validity of a collective agreement. Centralized and/or coordinated wage bargaining, so the argument runs, can only be expected to deliver the macroeconomic goods in conjunction with a high degree of bargaining governability. There is some cross-section empirical evidence favoring this contingency hypothesis in terms of lower inflation and labor costs. That said, it is not clear that governance capacity is the most important enabling factor at work here, as opposed to, say for instance, the stance of monetary policy. But what of the Nordic model? The four main Nordics—Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland—still record high levels of union density coupled with low unemployment, low income inequality, and generally favorable productivity and unit cost development. However, despite the important role played by unions in the Nordic countries, there is little separate empirical evidence as to their specific influence (relative to other institutions) on economic performance. Also, despite its current popularity as a potential model for other countries and its use as a benchmark, the Nordic model has not always been alluring. (It will be recalled that the Nordic countries had their financial crisis in the 1990s.) There are also material differences between the individual Nordic states. Thus, Sweden and Denmark have seen the emergence of more decentralized regimes based on more flexible wage structures than before, as well as a reordering of economic priorities. This restructuring has received insufficient attention in the economics literature. Finally, the Nordic countries are characterized by highly institutionalized social dialogues between the labor market organizations and public representatives at all levels. This privileged position of the unions in relation to public policy making and its implementation sharply differentiates this distinct bloc from most other nations. Collective bargaining and microeconomic performance From the perspective of micro theory, union decline again poses a mix of positive and negative elements. The conventional monopoly theory of unions sees their effects as unabashedly negative. Viewed as combinations in restraint of trade, unions introduce distortions into what would otherwise be efficient labor markets. They distort labor market outcomes owing to the increase in compensation above competitive levels, and they impose deadweight losses. To these losses in welfare, it is conventional to add the output costs stemming from the union rule-book and reduced management discretion. But there is a countervailing face of unions that emphasizes their value-enhancing effects. The chief exponents of this collective voice view of unionism note the ambiguity introduced by long-term attachments between the firm and much of its labor force for the efficiency properties of the standard quit or exit mechanism [4]. The firm’s reliance on quits to extract information relevant to the design of an efficient mix of wages and working conditions may introduce inefficiencies by focusing on the preferences of the marginal worker rather than those of older, more stable, and potentially more valuable employees. As a result, voice or direct communication between the worker and the firm fulfils the role of bringing actual and desired conditions closer together. Crucial to this argument is that many working conditions are public goods, with the implication that they will be underprovided without some form of collective agency, at all times equated in this model with autonomous unions. More generally, the collective voice model emphasizes the great importance of the quality of labor relations. Good labor relations are typically viewed as more likely to produce positive performance outcomes, and vice versa. Finally, the model also recognizes the shock that unions and union wages can impart to inefficient management, providing it with the incentive to tighten up on work standards and alter methods of production. Thus, there are a number of (largely) informational channels through which unionism as the instrument of collective voice can improve the operation of the workplace, their most tangible manifestation being a reduction in quits, all things being equal. But there is also the issue of governance. Here the collective voice model is consistent with modern contract theory, wherein governance refers to the policing and/or monitoring of incomplete employment contracts. Assuming that unions make it easier (less costly) to negotiate and administer a governance apparatus, they may be expected to facilitate long-term efficient contracting in a number of ways. Thus, a union specializing in information about the contract and in the representation of workers can prevent employers from behaving opportunistically. One fly in the ointment, however, is that the governance argument also depends on (union monopoly) power that, while necessary to make credible the employer’s ex ante promises, also gives rise to a bargaining power or hold-up problem. Empirical evidence for the US, surveyed in an influential review, does not encourage a sanguine view of this modern perspective of unionism [5]. • First, as far as the keynote productivity variable is concerned, union effects are close to zero on average, and at most modestly positive. • Second, unions have little direct effect on productivity growth; the lower growth of union firms, after controlling for union–non-union differences in capital and other factors of production, is the consequence of their being located in slower-growing sectors (but see below). • Third, the findings with respect to profitability are of concern. In one sense, a negative profitability effect is to be expected, given a substantial union wage premium in conjunction with a close-to-zero productivity effect. And virtually all US studies point to lower profitability in union regimes, irrespective of the profit measure used. At issue, however, is the source of the union gain. If the process is merely a redistributive effect, there are no implications for efficiency. But there is little to suggest that concentration-related profits are an important source of the gain. More potent sources are current earnings associated with limited foreign competition and growing firm/industry demand. • Fourth, even greater concern is occasioned by union effects on investments in tangible (i.e. investment) and intangible (research and development, or R&D) capital. US research indicates that unions capture some share of the quasi rents that make up the normal returns on investment in long-lived capital and R&D. Firms rationally seek to limit their exposure to this hold-up problem, most obviously by cutting back on these investments. There are both direct and indirect union effects: The former are caused by the union wage tax, while the latter stem from the reduction in profits (relevant because of imperfect capital markets). • Finally, lower profits and investment are manifested in lower employment growth, although infrequently in higher failure rates. In a rare departure from these pessimistic findings, one US study examining the effects on labor productivity of various working practices, information technology, and management procedures in conjunction with unionism offers a brighter scenario [6]. Specifically, it reports that a hypothetical union plant embracing benchmarking and total quality management, with 50% of its workers meeting on a regular basis (a measure of employee involvement), and operating profit-sharing for its non-managerial employees, would have 13.5% higher labor productivity than a non-union plant with none of these practices. By contrast, the corresponding differential for a high-performance non-union plant is put at only 4.5%. An important qualification, however, is the word “hypothetical,” since such innovative union plants constitute a tiny share of union workplaces in the study sample. To what extent do the negative US results carry over to other countries? After all, most studies confirm that the US union premium is unusually high compared with that in other countries. Cross-country surveys do in fact often report different results for other countries. In particular, the innovation results and (to a lesser extent) the profit results are generally not found for other nations. Given that the data in these studies are rather dated, however, this section can be concluded with some updated results for Britain and Germany, along with some brief remarks on the possible variation in performance across different unionized settings. The British case is interesting because of the shift in the impact of British unions in the 1990s and beyond compared with the 1980s. One study maps changes in the impact of British unions at a time when union density almost halved—from 53% in 1979 to 28% in 1999 [7]. It provides clear evidence of a diminution in the negative effects of unions on wages, financial performance and productivity through time. By the same token, certain other unfavorable effects of unions are shown to persist, including slower employment growth and elevated absenteeism. The study’s overall assessment that there has been a reduction in the disadvantages of unionism rather than a reversal is echoed in much of the British literature, although the evidence for profitability at least has been argued as more in line with a straight reversal of past effects. After US and British research, union and worker representation effects on performance have perhaps been most studied for Germany. Research has focused more on works council than union effect, although recently the two have been examined together (appropriately so, given the dual system of industrial relations in that country, with collective bargaining typically being conducted at industry level and worker representation at plant level through the agency of works councils). German works councils are the exemplars of collective voice, given their statutory rights (to information, consultation, and codetermination) and constraints (they cannot bargain about terms usually fixed under collective agreements at industry level, and they cannot engage in strike action). But the breadth of their authority inevitably conveys power, and how this is exercised will determine their effects on performance. Again, theory does not provide an unambiguous answer. Recent studies exploiting large nationally representative data sets often present a more optimistic picture than the earlier literature. Thus, there is some indication that the effect of works councils on firm productivity and even innovation may be positive if the entity is firmly embedded in the dual system (i.e. covered by a sectoral agreement). However, with the pronounced decline in unionism, German sectoral collective bargaining has significantly decentralized, and works councils have come to enjoy formal bargaining rights. The jury is still out as to whether the new bargaining role of works councils has been manifested in more active rent-seeking. In these circumstances, ambitious policy recommendations for other nations to adopt this institution may be especially premature. Finally, as a wide-ranging British study indicated some time ago, high-performance practices are not distinctive with respect to unionism [8]. Further, the subsequent literature cannot be said to have uncovered a well-determined hierarchy for firm performance (or a blueprint for the future of unions) because of the ambiguity surrounding the costs of the practices in question, as well as profound causality issues associated with the unobserved timing of these transforming industrial relations practices. Equity considerations: The earnings distribution and worker voice Their redistributive function has sometimes led to unions being described as a sword of justice. Also, apart from the issue of industrial democracy, workers possess valuable private information that is more likely to be disclosed under collective action. Might not the decline in unionism therefore have worrisome implications for inequality and worker voice? The definitive modern comparative study investigating unions and wage inequality in the US, the UK, and Canada from the early 1980s to 2001 reaches three main conclusions [9]. First, unions tend to reduce inequality in all three countries among male workers, whose union coverage tends to be concentrated in the middle of the skill distribution and whose wages tend to be compressed relative to those of non-union workers. Second, unions do not reduce wage inequality among females because (a) women, unlike men, are concentrated in the upper end of the wage distribution and (b) the union wage premium is not only greater for women but also greater for higher-skilled women. Finally, the decline in union density and the wage differential has resulted in a steady decline in the equalizing effect of unions for males but had little effect for females. If the size of the union sector and the absence of extension mechanisms in these three countries make it much easier it to compare the structure of wages for workers whose wages are determined by union contracts and those whose wages are not, other studies have nevertheless confirmed the same basic tendencies. Thus, for example, a very recent comparative study of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations confirms that over the interval 1975–1995 countries witnessing relatively large declines in unionization also experienced relatively large increases in earnings inequality, as measured by changes in the 90:10 percentile earnings ratio [10]. After 1995, however, no such association is evident in the data. This divergence provides the starting-point for an examination of the link between changes in redistribution (measured by the percentage change in the Gini coefficient produced by taxation and income transfers) and changes in union density. A regression of the change in redistribution on the change in union density indicates a positive and statistically significant effect of unionism for the sample period 1980–1995. During this period, increasing unionism seems to have exerted pressure on governments to redistribute, and vice versa. For the interval 1995–2010, however, the coefficient estimate for the change in union density is negative and statistically insignificant, suggesting that changes in union density were no longer linked to redistribution. By way of explanation, it is reported that union decline in many OECD nations since the 1970s has been accompanied by changes in the position of union members in the income distribution. It is conjectured that, since the average union member has become better off as union density has declined, union members have become less supportive of wage solidarity and redistributive policies. Thus, the inequality problem may remain, but the role of unions is more controversial. This fascinating study is suggestive rather than definitive. It requires more work, as do two other issues linked to inequality that can only be raised here briefly. First, just how equalizing is equalizing once unemployment is taken into account? Second, what are the longer-term efficiency consequences of compression? Perhaps we are on firmer ground in speaking of a shortfall of worker voice in the wake of union decline. This topic has generated much debate in the US because of (a) its vanguard position in that retreat, (b) the collective voice model, and (c) the results of large-scale surveys indicating that workers desire more voice and influence in the workplace. Although firms in competitive labor markets may undersupply voice, it does not follow that autonomous unionism is the remedy, either from a worker perspective (where workers seek non-adversarial representation) or the practical interest of fostering higher productivity. Here a case can be made for company unionism—including non-union employee involvement/representation programs, joint plant councils, and alternative dispute resolution programs—which holds out the prospect of greater collective voice for workers without the negative monopoly effect of unionism. Legal niceties largely rule this out in the US (witness the recent Volkswagen case in Chattanooga, Tennessee), but British research suggests that employer-created non-union forms offer the prospects of meeting the aspirations of workers, and yield gains to workers and firms alike. Indeed, the most recent research for Britain has found that the decline in union voice has been accompanied by a significant expansion in non-union voice, such that the overall coverage of voice mechanisms has remained high and stable [11]. In short, British employers have thus chosen non-union voice rather than opt for no voice at all. Moreover, comparing voice regimes, non-union voice outperforms union voice for a variety of perceived-outcome indicators—industrial relations climate, productivity, and financial performance—if not quits. This gives credence to the notion that management has an incentive to invest in non-union voice, even if this optimistic scenario is muddied by comparisons between voice types. Limitations and gaps Despite the wealth of evidence reviewed here, it pertains only to OECD countries and, within that firmament, the majority of studies cover Anglo-Saxon countries, whose experiences may differ in important respects from the rest. The representativeness of the results is therefore in question. Also our understanding of the relationships uncovered in the existing sample of countries is often fragile. Examples are the difficulty of measuring levels of and changes in bargaining structure, and the ambiguity surrounding transforming industrial relations practices and firm performance. Issues of causality loom particularly large. Many of the relationships examined here are descriptive and have a basis in cross-section analysis. There is a pressing need for use of better data at the micro level allowing controls for firm and worker fixed effects, in the absence of which spurious attributions of the direction of causality are all too easily made. Summary and policy advice Unions have both beneficial and harmful effects in theory. Union density/coverage is associated with adverse macro outcomes, and bargaining structure/coordination no longer appears to have a direct effect on performance (although it may moderate the harmful effects associated with the former indicators). The potential of bargaining discipline awaits formal validation. At the micro level, apart from near-universal negative findings for the US, findings for other countries are more nuanced. For its part, the British evidence points to a decline in the disadvantages of unionism rather than a simple reversal of unionism’s negative effects. The recherché notion, encountered in US and British literatures, that adopting transforming industrial relations practices enables union firms to outcompete non-union firms with the same set of practices requires validation. And while sectoral bargaining in Germany has often been criticized on macro grounds, some recent evidence suggests that that country’s dual system of industrial relations is associated with improved productivity and other outcomes. Concern over the distributional consequences of union decline is qualified by the fact that unions are not always associated with narrowing, and the finding that changes in union density may no longer be linked to redistribution. The possibility of a diminution in voice attendant upon union decline is potentially more serious (and here US labor law is a cause for concern), although some encouraging evidence of a growth in non-union voice was provided. The goal of policy should be to stimulate value-enhancing choices by firms and workers while limiting rent-seeking. The emphasis should be upon experimentation and self-regulation, whereby a variety of systems, including the union option, are put up for adoption by the market. The author thanks an anonymous referee and the IZA World of Labor editors for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The author also thanks Barry Hirsch, Stanley Siebert, and Pulkit Nigam. Competing interests © John T. Addison evidence map The consequences of trade union power erosion Full citation Full citation Data source(s) Data type(s)
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another • This workout takes approximately 10 Minutes • This workout is for students in Grades 9-12 • Teacher Resources • Type: Cardio • Excercise: Standing March • Target: Total Body + Warm-Up • Equipment: None Workout guide 1. Stand in NaliniKIDS posture 2. Raise your right knee up toward your chest and then lower your leg back down 3. Repeat on your left side 4. Continue marching, and then add your arms to the movement 5. Reach your arms up toward the ceiling, then pull your elbows down toward your lifted knee, twisting your upper body slightly (don’t twist your lower body!) 6. Keep your lower body marching as your upper body switches from side to side (coordination is key in this exercise!) – 10 second march (approx. 10 marches) – 10 second march (add arms) If you’re having trouble with coordination or maintaining proper posture: – March in place without lifting your arms with your legs How does your body feel after completing the workout? How does your mind feel after completing the workout? Icon of a question mark. What does Empathy mean to you in this moment? Reflect on a time when you felt like someone really knew how you were feeling. What signs did they show that told you they understood? Think critically about the word EMPATHY. What are some different ways that others might interpret this word? What strategies can you use in your future interactions to help someone understand how you are feeling? Real-World Connection Whom in your family do you easily empathize with? What do you have in common with this person? What do you not have in common with this person? Learning Environment Practice empathy with a classmate. Take turns telling each other a story for two minutes. When you are the listener, try your best to make eye contact, not interrupt, and ask follow-up questions to show that you are listening. Demonstrate empathy by reaching out to a person in your community who might benefit from connecting with someone. Academic Connection Write a short story from the perspective of a fictional character in a book, tv show, or movie who is going through something emotional. Social Studies Choose a historical figure who you are currently studying, and practice historical empathy by imagining yourself as this person. What might this person have been feeling during this time in history? How can you show empathy to someone when communicating through a text or email? Write a sample text or email that demonstrates this. Fun Fact Elephants, dolphins, whales, chimpanzees, and a handful of other animals may be able to feel empathy, based on a part of their brain that is similar to the human brain.
Friday, 12 June 2020 Health & Fitness: An All Over Body Guide When it comes to our bodies health, sometimes we overlook the most essential parts. We all know we should be looking after our hearts and taking regular exercise, but there are other parts of our bodies that we need to look after as we get older. From your head down to your toes, are you taking care of yourself? Eye health is essential. We only have one pair of eyes, and loss of vision in either of them is life-changing. Many of us spend hours on a computer, and this can be stressful for your eyes and damage them. It can lead to issues with sight and trouble focusing. Our diet is essential when it comes to keeping our eyes healthy. Eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day will help your body to keep your eyesight healthy. Eating a diet of sugary and processed foods can lead to diabetes which can lead to blurred vision and even blindness. You also need to stay hydrated. When we are dehydrated our body can’t rebuild the cells, we need to keep everything working. A dehydrated body will channel all its efforts into keeping your heart beating and other essential body parts working; this means your eyes, skin, hair and nails will all suffer. Drinking eight glasses of water a day will help this and reduce your risk of any eye issues. There are also exercises that you can do to help keep your vision sharp. They will keep your eye muscles in top condition and help you to focus too. You should make regular visits to your optician and make sure your prescription is up to date. Wearing the wrong glasses can put a considerable strain on your eyes, so make sure that you immediately see your optician if anything changes. As we grow old, it can become common to need progressive lenses to help regulate our eyesight. Visit your optician at least once a year for an all-over eye health review. Our gums and teeth are also essential. Cosmetically, it can be extremely upsetting if your teeth become rotten or you develop gum disease. To keep on top of your gum health, you need to have regular visits to the dentist. They can advise you of any issues that you have and help you to fix them. You should brush your teeth at least twice a day. Brushing your teeth isn’t as simple as giving them a quick scrub in the morning. You need a good quality toothpaste and to clean your teeth with small circular movements for at least two minutes. Then you should floss between them to remove any small bits of food that have built up during the day. This will protect your gums and help reduce the risk of gum disease. Invest in a good quality mouthwash, your dentist will advise you of the best one. This will also help to protect your enamel and keep your teeth looking whiter, and healthier for longer. Our joints and bones become fatigued, especially if we are sitting still for long periods, or we have a high impact sport such as running. Joint health is one of the most overlooked areas when it comes to body health, yet it can be one of the most debilitating problems we experience in later life. Increasing the strength of your muscles can reduce the stress on your joints, so including a weight training regime into your exercise plan can help ensure you stay supple and healthy. You should also eat a diet with plenty of protein and calcium. Try sticking to a whole-food diet with lots of leafy green vegetables and plant proteins. If you can’t drink dairy, then there are lots of other ways to get calcium such as eating broccoli or cabbage and even small fish such as sardines or pilchards. You should look at exercises that keep your joints moving too—everything from making small circles with your ankles to wiggling your toes at night. If you notice any strange noises or feel any grinding in your joints then get to a medical centre straight away, the sooner you deal with joint issues, the better your outlook is. Our gut health also really matters. It can be affected by many things, including diet and exercise. If we aren’t eating the right foods, then our body will have a hard time breaking down foods or maybe breaking them down too quickly. This can lead to issues such as diarrhoea or stomach cramps. Irritable bowel syndrome is becoming more common and can cause problems in our day to day life leaving us to feel depressed and lacking in energy. A whole-food diet with plenty of fibre is essential for good gut health, but you also need to ensure you have plenty of good bacteria in your stomach too. You can help aid your body to produce these by taking a good probiotic. Either in a natural live yoghurt or a supplement. This will help ensure that your stomach is working efficiently and can keep your digestion in peak condition. Fibre gives our stomach something to break down and helps to move the waste products through our system efficiently. This will ensure that we are regular with bowel movements and help keep us feeling healthier, lighter and more active. If you have any issues with your digestion, it’s worth seeing a dietitian who can help to discover if you have any food intolerances. Unlike a food allergy, an intolerance doesn’t cause you to have distinct extreme reactions. It could leave you feeling lethargic, cause a breakout on your skin or give you a constantly running nose. Intolerances can give you severe stomach cramps and could be the cause of any irritable bowel syndrome symptoms too. Our skin covers our whole body and protects our vital organs from the outside. Many of us focus on looking after our faces to reduce fine lines and wrinkles, overlooking the rest of our skin. However, our arms, legs and back are all exposed to threats on a daily bases, so keeping all-over skin health is essential. The sun is one of the most significant issues for our skin. Although we should be absorbing the sun's rays to help us get vital vitamins and to improve our overall wellbeing, going out without skin protection on can lead to cancer and premature ageing. Make sure you use an all-over body moisturiser with a high SPF factor to keep your skin healthier for longer. You should also exfoliate your skin once a week, using a salt scrub or similar. This will help to keep it soft and will stimulate the cells. It will also remove any dead cells and support your body in regeneration. It is an excellent time to look over your skin and see if you notice any lumps and bumps or moles that are increasing in size or are new. Then make sure you speak to a doctor straight away if you see anything different. Health and fitness is more than just getting outside and taking regular exercise. You need to look after every element of your body to ensure you get longevity. Sleep and hydration are two of the best areas to start, so if you can’t make immediate changes to your lifestyle, try to ensure you are getting enough rest and water every day. Your body will thank you for it! Post a Comment
An Persuasive Essay on Whether the Novel ‘Anna’s Story by Bronwyn Donaghy Should Still Be Taught in Todays School’ Published: 2021-08-05 16:10:06 essay essay Category: Examples Type of paper: Essay Hey! We can write a custom essay for you. All possible types of assignments. Written by academics Story by Bronwyn Donaghy is an informative part biographical text, which retails the life and death of Anna Wood, a fifteen year old girl who took an ecstasy tablet at a rave party in 1995 and died. This text is still relevant to teach in today’s Australian schools because drugs still exist in today’s society, teenagers still take risks and the novel Anna’s story will always be a constant reminder of the consequences of drugs. Following Anna’s death, Donaghy wrote this text to suggest that parents need to educate their children about safe risk taking and drugs so the unfortunate event of Anna Wood does not happen again. Anna’s story is a clear warning to both teenagers and parents, motivating them to try to change future outcomes. Donaghys expository text is still relevant to teach in today’s Australian schools for the simple fact that drugs and all the dangers that come with it, still exist in today’s society. We live in a society where getting a hold of drugs is as easy as going to the shopping centre and purchasing a bag of lollies. It is one of the many reasons that teenagers and even some children as young as twelve are still taking drugs and are not realizing the dangers that come with it. Drugs can kill, it is for that reason that makes it vital that teenagers must be educated to learn that even though drugs still exist, it is still a bad choice. Anna’s story provides facts that drugs do indeed implicit dangers and that drugs can kill. For example Kate Ceberano said “…. drugs one way or another kill! By kill I don’t exactly just mean ones mortality. I mean ones initiative, ones ambitions and dreams, and most importantly, one’s mind” (pg. xii). Yes, drugs still exist and yes teenagers will still continue to take drugs whether we like it or not, we just have to keep educating them and keep showing them the dangers of it. That’s exactly what Donaghys was trying to do in Anna’s story, with providing readers with factual evidence to show teenagers that even though drugs seem tempting and is seen to be a ‘must have thing’ the dangers and risks of taking is too high, the price you pay might be your life. Teenagers today still and will always take risks, whether they are safe ones or dangerous ones. Everyone takes risks, whether it is related to peer pressure, value of belonging or fitting in. “…one way or another all teenagers do it. , “Taking risks is a natural part of growing up. Breaking down the barriers of childhood, doing things they’ve never done before, going places they’ve never been- this is all part of the process that’s involved in establishing themselves as independent individuals” (pg. 98). Unfortunately not all risks that teenagers take are healthy and safe, most of them are dangerous. Some teenagers will do whatever it takes to fit in, “…win the respects of their peers, to prove they are mature” this resulting in them taking unsafe risks. Anna Wood in Anna’s Story clearly highlights a teenager who unfortunately took a bad risk with drugs and died. Bronwyn Donaghy is trying to show readers, while using Anna wood as an example, to be careful and have a little thought in the risks that they take. So nobody else’s choices and risks lead to death. Anna’s Story should still be used in today’s Australian schools as it will always be a reminder of not only the consequences of drugs but also a reminder that drugs can affect anyone. A number of teenagers today take drugs it is no surprise, they all know the consequences and dangers of it. But the majority of teenagers who do take drugs somehow think that if they only take little doses of drugs, or only take it once a week, or even only take once every now and then, think that because they don’t consume drugs as much or they are not heavy drug addicts or they are not addicted, that the affects or consequences of drugs will not affect them. But they are wrong, you could be anyone an intelligent or smart person, a drug addict or even an ordinary person, drugs will affect you no matter who you are and no matter how much you take. Anna Wood is a clear example of an intelligent, bright, smart girl who died after taking drugs. And as I said previously drugs still exist, meaning teenagers still need to reminded how drugs can affect a life, Anna’s Story clearly does this. Donaghy wrote Anna’s story to open the eyes of both teenagers and parents, and make them try and learn from other peoples mistakes, and by other people I mean Anna, so tragedies like hers don’t ever happen again. In addition because Anna wood in Anna’s Story is around the same age group as most teenagers, I think teenagers will relate more to her, understand the whole situation better, take the matter a little bit more seriously and even maybe pick the book up and read it. We can write your paper just for 11.99$ i want to copy... People also read
DesignEnergy SystemsPermaculture Projects Biogas and Carbon Farming – Part 1 Why we went for biogas Maya Mountain Research Farm is a permaculture project in the foothills of the Maya Mountains in southern Belize. It was founded on degraded citrus and cattle land in 1988. Our primary focus is on multistrata agroforestry systems for food security, reversal of land degradation and carbon drawdown. Biogas neatly overlaps with much of our end goals. The question of bio gas in permaculture has come up many times over the years. Biogas in the right application can be an embodiment of the principles of permaculture, but, like most things in permaculture, the answer to the question of wether biogas is realistic or not for a specific location or application is best prefaced with the two words, “It depends”. We live two miles from the nearest road, on a river only navigable by dug out canoe. Hauling heavy tanks of propane in and out was not an attractive option. But biogas was. Biogas is comprised of combustible gases, mostly methane and carbon dioxide. Biogas is the product of anaerobic decomposition of biological waste material. That waste can be manure, food scraps, it can be byproducts of food processing, like whey or gleanings, or pressed seed cake from making oil. To make the biogas you need an environment that is closed to oxygen. To do that, you need to make a biogas plant, where biomass and water can be combined, and oxygen excluded. You will need to establish a community of methanogens, which are the microorganisms that create methane. Many digesters use cow manure to establish the methanogenic community, but methanogens can be obtained through using layers of “muck’ found in ponds or slow moving water. The breaking down of the biomass without oxygen is called “anaerobic “ Once established, a biogas plant can effectively deal with waste disposal and create high value fertilisers, while also creating methane as fuel. Biogas can be a valuable tool for climate change mitigation. If widely dispersed, biogas has the potential to avoid the equivalent of 4.65–9.7 gigatons of annual carbon emissions. Although biogas can be used to generate electricity, for transportation or for lighting, for the purpose of this article, we are discussing biogas as fuel for cooking. Worldwide there are an estimated 400 million biogas plants. India, Israel and China are hotbeds of biogas innovation, and have been leading research and development of biogas. A follow up article to this will look at the various biogas systems available, ranging from prefabricated to designed for a specific site. Biogas is not a universal application. The questions that are important to ask when considering biogas would be about the location, the need, and the available resources. Biogas can be suitable for many applications, ranging from urban to semi urban, to rural, to areas without access to fuel wood. Careful observation and analysis of what nutrient cycle you might tap into to obtain your feedstock, and where would you apply the effluent will lead to an informed decision on the choice of biogas for your situation. In areas of extreme cold, care must be taken to maintain enough warmth for the methanogens to thrive. We raised pigs from perennial crops for seven years. We had a significant amount of manure. A biogas plant looked attractive, and we looked into a biogas plant, but never got around to it. The interest in biogas remained. At the time we were creating a lot of biochar while cooking to feed the pigs. A link to an article about that can be found, here. We looked at various designs, buried vaults, horizontal poly bags filled with water and manure, prepackaged systems, floating gas collectors in slurry, to batch digesters made from 55 gallon drums. An overview of these systems will be in a follow up article. All of these were either too expensive for us, at the time, or did not seem robust enough for our needs. Kathy Puffer, is a biogas teacher/installer at Solar CITIES, the leading sources of biogas education in North America. Over months of writing and looking at possibilities and opportunities for biogas, we arranged to have a course on biogas here at Maya Mountain Research Farm, and build a Solar Cities biogas plant. We held a fundraiser for the components we would need, some second hand IBCs, some piping, to bring Kathy to Belize, and to cover the cost of providing scholarships for Belizeans. We raised $1600 of the $1300 in costs. The surplus went to solar cookers for our former students. We obtained support from many people, friends, former students, Belizeans at home and abroad, and supporters of Solar CITIES. We are grateful to every person who made this happen. IBC Delivery Delivery of the three IBCs for the biogas digester and the gas storage. Image provided by author. With Kathys guidance, we built our solar CITIES biogas plant using three recycled IBCs, one for gas generation and a clever floating gas storage system built from the remaining two IBCs. They were otherwise garbage, and we were able to find a use for them. This was a five day course and finished on the 18th of April, 2019. The components cost about USD450, all told, and from it we get 1-2.5 hours of biogas per day, and a bucket of fertilizer, which we apply to plants close to the house. Preparing the digester Preparing the digester. Image by author We charged the system with 100lbs of cow manure. The manure has methanogenic bacteria, that can eat chewed grass, or any starch or fat. While the manure is long gone, the effluent that comes out of the system still smells of cow manure, over a year later. The Solar CITIES biogas plant can receive up to 30% manure, but this biogas plant is best used for food waste, which has more embodied energy than manure. The plant is a small plant, and manure takes longer to break down than food waste. To obtain equal amounts of biogas from pig, cattle or poultry waste we would need a much larger system, have a lot more feedstock and have to raise a lot more animals than we do, now. Because of our rural location and ability to raise animals, this is possible, but a system designed to run off of food waste and byproducts of food processing was a better fit as we have plenty of surplus food and less than 100 ducks and chickens and less than 10 rabbits. As an element in a larger system, the biogas plant functions very well. Placed close to the kitchen, by the rabbits, between the poultry system and the kitchen, we visit this location a few times a day to load it with food waste, scraps we grind in our blender, a few minutes to carry away the effluent which is a fertiliser, and to turn the valves on and off to send fuel to the kitchen. it has become an enjoyable part of our daily routines, and we use it everyday. It took us about one month before we had usable gas. Since then, we have not had to add any cow manure. Building the digester Building the digester Image by author Our system decomposes food waste that we would otherwise compost. We have a very mature multistrata agroforestry system, over 30 years old, with an emphasis on tropical staple trees, such as banana/plantain, coconut, breadnut, breadfruit, avocado, jackfruit, peach palm and others. We have huge amounts of surplus. We sell some, we use some as animal feed for our poultry and rabbits, and we donate food to an elderly feeding program in nearby Punta Gorda Town. Often we have more food than can be used. I picked up a bucket of avocados this morning. How much guacamole can we eat? Not enough to keep up! Happily, our biogas plant loves avocado peels, avocados and over ripe bananas, as well as mulberry leaves, cassava peelings, moringa leaves, mango and pineapple peels, pressed coconut seed cake, peach palm fruit, breadfruit skins and overripe fruit, a little bit of humanure and the occasional scoop of rabbit manure. We get 1-2.5 hours of biogas per day from our biogas plant, and a bucket of fertiliser, which we apply to plants close to the house. Storing Gas Storing Gas. Image by author In addition to biogas, we have multiple elements providing the function of cooking, a wood burning cookstove, a cob pizza oven, a biochar kiln, and an open fire hearth (which make the best corn tortillas). These all burn dried biomass, like wood, coconut husks, cahune palm seeds, rice hulls and bamboo to make heat. We live in a rural area, heavily focusing our work on trees. We have plenty of wood for fuel. When its sunny, we can also use our solar box cooker, or our parabolic solar cooker. Some days I wake up and cannot be bothered to make a fire. I like making our morning coffee on the biogas plant. A legitimate concern is that a small biogas plant produces insufficient gas to be a primary source of cooking energy. A limitation of the present system is the amount of gas we can obtain from one IBC daily. To solve this, we are considering adding a second digester to feed the single storage unit, which would effectively double our daily amount of available biogas from 1-2.5 hours per day, to 2-5 hours of available gas, per day. That would meet all of our needs, except for baking. Cooking on Gas Cooking on biogas. Image by author. We have not decided to expand the system yet. Doing so would require more attention to the system, more management, and more feedstock, but it is an option for us to explore. Biogas is a useful element in our farm, providing us with clean burning fuel, disposing of surplus food, fruit that may have fruit fly larvae and food scraps that have limited value, and creating high value fertiliser. In follow up articles, we will look at various biogas plant designs, with pros and cons, and biogas through the lens of permaculture principles. Christopher Nesbitt 1. I envy you. I dream of one day owning a small piece of land and leading a sustainable lifestyle. Producing biogas is a big interest of mine. For the time being I slave on in this miserable lifestyle…ah..ah…until my retirement. Wish you well. Just subscribed to your Youtube channel👍 2. Hi Peter, Thanks for the kind words. There are some systems at the end of the third article in this series that may be useful for you, that lend themselves to urban or semi urban living. In India small scale biogas is relatively common, and HomeBiogas, which is described in the article, makes great prepackaged plants that can ship to you! Best wishes, Leave a Reply Related Articles Back to top button
Foreign Languages Studies have shown that learning a second language enhances the child’s cognitive development, resulting in better grades in school and higher test scores later in life. Furthermore, acquiring a foreign language increases children's cultural awareness and helps them succeed in our multi-cultural society. At SemSem School, we teach Arabic and French to children through a total immersion curriculum. We offer an innovative and stimulating program that focuses on communication and interaction. Our professional language instructors are highly experienced and passionate about language learning. They engage with the students through hands-on classroom activities and value each child’s pace and individual interest. Along with the academic teaching, we introduce elements of the culture and history of the target language to provide a meaningful cultural experience. By learning a new language, children learn about the world around them. Our program accommodates varying levels of learning. Students take a placement test to be enrolled in one of the following levels depending on age and language proficiency: • Little Explorers (5 to 8 years old) • Rising Stars (9 to 11 years old) • Globetrotters (12 to 15 years old)
random access memory listen to the pronunciation of random access memory Englisch - Türkisch (Bilgisayar,Teknik) rasgele erişimli bellek rastgele erişimli bellek rastgele erişilebilir bellek {i} koç SWAT ekibi koçbaşı ile ön kapıyı kırdı. - The SWAT team broke down the front door with a battering ram. Bu bir koç değil, keçi! - This isn't a ram, it's a goat! (Elektrik, Elektronik) (Random Access Memory = Rastlantısal Erişim Hafızası) Bilgisayarlarda kullanılan hafıza cipi {i} gemi mahmuzu (Askeri) artırılmış açı işareti; rasgele erişimli bellek (raised angle marker; random access memory) i., kıs. Random-Access Memory {i} su mengenesi {i} mancınık {i} şahmerdan control random access memory (Askeri) rastgele erişim hafızası kontrolü raised angle marker; random access memory (Askeri) artırılmış açı işareti; rasgele erişimli bellek Englisch - Englisch dynamic random access memory non-volatile random access memory a type of computer memory that can be written to repeatedly, but does not lose its value when the system is powered off, because it is battery backed static random access memory Static RAM is used for the cache memory and registers in computer systems. SRAM typically requires four or six transistors per bit, making it substantially more expensive than DRAM, which usually requires one transistor per bit. SRAM is able to operate at higher speeds than DRAM, and does not require refreshing Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory Random Access Memory that can be adjusted and synchronized with the speed of the computer clock, SDRAM random-access memory random access memory ran·dom ac·cess me·mo·ry Türkische aussprache rändım äkses memıri /ˈrandəm ˈakˌses ˈmemərē/ /ˈrændəm ˈækˌsɛs ˈmɛmɜriː/ [ 'ran-d&m ] (noun.) 1561. Middle English, impetuosity, from Middle French randon, from Old French, from randir to run, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German rinnan to run; more at RUN. Wort des Tages
Busy. Please wait. Log in with Clever show password Forgot Password? Don't have an account? Sign up Sign up using Clever Username is available taken show password Already a StudyStack user? Log In Reset Password Didn't know it? click below Knew it? click below Don't know Remaining cards (0) Normal Size Small Size show me how Religion Test52 8 How are 3 divine Persons, though really distinct from one another, one and the same God? Because they have the same divine nature From whom do we learn to know, love, and serve God? Jesus Christ, who teaches us through the church How can we know the true meaning of the Bible? From the teaching authority of the church, which was recieved from Jesus Christ. The church has the right and duty to teach and to explain all that God has revieled Does God see us? Yes, He watches over us with loving care How do the good angels help us? Praying for us, acting as messangers from God to us, and serving as our guardian angels Has Divine Tradition ever bewn committed to writing? Yes, by saintly writers who lived in the early centuries but not inspired as those who wrote the Bible How is the Bible divided? The Old and New Testament Has Divine Tradition the same force as the Bible? Yes How is the soul like God? Our spirit has understanding and free will, and is destined to live forever How do our guardian angels help us? Praying for us, protecting us from harm and inspire us to do good Created by: Scarecrow52 Popular Religion sets Pass complete! "Know" box contains: Time elapsed: restart all cards
print preview The geoid is a selected equipotential surface of the earth's gravity field and serves as the reference surface for height determination. It can be considered as an idealised continuation of the mean surface of the oceans beneath the continents. Photo of a geoid The geoid deviates globally from a mathematical reference surface (the rotation ellipsoid) by ±100 metres. The deviation from the local reference ellipsoid in Switzerland is ±5 metres. The geoid can be determined with astro-geodetic and gravimetric methods. In the past few years it has become possible to determine the geoid «directly» through levelling and GNSS observations (GNSS-levelling). Today the geoid model is indispensable, in particular for GNSS applications because it allows the easy transformation of ellipsoidal heights (h) determined by GNSS to the normally used orthometric heights (H), using the following simple formula: H = h - N Graphic of a Geoid and Ellipsoid Relationship between the geoid, ellipsoid and orthometric height The Geoid in Switzerland The geoid model in Switzerland (CHGeo2004) was determined through a combination of all methods and has an accuracy range of 1 to 3 centimetres. The Swiss geoid model is available in the form of a 1-kilometre grid and can be integrated into practically all commercially available GNSS receivers. The Geoid in Switzerland Swiss geoid (CHGeo04) relative to the local reference ellipsoid. Geoid, format ESRIASCIIGRID, variants LV95/LHN95, LV95/LN02, ETRS89/LHN95, ETRS89/LN02 (under open data licence Creative Commons CC0) Geoid OGD Federal Office of Topography swisstopo Seftigenstrasse 264 P.O. Box 3084 Wabern +41 58 469 01 11 Relevant authority Geodesy and Federal Directorate of Cadastral Surveying Federal Office of Topography swisstopo Seftigenstrasse 264 P.O. Box 3084 Wabern Show map
Natural rhythms exist in organisms in any way known degrees of complexity, generally in most organs with myriad time scales Natural rhythms exist in organisms in any way known degrees of complexity, generally in most organs with myriad time scales. on wellness that people are just starting to appreciate today. Within this review, we concentrate on cardiovascular rhythms in wellness, with ageing and under disease circumstances. (also called and clocks that themselves can handle oscillating autonomously. Open up in another window Body 1 ((the so-called CBK mouse),23 provides profound yet specific effects in the molecular clock in cardiomyocytes, leading to significant reductions in heart rate (HR) through the day, altered substrate metabolism, and deficient contractile function. The importance of these genes is usually emphasized IKK-16 by the fact that this cardiomyocyte specific Bmal1 KO (CBK) mouse begins to exhibit echocardiographic features of heart failure by around 30?weeks of age, and uniformly dies by the age of 1?year (see working rat heart, for example, has been shown to exhibit circadian rhythmicity in contractile function, with best contractile performance in the middle of the night,30 a feature lost in hypertrophied hearts. Similarly, cardiac contractility in Langendorff-perfused murine hearts is usually greater when they are studied 3 h into the dark phase vs. 3 h into the light phase of a 12:12 h light:dark regime. Disruption of this circadian rhythm, by putting the mouse into a 10:10 h light:dark regime, causes normal diurnal variation in cardiac contractility to disappear.17 Contractile reserve of rodent hearts is greater in the dark phase of the circadian cycle, consistent with anticipation of workload demand IKK-16 during waking hours.22 These adjustments in cardiac contractility may be linked to latest observations suggesting molecular circadian control of the sarcomere, including circadian legislation from the titin-cap proteins,31 rhythmic mRNA appearance of cAMP-dependent proteins kinase A (PKA),22 IKK-16 observations that disruption of diurnal design alters myofilament proteins phosphorylation within a murine style of myocardial infarction (MI),32 and observed daily oscillations of cardiac myofilament function and structure,17,31 calcineurin activity, proteins phosphorylation,33 and myocardial excitation-contraction coupling.34 Time-of-day-dependent oscillations in expression of both isoforms of myosin heavy chain, a crucial contractile protein in the heart, have already been confirmed in rodent hearts also.20,35 2.4 Cardiac metabolism The circadian fluctuation in contractile function from the heart referred to in the last section is inextricably associated with cardiac metabolism. Carbohydrate air and oxidation consumption exhibit marked circadian variation. 36 In the functioning mouse and rat center, it has been shown to become timed to coincide with intervals of elevated workload (e.g. workout), using a peak in the center of the entire night.30,37,38 Glycogen articles in the rat heart peaks in the dark-to-light stage transition, in keeping with increased rates of glycogen synthesis through the awake-dark period.37 Unlike glucose usage, fatty acid oxidation does not exhibit circadian variation in isolated rat or mouse heart preparations, suggesting that fatty acids form the consistent foundation for the energetic demands of the heart. However, triglyceride synthesis does oscillate in mice, peaking near the end of the dark/active phase,30,39 while lipolysis is usually elevated during the light/sleep phase.39 Far less is known about circadian variation in protein and amino acid metabolism. Some evidence exists that net protein synthesis appears to be increased in the rat myocardium during the light/sleep phase gene results in cardiomyocyte mitochondrial morphological and functional abnormalities, including reduced respiratory complex enzyme activity, and decreased expression of genes involved in fatty acid oxidation, the tricarboxylic acid cycle and the mitochondrial respiratory chain.42 These mice also demonstrate impaired ketone body metabolism, impaired glucose utilization in the fed state, and abnormal metabolic responsiveness to acute fasting.4 Furthermore, they develop severe progressive center failing with age.42 Equivalent features were within regular (C57BL/6J) mice subjected to chronic reversal of the standard light:dark routine, confirming the HOX11L-PEN fact that circadian clock is certainly very important to preserving healthy mitochondrial bioenergetics and dynamics in the heart. The IKK-16 circadian component REV-ERB regulates mitochondrial content material and oxidative function in skeletal muscles, partly by repressing genes that cause mitophagy.43 An identical function in cardiac muscles could be forecasted, and several documents also have pointed towards the need for effective mitochondrial IKK-16 autophagy for preventing contractile dysfunction and center failure.44C47 The rhythms described above in cardiac metabolism could be suffering from rhythmicity in sympathetic activity,48 circulating insulin,49 thyroid hormone,50 and corticosteroid amounts,49 aswell as circadian variation in circulating fuel availability such as for example glucose, essential fatty acids, and ketone bodies.51,52 Comparable to changes observed in the CBK mouse noted above, CCM mice demonstrate. This entry was posted in Oxidase. Bookmark the permalink.
Harmful side-effects of radiation and frequency The world is changing rapidly with the influence of science and technology. The whole development is due to the huge impact created by technology that has changed the shape of every industry. Although it is a good sign, it equally comes with a challenge that has to be faced by humans and other living organisms. One of the most dreaded things is the radiation and frequency effect on the whole ecosystem. This creates a huge impact on the human body and can lead to many illnesses and diseases. Mostly, there are many factors involved such as the amount of energy deposited in the body, the ability of the radiation to harm, and the place where it is affected. To deal with this, it is important to study the harmful effects of these as there is a lot of factors that match emf and dementia. How does it affect the body? The exposure of emf and dementia has been long-termed to be linked and it is extremely risky. There are studies that prove that radiation causes Alzheimer’s disease among people. These have also been termed as occupational risks among the laboratory, factory, manual, and utility workers. They are highly vulnerable as their presence is always with motors and transmission lines. With this, not only the older generation people but also young and small children are at high risk of getting exposed. For the children, as their nervous system and other parts are still developing, being in contact with objects that produce radiation and frequency can lead to long-term health impacts. This is extremely dangerous and that is the reason people should have WaveRider at their homes. It is one of the most successful natural shielding methods against frequencies. In the United States, many people have already got their devices at their home and office premises. It definitely will be useful especially when you have children at home.
Newfield Institute: Ontological Coaching and Consulting Trust and Relationships by Alan Sieler All of us, at one stage or other, have experienced a situation in which we have found ourself not trusting another person. This could have been someone we have just met and almost immediately have not felt comfortable with them. Expressions like "Wouldn't trust him/her as far as I could kick them" or "Wouldn't touch him/her with a forty foot barge pole", or an uneasy feeling about someone, reflect lack of trust. Unfortunately though, occasionally not trusting someone else also includes those we have known for a while. Doubts begin to creep into our thinking about their motivation and behaviour, and these can begin to have a major impact on the relationship, and our behaviour with them will begin to be different. When we find our self not being comfortable with another person, regardless of the circumstances, we are not always able to articulate what this discomfort is about. What we experience is a strong gut feeling or hunch, which we are not able to explain. Not trusting someone means that we do not have full confidence in them and consequently we either limit how we will engage in a relationship with them or withdraw entirely from the relationship. Even if the circumstances dictate we need to spend some time in their company, we might find ourselves very wary of them and limit how we engage with them. So far the emphasis has been on the negative side of trust, or to be more precise, lack of trust. What about when we do trust people? What happens to us when we trust people and what is different for us when we don't trust people? When we trust someone, be it personally and/or professionally, we are usually willing to enter into a relationship with him or her. In a trusting relationship we are willing to conduct ourselves differently, engage in a wider range of actions, and also to be more open to a variety of experiences. Much of our existence, and the quality of our living, professionally and personally, is associated with the quality of our relationships. We exist within a network of relationships, and the quality of these relationships determines our sense of satisfaction, achievement, enjoyment and fulfillment. Trust enables relationships to develop and flourish. Trust is the “glue” that holds relationships together. But what is trust? It could be said that it is a sensation, a hunch, a gut feeling. However, it is possible to be more precise. Trust is simultaneously a bodily sensation, an emotion and a judgement (assessment). A gut feeling can be the emotional and bodily component of trust, and yet sometimes we are unable to put it into words. It is important to be able to be more precise in the way we articulate trust, because we can then deal with it. Trust can be regarded as having four dimensions. When we trust, or don't trust someone, we are assessing his or her sincerity, reliability, competence andinvolvement. Trusting or not trusting someone always involves one or more of these assessments. Typically we tend to associate trust with sincerity - the genuineness of someone in their engagement with us; i.e. there is no hidden agenda or "cards being held to the chest. However, competence is also a crucial facet of trust, which is a judgement that someone has the ability or skills to do what they say. Someone may be sincere and competent, but not be reliable, consistently not meeting required standards and/or time frames; for example not turning up to meetings at the agreed time, and not completing agreed to tasks on time to a satisfactory standard. Involvement is about whether we someone is tuned in to what (deeply) matters to us; i.e. they have our needs and interests at heart. Involvement can be a more subtle aspect of trust. Often this is a gut feeling. Perhaps someone says all the right words but we have an uneasy feeling and cannot pinpoint that that is about; it is likely this is our intuition telling us the person may not have our needs and interests at heart. The image people have of us, the reputation we develop for ourselves, whether positive or negative, cannot be divorced from assessments continually being made about our sincerity, reliability, competence and involvement in our dealings with them. Trust lives the nature of conversational engagement with others. We develop a reputation for being trustworthy or untrustworthy through our actions. Much of this reputation comes from how we enter into making arrangements and being dependable around the agreements and commitments we make. Do our actions match our words? Within our relationships it is all too easy to take trust for granted and overlook its pivotal role in our interactions with others. Trust can be regarded as a fragile element of relationships that requires continual nurturing. One or two instances can raise important and lingering questions, which may remain in the background and have a silent but devastating impact on the quality of the relationship. You may like to consider the following points for your own "action research" around trust. © Newfield Institute Experience truly transformational meditation with these three CDs. LEARN MORE »
Thursday, January 6, 2022 What is a Paradigm Shift and Why do We Need One? Earthrise, a photograph taken from lunar orbit by the Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders, on December 24, 1968. At the time, this pic was thought to have shown people the limits of growth. Then everyone forgot. As you may know, Thee Optimist is a believer in that mysterious medieval practice known as "science." He is not necessarily a cheerleader of science. In fact, he thinks most living things on the Earth (and maybe even people) would have been better off if we had all remained mired in religion, for the most part living brutish lives exposed to the elements and abruptly cut short after ingesting untreated waste water. Or you know, being grotesquely tortured and executed for not following the dominant religion properly. That would have kept our numbers down. In any event, that didn't happen, so science is what we have, to put it mildly. And there are many things we can learn from it, if we choose. One such thing is the concept of a paradigm. In science, a paradigm is a framework through which to observe reality. It can be a set of concepts, thought patterns, theories, models and research methods that govern the pursuit of new knowledge. Basically, it is a set of preconceived notions. And they can color the perceptions of the people who live within them. Indeed, they can blind people to other possibilities to such an extent, that they become reality. A famous example of this is when in 1900, Lord Kelvin is thought to have said, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now." Five years later, Albert Einstein published his Theory of Special Relativity, which challenged the notions of Newtonian Physics that had dominated science for 200 years. Kelvin was wrong. And when you're wrong about something, and you discover new information, you can then undergo a "paradigm shift" to a new reality. What are we wrong about? "Houston, we have a problem." The Limits to Growth Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a little over 30 years ago, we have lived on a planet completely dominated by the tenets of capitalism. Many people confuse this issue, so let's clarify: capitalism is not democracy. Capitalism is an economic system. Democracy is a political system. You can have one without the other. China has become a capitalist society in recent decades. It is not a democracy in any meaningful sense. We'll leave the question of whether the United States is a democracy for another time. In a nutshell, capitalism puts the means of production in private hands. And those private hands seek to increase profits, by any means available, fair or foul. For a corporation or other capitalist entity to be considered healthy, it must increase profits - in most cases, to do that it must increase revenue. Overall, for a capitalist economy to be considered healthy, it must always be growing. In capitalism, the focus is always on increasing - increasing the number of products manufactured and sold, increasing revenue from those products, increasing the amount of profit squeezed out of each product. Capitalism must have growth. When growth stops, an economy becomes "stagnant." When growth reverses itself, an economy enters a "recession." If the recession becomes deep enough, or goes on long enough, the economy enters a "depression." These are bad words, not just for capitalists at the top of the pyramid scheme. They're bad for everybody involved. Regular working people lose their jobs and homes. Small-time stock market plungers lose their savings. We'll set aside everything else that's wrong with capitalism - the cozy relationships between capitalists and government, the unfair monopolies, the regulatory capture, the endless greed of the people at the top, the often unspeakable living conditions of the exploited people at the bottom. Yeah, that stuff is bad. But humans are generally bad to one another. It's one of our less endearing qualities. On a planetary scale, the main problem with capitalism is the insistence on growth. What's the matter with growth, you say? July 19, 2013 photo taken by the NASA Cassini spacecraft in orbit around the planet Saturn. In the foreground are Saturn and its rings. Far in the distance, 900 million miles away, is the tiny blue dot known as Earth. We Live on a Small Planet The Earth is a closed system. This means that the amount of matter on Earth remains constant over time. Nothing is added, and nothing is removed. Matter can be changed in form, as when iron ore is mined from the ground and turned into steel, or when trees are cut down to make wood and paper. But the overall amount of matter stays the same. This, in turn, means the Earth has limited resources. There is a point when they run out. In the course of human history, everything that has ever been made, sold or consumed has come from the Earth. There is nowhere else it can possibly come from. Now, there are fantastic schemes proposed (usually by capitalist billionaires and their paid flunkies) that we can go to the moon or other planets and mine the resources of these places to bring back to Earth. The odds don't look good. In 60 years of space exploration, no one - no country, no company, no conglomeration of countries and companies - has done anything remotely like this, or even come close. In all likelihood, we are stuck with the resources available here on this planet, which are finite and will not last. And yet, the constant mantra, under capitalism, is for growth. We want more of everything - more and better cars, more food for the world's growing population, more and bigger homes for wealthy Westerners to live in, more games, more movies, more TV channels, more nifty high-tech gizmos. We want more. We need more. And that includes more people. In the year 1800, there were roughly 1 billion people on Earth. It took from the dawn of time to 1800 for that many people to accumulate. In the roughly 200 years since, we've added another 7 billion. If you chart that on a graph, it looks like this: If this was revenue growth, a capitalist would love it. It is the "J curve" or "hockey stick" that every money monger wants to see. And as a general rule, more people does lead to more revenue. The two states are incompatible. You can't have unending growth in an environment that is limited. Cancer cells attempt to do this, and eventually they kill their host. Viruses do the same thing. What we need to do is shift our perspective, and think about a different approach to economics and to human civilization. Happily, smart people have already done some thinking along these lines. Unhappily, the rest of us mental midgets haven't seen fit to absorb this thinking. But we can start. Here are a few concepts to chew on: Spaceship Earth The Tragedy of the Commons Small is Beautiful The original Pale Blue Dot photo taken from the Voyager 1 spaceship on February 14, 1990, right before the ship left our solar system. Launched in 1979, Voyager 1 is now more than 14 billion miles away, traveling at about 38,000 miles per hour through interstellar space. Words of Wisdom "If you can imagine yourself in a darkened room with only one clearly visible object, a small blue-green sphere about the size of a Christmas-tree ornament, then you can begin to grasp what the Earth looks like from space. Let me assure you that, rather than a massive giant, it should be thought of as the fragile Christmas-tree ball which we should handle with considerable care." - William Anders, Apollo 8 astronaut No comments: Post a Comment
How Bitcoin Hash Function Works There’s a reason cryptographic hash functions, like the double SHA256 used for proof-of-work in Bitcoin, are not usually described using these complexity classes that classify asymptotic behavior. In fact, there are several. A technical reason is that hash functions often do not scale. For example, it is not defined how one would extend the. If you are new to blockchain and wish to understand how Bitcoin works, for instance, then a grasp of this concept and the related terminologies, will come in handy. In this article, I seek to simplify this, though it’s a bit technical. What’s hashing in blockchain? Hashing in blockchain refers to the process of having an input item of whatever length reflecting an output item of a fixed. 07/05/2020 · The Bitcoin protocol makes extensive use of the so-called hash function for adding new blocks to the blockchain through the mining process. The function that underlies BTC’s mining process and allows miners to collect the rewards What is Hashing on the Blockchain?Bitcoin, the first and largest blockchain network out there, has had its mining difficulty reach near its all-time high. The public ledger verifies the ownership and stores the collected information in a blockchain. Cryptocurrency is nothing but. Bitcoin Faucet App For Ios 23 Jan 2020. Claim your free USD and MULTIWALLET (Bitcoins, Litecoins, ETH, etc.) with these apps and how to exchange Why Bitcoin Won’t Last Bitcoin has dipped back below the psychological area of support near the $10,000 level amid a 20-minute sell-off. OpenNode Finds 7 Dec 2017. Hash functions appear everywhere in Bitcoin. A good way to understand how hash functions work is to experiment with them interactively. 10 Sep 2018. “Proof-of-Work.” The Bitcoin Network uses SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm), such as SHA-256. This method also works the other way around. 04/05/2020 · How Bitcoin Hashing Works. This cryptographic technique is how Internet servers have long prevented spam and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Say, for instance, you wanted to attack someone’s server from your computer and bring down their website. You might have your computer make so many requests to their server that it’s overwhelmed and goes down. But if their. Bitcoin exchanges are building their own native blockchain networks to build an economic moat and grow market share. But they. Furthermore, a one-way hash function is designed in such a way that it is hard to reverse the process, that is, to find a string that hashes to a given value (hence the. 24/04/2020 · The current high value of Bitcoin is a function of both the relative scarcity of Bitcoins themselves and its popularity as a means of investment and wealth generation. If confidence in the Bitcoin market is suddenly and drastically reduced—for example, if a major government declared Bitcoin use illegal, or one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges was hacked and lost all of its stored. 14/09/2014 · The SHA-256 or “secure hash algorithm 256”, is just a specific way of hashing. The same way we could have named our previous example for hashing the “99Bitcoins hashing method”. Using hashing helps the the Bitcoin network stay immuned to alteration and fraud – but more about that in a later. Bitcoin Core 0.12.0 10 Jun 2019. As part of Bitcoin Core, bitcoind has been bundled with the original client from version. 0.12.0, 2016-Feb-23,
What Is Saturn Known For? What is Saturn known for? The second largest planet in the solar system, Saturn is a "gas giant" composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. But it's best known for the bright, beautiful rings that circle its equator. The rings are made up of countless particles of ice and rock that each orbit Saturn independently. In like manner, What is beautiful in Saturn? The planet Saturn: truly massive and stunningly beautiful with its rings. It's also home to amazing moons like Titan. Saturn's rings are far more extensive and more easily seen than those of any other planet. Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system with a diameter of 120,000 km. Correspondingly, What is special about the planet Saturn? Saturn is a gas giant made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. Saturn's volume is greater than 760 Earths, and it is the second most massive planet in the solar system, about 95 times Earth's mass. The Ringed Planet is the least dense of all the planets, and is the only one less dense than water. what's more, What are Saturn features? Saturn is a gas giant with no solid surface; it is 9.45 times wider than Earth and 95 times more massive. It is circled by hundreds of rings consisting of small, ice-covered particles and is also host to at least 30 moons, including Titan, largest moon in the solar system and the only one with an extensive atmosphere. What are 5 interesting facts about Saturn? Student Features • Saturn is huge. • You cannot stand on Saturn. • Its beautiful rings are not solid. • Some of these bits are as small as grains of sand. • The rings are huge but thin. • Other planets have rings. • Saturn could float in water because it is mostly made of gas. • It is very windy on Saturn. • Related Question for What Is Saturn Known For? How long is a day on Saturn? What is the scariest planet in the universe? The Most Scary Extrasolar Planets Discovered • Gliese 1214 b. • Gliese 1214 b might not actually look too bad at first glance. • HD 80606 b. • HD 80606 b is an Eccentric Jupiter planet, meaning it is a gas giant. • Kepler-78b. • Kepler-78b is one of the most earthlike planets discovered. • Jupiter. • 55 Cancri e. • Is Saturn upside down? Its axis is tilted by 26.73 degrees with respect to its orbit around the Sun, which is similar to Earth's 23.5-degree tilt. Does Saturn have any rings? From far away, Saturn looks like it has seven large rings. Each large ring is named for a letter of the alphabet. The rings were named in the order they were discovered. The first ring discovered was named the A ring, but it is not the ring closest to or farthest from Saturn. What would you need to live on Saturn? At a first glance, Saturn should have a clement environment to live in. The atmosphere above a floating colony would provide sufficient protection against cosmic rays and other sources of radiation. 1g gravity and sea-level pressure should mean living conditions are no worse than on Arctic research stations. How do you see Saturn? To the naked eye, Saturn will look starlike. Look closely and you may observe its distinct golden color, which will be further enhanced with a set of binoculars. You will need a telescope to see Saturn's rings. If you don't have a telescope, just contact your local astronomy club! What is the most distinctive feature of Saturn? Saturn's most distinctive feature is the thousands of rings that orbit the planet. The ring particles seem to be composed primarily of water ice, but they may also include rocky particles with icy coatings. Saturn is less densethan water; if you could fit Saturn in a bathtub, it would float. What are 10 facts about Saturn? More videos on YouTube • Saturn is the least dense planet in the Solar System. • Saturn is a flattened ball. • The first astronomers thought the rings were moons. • Saturn has only been visited 4 times by spacecraft. • Saturn has 62 moons. • The length of a day on Saturn was a mystery until recently. • Can you walk on Saturn's rings? Saturn's rings are almost as wide as the distance between the Earth and the moon, so at first glance, they seem like an easy place to land and explore on foot. But if you were able to hike on one of Saturn's outermost rings, you'll walk about 12 million kilometers to make it around the longest one. Can a person live on Saturn? Without a solid surface, Saturn isn't likely a place we could ever live. But the gas giant does have numerous moons, some of which would make fascinating locations for space colonies, particularly Titan and Enceladus. Can you walk on Saturn? If you tried to walk on the surface of Saturn, you would fall into the planet, suffering higher temperatures and pressures until you were crushed inside the planet. Of course you can't stand on the surface of Saturn, but if you could, you would experience about 91% of Earth's gravity. How old is the Saturn? Is Saturn Green? Saturn itself is made of ammonia ice and methane gas. The little dark spot on Saturn is the shadow from Saturn's moon Enceladus. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided images of Saturn in many colors, from black-and-white, to orange, to blue, green, and red. Is Saturn black? : The color of Saturn is black. This color is caused by the absence of light. The rays emitted by Saturn are of violet color. Why does Saturn have 10 hours? Saturn rotates faster than Earth so a day on Saturn is shorter than a day on Earth. A day on Saturn is 10.656 hours long while a day on Earth is 23.934 hours long. Is there seasons on Saturn? The coming and going of seasons is possible when a planet has a tilted axis — and both Earth and Saturn have a lean in their spins. Earth moves through all its seasons repeatedly all the while Saturn remains in just one season; it takes roughly seven Earth years for Saturn to begin and end one of its seasons. How long is a night on Saturn? Feature. As Saturn's rings orbit the planet, a section is typically in the planet's shadow, experiencing a brief night lasting from 6 to 14 hours. However, once approximately every 15 years, night falls over the entire visible ring system for about four days. Which planet is the safest? After the Earth, Mars is the most habitable planet in our solar system due to several reasons: • Its soil contains water to extract. • It isn't too cold or too hot. • There is enough sunlight to use solar panels. • Gravity on Mars is 38% that of our Earth's, which is believed by many to be sufficient for the human body to adapt to. • Will the Earth have two moons? Astronomers from the Catalina Sky Survey yesterday announced they'd found a second natural satellite orbiting the Earth. It looks like our planet and its long-standing partner Luna have decided to explore polyamory. What planet is made of gold? Psyche 16 is nestled between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and is made of solid metal. As well as gold, the mysterious object is loaded with heaps of platinum, iron and nickel. Can Saturn float in a bathtub? Saturn has the lowest density of any planet, 0.7 g/cc, which is less than that of water. Saturn is of such low density that it would float in a (gigantic) bathtub. However, you would not want to put Saturn in a bathtub. Does Saturn experience snow? Saturn's moon, Enceladus, has geysers that shoot water vapor out into space. There it freezes and falls back to the surface as snow. All of this ice and snow make Enceladus one of the brightest objects in our solar system. Jets issuing from Saturn's moon Enceladus. What color is Saturn NASA? Even through a small telescope, Saturn takes on a beautiful pale yellow with hints of orange. With a more powerful telescope, like Hubble, or images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, you can see subtle cloud layers, swirling storms mixing orange and white together. Does Saturn have clouds around? Like Jupiter, Saturn boasts layers of clouds. Saturn's temperature and pressure increase from the exterior of the planet toward its center, changing the makeup of the clouds. The upper layers of clouds are made up of ammonia ice. Does Saturn have any water? There is water, but not very much. Once you get away from Saturn itself, though, the nearby area has plenty of water. Saturn's rings are almost entirely made of water ice, in chunks ranging in size from dust to house-sized boulders. And all of Saturn's moons have large quantities of water ice. How long will Saturn's rings last? "From this alone, the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years," O'Donoghue said. However, the Cassini spacecraft also detected even more ring matter was falling into Saturn's equator. That means the rings likely have less than 100 million years to live. Was this helpful? 0 / 0 Leave a Reply 0
Download GPX file for this article 35.4-85.2Full screen dynamic map From Wikivoyage Jump to navigation Jump to search The South is a region of the United States of America. Note: Texas and Florida are considered "Southern" states, but are distinct regions in their own right. Oklahoma is also often considered Southern, though it is on the Great Plains. The southern half of Missouri is Southern culturally, but the northern half and the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City are Midwestern in character. Eastern and Southern Maryland have a distinctly Southern culture, but the rest of the state falls firmly in the North. Although Illinois and Indiana are generally considered Midwestern, southern portions of those states are strongly influenced by Southern culture, with extreme southern Illinois especially so. These are some of the major cities in the South. • Atlanta — the largest city in Georgia; self-proclaimed capital of the New South, home to Coca-Cola • Birmingham — the largest city in Alabama; an industrial center dating back to an era when there wasn't much industry in the South • Charleston — a major city in the South during Colonial days, with much of that history preserved today • Charlotte — the "Hornet's Nest", this city will give you a "sting" with its magnificent architecture. • Louisville — "Slugger City", the largest city of the Bluegrass State of Kentucky • Memphis — largest city in Tennessee; home of barbeque and the blues; don't forget to eat catfish caught in the Delta, take a steamboat tour, and see Beale Street and Graceland • Nashville — "Music City, U.S.A."; the world capital of country and western music, with Opryland and the Country Music Hall of Fame to show for it • New Orleans, Jazz fills the streets of "Nawlinz", creating a highly happy ambiance. • Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, emphasizing its Southern character Other destinations The inside of slave quarters in Virginia The region known as The South comprises—more or less—those states that seceded from the United States in 1861, precipitating the American Civil War. Upset with a growing sentiment against slavery and desirous of greater state autonomy, eleven slave-holding states seceded after the election of President Abraham Lincoln, forming the Confederate States of America. Three border states even fought civil wars of their own; they each had two organizations, one Unionist and one Confederate, both claiming to be the state government. What ensued was a bloody five-year conflict that left the country bruised and battered but ultimately resulted in the preservation of the nation as a single unit, and the abolition of slavery. Most of the major battles occurred on Southern soil, and the South was devastated as a result of the war. The civil war still stands out as the last war fought in the mainland U.S. and the war with the most American casualties ever. The South existed for over two hundred years before the Civil War (see Early United States history). It was first settled by the British at Roanoke Island in 1585, and the first permanent British settlement was at Jamestown in 1607. Many of the early settlers in the South were indentured servants (that is people that had to work for a certain period of time and were free after that time; there were many white indentured servants who sold their future work to pay for the passage to America), and later, slaves. Many Revolutionary War battles were fought in the South, including the Battle of Yorktown which effectively ended the war. By 1800, the Southern economy focused on the growing of tobacco (in Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolinas) and cotton (elsewhere) as "cash crops", and did not industrialize in the early 19th century as the North did. At the time of the Civil War, one in three Southerners was a slave. Most of the others were farmers who were poor and owned no slaves, but a few owned large amounts of land and many slaves. Texas and Florida also seceded from the union but are considered distinct regions today. Kentucky is considered part of the south despite never seceding from the union. It did however allow slavery until 1865 and belonged to Virginia until the late 18th century. West Virginia was formed from 50 counties of Virginia which repealed that state's secession act and was admitted to the union in 1863. Maryland and Delaware also allowed slavery but did not secede, and are today considered part of the Mid-Atlantic travel region, while Missouri, another slave state that did not secede, is covered as part of the Midwest. After the Civil War, people in the South struggled to cope with defeat. After a short period of "Reconstruction" that saw the South occupied by U.S. soldiers to ensure peace and guarantee the rights of freedmen, the old planter aristocracy regained control and by 1876 all U.S. troops had to leave, leaving the South under the firm control of Southern white Democrats (also called "Dixiecrats") until the 1960s. After 1876, Southern blacks were nominally "free", but in fact were treated as second-class citizens. They were often denied the vote, and many were forced to work the land as sharecroppers. Anti-black laws (variously known as "Black Codes" and "Jim Crow") were rampant in the South. Segregation in the U.S. was firmly established by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court decision, which ruled that existing and future segregation laws were legal as long as the divided facilities were judged to be "separate but equal." This was overturned in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which ruled that facilities reserved for "colored" people were inherently unequal. Many white Southerners fought against desegregation and equality for blacks until well into the 20th century. Some of them formed a group called the Ku Klux Klan, which terrorized blacks, Jews, immigrants, Catholics and civil rights activists through lynching, intimidation and public rallies. While the intervening 150 years have done much to heal the wounds, the Civil War is still considered a defining moment in the South. Reenactments of battles are carried out all over the region and period reenactment is a very popular hobby. While Confederate battle flags (rebel flags) can be found in many settings in the South, visitors should understand that, outside of a historical setting, the flag is viewed by many as a symbol of hatred and/or treason. Other than Mississippi, all of the Southern states have removed the battle flag from their heraldry. Indeed, the South is much more a cultural region than a geographical one; states west of Texas are not considered part of "The South", no matter how far south they are. Southern culture is distinct from overall "American" culture as well as other regional cultures in the US in many ways. Evangelical Christianity, particularly Southern Baptism still plays a huge role and people who don't ever go to church are still something of a rare sight. While this fact is often derided by the media and stereotypes exist, if you are respectful you won't have any problem with the vast majority of Southerners, even if you are LGBT or of some non-Christian religion or none at all. Another aspect is that many Southerners feel a strong sense of patriotism either towards the South, their state or the US as a whole and don't take lightly to what they believe to be insults against either. That being said, the South is also famous for "Southern hospitality" and the friendly spirit of its inhabitants and if you come with an open mind, you will discover the charm that has enticed so many travelers before. One of the most important identifiers of the cultural South is the dialect with which its people speak. Southerners from the Maryland's Eastern Shore to Northern Florida, and as far west as Texas speak with a very distinct accent that is different from the rest of the United States. The accent is typically described as having a "drawl" or "twang". Get in By plane See also: air travel in the United States of America The biggest airport in the South by far is also the world's biggest: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport ATL IATA. Most other Southern airports have flights to and from Atlanta, and many also have flights from Dallas, Houston, Miami or Washington. By car The coast is served well by the East Coast superhighway: I-95, which cuts through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia on its route between the megalopolis BosWash in the northeast and Florida to the south. I-20 leads through the Gulf coastal states through Birmingham, Jackson, and Atlanta between Dallas on the west and I-95 on the east. I-65 is the major north-south route going through the center of the region, leading up from Mobile through Birmingham, Nashville, and Louisville on its way up almost all the way to Chicago. I-55 parallels the Mississippi River, running down to New Orleans from Chicago via Memphis and Jackson. I-10 enters the South from Texas, and goes through New Orleans and Mobile. I-75 comes from Detroit and Cincinnati, and goes into Knoxville, Atlanta and Tampa. The South is also connected to other regions via the U.S. Federal Highway System and state routes. By bus By train Although Amtrak does serve some of the South's major cities through long distance trains, this is one of the most underserved parts of the USA in terms of train travel, a country that already has few trains elsewhere. Get around See also: United States without a car Do not expect to rely too heavily on public transit in most Southern cities. With only a few exceptions, cities in this region favor auto traffic. As a result, traveling beyond the core of a city is often difficult without an automobile. In all cases, it is best to do your homework before arriving. However there seems to be a trend towards more public transport in recent years and some places are making an effort to make downtown walkable and accessible to people without cars. A Civil War battlefield near Richmond, Virginia Fans of traditional American sports will also find plenty to do all across the region. College football is by far the most popular sport in the South (except in Kentucky, where college basketball is more popular), and sends mammoth crowds flooding into university towns nearly every Saturday during the fall. Stock car racing is also extremely popular, and NASCAR events draw large crowds to tracks for much of the year. College basketball also enjoys a significant following, but in most areas is less popular than college football (with Kentucky and, to a lesser extent, North Carolina as exceptions). The Kentucky Derby, held at Churchill Downs in Louisville, is an iconic American event, and brings in spectators from all over the world. NFL football, Major League Baseball, NBA basketball, and NHL hockey games are popular events to attend in the largest cities. fast food is also plentiful and several chains only exist here. A bottle of Coca-Cola Stay safe If you encounter police (e.g. during traffic controls), keep in mind that they often deal with armed, violent criminals and make sure none of your movements are misconstrued as reaching for a weapon or threatening. If you want to get your ID or driver's license, tell the police officer where it is and ask whether you may reach for it or let him/her retrieve it. While police shooting unarmed people is rare, it does happen and unfortunately victims are often members of minority groups. The South had traditionally been socially conservative regarding homosexuality. However, such negative attitudes towards gays and lesbians are changing and diminishing and now vary depending on where one travels (rural areas hold more conservative views towards homosexuality). Regardless, the South is relatively safe for gays and lesbians, as violence against them is rare and the South does offer a few gay friendly destinations (such as New Orleans, Nashville, and Atlanta). 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Oil production Pressure process Pressure process There are two olive oil production processes: by pressure and by centrifugation. The former (see the scheme) is commonly used and called the press system. Through it one can understand the simplicity of producing olive oil. 1- In the harvest, the first phase of production, the final quality of the olive takes into account the steps of pruning, fertilization, application of pesticides, irrigation during the blossom phase, and care when the tree bears fruit#. It is fundamental to understand that every step produces noticeable differences among the olive oils. In the harvest, all care must be taken so as to cause the fruit the least impact, and for the time between the harvest and the following phase to be as short as possible. 2- Once gathered, transported to the mill, had twigs and leaves removed, and washed, the olive is macerated with the stone still present. The result is a paste that is a mixture of solids pulp and stone, and liquids vegetal water and olive oil, emerging as a golden fluid. 3- The mush resulting from maceration is submitted to pressing between natural fibre mats that separate the solids from the liquids. 4- The liquid mixture is put into tanks where, through a decantation process, the olive oil rises and the water, being heavier, descends. The liquids are drawn off separately. 5- Then there are three possibilities: - extra virgin olive oil - virgin olive oil - lampante virgin olive oil 6- The first two are made available on the market. The last cannot be commercialized. Below we shall see the reasons for submitting this olive oil to refining and the result of this process.
Separation of Church and State Lately there has been quite a bit of hubbub on various social media sites about the role of religion in government and politics. I’m going to make some friends and enemies by saying that I personally believe that its role should be nonexistent, as a protection to both religious and secular individuals. That said, I believe a bit of history and explanation is in order. Where does the idea of separation of church and state come from? FirstAmendmentFrom a young age in the United States, many history and government classes teach about something called the separation of church and state. The general idea behind the phrase was set as a constitutional standard with the first amendment in 1791, as the first of ten amendments detailed in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment, as many already know, prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, or impeding the free exercise of religion, and emphasizes the importance of a plethora of other freedoms. The phrase itself comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a Baptist congregation, stating that “believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” The importance of adhering to the separation of church and state is that it both keeps the government from interfering in the religious lives of individuals and churches, while also keeping what then, and now, constitutes as a religious majority from exercising political power in a way that would harm those who identify as atheist, agnostic, or simply choose not to identify themselves with a label at all. So why is it that oftentimes religion gets mixed with government? I would venture to say that it is a generally accepted fact that individuals develop emotional ties to their political and religious ideologies. Oftentimes the two get melded together; to temporarily play off of a popularized stereotype, one doesn’t identify just as a Christian or a Republican, for instance, they identify as a Christian Republican. The same could hold true of any different mix of religious and political identities, or lack thereof. That isn’t “bad”, or “good”, but merely how we as individuals seem to function. What does libertarianism have to do with any of this? th_interfaithWhat’s beautiful about libertarianism is that the political tenants that I hold dear could not care less what you as an individual believe. As long as you support free market values, respect individual rights, and don’t try force your lifestyle on someone else, the political philosophy could not care less if you believe in, or worship, one god, many gods, no god, or the flying spaghetti monster. My father jokingly calls my political views the ideology of “live and let live”, and I would say that’s fairly apt. Libertarianism hinges on the importance of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. There is no “check this religion” to fit into the “cool kid’s club”. Libertarianism at its core supports the separation of church and state in the sense that it doesn’t allow for force of one group of people, or individual, over another – also labeled the nonaggression principle. The adherents of libertarianism are just a group of people from different backgrounds with many beliefs coming together to say that we have a right to self-ownership to the fullest extent, and I, for one, think that is something that we can all rally around.
How many dentists are there in Norway? The number of dentists employed in Norway generally increased during the period from 2000 to 2020. There were over 4.9 thousand dentists employed in Norway in 2020, which was the highest number during the period. Does Norway need dentists? There are many misconceptions about Norway’s healthcare system. … In short, everyone must pay for basic dental examinations and treatment in Norway. Generally speaking, only children or elderly people who receive nursing care receive free dental treatment. Children receive free treatment with the exception of braces. Are dentists rich in Norway? If Europe is a destination that you’re willing to explore as well as move to for a career, look no further than Norway. Norway offers high average salaries for its healthcare roles, with dentists earning £126,460 and chiropractors earning £77,837. How many dentists are there in Sweden? The number of dentists in Sweden increased since 2014, reaching around 6.4 thousand dentists in 2019. There were a higher number of female than male dentists throughout the whole period. Around four thousand of the dentists in 2019 were female. THIS IS FUN: Can you work in Sweden with a residence permit? How much does a dentist cost in Norway? A complete treatment usually costs around NOK 25,000 in Norway. Helfo covers approximately 13,000 NOK and you pay NOK 12,000 even as deductible. Is dentist free in Norway? In Norway, children under the age of 18 are entitled to free dental care from the public dental service. Young people between the ages of 19 and 20 are entitled to have 75 per cent of their dental care covered. How much is root canal in Norway? Examination, 2 x-rays and rinse 690 Root canal of vital incisor- canine (tooth 1-3), including x-ray and anesthesia 3000 Root canal of vital premolar (tooth 4-5), including x-ray and anesthesia 3600 Root canal of vital molar (tooth 6-8), including x-ray and anesthesia 3900 Can an American Dentist practice in Norway? Norwegian authorization without language evaluation Both written and spoken language proficiency are required of all dentists who practice in Norway. … SAK considers it to be the employers’ obligation to make sure employed health personnel have sufficient knowledge of the Norwegian language. How much do dentists make in Denmark? Salary Recap The average pay for a Dentist is DKK 1,023,624 a year and DKK 492 an hour in Denmark. The average salary range for a Dentist is between DKK 699,178 and DKK 1,282,867. On average, a Doctorate Degree is the highest level of education for a Dentist. How much do Dentist make in Sweden? The average pay for a Dentist is SEK 944,633 a year and SEK 454 an hour in Sweden. The average salary range for a Dentist is between SEK 645,416 and SEK 1,184,223. On average, a Doctorate Degree is the highest level of education for a Dentist. THIS IS FUN: Has Britain ever invaded Sweden? Who has the whitest teeth in the world? Sweden. With a DMFT score of 0.8, Sweden scores a spot among the top five. Its citizens have some of the cleanest, whitest, straightest teeth in the world. What is root canal of teeth? A root canal is a dental procedure involving the removal of the soft center of the tooth, the pulp. The pulp is made up of nerves, connective tissue, and blood vessels that help the tooth grow. In the majority of cases, a general dentist or endodontist will perform a root canal while you’re under local anesthesia. How are teeth cleaned by dentist? With the small mirror to guide them, the dental hygienist uses a scaler to get rid of plaque and tartar around your gum line, as well as in between your teeth. You’ll hear scraping, but this is normal. The more tartar there is in your mouth, the more time they’ll need to scrape a particular spot. How can a dentist work in Norway? Working as a Dentist in Norway Authorisation and license as a dentist are granted by the Directorate of Health (before 2016: National Agency for the Authorization of Healthcare). Professionals are required to hold a Master of Dentistry or an equivalent foreign education. How much do you pay at the dentist if you are between 18 and 20 years old in Norway? On the bright side, dental treatment is free for children under 18, and if you are aged between 19 and 20, you will only need to stump up 25 percent of the total bill. In most cases, everyone over the age of 21 will be expected to pay the whole bill, apart from a few exceptions, which you can read about here. THIS IS FUN: You asked: Who did Sweden conquer? What’s best to whiten your teeth? Hydrogen peroxide is a mild bleach that can help to whiten stained teeth . For optimal whitening, a person can try brushing with a mix of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide for 1–2 minutes twice a day for a week.
Paper or Plastic: Which is the Greener Option? \| \| \| While plastic has been demonized for its damaging effect on the environment, most people feel more comfortable with paper-based products like paper bags and cardboard. When one weighs out all the factors that go into the manufacturing, use, and recycling of both materials, however, paper isn’t as green an option as people think. Don’t get me wrong: plastics waste is a huge problem that needs to be reined in if we’re to preserve the planet we live on. Like we said before, however, a lot of the problem can be solved with how we use this valuable material. In more simple terms, we just need to reevaluate how we produce, use, and recycle plastic packaging. The same could be said about paper which, arguably, is just as destructive to the environment in its own way. Sure, paper products and cardboard are made from trees and thus, considered a “greener” material on its own. Just because the end product might seem more eco-friendly does not automatically imply that the process of making it is. In fact, paper production causes 70 percent more air pollution than the production of plastic bags while also contributing 80 percent more greenhouse gases. And when it comes to resource use, paper bag production uses three times more water and four times as much energy than creating new plastic bags; even recycling paper bags is worse by consuming more fuel than just creating new ones. Indeed, making new paper bags produces 80 percent more solid waste than their plastic counterparts. Though paper coming from trees might seem like a good thing on the surface (you know, trees and organic materials are “green”), paper production is a leading contributor to deforestation. When it comes to fighting our rising atmospheric carbon dioxide count, we kind of need trees to reabsorb some of that CO2 and process it back into oxygen. So which material is better? As Rob Kaszubowski, CPP, a Senior Packaging Engineer at Chainalytics put it: “The short answer is easy: neither! Paper and plastic bags each have different components that make them a drain on natural resources and a strain on the environment. When it really comes down to it, each option has its pros and cons. […] Both materials are recyclable, but the rate that consumers recycle them is minimal at best. Paper is degradable, whereas plastics take over 1,000 years to decompose. Yet, plastic bags require less energy to produce and recycle. The list goes on and on and teeters back and forth without really steering you to truly believe on is greater than the other.” However, don’t despair. While current technology and consumer trends are largely to blame for our waste problems, changes that emphasize better trade, buying, and reuse practices can start making a big difference in the battle for sustainability. Lowering Your Carbon Footprint… With Plastic? Though the same could be said about changes to the paper production and recycling process, since we’re experts on plastics here at FP, we figured we’d stick to talking about what we’re good at. Indeed, we’re committed to finding more eco-friendly variants of plastic packaging, namely with our line of green biodegradable* films. Luckily, we’re not alone in the fight for a greener, less wasteful future. Riverford Organics of the United Kingdom, for example, has shifted gears from paper to plastic delivery boxes which, as company spokesman Guy Watson claims, could lower their company’s carbon footprint by 70 percent. In an interview with The Guardian, Watson explains the change in thinking: “Householders continue to see plastic as wicked and paper-based goods as benign. But when considered over the entire life of the packaging, paper and cardboard embody far more greenhouse gases than their plastic equivalents. Paper products take substantial amounts of energy to make. Crushing a tree down into small fibers, mixing the wood pulp into a slurry, and then passing the wet mass through huge rollers cannot be done without the use of enormous quantities of power. Making paper and cardboard is almost certainly the third largest industrial use of energy on the planet. By contrast, plastic is light, durable, and its manufacture is generally not particularly energy intensive — at least by comparison to paper.” While the process of producing paper and cardboard is, indeed, very energy and resource intensive, Riverford’s goal was to at least keep its cardboard boxes out of landfills, offering refill and recycling services to its customers after delivery. Though the boxes were intended for use in ten delivery cycles before finally being retired, they usually lasted about four rounds before they fell apart. As Watson noted, “[since] these boxes are ‘free,’ the householder doesn’t look after them properly,” so the condition of the container deteriorated much more rapidly than expected. Paper or Plastic: Which is the Greener Option? Image source: Simple Ecology Since it’s widely known that plastic, by comparison, doesn’t rot and is much more sturdy and water- and air-proof than cardboard, using plastic delivery boxes instead seemed like the wiser choice. Roughly 85 percent of Riverford’s packaging is made up of paper-based products though most negative comments on the company’s packaging refer to its plastics which only contribute about 8 percent to its carbon footprint. “It is the customer who is stopping [Riverford from] using long-lasting plastic for any form of packaging, not economics or carbon accounting,” as The Guardian article asserts. Now, it’s important to note that the consumer isn’t the sole source of blame for inefficient materials use. While lack of proper recycling and efficiency education plays a large role, again a major contributor to our waste problem is pretty straightforward: we need to keep these materials out of landfills, at least for as long as possible. Therefore, it is imperative to find substitute materials that can either be reused (like sturdy reusable shopping bags you can take with you on your grocery outings) or have a lesser environmental impact (such as biodegradable or organic-based films) than current methods. Indeed, sustainable packaging innovation will continue to solve this problem, but if we are truly to overcome the waste flooding our landfills and oceans, this effort must come from all sides of the economic spectrum: from business leaders and distributors to the consumers at home and the recycling plants. It isn’t that paper or plastic are particularly damning our environment. It is, however, our rampant and wanton misuse and waste of these materials that not only drains natural resources, but replaces them with literal garbage. I don’t know about you, but I much prefer living in a world that isn’t filled with trash. *49.28% biodegradation in 900 days under non-typical conditions; no evidence of further biodegradation. Previous post Next post
Quality Testing Variable Names A variable name is a representation for a piece (or pieces) of data. It should accurately describe the underlying data. Variable names should be meaningful. Seeing something called flag tells one it’s probably a Boolean, but doesn’t describe the intention whatsoever. You don’t know what the purpose of it is. A good variable name reduces ambiguity. It allows the developer to understand what the data represents. flag is rarely used correctly. stylizedFontsEnabled tell a much more detailed story about what is represented. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with a descriptive name. Naming things is hard. However, it is a worthy time investment, and it should be taken seriously. It’s becoming increasingly common that a software developer will leave their job and go somewhere else. This means a new codebase, a new opportunity, and potentially a new nightmare. If you’ve ever had to sift through someone else’s code that didn’t make sense, then you may be able to empathize. Looking at code is a logic puzzle and you should make it easy for the next person, or for your future self when something breaks. Variable names may change over time as the context in which it operates changes. As a very simple example, imagine a form where a user must enter their name. Initially, you’d probably call the variable name. Over time, that form may change and accept a first name and a last name. Now, name is not a good variable name because it’s not descriptive as to which piece of information it should hold. Variables like firstName, lastName, or fullName would be better suited to describe the scenario. Clean Code does a great dive into this topic.
Dietary Specialties Dietary Specialties Most people know what it means to be vegetarian—it’s as simple as avoiding meats and eating fruits and vegetables such as oranges, cucumber, and broccoli. Vegetarians typically have some leeway when it comes to other foods, such as grains and pastas which can contain gluten. More specifically, gluten is found in flour, wheat, triticale, kamut, semolina, and spelt, all of which are wheat-based ingredients. Gluten is just the name for several proteins which are used to help the foods keep their texture and shape. Although gluten-rich foods are consumed by many, there are certain illnesses, such as Celiac Disease, which react poorly to gluten. Foods that are known to contain gluten and are commonly served include breads, pastas, cookies, cakes, cereals, pastries, beer, crackers, and even dressings and sauces. It can be difficult to eat gluten free foods, but there are plenty of options available, such as fruits, beans, vegetables, nuts, eggs, fish, herbs, and even rice or quinoa, which are considered gluten free grains. Gluten free pasta is typically made from quinoa, and there are a plethora of producers in the market, such as Barilla, Andean Dream, Jovial, Dionaturae, DeBoles, Trader Joe’s, and more.
CKD- Treatment & Care Healthy kidneys filter waste and excess fluid from your blood in the form of urine. They also produce hormones that aid your body functioning. When your kidneys lose functioning, dialysis is required to perform the function of the kidneys externally through a machine. You can consult our dialysis specialist in Ahmedabad, Dr Ravi Bhadania to know more about the procedure required for you. There are two different types of dialysis – • hemodialysis and • peritoneal dialysis dialysis treatment When do you need dialysis? When only 10-15 percent of kidney functioning remains and it can no longer eliminate waste and unwanted fluid from the body, dialysis is required. Alfa Kidney Care, your dialysis centre in Ahmedabad can help you diagnose when you need to start dialysis. How does hemodialysis work? In Hemodialysis, the blood is pumped out from your body through a flexible tube inserted into the vein; this tube is called a catheter. To insert this tube, your nephrologist will make a small incision under local Anesthesia. The catheter feeds your blood into an artificial kidney called a dialyzer. The filtered blood is returned to the patient through the catheter. How does the dialyzer clean my blood? The artificial kidney or dialyzer has two compartments separated by a membrane. One part contains your blood and the other contains a washing fluid called dialysate. Important blood components like proteins and blood cells are too big to pass through the membrane and are not filtered out while waste products and toxins pass through the membrane. The dialysate then washes away these wastes, and the blood returning to your body is cleaned. Where is hemodialysis done? Hemodialysis is usually done at the hospital or a doctor’s clinic or a dialysis centre. You can get your Hemodialysis done at our dialysis centre in Ahmedabad. Sometimes Hemodialysis can also be possible at homes. This decision is based on how severe your doctor thinks your condition is plus your age, weight and personal wishes. How long does a hemodialysis treatment last? The length of treatment at a Dialysis centre lasts for 3-5 hours at a time and is performed twice/thrice a week. Shorter more frequent sessions can also be done, depending on how much fluid your body retains between treatments. Patients who choose to have their Hemodialysis treatment at home need to do it more frequently, 4-7 times a week, and for shorter duration of hours. Can I have hemodialysis at home? Home dialysis is prescribed for patients who have a stable condition and are not suffering from other condition that might pose a risk when performing it at home. A suitable caregiver is also required who knows exactly what to do. Do I need to eat a special diet? Yes. Patients who are prescribed dialysis are prescribed a diet higher in protein. This is because protein waste and unfiltered protein in the blood due to kidney malfunction is removed by the dialyzer. However protein is needed by the body to function and you need more of it as compensation. You are also told to limit the amount of potassium, phosphorus and sodium in your diet. If you have diabetes, you will have more diet restrictions. Your nephrologist doctor and dietician will help you out on this. Can dialysis cure my kidney disease? If yours is a case of sudden or acute kidney failure, dialysis may be required to support your kidney for a short period before it can resume its functioning again. However, in the case of chronic kidney disease, dialysis is required lifelong till you stay healthy unless you can receive a kidney transplant. Will I be uncomfortable on hemodialysis? When you begin hemodialysis, the needles put in your fistula or graft may be uncomfortable. Most patients get used to this in time. Your dialysis care team will make sure you are as comfortable as possible during your treatment. Symptoms like cramps, headaches, nausea or dizziness are not common, but if you do have any of them, ask your dialysis care team if any of the following steps could help you: • Slow down your fluid removal, which could increase your dialysis time. • Increase the amount of sodium in your dialysate. • Check your high blood pressure medications. • Adjust your dry weight, or target weight. • Cool the dialysate a little. • Use a special medication to help prevent low blood pressure during dialysis. Is reusing my dialyzer during each treatment safe? Dialyzer remains functional after more than a single-use and Dialysis centers routinely disinfect and clean the dialysis station. There are set guidelines for this process that are followed. Before each treatment, the dialysis personnel will check if the Dialyzer is functioning properly. When the dialyzer no longer works well, it will be replaced with a new one. However, if you feel uncomfortable reusing your dialyzer, you can request the centre and they will provide you with a new one for each treatment. Can dialysis patients travel? Yes, travelling is possible. There are dialysis centers in every part of the county and even in foreign nations. Before you travel, you must make an appointment for dialysis treatments at another center. Can dialysis patients continue to work? Yes. Many dialysis patients continue to work or return to work after they have gotten used to dialysis. If your job has a lot of physical labor (heavy lifting, digging, etc.), you may need to change your duties. Peritoneal Dialysis Peritoneal Dialysis How does peritoneal dialysis work? The peritoneum is a semi-permeable membrane in your abdomen that has the natural ability to filter out materials. A surgical incision is made to your stomach and a catheter is inserted. A sterile dialysate is run through a tube to your abdominal cavity. It is left there for some time for the fluid to absorb the waste products. Then it drains away through another tube and is discarded. This exchange or cycle is performed 4-6 times during a day and saves you frequent visits to the dialysis clinic. Types of peritoneal dialysis: • Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) • Automated Peritoneal Dialysis (APD) The method of treatment for both is the same. The only difference is in the number of times and the way the treatment is administered. 1. CAPD is a continuous method where the abdomen is filled and drained 3-4 times a day. It is an entirely machine-free method and must be performed when you are awake. It enables you to go about your normal routine of the day while the dialysis happens. The fluid exchange takes about 30-40 minutes. Raising the fluid bag to shoulder length lets gravity pull the fluid into your abdomen. Your doctor will train you in the method of using this mode of dialysis so that you can administer the treatment yourself without hassle. 1. APD differs from CAPD as it uses a machine to cycle the fluid in and out of your abdomen. This is usually done at night when you sleep. This session can last 10-12 hours. What kind of peritoneal dialysis is best? Your doctor will help you choose the better method for you depending on your level of comfort, your activity levels and your medical condition. What are the pros and cons about being on peritoneal dialysis? • Some doctors feel that CAPD and APD have several benefits when compared to hemodialysis. • With continuous dialysis, you can control extra fluid more easily, and this may reduce stress on the heart and blood vessels. • You are able to eat more and use fewer medications. • You can do more of your daily activities and it is easier to work or travel. • However, there are some people for whom peritoneal dialysis may not be appropriate. The abdomen or belly of some people, particularly those who are morbidly obese or those with multiple prior abdominal surgeries, may make peritoneal dialysis treatments difficult or impossible. • Peritonitis (infection of abdomen) is an occasional complication although should be infrequent with appropriate precautions. • Peritoneal dialysis is an effective form of dialysis, has been proven to be as good as hemodialysis. • Peritoneal dialysis is not for everyone. People must receive training and be able to perform correctly each of the steps of the treatment. A trained helper may also be used.
Storm Water Manhole What is a Storm Water Manhole Definition of Storm Water Manhole in Construction A storm water manhole is an assembly of precast concrete that is designed to allow various different storm water lines to converge into one spot and one assembly. A storm water manhole will also allow a radical turn of direction, for any storm water lines that are installed underground. In many cases, a storm water manhole is located in areas that will exhibit difficulties in clogging as the system is used. A storm water manhole can be constructed of brick, block or even stone, however the primary construction of a storm water manhole is with precast sections that are delivered to the project and assembled in-place, on the site. The storm water manhole will normally have a cover that is grated to allow the surface water to enter the top surface of the storm water manhole. A storm water manhole in some instances will have a solid cast iron frame and cover, if the manhole is intended to be a cleanout accommodation, a direction accommodation or a means of accepting various storm lines that enter the storm water manhole at different elevations.
Hmmm, you are using a email address... That's okay. Continue with my Gmail address... Scientist believes advanced alien civilization inhabited our solar system long before humans came along We may be living in someone else’s abandoned backyard — or planet. Don’t believe us? Ask Jason T. Wright, a controversial and admittedly fascinating astronomer who published a recent report entitled, Prior Indigenous Technological Species. In this paper, Wright makes a mind-boggling assertion that alien civilizations may have lived in our solar system long before us. Then it was bye-bye, see ya later for them. Wright writes that there are certain “technosignatures” that space scientists should be looking for, particularly in ancient Earth, pre-greenhouse Venus, or a wet Mars. He says that while these technosignatures would be incredibly old, there still is a possibility that they can be found. If so, it would prove that there was, indeed, a prior indigenous species — and one that was not just microbial in nature but intellectual and capable of making technological advances. The term “alien” can mean so many things One of the more open-ended questions in astrobiology is whether life exists (or existed) in the solar system. However, a factor that is often overlooked is whether intelligent life thrived billions, if not trillions, of years ago. We often greatly exaggerate our intelligence; ready to assume that our capacity for certain skills make us a far superior species. Yet, Wright cautions that alien life could have far exceeded even our most intellectually superior representative. Further, they would have left a distinctive technosignature; one far different from a biosignature which a “lesser” being would have left behind and which would be considerably easier to detect. “In this paper, I discuss the possibility for such prior indigenous technological species; by this I mean species that are indigenous to the Solar System, produce technosignatures and/or were spacefaring, and are currently extinct or otherwise absent,” Wright writes. “The question of why this species is not extant in the Solar System is not relevant…the most obvious answer is a cataclysm, whether a natural event, such as an extinction-level asteroid impact, or self-inflicted, such as a global climate catastrophe.” Wright adds that the most logical place to search for these technosignatures would be here on Earth. While it is true that the plate tectonics would have “erased” any traces of civilization that lived billions of years ago, there could be some fragments buried deep within the crust that have not been damaged by time or asteroid impact. Venus, too, may no longer be a viable option, as it is currently going through a greenhouse scouring, which has effectively cleaned the surface of any potential artifacts. “Remaining indigenous technosignatures might be expected to be extremely old, limiting the places they might still be found beneath the surfaces of Mars and the moon, or in the outer solar system,” Wright notes. He suggests that very old spaceships can be found lingering in the Asteroid Belt or Kuiper Belt. These artifacts would be the remnants of ancient probes, space bases, or even industrial facilities. “In the case of prior indigenous technological species, the artifacts might have had totally different purposes, such as asteroid mining operations or settlements on other planets and moons…such structures would be expected to fall into disrepair, especially if its creators are absent.” Most interesting of all is Wright’s belief that these previous life forms hailed not — as our Sci-Fi novels would have us believe — from a galaxy far, far away but somewhere closer to home. Whether or not these claims are true, Wright’s paper has intrigued many experts in the field and there are already discussions on how to further go about exploring and/or verifying this issue. Wright’s notoriety began late 2015, when he proposed that a “blinking star” (which had been baffling scientists for years) was actually evidence of an alien megastructure. Sources include:[PDF] Receive Our Free Email Newsletter comments powered by Disqus
Water Depth and Midcontinent Cyclothems by Alistair W. McCrone New York University, New York, New York In a review of depth-related aquatic environmental factors and sedimentary records of depositional depth, cyclic marine depth changes, modified by climate and presence of physical barriers in water up to approximately 60 feet deep, are defended as the major causes of most Kansas Wolfcampian cyclothems. Eustatic sea-level changes of 60 feet or less are not extraordinary or inexplicably large. Fusulinids in Kansas Pennsylvanian and Permian cyclothems may have lived in waters much shallower than 60 feet, and need not be interpreted as representing times of deepest water and maximum marine transgression. In 1937 Elias postulated that the cyclothemic Upper Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian rocks of Kansas owe their cyclicity of lithofacies and biofacies to cyclic changes of water depth in seas less than 180 feet deep. Such epicontinental seas must have been spread over a broad, flat, "shelf-basin," in communication with the open ocean. Between 1937 and 1959 many geologists used these concepts to explain the sedimentary facies of most Pennsylvanian and Permian cyclothems in the Oklahoma-Kansas-Nebraska area. The first major departure from Elias' type of interpretation was offered by Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam (1959), who sought to explain some Lower Permian (Wolfcampian) cyclothems in terms of more constant depths and shallower waters. They stated that depth changes alone were insufficient to account for the cyclothemic facies, and assigned more importance to rates of "terrigenous influx," to turbulence (related to depth), and to shoals that impeded free-water circulation to and from the open ocean. That is, Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam (1959, p. 78) developed their interpretations in terms of slight depth changes, and consequently "no major advances and retreats of the shoreline," in contrast to Elias (1937, p. 428), who emphasized depth change as the controlling factor, with attendant "advance and retreat of sea." Another major difference of interpretation between Elias (1937) and Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam (1959) concerns the depth of deposition of fusulinid-bearing layers in the cyclothems. Elias (1937, p. 410) ascribed depths of 160 to 180 feet to fusulinids. Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam (1959, p. 78), and Laporte (1962, p. 540) asserted that fusulinids may represent deposition in water "less than 30 feet deep" and "closer to 50 feet," respectively, and Tasch (1957, p. 396) assigned them depths of 5 to 50 feet. Aside from revising his fusulinid depths to a minimum of 100 feet, Elias (personal communication) has not changed his view substantially since 1937 and continues to defend the concept that fusulinids are "indicators of maximal depths at culminations of marine invasions" (Elias, 1962, p. 114). In 1962 Elias buttressed his own arguments with writings by Rauser-Chernousova (1951) which offer fusulinid depth interpretations similar to his own. Reconsideration of the various data suggests to the writer that the 5 to 50 foot range is most probable, though it is true that other factors, singly or in combination, may have masked the sedimentary effects of depth. Nevertheless, support is offered for Elias' concept that depth of deposition was the major control of most cyclothemic deposition. It is noteworthy that a change of fusulinid depth interpretation does not challenge Elias' depth-control concept for the cyclothems as a whole. Only some changes in the depth curves attending his cyclothems are called for, at least to the extent that fusulinids may not coincide with deepest waters. Because of the significance of depth in cyclothemic sedimentation, it was thought that this paper should provide a general review of depth-related environmental factors. For the benefit of students, mention of elementary depth-related factors is included, with discussion of diagnostic factors, in the paragraphs that follow. Ultimate causes and mechanisms of cyclothemic depth changes are not discussed in this paper, although some combination of geodetic and eustatic control theories seems most probable. Useful bibliographies and short reviews of prevailing hypotheses for the origin of cyclothems were published by Lowman (1959) and Beerbower (1961). Fairbridge (1961, p. 107-114) provided a thorough review of hypotheses for shoreline displacement, which are applicable to cyclothem discussion. His geodetic figure (1961, p. 109) is especially noteworthy. Physical and Chemical Factors Dependent on Water Depth Direct Effects Sunlight is absorbed by water so that darkness prevails below depths of approximately 300 feet. Blue light penetrates farthest, and most light of the red end of the spectrum is absorbed in the top fathom. Pressure increases with depth, and solubilities of chemical compounds in water commonly increase with pressure. Direct agitation of water by open sea waves becomes negligible at depths below one wavelength (Russell and Macmillan, 1953, p. 26). In some shallow waters wavebase can be lowered sufficiently during storms for bottom sediments to be disturbed. In such areas much of the vertically oscillatory wave energy is converted to translatory motion toward the shore. The sheetlike motion of such water tends to smooth the surface (depositional interface) of shallow bottom sediments. After waves surge over the shore, the sheetlike seaward backwash also may smooth sediments. The offshore position at which waves break can be related to this depth-controlled backwash as well as to bottom roughness, so that the smoother the bottom the more rapid the backwash current that may interfere with the lower parts of incoming waves, causing them to break farther offshore. Conversely, rough bottoms may slow the backwash, allowing unbroken waves to advance farther inshore because of less interference with the advance of their lower extremities (Russell and Macmillan, 1953, p. 81-85). Tidal currents also exercise smoothing action on bottom sediments; more effectively in shallow water than in deep water. Indirect Effects In shallow aquatic sedimentary environments most chemical and physical activities depend on sunlight for fundamental energy. Water depth is, therefore, a simply observable but fundamentally important sedimentary environmental control because of its regulation of solar energy made available to the sedimentary environment. Absorbed light energy, especially from red and infrared wavelengths in the upper few feet of water, changes largely to heat, which accounts for thermal stratification of water bodies. Temperature-sensitive plants and animals may come to live in, or avoid, upper warm water layers, so that pelagic biotic stratification commonly parallels thermal stratification. Most aquatic organisms flourish best in warm water. Most natural chemical reaction rates increase with increase of temperature (for each 10°C increase, reaction rate roughly doubles), so that most chemical activity, especially biochemical, occurs in near-surface or shallow waters. Photosynthesis and other natural photochemical reactions, some functioning within specific wave lengths, account for the abundant plants which serve as food for profuse faunas in shallow waters. The carbon dioxide used by plants in photosynthesis during the day is directly related to acidity in water, so that diurnal changes of pH (and, less directly, Eh) tend to occur in the shallower water layers. The pH tends to rise during the day when CO2 is consumed and drop at night. Despite these tendencies the pH changes are only large in the littoral zone, and in the open ocean are rather small because of strong buffering by sea water. Carbonates and borates are important buffers in sea water. Clearly, the above-mentioned environmental factors function within complicated and frequently reversible interaction systems. Where waters are shallow enough for bottom sediments to be reached by wave-induced turbulence, bottom roughness may be correlated with water depth. 1f poorly sorted large- and small-grained, unconsolidated sediments are available on the bottom, the fines will be periodically winnowed away by turbulent water and carried to quiet-water bottoms elsewhere. The lag concentrates that survive winnowing may constitute a very rough bottom. Clearly, bottom roughness, which contributes to bottom turbulence, can be both the cause and result of winnowing under variable conditions of water agitation. That is, sediment texture and bottom roughness depend considerably upon water depth in both source and depositional areas. Agitated waters reduce light penetration mainly by causing multiple reflection and refraction of light from and in the uppermost water layers, and by taking sediments into suspension. Agitated circulating water is important to aquatic organisms, especially sessile forms, for it carries nutrients and oxygen to them and carries wastes away. Oxygen is added to sea water only in the upper sunlit layers by photosynthesis and by absorption of air at the surface. Small amounts of oxygen can be acquired from air bubbles caught up by waves, but wave agitation can also cause oxygen losses. Equilibrium partial pressure between ocean and atmosphere is thus produced rapidly, with respect to both oxygen and carbon dioxide (Fairbridge, 1963, personal communication). Thus, water agitation, which depends in several ways upon depth, can control the rate of accumulation of sediments (1) directly, by regulation of transportation and deposition velocities of sedimentary particles, and (2) indirectly, by control of turbulence, erosion, and the nourishment of organisms whose remams ultimately become sedimentary particles. Biological Activities Regulated by Water Depth Not only does photosynthesis, the most important photochemical activity, depend on light; it also governs light penetration toward the bottom by its control of the growth of rooted plants and phytoplankton, which sometimes become so numerous that they obstruct the passage of light in the same way as suspended mineral particles. Profuse bottom vegetation, which depends directly on light penetration, can reduce erosive water agitation and serve as a filter trap for moving sediments, causing accumulation of sedimentary mounds (Ginsburg and Lowenstam, 1958). The heat that comes from light penetration especially enhances the growth of bacteria, most of which prefer temperatures above 60° F. More than any other organic group, bacteria control the chemistry of diagenetic sedimentary environments, and the preservation or destruction of organic and mineral detritus. In this respect bacteria influence the rate of accumulation of sediments. The hydrostatic pressure that attends water depth also controls organic osmotic activities at various levels, as well as mineral solubilities and compaction of accumulating sediments. Rough bottoms offer hiding places for animals and plants that require them and hard stable objects for attachment of sessile organisms. Moreover, large rock blocks, together with benthonic plants or animals, can aid in filter-trapping of finer sediments. Total Sedimentary Effects of Water Depth In shallow marine sedimentary environments water depth, mainly by its control of light penetration, is the major control of a complex system of physical and chemical interactions which are partly self-regulatory. [Note: The growth of phytoplankton provides a good example of one type of self regulation operating within the system. somewhat as follows: Light penetrates water and warms it. Warm temperatures favor growth of phytoplankton, which multiply aod thrive. Their great numhers subsequently obstruct light penetration. This restricts their growth or sometimes cause sudden mass mortality. In the ensuing clearer waters the phytoplankton tend to grow again, and so on.] In extremely shallow waters the rate and amount of sedimentary accumulation directly affects the depth of the water (see, Sedimentoeustasy, Fairbridge, 1961, p. 113). Unless the basin of accumulation subsides as rapidly as sediments accumulate, waters become progressively shallower until they are forced out entirely, or are partially impounded and then stagnate. Conversely, waters deepen and epicontinental basins usually enlarge if accumulation lags behind subsidence. The accumulating sediments tend to record these depth changes in their composition, biota, textures, sequence, and sedimentary structures; and in their regional facies patterns. Sedimentary Records of Deposition Depth Sedimentary Structures (a) Desiccation cracks and crack fillings, footprints, tracks and trails, record temporary withdrawal of shallow waters. (b) Extensive lamination and small-scale cross-lamination, and scour and fill structures within very thin, uniform, broadly distributed beds, suggest shallow, flat, sea bottoms within reach of wavebase. (c) Knife-sharp boundaries (and bedding planes) between successive rock layers that are extremely widespread, uniform, and thin, indicate sudden changes of depositional conditions uniformly over vast areas. Such widespread, sharp, and uniform sedimentary changes are best explained by sudden depth changes. (d) Remarkably uniform thicknesses of several beds in a given widespread succession, all separated by sharp boundaries, help to substantiate the concept of repeated and sudden depth changes all across broad flat "shelf-basin" areas. (e) Most calcareous oolites are deposited in very shallow hypersaline waters (Freeman, 1962) . Some form in turbulent water; others do not. Many form in water less than 1 fathom deep. (f) Shallow marine banks accumulate where fine sediments are filter trapped by upright algae or other vegetation (Ginsburg and Lowenstam, 1958; Harbaugh, 1959, 1960). (g) Calcareous algal buns and mounds accumulate in very shallow waters (Logan, 1961). Biological Evidence (a) Calcareous algae (both green and red), often associated with oolite laminae and calcareous banks, mounds and buns, are usually most numerous in warm waters less than 60 feet deep (Newell and Rigby, 1957). They abound in waters less than 2 or 3 fathoms deep, and in some intertidal areas (Logan, 1961). However, some red algae (e. g. Lithothamnion) can form calcareous banks at depths exceeding 100 feet, and as far north as the Arctic Ocean. (b) Shelly faunas rich in bryozoans, pelecypods, crinoids, and solitary corals develop best in water less than approximately 60 feet deep. (c) Lingula is mainly a littoral and shallow neritic genus favoring organic-rich muddy sediments and warm waters. (d) Most living larger benthonic Foraminifera favor waters less than 60 or 70 feet deep, although they can survive at greater depths. Consequently, all interpretation based on depths is tenuous. Shallow Depth of Midcontinent Cyclothems Most of the aforementioned sedimentary structures and biological features are common in the cyclothems enumerated by Elias (1937, p. 407). Typical examples are cited in Table 1. These and other more local features, taken together, lead the writer to believe that most Kansas Wolfcampian cyclothems were deposited in warm waters (> 700 F.) less than approximately 60 feet deep. Moreover, the evidence taken from successions of strata containing associations of the tabled sedimentary features support Elias' contention that cyclic changes of depth were the major cause of the widespread cyclothemic rock sequences. However, modern ecological observations give reason to suggest that Elias (1937) may have overestimated his maximum (180 feet) depths of deposition, which he based on fusulinids. Indeed, there seems to be no need for depths much greater than 60 or 70 feet to explain the cyclothems studied by Elias, from the evidence of analogous modern sediments. Fusulinids, if they may be compared at all with most modern larger foraminifers, might have lived at depths less than 60 feet. Table 1--Examples of formations in Kansas Pennsylvanian and Permian marine cyclothems that contain useful sedimentary indications of their depositional depths. Depth-related sedimentary Representative Kansas Desiccation cracks and crack fillings. Roca Shale1 Tracks and trails. Glenrock Limestone1 Small-scale and larger cross lamination within thin, extensive beds. Johnson Shale1 Cottonwood Limestone1 Knife-sharp boundaries between widespread, uniform, thin beds. Glenrock Limestone-Bennett Shale contact1 Leavenworth Limestone-Heebner Shale contact2 Uniform bed thickness over very broad areas. Glenrock Limestone1 Leavenworth Limestone2 Algal buns (some Cryptozoon like) Howe Limestone1 Oolites Howe Limestone1 Marine limestone "banks" Bennett Shale contact1 Plattsburg Limestone3 Concentrations of Lingula (commonly with Orbiculoidea) Black shales in: Bennett Shale1 Neva Limestone3 1Wolfcampian. 2Virgilian. 3Missourian. Unfortunately, direct application of the principle of uniformity to fusulinid interpretation is precluded by the lack of a modern foraminifer that is closely similar. Only Borelis is crudely comparable to fusulinids, and its ecology is imperfectly known from only one dredging noted in records of the Challenger expedition. Consequently, all interpretations of fusulinid depths are tenuous at best, and can be based only on indirect evidence, mainly by way of fossil associates of fusulinids, such as calcareous algae, and by other lithostratigraphic data. It is mentioned above that Elias (1962) derives support for his revised (greater than 100 feet) fusulinid interpretation from interpretations of Russian fusulinids by Rauser-Chernousova that are based on some dubious paleoecological criteria, and local stratigraphic evidence from a thick (up to 3,800 feet) rock sequence in the Pre-Urals of Russia. [Note: As an example, Mrs. Rauser-Chernousova (1951, in Elias 1959. p. 55) mentions "algal submarine banks deeper than 40-50 meters (120-150 feet)." Such algae, which might be comparable to some types of modern Lithothamnion, do not seem to he typical of the Kansas Wolfcampian biota. Moreover, a number of authors have observed that most present-day marine calcareous algae thrive at depths much less than 120 feet.] There seems to be no compelling reason why Rauser-Chernousova's views should refute depth interpretations of fusulinids by Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam, Tasch, and McCrone in a cyclothemic sequence in far away Kansas. Indeed, the Kansas Wolfcampian cyclothemic basin may have been much shallower and flatter than the one in Russia. Regardless of the possibility that fusulinids might have survived in Russia at the depths suggested by Rauser-Chernousova, such depths simply may not have been available in Kansas. In one of the cyclothems enumerated by Elias (1937) the writer found (in several widely separated outcrops of a very thin, widespread limestone) profuse inflated fusulinids in association with crustose calcareous algae whose living analogues certainly dwell in waters less than 60 feet deep. It was this and other types of paleoecological evidence that led Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam (1959) , Laporte (1962), and McCrone (1963) to suggest much shallower depths than Elias (1937, 1962) for Kansas fusulinids and Wolfcampian cyclothems. In fact, McCrone (1963) suggests that many sediments in the Red Eagle cyclothem may have been deposited in water less than 2 or 3 fathoms deep. In the same cyclothem the fusulinids that are found, seemingly in place, with numerous crustose shallow-water calcareous algae, especially near ancient "shoal" areas, also may contradict Elias' (1962, p. 114) contentions that fusulinids represent deepest cyclothemic waters. In short, there seems to be little need to invoke depths greater than 60 feet to explain most Kansas Wolfcampian cyclothemic facies; and in many respects Elias' (1937) 180-foot depth range could be simply compressed into a 60-foot range, with no serious damage to his cyclic depth change concept as a whole. It has been suggested above (together with the depth criteria) that the Kansas Wolfcampian shelf-basin was extremely flat. It seems certain that even with slight water depth changes the shorelines of such a flat sea basin would have transgressed and regressed great distances, thereby controlling the flow of terrestrial detritus to the central part of the basin and contributing to vertical lithologic changes. Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam (1959) stressed the role of physical barriers ("shoals") that interfered with free circulation between the Kansas shelf-basin and the open sea, and thereby controlled facies patterns within the Beattie, and possibly other, cyclothems. However, they also acknowledged the influence of shoals within a major "regression-transgression-regression" pattern for the Beattie cyclothem as a whole, which also implies a measure of cyclic sea-level change. There is scant reason to doubt that such positive tectonic features as the Nemaha Anticline, did cause local shallowing of waters (shoals) during Wolfcampian time. In this connection, McCrone (1963) went so far as to postulate absence of one sedimentary unit in the Elmdale, Saffordville, and Alma areas of Kansas because of erosion or nondeposition over positive tectonic features that seem to be associated with the Nemaha Anticline. Notwithstanding the evidence for local shoals within Wolfcampian cyclothems, the broad pattern of most Permian and Pennsylvanian cyclothems in the Midcontinent appears to be the result of remarkably uniform sedimentation over wide areas of essentially uniform water depth. This accounts for units such as the Glenrock (Permian) and Leavenworth (Pennsylvanian) Limestones, which are about 1 foot thick over thousands of square miles of outcrop and subsurface area. Clearly, the flatness of the basin floor at the time of their accumulation is well established, so that changes of sedimentation must have been felt almost simultaneously all across the flat shelfbasin. This may account for "knife-sharp" unit boundaries such as the Glenrock-Bennett and Leavenworth-Heebner (Table 1) contacts that record abrupt changes from calcareous to black mud deposition throughout broad areas. Whether water depth changed abruptly, or whether something else changed the sedimentation, might be open to some argument, but this writer believes that although depth changes were paramount, physical barriers or "shoals" may have been significant also. The close relations between physical barriers, water levels, and sedimentary changes may be understood by means of a simple analogy--the breaching or overtopping of a levee by a river during flood. Admittedly the analogy is not perfectly transferable to cyclothems (because the postulated shoals may not have been complete barriers), but it illustrates the point that physical barriers such as those pictured by Imbrie, Laporte, and Merriam (1959) could exercise sudden and major control over sedimentation within a cyclothemic shelf-basin, and perhaps account for some of the knife-sharp lithologic boundaries. That is, with a slow, steady, rise of sea level, not much would happen within a temporarily barred basin until the barrier were breached. Following the moment of effective breaching, sudden sedimentary changes would ensue throughout the basin. Conversely, with lowering of sea level rapid sedimentary changes could follow the emergence of a physical barrier. The suddenness of the breaching or reemergence of a barrier would determine the scale of the sedimentary gradations that record such events, but in any event the change of depth would be the prime control of sedimentation. The fact that much evidence points to depositional depths (and therefore relief of the postulated physical barriers or "shoals" as well) less than approximately 60 feet calls attention to the likelihood that very ordinary changes of sea level may have produced the remarkable vertical sedimentary changes recorded in the Wolfcampian cyclothems. Indeed, most students of eustasy seem to agree that 60-foot sea-level changes are not extraordinarily large, and could easily result from moderate glacial activity, or minor geodetic changes such as shifts in the inclination of the earth's axis, or wandering of the magnetic poles (Fairbridge, 1961, p. 109). Moreover, the weight of water trangressing the cyclothemic shelf-basin also might have contributed slightly to depression of the basin floor, but maximum depression would have occurred somewhat later than the first moment of maximum eustatic transgression. In conclusion it must be added that changes of climate, with associated inwashing of more or less clastic sediments, also may have influenced cyclothemic sedimentary facies significantly. The basic sedimentary patterns and cyclicity, however, suggest that climatic influences were not directly so important as depth. Clearly, the benthonic sedimentary effects of external climatic factors would vary with height or depression of water levels and the attendant distance or nearness of shorelines, and the extent of poorly vegetated tidal flat exposure. Beerbower, J. R., 1961, Origin of cyclothems in the Dunkard Group (Upper Pennsylvanian-Lower Permian) in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 72, p. 1029-1050. Elias, M. K., 1937, Depth of deposition of the Big Blue (late Paleozoic) sediments in Kansas: Geol. Soc. America, Bull., v. 48, p. 403-432. Elias, M. K., 1962, Comments on recent paleoecological studies of Late Paleozoic rocks in Kansas: Kansas Geol. Soc. 27th Field Conf. Guidebook, p. 106-115. Fairbridge, R. W., 1961, Eustatic changes in sea level, in Physics and Chemistry of the Earth: v. 4, Pergamon Press, New York, p. 99-185. Freeman, T., 1962, Quiet water oolites from Laguna Madre, Texas: Jour. Sed. Pet., v. 32, p. 475-483. Ginsburg, R. N., and Lowenstam, H. A., 1958, The influence of marine bottom communities on the depositional environment of sediments: Jour. Geology, v. 66, p. 310-318. Harbaugh, J. W., 1959, Marine bank development in Plattsburg Limestone (Pennsylvanian), Neodesha-Fredonia area, Kansas: Kansas Geol. Survey Bull. 134, pt. 8, p. 289-331. [available online] Harbaugh, J. W., 1960, Petrology of marine bank limestones of Lansing Group (Pennsylvanian), southeast Kansas: Kansas Geol. Survey Bull. 142, pt. 5, p. 189-234. [available online] Imbrie, John, Laporte, L. F., and Merriam, D. F., 1959, Beattie Limestone facies and their bearing on cyclical sedimentation theory: Kansas Geol. Soc. 24th Field Conf. Guidebook, p. 69-78. Laporte, L. F., 1962, Paleoecology of the Cottonwood Limestone (Permian), northern Midcontinent: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 73, p. 521-544. Lowman, P. D., Jr., 1959, An analysis of the cyclothem problem: The Compass, v. 36, no. 2, p. 104-113. Logan, B. W., 1961, Cryptozoon and associated stromatolites from the Recent, Shark Bay, Western Australia: Jour. Geology, v. 69, p. 517-533. Newell, N. D., and Rigby, J. K., 1957, Geological studies on the Great Bahama Bank, in Regional aspects of carbonate deposition, a symposium: Soc. Econ. Paleont. and Mineral. Spec. Pub. 5, p. 15-79. Rauser-Chernousova, D. M., 1951, Facies of Upper Carboniferous and Artinskian deposits in . . . the Pre-Urals, based on a study of fusulinids: Review by M. K. Elias in Internat. Geol. Review, v. 1, no. 2 (1959), p. 39-88. Russell, R. C. H., and Macmillan, D. H., 1953, Waves and tides: Philosophical Library, New York, 348 p. Tasch, Paul, 1957, Fauna and paleoecology of the Pennsylvanian Dry Shale of Kansas, in Treatise on marine ecology and paleoecology: Geol. Soc. America Mem. 67, v. 2, p. 356-406. Kansas Geological Survey Comments to Web version December 2003. Original publication date Dec. 1964.
Here's Exactly How Much Less Money Women Make Than Men in 2015 Warning: the numbers are heartbreaking. Handing Over Cash Notes (Image credit: Getty Images) On Equal Pay Day last year, Obama signed an executive order to prevent discrimination in the workplace and help empower workers to feel comfortable discussing their compensation. The order came on the heels of the president's victory in raising the minimum wage for federal contracts to $10.10, a huge feat. Both pieces of legislation in greater part help women, considering women are more likely to work in lower-wage jobs and are often unaware of—and therefore ill-equipped to take action against—their lower salary in comparison to their male counterparts. Equal Pay Day 2014 was truly one of celebration, but as we come full-circle a year later the euphoria is stamped out. Recent data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Association of University Women, and Expert Market once again confirm that not only do women still make considerably less than men, but that the gender gap exists in every single state. According to Think Expert's chart, men earn more than women across the board, with Louisiana leading the gap with a whopping $16,000 pay discrepancy, followed by Wyoming and Utah. The analysis goes deep into the rabbit hole of the gender pay gap, revealing that out of all 50 states, only nine can call their richest person a woman. Further, the combined wealth of all the richest women in EVERY state is still $160 billion less than just 41 of the richest men in the country. Are you saying "wow" yet? While many attempt to diminish these statistics, arguing that differences in life choices is more important in the discussion of the wage gap than gender discrimination, this is simply not true. The AAUW study found that after holding college major, occupation, economic sector, hours worked and nine other variables constant there was still a 7 percent difference in earnings between men and women one year after graduation. Ten years after graduation, that difference increases to 12 percent. While men can expect to get paid more over time, women can expect their financial burden to increase. Here's a breakdown of the median annual earnings per field according to the BLS: * Management and related professions: Men= $69,992 \| Women= $51,012 * Service: Men = $30,316 \| Women = $23,972 * Sales and Office: Men = $39,832 \| Women = $32,240 * Natural resources, construction, and maintenance: Men = $39,728 \| Women = $26,468 Though the gap has narrowed since 1970, at the current rate it will take 75 years for women to actually have equal pay. In the wake of these numbers, you can be sure we will take a note from Sarah Silverman and ask for more. You should also check out: These States Are Actually Doing Something About Equal Pay These Industries Have the Biggest Wage Gap Simedar Jackson Simedar Jackson Simedar Jackson is an esthetician, content creator, and lover of sci-fi fiction living in Brooklyn, New York. She is passionate about creating space for Black and Brown people in the beauty and wellness industries by providing access to culturally nuanced education and services that meet their needs. You can find them doing their skincare routine, reminding friends to reapply SPF, and watching reruns of Love Island.
Balance exercises for amputees Consists of several previous committees which in the autumn of 2019 were merged into one committee. (IT / web, editorial staff, joy of life and information committee) Balance exercises are important for anyone with amputated legs. Many amputees have an asymmetrical gait pattern. One reason is often that not enough emphasis is placed on the prosthesis. This applies both when walking and standing, and the risk of incorrect loading and problems elsewhere in the body is greater. It is therefore very important that you train balance and are able to stand with full weight in the prosthesis. The following three balance exercises can be performed daily. Spend 3-5 minutes on each exercise and focus on using the muscles in the amputation stump and in the seat. Move the weight from side to side: Stand between 2 chairs and place your hands on the back of the chair as support. Stand in front of a large mirror if you have the opportunity. The distance between the feet should be about 10-15 cm. Move your entire body weight from right to left leg. Focus on using the muscles in the buttocks and the muscles around the hip joint. Feel that you have as much weight on the prosthesis as on the remaining legs. Gradually minimize the support from your hands. Move the weight back and forth: Same exercise as above, but now move the weight forward on the toes and back on the heel. Start with small movements and gradually larger movements. Continue to focus on having equal weight / weight on the prosthesis and remaining legs. Use the muscles in the stump. If you move the weight too far back on the heels, use your arms to keep your balance and bend slightly at the hip joint. If you move the weight too far forward on your toes, use your arms and stretch them behind your body, tighten your gluteal muscles and push your hips forward. Stand on the prosthesis: When you manage to keep the balance and have equal weight between the prosthesis and the remaining legs, you should practice standing with full weight on the prosthesis. This applies to both beginners and experienced prosthesis users as many prosthesis users have never learned to master this. Feel free to stand between 2 chairs as described above. Place a telephone directory, small stool or similar in front of you. Gently place the remaining legs up on the stool and down again. In addition, move the weight forward over the leg that is on the stool. Repeat this several times. When you feel comfortable with this exercise, you minimize the support from your arms by only supporting yourself with your hand on the prosthesis side and eventually without using your arms. Perform the exercise calmly and in a controlled manner! Feel after using the muscles around the hip joint. More advanced balance exercises with prosthesis As a progression to balance exercises, you can perform the next 3 exercises. These exercises are more demanding. Ball rolling: Stand with a tennis ball or similar in front of you and place your remaining foot on the ball. Keep your foot on the ball and roll it back and forth, from side to side or in circles. Feel that you are especially using the muscles around the hip joint on the prosthetic leg. Repeats: Repeat 20 x in each direction Knit-kick exercise: Here you will need a sturdy chair or table and a training elastic. Attach one end of the elastic around the chair / table and the other end around the ankle of the remaining leg. Support a table or similar if you need it. Now move your remaining leg in different directions both backwards and to the sides. The elastic should be a little tight at all times and give you resistance. The point is to keep balance on the prosthetic leg that you stand on throughout the exercise. Repeats: Repeat 20 x in each direction. Go over objects: For example, place 5-10 plastic mugs in a row on the floor at a distance of 40-50 cm. Start at one end of the row, lift the remaining legs calmly and controlled up and go over the mug. Focus on keeping your balance on the prosthesis. The progression is to lift the remaining legs higher up – preferably so high that the knee joint is in line with the hip joint. Repetitions: Go back and forth 3-4 times.
Skip to main content Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting them. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as CCTV cameras), or interception of electronically transmitted information (such as Internet traffic or phone calls); and it can include simple, relatively no- or low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents and postal interception. The word surveillance comes from a French phrase for "watching over" ("sur" means "from above" and "veiller" means "to watch"), and is in contrast to more recent developments such as sousveillance. Surveillance is used by governments for intelligence gathering, the prevention of crime, the protection of a process, person, group or object, or for the investigation of crime. It is also used by criminal organizations to plan and commit crimes such as robbery and kidnapping, by businesses to gather intelligence, and by private investigators. Surveillance is often a violation of privacy, and is opposed by various civil liberties groups and activists. Liberal democracies have laws which restrict domestic government and private use of surveillance, usually limiting it to circumstances where public safety is at risk. Authoritarian government seldom have any domestic restrictions; and international espionage is common among all types of countries. Main article: Computer surveillance Computers can be a surveillance target because of the personal data stored on them. If someone is able to install software, such as the FBI's Magic Lantern and CIPAV, on a computer system, they can easily gain unauthorized access to this data. Such software could be installed physically or remotely. Another form of computer surveillance, known as van Eck phreaking, involves reading electromagnetic emanations from computing devices in order to extract data from them at distances of hundreds of meters. The NSA runs a database known as "Pinwale", which stores and indexes large numbers of emails of both American citizens and foreigners. Main articles: Phone surveillance and Lawful interception The official and unofficial tapping of telephone lines is widespread. In the United States for instance, the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) requires that all telephone and VoIP communications be available for real-time wiretapping by Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Two major telecommunications companies in the U.S.—AT&T Inc. and Verizon—have contracts with the FBI, requiring them to keep their phone call records easily searchable and accessible for Federal agencies, in return for $1.8 million per year. Between 2003 and 2005, the FBI sent out more than 140,000 "National Security Letters" ordering phone companies to hand over information about their customers' calling and Internet histories. About half of these letters requested information on U.S. citizens. Law enforcement and intelligence services in the United Kingdom and the United States possess technology to activate the microphones in cell phones remotely, by accessing phones' diagnostic or maintenance features in order to listen to conversations that take place near the person who holds the phone. Mobile phones are also commonly used to collect location data. The geographical location of a mobile phone (and thus the person carrying it) can be determined easily even when the phone is not being used, using a technique known as multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the cell phone to each of several cell towers near the owner of the phone. The legality of such techniques has been questioned in the United States, in particular whether a court warrant is required. Records for one carrier alone (Sprint), showed that in a given year federal law enforcement agencies requested customer location data 8 million times. In response to customers’ privacy concerns in the post Edward Snowden era, Apple’s iPhone 6 has been designed to disrupt investigative wiretapping efforts. The phone encrypts e-mails, contacts, and photos with a code generated by a complex mathematical algorithm that is unique to an individual phone, and is inaccessible to Apple. The encryption feature on the iPhone 6 has drawn criticism from FBI director James B. Comey and other law enforcement officials since even lawful requests to access user content on the iPhone 6 will result in Apple supplying "gibberish" data that requires law enforcement personnel to either break the code themselves or to get the code from the phone’s owner. Because the Snowden leaks demonstrated that American agencies can access phones anywhere in the world, privacy concerns in countries with growing markets for smart phones have intensified, providing a strong incentive for companies like Apple to address those concerns in order to secure their position in the global market. Although the CALEA requires telecommunication companies to build into their systems the ability to carry out a lawful wiretap, the law has not been updated to address the issue of smart phones and requests for access to e-mails and metadata. The Snowden leaks show that the NSA has been taking advantage of this ambiguity in the law by collecting metadata on "at least hundreds of millions" of "incidental" targets from around the world. The NSA uses an analytic tool known as CO-TRAVELLER in order to track people whose movements intersect and to find any hidden connections with persons of interest. The Snowden leaks have also revealed that the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) can access information collected by the NSA on American citizens. Once the data has been collected, the GCHQ can hold on to it for up to two years. The deadline can be extended with the permission of a "senior UK official". Main article: Closed-circuit television A surveillance camera in Cairns, Queensland Surveillance cameras such as these are installed by the millions in many countries, and are nowadays monitored by automated computer programs instead of humans. Surveillance cameras are video cameras used for the purpose of observing an area. They are often connected to a recording device or IP network, and may be watched by a security guard or law enforcement officer. Cameras and recording equipment used to be relatively expensive and required human personnel to monitor camera footage, but analysis of footage has been made easier by automated software that organizes digital video footage into a searchable database, and by video analysis software (such as VIRAT and HumanID). The amount of footage is also drastically reduced by motion sensors which only record when motion is detected. With cheaper production techniques, surveillance cameras are simple and inexpensive enough to be used in home security systems, and for everyday surveillance. In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security awards billions of dollars per year in Homeland Security grants for local, state, and federal agencies to install modern video surveillance equipment. For example, the city of Chicago, Illinois, recently used a $5.1 million Homeland Security grant to install an additional 250 surveillance cameras, and connect them to a centralized monitoring center, along with its preexisting network of over 2000 cameras, in a program known as Operation Virtual Shield. Speaking in 2009, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announced that Chicago would have a surveillance camera on every street corner by the year 2016. In the United Kingdom, the vast majority of video surveillance cameras are not operated by government bodies, but by private individuals or companies, especially to monitor the interiors of shops and businesses. According to 2011 Freedom of Information Act requests, the total number of local government operated CCTV cameras was around 52,000 over the entirety of the UK. The prevalence of video surveillance in the UK is often overstated due to unreliable estimates being requoted; for example one report in 2002 extrapolated from a very small sample to estimate the number of cameras in the UK at 4.2 million (of which 500,000 in Greater London). More reliable estimates put the number of private and local government operated cameras in the United Kingdom at around 1.85 million in 2011. A payload surveillance camera manufactured by Controp and distributed to the U.S. government by ADI Technologies At Super Bowl XXXV in January 2001, police in Tampa, Florida, used Identix’s facial recognition software, FaceIt, to scan the crowd for potential criminals and terrorists in attendance at the event (it found 19 people with pending arrest warrants). Governments often initially claim that cameras are meant to be used for traffic control, but many of them end up using them for general surveillance. For example, Washington, D.C. had 5,000 "traffic" cameras installed under this premise, and then after they were all in place, networked them all together and then granted access to the Metropolitan Police Department, so they could perform "day-to-day monitoring". The development of centralized networks of CCTV cameras watching public areas – linked to computer databases of people's pictures and identity (biometric data), able to track people's movements throughout the city, and identify whom they have been with – has been argued by some to present a risk to civil liberties. Trapwire is an example of such a network. Source: Wikipedia
Welcome to the beguinage of Oudenaarde: an oasis of peace since 1449. You wouldn’t tell looking around now, but this wonderful refuge used to be completely surrounded by the Scheldt. Coming in, you might have noticed Saint-Roch looking down on you. In the literal sense, to be sure! Saint-Roch is a French plague saint and is demonstrating that he too was affected by the plague in de Middle Ages by showing a wound on his leg. This disease ravaged all of Europe, including Oudenaarde. The site consists of about thirty houses, grouped around two quaint courtyards with a rich variety of flowers and plants. The oldest building dates from 1500 and was the residence of rector Van De Velde, who was thrown into the Scheldt by the Beggars during the iconoclasm in 1566 and drowned. It wasn’t all peace and quiet àll the time. Most of the whitewashed houses were rebuilt in the 19th and 20th centuries. A few still date from the 17th century. Beguines were not nuns. They did not take eternal monastic vows and had their own possessions. They did, however, have to be unmarried and take a vow of chastity. The last beguine died in 1960.
There Is No Such Thing As “Traditional Marriage” Marriage has always been an evolving institution. Andrew Sullivan links to an interesting article by Stephanie Coontz that makes clear the extent to which the “institution of marriage” has evolved over the course of human history, and in the process fairly decimates the idea that there really is any such thing as “traditional marriage”: For millennia, marriage was about property and power rather than mutual attraction. It was a way of forging political alliances, sealing business deals, and expanding the family labor force. For many people, marriage was an unavoidable duty. For others, it was a privilege, not a right. Servants, slaves, and paupers were often forbidden to wed, and even among the rich, families sometimes sent a younger child to a nunnery or monastery rather than allow them to marry and break up the family’s landholding. The redefinition of traditional marriage began about 250 years ago, when Westerners began to allow young people to choose their partners on the basis of love rather than having their marriages arranged to suit the interests of their parents. Then, just 100 years ago, courts and public opinion began to extend that right even to marriages that parents and society disapproved. In the 1940s and 1950s, many states repealed laws that prevented particular classes of people—including those with tuberculosis and “the feeble-minded”—from marrying. In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for states to prohibit interracial marriage. In 1987 it upheld the right of prison inmates to marry. The path to same-sex marriage was further opened up when heterosexual couples began to push back against state control over their sexual and reproductive lives. Until the 1950s, some states forbade married couples from using assisted reproduction to have children, ruling that artificial insemination was tantamount to adultery and any resultant child was illegitimate. Conversely, until the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that couples had a right to sexual privacy, many states refused to allow the sale of birth control to married couples who wanted to prevent or limit their childbearing. For most of history, the subordination of wives to husbands was enforced by law and custom. As late as the 1960s, American legal codes assigned differing marital rights and obligations by gender. The husband was legally responsible for supporting the family financially, but he also got to decide what constituted an adequate level of support, how to dispose of family property, and where the family would live. The wife was legally responsible for providing services in and around the home, but she had no comparable rights to such services. That is why a husband could sue for loss of consortium if his spouse was killed or incapacitated, but a wife in the same situation could not. And because sex was one of the services expected of a wife, she could not charge her husband with rape. Between the 1970s and 1990s, however, most Americans came to view marriage as a relationship between two individuals who were free to organize their partnership on the basis of personal inclination rather than preassigned gender roles. Legal codes were rewritten to be gender neutral, and men’s and women’s activities both at home and work began to converge. Today, the majority of American children grow up in homes where their parents share breadwinning, housework, and child care. Some couples even decide to reverse traditional gender roles, with the woman becoming the primary breadwinner or the man becoming a stay-at-home dad. This isn’t the first time that Coontz has written on this topic. Back in 2007, in The New York Times she noted that the very idea of marriage being a legal institution at all is a relatively recent one: For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity. For 16 centuries, Christianity also defined the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s wishes. If two people claimed they had exchanged marital vows — even out alone by the haystack — the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married. In 1215, the church decreed that a “licit” marriage must take place in church. But people who married illictly had the same rights and obligations as a couple married in church: their children were legitimate; the wife had the same inheritance rights; the couple was subject to the same prohibitions against divorce. By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks, “mulattos,” Japanese, Chinese, Indians, “Mongolians,” “Malays” or Filipinos. Twelve states would not issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict or a “mental defect.” Eighteen states set barriers to remarriage after divorce. In other words, to a great extent, the entire purpose of government getting involved in deciding what a “valid” marriage was for the purpose of preventing unacceptable unions. Some of those laws are based on the ages old incest taboo, obviously, but those types of marriages were already barred by the laws of every Church in Christendom. What was became new was the entire idea that there were other classes of people who shouldn’t be permitted to marry, either because they were deemed “defective,” or because one of the parties to the potential marriage was the wrong race. The licenses were a means of controlling the population, which is in fact the reason behind so many of the things that the state steps in to “regulate.” The debate over same-sex marriage usually begins with someone on the right claiming that they oppose the idea of two men or two women being married because they wish to defend “traditional marriage.” What becomes clear after a short while, though, is that their idea of “traditional marriage” is roughly equivalent to what we saw on such 1950’s era television shows as Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver. Either by choice or pure ignorance, they seem to be unaware of the real history of the institution of marriage, which has been evolving from the very beginning in the manner that Coontz describes in her article. In the beginning, women had almost no rights once they became married and were considered property of their husbands. Indeed, the colloquialism “rule of thumb,” refers to a medieval rule that said that a man could hit his wife with anything that wasn’t bigger than the width of his thumb.1 Children didn’t fare much better in those days. Today, though, such treatment of a married woman is viewed, rightly, as a crime in the Western world, and societies where it is still permitted are, also rightly, viewed as barbaric. Would the advocates of “traditional marriage” want to return to that tradition? Of course they wouldn’t, which means that they too have to acknowledge that what marriage is has changed over time and that today, it is largely defined by what the people in the relationship want out of it, and typically that means a relationship where men and women are equal partners. As Coontz points out, it is this evolution in the concept of marriage that has led to the point where same-sex marriage has become more and more acceptable. With the government now the primary determiner of when someone is “married,” the idea that it is an institution primarily guided by religious principles no longer holds force with many people. Traditional gender roles have changed significantly, so the idea of the working man and stay-at-home woman is no longer the only possible relationship people can have. Even more importantly, the relationship between child-rearing and marriage has been severed to a great degree both by the rise in out-of-wedlock births and the number of couples who either choose not to have children at all, or choose to have them later in life and thus have to rely upon assisted reproduction techn0logy. It’s not that far a leap now from the idea of marriage between a man and a woman to the idea of a marriage between two women or two men. Indeed it’s not entirely clear that “marriage” has always meant just a marriage between one man and one woman. In his new book Sex And Punishment, Eric Berkowitz notes that there was a time when two men could go through a ceremony, performed in a Catholic Church before God no less, that sounds an awful lot like a wedding: In the period up to roughly the thirteenth century, male bonding ceremonies were performed in churches all over the Mediterranean. These unions were sanctified by priests with many of the same prayers and rituals used to join men and women in marriage. The ceremonies stressed love and personal commitment over procreation, but surely not everyone was fooled. Couples who joined themselves in such rituals most likely had sex as much (or as little) as their heterosexual counterparts. In any event, the close association of male bonding ceremonies with forbidden sex eventually became too much to overlook as ever more severe sodomy laws were put into place. Such same-sex unions—sometimes called “spiritual brotherhoods”—forged irrevocable bonds between the men involved. Often they involved missionaries about to set off on foreign voyages, but lay male couples also entered into them. Other than the gender of the participants, it was difficult to distinguish the ceremonies from typical marriages. Twelfth-century liturgies for same-sex unions, for example, involved the pair joining their right hands at the altar, the recital of marriage prayers, and a ceremonial kiss. So maybe same-sex unions are nearly as “untraditional” as their opponents think they are. 1 As noted in the comments, this may not be true. Nonetheless it is beyond dispute that women’s rights in marriage were fairly limited well into the 20th Century. Doug Mataconis About Doug Mataconis 1. Hey Norm says: “…1950′s era television shows…” “Ward, you were pretty hard on the Beaver last night.” It’s just small government Republicans pursuing big government solutions to non-existent problems. Again. There’s nothing new under the sun. 2. Kylopod says: This is an urban legend that was debunked years ago: You really should know better. 3. @Kylopod: I’ve made a note about this in the post. 4. Catfish says: This is why the government doesn’t need to be in this business. Let the churches and religious organizations have this one. Most of the courts seem to feel that if a couple have been together a certain amount of time, then property ownership is usually shared. Maybe there should be some sort of agreements made in writing before any commitment (marriage or living together) is made that would spell out property issues and other. Some people go into a relationship with property and a lot of money, but wind up having to split it 50/50 even after just a short period of time; a sort of “prenup” would be wise. As far as other issues, such as health insurance and benefits for a “partner”; this is quickly becoming irrelevant as many states and cities are eliminating these benefits for their employees (I found private health carriers to be much cheaper than the state spouse/family plan that was offered to me. Now I have to pay for my own as even that staple of benefits is becoming a thing of the past). When it comes to “tradition”, many couples still want a church wedding where the church is a sort of “prop” but they don’t return. Some churches now actually will rent their facilities for these weddings as a way of getting some income. 5. James Joyner says: @Catfish: As someone noted on Twitter the other day, the state has been involved in marriage for quite some time and, suddenly, people are calling for it to stop so that we don’t have to give gays their rights. I question the timing. 6. PogueMahone says: Tradition is the wrong concept when applied to SSM and other civil liberties. What some today think of today as being “tradition” should be viewed as “values.” We value a loving family; we value live and let live; we value do unto others… Tradition is for ritual; values are for living. Values are adaptable… tradition – not so much. Here in the US, our values have seemingly finally adapted (and not a moment too soon). The GOP better get on board, or shove off. (btw, good post) 7. PD Shaw says: I rather think the upshot of the Reformation (both Catholic and Protestant) is that the people wanted their marriage blessed and made sacred. Protestants initially opposed what they saw as the Church’s intrusion into personal life without adequate textual support. But they gave in when they realized that the flock wanted that intrusion, they wanted to be made closer to the divine. And I believe a number of, though not all, same-sex couples want that same feeling of being part of something greater than their own individual desires. And then there are civil libertarians who don’t believe in the sacred, and can’t believe anything greater than themselves. These groups are temporary allies and long-term enemies. 8. labman57 says: Sure there is. “Traditional marriage“, based on accepted norms within the Christian conservative community: Man marries woman. Man cheats on wife and/or man beats wife. Wife divorces husband. Man “speaks with God“. All is forgiven. 9. @labman57: You left out “Man has affair with woman. Makes tearful speech. Man has affair with other man.” 10. John D'Geek says: @James Joyner: The “timing” is not coincidental to the issue since, without gay marriage, the issue would not have proper framing. The Hypocrisy of the State has become evident to many of us. No bigamous marriages — but you can have all the “permanent live in girlfriends” you want for as long as you want. You can get married to a 15-year-old … but then having sex with your spouse is “immoral”. What is the legal and social purpose of marriage? Is there even one? Other than “tradition” or “scoring political points”, that is? Only in the last few decades could those questions be asked; now that Gay Marriage is all but a done deal, the question is critical to ask (before it, too, becomes irrelevant). Not that it matters, I suppose. The history of the US is not replete with well considered, rational solutions (aka “wise solutions”) to serious problems. the charge is “corrupting the values of a minor”. If it’s really a problem, then don’t let them get married. Is that really so hard? 11. Robert says: Nice historic and geographic cherrypicking at the beggining. Stopped reading there. Anyway, I recommend you Thomas Sowell’s article on “Gay Marriage ‘Rights'”, leftie. 12. Ron Beasley says: Have you read anything at all, and that includes the bible. 13. Septimius says: Even if we accept Berkowitz’s thesis at face value (apparently it’s based on some pretty shoddy scholarship), all you are really proving is that marriage is not a “right.” It is an evolving institution that must conform to the whims of society. Even if there was some kind of “same-sex union” ceremony conducted in some parts of eastern Europe up until the middle ages, it wasn’t a marriage or else they would have called it “marriage.” It sounds a lot more like what we could consider a civil union. 14. anjin-san says: I thought a traditional marriage was the union between a rich 65 year old Republican man, and a 30 year old blonde woman with a boob job, a lip job, and frequent flier miles at the botox clinic… 15. al-Ameda says: That seems to be traditional among men of a certain demographic, however I must criticize you for including Botox Clinic Treatments under the rubric of “traditional.” Please, as botox was probably invented in the 1980s I think it’s stretch to say that botox treatments are traditional (at least, not yet). 16. MichaelB says: This seems like a silly argument.* Of course, over the sweep of human history marriage has changed. So has darn near everything else. I don’t think ‘traditional’ means ‘never ever changed’. You do occasionally hear opponents of marriage equality argue that it’s always been the same. That is far sillier. Nonetheless, they’re wrong because marriage equality is a good idea, not because the way society views marriage has evolved over time and they didn’t even notice. 17. michael reynolds says: When people say “traditional” what they mean is “mine.” Mere facts will not affect those folks. 18. Tsar Nicholas says: You both left out the most important factor: A willingness to sign a prenup. 19. Septimius says: @michael reynolds: When people say “traditional” what they actually mean is no society in history has ever recognized, sanctioned, or accepted same-sex relationships in the same way that they have recognized relationships between the sexes. 20. Moosebreath says: “Marriage has always been an evolving institution.” And, as Groucho Marx said, “Who wants to live in an institution?” 21. al-Ameda says: @Tsar Nicholas: I apologize, how could I overlook that. When guys trade down to marry that 22 year old, what could more important than a pre-nup? 22. David M says: @Septimius: So? There’s plenty about the current marriage laws that would have been unthinkable to people several hundred years ago. Why are all those changes OK, but not this? Anyway, the world is much different now than they it was back then, why do we care if same-sex marriages weren’t recognized by societies are nothing like ours? I think laws allowing same-sex marriage are a much smaller change than ending arranged marriages, no-fault divorce, allowing married women to own property and outlawing domestic violence and marital rape. Every one of those had a huge impact on society and marriage, but allowing same-sex marriage has no impact on already married couples. 23. An Interested Party says: At one time, slavery was traditional…at one time, Jim Crow laws were traditional…at one time, Apartheid was traditional, and on and on and on…simply being traditional doesn’t make anything proper or right…of course, evolving ideas about society (like acceptance of SSM) is also traditional… 24. LC says: FYI. Coontz’s book, Marriage, a History, is still in print and available as an e-book. Remembrance from ancient anthropology course : young girls marry trees which are then cut down and floated away – so all marriages are second marriages and girls can never become widows. Probably don’t have all the details right anymore, but marrying a tree tends to stick in the mind. 25. MichaelW says: One of the dumber things you’ve written. Even a cursory glance at the actual history of marriage would disabuse you of your ill-informed notions. Marriage is about family, and more specifically children. Whether the state recognizes it or not is immaterial. By the same token, pretending that every union is the same is deleterious to the very building block of any functional society. If states put it to a vote, and SSM gets a plebiscite, then so be it. But banging the moral drum over and over again is not only tedious, but dismissive of what good people truly believe, it’s divisive in a way that will not help gays. Seriously, this is really stupid propaganda you’re pushing. 26. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone wants to stand in the way of a loving union between 2 adults.The people who do not agree with equal rights are living in the wrong country. If they want religion to dictate their lives they should look to those countries which dictate their whole lives. Where husbands are allowed to beat and even kill their families for honor. I wish to live in a society where we can live together happily with our differences. We may not always agree but we can mind our own business. Let God decide, he is the one that made us all different. 27. MichaelW says: @Barb: If you want God to sort it out, then let them get married in a church. In fact nothing is stopping them from doing so. There’s even a church that’s willing to do so In one portion of the American Episcopal Church. Have at it. The remainder is whether a state should be required to recognize such marriages for purposes of benefitting the state. There being no real benefit to doing so, then states should be left to decide for themselves. 28. jukeboxgrad says: I think a discussion about this isn’t complete without mentioning this: But when Mitt Romney says that “marriage has been defined the same way for literally thousands of years by virtually every civilization in history”, he’s excluding his own faith, his grandfather, and his family history to make the argument against gay marriage…especially when Joseph Smith had only invented the religion Mormonism a mere 182 years ago in 1830…when marriage for them was defined as between a man and a wife and a wife and wife and another wife (usually very young and perky wives, teenagers usually. Others call this pedophilia.) 29. Jib says: I love the fact that gay marriage is the unintended consequence of maintaining the private health care system. Up until the AIDs crisis, gays were ambivalent to out right hostile to the idea of marriage (see the history of Andrew Sullivan’s writing for the back story, there once was a true radical gay agenda, the Gay Liberation movement, they wanted nothing to do with marriage or military service or any of the institutions of bourgeois capitalism). But with the AIDs crisis, health care became a matter of life and death for a large number of gays too sick to continue working. So their partners raised hell to get them included on their health plans. Inheritance, property, etc, can all be handled with wills and legal docs but health care was only provided to employees and their spouses. Today gay marriage is about more than health benefits but the initial push that got everything started and got everybody at least thinking about the idea, which lead to acceptance 20 years later, was because of a side effect of private health insurance. Makes you wonder, if Hilarycare had passed and everyone in the 90’s had health insurance, would gay marriage be such a big deal today? 30. Dazedandconfused says: A remarkable case. I suspect gay marriage will be legal, likely to happen in a way that resembles that case. The courts will do it, not the politicians. 31. Ron Beasley says: The 1950s “traditional marriage” died with no fault divorce. 32. mantis says: Whether the state recognizes it or not is immaterial. 33. anjin-san says: @ MichaelW Marriage is about my definition of family, and more specifically children. 34. MichaelW says: @mantis: Well, what can one say to such pithy nothingness? Either make a point or bother someone else. Your self-satisfaction is boring. 35. Ron Beasley says: Whether the state recognizes it or not is immaterial. Exactly, it is anything but immaterial. It seriously impacts lives. It impacts life and death decisions, pensions and SSN, property and the list goes on even when there are religions/churches willing to accept SSM. The Old Testament was a collection of rules for a tribal society constantly at war where procreation had to be encouraged to replenish population loses. The same reason they had multiple wives – men got killed a lot and there was a shortage of them. It might have made sense for the Europeans to allow polygamy after WWI. The pork thing in the Bible may have made sense then – Trichinosis, but the clothes made of multiple thing fabrics puzzles me a bit. The shell fish ban may have had something to do with red tides – we have temporary bans on the Pacific coast. But that was all 2,000 years ago. The problem now is over population so it would make sense to encourage non procreative activity. 36. mantis says: Either make a point or bother someone else. I shall do neither! 37. Janis Gore says: @Ron Beasley: The cloth probably had to do with unsanctioned trade. Political. 38. MichaelW says: @Ron Beasley: no it doesn’t. All of those things are easily handled by contract. Better arguments, please. 39. MichaelW says: @mantis: shocker. 40. @Dazedandconfused: I think that you are largely correct. And, if you go back and look at polling on the issue of interracial marriage both before the Loving decision and in the years immediately after, the fact is that a sizable majority of Americans still disapproved of marriages between mixed race couples. Indeed, in the neighborhood I grew up in there was a mixed race couple. I honestly never thought anything of it, and it really wasn’t until I was older that I learned that there were some families in the neighborhood who didn’t like the fact that this couple, and their son, had moved in. Considering the fact that I was in High School by that time and that that their son was one of my friends, I never quite understood that. 41. Ron Beasley says: @MichaelW: In our society marriage is the contract and if there was a way around that I would agree with you but there’s not.. It would me necessary to re-write many laws and regulations. The only real solution is to allow civil marriage to all and leave it up to the religious folks to accept it or not. 42. David M says: Marriage is about family, and more specifically children. People who cannot and do not have children to get married, and people who are not married certainly can have children, so I’m not sure where your point came from. Also, you’re kind of missing the point pretty badly, as being able to get married, have a family and children is pretty much the point of same-sex marriage, same as anyone else. 43. MichaelW says: @Beasley: You’re flailing. Contractual rights are not at issue. Whether they are recognized by the state, in the interests of the whole polity, is the question. SSM offers no obvious (or stated) benefits to the polity, so why it would be incumbent upon them to recognize such a union is not apparent. If you want to make such an argument, then do so. Otherwise you have no argument. 44. Janis Gore says: I beg to differ, Michael W. I have the benefits of marriage even though I was married by a city judge and had no interest in bearing children. My stepsons’ mother married a childless man. They have the benefits of marriage without bearing children. Marriage, as I see it, is a contract between two people who willing to put their forces together to the same ends. That’s what marriage is now, like it or not. And I did not interfere with their marriage. My husband had been divorced for 8 years when we married. 45. Ron Beasley says: @Janis Gore: Interesting! I hadn’t thought of that. 46. MichaelW says: @David M: There are exceptions to every rule. This is why I’m such a big fan of the common law. However, statutes are blunt instruments and can only effectively address the broad issues. Just because there are childless couples does not logically mean that SSM is necessary, mandated, or beneficial. Gay couples should not be prevented from marrying, and states should not be prevented from recognizing such unions. But in no way does that mean that SSM is beyond all reproach or that states should be forced to recognize them. Pretending, as Doug does in this post, that there is no such thing as “traditional marriage” (I.e. one between one man and one woman), not only undermines the cause you want to serve, it obfuscates the argument. Should gays be accepted as normal, functioning, beneficent members of society? Of course! Does that mean that their couplings xshould be treated the same way as those which will undoubtedly produce the future stewards of this nation? I remain unconvinced. 47. MichaelW says: @Janis: hundreds of years of law disagree with you. The legal recognition is about children, whether you have taken advantage of it or not. 48. Ron Beasley says: @Janis Gore: Well said Janis. I married a woman with two children, 6 and 10 when we married. I was functional father even though they called me Ron not dad. Were we a traditional family? They both turned out pretty well and there were no more children. 49. Janis Gore says: @Ron Beasley: I have no basis for that inference. It makes sense, though. It’s an erudite group around here. Maybe someone can come forward with more information. 50. Janis Gore says: @MichaelW: The legal recognition is about inheritance, not about children per se. 51. MichaelW says: @Janis: wrong. Inheritance is actually also about children under hundreds of years of law. 52. David M says: @MichaelW: It’s odd to care so much about how marriages benefit everyone else, and not care about the two individuals in the marriage. Kind of seems like we ought to be concerned with their rights and how it benefits them. Anyways, you’re getting close to advocating that people who want to get married need prove how their marriage will benefit the state. 53. Console says: Governments still have to recognize contracts. In your case, marriages would be held to the same standards as a normal contract, but those legal standards would still exist and would still define how marriages work and how they don’t work. Plus, that’s only one side of the equation. Will my insurers recognize my marriage contract? Will the military recognize my contract and provide me with family housing? Will my contract mean my “wife” doesn’t have to testify against me in court, or would that have to be in writing? I can go on and on. It’s always funny to me how simple people think life is. No, you can’t just say “contract” and expect everything to magically work itself out. 54. PogueMahone says: Oh, joy. A self-described “neo-libertarian” who has the state’s interest over the individual’s is here. Prove it. Why don’t you enlighten us, Mr. Wade. Or, oh how did you put it… “make a point or bother somebody else.” Marriage is about family, and more specifically children. Umm, Same sex couples can have children and therefore a family, dontcha know. You’ve heard of adoption, surrogates, in vitro? Oh, that’s right. You believe that your marriage means more than other marriages. You believe that your marriage to your wife is not deleterious to the very building blocks of any functional society. Others, not so much. Right? How, btw, do unions that don’t produce children become deleterious to society? And be specific, please. Because my wife and I, who don’t have any children, would love to know how we’re destroying the “very building blocks” of society. If you’re going to call the author’s piece as “one of the dumber things you’ve written,’ then shouldn’t you trouble yourself with providing some factual evidence to refute the author’s thesis? IOW, make a point or go bother someone else. 55. MichaelW says: sigh* I see that my personal troll, Pogue, has followed me here. Apologies. For those interested in the legal backbone behind marriage being about procreation, see here ( It’s just a start. There’s much more for those willing to enlighten themselves. 56. Ron Beasley says: @Janis Gore: Janis – a really good hypothesis that deserves some further research.. It made no sense to me but you came up with a sensible idea. Bravo!! It may be wrong but it’s still an idea which is more than I had. 57. MichaelW says: @Pogue: you know the deal. Read what I actually wrote and argue with that. Any suppositions you make are your own. Someday (maybe?) you’ll get with the program. Until then you can Pogue mahone 😉 58. PogueMahone says: @MichaelW: sigh I see that my personal troll, Pogue, has followed me here. Heh. “personal troll” … “followed me.” If you’ll scroll up in the thread, you’ll see that I made a comment before you did. So how could I have “followed” you, genius? 59. Console says: You can procreate without marriage… What they mean to say is that marriage is a way to procreate within the acceptable moral confines of a judeo-christian society. 60. MichaelW says: @David M: when discussing the state’s interest in marriage (which is the only thing at issue here), the individuals don’t actually matter. That is, so long as the individuals aren’t forced into anything, nor prevented from doing anything, then their concerns are not at issue. The only question here is whether the state should be forced to recognize SSM. If so, why? To answer that question, you must necessarily know what benefit such unions are o the state. If there are none, then there is no reason for the state to recognize them. 61. PogueMahone says: @MichaelW: Read what I actually wrote and argue with that. How could I? You don’t make an argument. 62. anjin-san says: Guess you missed that whole “equal protection under the law” thing… 63. Console says: Well, that’s where the 14th amendment comes into play. Equal protection places onus on the State to explain why it feels the need to discriminate against a class of individuals. One of the great things about living in America. 64. David M says: @MichaelW: OK, I agree, marriage and procreation are important to society. That doesn’t mean or prove anything, as same-sex couples already have children, the question here is whether to allow those couples with children to get married. Why shouldn’t same-sex couples with children be able to get married when opposite sex couples without children can? 65. anjin-san says: sigh I see that my personal troll, Pogue Ah. Jenos has company in the “I have a vastly inflated opinion of my own importance” club. 66. Janis Gore says: @MichaelW: That’s a purely utilitarian concept. Now, which children do you want to limit? 67. MichaelW says: @Console: for the most part, you’re stating the obvious. It has nothing to do with the actual argument. The rest of it is pointless. Contracts must be recognized (yes, no one is stating differently). People have kids outside of marriage (who’s arguing otherwise?). What exactly is your point? 68. PogueMahone says: So everything that the state must recognize must be beneficial to the state, regardless of what the individual desires. The new libertarians, ladies and gentlemen. 69. MichaelW says: @anjin: guess you forgot how that Amwndment actually works (hint: gays aren’t prevented from getting married). 70. Console says: My point regarding contracts is that they aren’t between 2 people and society, they are only between those two people. Why should my insurer recognize my domestic partner as my wife simply because I signed a contract with her? Why should the military provide housing for my partner based on a contract between me and my partner? As far as the children thing goes, the long version of the argument is that making marriage about procreation makes marriage a rather useless endeavor. If the government wants children, then it should promote sex, not marriage. The full story is that marriage promotes lots of things and almost every single one of those things applies to a same-sex marriage. Monogamy has value, stability has value, the legal protections have value, etc. etc. All the things that serve to make a heterosexual family unit strong does the same for a same-sex union 71. Console says: That’s what the state of virginia said about blacks and whites to the supreme court during Loving v. Virginia. I can tell you how that argument turned out if you want. 72. MichaelW says: @david m: cart before horse, for one thing, and missing the point for another. Whether a couple has children isn’t germane. If they are capable (i.e. physiologically), is the only real question. Will (has?) science already surpassed this issue? Perhaps. I know a very happy gay couple with two semi-biological children (born of one of the women) who put the issue to test. But, again, why should a state be forced to recognize such unions if it sees no obvious benefit? Keeping in mind that laws are sledgehammers not scalpels, limiting legal ramifications to the common instances usually works best. In this case, it may serve to maintain a fundamental building block of society (or, at least what’s left after hetero couples have destroyed most of it with easy-peasy divorce). To the contrary, recognizing SSM at the state level doesn’t offer any apparent benefits. So why the imperative? 73. MichaelW says: @Console: and I could school you in what that case was actually about, but then we’re not really having a conversation are we? 74. MichaelW says: @Janis: well, I’m against abortion, so none. Which children do you want to limit? 75. Console says: Would you prefer me bring up Lawrence V. Texas? Or is your argument to that one “but Texas still allowed gay people to have sex… just not with each other” 76. Janis Gore says: 77. MarkedMan says: @Janis Gore: Janis, I’m curious if you know any more about the ‘unscanctioned trade’? I’ve wondered for years how that got into the Torah… 78. Janis Gore says: Not at all. It’s an idea, Recall to me the verse or verses? Just banking the thought on tribal affiliations, that’s all. If I recall the verses speak of wool interspersed with linen, which would be an Egptian product. It could be a metaphor. Or it could be a warning. 79. Scott O. says: No benefit to the state? Are you serious? You could apply that standard to any law you oppose. Women’s suffrage, no benefit to the state, just more expense. Saying SSM shouldn’t be legal is saying gay people aren’t normal people. It gives bigots an excuse to discriminate. I don’t believe people choose to be gay since I didn’t choose to be straight. I also don’t think homosexuality is a mental illness. I consider them to be normal people. 80. MarkedMan says: Wow. MichaelW that is quite a statement. ‘If something doesn’t benefit the State then the State has no obligation to recognize it.’ I’m living in Communist f-cking China at the moment and even this government has moved beyond such repressive views of its role.. I’m always glad I was born in the US and am a citizen but never so glad as when I remember that in my country the State exists for the benefits of the citizens, not the other way around. 81. David M says: Your reasons keep changing, at first it was marriage was for procreation, now the state cares about the potential to procreate. These are not close to the same things, and while the procreation argument isn’t very convincing, the second is just a fancy way of saying no gays allowed because they are icky. 82. G.A. says: I can’t take watching liberals brain wash themselves as they rewrite history anymore…. 83. jukeboxgrad says: If you can’t take it, why are you here? I can only conclude that someone is standing there, holding a gun to your head, forcing you to read all this. Would you like me to dial 911 for you? 84. Jenos Idanian says: Totally off-topic, Doug, but there have been some interesting developments in the Trayvon Martin case: we now have medical reports on both from the night of the shooting. Zimmerman: Two black eyes, fractured nose, two lacerations to the back of his head, minor back injury. Martin: broken skin on his knuckles, gunshot wound to the chest. Time for a new update? 85. rodney dill says: @Hey Norm: …but what does rough sex have to do with marriage? 86. Catfish says: @Jib: Many governments and other employers are reducing or eliminating these kind of benefits. In some cases, they will give the employees more pay to offset this and let them find their own insurance out in the market. That is what I would prefer: I can do better in the market than with my employer’s plan, which I am now having to pay some of the cost. With that method, it doesn’t matter if I am married or who to. 87. Jenos, As I said months ago. I don’t believe it is appropriate for this case to be tried in the court of public opinion. The only appropriate entities to judge the weight and meaning are the evidence are the judge and/or the jury. So, I’m really not going to participate in the media’s continued Perry Mason game. 88. sam says: You realize, or maybe not, that that principle subordinates individuals and their choices to the (transient) interests of the state. Suppose we universalize that: A state is under no obligation to affirm or protect the choices of its citizens if such choices fail to further the interests of the state. That is diametrically opposed to this nation’s founding principles. Note that the Bill of Rights, and subsequent amendments, esp. the 13th, 14th, and 15th, were designed to thwart the kind of thinking reflected in your principle. Consider the First Amendment. A free press, for instance, is not there to further in the interests of the state (=government du jour). Or, alternatively, and perhaps more to the point, consider slavery. It certainly can be argued that slavery furthered the interests on the states in which it existed, or rather, those states believed that slavery furthered their interests. (And, by the way, this belief is all your principle requires). Therefore, on your grounds, those states would be justified in rejecting abolition on the grounds that it was decidedly not to the benefit of those states. For why, on your principle, should the state be forced to recognize the liberty interest of anyone at all if that interest was deemed by that state not benefit it, but positively harm it? On your principle, Loving vs. Virginia would have been decided, if at all, very differently. 89. PogueMahone says: …semi-biological children… Wow. I had no idea that someone could be classified as “semi-biological.” You truly are a word magician, Michael. Because the prose you pull out of your ass is just amazing. 90. george says: So a hetrosexual couple who can’t have children (medical reasons, or just too old) can’t be married either? I’m one of those who think encouraging marriage among gays would be a conservative point of view. 91. Franklin says: @Jenos Idanian: If I instigate a fight with you and you beat the crap out of me, whose fault is it? The fact is, we already knew Zimmerman had injuries, just not the extent. We still don’t know who instigated the fight, other than Zimmerman was chasing the kid around town with a gun. 92. Franklin says: Also, stay on topic. 93. al-Ameda says: Then go back to watching Mitt Romney order drapes for the Car Elevator in his La Jolla home.. 94. Rob in CT says: That’s how things become recognized rights in societies. People argue about them, and then make laws. Duh. Once upon a time, some people had the right to own others (and those others were deprived of their right to liberty and the fruits of their labor). Our forebears had a debate over that, which got a bit heated at times. And things changed. A whole class of people’s rights were, eventually, recognized (and the rights of others to own them or otherwise treat them like garbage was removed). Were no rights involved, simply because opinions changed? Please. 95. @MichaelW: It seems nothing anyone with sense may say will change your mind, but will you at least give one reason why it is any of your business that these people who wish to marry need to wait for others to decide their rights. 96. Janis Gore says: Hmm. The verse regarding mixed fibers is Le 19:19. In the KJV it reads “neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.” In the NAB (1983) it reads “… do not put on a garment woven with two different kinds of thread.” 97. Tsar Nicholas says: @Rob in CT: I don’t know that that’s the best analogy. The rights to which you just made reference ultimately were recognized, yes, but only in the aftermath of by far the deadliest war in U.S. history. Besides, if rights properly are conferred by debate and legislation that means, ipso facto, both that rights and especially incipient rights properly can be taken away by debate and legislation. Isn’t that what California and so many other states have done in connection with plebiscite-based legislation on this issue? In any case, the more I think about this whole debate the more I come to the conclusion that the gay and lesbian community is setting itself up to fall victim to the laws of unintended consequences. In 30 years I suspect a significant plurality of that community, perhaps even a distinct majority, will consider this entire endeavor to have been a precipitous mistake. 98. Janis Gore says: Like the rest of us, on bad days? 99. Barry says: @MichaelW: “Janis: hundreds of years of law disagree with you. ” As has been pointed time and time again, ‘hundreds of years of law’ covers slavery, wives being under the total legal, physical and financial control of their husbands, and the introduction of the Gregorian calendar to the English-speaking world. 100. Ben Wolf says: Wait, this MichaelW individual actually claims to be a libertarian? That’s the equivalent of a slave trader claiming to be an abolitionist. 101. Rob in CT says: @Tsar Nicholas: Are you making some sort of “natural rights” argument? I’ve always found that bizarre. The rights you have in a given society are those that have been fought for & won. You may believe you deserve more – and I might agree! – but you don’t have ’em until you win ’em. This seems pretty obvious to me. As for the suggestion that Teh Gays will deeply regret this whole marriage thing in 30 years, I have no idea why they would. Did people confidently predict that the little ladies would regret getting the vote? I bet they did… 102. Janis Gore says: I think it comes down to ugly recliners. “Real men” like them and gay men think think they’re , well, “ugly.” 103. Janis Gore says: One can recline perfectly well in a bergere. 104. sam says: @Rob in CT: Well, in the incisive words of Jack McCoy, “Hell, let ’em marry and be miserable like the rest of us.” 105. sam says: And yes, my wife is not here at the moment…. 106. Janis Gore says: I’ve another, Sam. “When they have a divorce or two, they’ll get over it:” 107. PogueMahone says: @Janis Gore: Bergere!? No, no. That will never do. Now we’re talkin’… Complete with massage and cup-holder. 😉 108. Janis Gore says: @PogueMahone: What I’m really ticked off about in mass furniture is thigh lenghth in sofas and chairs. I can handle a 12 ounce package of coffee.
What is heartburn? It has nothing to do with your heart, so why call it heartburn? Probably because it’s easier than saying “esophageal burn.” Heartburn is caused by acid escaping from your stomach up into your esophagus. Your lower esophageal sphincter is supposed to prevent that. But sometimes it relaxes or doesn’t close properly and the acid escapes. Unlike the stomach, the esophagus isn’t meant to house acid, so that’s when you feel the burn. If you think you may suffer from heartburn please speak to your doctor or healthcare provider. Digestion begins here. As you chew, saliva begins to break the food down. Food travels down and is prepared for the stomach. Esophageal Sphincter: This valve is meant to keep stomach acids down in your stomach; when it doesn’t, you may feel heartburn. Releases acid and enzymes to further break down your food. Acid’s not the bad guy, it’s only when it escapes up to where it doesn’t belong that you can feel heartburn. Who gets heartburn? Look around you: almost everyone you see has occasional heartburn. What causes heartburn varies from person to person, but some of the common culprits can include diet, smoking, and being overweight. Why some foods cause heartburn Food is the most common heartburn trigger, but why? Your stomach may react to some foods by increasing acid production, slowing down digestion, or inhibiting the esophageal sphincter’s ability to prevent stomach contents from leaking back into the esophagus. Tomatoes, fatty foods, and coffee are among the usual suspects. Avoiding these types of foods could aid in preventing heartburn. Although there is a list of common triggers, everyone is slightly different. Two friends could eat the same tomato sauce, but only one might get heartburn. The best thing to do is to be aware of your own triggers and make smart choices. Yoga for Heartburn? Explore yoga and other ideas for supporting your wellness and reducing heartburn. Discover PEPCID® relief. Fire Starters See if any of these triggers surprise you.
• Graveyard Shift What It's Like to Have Agoraphobia - The Fear of the Outside World Agoraphobia is a psychological disorder you've probably heard of, even if you don't know it by its proper name. Someone who's agoraphobic has a fear of the outdoors, crowds, or wide open spaces. This might seem silly or illogical, but in reality, it's one of the more common phobias. About 1.8 million adults in the United States have agoraphobia, and that number shows no signs of shrinking. But what exactly is agoraphobia? Fear of wide open spaces dates all the way back to before Ancient Greece, where the condition originally got its name. While it varies a lot from person to person, it mostly centers around anxiety disorders and the subsequent panic-triggered episodes that happen when a person is outside. Over time, these episodes can increase in frequency and severity, and, in extreme cases, prevent a person from even leaving the house. What happens in the body and brain of someone with agoraphobia is both frightening and fascinating, and the repercussions can be severe. • It Can Start Without Warning Most people would think a major phobia starts with some traumatic event or slow conditioning in childhood. In reality, agoraphobia doesn't usually happen this way. It tends to manifest between the ages of 25 and 35, and it can come about with seemingly no warning. One day you're walking down the street when suddenly you feel panicked. The panicking leads to a downward spiral and a pattern of more panicking. This continues and can get worse over time, and all it takes is a single anxious thought to begin the chain reaction. If you asked most agoraphobes when it all began for them, many probably wouldn't be able to point to a single event. However, agoraphobia is often associated with general panic disorders, depression, or a history of abuse. • It Can Literally Feel Like You're Expiring You might be wondering how it feels physically when you get a bout of agoraphobia. Well, have you ever been close to your mortal end? Because it kind of feels like you're about to perish. Your heart starts to race, you feel physical pain in your chest, you feel lightheaded, and you can't seem to breathe. You'll sweat, shake, feel unable to move, and you may throw up just from the sheer fear and feeling and helplessness. Some people faint or slip into a catatonic state when it hits hard. You may even be afraid you really are about to expire. It may be a psychological condition, but make no mistake, you will feel physical effects. Because of this, some people - before they're familiar with it - may think they're experiencing heart failure. • Your Brain Will Respond As If You're Being Chased As an agoraphobic episode sets in, you may start out feeling nervous with no idea why. All you will feel is that something is wrong. Then all of a sudden that little bit of nervousness is screaming at you to run. Now. Run or something terrible is going to happen. This sense of impending doom is your brain trying to save you from fear, even though it has no direction for that fear to go. In short, you'll feel your fight or flight instinct kick into overdrive. The problem with this is, as it starts happening, the whole world is what the threat is. How do you run from or fight the entirety of existence? • You'll Crave Safety You might think of agoraphobia as a condition where you only worry about going outside, but that's not exactly true. Instead, you worry about pretty much everything: where you have to go next, what you have to say to people, answering the door, sticking to a schedule. Nearly everything feels completely overwhelming, even if it's something as simple as stepping out to get the mail. Thus, your biggest concern becomes safety. In fact, you'll want to create a perfect little safe environment, and that's likely to be your house or some other safe zone where you feel free from the impact of a panic-triggered episode. This safety is going to feel amazing. It's going to be addictive, and it's going to make you feel like whenever you're not in this safe area you've created, something is deeply wrong. This craving for safety is often what leads to feeling unable to even leave the house, even if you need to get food or toilet paper, pay your bills, or see friends and loved ones.
Exactly what Does the Exponential Biology Definition Me-an? The biology definition that is exponential is a justification for the dynamics It features a abstract and new way to computation, and it is based on a translation process that is fresh and innovative. It is just a factor-based predictive version that demonstrates the variety of behaviour of genes in the genome of living techniques. That is accomplished by evaluating the exponents. As biological college essay writing service systems develop, the number of power-laws gets closer to the exponential amount. In addition, the power-law exponents increase with time. The power-law exponents are the exponential biology definition. When biology was initially discovered, it had been presumed it was arbitrary and also not capable. But biologists and other experts have started to see how it is perpetually evolving into technical and increasingly complex devices. With this realization, they started out studying what factors determine the evolution of biological systems. One of the main determining variables will be the seriousness of molecular processes that produce the growth of reproductive methods. Since they’re changing their own environment biological devices are always vulnerable to change. Thus, even although biological methods have structure and order, they’ve been at the mercy of the legislation of variation, mutation, along with extinction. Consequently the power-law exponents show how forces could induce programs transform, to evolve, and accommodate. The chemistry definition demonstrates the way programs consistently differ between nation. What the biologists call the dynamics of biology are the fact that systems evolve in an nation of condition change. The biological systems are always in a state of transition. Biological systems must evolve through several states before they reach their next equilibrium state. The biological systems never end up in a static state. There is always a potential for biological systems to evolve in the future. Biologists believe that when a biological system reaches a certain stage of state change, it can only do so much before it breaks down. Most biological systems are somewhat complex, as they are quite like one another. In order to earn a strategy tougher, the state of its parts should alter. Yet, biological methods have little flexibility, therefore improvements in one area will have little influence overall. Biologists examine the forces of biological programs from analyzing the faculties of living things change over the time. The chemical definition, as it pertains to methods, claims that we must be on the lookout to find the regions of the system that affect the entire world, as these pieces will affect the whole. The systems really are somewhat as a way to function, similar to a circuit which are interrelated and encourage eachother. Leave a Reply
How Are Precision Balances Used And Maintained? Precision Balance refers to the balance of electromagnetic force to balance the gravity of the object. Precision balance in the purchase, what matters should pay attention to when use and maintenance? 1. When choosing, it is necessary to consider the accuracy level, especially whether the absolute accuracy meets the accuracy requirements of weighing, rather than the relative accuracy. 2. When purchasing, please consider whether the maximum weighing meets the requirements of the range. 3. The precision balance shall be calibrated when it is used for the first time. At the same time, when the precision balance is stored for a long time, the position moves and the environment changes, it also needs to be calibrated. 3kg 5kg 0.01gç§°éÂ‡Âä¼ æÂ„ÂŸåÂ™¨å®ÂžéªÂŒå®¤ç§¤ç²¾å¯Â†å¤©å¹³ 4. The precision of precision balance will not be affected by long-term weighing, but the premise is that it must be within the range of precision balance, and the operation of the balance cannot be overloaded. 5. Avoid vibration, airflow and sunlight when using the electronic balance. 6. Precision Balance Supplier suggests to preheat the precision balance before use, and adjust the bubble of the level gauge to the middle position. 7. When weighing volatile and corrosive articles, the precision balance cannot be directly weighed, but should be placed in a closed container for weighing. 8. Timely maintenance of the slow precision balance, found the problem timely repair.
Why Asian Americans often appear underrepresented in polling and research Asians in the U.S. make up 6% of the total population. There are almost 20 million people of Asian descent in the U.S. But if you looked at national polling and medical research, they might appear largely invisible in important conversations about politics, race and other issues, a factor that has plagued the Asian community and other minorities for decades. According to Neil Ruiz, the associate director of race and ethnicity research at Pew Research, Asians tend to be underrepresented in national polling where about 3% of the respondents identify as Asian American, which is lower than their share of the total population of 6%. "We correct for this in our weighting by weighting up the Asian American respondents to be represented proportional to their share of the population," Ruiz added. Weighting in polling adjusts the data so the sample more accurately reflects the population. This is done by weighting up the responses of underrepresented groups and weighting down overrepresented groups. Experts say the problem is twofold. On the one hand, there generally aren't enough Asians in polling samples to meet the threshold pollsters deem necessary to break out the group in published research. On the other, experts say that polling Asians has presented some challenges historically, such as language barriers. The end result is that Asians often do not appear as a group in published reports, even though they are surveyed by pollsters. In a recent NPR/PBS/Marist Poll on race relations in the United States, Asians were not listed under adults categorized by race. Some large polls like the 2016 exit poll by Edison Research for the National Election Pool do include and break out findings among Asians. However, the Pew Research report using the Edison exit poll data discussed results among white, Black and Latino Americans, but did not publish Asians as a subgroup. "While the original 2016 Edison exit poll did include preferences among Asian voters, trend data on Asian Americans are not consistently available in exit polling," Ruiz explained. "Even in recent election years, sample sizes for Asian Americans have been relatively small, and sample sizes among Asian Americans two decades ago were too small to report trends from Asian Americans confidently." When it comes to medical research, there is a discrepancy in clinical trials, with Asian Americans often underrepresented, said Dr. Mishal Reja, an internal medicine physician and ABC News medical contributor. This is especially problematic as members of the AAPI community are at increased risk of cancer, diabetes and liver conditions, Reja said. Why is it so difficult to gather data on AAPI communities? One big reason why it's so difficult to gather data on AAPI communities is because Asian Americans make up just 6% of the total U.S. population. By comparison, Black Americans make up 13.4% and Hispanic Americans make up 18.5%, according to the Census Bureau. According to Pew Research, a typical representative survey has 1,000 adult respondents, which it says provides a reasonably accurate reflection of the larger population. A larger sample would incur more cost without a proportionally meaningful reduction in the margin of error. A common rule is to not publish subgroup poll results with fewer than 100 respondents, according to Pew. So in a representative survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, you would expect about 60 Asians polled, which is under that 100-respondent limit. This was the case with the Marist Poll which was a survey of 1,249 adults where a subgroup would require around 8.5% of the overall survey sample size, according to Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "To report them as a separate group would not be an accurate representation of that separate group,” he said. Additionally, although 38% of both U.S. Asians and Hispanics are not proficient in English, the Asian demographic has more linguistic diversity. On the other hand, pollsters can reach many Hispanics with a single Spanish translation, Gary Langer, president of Langer Research Associates and director of polling at ABC News, explained. There is also a lack of culturally sensitive materials and recruitment efforts that tailor to each unique ethnic group within the AAPI community, Reja said. And mistrust is a roadblock, especially when it comes to medical research, Dr. Yulin Hswen, an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. Similar to Black Americans, Asian Americans have faced a history of medical racism. For example, when the Bubonic plague reached Honolulu's Chinatown in 1899, the Board of Health set a controlled fire to burn buildings that displaced and injured almost exclusively Asian residents, and there was mistreatment targeted toward Asians. This trauma was passed down from generation to generation and the community began to distrust governments, Hswen explained. The country saw the racialization of disease play out again when the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. Former President Donald Trump's and others' remarks about the origins of the virus contributed to a rise in anti-Asian hate incidents around the country. Hswen said there is not only a lack of racial diversity among medical research workers but also "a lack of cultural competency in general within the medical community and understanding and being responsive to certain cultural needs," which he says contributes to mistrust and a lack of representation. Why does it matter? In order to engage the electorate and encourage civic responsibility, people need to see their voices represented, said Howard Shih, director of research and policy at Asian American Federation. "It's really important to know what are the major concerns of the community. We can't design and affect public policies without understanding what the needs of a community are," Shih added. When it comes to medical trials, having representative data also matters a great deal "because what you see from the outcomes of clinical trials directly impacts medical care," Reja said. "We know that genetic differences have an impact on medical outcomes so we're doing a disservice to our patients by not including them in statistics," he explained. Since a 1985 government report concluded AAPI populations are healthier than all other racial groups in the U.S., there has been a lack of research funding for the community, as a 2019 JAMA Network study found. That paucity of funding contributes to health care disparities, Reja said. While the "model minority" myth, the perception that Asian Americans are singularly high achieving and more successful than the rest of the population, creates the idea that Asian Americans are well-off, the group has the highest income inequality of any other race in the U.S., according to Pew Research. Because health is tied to socioeconomic status, Hswen said, "a larger percentage of Asians are actually more at risk for serious health conditions than perceived." What can be done about it? Medical experts and institutions need to gain back the trust of the community, Hswen said, through communication and focus groups, for instance. "That means really working on the ground with people in the communities and having people from the medical communities come to them," she said. Targeted recruitment of clinical trial participants in predominantly Asian communities, partnerships with AAPI organizations and increased hires and training of culturally sensitive health providers and researchers are all important, Reja said. When it comes to polling, organizations like the Asian American Federation actively work with government institutions to ensure they are collecting information at the right demographic level with appropriate tools. For the 2020 Census, they worked with community groups and relied on trusted voices of those organizations. Others, like the National Asian American Survey, a nonpartisan polling organization, are creating their own surveys. "That just shows you how overlooked it is that we as a community have to do our own or create our own polling essentially to get our voices heard," Shih said.
Why is olive oil important in the Bible? What does olive oil symbolize in the Bible? In the Bible, olive oil is placed besides water, wine, and bread as a major Christianity symbol. With its significance, priests may receive olive oil during an anointment. The oil is a physical representation of a priest’s responsibility, glory, and authority. Why olive oil is used in anointing? Olive oil was also used to anoint kings and prophets when they were invested with power, received divine approval, and were consecrated to their holy callings. Samuel used oil when he anointed Saul a captain over the Lord’s people. … Elijah anointed two kings and the man who would succeed him as prophet. INTERESTING: How many degrees of sin are there? Why is olive oil used in churches? Did Jesus use olive oil? According to his account, the holy apostles took from the spices that were used to anoint the body of Jesus Christ when he was buried, added pure olive oil to it, and prayed over it in Upper Zion, the first church where the Holy Spirit fell in the upper room. Why is oil so important in the Bible? Oil represents this presence and power of the Spirit of God throughout the Bible. Jesus was often referred to as the Anointed One, using oil as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit being present and acting in Christ. What is the spiritual meaning of an olive tree? There are many meanings of the olive tree. It is a symbol of friendship and reconciliation, cleansing and healing, light, victory and richness and, above all, a sign of peace. It is a plant which should be treated with reverence as it holds many spiritual gifts. Can you anoint with olive oil? While you can anoint plain olive oil, some people add essential oils that have religious significance. Anointing the body with perfumed oil was once used to refresh the body. If done to someone else, the act was considered one of hospitality. What is the difference between olive oil and anointing oil? Olive oil can be used as a holy anointing oil after being blest; after receiving a blessing from a Catholic priest. The difference is olive oil not blest is only something good for the physical body. Such olive oil has been used externally to sooth joints and the skin. INTERESTING: Best answer: Why is prayer good for the soul? Why do Christians use olive oil for prayer? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord’. … “In fact, olive oil is seen as the symbol of the Holy Spirit and faith for many. That is why many of the brethren will take their olive oil to church and have it blessed before using it at home. What do olives symbolize? Perhaps the most well-known symbolic connotation for the olive is peace. The olive tree, or more specifically an olive branch, is a symbol of peace and friendship dating back to ancient Greek mythology. … The olive branch reappears as a symbol of peace several more times in Greco-Roman mythology. Why do we anoint with oil when we pray? Prophets anointed priests and kings, and the sick were anointed with oil as part of the procedure of healing by faith and by the laying on of hands. What diseases does olive oil cure? Olive Oil Has Strong Anti-Inflammatory Properties Chronic inflammation is thought to be a leading driver of diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, arthritis and even obesity. What are the healing oils in the Bible? Breaking Down the Healing Oils of the Bible • Aloes. Wondering why the cactus-like plant is here? … • Cassia. Unlike the herb senna, whose proper name begins with Cassia, the cassia of the Bible resembled our cinnamon more than anything. … • Cedarwood. … • Cypress. … • Frankincense. … • Galbanum. … • Hyssop. … • Myrrh. INTERESTING: Who is God's true church?
Often asked: Where Lebanon Is Located According The Bible? What did Jesus say about Lebanon? the cities like the grass of the field! The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon which he planted. Is Lebanon part of the Promised Land? He said he would always tell his Palestinian peers that there was a big difference between the West Bank — the land of the Bible and a strip of land in which Israel had built civilian settlements — and Lebanon, which was neither settled nor part of the Promised Land. What was Lebanon called before? During Ottoman rule the term Syria was used to designate the approximate area including present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine. Where did Jesus walk in Lebanon? In the Gospel of John, Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle of turning water into wine at Cana in Galilee. Some Christians, especially Lebanese Christians, believe Qana to have been the actual location of this event. You might be interested: Readers ask: Where In Bible Eating What Had Been Sacrificed To The Idols Was Acceptable According To Paul.? What religion is in Lebanon? According to latest global estimations, 61% of Lebanon’s population identify as Muslim while 33.7% identify as Christian. The Muslim population is somewhat evenly split between followers of Sunni (30.6%) and Shi’a (30.5%) denominations, with smaller numbers of those belonging to Alawite and Ismaili sects. Is the Jesus Tree in Lebanon real? This tree does exist, and the sculpture of Lord Jesus is not a result of photoshop editing skills. IT IS REAL. This very particular tree was a dead cedar tree in the forest of CEDAR OF GOD (Al Arz el Rab) in Northern Lebanon. What is Canaan called today? What is Lebanon known for? At the crossroads of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Europe, Lebanon has an exceptionally rich archaeological heritage. National Museum of Beirut The country’s major archaeological museum is a must-see. Tyre Extensive Roman-era ruins are a highlight of this southern city. Where is the promised land now? God instructed Abraham to leave his home and travel to Canaan, the Promised Land, which is today known as Israel. Is Lebanon one of the oldest country? With nearly 5,000 years of history, Lebanon is one of the world’s oldest countries. Are Lebanese considered Arab? Lebanese people, regardless of the region or religion, tend to be predominantly of indigenous Levantine descent rather than peninsula Arab ancestrally. Recent studies show that the majority of the Lebanese people’s genetic makeup today is shared with that of ancient Canaanite peoples native to the area. You might be interested: Often asked: How Was God Created According To The Bible? What makes Lebanon special? The country’s landscape With a richness of nature unique to the region, the Lebanese are extremely proud of the country’s terrain. Their geography lessons in school are comically all about Lebanon’s small size and the proximity between mountain and sea. Did Jesus do his first miracle in Lebanon? Qana also spelled Cana or Kana, is a village in Southern Lebanon located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) southeast of the city of Tyre. Cana is celebrated as the scene of Jesus’ first miracle. On the first occasion, Jesus and his first disciples turned up at a wedding feast, possibly that of a close relative of his mother Mary. What does Gethsemane mean in English? The name Gethsemane (Hebrew gat shemanim, “ oil press ”) suggests that the garden was a grove of olive trees in which was located an oil press. Leave a Reply
Why do electric cars have blue accents? Why is blue used for electric cars? Green was a very short-lived fad. All electric cars soon adopted blue as the default visionary color; a visual depiction of being at the cutting edge, of embracing new technology. Why are hybrid logos blue? In its early years, the hybrid car was seen to many as something of a novelty–and its driver was as well. … These blue emblem became so symbolic of the green movement that a bit of hybrid car backlash had started. Why are some Toyota emblems blue? When you look at a Toyota and see that the brand’s logo has a blue outline or background, it means that the vehicle is a hybrid model. Toyota has eight hybrid models for the 2020 model year, so we can expect to see an increase of Toyota models with blue logos increase in the coming years. Why do electric vehicles look weird? Factors that makes EV’s look ugly: Traditional and similar designs as compared to normal cars proposed by every manufacturer either Nissan, Tesla or Civic and others. Placement of batteries at the legroom requires seats to be placed at some higher place which alternatively leads to the development of taller rooflines. IT\'S FUNNING: Question: Why are there no nuclear power plants in Italy? Who owns BlueSG? The Bluecar is a 100% electric vehicle manufactured by the Bolloré Group of France, designed and intended specifically for car-sharing. The Bluecar seats 4 adults comfortably. Emblems for Toyota Prius for sale \| eBay. Why are some Toyota emblems gold? Gold emblems were a factory accessory not installed in Japan. They are 14k gold plated if my memory serves me right. The reason the cars are more loaded with them is that the option cost 695 dollars. What does the Toyota symbol mean? In 1990, Toyota debuted the three overlapping Ellipses logo on American vehicles. The Toyota Ellipses symbolize the unification of the hearts of our customers and the heart of Toyota products. The background space represents Toyota’s technological advancement and the boundless opportunities ahead. What is a hybrid blue? Instead of dressing up a membrane keyboard with reinforcements or noisemakers, we started with a mechanical switch, spring and all. Our hybrid blue switches have the same crisp, snappy, and tactile feel of mechanical because they use the same mechanism: a spring. … The Toyota Logo Design History Toyota’s first logo was a diamond-shaped, red and blue symbol. This one was chosen during a public competition. It presented the company’s name until 1989 when the fiftieth anniversary came. In the honour of a jubilee, they have created a new logo – three ovals combined. When did hybrid cars come out? Automotive hybrid technology became widespread beginning in the late 1990s. The first mass-produced hybrid vehicle was the Toyota Prius, launched in Japan in 1997, and followed by the Honda Insight, launched in 1999 in the United States and Japan. IT\'S FUNNING: How do you prevent electrical problems in the kitchen?
The faults of white administrators on aboriginal people in the past Also, to lend necessary aid or resources to rescue a vessel or vehicle, or to enable the survival of an enterprise or undertaking; as a means of relief, this contranym probably has naval origins. Also, a quantity of gravel or similar broken material used to stabilize a bank, a bed, or a barrier by adding fill [v: Also, a metaphor for a crisis or critical event, as represented by the expression when Also, anything resembling a ball, from a globular finial to a round-bottomed flask. The faults of white administrators on aboriginal people in the past The British Canadian "prophet," Richard Brotherswas a topic of interest in both the United Kingdom and North America when the year was approaching. As that year progressed it became evident that no great supernatural events were unfolding and Brothers was dismissed as one in a series of many false prophets. For example, that same year the Salem Register compared a local latter day The faults of white administrators on aboriginal people in the past, David Austin, to the discredited Brothers. The faults of white administrators on aboriginal people in the past His activities were reported in the Albany press -- see the Centinel of Aug, 4, Albany, New York, Tuesday August 4, A respectable number of citizens of different political sentiments in the town of Richfield, met on the 4th inst. It was unanimously agreed to join in the celebration of Independence. Having partook of an elegant entertainment, and drank a number of patriotic toasts, through which the greatest harmony and cheerfulness prevailed, it was voted to publish the proceedings of the meeting in the Albany Register and Centinel. The speaker having delineated, in a concise manner, the principal causes which contributed to the origin and establishment of our Independence and National Government, and likewise the prosperous situation of the United States since the adoption of the federal constitution, concludes the oration as follows: The farmer is stimulated to enlarge his improvements and accumulate wealth from a firm assurance that he shall not be robbed of his hard earnings by an haughty tyrant or imperious landlord. Social Media The mechanic knows that the law secures to him his wages, he therefore, with alacrity, repairs to his employment, and sings in the midst of his toils. The merchant rejoices to see so many customers from all classes, who have the inclination and the means to purchase his goods. The mariner, finding sufficient employment, either in fishing or navigation, and expecting an ample compensation for his fatigues, his sufferings and dangers, makes the ocean resound with his merry songs. The faults of white administrators on aboriginal people in the past Amd here the enterprizing and ambitious find the most powerful incentives to induce them to improve their minds with knowledge, and to regulate their conduct by the rules of virtue and honor; for learning and virtue are generally respected, and form the basis for learned employments and promotion in the community. As the beams of literature have spread, and knowledge has generally been diffused among the citizens of America, hence clerical despotism has fled, and hereditary titles have no existence. The ignorant domineering priest is spurned by every enlightened citizen; and the conceited empiric cures but a few patients by necromancy, and finds but a small sale for his specifics and nostrums. Talents, virtue and patriotism are required for office; of consequence none, without possessing these, can justly promise themselves sufficient confidence and esteem to be promoted in any of the departments of government. If, by impositions and intrigues, any are raised into conspicuous stations, the confidence will be, that their characters will be more effectively known, and they will incur a more universal contempt and hatred, and sink deeper into the mire of ignomeny and reproach. The prospect affords such rational and sublime pleasure, that we would not exchange situations with any state or kingdom under heaven. The above lines constitute the only known account of the words of Solomon Spalding, published while he was yet aive. The vocabulary and phraseology are consistent with the language found in the manuscript of his c. His former family physician wrote in After an absence of a few days I was called to see him. 32 Mobbing Cases, He sometimes took my prescriptions and sometimes his own or Mrs. Albany, New York, Friday, May 10, Whereas Solomon Spalding, of Richfield, in the county of Otsego, and state of New-York, by indenture of release, by way of mortgage, bearing date of the thirteenth day of March, in the year one thousand eight hundred and three, for securing the payment of a sum of two thousand three hundred and eighty-eight dollars and forty-four cents, in the manner particularly specified in the said indenture of mortgage, did "grant, bargain, sell, alien, release and confirm" unto me, the subscriber, by the name and description of William F. Miller, of Windsor, in the county of Hartford, and state of Connecticut, my heirs and assigns forever, all his right and title in and to that certain tract of landlying and being in the first range of townships, lot no. And the proportion of the above described tract of land, which said Spalding hath and doth convey by these presents unto the said Miller, is as one thousand and three acres is to two thousand one hundred, and fifty acres, be the actual quantity what it may, the remainder of said tract of land being one thousand one hundred and forty-seven acres, and was deeded by partition deed to Solomon Bond, [Squire? Miller, his heirs and assigns forever. And whereas it was in and by said indenture covenanted, concluded, declared and agreed by and between all and every the said parties to the said indenture, and to be the true intent and meaning thereof, that the said Solomon Spalding, his heirs, executors and administrators or assigns, do and shall well and truly pay, or cause to be paid, unto the said William F. And in case the said note or notes, or part or parts of them, or any thereof, shall remain unpaid at the time above limited for payment thereof, then and in such case, it shall and may be lawful for the said William F. Miller, his agent, heirs and assigns, and the said Solomon Spalding doth hereby empower and authorise the said Miller, his agent, heirs and assigns, to grant, bargain, sell, alien, release and convey the aforesaid premises, with their appurtenances, at public auction, or venue, and on such sale to make and execute to the purchaser or purchasers, his or their heirs and assigns, a good, ample and sufficient deed or conveyance in the law, pursuant to the acts in that case made and provided, in the state of New-York, which is the foundation of this security, rendering and paying the surplus money if any there be, to the said Solomon Spalding, his heirs, executors or administrators, after deducting the costs and charges of such auction or vendue, as aforesaid; which vendue is to be held on said tract of land, in said state of Ohio. And whereas default has been made in the payment of the principal and interest intended to be secured by the said indenture of mortgage -- Notice is therefore hereby given, that by virtue of the power contained in the said mortgage, and in pursuance of the statutes of the state of New-York, in such case made and provided, the premises described in the said mortgage, will be sold at public auction, on the said premises, on the fourteenth day of October next. Dated this 1st day of April, Apparently Solomon made his second journey to Ohio three years later, when he recorded his first big land sales there on Oct. Links 6/ Silinks Is Golden \| Slate Star Codex In the first of these transactions, Solomon disposed of what was probably his potentially most valuable piece of property on Old Section One: Perhaps Solomon did not agree to these terms until he arrived at New Salem and found that Brown was unable to pay him in any other way. Spalding went on selling lots of Ohio land but evidently did not thereby raise enough cash to pay off his debt to William F.However, as this study has demonstrated, White Australian administrators, politicians, anthropologists and writers have experienced profound difficulties in proceeding from a conception of Black Australians as indigenous symbols to an appreciation of Aborigines as people. This course is designed to provide an overview on epidemiology and the Internet for medical and health related students around the world based on the concept of Global Health Network University and Hypertext Comic Books. Port Manteaux churns out silly new words when you feed it an idea or two. Quick search form For example, enter "giraffe" and you'll get back words like "gazellephant" and "gorilldebeest". Jamaican political leader, who was a staunch proponent of the Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, founder the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), founder of the Black Star Line, which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands. “Free elections can only take place in societies in which people are free to express their opinions without fear.” — Natan Sharansky 4. Institutional racism in the housing sector can be seen as early as the s with the Home Owners' Loan would determine a neighborhood's risk for loan default and redline neighborhoods that were at high risk of default. These neighborhoods tended to be African American neighborhoods, whereas the white-middle-class . Institutional racism - Wikipedia
Sesame seeds are high-nutritive, easily accessible and inexpensive food with many health benefits. When roasted, they have a tasty, nutty flavour, similar to almonds. Surprising Facts about Sesame seeds • According to Wikipedia, the world harvested 6.2 million metric tonnes of sesame seeds in 2014, with Tanzania, India, and Sudan as the largest producers. • Archeological findings indicate that sesame seeds are the oldest oilseed crop known to humanity. Records from Babylon and Assyria, dating about 4000 years ago, mention sesame. • In ancient Egypt sesame seeds were used as a medicinal drug. • Sesame has a nickname “survivor crop” because it can grow where no other crops grow: in drought conditions, in high heat, at the edge of deserts, when rains fail or when rains are excessive. It needs little farming support. • Sesame seeds are protected by a capsule which only bursts when the seeds are completely ripe. It happens suddenly with a sharp pop. Maybe, the magical command “Open Sesame” from the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves came from that fact? Sesame Seeds Nutritional Value Sesame seeds are nutrient-dense. They are composed of 23% carbohydrates (including 12% dietary fiber), 50% fat, 18% protein, and 5% water. Sesame has one of the highest oil contents of any seed. Whole sesame seeds are a powerhouse of many essential minerals, especially iron, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, and zinc (20% or more of the Daily Value). Like flax seeds, they are rich in lignans. Sesame seeds are naturally gluten-free and cholesterol free. What Makes Sesame Seeds Different? • Sesame seeds are the second best (after flaxseeds) source of lignans that protect from different types of cancer. • The seeds are low in carb. • Sesame seeds have a low glycemic index that is beneficial for people with insulin resistance such as Type 2 diabetes. • The seeds are an excellent plant source of zinc: a serving of 100g provides 82% daily value of it. Dietary zinc improve men’s health • Sesame seeds are very rich in dietary iron providing 112% of its daily value. Iron is responsible for hemoglobin and red blood cells production. 7 Health Benefits of Sesame Seeds 7 Health Benefits of Sesame seeds Sesame seeds possess a unique mixture of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that may help: 1. Protect from cancer: After flax seeds, sesame seeds are the second best source of lignans that have anti-cancer properties. 2. Fight free radicals: Sesame seeds contain phytates, a cancer-preventing compound that functions as an antioxidant and reduces the effects of free radicals, which are connected to various forms of cancer. Also, phytic acid functions as a phosphorus and energy store. 3. Improve men’s health: Sesame seeds are loaded with zinc that is required for the function of over 300 enzymes. Zinc improves testosterone and sperm production, prostate health, and sex drive. 4. Have anti-diabetic effects: The seeds have a very low glycemic index. A lower glycemic response usually equates to a lower insulin demand and can improve long-term blood glucose control and blood lipids. 5. Increase hemoglobin level: Sesame seeds are a rich source of dietary iron that increases hemoglobin and blood red cells production. 6. Lower bad cholesterol: Some studies suggest that sesame seeds may reduce total and LDL-cholesterol in the blood due to a mix of health-beneficial nutrients (fiber, phytosterols, lignans, vitamins and minerals). 7. Promote healthy digestion: Sesame seeds are rich in fiber that promotes regular bowl movements. Health Risks of Sesame Seeds Like other nuts and seeds, sesame seeds: • may trigger allergic reactions in some people • must be eaten with moderation Some people believe that sesame seeds can lead to a miscarriage in pregnant women. It is a misconception. There is no scientific proof to suggest that sesame seeds are unsafe during pregnancy. Sesame Seeds for Vegans Sesame seeds are one of the best plant sources of zinc and iron with all their health benefits. How Many Sesame Seeds Can You Eat Per Day? One or two tablespoons per day are often recommended (one ounce = 28g = 2 tablespoons). How to Eat Sesame Seeds? With a rich, nutty flavour, it is a common ingredient in cuisines across the world. Sesame seeds can be used in many meals, baking goods and candies. They are also great for making your own sesame butter at home. (Visited 57 times, 1 visits today)
How much India is actually urban? How much of India is rural and urban? In 2017, the rural population in the country amounted to about 450 million and was estimated to reach 506 million in 2022. Population across rural and urban India from 2017 to 2022 (in millions) Characteristic Rural Urban What percentage of India is city? Rank City State or union territory 1 Mumbai Maharashtra 2 Delhi Delhi 3 Bangalore Karnataka 4 Hyderabad Telangana Is India a urban country? Based on Census data, about one-third of India is often thought of as urban. … Recent research on economic geography, built up area, and other indicators of settlement structure suggest that there may be important elements of an urban context in areas classified as rural. What percentage of India is rural? Proportion of Population : In percentage terms, the rural population formed 68.84% of the total population with the urban population constituting 31.16% (increase of 3.35%). Himachal Pradesh (89.96%) has the largest proportion of rural population, while Delhi (97.50%) has the highest proportion of urban population. THIS IS INTERESTING: Why do Indians drive on left? Is India still rural? Rural population (% of total population) in India was reported at 65.07 % in 2020, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. How many urban cities are in India? According to the 2011 census, there were 46 million-plus cities in India, with Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata having populations over 10 million. There are 56 urban agglomerations in India with a population of 1 million or more as of 2011 against 35 in 2001. Which is smallest city in India? The ten smallest cities in India by population, according to the 2011 India Census, are: • Gangotri (110) • Kedarnath (612) • Kirtinagar (1,517) • Nandaprayag (1,641) • Devprayag (2,152) • Dogadda (2,422) • Badrinath (2,438) • Dwarahat (2,749) Which is the cleanest city of India? Which is biggest city in India? India: Major Cities • New Delhi, India’s capital, is a modern city with a population of more than 7 million people. … • Bombay (Mumbai), India’s largest city, has a metropolitan area population of more than 15 million. … • Calcutta (Kolkata) is India’s second largest city. What is urban area India? THIS IS INTERESTING: Your question: Why Hinduism is said to have no founder? What percentage of India is inhabited? It is estimated that by 2050, India will overtake China to become the most populous country on the earth with about 17.2 percent population living here. How is rural area defined India? RBI defines rural areas as those areas with a population of less than 49,000 (tier -3 to tier-6 cities). It is generally said that the rural areas house up to 70% of India’s population. Rural India contributes a large chunk to India’s GDP by way of agriculture, self-employment, services, construction etc. Is India mostly rural or urban? The population residing in urban areas in India, according to the 1901 census, was 11.4%, increasing to 28.53% by the 2001 census, and is now currently 34% in 2017 according to The World Bank. According to a survey by UN, in 2030 40.76% of country’s population is expected to reside in urban areas. Is Urban a population? Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. … The urban population of the world has grown rapidly from 751 million in 1950 to 4.2 billion in 2018. Which state has largest urban population in India? Among major states, Tamil Nadu continues to be the most urbanized state with 48.4 percent of the population living in urban areas followed now by Kerala (47.7 per cent) upstaging Maharashtra (45.2 percent).
Your question: What is the maximum temperature of a car engine? Is 230 too hot for an engine? Is 240 degrees too hot for an engine? On a hot day, going up a hill with your air conditioner on, that is a normal temperature, and is nothing to worry about, as long as you aren’t losing coolant. You can safely operate to 240. Above 240 you are nearing the boiling point of your coolant, so start being concerned. Can I drive in 120 degree heat? Hot cars can be deadly. Never leave children or pets in your vehicle — even for a minute. The inside temperature of the car can quickly reach 120 degrees. Check your local news for extreme heat alerts and safety tips and to learn about any cooling shelters in your area. THIS IS INTERESTING: Frequent question: How much did O'Reilly Auto Parts make last year? What engine temp is too high? Normal operating temperature of new and used vehicles What temperature will damage an engine? As temperature of an engine exceeds 230 degrees Fahrenheit, the engine is overheated. Above 245 degrees Fahrenheit, damage may occur. As heat continues to increase, the different rates of thermal expansion cause metal to distort. How long can an engine run hot before damage? You have around 30 to 60 seconds before you start to do serious damage, such as seized up valves or even pistons, if it reaches maximum hot. What temp is too hot for engine oil? A quality conventional motor oil will tolerate oil sump temperatures of up to 250 degrees, but starts breaking down over 275 degrees. The traditional approach is to try to hold oil temperatures between 230 and 260 degrees. Does outside temperature affect engine temperature? tl;dr: Ambient air temperature should generally not interfere with engine efficiency or fuel consumption, but will affect overall power output. Are cars okay in the heat? Summer heat can also wreak havoc on a vehicle and its daily operation. The warm weather, hot roads, extended trips, and even humidity can create a hostile environment for your car. Cars need protection from the hot weather to ensure that they run optimally and don’t end up with serious problems. THIS IS INTERESTING: Question: How long will a reconditioned car battery last? Can cars handle extreme heat? Extreme heat can affect your car’s engine, especially if you’re towing a trailer. Air conditioning also stresses the engine. … So avoid driving in the heat and check your air pressure frequently this summer. Is 210 degrees too hot for an engine? Normal Temperature engine temperature gauge What temperature should car engine be Celsius? For most of the modern car, the normal operating engine temperature is in the range of 75 to 105 degrees Celsius. When it reaches 80-90 degrees, the thermostat allows the cooling fluid flow through the other cooling circuit. If the temperature continues rising, the radiator fan starts cooling the engine. What happens if your engine overheats?
Don't Look Up, That's Not Rain. It's Cicada Pee Heather Jauquet CicadaBill Nino/Unsplash Nary a cloud in the sky, but you have that feeling of raindrops as you walk by cicada-laden trees. Montgomery County, there’s a reason for that. It might not be the rain you are feeling, but cicada pee. That’s right, folks. Cicadas are not only a low-fat, protein-packed snack for humans, rats, and snakes. They are also the bringers of what is known as “honeydew” pee because their excretion is loaded with sugar and is expelled as if the cicadas are urinating. We thought we’ve heard it all with the 17-year Brood X cicadas that have emerged all over Montgomery County. These cacophonous arthropods make their debut every 17 years to find a mate. Emerging from the ground as mature nymphs they go through a final molt where the nymph’s skin split open and a mature white cicada makes its appearance. From there, the new cicada goes through the final stage of its skeleton hardening and turns a darker color. That sound you hear is the adult male cicada trying to attract a mate. He will last 2-4 weeks before dying. The female cicada lays her eggs in trees. As the eggs hatch, the nymphs fall to the ground and burrow under the soil until it’s time to emerge again, 17 years later, where it will start the process all over again. Mature cicada nymphBill Nino/Unsplash During the time between the molting and the hardening of the exoskeleton, the process is when the then-white cicadas are most vulnerable. They are so preoccupied with emerging and waiting for their exoskeleton to harden that they become easy prey for rats and snakes. Rats and snakes are a real concer, so much so that Montgomery County Health Officials sent advice to their residents about how to avoid these extra pests in around their house. In case you’re wondering, they are also a delicacy for humans. You can decide if you want them chocolate-covered or maybe Maryland style seasoned with Old Bay. Montgomery County, if you thought it was enough to watch where you’re walking because the rats and snakes come out to play when they dine on cicadas, you now have to cover your head or you’ll be covered in cicada pee. Watch your step and don’t look up should be the mantra for 2021 until the cicadas go back underground. You not only have to worry about snakes and rats but also “honeydew” cicada pee. You’re welcome. According to an interview with the Washington Post, Daniel Gruner, a community ecologist and a professor in the University of Maryland’s entomology department shares, “As adults, cicadas are active on the hottest days because they can tap into the dilute, water xylem fluid of deciduous trees. Evaporation of moisture cools their bodies by as much as five to ten degrees, just as humans sweat and pant, but an excess of fluids forces them to pee liberally.” What this breaks down to is that cicadas take in a fluid to regulate and cool their body temperatures just as we cool our bodies through sweat. Except for the fluid they take in is expelled out excessively in a stream much like urine. Cicada expert Dr. Gene Kritsky shared with Cincinnati's WLWT, “They need to stay hydrated and they will squirt fluids at other males, birds, or people. They are not urinating on you but trying to ward you away.” It’s gross but harmless. So how do you avoid cicada pee? Wear a hat and don’t look up. What do you think about this phenomenon? If it wasn’t bad enough that the cicadas bring noise, snakes, and rats, they can also pee on you. Those arthropods are harmless, even if they are a little gross. What do you think? Have you experienced cicada rain in your area? Let me know in the comments! I’ll be wearing a hat until they are gone! Ambrose, Kevin. “Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Cicada Pee.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 25 May 2021, Staff, WLWT Digital. “Is That Cicada Urine? Brood X Cicadas May Squirt Fluids at You.” WLWT, 26 May 2021, Comments / 26 Published by More from Heather Jauquet Comments / 0
What does “STACK EFFECT” mean? The “stack effect” is a term used in building science which means the whole structure acts like a chimney, simply because warm air rises. So, in the winter, cold air comes in from the lowest parts of the structure and exits the building at the highest point. If you open a window in the basement during the winter, you feel the cold air rushing into the building. If you go to the attic you will find the air leaving the attic through attic vents. Again, air gets pulled in from the lower part of the structure and pushed out at the upper part of the structure. Now, take this into consideration knowing that air intrusion in the winter causes the largest loss of energy efficiency. Air movement coming in, and then out, is the “low hanging fruit” on the energy efficiency tree. Look at it this way, you can have all the insulation in the world in the walls and ceilings of the structure, but if the windows are open, and there is air movement, the insulation doesn’t do much! So the moral of the story is make sure you have good windows in the basement and seal any openings to block air movement. Take a close look for openings in the basement walls and at the top of the foundation where the concrete meets the wood part of the structure. Apply caulking or other sealant where appropriate. Taking these simple steps could save you a lot of energy dollars over time. For more related information click on this link: Download Button Icey flood Freeze-Thaw Cycle When we do our inspections on Long Island in the winter, the temperatures typically hover between 20° and 40° which means that water is continually freezing and then thawing. So if something is wet, and then there is a freeze, the water turns to ice and expands with substantial force and can stretch or break whatever the material is. As an example, water gets into the substrate of your driveway and a puddle forms. And then there is a deep freeze which creates expansion breaks up the asphalt and creates potholes. The freeze thaw cycle also can cause problems with foundations. Let’s say there is a heavy rain and water has collected in the soil next to the foundation. We get a deep freeze and again, the water turns to ice and expands and puts pressure on the foundation wall. If the foundation is made of poured concrete it probably won’t have any impact, but once in a while, we do see foundation cracks from soil expansion. If the foundation is made of masonry blocks, serious problems can happen with the foundation, including long horizontal cracks which can be very problematic. A long horizontal crack indicates that the foundation is “bulging” inwards. As time goes on, the bulging increases to the point where expensive repairs may be required. This is one of the reasons that proper roof drainage is so important. Make sure you don’t have water draining towards the foundation. It must drain away from the foundation. We hope this information about the “freeze-thaw cycle is interesting and beneficial for you. As usual, we hope you stay safe and healthy! Be careful out there! For more related information click on this link: Download Button
CDC recommends boosters for all adults to protect against Omicron variant As the countries prepare for the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the CDC has recommended that all adults receive booster shots to protect themselves and others against the spread. This announcement follows directions from President Biden for both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CDC to approve vaccines as quickly as possible without putting the safety of the public at risk. Before the Omicron variant was identified, the recommendations of the CDC were to focus on getting boosters to vulnerable adults – the over 50s and those in long-term care facilities. Now, the advice from the agency is to extend this program to anyone over the age of 18 in light of the potential risks of the new variant. South Africa was the first country to report a case of the new variant. In the last week, France, Japan, the Netherlands, and other European countries have also reported cases. In the US, the authorities are currently monitoring the situation and hope to detect any cases of this variant, or any other new variants, as quickly as possible. Will the new variant affect travel? In the run-up to the holiday season, there are concerns about how the new variant might affect travel. At the moment, it’s not yet certain if any changes will be needed. Some countries have already put restrictions on travel. With the variant spreading quickly, the travel industry fears that it will have to return to a similar situation that it was in a year ago, and travelers may not be able to travel. Travel restrictions could, according to President Biden, slow the spread of the Omicron variant, but it won’t prevent it altogether. Many experts fear that it could threaten the recovery of the travel industry, which would also impact the wider economy both in the US and around the world.
Neurogenic Bladder: Neuroanatomy, Physiology, Pathophysiology, Types, Laboratory Studies, Medications Used and Complications The normal function of the urinary bladder is to store and expel urine in a coordinated and controlled manner. Medical Definition : This coordinated activity is regulated by the central and peripheral nervous systems. Neurogenic bladder is a term that is applied to the malfunctioning of the urinary bladder due to a neurological dysfunction that arises from traumas, illnesses or internal or external injuries. Symptoms of neurogenic bladder vary from lack of detrusor activity to hyperactivity, depending on the site of the neurological lesion. The urinary sphincter can also be affected, resulting in lack of activity or hyperactivity of the sphincter and loss of sphincter coordination with bladder function. Appropriate therapy for neurogenic bladder and a successful treatment outcome are based on accurate diagnosis through careful medical and voiding history, along with a variety of clinical examinations, including urodynamics and selective studies of radiographic images. Normal urination is essentially a spinal reflex modulated by the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), which coordinates the function of the bladder and urethra. The bladder and urethra are innervated by 3 sets of peripheral nerves that come from the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the somatic nervous system. The central nervous system is composed of the brain, the brainstem and the spinal cord. The brain is the master control of the entire urinary system. Cognitive control of urination is achieved by communicating a number of cerebral structures to the periaqueductal gray matter, which then exerts control over the pontine urination center to suppress or trigger a voiding reflex. In general, the brain receives information through afferent pathways that ascend from the bladder and provide information about how full the bladder is. The higher brain centers determine whether it is socially acceptable to annul and trigger structures downstream to allow or suppress the voiding reflex. As a result of dependence on higher brain centers, certain brain injuries or diseases (eg, stroke, cancer, dementia) can cause loss of voluntary control of the normal micturition reflex, as well as symptoms such as urinary urgency . The signal transmitted by the brain is routed through 2 intermediate segments (the brainstem and the sacral spinal cord) before reaching the bladder. The brainstem is at the base of the skull. The protuberance is located within the brainstem, a specialized area that serves as an important relay center between the brain and the bladder (see image below). The protuberance is responsible for coordinating the activities of the urinary sphincters and the bladder. The mechanical process of urination is coordinated in an area of the protuberance known as the pontine center of urination (CPM). The CPM coordinates the relaxation of the urethral sphincter and the detrusor contraction to facilitate urination. The bridge transmits afferent information from the bladder to higher centers of the brain, which in turn communicate with the periaqueductal gray matter, a repeating station that collects brain input and factor inputs from this center in order to signal the CPM for activate or suppress the micturition reflex. The conscious sensations associated with the activity of the bladder are transmitted to the protuberance of the cerebral cortex. The interaction of a variety of excitatory and inhibitory neuronal systems influences PMC activity, which by default attempts to activate the voiding reflex. This voiding reflex causes the urethral sphincters to open while allowing the detrusor to contract and expel urine. Emotions, experienced in the higher brain centers, can exert later effects in the CPM, so that some people may experience incontinence with excitement or fear. The brain’s ability to control CPM is part of the social skills children experience during growth and development. In general, the brain takes control of the protuberance, through the periaqueductal gray substance, when the children undergo toilet training. When the bladder fills up, the detrusor muscle stretch receptors send a signal to the lump, which in turn notifies the brain. People perceive this signal (fullness of the bladder) as a sudden urge to urinate or urinary need. In normal situations, the brain sends an inhibitory signal to the protrusion through the periaqueductal gray substance to inhibit the contraction of the bladder until a bath is found. When the CPM is deactivated, the desire to urinate disappears, which allows the patient to delay urination until finding a socially acceptable place and time. When urination is appropriate, the brain eliminates its suppression of the CPM through the periaqueductal gray matter, allowing the urinary sphincter to open and the detrusor to contract and empty the bladder. Spinal cord The spinal cord extends from the brainstem to the lumbosacral spine. It is found in the spinal canal and is protected by cerebrospinal fluid, meninges and spine. The spinal cord functions as a long path of communication between the brainstem and the sacral spinal cord. When the sacral cord receives sensory information from the bladder, this signal travels through the spinal cord to the pons and then to the higher centers of the brain. The brain interprets this signal and sends a response through the protuberance that travels through the spinal cord to the sacral cord and, later, to the bladder. This signal of “response”, part of the micturition reflex, can be suppressed by the periaqueductal gray substance that inhibits the pons. In the normal cycle of filling and emptying the bladder, the spinal cord acts as an important intermediary between the pons and the sacral medulla. An intact spinal cord is critical for normal urination. Depending on the level of injury, a spinal cord injury can lead to urinary frequency, urgency and urge incontinence, which can be complicated by difficulty in emptying the bladder. This occurs because the urinary bladder and the sphincter are no longer coordinated and both exercise hyperactivity, a condition called detrusor-sphincter dyssynergy (DDE). The sacral spinal cord is the terminal portion of the spinal cord, located in the lower back in the lumbar area. This is a specialized portion of the spinal cord known as the sacral reflex center. It is responsible for the contractions of the bladder. The sacral reflex center is the primitive voiding center. In babies, the upper center of micturition control (the brain) is not mature enough to control the bladder, so the control of micturition comes from signals sent from the sacral cord. When the urine fills the infant’s bladder, a signal of excitement is sent to the sacrum cord. When the sacral cord receives this signal, the spinal reflex center automatically activates the detrusor so that it contracts. The result is involuntary detrusor contractions with coordinated urination. There is a continuous cycle of filling and emptying the bladder, so infants and young children depend on diapers until they enter the toilet. As the child’s brain matures and develops, he gradually gains control of the bladder and urinary sphincters to inhibit involuntary urination. The control of the transitions of the micturition process from the sacral reflex center to the pontine urination center, which is further modulated by the higher cerebral centers that process the emotions and the social context. Severe sacral cord injury results in loss of bladder function. Affected patients may develop urinary retention, called detrusor areflexia. The detrusor can not be contracted, so the patient will not be able to urinate and urinary retention will occur. Peripheral nerves Peripheral nerves form a network of ways to send and receive information throughout the body. The nerves enter and exit the spinal cord, which then transmits nerve information to and from the brain. The urethral bladder and sphincters are under the influence of related but separate neural pathways. The autonomic nervous system is outside the central nervous system. Regulates the actions of internal organs under involuntary control. The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. When the sympathetic nervous system is active, it causes the bladder to increase its capacity without increasing the resting pressure of the detrusor (accommodation) and stimulates the internal urinary sphincter to remain well closed. Sympathetic activity also inhibits parasympathetic stimulation, preventing contractions of the bladder. When the sympathetic nervous system is active, urinary accommodation occurs and the voiding reflex is suppressed. The parasympathetic nervous system works in a manner opposite to that of the sympathetic nervous system. In terms of urinary function, the parasympathetic nerves stimulate the detrusor contract. Immediately before parasympathetic stimulation, the sympathetic influence on the internal urethral sphincter is suppressed so that the internal sphincter relaxes and opens. In addition, the activity of the pudendal nerve, a somatic nerve, is inhibited to cause the opening of the external sphincter. The result is the facilitation of voluntary voiding. The somatic nervous system regulates the actions of the muscles under voluntary control. Examples of these muscles are the external urinary sphincter and the pelvic diaphragm. The pudendal nerve originates in the Onuf nucleus and regulates the voluntary actions of the external urinary sphincter and the pelvic diaphragm. The activation of the pudendal nerve causes contraction of the external sphincter, which occurs with activities such as Kegel exercises (which also target the large muscles of the pelvic floor). Some reflex activities can also occur through the pudendal nerve, such as sphincter contractions that occur during sneezing, coughing, and laughter, the so-called continence reflex. Physiology and physiopathology During the course of a day, the average person will lose approximately 4-8 times. The urinary bladder is in storage mode most of the day, which allows the individual to participate in activities more important than urination. The normal function of the bladder consists of 2 phases: filling and emptying. The normal urination cycle requires that the urinary bladder and urethral sphincter work together as a coordinated unit to store and empty urine. During urinary storage, the bladder acts as a low-pressure receptacle, while the urinary sphincter maintains a high resistance to urinary flow, in order to keep the exit of the bladder closed. During the elimination of urine, the bladder contracts to expel urine while opening the urinary sphincter (low resistance) to allow urinary flow without obstructions and emptying of the bladder. Filling phase During the filling phase, the bladder accumulates increasing volumes of urine while the pressure inside the bladder remains low. The pressure inside the bladder should be less than the urethral pressure during the filling phase. If the bladder pressure is greater than the urethral pressure (resistance), the urine will leak. The filling of the urinary bladder depends on the intrinsic viscoelastic properties of the bladder and the inhibition of the parasympathetic nerves. Therefore, the filling of the bladder is mainly a passive event. The sympathetic nerves also facilitate the storage of urine in the following ways: • The sympathetic nerves inhibit the parasympathetic nerves from causing contractions of the bladder. • The sympathetic nerves directly cause relaxation and expansion of the detrusor muscle. • The sympathetic nerves close the neck of the bladder by narrowing the internal urethral sphincter. This sympathetic entrance in the lower urinary tract is constantly active during the filling of the bladder. As the bladder fills up, the pudendal nerve becomes excited. Stimulation of the pudendal nerve results in contraction of the external urethral sphincter. The contraction of the external sphincter, together with that of the internal sphincter, maintains the urethral pressure (resistance) higher than the normal pressure of the bladder. This increase in urethral pressure with filling is the reflection of continence. Pressure gradients within the bladder and urethra play an important functional role in normal urination. As long as the urethral pressure is greater than that of the bladder, the person will remain on the continent. If the urethral pressure is abnormally low or if the intravesical pressure is abnormally high, urinary incontinence will occur. During some physical activities and with coughing, sneezing or laughter, the pressure inside the abdomen increases sharply. This increase is transmitted to the bladder and, in response, the urethra, both anatomically and functionally, is designed to increase its pressure and maintain continence. When the pressure transmitted to the bladder is greater than inside the urethra, the urine is filtered, which results in stress incontinence. Emptying phase The storage phase of the urinary bladder can be changed to the emptying phase either involuntarily (by reflex) or voluntarily. Involuntary reflex emptying occurs in a baby when the volume of urine exceeds the threshold of urination. When the bladder is full to capacity, the stretch receptors inside the bladder wall signal the sacral cord. The sacral cord, in turn, sends a message to the bladder to initiate urination. At this point, the pudendal nerve causes relaxation of the urethral sphincter, which is also accompanied by a wider relaxation of the pelvic floor. The sympathetic nerves send a message to the internal sphincter to relax and open, resulting in less urethral resistance. When the urethral sphincters relax and open, the parasympathetic nerves trigger the detrusor contraction. When the bladder contracts, the pressure generated by the bladder overcomes the urethral pressure, which produces a urinary flow. These coordinated series of events allow the unhindered automatic release of stored urine. While conscious control of this reflex develops after infancy, the primitive voiding reflex may reappear with spinal cord injuries. Delay in cancellation or voluntary cancellation The function of the bladder is automatic but it is completely governed by the brain, which makes the final decision about the cancellation or not. The normal urination function means that an individual has the ability to stop and start urinating at the command. In addition, the individual has the ability to delay urination until a socially acceptable time and place. The healthy adult is aware of the filling of the bladder and can voluntarily initiate or delay urination. In a healthy adult, the CPM functions as an on-off switch that is signaled by stretch receptors in the wall of the bladder and, in turn, is modulated by inhibitory and excitatory neurological influences of the brain. When the bladder is full, the stretch receptors are activated. The individual perceives the activation of the stretch receptors when the bladder is full, which indicates the need to evacuate or the sensation of urinary urgency. When an individual can not find a bath nearby, the brain bombards the CPM with a multitude of inhibitory signals, through the periaqueductal gray substance, to prevent detrusor contractions. At the same time, an individual can actively contract the levator muscles to keep the external sphincter closed or initiate distraction techniques to suppress urination. If a problem occurs within the nervous system, the entire cycle of urination is affected. Any part of the nervous system can be affected, including the brain, the pons, the spinal cord, the sacral medulla, and the peripheral nerves. A dysfunctional voiding condition results in different symptoms, ranging from acute urinary retention to overactive bladder or a combination of both. Urinary incontinence is the result of a dysfunction of the bladder, the sphincter, or both. Overactive bladder is associated with the symptoms of urge incontinence, while lack of sphincter activity (decreased resistance) produces symptomatic stress incontinence. A combination of detrusor overactivity and lack of sphincter activity can lead to mixed symptoms. Brain injuries Brain injuries above the bridge interrupt the higher conscious control of urination. The urinary reflexes of the lower urinary tract, the primitive voiding reflex, remain intact. Affected people show signs of urge incontinence and experience symptoms of overactive bladder. The bladder empties too quickly and too often, with relatively low volumes of urine, and deferring urination or storing a large volume becomes difficult. Waking up frequently at night to cancel is also common in such situations. Typical examples of a brain injury are stroke, brain tumor, and head trauma. Hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy and Shy-Drager syndrome are also pathologies of the central nervous system that affect voiding function. Dementia can also affect the socially appropriate control of urination. Spinal cord injuries Diseases or injuries of the spinal cord between the protuberance and the sacral spinal cord also cause overactive bladder, often accompanied by urge incontinence. The bladder empties too frequently and the general image can be similar to that of a brain injury, except that the external sphincter can paradoxically contract. If both the bladder and the external sphincter become spastic at the same time, the affected person will feel an overwhelming desire to urinate, but only a small amount of urine can leak out. This is called deltrusor-sphincter dyssynergia, since the bladder and the external sphincter are not in synergy. The causes of spinal cord injuries include physical trauma, tumors, ischemia and multiple sclerosis (MS), as well as some other neurodegenerative conditions. Children who are born with myelomeningocele may have neurogenic bladder from birth or may develop it later as they grow up due to an anchoring of the spinal cord. Sacral cord injury Selected lesions of the sacrum cord and corresponding nerve roots arising from the sacrum can prevent the bladder from emptying and the patient sensing a full bladder. Perosomes that can not feel a full bladder may be at risk of urinary retention and damage to the kidneys due to the high pressure of storing large volumes of urine. If the bladder can not contract, there is a condition called detrusion of areflexia, which also leads to the storage of large volumes of urine and may be accompanied by overflow incontinence. Typical causes are a sacral cord tumor, a herniated disc and lesions that crush the pelvis. This condition can also occur after a lumbar laminectomy, radical hysterectomy, or abdominoperineal resection in some cases. Rapid growth in childhood can also lead to the detrusor areflexia of a spinal cord tied in patients with previous trauma or congenital malformations such as spina bifida. Peripheral nerve injury Diabetes mellitus, AIDS and iatrogenic injury can cause a peripheral neuropathy that causes urinary retention. These disorders interrupt the nerves of the bladder and can lead to a silent and painless distension of the bladder. Patients with long-standing diabetes also often have an altered feeling of bladder filling, which further complicates the situation. As with the injury to the sacral medulla, affected persons will have difficulty urinating and may develop a hypocontractile bladder. Other diseases that cause this condition are poliomyelitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, severe genitoanal herpes infection, pernicious anemia and neurosyphilis (tabes dorsalis). Types of neurogenic bladders Supraspinal lesions Supraspinal lesions involve the central nervous system above the pons. They include stroke, brain tumor, Parkinson’s disease and Shy-Drager syndrome. After a stroke, the brain can enter a temporary phase of acute cerebral shock. During this time, the urinary bladder will be in retention-detrusion of areflexia. Almost 25% of affected people develop acute urinary retention after a stroke. After the shock phase disappears, the bladder shows detrusor hyperreflexia with coordinated activity of the urethral sphincter. This occurs because the PMC is released from the cerebral inhibitory center. Patients with detrusor hyperreflexia complain of urinary frequency, urgency, and urge incontinence. The treatment for the cerebral shock phase is permanent Foley catheter placement or clean intermittent catheterization (CIL). Detrusor hyperreflexia is treated with anticholinergic medications to facilitate filling and storage of the bladder. Tumor cerebral Detrusor hyperreflexia with coordinated urethral sphincter is the most common observed urodynamic pattern associated with a brain tumor. These patients complain of urinary frequency and urgency and urge incontinence. The first-line treatment for detrusor hyperreflexia includes anticholinergic medication. Parkinson’s disease This is a degenerative disorder of pigmented neurons of substantia nigra. It produces dopamine deficiency and increased cholinergic activity in the striatum. Specific symptoms of the urinary bladder include urinary frequency, urinary urgency, nocturia, and urge incontinence. The urodynamic findings typical of Parkinson’s disease are more consistent with detrusor hyperreflexia and urethral sphincter bradykinesia. The striated urethral sphincter often shows a poorly sustained contraction. As with other supraspinal lesions, the treatment for Parkinson’s disease is to facilitate filling the bladder and promote urinary storage with anticholinergic agents. In men with Parkinson’s disease who show symptoms of bladder outlet obstruction (OSV) due to benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), the diagnosis of OSV should be confirmed by multichannel urodynamic studies. The most common cause of postprostatectomy incontinence in the patient with Parkinson’s disease is detrusor hyperreflexia. If transurethral resection of the prostate (RTP) is performed without urodynamic confirmation of the obstruction, the patient may become totally incontinent after the RTP procedure. Shy-Drager’s syndrome Shy-Drager syndrome is a rare, progressive and degenerative disease that affects the autonomic nervous system with multisystem organ atrophy. In addition to parkinsonian symptoms, patients often have cerebellar ataxia and autonomic dysfunction. Clinical manifestations include orthostatic hypotension, anhidrosis and urinary incontinence. The degeneration of the Onuf nucleus produces the denervation of the external striated sphincter. Sympathetic atrophy of the nerve causes a nonfunctional bladder and an open bladder neck. Urodynamic evaluation often reveals detrusor hyperreflexia, although some patients may have detrusor areflexia or poorly sustained bladder contractions. Often, the neck of the bladder (internal sphincter) will be open at rest, with denervation of the striated sphincter. The treatment for Shy-Drager syndrome is to facilitate urinary storage with anticholinergic agents coupled with CIL or permanent catheter. Patients with Shy-Drager syndrome should avoid having an RTP because the risk of total incontinence is high. Spinal cord injuries Neurogenic bladder from spinal cord injuries can take various forms, depending on the mechanism and site of the injury. Spinal cord trauma When an individual suffers a spinal cord injury (for example, from a diving accident or injury to a motor vehicle), the initial neurological response is a spinal shock. During this phase of spinal shock, the affected individual experiences a flaccid paralysis below the level of the lesion, and somatic reflex activity is depressed or absent. The anal and bulbocavernosus reflex is typically absent. The autonomic activity is depressed, and the individual experiences urinary retention and constipation. The urodynamic findings are consistent with the Aretrlexic detrusor and rectum. The internal and external activities of the urethral sphincter, however, are normal. The spinal shock phase usually lasts 6 to 12 weeks, but may persist longer in some cases. During this time, the urinary bladder should be drained with CIL or a permanent urethral catheter. When the spinal shock phase disappears, the bladder function returns but the detrusor activity increases in reflex excitability to a hyperactive state (ie, detrusor hyperreflexia). Depending on the level of the lesion, hyperreflexia of the detrusor-detrusor of the sphincter-detrusor (HDD-ED) may develop. Therefore, these patients should be monitored for leaks between the CIL, and periodic urodynamic tests should be performed for this alteration in detrusor behavior. During urodynamic studies, intravesical instillation of cold saline may indicate the return of reflex activity or help to better characterize the lesion. Realizing that the supraacral lesions exhibit a detrusor areflexia in the initial lesion, but progress to a hyperreflexic state over time is important. In contrast, lesions of the sacral medulla are associated with arephlexic bladders that may become hypertonic over time. Spinal cord injuries on the sixth thoracic vertebra Individuals who sustain a complete section of the umbilical cord above the sixth thoracic vertebra (T6) most often will have urodynamic findings of detrusor hyperreflexia, striated sphincter dyssynergia, and smooth sphincter dyssynergia. A unique complication of the T6 lesion is autonomic dysreflexia. Autonomic dysreflexia is an exaggerated sympathetic response to any stimulus below the level of the lesion. This most commonly occurs with cervical cord injuries. Often, the inciting event is the instrumentation of the urinary bladder or the rectum, causing visceral distension. The symptoms of autonomic dysreflexia include sweating, headache, hypertension and reflex bradycardia. The acute treatment of autonomic dysreflexia is to decompress the rectum or the bladder. Decompression will usually reverse the effects of sympathetic flow without opposition. If additional measures are required, parenteral ganglionic or adrenergic blocking agents, such as chlorpromazine, can be used. Oral blockers, including terazosin, can be used for prophylaxis in patients with autonomic dysreflexia. Alternatively, spinal anesthesia can be used as a prophylactic measure whenever a bladder instrumentation is performed. Spinal cord injuries below T6 People suffering spinal cord injuries below the T6 level will have urodynamic findings of detrusor hyperreflexia, striated sphincter dyssynergia and smooth sphincter dyssynergia, but not autonomic dysreflexia. The neurological evaluation will reveal skeletal muscle spasticity with hyperreflexive deep tendon reflexes. Affected patients will demonstrate an extensor plantar response and a positive Babinski sign. These individuals will experience incomplete bladder emptying secondary to detrusor sphincter dyssynergia, or the loss of facilitatory input from higher centers. The cornerstones of the treatment are CIL and anticholinergic medications. Multiple sclerosis MS is caused by focal demyelinating lesions of the central nervous system. It commonly involves the posterior and lateral columns of the cervical spinal cord. In general, there is a poor correlation between clinical symptoms and urodynamic findings. Therefore, the use of urodynamic studies to evaluate patients with MS is critical. The most common urodynamic finding is detrusor hyperreflexia, which occurs in up to 50-90% of patients with MS. Up to 50% of patients will demonstrate HDD-ED. Detrusor areflexia occurs in 20-30% of cases. The optimal therapy for a patient with MS and incontinence should be individualized and based on the urodynamic findings. Injuries of the peripheral nerve Peripheral nerve injuries that cause detrusor areflexia may be due to any of the following: • Diabetes mellitus • Tabes dorsalis (neurosífilis) • Herpes infection • Lumbar disc herniation • Radical pelvic surgery Diabetic cystopathy In general, neurogenic bladder dysfunction occurs 10 or more years after the onset of diabetes mellitus. Neurogenic bladder occurs due to autonomic and peripheral neuropathy. A metabolic alteration of the Schwann cell produces segmental demyelination and altered nerve conduction. The first symptoms of diabetic cystopathy are loss of bladder filling sensation followed by loss of motor function. The classical urodynamic findings associated with this condition are elevation of residual urine level, decreased bladder sensitivity, impaired detrusor contractility, and, eventually, detrusor areflexia. Paradoxically, detrusor overactivity with impaired contractile function (DHIC) has also been observed. The treatment of diabetic cystopathy is CIL, permanent long-term catheterization or urinary diversion. Tabes dorsal In dorsal tabes, central and peripheral nerve conduction is affected. Affected patients experience a decrease in bladder sensation and an increase in urination intervals. The most common urodynamic finding associated with neurosyphilis is detrusor areflexia with normal sphincter function. Herpes infection Herpes zoster is a neuropathy associated with painful vesicular eruptions in the distribution of the affected nerve. The herpes virus remains inactive in the dorsal root ganglia or sacral nerves. The involvement of the sacral nerve leads to a deterioration of the detrusor function. The early stages of herpes infection are associated with lower urinary tract symptoms of urinary frequency, urgency and urge incontinence. Later stages include decreased sensation of the bladder, increased residual urine and urinary retention. Urinary retention is self-limited and will resolve spontaneously by eliminating herpes infection. Lumbar disc herniation The slow and progressive hernia of the lumbar disc can cause irritation of the sacral nerves and hyperreflexia of the detrusor. Conversely, acute compression of the sacral roots associated with deceleration trauma will prevent nerve conduction and lead to detrusor areflexia. A typical urodynamic finding in the sacral nerve lesion is detrusor areflexia with intact bladder sensation. Denervation of the associated internal sphincter may occur. If the peripheral sympathetic nerves are damaged, the internal sphincter will be open and will not work. Peripheral sympathetic nerve damage often occurs in association with detrusor denervation. The striated sphincter, however, is preserved. Pelvic surgery Patients undergoing major pelvic surgery, such as radical hysterectomy, abdominoperineal resection, proctocolectomy, or total exenteration will experience post-operative bladder dysfunction. The most common is that postoperative patients manifest symptoms of areflexia of the detrusor. However, up to 80% of affected patients will experience a spontaneous recovery of function within 6 months after surgery. Laboratory studies These include the following: • Urinalysis and urine culture: Urinary tract infection can cause symptoms of irritative urination and urge incontinence. • Urinary cytology: symptoms of irritative urination disproportionate to the general clinical picture and / or haematuria justify urinary cytology and cystoscopy, as they may indicate carcinoma in situ of the urinary bladder • Studies of renal function: blood urea nitrogen (NUS) and creatinine (Cr) are controlled if a compromise of renal function is suspected. Other tests An evacuation diary is a daily record of the bladder activity of the patient. It is an objective documentation of the patient’s voiding pattern, episodes of incontinence and the inciting events associated with urinary incontinence. The pad test is an objective test that documents and can quantify the loss of urine. It can be useful to assess the severity of incontinence. Diagnostic procedures The procedures used to investigate a possible neurogenic bladder include the following: • Post-void residual bladder volume • Rate of uroflow • Fill cystometrogram • Evacuation cystometrogram (pressure-flow study) • Study of Cistogram • Electromyography (EMG) • Cystoscopy • Videodinamica Post-void residual bladder volume Measurement of postvoid residual urine (ORP) is a part of the basic evaluation for urinary incontinence. If the ORP is high, the bladder may be poorly contractile or the bladder outlet may be obstructed. Both conditions can cause urinary retention with overflow incontinence. Rate of uroflow The uroflow rate is a useful screening test that is used primarily to evaluate obstruction of bladder outlet, but also identifies detrusor weakness. The uroflow rate is the volume of voided urine per unit of time. The low uroflow rate may reflect urethral obstruction, a weak detrusor, or a combination of both. This test alone can not distinguish an obstruction from a contractile detrusor. Fill cystometrogram A filling cystometrogram (CMG) evaluates the capacity of the bladder, compliance and the presence of phasic contractions (detrusor instability). More commonly, liquid filling medium is used. An average adult bladder contains approximately 50-500 ml of urine. During the test, provocative maneuvers help reveal the instability of the bladder. Cystometrograma miccional The pressure flow study simultaneously records the voiding detrusor pressure and the urinary flow rate. This is the only test capable of evaluating the contractility of the bladder and the extension of a bladder outlet obstruction. Pressure flow studies can be combined with an evacuation cystogram and a videourodynamic study for complicated cases of incontinence. A static cystogram (anteroposterior and lateral) helps confirm the presence of stress incontinence, the degree of movement of the urethra and the presence of a cystocele. Intrinsic sphincter deficiency will be evident from an open bladder neck. The presence of a vesicovaginal fistula or a bladder diverticulum can also be observed. An evacuation cystogram can evaluate the functioning of the bladder neck and urethral function (internal and external sphincter) during the filling and emptying phases. A voiding cystogram can identify a urethral diverticulum, urethral obstruction, and vesicoureteral reflux. EMG helps determine if urination is coordinated or uncoordinated. The failure of urethral relaxation during contraction of the bladder results in an uncoordinated urination (detrusor sphincter dyssynergy). EMG allows an accurate diagnosis of detrusor sphincter dyssynergia that is common in spinal cord injuries. The role of cystoscopy in the evaluation of neurogenic bladder is to allow the discovery of bladder lesions (eg, bladder cancer, bladder stones) that would not be diagnosed only with urodynamics. The general agreement is that cystoscopy is indicated for patients who have persistent symptoms of irritative urination or hematuria. The doctor can easily diagnose obvious causes of overactivity of the bladder, such as cystitis, stones and tumors. This information is important in determining the etiology of incontinence and can influence treatment decisions. The videodinámica is the criterion standard for the evaluation of a patient with incontinence. The videourodynamics combines the radiographic findings of the voiding cystourethrogram (CUGM) and the multichannel urodynamics. The videourodynamics allows the documentation of the anatomy of the lower urinary tract, such as vesicoureteral reflux and bladder diverticulum, as well as the functional flow-pressure relationship between the bladder and the urethra. Treatment and management Medical care The treatment of urinary incontinence varies depending on the type, as follows: • Stress incontinence can be treated with surgical methods and some non-surgical methods • Urinary incontinence can be treated with behavioral modification, pharmacotherapy or third-line procedures • Mixed incontinence may require medications and surgery • Overflow incontinence is usually treated by emptying the bladder with a catheter • Another incontinence can be resolved by treating the underlying cause such as urinary tract infection or constipation. Do not consider anti-incontinence products a panacea for urinary incontinence; however, the judicious use of pads and devices to contain urine loss and maintain skin integrity is extremely useful in selected cases. Absorbent pads and internal and external collecting devices have an important role in the treatment of chronic incontinence. The criteria for using these products are quite simple and are beneficial in certain situations: • Failure of all other treatments and persistent incontinence • Illness or disability that prevents participation in care • Inability to benefit from medications • Incontinence disorders that can not be corrected with surgery • Waiting for surgery Absorbent products Absorbent products are pads or garments designed to absorb urine to protect skin and clothing. Available in both disposable and reusable forms, they are a temporary means of keeping the patient dry until a more permanent solution is available. By reducing humidity and odor, they help maintain patient comfort and allow them to function in normal activities. They can be used temporarily until a definitive treatment comes into force or if the treatment produces less than perfect results. The absorbent products are useful during the initial evaluation and the study of urinary incontinence. As a complement to behavioral and pharmacological therapies, they play an important role in the care of people with intractable incontinence. Do not use absorbent products instead of definitive interventions to reduce or eliminate urinary incontinence. Early dependence on absorbent pads can be an impediment to achieving continence, providing the user with a false sense of security. The misuse of absorbent products can contribute to the breakdown of the skin and urinary tract infections. Therefore, when using absorbent products, proper use, meticulous care and frequent changes in the pad or garment are necessary. The urinary diversion, using several catheters, has been one of the pillars of the therapy against incontinence. The use of catheters for bladder drainage has withstood the test of time. Bladder catheterization can be a temporary measure or a permanent solution for urinary incontinence. Different types of bladder catheterization include permanent urethral catheters, suprapubic tubes, and self-intermittent catheterization. Permanent urethral catheters Commonly known as Foley catheters, permanent urethral catheters have historically been the mainstay of treatment for bladder dysfunction. If urethral catheters are used for a long-term condition, they should be changed at least monthly. These catheters can be changed in an office, clinic or at home by a visiting nurse. The standard catheter size to treat urinary retention is 16 ° F or 18 ° F, with a balloon filled to 10 ml of sterile water. Larger catheters (eg, 22F, 24F) with larger balloons are used to treat the extremely bloody urine found in other urological conditions or diseases. The proper management of permanent urethral catheters varies by individual. The usual practice is to replace permanent catheters and collection bags at least once a month. However, catheters that develop incrustations and problems with urine drainage should be changed more frequently. All permanent catheters that remain in the urinary bladder for more than 2 weeks are colonized with bacteria. Bacterial colonization does not mean that the patient has a clinical infection of the bladder. Symptoms of bladder infection include bad odor, purulent urine and hematuria. Fever with flank pain is often present if it involves upper tracts. If a bladder infection occurs, change the entire catheter and drainage system. The urinary drainage bag does not need to be disinfected to prevent infection. Routine irrigation of catheters is not necessary. However, some authors favor the use of irrigation with 0.25% acetic acid because it is bacteriostatic, minimizes the incrustation of the catheter and decreases the odor. When this method is used, 30 ml are instilled into the bladder and allowed to drain freely twice a day. Continuous antibiotic prophylaxis is not only unnecessary for patients with permanent catheters, but is contraindicated because it promotes the generation of bacteria resistant to common antibiotics. The use of a permanent Foley catheter in people who can not leave home requires close supervision of a visiting nurse and additional personal hygiene care. Despite its apparent advantages, the use of a Foley catheter for a prolonged period of time (eg, months or years) is strongly discouraged. Long-term urethral catheters present significant health risks. Permanent urethral catheters are an important cause of urinary tract infections that affect the urethra, bladder, and kidneys. Within 2-4 weeks after catheter insertion, bacteria will be present in the bladder of most women. Asymptomatic bacterial colonization is common and does not represent a health hazard. However, symptomatic urinary tract infections without treatment can lead to urosepsis and death. It has been found that the mortality rate of residents of nursing homes with urethral catheters is three times higher than that of residents without catheters; this may be more a reflection of the severity of the comorbid conditions that lead to the clinical decision to use chronic bladder drainage than the causality of the use of chronic bladder drainage. The use of a urethral catheter is contraindicated in the treatment of urge incontinence. Other problems associated with permanent urethral catheters include incrustation of the catheter, spasms of the bladder that produce urinary leakage, hematuria and urethritis . More serious complications include stone formation in the bladder, development of periurethral abscess, kidney damage and urethral erosion. Another problem with long-term catheterization is bladder contracture, which occurs with urethral catheters and suprapubic tubes. It has been reported that anticholinergic therapy and intermittent clamping of the catheter in combination are beneficial in preserving the integrity of the bladder with prolonged use of the catheter. People who did not use the medication and the daily clamping regimen experienced a decrease in bladder capacity. For this reason, some doctors recommend the use of anticholinergic drugs with intermittent catheter impingement if a reconstruction of the lower urinary tract is anticipated in the future. Restrict the use of permanent catheters in the following situations: • As comfort measures for the terminally ill • To avoid contamination or to promote the healing of severe pressure ulcers • In cases of inoperable urethral obstruction that prevents the emptying of the bladder • In people with serious problems and for whom alternative interventions are not an option • When a person lives alone and a caregiver is not available to provide other support measures • For patients with acute diseases that require accurate monitoring of the water balance • For severely disabled people for whom changes in clothing and bedding are painful or damaging Suprapubic catheters A suprapubic tube is an attractive alternative to the use of a long-term urethral catheter. The most common use of a suprapubic catheter is in individuals with spinal cord injuries and a bladder that does not work well. Both paraplegic and quadriplegic individuals have benefited from this form of urinary diversion. When suprapubic tubes are needed, smaller catheters are usually placed (eg, 14F, 16F). Like the urethral catheter, the suprapubic tubes should be changed once a month on a regular basis. Suprapubic catheters have many advantages. With a suprapubic catheter, the risk of urethral damage is eliminated. Multiple emptying tests can be performed without having to remove the catheter. Because the catheter exits the lower abdomen instead of the genital area, a suprapubic tube is more patient friendly. Bladder spasms occur less frequently because the suprapubic catheter does not irritate the trigone as well as the urethral catheter. In addition, suprapubic tubes are more hygienic for the individual and bladder infections are minimized because the tube is removed from the perineum. The suprapubic catheters are easily changed by a nurse or a doctor. Unlike a urethral catheter, a suprapubic tube is less likely to be dislodged because the exit site is very small. When the tube is removed, the hole in the abdomen is quickly sealed with scarring. Indications for suprapubic catheters include short-term use after gynecological, urologic, and other surgery. Suprapubic catheters can be used whenever the clinical situation requires the use of a bladder drainage device; however, suprapubic catheters are contraindicated in people with chronic unstable bladders or intrinsic sphincter deficiency because the involuntary loss of urine is not prevented. A suprapubic tube does not prevent spasms of the bladder in unstable bladders or improve the mechanism of urethral closure in an incompetent urethra. The potential complications of long-term suprapubic catheterization are similar to those associated with permanent urethral catheters, which include leakage around the catheter, urinary bladder stone formation, urinary tract infection, and catheter obstruction. During the initial placement of a suprapubic tube, there is a possibility of intestinal injury. Although it is uncommon, it is known that intestinal perforation occurs with the placement of suprapubic tubes for the first time. Other possible complications include cellulitis around the tube site and hematoma. If the suprapubic tube falls inadvertently, the tube outlet will close and close quickly within 24 hours if the tube is not replaced with a new one. If the displacement of the tube is recognized immediately, a new tube can be reinserted quickly and painlessly, provided that the site of the tube remains intact. A suprapubic catheter is an alternative solution to a permanent urethral catheter in patients who require long-term bladder drainage. Possible exclusive problems of suprapubic catheters include skin infection, bruising, bowel injury, and problems with reattachment of the catheter. The long-term management of a suprapubic tube can also be problematic if the health care provider does not have the knowledge and experience of suprapubic catheter management or if the individual confined to their home does not have quick access to a medical center in case of an emergency. However, in the appropriate situation, the suprapubic catheter offers many advantages over long-term urethral catheters. Intermittent Catheterization Intermittent catheterization or self-catheterization is a way of draining the bladder at regular intervals, as opposed to continuous drainage of the bladder. A prerequisite for self-catheterization is the ability of patients to use their hands and arms; however, in a situation where a patient has a physical or mental disability, a caregiver or a health professional can perform an intermittent catheterization for the patient. Of the 3 possible options (ie, urethral catheter, suprapubic tube, intermittent catheterization), intermittent catheterization is the best solution for the decompression of the bladder of motivated people who can participate physically and cognitively in their care. Many studies of young patients with spinal cord injuries have shown that intermittent catheterization is preferable to permanent catheters (ie, the urethral catheter, the suprapubic tube) for both men and women. Intermittent catheterization has become a healthy alternative to permanent catheters for people with chronic urinary retention due to a clogged, weak or non-functioning bladder. Young children with myelomeningocele have also benefited from the use of intermittent catheterization. For those children, antibiotic prophylaxis (chemoprophylaxis at low doses) has been commonly prescribed for urinary tract infections. A study by Zegers et al found that this practice can be safely suspended, especially in children, patients with low rates of urinary tract infection, and patients without vesicoureteral reflux. Intermittent catheterization can be performed using a soft red rubber catheter or a short rigid plastic catheter. Plastic catheters are preferable to red rubber catheters because they are easier to clean and last longer. The bladder should be drained on a regular basis, either based on a time interval (for example, upon awakening, every 3-6 hours during the day and before bedtime) or according to the volume of the bladder. Remember that the average adult bladder contains approximately 400-500 ml of urine. Ideally, the quantity drained each time should not exceed 400-500 mL. This drainage limit may require a decrease in the patient’s fluid intake or an increase in the frequency of catheterizations. For example, if the catheterization is done every 6 hours and the drained amount is 700 ml, increase the catheterization frequency to, perhaps, every 4 hours to keep the volume drained to 400-500 ml. Intermittent catheterization is designed to simulate normal urination. In general, the average adult empties the bladder four to five times a day. Therefore, catheterization should be done four to five times a day; however, individual catheterization programs may vary, depending on the amount of fluid ingested during the day. Candidates for intermittent catheterization must have motivation and physical and cognitive abilities intact. Anyone with good manual dexterity and an accessible urethra can perform self-catheterization. Young children and the older population can do this every day without problems. For people who can not self-catheterize, a home caregiver or visiting nurse can be instructed to perform an intermittent catheterization. Self-catheterization can be done almost anywhere, including at home and at work. Intermittent catheterization can be performed using a sterile catheter or a clean non-sterile catheter. Intermittent catheterization, using a clean technique, is recommended for young individuals with a bladder who can not be emptied and without any other option available. Patients should wash their hands with soap and water. Sterile gloves are not necessary. Clean intermittent catheterization results in lower infection rates than the rates seen with permanent catheters. Studies show that in patients with spinal cord injuries, the incidence of bacteria in the bladder is 1-3% per catheterization, and one to four episodes of bacteriuria occur per 100 days of intermittent catheterization performed four times a day. In addition, the infections that occur are generally handled without complications. In general, the systematic use of long-term suppressive therapy with antibiotics in patients with chronic clean intermittent catheterization is not recommended. The use of chronic suppressive antibiotic therapy in people who regularly use a clean intermittent catheterization is undesirable because it can cause the emergence of resistant bacterial strains. A study of patients with acute spinal cord injury in 15 centers across North America revealed that the use of a hydrophilic coated catheter for intermittent catheterization delayed the onset of the first symptomatic urinary tract infections treated with antibiotics. In addition, a reduction in the incidence of symptomatic infection of the urinary tract during hospital rehabilitation was observed for these patients. For elderly people and those with a weak immune system, the use of a sterile technique for intermittent catheterization has been recommended. Older people have a higher risk than younger people of developing bacteriuria and other complications of intermittent catheterization because they do not have a strong defense system against infection. Although the incidence of infection and other complications in elderly patients who use sterile versus clean intermittent catheterization is not well established, sterile intermittent catheterization seems to be the safest method for this high-risk population. The potential advantages of performing an intermittent catheterization include the patient’s autonomy, the absence of permanent catheters and bags, and unimpeded sexual relations. Potential complications of intermittent catheterization include bladder infection, urethral trauma, urethral inflammation, and stenosis. The concomitant use of anticholinergic therapy will maintain acceptable intravesical pressures and prevent contracture of the bladder. Studies have shown that long-term use of intermittent catheterization appears to be preferable to permanent catheterization (ie, urethral catheter, suprapubic tube) with respect to urinary tract infections and the development of stones within the bladder or kidneys. In general, the management of infections in the environment of catheters and drainage tubes is a challenge. The experimental use of bacterial interference represents a novel and perhaps effective method in the prevention of infections; however, at this time, it is difficult to do it clinically outside of the research setting. Other studies can show that this modality is more useful from a clinical point of view in practice settings. Surgical Care Surgical care for stress incontinence involves procedures that increase resistance to urethral leakage, which include the following: • Periurethral loading therapy • Honda procedures • Artificial urinary sphincter • Sacral neuromodulation • Botulinum toxin injections • Increase of the bladder A Cochrane review that included four randomized controlled trials of the injection of botulinum toxin A as a treatment for detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia (DDE) found that intraurethral injections could improve some urodynamic measures after 30 days. However, the studies had a high risk of bias, the quality of the evidence was limited, and the need for reinjection is a significant drawback. The authors advised that more study of effectiveness is needed; The optimal dose and mode of injection have not yet been determined, and sphincterotomy may be a more effective option for long-term treatment. Fluid intake The quantity and quality of the liquids consumed will influence urinary urinary symptoms. Liquids refer to all beverages that a person consumes in a day, including water, soft drinks and milk. The human body receives water from the consumed beverages and from the foods that are consumed. The recommended amount of liquids consumed (all types) in 24 hours adds up to 6 to 8 glasses. The benefits of adequate fluid intake include the prevention of dehydration, constipation, urinary tract infections and the formation of kidney stones. Some patients tend to drink water excessively. Others take medications that dry their mouths, so they drink more water. Some patients who try to lose weight follow a diet that requires consuming large amounts of water. Excessive water intake worsens the irritative symptoms of the bladder. The exact amount of fluid needed per day is calculated based on the lean body mass of the patient. Therefore, the amount of fluid requirement will vary per individual. Some older patients do not drink enough fluids to stay well hydrated. They minimize their fluid intake to unacceptable levels, thinking that if they drink less, they will experience less incontinence. Trying to prevent incontinence by excessively restricting fluids can cause irritation of the bladder and worsen urgency incontinence. In addition, dehydration contributes to constipation. If a patient has a constipation problem, recommend eating a diet rich in fiber, receive adequate hydration and administer laxatives. Many drinks contain caffeine. Caffeine is a natural diuretic and has a direct excitatory effect on the smooth muscle of the bladder. Therefore, products that contain caffeine produce an excessive amount of urine and exacerbate the symptoms of urinary frequency and urgency. Products that contain caffeine include coffee, tea, hot chocolate and soda. Even chocolate milk and many over-the-counter medications contain caffeine. Of the products that contain caffeine, coffee contains the highest amount of caffeine. Drip coffee contains the highest amount of caffeine, followed by filtered coffee and then instant coffee. Even decaffeinated coffee contains a small amount of caffeine. Decaffeinated coffee contains an amount of caffeine similar to the amount in chocolate milk. People who consume a large amount of caffeine should slowly decrease the amount of caffeine consumed to avoid significant withdrawal responses, such as headache and depression. Studies have shown that drinking carbonated drinks, citrus fruit drinks and acidic juices can make irritative urination or symptoms of urgency worse. The consumption of artificial sweeteners has also been theorized to contribute to urge incontinence. Nighttime urination and incontinence are important problems in the elderly population. Women who have nocturia more than twice a night or who experience nocturnal enuresis may benefit from fluid restriction and the elimination of caffeine-containing beverages from their diet at night. Patients should restrict liquids after dinner so they can sleep uninterruptedly during the night. Pelvic floor exercise Incontinence exercises emphasize rehabilitation and strengthening of the pelvic floor muscles that are critical to maintaining urinary continence. The pelvic floor muscles are also known as levator ani muscles because they work to elevate levitation or elevate the pelvic organs to their proper place. When the lifting muscles weaken and fail, pelvic prolapse and stress incontinence occur. An anatomical defect of the levator ani muscles requires physical rehabilitation. If aggressive physical therapy does not work, surgery is justified. Pelvic floor exercises, sometimes called Kegel exercises, are a rehabilitation technique used to tighten and tone the pelvic floor muscles. Kegel exercises can be performed to eliminate urge incontinence. The contraction of the external urinary sphincter induces reflex relaxation of the bladder. The rehabilitation of the pelvic floor muscles can be used to reprogram the urinary bladder and decrease the frequency of incontinence episodes. People who benefit most from pelvic floor exercises tend to be young, healthy, and able to identify lifting muscles accurately. These rehabilitation exercises can be used for urge incontinence and mixed incontinence. For urge incontinence, pelvic floor muscle exercises are used to retrain the bladder. When the patient contracts the external urethral sphincter, the bladder relaxes automatically, so that the urge to urinate finally disappears. Severe contractions of the pelvic floor muscles will suppress bladder contractions. Every time patients feel urinary urgency, they can try to stop the sensation by contracting the pelvic floor muscles. These steps will give the patient more time to walk slowly to the bathroom with urinary control. By regularly training the external sphincter, patients can gradually increase the time between micturition by 1 to 3 hours. Patients should begin to see improvement in 3-4 weeks. Therefore, this technique can be used for symptoms of urgency, urge incontinence and mixed incontinence (stress and urgency incontinence). Patients should practice contraction of the levator ani muscles immediately before and during situations in which leakage may occur. This will condition the external sphincter instinctively to contract with increases in abdominal pressure or when the need to urinate is imminent. This is known as the protection reflex. When the patient tightens the external urinary sphincter just as sneezing approaches, the involuntary loss of urine is frustrated. By tightening the levator muscles of the anus when the sense of urgency arises, the sensation of impending contraction of the bladder will dissipate. The beneficial effects of pelvic floor muscle exercises alone have been well documented in the medical literature. It has been reported that the successful reduction of urinary incontinence ranges from 56-95%. Pelvic floor exercises are effective, even after multiple surgeries against incontinence. Electrical stimulation Electrical stimulation is an area of active research in the treatment of neurogenic bladder. It has been successfully applied to the genital nerve with overactive bladder and has been shown to decrease detrusor contractions and improve bladder capacity. In addition, this treatment was considered effective and tolerable by the patients who participated in the study. It is not clear if sacral neuromodulation has a role in the treatment of neurogenic detrusor overactivity, but this is an area of ongoing study. In general, electrical stimulation has a remarkable potential as a treatment for neurogenic bladder. Medications used to treat neurogenic bladder Pharmacological therapy for overactive bladder may be more effective when combined with a pelvic exercise regimen. The 3 main categories of medications used to treat urge incontinence include anticholinergic drugs, antispasmodics, and tricyclic antidepressants. All medications with adverse anticholinergic effects are contraindicated if patients have documented narrow-angle glaucoma. Wide angle glaucoma is not a contraindication to its use. Urinary retention, intestinal obstruction, ulcerative colitis, myasthenia gravis and severe heart disease are contraindications for the use of anticholinergics. These agents can impair the patient’s ability to perform dangerous activities, such as driving or operating heavy machinery, due to the possibility of drowsiness. Anticholinergic medications should not be taken in combination with alcohol, sedatives or hypnotics. However, the use of anticholinergics in urinary retention with a catheterization regimen can help improve bladder capacity. When a treatment with a single drug does not work, a combination therapy can be used. In general, agents with different mechanisms of action must be combined to improve urge incontinence; for example, the combination of a beta-3 agonist with an anticholinergic can be used to treat detrusor overactivity. Together, these medications produce a synergistic effect to relax the unstable bladder and retain it in the urine and prevent urge incontinence. However, the anticholinergic side effects may be additive because both drugs have similar adverse reactions. Anticholinergic and antispasmodic medications Anticholinergic medications are the first-line pharmacological therapy in urge incontinence. They are effective in the treatment of urge incontinence because they inhibit involuntary contractions of the bladder. They are also useful in the treatment of urinary incontinence associated with frequency, urgency and nocturnal enuresis. All anticholinergic drugs have similar performance and toxicity profiles. Potential adverse effects of all anticholinergic agents include blurred vision, dry mouth, heart palpitations, drowsiness and facial flushing. When anticholinergic medications are used in excess, acute urinary retention may occur. Antispasmodic medications Antispasmodic medications relax the smooth muscles of the urinary bladder. By exerting a direct spasmolytic action on the smooth muscle of the bladder, it has been reported that antispasmodic drugs increase the capacity of the bladder and effectively reduce or eliminate urge incontinence. The profile of adverse effects of antispasmodic drugs is similar to that of anticholinergic agents. These drugs can impair the patient’s ability to perform activities that require mental attention and physical coordination. Drinking alcohol and using sedatives in combination with these antispasmodic medications is contraindicated. Solifenacin Succinate (VESIcare) Solifenacin succinate causes a competitive activity of the muscarinic receptor antagonist, which produces an anticholinergic effect and inhibition of smooth muscle contraction of the bladder. It is indicated for overactive bladder with symptoms of urgency, frequency and urge incontinence. Darifenacina (Enablex) Darifenacin is a prolonged-release product that causes competitive muscarinic receptor antagonist activity. Reduces contractions of the smooth muscle of the bladder. It has a high affinity for M3 receptors involved in the contraction of smooth muscle of the bladder and gastrointestinal (GI), the production of saliva and the function of the iris sphincter. Darifenacin is indicated for overactive bladder with symptoms of urgency, urgency and frequency incontinence. The product must be swallowed whole; do not chew, divide or crush. Oxybutynin Chloride (Ditropan IR, Ditropan XL) Oxybutynin chloride has anticholinergic effects and direct muscle relaxants on the urinary bladder. It provides a local anesthetic effect on the irritable bladder. Urodynamic studies have shown that oxybutynin increases the size of the bladder, decreases the frequency of symptoms and delays the initial desire to empty. Ditropan XL has an innovative drug delivery system, the oral osmotic delivery system (SAOO). The Ditropan XL tablet has a bilayer core containing a drug layer and a pusher layer containing osmotic components. The outer tablet is composed of a semipermeable membrane with a precision laser-perforated hole that allows the drug to be released at a constant rate. When the drug is ingested, the aqueous environment in the GI tract causes the water to enter the tablet through the semipermeable membrane at constant speed. The introduction of water into the tablet liquefies the drug and causes the pusher layer to swell osmotically. As the thrust layer swells, force the drug suspension out of the orifice at a constant rate for a period of 24 h. Ditropan XL reaches steady state levels for a period of 24 hours. Avoid first-pass metabolism of the liver and upper gastrointestinal tract to avoid cytochrome P450 enzymes. It has excellent efficacy with minimal adverse effects. Medical studies have shown that oxybutynin chloride reduces episodes of incontinence by 83-90%. It is reported that the total continence rate is 41-50%. The average reduction in urinary frequency was 23%. In clinical trials, only 1% stopped taking Ditropan XL due to dry mouth and less than 1% stopped taking Ditropan XL due to the adverse effects of the CNS. Tolterodine L-tartrate (Detrol and Detrol LA) Tolterodine L-tartrate is a competitive muscarinic receptor antagonist for overactive bladder. It differs from other anticholinergic types in that it has selectivity for the urinary bladder over the salivary glands. It has a high specificity for muscarinic receptors and has minimal activity or affinity for other neurotransmitter receptors and other potential targets, such as calcium channels. In clinical studies, the average decrease in episodes of urge incontinence was 50% and the average decrease in urinary frequency was 17%. Trospium (Sanctura) Trospium is a quaternary ammonium compound that causes antispasmodic and antimuscarinic effects. Antagonizes the effect of acetylcholine on muscarinic receptors. The parasympathetic effect reduces the tone of the smooth muscle in the bladder. Trospium is indicated to treat the symptoms of overactive bladder (eg, urinary incontinence, urgency, frequency). Fesoterodina (Toviaz) Fesoterodine is a competitive muscarinic receptor antagonist. The antagonistic effect produces a decrease in contractions of the smooth muscle of the bladder. It is indicated for the symptoms of overactive bladder (eg urinary incontinence of urgency, urgency and frequency). Fesoterodine is available as a 4 or 8 mg prolonged release tab. Tricyclic antidepressants The treatment of bladder dysfunction is an unsuitable use of tricyclic antidepressants. These medications work to increase the levels of norepinephrine and serotonin. In addition, they exhibit anticholinergic effects and direct muscle relaxants on the urinary bladder. Imipramina (Tofranil) Imipramine is a typical tricyclic antidepressant. It facilitates the storage of urine by decreasing the bladder contractility and increasing the output resistance. It has an alpha-adrenergic effect in the neck of the bladder and an antispasmodic effect in the detrusor muscle. Imipramine hydrochloride has a local anesthetic effect on the bladder mucosa. Amitriptilina (Elavil) Amitriptyline is a tricyclic antidepressant with sedative properties. It increases circulating levels of norepinephrine and serotonin by blocking its reuptake into nerve endings and is not effective for use in urge incontinence. However, it is extremely effective in decreasing the symptoms of urinary frequency in women with pelvic floor muscle dysfunction. Amitriptyline restores serotonin levels and helps break the cycle of pelvic floor muscle spasms. It is well tolerated and effective in most women with urinary frequency. Beta-3 adrenergic receptor Mirabegron was approved in 2012 by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of overactive bladder. In an initial study of its efficacy for the treatment of neurogenic detrusor overactivity in 15 patients with spinal cord injury, a significant reduction in bladder evacuation frequency by 24 h (8.1 vs 6.4, P = 0.003) and by episodes of incontinence for 24 h (2.9 vs 1.3, P = 0.027) was observed. However, due to the limited size of the study, more research is needed. Prolonged contact of urine with unprotected skin causes contact dermatitis and skin degradation. If left untreated, these skin disorders can cause pressure ulcers and ulcers, which can lead to secondary infections. For people with a decompensated bladder that does not empty well, postvoid residual urine can cause an overgrowth of bacteria and a subsequent urinary tract infection (UTI). In patients with neurogenic bladder, UTIs often do not produce classic symptoms; In contrast, these patients may have abdominal or back pain, increased spasticity and urinary incontinence. Untreated UTIs can quickly lead to potentially fatal autonomic dysreflexia or sepsis, while overtreatment promotes antibiotic resistance. However, there are few evidence-based practices to prevent UTI in this population. Complications of specific interventions include the following: • Long-term permanent catheters can cause recurrent bladder infection, bladder stones, ascending pyelonephritis and urethral erosion • Intermittent catheterization can cause bladder infections or urethral injury • Long-term suprapubic tubes can cause spasms in the bladder, bladder stones, and bladder infection The prognosis of patients with incontinence due to neurogenic bladder is excellent with modern medical care. With the improvement in information technology, well-trained medical personnel and advances in medical knowledge, patients with incontinence should not experience the morbidity and mortality of the past. Although the final well-being of the patient depends on the underlying condition that has precipitated urinary incontinence, urinary incontinence is easily treated and prevented by properly trained health personnel. Patient education For information on patient education, see Bladder Control Problems, Bladder Control Medications, Inability to Urinate, and Foley Catheter. Patients can conduct Internet searches to obtain information about their condition. Using the search terms “intermittent neurogenic bladder catheter” and “intermittent spinal cord injury catheter”, Ho et al. They found 71 online videos covering these topics. However, most of the videos provided low quality information, and some offered conflicting information to the guidelines of the European Association of Urology for intermittent catheterization. Videos that the authors considered to be of good quality were not ranked prominently according to the YouTube search algorithm, suggesting that users would be less likely to access them.
b = bytes(mystring, 'utf-8') b = mystring.encode('utf-8') • 69 Use encode/decode is more common, and perhaps clearer. Sep 29 '11 at 7:39 • 24 @LennartRegebro I dismiss. Even if it's more common, reading "bytes()" i know what its doing, while encode() don't make me feel it is encoding to bytes. – m3nda Apr 23 '17 at 5:42 • 4 @erm3nda Which is a good reason to use it until it does feel like that, then you are one step closer to Unicode zen. Apr 24 '17 at 19:26 • 9 @LennartRegebro I feel good enough to just use bytes(item, "utf8"), as explicit is better than implicit, so... str.encode( ) defaults silently to bytes, making you more Unicode-zen but less Explicit-Zen. Also "common" is not a term that i like to follow. Also, bytes(item, "utf8"), is more like the str(), and b"string" notations. My apologies if i am so noob to understand your reasons. Thank you. – m3nda Apr 24 '17 at 22:56 • 5 @erm3nda if you read the accepted answer you can see that encode() doesn't call bytes(), it's the other way around. Of course that's not immediately obvious which is why I asked the question. Apr 24 '17 at 23:03 Without an argument, an array of size 0 is created. • 108 – Serdalis Sep 28 '11 at 15:30 • 9 bytearray is used when you need a mutable object. You don't need it for simple strbytes conversions. Sep 28 '11 at 15:41 • 8 – agf Sep 28 '11 at 15:43 • 4 Just a note, that if you are trying to convert binary data to a string, you'll most likely need to use something like byte_string.decode('latin-1') as utf-8 doesn't cover the entire range 0x00 to 0xFF (0-255), check out the python docs for more info. – iggy12345 Jul 10 '19 at 14:25 • 10 tl;dr would be helpful – techkuz Dec 11 '19 at 7:46 It's easier than it is thought: my_str = "hello world" my_str_as_bytes = str.encode(my_str) type(my_str_as_bytes) # ensure it is byte representation my_decoded_str = my_str_as_bytes.decode() type(my_decoded_str) # ensure it is string representation • 65 – agf Sep 30 '13 at 17:50 • 32 – Mike Aug 13 '14 at 9:33 • 6 @Mike: use obj.method() syntax instead of cls.method(obj) syntax i.e., use bytestring = unicode_text.encode(encoding) and unicode_text = bytestring.decode(encoding). – jfs Jun 22 '15 at 11:51 • 3 ... i.e. you're needlessly making an unbound method, and then calling it passing the self as the first argument Apr 11 '18 at 7:41 • 2 @KolobCanyon The question already shows the right way to do it—call encode as a bound method on the string. This answer suggests that you should instead call the unbound method and pass it the string. That's the only new information in the answer, and it's wrong. – abarnert Jun 23 '18 at 5:16 The absolutely best way is neither of the 2, but the 3rd. The first parameter to encode defaults to 'utf-8' ever since Python 3.0. Thus the best way is b = mystring.encode() This will also be faster, because the default argument results not in the string "utf-8" in the C code, but NULL, which is much faster to check! Here be some timings: In [1]: %timeit -r 10 'abc'.encode('utf-8') The slowest run took 38.07 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached. 10000000 loops, best of 10: 183 ns per loop In [2]: %timeit -r 10 'abc'.encode() The slowest run took 27.34 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached. 10000000 loops, best of 10: 137 ns per loop Despite the warning the times were very stable after repeated runs - the deviation was just ~2 per cent. Using encode() without an argument is not Python 2 compatible, as in Python 2 the default character encoding is ASCII. >>> 'äöä'.encode() Traceback (most recent call last): • 3 There's only a sizable difference here because (a) the string is pure ASCII, meaning the internal storage is already the UTF-8 version, so looking up the codec is almost the only cost involved at all, and (b) the string is tiny, so even if you did have to encode, it wouldn't make much difference. Try it with, say, '\u00012345'*10000. Both take 28.8us on my laptop; the extra 50ns is presumably lost in the rounding error. Of course this is a pretty extreme example—but 'abc' is just as extreme in the opposite direction. – abarnert Jun 23 '18 at 5:22 • 1 @hmijail you win nothing by explicitly typing the default argument values - more keystrokes, larger code and it is slower too. Jul 25 '20 at 7:16 • 1 The Zen of Python declares that explicit is better than implicit, which means that an explicit 'utf-8' parameter is to be preferred. But you've definitely shown that leaving off the parameter is faster. That makes this a good answer, even if it isn't the best one. Nov 7 '20 at 4:36 • 2 @MarkRansom then how many times have you actually used int(s, 10) ;-) May 7 '21 at 20:32 • 1 Despite Python 2 no longer being supported, I suspect there will be people dealing with some legacy code for a very long time to come; if for no other reason than to upgrade it to the latest version of Python! I'm glad you didn't remove your warning for Python 2 users at the end. Sep 20 '21 at 17:37 Answer for a slightly different problem: You have a sequence of raw unicode that was saved into a str variable: s_str: str = "\x00\x01\x00\xc0\x01\x00\x00\x00\x04" You need to be able to get the byte literal of that unicode (for struct.unpack(), etc.) s_bytes: bytes = b'\x00\x01\x00\xc0\x01\x00\x00\x00\x04' s_new: bytes = bytes(s, encoding="raw_unicode_escape") Reference (scroll up for standard encodings): Python Specific Encodings • 10 This was actually just what I was looking for. I could not figure out how to better phrase my question. :) Thank you @Brent! – Kade Feb 6 '21 at 18:34 • 4 This was the answer I needed, coming from a google search of "python 3 convert str to bytes binary" this was the top result and looked promising. There are more interesting questions -- like how to convert a unicode string into a regular string (python 2.7) :p Feb 9 '21 at 14:01
Comment on: The following comment refers to this/these guideline(s) Guideline 7 Cross-phase quality assurance Guideline 13 Providing public access to research results Guideline 17 Researchers back up research data and results made publicly available, as well as the central materials on which they are based and the research software used, by adequate means according to the standards of the relevant subject area, and retain them for an appropriate period of time. Where justifiable reasons exist for not archiving particular data, researchers explain these reasons. HEIs and non-HEI research institutions ensure that the infrastructure necessary to enable archiving is in place. When scientific and academic findings are made publicly available, the research data (generally raw data) on which they are based are generally archived in an accessible and identifiable manner for a period of ten years at the institution where the data were produced or in cross-location repositories. This practice may differ depending on the subject area. In justified cases, shorter archiving periods may be appropriate; the reasons for this are described clearly and comprehensibly. The archiving period begins on the date when the results are made publicly available. Enabling the availability of primary data and archiving it Numerical simulations can generate very large quantities of data, so it is not always expedient to make the direct results – i.e. the primary data – available in full for the purpose of verifiability and reuse. In order to achieve reproducibility of numerical simulations, for example, it is essential to ensure availability and archiving of the computer programmes used, with the respective version number; however, this does not apply to availability and archiving of the primary data generated using the programmes. Experimental work often generates large quantities of primary data using research infrastructure facilities such as accelerator facilities, telescopes or research vessels. A common data guideline has to be established in relation to the specific research question to decide how archival databases can ensure the availability and archiving of primary data. The comment belongs to the following categories: GL7 (Natural sciences) , GL13 (Natural sciences) , GL17 (Natural sciences)
Saturday, August 31, 2019 400 Years of Slavery in the New World "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ" Ephesians 6:5 2019 marks 400 years of slavery in the New World. An event worthy of remembrance. However, to read the articles and hear the speeches, you would be inclined to think that slavery sprung into existence as a result of some nefarious plot concocted by the twisted mind of an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Portuguese, or perhaps a Dutchman to enslave his fellow man solely for profit; a scheme to enslave one and only one group of people by one and only group of another people. Obviously this couldn't be further from the truth. Slavery has been part of the human condition almost from the beginning of civilization some 6000 years ago (if not longer). It has destroyed civilizations and communities as much as it has individual families. The ancient Sumerians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians all talked about taking slaves (usually the result of war). Greece and Rome, upon whose foundations the West was built, were depended on slaves, as were the ancient Indian, Muslim, and Chinese empires. Not only are the ancient texts full of references, but even the sacred writings of most all modern religions are full of references to slavery (not to mention religious institutions themselves direct involvement with slavery). Most refer to the treatment of slaves or under what conditions they could be sold and so forth. Rarely was there a reference about the depravity of the institution. So much for religious infallibility. There is hardly a group or tribe on this planet who haven't, at some time or another, hasn't been subjugated. While most has resulted from conquests, some have voluntarily sold themselves into a form of slavery called indentured servitude. Typically these individuals had no choice if they were to survive their living conditions. Many were recruited out of the slums of cities, especially poor houses and other places of destitution. Others, however, were simply individuals looking to leaving for the New World and a chance to start over but were to poor to pay their passage or to buy the land they needed to get started. Either way, they willingly (some would say coerced) sold their labor to someone willing to pay their fare and provide work, food, and shelter in exchange for a set number of years of often backbreaking work. Many of these individuals didn't survive the voyage while others died during their servitude. It wasn't uncommon that owners would work these individuals beyond their prescribed term since the indentured worker had little ways of determining how long they had actually worked. At the end of the their service, if they survived, they were to be rewarded with their freedom and typically some previously agreed to payment of sorts, usually a specified amount of land and/or cash along with seed and perhaps a few rudimentary pieces of equipment to get started. It was a very tough existence and not all were successful. While indentured servitude is most closely associated with early European settlers, especially the Irish, Welsh, and Scots, it existed well back into antiquity. The Bible mentions, for instance, in Exodus 22. 2-6: "When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever". Thus six years was considered an acceptable term of servitude, which we would associate with being indentured. However, this appears to have more of an exception than a rule. Slavery was, for the vast majority, a fact of life and it was often brutal. While some speak of a "bond" between slave and master as a form of informal agreement, it was clearly to the benefit of the owner. Nevertheless, a slave could not be compelled to do what they refused to do. However, the result was usually beatings and/or death. Yet for the master, that represented a loss of investment and labor, which had to be protected. Slaves from Africa for instance, didn't simply appear at the ports, ready for iron chains. They were typically prisoners; the result of tribal wars where one side fought and captured another. The losers were quartered and then sold to roving coastal slave traders from Europe, Asia, or the Middle East. From there they were shipped to various ports and resold several times before reaching their final destination. Some Europeans too found themselves sold into slavery, often as a result of some unscrupulous sea captain tricking immigrants who didn't speak the language or know anything about where they were. Such was the case of some of my ancestors coming from Germany to escape religious persecution. Not speaking any English and trusting the ship's captain, they thought they were headed to Maryland but ended up in Virginia where they were sold to the Virginia Colonial Governor by the ship's captain who unable to afford his docking tax (he blew it on booze and prostitutes before leaving port in England). Fortunately, two of my ancestors managed to escaped and were latter able to help free their fellow passengers. As with the empires of the past, modern empires continued in the slave traded through the early part of the 19th century when slave trade effectively ended in the West. The empires of Great Britain, Spain, Holland, Portugal, and Italy all stopped dealing in human flesh. However, slavery continued in Africa, especially through the efforts of Arab and Asians slave traders (the slave trade remained alive and well in Asia too). Of course, this isn't to say that slave-like conditions didn't continue to exist. As an aside, the Ottoman Empire, continued with the dealing in slavery well into the 20th century. The colonial powers, which now included Imperial Germany (until 1918), continued to treat native populations, mostly in Africa and the Pacific Rim, as little more than ignorant children. While they were employed and received a wage, working conditions were often horrific, yet competition for the limited jobs (often in mines or factories) which included housing and basic medical care, was stiff. Nevertheless, the colonial powers did employ native populations in their military, police, local administration, office managers, and so forth. As a result, a professional middle class was created which afford their children with the opportunity to attend leading schools. For some, this meant entree in to places like Cambridge, Oxford, the Sorbonne, or the universities of Madrid, Heidelberg, or Berlin. For the less well off, schools were created which at least provided a medicorum of education; a bit more than basic reading, writing, grammar, science, history, and mathematics. It should be pointed out that many of these schools were tied to churches and social reform groups and less so directly connected with the colonial government who incorporated their own agenda. In time, this colonial system created lawyers, doctors, engineers, and other well educated professionals along with professional soldiers, journalists, police officers and a bustling class of small businessmen and entrepreneurs (this was especially the case in India, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa). Thus, colonialism brought with it an end to the slave trade and a great of economic and social opportunities, it also included a strong measure of exploitation as well as discrimination against the native populations. "Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your master, not only those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh". 1 Peter 2:18 In the American colonies, religion was viewed as the foremost moral authority, and with it, basis for slavery as an institution. Men such as the famous Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, spoke in favor of it as did Judge John Saffin. Nevertheless, the importation of slaves in America ended in 1808. Slavery gradually ended in the more industrial northern states, though it continued in the primarily agricultural south (it should be pointed out the industrial north heavily benefited from the cheap products produced by the south's slave based economy). However, the common stereotype of a land chock full of plantations with their gentlemen owners sipping their mint juleps on the front porch and the all the Southern Belles busily chirping away about the latest cotillion is purely myth. In truth, out of a population of 5.2 million whites in 1860, only approximately 6% owned any slaves at all (the average was just three), while plantations, the homes of the very wealthy, comprised just under 3% or about 150,000 individuals. Most owners typically worked shoulder to shoulder with their slaves; ate the same food, and shared many of the same hardships. Among the wealthy plantation owners, the vast majority didn't employ white "taskmasters" with whips to beat or brutalize the slaves into submission. We should also note that there were examples of blacks owning black slaves or of having never been slaves. Such treatment would have likely had the opposite effect as you can imagine. The field supervisors as they were called were almost always trusted slaves who understood the nature of the work involved, be it planting cotton or other crops, chopping lumber, or working in small factories, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself. As for the relationship between slave and master (or for that matter, between the white and black populations), commentators at the time stated that the relationship was typically one of respect, even to the point of taking on a paternalistic quality in some cases. The general attitude toward slavery in the South was typically threefold. The first was its immediate end. Men like General Robert E Lee held this position which stated that slavery was an outdated and inhumane system which no longer served its purpose. The future of the South lay in its industrialization as quickly as possible. The second position, shared by individuals like President Jefferson Davis, was that slavery was a doomed institution and industrialization of the South was the future. However, slaves lacked, in many cases, a basic education as well as lack of understanding of laws and general business dealings. Therefore, they believed that slaves should be educated to the point where they could be freed and would be able to adequately function in society. Davis and others had instituted as series of reforms on their plantations to do just this. It was Davis' intent to implement this throughout the Confederacy as quickly as the war permitted. Later, after the war, Davis stated that had been able to implement these reforms, slavery in the South would have ended within ten years and without any bloodshed. The third perspective was that the institution of slavery was just. Why? Because the Bible held it to be so, and it was their belief that the Bible was the literal truth as pronounced by God. While America was at that time considered a rather devout nation where organized religion held preeminence, it was especially so in the South which had been settled mainly by Northern English, Scots, Irish, and the Welsh who were predominately fundamentalist Protestants (Jefferson Davis declared, in 1861, that the Confederacy was a Christian nation and would forever remain so, and was included as such in the Confederate Constitution which was ratified on March 11, 1861). Following the war, things changed unimaginably. Gone was the entire social order, and with it starvation, disease, and new found poverty. Northern influence, be it good or bad, was everywhere. It didn't take long for resentment, anger, and violence to surface. Recovery for the nation was going to be a slow process, but especially so for the South which had been nearly leveled. For whites, it would be starting over from virtually nothing. For the newly freed slaves, they were going to have to adjust to a world they knew little about; some preferred to remain with their former owners while others were able to quickly adapt. Since 1865, numerous laws have been enacted to create a level playing field, be it in terms of voting, employment, housing, and general integration into society. It's not been easy for anyone, but perhaps more so for these former slaves and their descendants. However, by the 1960's, much of this had been overcome. Pockets of discrimination still existed (as it did for other groups such as Jews, Catholics, or even Asians), but we seemed to have finally come together as Americans by the close of the 1960's. Racism had, in fact, become the subject of ridicule and comedy by the early 1970's (as illustrated by the comedy of Mel Brooks, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and others). But sadly this wasn't to last. "One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and one who gives gifts to the rich---both come to poverty". Proverbs 22:16 By the late 1990's, racism (or what passed for "racism", whether real or not) was rekindled. Today, anyone who disagrees with someone of color, particularly if they're white--the only way racism seems to work---is automatically accused of being a "racist". The corporate media, through its marketing and advertising, has begun to impose certain stereotypes and standards on society. Whites are now suppose to feel "guilty" for so-called "white privilege" although no legislation has awarded them any such honor. In fact, whites alone among all racial groups, are actually denied the same social benefits as other racial groups. Naturally this isn't meant to imply that pockets of actual racism doesn't exist, nor that racism is all one sided. Any racially different group can be guilty of racism. It's just that the media downplays or ignores this fact. We hear of "reparations" for what occurred over 150 years ago. Paid to whom I wonder? Not all blacks in America descend from slaves or whose ancestors were slaves in America. In fact, many actually owned slaves and/or were never slaves themselves. But if reparations were to be paid, would it include European slaves? How about Asian? What about Native Americans? After all, they were sometimes held as slaves and at other times, owned slaves. Who would pay these "reparations"? Just America? Why not England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, and Holland too? They were just as involved. Of course, we can't forget the African tribes who started the process can we? Nor should we forget the Arab or Asian slave traders who were directly involved. Seems like a lot of blame to go around. The fact of the matter is that slavery has been a disease which has affected Mankind from the beginning, and unfortunately it still continues in places today. Muslim extremists like ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Harem and others still engage in slavery, mostly of Yazidi and Christian women and young girls, but also of boys and men too. Slavery among some Africa tribes also exists, and yet the world has done little to put an end to this savage practice. Until we do, there's plenty of blame to go around. We should look at this 400 year anniversary as a warning. Like any disease, it will grow and metastasize until we muster the courage to eradicated it once and for all from the planet. Perhaps that's the best form of reparation. South Ender said... Story about the Newburg neighborhood ( a predominately and traditionally black area) of Jefferson County, Ky., home to Kentucky's largest city Louisville. "... purchased in 1851 by Henry and Eliza Tevis. Although the Tevis' were free African American citizens, they employed their own slaves on a farm ...." BLACK AMERICANS owned BLACK SLAVES in Louisville, Ky. pre-Civil War. Direct evidence abounds! Time to locate that family and DEMAND reparations! Star EVEns said... Good blog. Like your point of view
University of Iowa team discovers first moisture-sensing genes November 07, 2007 Researchers in the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine have discovered the first two genes involved in moisture sensing (hygrosensation). The discovery also reveals a "two-sensor" hygrosensing system in fruit flies that may allow the flies to detect subtle changes in humidity -- an ability that is critical for the flies' survival. The results appear in the Nov. 8 issue of Nature. Subtle variations in humidity influence reproductive behavior and geographic distribution in many animals, including insects, reptiles and birds. Because of their small size, insects, in particular, require a finely tuned ability to detect moisture levels in their environment in order to survive. However, the mechanisms and molecules involved in moisture sensing have remained a mystery. "Moisture sensing is a sensory modality, which up to this point no one has understood. This is the first study to identify genes that are involved," said Lei Liu, Ph.D., UI postdoctoral fellow in internal medicine and lead author of the study. Liu and colleagues made their discovery by testing the idea that moisture sensing is a special form of mechanosensation -- the ability to detect physical forces like touch or movement. The researchers used various genetic techniques to study over 20 genes assumed to be involved in touch in fruit flies. Screening each gene mutation for its effect on the flies' ability to detect moisture, the researchers identified two genes that are required for normal moisture sensing. Furthermore, they found that one of the genes, "nanchung," is involved in detecting dry air, while the other gene, "water witch," is required for detecting moist air. Both genes are members of the transient receptor potential (TRP) family of genes that code for ion channels. Nanchung, which means "can't hear" in Korean, has previously been shown to be involved in hearing. Water witch has no other known function and was named by Liu and colleagues for its role in sensing moist air. Disruption of either gene impaired the flies' hygrosensing ability. The researchers also examined where the two genes are expressed in the fruit flies and determined that not only are two separate genes involved in hygrosensation, but also two types of neurons. "This work provides the first evidence for a sensory system coded by two types of sensory neurons, one responsible for detecting increased moisture and the other responsible for detecting decreased moisture," Liu said. The researchers speculate that this two-sensor system may allow the flies to detect relative humidity with great sensitivity. Liu added that the "two-sensor" system might also be a model for other sensory processes where the ability to detect subtle environmental changes is important, such as temperature sensing. The UI findings open the way to a better understanding of hygrosensation, they provide important clues for learning how mechanosensation works, and they may offer new insights into how sensory systems work in living creatures. In addition to Liu, the research team included senior study author Michael Welsh, M.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and UI professor of internal medicine and molecular physiology and biophysics who holds the Roy J. Carver Chair of Internal Medicine and Physiology and Biophysics; Yuhong Li, UI research assistant; Runping Wang, Ph.D., and Qian Dong, Ph.D., UI postdoctoral fellows; Chong Yin and Huey Hing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Changsoo Kim at Chonnam National University in Korea. MEDIA CONTACTS: Lei Liu, UI Department of Internal Medicine,; Michael Welsh, UI Departments of Internal Medicine and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics,; Jennifer Brown, Health Science Relations, 319-335-9917, University of Iowa Related Fruit Flies Articles from Brightsurf: Sestrin makes fruit flies live longer Researchers identify positive effector behind reduced food intake. Circular RNA makes fruit flies live longer The molecule influences the insulin signalling pathway and thus prolongs life Fruit flies respond to rapid changes in the visual environment Researchers have discovered a mechanism employed by the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster that broadens our understanding of visual perception. How fruit flies flock together in orderly clusters Fruit flies help in the development of personalized medicine Fruit flies' microbiomes shape their evolution In just five generations, an altered microbiome can lead to genome-wide evolution in fruit flies, according to new research led researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Why fruit flies eat practically anything Why so fly: MU scientists discover some fruit flies learn better than others Fruit flies could one day provide new avenues to discover additional genes that contribute to a person's ability to learn and remember. Fruit flies find their way by setting navigational goals Navigating fruit flies do not have the luxury of GPS, but they do have a kind of neural compass. Tolerance to stress is a 'trade-off' as fruit flies age With the help of the common fruit fly (D. melanogaster), which ages quickly because it only lives about 60 days, FAU neuroscientists provide insights into healthy aging by investigating the effects of a foraging gene on age and stress tolerance. Read More: Fruit Flies News and Fruit Flies Current Events is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to
Bass Guitar Bass guitar Bass guitar Everyone knows the classic jokes about the different members of a band; the singer is desperate for attention, the guitarist needs everyone to know about his ‘essential’ settings, and the drummer was too daft to be given a real instrument. But what about the bass player? The usual, totally untrue, joke about bass guitar players is that the bassist is totally fine, as long as the lead guitarist can tell them what to do! All jokes aside, the bass guitar is an essential part of modern, western music and pull any album off your shelf from the last fifty years and there will almost certainly be a bass guitar chugging happily at the bottom of the mix. But what is the story behind this too often forgotten instrument? How did it get here and why is the bass guitar so important? Read on for an interesting look at the bass guitar in all of its glory! The Arrival of the Bass Guitar In the last few hundred years, music has formed some quite standard forms. Orchestras and big arrangements relied on different groups of instruments to produce a wide array of tones and sounds. This makes the music feel layered and full, with the bass instruments producing the low notes which gives the tune rhythm and texture, while the higher instruments lay the melody on top. Bass instruments like percussion instruments, the low end of the piano and big brass like tubas and euphoniums keep the tempo and rhythm, holding the music together. As ensembles shrunk, dance bands and smaller groups tried to create a fuller sound, and relied on one or two instruments to create a ‘bassline’. The rhythm section of the band, usually the drummer and bass guitar player, still provide the texture and structure of the music while the melody and lyrics are laid on top by the other musicians. The Bass guitar really appeared in response to this need for smaller bands and more power from each remaining instrument. The first electric bass guitar was built by an inventor and musician called Paul Tutmarc in the 1930s, but it failed to really grab attention. In 1951 Leo Fender had a try and brought his Precision Bass to the market. It was a lot more successful, and with a few tweaks over the next few years, it soon became the bass guitar we think of today. When performers like the Beatles and Elvis Presley took on the electric bass guitar into their sound, they quickly cemented its use in modern pop. The Bass Guitar Today Using four, or sometimes five, much thicker strings than a ‘traditional’ guitar, the bass guitar produces a deep resonant tone and can be played in a wide range of styles. There are styles of bass guitar playing and a whole range of genres to explore. To get your hands on a bass guitar today, visit the team at Curvy Sounds in Newcastle for a look at their beautiful bass guitar range.
Positive identification of attacking sharks is very difficult since victims rarely make adequate observations of the attacker during the “heat” of the interaction. Tooth remains are seldom found in wounds and diagnostic characters for many requiem sharks – those in the Carcharhinidae family – are difficult to discern even by trained professionals. Use This Table With Caution! Nonetheless, the white, tiger and bull sharks are the “Big Three” in the shark attack world because they are large species that are capable of inflicting serious injuries to a victim, are commonly found in areas where humans enter the water, and have teeth designed to shear rather than hold. Realistically, almost any shark in the right size range, roughly six feet (1.8 meters) or greater, is a potential threat to humans because, even if a bite is not intended as a directed feeding attempt on a human, the power of the jaw and tooth morphology can lead to injury. The following only includes species confirmed to be implicated in unprovoked incidents. Species of shark implicated in confirmed unprovoked attacks around the world SpeciesCommon NameNon-fatal UnprovokedFatal UnprovokedTotal Carcharhinus amblyrhynchosGrey Reef819 Carcharhinus brachyurusBronze Whaler14115 Carcharhinus brevipinnaSpinner16016 Carcharhinus falciformisSilky202 Carcharhinus galapagensisGalapagos112 Carcharhinus leucasBull9526121 Carcharhinus limbatusBlacktip41041 Carcharhinus longimanusOceanic Whitetip12315 Carcharhinus melanopterusBlacktip Reef14014 Carcharhinus obscurusDusky112 Carcharhinus pereziCaribbean Reef404 Carcharhinus plumbeusSandbar505 Carcharhinus spp.Requiem68169 Carcharias taurusSand Tiger36036 Carcharodon carchariasWhite29757354 Galeocerdo cuvierTiger10236138 Galeorhinus galeusTope101 Ginglymostoma cirratumNurse909 Heterodontus portusjacksoniPort Jackson101 Isistius brasiliensisCookiecutter404 Isurus oxyrinchusShortfin Mako819 Isurus spp.Mako303 Lamna nasusPorbeagle202 Negaprion brevirostrisLemon10010 Notorynchus cepedianusSevengill505 Orectolobus maculatusSpotted Wobbegong404 Orectolobus spp.Wobbegong19019 Prionace glaucaBlue9413 Rhinobatos spp.Guitarfish101 Sphyrna spp.Hammerhead16016 Triaenodon obesusWhitetip reef505 Triakis semifasciataLeopard101 33+ Species814132946
Grant Deed What Is a Grant Deed? A grant deed is a legal document used to transfer ownership of real property. It is an official record that indicates a title has not already been granted to another person. A grant deed contains the name of the person or entity transferring the property (the grantor); the legal description of the property being transferred (i.e., lot number, tract number, city, county, and state); and the name of the person or entity that the property is being transferred to (the grantee). Each grantor must sign the grant deed to make it legally valid. Key Takeaways • A grant deed is used to legally transfer ownership of real property and is an official record that a title is clear. • A grant deed contains the name of the person or entity transferring the property and a full description of the property's details, such as parcel identifier, property boundaries, and latitude & longitude. • While not necessary, a notary will often witness the actual signing of a grant deed. Understanding a Grant Deed A deed is a signed legal document that grants its holder specific rights to an asset—provided that they meet a number of conditions. They are most commonly used to transfer the ownership of automobiles or land between two parties. The purpose of a deed is to transfer title, a legal document proving ownership of a property or asset, to another person. A grant deed is a form of such written proof that an individual owns a property that also provides title guarantees to the new owner—i.e., insurance that the property title is free of claims or liens and the new owner has the right to sell or transfer the property to another. These types of deeds do not necessarily need to be recorded or notarized, although it is generally in the best interests of the grantee to ensure that this is done. There are numerous types of grant deeds depending on who is transferring property to whom. For example, an interspousal transfer grant deed is used to transfer ownership of real property from one spouse to another (often during a divorce). Real property consists of land and any property attached directly to it (such as buildings, ponds, canals, roads, and machinery) and can also entail the right to use, control, and dispose of the land. A property that is transferred with a grant deed typically does not need to be re-assessed for property tax purposes. Special Considerations Real estate, including real property, is often described as an asset class along with stocks, bonds, cash, and alternative investments such as private equity and venture capital. Grant deeds often help in the transfer of real estate from one owner to another. Real estate sales are unique in that the natural surroundings and immediate geographic area of properties significantly impact prices. For example, residential real estate values are affected by local factors such as the area's employment rate, economy, crime rates, transportation facilities, quality of schools, and other municipal services, along with property taxes. In commercial real estate, which is often more valuable per square foot than residential real estate, these factors are also pertinent although less so. Commercial rental real estate is more heavily regulated than residential real estate, with specific regulations existing between countries, states, and even cities and counties. Zoning regulations can add a further layer of complexity to commercial real estate investments along with the risk of tenant turnover. Those interested can invest directly in real estate (where grant deeds would come into play) or indirectly by buying shares in real estate investment trusts (REITs) or mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Other Types of Deed The grant deed is the simplest and most straightforward type of deed used. There are also other variations of a deed, including: • Warranty Deed: This document provides the greatest amount of protection. It offers the same guarantees as a grant deed, together with a promise that the grantor will warrant and defend the title against claims. • Quitclaim DeedReleases a person's interest in an asset without stating the nature of their interest or rights. The grantor could be a legal owner or not and makes no promises. Quitclaims are usually used in divorce situations. • Tax Deed: This is a legal document granting ownership of a property to a government body when the owner fails to pay any associated property taxes. A tax deed gives the government agency the authority to sell the property to collect the delinquent taxes. Once sold, the property is then transferred to the purchaser. These transactions are called “tax deed sales” and are usually held at auctions. Article Sources 1. Home Guides. "Grant Deed Instructions." Accessed July 12, 2021.
Titanic Short Story 847 Words4 Pages High in the crow’s-nest of the new White Star liner, Titanic lookout Frederick Fleet peered into a dazzling night. It was calm, clear and bitterly cold. There was no moon, but the cloudless sky blazed with stars. The Atlantic was like polished plate glass. People later said they had never seen it so smooth. So far so good. On duty at ten o’clock, a few words about the ice problem with lookout Reginald Lee, who shared the same watch as few more words about the cold spread. Though there was mostly just silence as the two men stared into the darkness. The watch was nearing conclusion, and there was still nothing unusual. Just the night, the stars, the biting cold, and the wind that rushed through the rigging as the Titanic shattered the tranquility of the Black sea at a speed 22.5 knots. It was…show more content… They were just in time to see the iceberg scraping along the starboard side, a little higher than the boat deck. As it slid by, they watched chunks of ice breaking off and tumbling into the water. In another moment it faded into the darkness astern. The creaking woodwork, the distant rhythm of the engines and the steady rattle of the glass dome over the ‘A’ deck foyer – all of which the familiar shipboard sounds, vanished as the Titanic came to a halt. Far more than any jolt, silence stirred the passengers as the sense of fatality grew within them. On deck there was little fun to be seen; nor was there any sign of danger. For the most part, the explorers wandered aimlessly about or stood by the rail, staring into the empty night for some clue to the trouble. The Titanic lay dead in the water, three of her four huge funnels blowing off steam with a roar that shattered the quiet, starlit night. Otherwise everything was normal, and towards the stern of the boat, an elderly couple strolled arm in arm, oblivious of the roaring steam and the little knots of passengers roving about. It was so bitterly cold and there was so little to be seen that most of the people came inside Open Document
Young Blood Helps Rejuvenate Aged Muscles in Mice As we age our muscles become weaker and smaller and not able to heal as well after an injury. Researchers in a new study have made an important discovery to keep muscles in mice youthful. This discovery could advance the regeneration of muscle therapies for the older population. The study shows the pattern of circulating extracellular vesicles or EVs. They deliver instructions genetically such as mRNA needed to make the longevity protein Klotho to the cells in muscles. Impaired muscle repair and loss of function of muscles in older mice can be due to older EV’s. They send less mRNA than those in younger mice. These findings are a significant advance in the understanding why the capacity for muscle regeneration lessens with age. This news is exciting because it helps to understand the biology as to how regeneration of muscle works and doesn’t work as well as people age. Taking this information further, the hope is that EV’s can be used as therapeutics to prevent the defects related to age. EV’s may also be useful in the regeneration of other parts of the body such as organs. The study adds to years of research showing that the blood of younger mice when given to older mice restores many tissues and cells. In the past it wasn’t clear which components conveyed the rejuvenating effects. The team wondered if EV’s might add to the regeneration of muscles by traveling between cells through the blood and other fluids. They found that the EV’s are able to deliver information to the muscle cells. The team collected serum from blood cells in the younger mice that remained after clotting factors. They then injected this into the older mice who had injured muscles. The mice that were given this serum showed greater regeneration of muscles and functional recovery when compared to the mice who received a placebo treatment. However, the serum’s properties to restore the muscles were lost when the EV’s were removed from the serum showing that the vesicles mediated the beneficial effects of the younger blood. Looking deeper, the team found that EV’s deliver mRNA or genetic instructions that encode the anti-aging Klotho protein to muscle ancestor cells. These types of cells are important for skeletal muscle regeneration. Fewer copies of the Klotho instructions were collected from the EV’s in older mice than those from the younger mice. This prompted muscle ancestor cells to produce smaller amounts of the protein. As we age, muscles do not heal as well after damage due to creation of scar tissue instead of muscle. In earlier research, the team discovered that Klotho’s regulation of regenerative capacity in muscle ancestor cells is vital and this protein declines with age. For the first time this study shows that shifts in EV delivery due to age contributes to depletion of Klotho in older stem cells. This suggests that EV’s have the potential for new therapies to heal muscle tissue damage. EV’s may be advantageous for boosting muscle regenerative capacity in older people and improvement of functional recovery following an injury. An exciting possibility is the engineering EV’s with specific carriers so that they can dictate the target cells responses. Besides muscles, EV’s might also help improve other affects of aging. Earlier work showed that young blood improves cognitive performance of older mice. To view the original scientific study click below: Regulation of aged skeletal muscle regeneration by circulating extracellular vesicles Previous articleAging Reversed / ABC News Next articleUsing Space to Leverage Stem Cell Medicine and Science
Lesson 10 -الدَّرْسُ الْعَاشِرُ Exercise - تَدْرِيبٌ o Do not use diacritics in the following cases: § Do not put the small Alif on words like هٰذا § Do not put diacritics on long vowels. · For more instructions click here. ضَعْ فِي الْفَرَاغِ فِيْمَا يَلِي الضَّمِيْرَ (هـُ ، هَا) • The Arabic sentence above means "Fill in the following blanks with the appropriate pronoun". For each of the sentences, type out the full sentence using the words below. مُحَمَّدٌ طَبِيبٌ وَابْنُـ ..... مُهَنْدِسٌ (Muhammad is a doctor and his son is an Engineer) Madinah Arabic question sound هَذِهِ الْبِنْتُ طَالِبَةٌ اسْمُـ..... زَيْنَبُ (This girl is a student her name is Zainab) Madinah Arabic question sound آمِنَةُ فِي الْغُرْفَةِ وَأُمُّـ ... فِي الْمَطْبَخِ (Aminah is in the room and her mother is in the kitchen) Madinah Arabic question sound هَذَا تَاجِرٌ كَبِيرٌ وَاسْمُـ ... عَبْدُ اللهِ (This is a great merchant and his name is Abdullah) Madinah Arabic question sound خَرَجَ وَلَدٌ مِنَ الْفَصْلِ وَمَعَـ... طَاهِرٌ (A boy went out of the class and Tahir was with him) Madinah Arabic question sound عَائِشَةُ طَبِيبَةٌ وَأُخْتُـ ... مُمَرِّضَةٌ (Ayesha is a doctor and her sister is a nurse) Madinah Arabic question sound
The portal has been deactivated. Please contact your portal admin. Question Video: Solving Subtraction Problems Represented by Pictures Mathematics • Kindergarten What is 4 − 1? Video Transcript What is four take away one? There are four light bulbs. What happens if we take one away? We have four. We’re taking away one. So we’re counting back one. There will be three left. Four take away one equals three.
Valentine's Day English Resources, worksheets and activities, Activities for Kids Is there a Geek Day? What does a geek mean? Geek Pride Day is an annual humorous event organised every 25th of May since 2006, claiming the right to be a geek. This holiday was first celebrated in Spain (Día del Orgullo Friki) but it has gained recognition through the Internet and is now celebrated by geeks in several countries. The date of 25 May was chosen in reference to various emblematic events in geek culture that took place on that day: the first screening of Star Wars in 1977, Towel Day in homage to Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett's "Glorious 25 May". What is the meaning of the word geek? The meaning of the word geek has been used to describe people who have a somewhat eccentric behaviour and are therefore labelled as weird and quirky. In the past, this term was used to describe people with a physical defect, but in recent years it is more commonly used to describe individuals with unusual behaviour, particular tastes and unusual hobbies. Origin of Geek Pride Day The origin of Geek Pride Day is due to the Spanish blogger Germán Martínez, who is nicknamed Señor Buebo. It all began in 2006 when this character made a series of events and celebrations throughout Spain and that they gave to know all the people of the geek community. From that date, this day is celebrated in different countries, which brings together thousands of people who identify with this movement and is already part of world culture. Since 2008, in the United States of America, the official celebration of the day has been made official with the participation of a large number of bloggers, who took part in a big parade, which took place on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Since 2009 and up to the present day, a series of programmes, festivals and parades have been held to celebrate this date in countries such as Canada, Hungary, Romania, Sweden and Israel. The world of the Internet and social networks is a gateway for the entire geek community in the world. This is due to the taste and preference that these people have for comics, video games, anime and everything that is linked to the culture of the extravagant and fantastic. Every year both the social networks and the streets of the big cities are the meeting place to celebrate Friki Pride Day. It is a custom that this community has carried out since its date was officially decreed. #GeekPrideDay Compártelo en tus redes!
Industry information Home > INFO CENTER > Industry information > How does the vacuum coating equipment work? How does the vacuum coating equipment work? How does the vacuum coating equipment work? Vacuum coating machine mainly refers to a type of coating that needs to be carried out under a higher vacuum, including many types, including vacuum resistance heating evaporation, electron gun heating evaporation, magnetron sputtering, MBE molecular beam epitaxy, PLD laser sputtering deposition, ion There are many kinds of beam sputtering. The main idea is divided into two kinds of evaporation and sputtering. Evaporation coating generally heats the target material to evaporate the surface components in the form of radicals or ions. And it settles on the surface of the substrate and forms a thin film through a film-forming process (scattered points-island structure-vagus structure-layered growth). For sputtering coatings, it can be simply understood as using electrons or high-energy lasers to bombard the target material, and the surface components are sputtered out in the form of radicals or ions, and finally deposited on the surface of the substrate, undergoing the film forming process, and finally forming a thin film , Vacuum coating machine. The uniformity of the thickness of the vacuum coating machine can also be understood as the roughness. On the scale of the optical film (that is, 1/10 wavelength as the unit, about 100A), the uniformity of the vacuum coating is quite good, and it can be easily changed. The roughness is controlled within 1/10 of the wavelength of visible light, which means that there is no obstacle to the optical properties of the film in vacuum coating. But if it refers to the uniformity on the atomic layer scale, that is to say, to achieve a 10A or even 1A surface smoothness, the specific control factors will be explained in detail below according to different coatings. Film uniformity means that in the film, the atomic composition of the compound will easily produce uneven characteristics due to the small size. For the SiTiO3 film, if the coating process is unscientific, then the actual surface composition is not SiTiO3, but may be other The ratio of the coating film is not the chemical composition of the desired film, which is also the technical content of the vacuum coating. Chat Online 编辑模式下无法使用 Chat Online inputting...
Checked content Related subjects: Chemical elements; Mineralogy About this schools Wikipedia selection lustrous white metal Electrolytically refined silver General properties Name, symbol, number silver, Ag, 47 Pronunciation / ˈ s ɪ l v ər / Element category transition metal Group, period, block 11, 5, d Standard atomic weight 107.8682 Electron configuration [Kr] 4d10 5s1 2, 8, 18, 18, 1 Electron shells of silver (2, 8, 18, 18, 1) Discovery before 5000 BC Physical properties Phase solid Density (near r.t.) 10.49 g·cm−3 Liquid density at m.p. 9.320 g·cm−3 Melting point 1234.93 K, 961.78 °C, 1763.2 °F Boiling point 2435 K, 2162 °C, 3924 °F Heat of fusion 11.28 kJ·mol−1 Heat of vaporization 250.58 kJ·mol−1 Molar heat capacity 25.350 J·mol−1·K−1 Vapor pressure at T (K) 1283 1413 1575 1782 2055 2433 Atomic properties Oxidation states 1, 2, 3 ( amphoteric oxide) Electronegativity 1.93 (Pauling scale) Ionization energies 1st: 731.0 kJ·mol−1 2nd: 2070 kJ·mol−1 3rd: 3361 kJ·mol−1 Atomic radius 144 pm Covalent radius 145±5 pm Van der Waals radius 172 pm Crystal structure face-centered cubic Silver has a face-centered cubic crystal structure Magnetic ordering diamagnetic Electrical resistivity (20 °C) 15.87 nΩ·m Thermal conductivity 429 W·m−1·K−1 Thermal diffusivity (300 K) 174 mm²/s Young's modulus 83 GPa Shear modulus 30 GPa Bulk modulus 100 GPa Poisson ratio 0.37 Mohs hardness 2.5 Vickers hardness 251 MPa Brinell hardness 206 MPa CAS registry number 7440-22-4 Most stable isotopes Main article: Isotopes of silver iso NA half-life DM DE ( MeV) DP 105Ag syn 41.2 d ε - 105Pd γ 0.344, 0.280, 0.644, 0.443 106 mAg syn 8.28 d ε - 106Pd γ 0.511, 0.717, 1.045, 0.450 107Ag 51.839% 107Ag is stable with 60 neutrons 108 mAg syn 418 y ε - 108Pd IT 0.109 108Ag γ 0.433, 0.614, 109Ag 48.161% 109Ag is stable with 62 neutrons 111Ag syn 7.45 d β 1.036, 0.694 111Cd γ 0.342 - Silver 1000 oz t (~31 kg) bullion bar Among metals, pure silver has the highest thermal conductivity (the nonmetal carbon in the form of diamond and superfluid helium II are higher) and one of the highest optical reflectivities. (Aluminium slightly outdoes silver in parts of the visible spectrum, and silver is a poor reflector of ultraviolet). Silver is the best conductor of heat and electricity of any metal on the periodic table. Silver also has the lowest contact resistance of any metal. Silver halides are photosensitive and are remarkable for their ability to record a latent image that can later be developed chemically. Silver is stable in pure air and water, but tarnishes when it is exposed to air or water containing ozone or hydrogen sulfide, the latter forming a black layer of silver sulfide which can be cleaned off with dilute hydrochloric acid. The most common oxidation state of silver is +1 (for example, silver nitrate, AgNO3); the less common +2 compounds (for example, silver(II) fluoride, AgF2), and the even less common +3 (for example, potassium tetrafluoroargentate(III), KAgF4) and even +4 compounds (for example, potassium hexafluoroargentate(IV), K2AgF6) are also known. Naturally occurring silver is composed of two stable isotopes, 107Ag and 109Ag, with 107Ag being slightly more abundant (51.839% natural abundance). Silver's isotopes are almost equal in abundance, something which is rare in the periodic table. Silver's atomic weight is 107.8682(2) g/ mol. Twenty-eight radioisotopes have been characterized, the most stable being 105Ag with a half-life of 41.29 days, 111Ag with a half-life of 7.45 days, and 112Ag with a half-life of 3.13 hours. This element has numerous meta states, the most stable being 108mAg (t1/2 = 418 years), 110mAg (t1/2 = 249.79 days) and 106mAg (t1/2 = 8.28 days). All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives of less than an hour, and the majority of these have half-lives of less than three minutes. Isotopes of silver range in relative atomic mass from 93.943 (94Ag) to 126.936 (127Ag); the primary decay mode before the most abundant stable isotope, 107Ag, is electron capture and the primary mode after is beta decay. The primary decay products before 107Ag are palladium (element 46) isotopes, and the primary products after are cadmium (element 48) isotopes. 4 Ag + O2 + 2 H2S → 2 Ag2S + 2 H2O Cessna 210 equipped with a silver iodide generator for cloud seeding 2 AgNO3 + 2 OH → Ag2O + H2O + 2 NO3 2 AgNO3 + Na2CO3 → Ag2CO3 + 2 NaNO3 Many well-known uses of silver involve its precious metal properties, including currency, decorative items, and mirrors. The contrast between its bright white colour and other media makes it very useful to the visual arts. It has also long been used to confer high monetary value as objects (such as silver coins and investment bars) or make objects symbolic of high social or political rank. Jewelry and silverware Shallow silver bowl, Persian, 6th century BC ( Achaemenid). The deeper depressions reperesent lotus buds, an Egyptian motif. Walters Art Museum collections. Silver is a constituent of almost all colored carat gold alloys and carat gold solders, giving the alloys paler colour and greater hardness. White 9 carat gold contains 62.5% silver and 37.5% gold, while 22 carat gold contains up to 91.7% gold and 8.4% silver or copper or a mixture of both. Photography and electronics Some manufacturers produce audio connector cables, speaker wires, and power cables using silver conductors, which have a 6% higher conductivity than ordinary copper ones of identical dimensions, but cost much more. Though debatable, many hi-fi enthusiasts believe silver wires improve sound quality. Mirrors and optics Other industrial and commercial applications The crescent moon has been used since ancient times to represent silver. Mines were made in Laureion during 483 BC. In the Americas, high temperature silver-lead cupellation technology was developed by pre-Inca civilizations as early as CE 60–120. In European folklore, silver was considered a mystical element, and much like Cold Iron, was considered something of an anathema towards aspects of the supernatural. The myth of silver's mystical properties goes deep into human history. Silver is believed to have purifying effects, a belief that likely arose from the observation that water kept in a silver pitcher took longer to go scummy; in real-life, silver has been shown to have antibacterial properties. As a noble metal akin to gold, this is often attributed to something along the lines of silver's "Incorruptible Pure Pureness". Due to the above, silver is almost always considered to be on the good end of magic (and items formed of it may also be "Made of Good"). In Neopaganism, silver is the metal associated with the powers of the Moon, symbolizes the light of the moon, representing the feminine energies of the Triple Goddess. In Francis Barret's The Magus, it is said to make the bearer "amiable, pleasent, cheerful and honoured, removing all malice and ill-will; it causes security in a journey, increases the riches, and health of body drives away enemies..." In rituals, silver is said to encourage a harmonious energy and a sense of peace. In folklore, and now later in fiction, the metal is said to do many things, from channel magic, to stopping evil (including warding off or harming vampires and werewolves), making magic mirrors, to turning water into a "Healing Potion". Throughout mythology and subsequent fiction, silver has been a common ward against evil. Silver, especially if blessed, was thought to ward off or harm certain supernatural beings (including vampires) since the Middle Ages. If a "Gold Silver Copper Standard" is involved, expect gold to be even more powerful, while silver still has its own powers. World War II During World War II, the short supply of copper led to the substitution of silver in many industrial applications. The United States government loaned out silver from its massive reserve located in the West Point vaults to a wide range of industrial users. One very important use was for bus bars for new aluminium plants needed to make aircraft. During the war, many electrical connectors and switches were silver plated. Another use was aircraft master rod bearings and other types of bearings. Since silver can replace tin in solder at a lower volume, a large amount of tin was freed up for other uses by substituting government silver. Silver was also used as the reflector in searchlights and other types of lights. One high-tech use of silver was for conductors at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used in calutrons to isolate uranium as part of the Manhattan project. (After the war ended, the silver was returned to the vaults.) Silver was used in nickels during the war to save that metal for use in steel alloys. Occurrence and extraction Time trend of silver production Native silver Silver is found in native form, as an alloy with gold ( electrum), and in ores containing sulfur, arsenic, antimony or chlorine. Ores include argentite (Ag2S), chlorargyrite (AgCl) which includes horn silver, and pyrargyrite (Ag3SbS3). The principal sources of silver are the ores of copper, copper-nickel, lead, and lead-zinc obtained from Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, China, Australia, Chile, Poland and Serbia. Peru, Bolivia and Mexico have been mining silver since 1546, and are still major world producers. Top silver-producing mines are Cannington (Australia), Fresnillo (Mexico), San Cristobal (Bolivia), Antamina (Peru), Rudna (Poland), and Penasquito (Mexico). Top near-term mine development projects through 2015 are Pascua Lama (Chile), Navidad (Argentina), Jaunicipio (Mexico), Malku Khota (Bolivia), and Hackett River (Canada). The metal is primarily produced as a byproduct of electrolytic copper refining, gold, nickel, and zinc refining, and by application of the Parkes process on lead metal obtained from lead ores that contain small amounts of silver. Commercial-grade fine silver is at least 99.9% pure, and purities greater than 99.999% are available. In 2011, Mexico was the top producer of silver (4,500 tonnes or 19% of the world's total), closely followed by Peru (4,000 t) and China (4,000 t). Silver price history in 1960–2011 At a February 13, 2013 price of about $31.00 USD per troy ounce, silver is about 1/53rd the price of gold. The ratio has varied from 1/15 to 1/100 in the past 100 years. Physical silver bullion prices are higher than the paper prices, with premiums increasing when demand is high and local shortages occur. In 1980, the silver price rose to a peak for modern times of US$49.45 per troy ounce (ozt) due to market manipulation of Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt. Inflation-adjusted to 2012, this is approximately US$138 per troy ounce. Some time after Silver Thursday, the price was back to $10/ozt. From 2001 to 2010, the price moved from $4.37 to $20.19 (average London US$/oz). According to the Silver Institute, silver's recent gains have greatly stemmed from a rise in investor interest and an increase in fabrication demand. In late April 2011, silver reached an all-time high of $49.76/ozt. In earlier times, silver has commanded much higher prices. In the early 15th century, the price of silver is estimated to have surpassed $1,200 per ounce, based on 2011 dollars. The discovery of massive silver deposits in the New World during the succeeding centuries has been stated as a cause for its price to have diminished greatly. The price of silver is important in Judaic law. The lowest fiscal amount a Jewish court, or Beth Din, can convene to adjudicate a case over is a shova pruta (value of a Babylonian pruta coin). This is fixed at .025 grams (0.00088 oz) of pure, unrefined silver, at market price. In a Jewish tradition, still continuing today, on the first birthday of a first-born son, the parents pay the price of five pure-silver coins to a Kohen (priest). Today, the Israel mint fixes the coins at 117 grams (4.1 oz) of silver. The Kohen will often give those silver coins back as a gift for the child to inherit. Human exposure and consumption Silver plays no known natural biological role in humans, and possible health effects of silver are a disputed subject. Silver itself is not toxic, but most silver salts are. In large doses, silver and compounds containing it can be absorbed into the circulatory system and become deposited in various body tissues, leading to argyria, which results in a blue-grayish pigmentation of the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes. Argyria is rare, and although this condition does not otherwise harm a person's health, it is disfiguring and usually permanent. Mild forms of Argyria are sometimes mistaken for cyanosis. Monitoring exposure Overexposure to silver can occur in workers in the metallurgical industry, persons taking silver-containing dietary supplements, patients who have received silver sulfadiazine treatment, and individuals who accidentally or intentionally ingest silver salts. Silver concentrations in whole blood, plasma, serum, or urine may be measured to monitor for safety in exposed workers, to confirm the diagnosis in potential poisoning victims, or to assist in the forensic investigation in a case of fatal overdosage. Use in food Silver is used in food coloring; it has the E174 designation and is approved in the European Union. The safety of silver for use in food is disputed. Traditional Indian dishes sometimes include the use of decorative silver foil known as vark, and in various cultures, silver dragée are used to decorate cakes, cookies, and other dessert items. The use of silver as a food additive is not approved in the United States and Australia. Retrieved from ""
Care for Autism Symptoms of Autism Children with autism may have problems with communication, social skills, and reacting to the world around them. Not all behaviors will exist in every child. A diagnosis should be made by the child's doctor or other professional with experience in working with children with autism. Possible signs and symptoms are outlined below. Social Communication: Not speaking or very limited speech Loss of words the child was previously able to say Difficulty expressing basic wants and needs Poor vocabulary development Problems following directions or finding objects that are named Repeating what is said (echolalia) Problems answering questions Speech that sounds different (e.g., "robotic" speech or speech that is high-pitched) Social skills: Poor eye contact with people or objects Poor play skills (pretend or social play) Being overly focused on a topic or objects that interest them Problems making friends Disliking being touched or held Social Imagination: determine and interpret other people's thoughts, feelings and actions; identify hazards; engage in imaginative play and activities. Children with autism may enjoy some imaginative play but have a strong preference to act out familiar scenes; prepare for change and plan for the future; cope in new or unfamiliar situations which may result in the person becoming stressed; appreciate other people may not be interested in their topic of interest which they talk obsessively about; and Attempt work if they feel they are unable to do it perfectly. Difficulties with social imagination should not be mistaken with a lack of imagination. Many people with autism are very creative and go on to become accomplished artists, musicians or writers. Reacting to the world around them: Not paying attention to things the child sees or hears Problems dealing with changes in routine Using objects in unusual ways Unusual attachments to objects No fear of real dangers Sleep problems
Sustainable Fabrics Being sustainable whilst staying fashion conscious can often be very difficult. If we choose sustainability over fashion then, arguably, our wardrobe suffers, for eventually our clothes will become outdated. However, if we pick fashion and buy new clothes, probably via fast fashion brands, then it could be debated whether being environmentally friendly still stands. The reason for this is because the rise of fast fashion unfortunately also means the rise of environmental waste through degradable fabrics. Whilst, there are many ways to be fashion and environmentally conscious at the same time, including upcycling old items or buying preloved clothing, there are also other options. One answer to protecting the earth whilst loving our wardrobes is to look at the fabrics that our clothes are made out of. Whilst we may not realise the harm that fabric consumption has on the earth, being aware of which materials are more earth conscious should become vital information. One fabric that is sometimes presumed to be environmentally friendly is cotton, due to the fact that it is a naturally occurring fibre. Whilst this is the case, it also uses tens of thousands of gallons of water to make a singular item. On top of this, cotton farms use high amounts of pesticides and toxic chemicals that heavily pollute the earth. Similar to cotton in that we may not realise that it is harmful towards the environment, is polyester. Polyester is a manmade fabric, meaning that it is able to be made in big batches which encourages the overproduction of fashion. The process that goes into making polyester heavily pollutes the earth due to the excess of chemical fibres used. Nonetheless, many clothes and other items, such as bedding are made from cotton, polyester, or a mixture of the two otherwise known as polycotton. This reveals that what we wear can be heavily harmful to the environment because of the way that it is made. This leads to the questions of what fabrics are sustainable? One certain fabric is Circulose. Circulose has recently been created with the sole purpose of being a fabric that is environmentally friendly. Made from discarded textiles that are either simply too out-of-date or too worn, the process to turn them into a fabric is powered by 100% renewable energy with no need for cotton fields, oil, or trees. The aim of this is to close the loop on fashion and make it so that there no longer needs to be the decision between sustainability or fashion consciousness, instead both options can come hand in hand. This is shown to work for, according to the Circulose website, “People that choose Circulose garments cut their waste, climate, water, microplastics and deforestation fashion footprint to almost half.” Currently, Circulose works with companies such as Levi and H&M, to create more sustainable clothing that no longer harms the planet. Their aim is to create collaborations with more companies across the board. Whilst, fabrics such as cotton and polyester will arguably always be in use, the creation of Circulose means that the fashion industry has taken one step forward to becoming an eco-friendly industry. Please enter your comment! Please enter your name here
Quick Answer: How many apostles did Jesus have originally? How many disciples did Jesus have before he chose the 12? Why did Jesus send out the seventy? Mark 6:7. As Jesus moved about in Galilee, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God and demonstrating the presence of the kingdom through works of power, he sent out his disciples to share in his mission. Jesus gave them authority over demons, as well as the power to heal the sick (6:7,13). What does 72 mean in the Bible? The number 72 is often mentioned also in Scripture. According to Bible, Jesus was dead for 72 hours (3 days), which is also the time Jonah spent inside the Great Whale. In Astrology and Astronomy, the Sun is said to be dead between December 21st – 24th and June 21st – 24th every year. IT IS INTERESTING: Who followed Jesus during his life? Who were the original 12 apostles LDS? Following the order given by Mark, and this may be the most convenient since he names as the first three those who later became most prominent, we have the following list: Simon Peter, James (son of Zebedee), John (brother of the last-named), Andrew (brother of Simon Peter), Philip, Bartholomew (or Nathanael), Matthew, … Who are the 12 disciples of Jesus search and read Matthew 10 1 4? Did Jesus have a wife? What was the mission of the 70 disciples? The Mission of the 70 Disciples (Text: Luke 10: 1-24) The (70) seventy were also sent out in twos, and as “LAMB” in the midst of “Wolves”. Also, the message is “The kingdom of God has come near to you”. … They should heal the sick and say unto them, the kingdom of God is at hand. What were Jesus instructions to the seventy two? The instructions that Jesus gave to the seventy two disciples when he sent them on a mission. • The disciples were to pray for more labourers to be sent for the harvest, • The disciples were not to carry any pulse / bag / sandals. • They were not to salute anyone on the road. • They were to say peace any house they entered. IT IS INTERESTING: Is it possible for one not to sin in his anger? Where in the Bible did Jesus send the disciples out?
Handwritten letter from Albert Einstein denouncing anti-Semitism in American universities up for auction The physicist wrote this letter to his friend, Austrian Jewish pianist Bruno Eisner, in 1936. "Be careful, it never takes the form of speech or brutal actions, but simmers all the more intensely below the surface," writes Einstein. Eisner was staying in New York at the time with a mutual friend. "He is, so to speak, an omnipresent enemy, impossible to see, and whose presence we can only perceive." Einstein explains in the letter that his own assistant was forced to leave the country and take a post in Russia due to the anti-Semitism he had faced in the United States. The letter will go on sale in the week with a starting price of 40,000 shekels ($11,450). Albert Einstein, born in Germany and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his discovery of the photoelectric effect, was on a speaking tour abroad when Adolf Hitler came to power. A Nazi organization published a magazine with Einstein's picture and the caption “Not Yet Hanged” on the cover. There was even a price on his head.
اخبار المانيا Figure out how to Program in Python If you want to master how to put in python, that you simply in the right place. The interpreted high-level general-purpose programming words is highly readability-oriented, and it’s also simple to learn as a result of its http://www.learn-to-program.net/classesoob significant indentation. This means that you can actually write clean, well-structured code in a short time of time. You may also write intricate, multi-threaded applications with ease. The advantage of Python is that it could be interactive and is also easy for newcomers to learn. They have ideal for newcomers, as you shouldn’t compile this software before working it. Recharging options easy to master because it’s a language could widely used. You could get started with programming in python in just a matter of days and nights. It’s also very user friendly, and newbies will find it easy to pick up. There’s a large standard collection you could make use of. You need to use a function by calling it a specific term and then use it to method that varying. If you want to utilize a function in a different context, you can state it with two highlights. This way, you are able to avoid the concerns of naming factors and functions in a diverse context. In this way, you can keep your code simple and maintain it for a long time. You can actually learn how to put in python for anyone who is comfortable with employing an interpreter. The main difference between a text editor and a development environment is that you will still have the ability to modify the syntax with the code. In a text editor, you can write down thier code, and you can edit the file when you’re carried out. If you’re not familiar with python, investigate Integrated Expansion Environment. You’ll find it very easy to alter the style of your code to get better results as you go. لهذا السبب تعرض المغني جاستن بيبر لانتقادات بعد إعلانه عن إقامة حفل غنائي في السعودية بشرى سارة لمتلقي رواتب الجوب سنتر الألماني اترك تعليقاً
Your question: What is the ideal percentile for babies? Do baby percentiles matter? A healthy child can fall anywhere on the chart. A lower or higher percentile doesn‘t mean there is something wrong with your baby. Regardless of whether your child is in the 95th or 15th percentile, what matters is that she or he is growing at a consistent rate over time. Is 10th percentile good for babies? What is considered a “normal” percentile range? Don’t be concerned if your baby is above or below average — a healthy baby can come in any size, no matter whether that’s in the 90th or 10th percentile. Is 15th percentile good? There is a wide range for what is considered “normal.” Just because your child is in the 15th percentile for weight (meaning 85 out of 100 children weigh more), this number rarely means your child is sick, you are not feeding your child enough, or your breast milk is not enough for your baby. What does 7th percentile mean for babies? The higher the percentile number, the bigger a child is compared with other kids of the same age and gender, whether it’s for height or weight. The lower the percentile number, the smaller the child is. IT IS AMAZING: Why is pregnancy calculated from last period? Do baby percentiles predict height? What percentile should baby be at 37 weeks? What is considered failure to thrive in infants? Infants or children who fail to thrive have a height, weight and head circumference that do not match standard growth charts. The person’s weight falls lower than the third percentile (as outlined in standard growth charts) or 20 percent below the ideal weight for their height. Can you overfeed a breastfed baby? What percentile should a baby’s head circumference? Data Table of Infant Head Circumference-for-age Charts Age (in months) 3rd Percentile Head Circumference (in centimeters) 50th Percentile Head Circumference (in centimeters) 31.48762 35.81367 0.5 33.25006 37.19361 1.5 35.78126 39.20743 2.5 37.5588 40.65233 What is normal growth percentile? A normal rate of growth means the child’s growth points closely follow a percentile line on the chart. We usually don’t worry about insufficient (or excessive) growth until a child’s growth rate has crossed at least two percentile lines (e.g., from above the 90th percentile to below the 50th). IT IS AMAZING: When can I give my newborn food?
Why Security is Needed True/ False Info safety’s main mission is to make sure that techniques and their contents retain their confidentiality in any respect prices. ANS:FPTS:1 Info safety safeguards the expertise property in use on the group. ANS:TPTS:1 A firewall is a mechanism that retains sure sorts of community site visitors out of a non-public community. ANS:TPTS:1 An act of theft carried out by a hacker falls into the class of “theft,” however can be usually accompanied by defacement actions to delay discovery and thus might also be positioned inside the class of “forces of nature. ANS:FPTS:1 Two watchdog organizations that examine allegations of software program abuse: SIIA and NSA. ANS:FPTS:1 Quite a few technical mechanisms—digital watermarks and embedded code, copyright codes, and even the intentional placement of dangerous sectors on software program media—have been used to implement copyright legal guidelines. ANS:TPTS:1 A worm requires that one other program is working earlier than it could possibly start functioning. ANS:FPTS:1 A worm can deposit copies of itself onto all Internet servers that the contaminated system can attain, in order that customers who subsequently go to these websites turn into contaminated. ANS:TPTS:1 Assaults performed by scripts are often unpredictable. ANS:FPTS:1 Skilled hackers are extraordinarily proficient people who often dedicate numerous time and vitality to making an attempt to interrupt into different folks’s info techniques. ANS:TPTS:1 With the elimination of copyright safety, software program could be simply distributed and put in. ANS:TPTS:1 Forces of nature, drive majeure, or acts of God can current among the most harmful threats, as a result of they're often happen with little or no warning and are past the management of individuals. ANS:TPTS:1 A lot human error or failure could be prevented with coaching and ongoing consciousness actions. ANS:TPTS:1 In comparison with Site defacement, vandalism inside a community is much less malicious in intent and extra public. ANS:FPTS:1 With digital info is stolen, the crime is instantly obvious. ANS:FPTS:1 Organizations can use dictionaries to disallow passwords throughout the reset course of and thus guard in opposition to easy-to-guess passwords. ANS:TPTS:1 17. DoS assaults can't be launched in opposition to routers. ANS:FPTS:1 A mail bomb is a type of DoS. ANS:TPTS:1 A sniffer program exhibits all the information going by on a community phase together with passwords, the information inside recordsdata—similar to word-processing paperwork—and screens filled with delicate knowledge from functions. ANS:TPTS:1. A timing assault includes the interception of cryptographic parts to find out keys and encryption algorithms. ANS:TPTS:1 Modified True/ False Mental property is outlined as “the possession of concepts and management over the tangible or digital illustration of these concepts. ANS:TPTS:1 The macro virus infects the important thing working system recordsdata positioned in a pc’s boot sector. ANS:F, boot PTS:1 As soon as a(n) again door has contaminated a pc, it could possibly redistribute itself to all e-mail addresses discovered on the contaminated system. ANS:F virus worm PTS:1 A(n) polymorphic menace is one which over time adjustments the way in which it seems to antivirus software program packages, making it undetectable by methods that search for preconfigured signatures. ANS:TPTS:1 When voltage ranges surge (expertise a momentary enhance), the additional voltage can severely injury or destroy tools. ANS:F, spike PTS:1 The shoulder wanting approach is utilized in public or semipublic settings when people collect info they aren't approved to have by wanting over one other particular person’s shoulder or viewing the data from a distance. ANS:F, browsing PTS:1 Hackers are “individuals who use and create laptop software program to achieve entry to info illegally. ” ANS:TPTS:1 Packet kiddies use automated exploits to interact in distributed denial-of-service assaults. ANS:F, monkeys PTS:1 The time period phreaker is now generally related to a person who cracks or removes software program safety that's designed to forestall unauthorized duplication. ANS:F, cracker PTS:1 Cyberterrorists hack techniques to conduct terrorist actions through community or Web pathways. ANS:TPTS:1 The malicious code assault consists of the execution of viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and lively Internet scripts with the intent to destroy or steal info. ANS:TPTS:1 The appliance of computing and community assets to attempt each potential mixture of choices of a password known as a brute crack assault. ANS:F, drive PTS:1 One type of e-mail assault that can be a DoS known as a mail spoof, wherein an attacker routes giant portions of e-mail to the goal. ANS:F, bomb PTS:1 Sniffers usually work on TCP/IP networks, the place they’re typically referred to as packet sniffers. ANS:TPTS:1 A(n) cookie can enable an attacker to gather info on entry password-protected websites. ANS:TPTS:1 A number of Selection 1. Which of the next capabilities does info safety carry out for a company? a. Defending the group’s potential to operate. b. Enabling the protected operation of functions carried out on the group’s IT techniques. c. Defending the information the group collects and makes use of. d. All the above. ANS:DPTS:1 2. _ is an built-in system of software program, encryption methodologies, and authorized agreements that can be utilized to assist the whole info infrastructure of a company. a. SSL b. PKI c. PKC d. SIS ANS:BPTS:1 three. _ are software program packages that cover their true nature, and reveal their designed conduct solely when activated. a. Viruses b. Worms c. Spam d. Trojan horses ANS:DPTS:1 Four. Which of the next is an instance of a Computer virus program? a. Netsky b. MyDoom c. Klez d. Completely satisfied99. exe ANS:DPTS:1 5. As irritating as viruses and worms are, maybe extra money and time is spent on resolving virus _. a. false alarms b. energy faults c. hoaxes d. city legends ANS:CPTS:1 6. Internet hosting companies are often organized with an settlement offering minimal service ranges often called a(n) _. a. SSL b. SLA c. MSL d. MIN ANS:BPTS:1 7. Full lack of energy for a second is named a _. a. sag b. fault c. brownout d. blackout ANS:BPTS:1 eight. Acts of _ can result in unauthorized actual or digital actions that allow info gatherers to enter premises or techniques they haven't been approved to enter. a. bypass b. nature c. trespass d. safety ANS:CPTS:1 9. There are usually two ability ranges amongst hackers: professional and _. a. novice b. journeyman c. packet monkey d. skilled ANS:APTS:1 10.One type of on-line vandalism is _ operations, which intervene with or disrupt techniques to protest the operations, insurance policies, or actions of a company or authorities company. a. hacktivist b. phvist c. hackcyber d. cyberhack ANS:APTS:1 11. Based on Mark Pollitt, _ is the premeditated, politically motivated assaults in opposition to info, laptop techniques, laptop packages, and knowledge which end in violence in opposition to noncombatant targets by subnational teams or clandestine brokers. a. infoterrorism b. cyberterrorism c. hacking d. cracking ANS:BPTS:1 12. _ is any expertise that aids in gathering details about an individual or group with out their information. a. A bot b. Adware c. Trojan d. Worm ANS:BPTS:1 13. The _data file incorporates the hashed illustration of the person’s password. a. SLA b. SNMP c. FBI d. SAM ANS:DPTS:1 14. In a _ assault, the attacker sends numerous connection or info requests to a goal. a. denial-of-service b. distributed denial-of-service c. virus d. spam ANS:APTS:1 15. A _is an assault wherein a coordinated stream of requests is launched in opposition to a goal from many areas on the similar time. a. denial-of-service b. distributed denial-of-service c. virus d. spam ANS:BPTS:1 16. _ are machines which might be directed remotely (often by a transmitted command) by the attacker to take part in an assault. a. Drones b. Helpers c. Zombies d. Servants ANS:CPTS:1 17. Within the well-known _ assault, an attacker displays (or sniffs) packets from the community, modifies them, and inserts them again into the community. a. zombie-in-the-middle b. sniff-in-the-middle c. server-in-the-middle d. man-in-the-middle ANS:DPTS:1 18.The _ hijacking assault makes use of IP spoofing to allow an attacker to impersonate one other entity on the community. a. WWW b. TCP c. FTP d. HTTP ANS:BPTS:1 19. “Four-1-9” fraud is an instance of a _ assault. a. social engineering b. virus c. worm d. spam ANS:APTS:1 20. Microsoft acknowledged that in case you sort a res:// URL (a Microsoft-devised sort of URL) which is longer than _ characters in Web Explorer Four. zero, the browser will crash. a. 64 b. 128 c. 256 d. 512 ANS:CPTS:1 Completion A(n) _is an object, individual, or different entity that represents an ongoing hazard to an asset. ANS:menace PTS:1 Duplication of software-based mental property is extra generally often called software program _. ANS:piracy PTS:1 A pc virus consists of segments of code that carry out _ actions. ANS:malicious PTS:1 A(n) _ is a trojan horse that replicates itself consistently, with out requiring one other program atmosphere. ANS:worm PTS:1 A virus or worm can have a payload that installs a(n) _ door or lure door element in a system, which permits the attacker to entry the system at will with particular privileges.ANS:again PTS:1 A momentary low voltage known as a(n) _. ANS:sag PTS:1 Some info gathering methods are fairly authorized, for instance, utilizing a Internet browser to carry out market analysis. These authorized methods are referred to as, collectively, aggressive _. ANS:intelligence PTS:1 When info gatherers make use of methods that cross the brink of what's authorized or moral, they're conducting industrial _. ANS:espionage PTS:1 The professional hacker typically known as _ hacker. ANS:elite PTS:1 Script _ are hackers of restricted ability who use expertly written software program to assault a system. ANS:kiddies PTS:1 A(n) _ hacks the general public phone community to make free calls or disrupt companies. ANS:phreaker PTS:1 ESD means electrostatic _. ANS:discharge PTS:1 A(n) _ is an act that takes benefit of a vulnerability to compromise a managed system. ANS:assault PTS:1 A(n) _is an recognized weak point in a managed system, the place controls usually are not current or are not efficient. ANS:vulnerability PTS:1 Making an attempt to reverse-calculate a password known as _. ANS:cracking PTS:1 _ is a method used to achieve unauthorized entry to computer systems, whereby the intruder sends messages with a supply IP tackle that has been solid to point that the messages are coming from a trusted host. ANS:Spoofing PTS:1 _ is unsolicited business e-mail. ANS:Spam PTS:1 18. Within the context of data safety, _is the method of utilizing social expertise to persuade folks to disclose entry credentials or different helpful info to the attacker.ANS:social engineering PTS:1 The timing assault explores the contents of a Internet browser’s _. ANS:cache PTS:1 A(n) _is an utility error that happens when extra knowledge is distributed to a program buffer than it's designed to deal with. ANS: buffer overrun buffer overflow PTS:1 Essay Record no less than six normal classes of menace. ANS: Compromises to mental property : piracy, copyright infringement Software program assaults : viruses, worms macros, denial of service Deviations in high quality of service : ISP, energy, or wan service points from service suppliers Espionage or trespass : unauthorized entry and /or knowledge assortment Sabotage or vandalism : destruction of system or info Forces of nature Human error or failure Info extortion Lacking, insufficient, or incomplete Lacking, insufficient, or incomplete controls Theft Technical hardware failures or errors Technical software program failures or errors Technological obsolescence PTS:1 Describe viruses and worms. ANS: A pc virus consists of segments of code that carry out malicious actions. The code attaches itself to the prevailing program and takes management of that program’s entry to the focused laptop. The virus-controlled goal program then carries out the virus’s plan, by replicating itself into further focused techniques. A worm is a trojan horse that replicates itself consistently, with out requiring one other program to offer a protected atmosphere for replication. Worms can proceed replicating themselves till they fully fill out there assets, similar to reminiscence, arduous drive house, and community bandwidth. PTS:1 Describe the capabilities of a sniffer. ANS:A sniffer is a program or machine that may monitor knowledge touring over a community. Sniffers can be utilized each for respectable community administration capabilities and for stealing info from a community. Unauthorized sniffers could be extraordinarily harmful to a community’s safety, as a result of they're nearly unimaginable to detect and could be inserted virtually anyplace. Sniffers usually work on TCP/IP networks, the place they’re typically referred to as packet sniffers. A sniffer program exhibits all the information going by, together with passwords, the information inside recordsdata and screens filled with delicate knowledge from functions. PTS:1 Order a unique copy of this paper (550 words) Approximate price: $22 Basic features • Free title page and bibliography • Unlimited revisions • Plagiarism-free guarantee • Money-back guarantee • 24/7 support On-demand options • Writer’s samples • Part-by-part delivery • Overnight delivery • Copies of used sources • Expert Proofreading Paper format • 275 words per page • 12 pt Arial/Times New Roman • Double line spacing Our guarantees Money-back guarantee Read more Zero-plagiarism guarantee Read more Free-revision policy Read more Privacy policy Read more Fair-cooperation guarantee Read more Calculate the price of your order 550 words Total price: The price is based on these factors: Academic level Number of pages
Cybersecurity and the CIA Triangle Dr. Greg Bernstein August 6th, 2021 CIA Triangle Cybersecurity Definition From Cybok Introduction Cybersecurity refers to the protection of information systems (hardware, software and associated infrastructure), the data on them, and the services they provide, from unauthorized access, harm or misuse. This includes harm caused intentionally by the operator of the system, or accidentally, as a result of failing to follow security procedures. Information Security Definition From Cybok Introduction, ISO 27000 Preservation of confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. No, not the U.S. Government Agency • Confidentiality • Integrity • Availability Confidentiality 1 Imagine your bank records. You should be able to access them, of course, and employees at the bank who are helping you with a transaction should be able to access them, but no one else should. A failure to maintain confidentiality means that someone who shouldn’t have access has managed to get it, through intentional behavior or by accident. Confidentiality 2 Such a failure of confidentiality, commonly known as a breach, typically cannot be remedied. Once the secret has been revealed, there’s no way to un-reveal it. If your bank records are posted on a public website, everyone can know your bank account number, balance, etc., and that information can’t be erased from their minds, papers, computers, and other places. Nearly all the major security incidents reported in the media today involve major losses of confidentiality. From FIPS PUB 199 Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems “Preserving authorized restrictions on information access and disclosure, including means for protecting personal privacy and proprietary information…” [44 U.S.C., Sec. 3542] A loss of confidentiality is the unauthorized disclosure of information. Integrity 1 Integrity 2 Integrity 3 From the CISSP Study Guide Other concepts, conditions, and aspects of integrity include the following: 1. Accuracy: Being correct and precise 2. Truthfulness: Being a true reflection of reality 3. Authenticity: Being authentic or genuine 4. Validity: Being factually or logically sound Integrity 4 From the CISSP Study Guide 1. Nonrepudiation: Not being able to deny having performed an action or activity or being able to verify the origin of a communication or event 2. Accountability: Being responsible or obligated for actions and results 3. Responsibility: Being in charge or having control over something or someone 4. Completeness: Having all needed and necessary components or parts 5. Comprehensiveness: Being complete in scope; the full inclusion of all needed elements Nonrepudiation 1 From the CISSP Study Guide Nonrepudiation ensures that the subject of an activity or who caused an event cannot deny that the event occurred. Nonrepudiation prevents a subject from claiming not to have sent a message, not to have performed an action, or not to have been the cause of an event. Nonrepudiation 2 From the CISSP Study Guide Nonrepudiation is made possible through identification, authentication, authorization, accountability, and auditing. Nonrepudiation can be established using digital certificates, session identifiers, transaction logs, and numerous other transactional and access control mechanisms. A system built without proper enforcement of nonrepudiation does not provide verification that a specific entity performed a certain action. Nonrepudiation is an essential part of accountability. A suspect cannot be held accountable if they can repudiate the claim against them. “Guarding against improper information modification or destruction, and includes ensuring information non-repudiation and authenticity…” [44 U.S.C., Sec. 3542] A loss of integrity is the unauthorized modification or destruction of information. From Wikipedia “Ensuring timely and reliable access to and use of information…” [44 U.S.C., SEC. 3542] A loss of availability is the disruption of access to or use of information or an information system. Enhanced Model: Data States As we will see data is vulnerable in different ways depending on its “state”: • Data at Rest: Storage • Data in Transit: Transmission • Data in Use: Processing The McCumber Cube An enhanced model from Wikipedia: McCumber Cube // reveal.js plugins
Effects of Polyphenols on Motor Movement Improvement in Parkinson’s Modeled C. elegans Table: MED1219 Experimentation location: School Regulated Research (Form 1c): No Project continuation (Form 7): No Display board image not available The neurodegenerative disorder, Parkinson’s disease (PD), is a debilitating disease that affects millions worldwide. Due to the complexity of the disorder, the etiology is still unknown. It is understood that PD degenerates dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra, effectively impairing motor movement. Caenorhabditis elegans is a free-living nematode that is a model organism due to its simplicity and shared molecular pathways and genomes with humans. Because of its simplicity, mutant forms can be used to study neurological diseases and pathological conditions, including PD. A variety of internal and external factors are speculated to be involved in the rate of degeneration of said dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra concurrently with PD. Nutrition intake is one of the external factors said to play a role in neuroprotection in neurological disorders such as PD. Polyphenols, of the phenol group of naturally occurring organic chemical compounds, are found in many superfoods and are presumed to have a positive impact on neurodegenerative disease. In this experiment, I focused on the use of a genetically modified strain of C. elegans and tested the motor movement improvement using a chemotaxis assay and calculated the chemotaxis index of each plate. After calculating the chemotaxis index, it was determined that nutrition and the addition of polyphenols could potentially hold some significance in the motor movement improvement of C. elegans and, by extension, PD in humans. This approach could provide a less allopathic pathway to prevent and treat neurological conditions. Combined with allopathic medicine, the use of polyphenols in treatment could potentially bolster neuroprotection and provide alleviation to those battling PD. Abdullah R;Basak I;Patil KS;Alves G;Larsen JP;Møller SG;. (n.d.). Parkinson's disease and age: The obvious but largely unexplored link. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25261764/ Libretexts. (2021, January 03). 1.19: Pouring agar plates. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Biotechnology/Lab_Manual%3A_Introduction_to_Biotechnology/01%3A_Techniques/1.19%3A_Pouring_Agar_Plates Margie, O., Palmer, C., & Chin-Sang, I. (2013, April 27). C. elegans chemotaxis assay. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3667641/ Parkinson's: Neurons destroyed by three simultaneous strikes. (2009, May 04). Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429132222.htm#:~:text=The%20studies%20found%20that%20neurons,in%20the%20cell%20over%20time. Poulose, S., Miller, M., Scott, T., & Shukitt-Hale, B. (2017, November 15). Nutritional factors affecting adult neurogenesis and cognitive function. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5683005/ Uttara, B., Singh, A., Zamboni, P., & Mahajan, R. (2009, March). Oxidative stress and neurodegenerative diseases: A review of upstream and downstream antioxidant therapeutic options. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724665/ W;, N. (n.d.). Cell death of dopamine neurons in aging and parkinson's disease. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10656535/ Additional Project Information Project website: -- No project website -- Project web pages: -- No webpages provided -- Presentation files: Additional Resources: -- No resources provided -- Project files: Project files Research Plan: 1. Place the NGM agar with the lid askew into a pot of cold water. 2. Heat the water while the bottle of NGM agar is in the pot; this will prevent the glass bottle from cracking due to sudden heat. 3. Wait 30 minutes and then return to observe whether the agar has melted completely. 4. If the agar has melted completely, take it off of the heat and leave it to cool for 10-15 minutes. 5. Uncap the media bottle and hold the bottle in your dominant hand. Note: once the bottle is opened, do not talk. Talking will allow bacteria from your mouth to become airborne and may contaminate the media. 1. The cap can be held in the same hand (between fingers) as your bottle or can be placed on a disinfected surface. 2. Grab a plate with your other hand and slide it towards the edge of the table, while keeping it closed. 3. Once the plate is at the edge, open the lid as if there is an imaginary hinge at one end; so the plate opens like a clamshell. 4. Pour the media into the bottom of the plate until it just covers the surface. Do not over fill. 5. Close the lid and allow to cool. The media will be solid. 6. Leave the plates out for a day if possible so the condensation will evaporate from the plate. You may place the plates in a 25C incubator overnight. 7. Stack plates with the same type of media and slide the plastic sleeve over the top. 8. Flip the stack over and seal the plastic sleeve with masking tape. 9. Label the tape with the type of media, date produced, and name of individual that produced the stack. 10. Store sealed stacks in the refrigerator until use. Chemotaxis Assay 1. Allow C. elegans to grow on E.coli OP50 bacterial lawn plates for approximately 3 days so they are able to sync life cycles. Washing the Worms 1. Synchronize worms to young adults 2. Pipette 2 ml of the S Basal onto a 5 cm Chemotaxis plate of staged worms that have just cleared the lawn of OP50 E. coli. Tilt the plate as needed to ensure the worms are washed from the plate surface into the buffer. 3. Pipette 1 ml of the worm-S Basal solution into a microcentrifuge tube. 4. Centrifuge for 10 sec using a PicoFuge at 6,600 rpm. 5. Aspirate the S Basal, leaving the pellet of worms undisturbed. 6. Add 1 ml S Basal solution to the microcentrifuge tube, invert a few times to wash the worms. 7. Repeat steps 1.4 to 1.6 another three times. 8. Centrifuge for 10 sec a fifth time, this time aspirating the supernatant to a final volume of ca. 100 μl. 9. Pipette 2 μl of the worms onto an NGM plate to ensure there are between 50 and 250 worms in each 2 μl sample. Adjust the concentration of worms in the S Basal as needed by resuspending the worms in a smaller or larger volume of S Basal. 10. Use the worms in the assay immediately after washing the worms for up to 1 hr. 1. Marking the underside of a 5 cm plate, divide the dish into 4 equal quadrants. Chemotaxis agar or NGM may be used. A minimum of 3 trials are required per genetic strain being tested. 2. Mark a circle of radius 0.5 cm around the origin 3. Mark a point in each quadrant with either a "T" for "Test" or a "C" for "Control," ensuring that the sites are equidistant from the origin and each other. The points must be at least 2 cm away from the origin. Mark the top left and bottom right quadrants as test quadrants and the top right and bottom left quadrants as controls Running the Assay 1. Pipette 2 μl of the worm solution (prepared in 1.8) from the pellet onto the origin (where the two lines intersect). 2. Immediately after, pipette 2 μl of the test solution (salt solution) onto the two "T" sites. Likewise, pipette the same amount of the control solution (water) onto the two "C" sites. 3. Once the worm and odorant drops have been absorbed in the agar, replace the lids and invert the plates. 4. After 60 min, place the worms in a 4 °C incubator. Only remove a plate from the incubator when it can be counted. Leaving worms at room temperature may allow them to mobilize again. 5. Record the number of worms in each quadrant that completely crossed the inner circle. 6. Repeat steps 3.2 to 3.6 using the control solution in both the test and control quadrants. This will serve as the control plate. Three such plates should be made and run to serve as an appropriate control. Interpreting the Scores using a Chemotaxis Index 1. Calculate the chemotaxis index using Equation 1. This will yield a chemotactic index between -1.0 and +1.0. Chemotaxis Index = (# Worms in Both Test Quadrants - # Worms in Both Control Quadrants) / (Total # of Scored Worms) A +1.0 score indicates maximal attraction towards the target and represents 100% of the Add 2 ml of the polyphenols to the experimental group plates. worms arriving in the quadrants containing the chemical target. An index of -1.0 is evidence of maximal repulsion. Questions and Answers 1. What was the major objective of your project and what was your plan to achieve it? After working with C. elegans during the Research elective course as a junior, I found it to be extremely interesting that C. elegans had an intricate neural system and was a model organism for studying human pathology. 2. What were the major tasks you had to perform in order to complete your project? The major tasks required for completion of my project included the cultivation and synchronization of C. elegans life cycles. This was accomplished by plating the C. elegans on Nematode Growth Medium (NGM) plates along with OP50 E. coli. Another major task was effectively and accurately completing the chemotaxis assay. 3. What is new or novel about your project? My project was novel in the usage of polyphenols to promote neural regeneration in a model organism. The background research that I had performed had shown me that there was very little research done specifically using C. elegans and observing the effects of polyphenols on their behavior. 4. What was the most challenging part of completing your project? The most challenging part of completing this project was most likely the chemotaxis assay. Specifically, the difficulty of making sure the concentrations of how many C. elegans ended up on each plate was difficult because of the different vendors they were ordered from. However, this was fixed by adjusting the molarity of each S Basal and C. elegans. 5. If you were going to do this project again, are there any things you would do differently the next time? If I were able to do this project again, I would want to use multiple strains of Parkinson’s modeled C. elegans to see if the results varied from strain to strain. I would also like to repeat trials to ensure precision of the results. Another concept I would like to implement into my project is using GFP as a biomarker of neurons and tracking neural growth using a more powerful microscope. 6. Did working on this project give you any ideas for other projects? Working on this project really made me think about the field of neural regeneration through food consumption. I would also like to perform an experiment on how different levels of food processing can affect the behavior of C. elegans and the neuron maintenance of the organisms as a model for humans. 7. How did COVID-19 affect the completion of your project? COVID-19 made the completion of this project a bit difficult, considering I was not able to continuously monitor the growth of the C. elegans. The delivery of some materials was inhibited by both COVID-19 and the inclement weather. Finally, I was unable to contact any professionals on C. elegans and model organisms and have them observe my work and give me feedback due to COVID-19. However, none of my procedure was directly impacted by the pandemic.
Thanks to a law passed unanimously by its senate, France has become the first country in the world to force supermarkets by law to hand over unsold food to charities and food banks, instead of discarding it. By setting a mandatory target, the new measures aim to reduce the currently estimated 7 million tonnes of food wasted every year. Moreover, stores will no longer be allowed to pour bleach or water on food to render it inedible, putting an end to an unethical, yet legal, common practice. To avoid a penalty of €3,750 (more than $6,300), supermarkets with a footprint of 400 sqm or more will have to sign donation deals with charities. For their part, charities will be obliged to stock the donations in good hygienic conditions. The path has been cleared for other countries to follow, starting with the UK; while a voluntary agreement with the grocery and retail sector is already in place, a new ‘Food Waste (Reduction) Bill’ was introduced last September to require large supermarkets, manufacturers and distributors to cut their food waste by no less than 30 percent by 2025, by entering into formal agreements with food redistribution organisations. The Bill will have its second reading debate in March.
Testing Won’t Get Us Where We Need to Go The great pandemic is wreaking havoc, we are told, because the nation is not testing enough. The consensus from a diverse group that includes public health experts, economists, and silicon valley investors is that more testing will allow the country to restart the economy and do it safely. The White House has been a mini laboratory for this testing strategy. Everyone who comes into contact with the President and Vice President is tested daily. This is supposedly what allows everyone to sit in meetings together and generally carry out the essential business of the country. But over this Mother’s Day weekend members of the White House spent their time scrambling to track down contacts of Katie Miller, the press secretary of the Vice president who tested positive. And contacts were left unclear about what exactly to do. One official started self-quarantining, while another did not. If the White House has trouble with a mass testing, and contact tracing strategy, one wonders how this may work nationwide with thousands of new cases per day. While it would be tempting to blame administrative incompetence for the difficulties in the most important household in the land, the real difficulties lies with inherent limitations to tests that need to be understood before getting on the testing bandwagon. The type of test the world has been doing most often is based on knowing the genetic sequence of the RNA virus using a PCR test. PCR stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction, and it is used to directly detect the presence of the virus itself. The other type of test is an antibody test, used to detect the presence of disease fighting antibody proteins the body makes in response to attack from the virus and that persist for weeks, months or even years after the infection is over. Standard PCR only works on DNA – the molecule that is the principal carrier of the genetic blueprint for humans. The COVID-19 virus uses RNA for its genome, which is similar but slightly different in structure from DNA. Luckily, viral enzymes to convert RNA into DNA have been discovered, so the PCR can be adapted to work on RNA in a process called reverse transcription PCR, or RT-PCR. Swabs are collected from parts of the body the virus is found and placed into a medium. In a lab, the RNA is extracted from the sample and then mixed with a cocktail that includes enzymes (DNA polymerase and reverse transcriptase), DNA building blocks, probes and short sequences of DNA called primers that have been specially designed to bind to this specific coronavirus. The mixture is placed into a RT-PCR machine which cycles temperatures that trigger specific chemical reactions that create new, identical copies of the target section of the viral DNA. A typical RT-PCR machine goes through 35 cycles which translates to 34 billion new DNA copies for each RNA molecule. As new copies of the viral DNA sequence are being made, probes attached to specific target sequences are degraded by another enzyme which generates a fluorescent signal. A computer tracks the amount of fluorescence emitted, and when it reaches a sufficient level the virus is confirmed as present. Serologic testing Serologic testing identifies antibodies the body makes in response to the virus. Antibody identification involves taking a sample of usually blood and testing for the presence or absence of antibodies or measuring the amount of antibody present. Antibodies are proteins designed by the body to battle infections. Antibodies are unique, and selected to bind a specific part of the infectious pathogen which is called an antigen. Binding of antibodies to antigen results in a complex that attracts other cells in the body to kill the pathogen. Antibodies belong to a class of proteins known as Immunoglubulins. There are 5 different classes of immunoglobulins (IgM, IgG, IgE, IgA, IgD). IgM antibodies are produced in the initial response of the body to a virus or bacteria, while IgG antibodies are made later and represent a longer term response to guard against the return of the pathogen. Detection of IgM antibodies represents an acute or recent infection, while detection of IgG antibodies suggests a past infection. Results can be reported as detected or not in a qualitative fashion (i.e., present or absent), or can be quantified in a measurement called antibody titers. Traditionally, antibody titers were determined using serial dilutions. The highest dilution that is still positive is reported, so a 1:320 dilution suggests a lot more antibody present than a 1:4 dilution. One common method of testing for antibodies is the ELISA test (Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay). In an ELISA, an antigen is immobilized on a solid surface. Fluid from blood is then added and antibodies against the antigen will then adhere to that antigen. A special antibody, usually from an animal source, that is linked to an enzyme that makes a signal such as a color change is used to confirm that antibodies against the antigen are present.. Lateral Flow Assays Lateral flow assays (LFA) are low cost paper based platforms that offer simple, rapid and portable point of care detection devices. LFAs are tests that are widely used in hospitals and physician’s offices to allow detection of specific antigens, antibodies, and products of gene amplification. LFAs are cheap to produce, easy to use, and can be used with a variety of biological samples. For COVID, the specific type of test being discussed to detect antibodies is the Lateral flow Immunoassay (LFIA). In this type of test, a liquid sample containing the material interest moves via capillary action through various zones on which molecules that can interact with the analyte are attached. The molecules attached to the paper strip are conjugated to coloured or fluorescent particles. If the sample has the analyte of interest, a response occurs on the test line. A response on the control line indicates adequate flow through the strip. LFIA is probably the most well known of all the tests because of its wide use in at home urine pregnancy tests. Test considerations A basic understanding of the accuracy of tests requires an understanding of four terms: Sensitivity, Specificity, Positive Predictive Value & Negative Predictive Value. If one assumes the world can be divided into patients with disease and without disease using some gold standard test things become fairly easy. Validation of a test requires running on a test on a population with and without disease. For the purposes of this simple example, 100 patients known to have disease are tested with the new diagnostic test. If 90 of the 100 people with known disease test positive, this means 90 are true positives, and 10 are false negatives. Consequently, the test is said to be 90% sensitive. If the test is run on 100 people without disease, and 5 test positive, this means 95 are true negatives and 5 are false positives. This test is 95% specific. Sensitivity can be thought of as the true positive rate, and Specificity can be thought of as the true negative rate. Both are important for a test to be accurate. What patients want to know, however, is what the chance of having a disease is depending on a test result. The probability of having the disease if testing positive is the positive predictive value. The probability of not having the disease if testing negative is referred to as the negative predictive value. The key point with predictive values is that they can’t be calculated without knowing the underlying prevalence of the disease. As an example, let’s imagine an island of 1000 individuals with a prevalence of colon cancer of 1%. This means 10 patients have colon cancer on the island (0.01 x 1000). If we use the sensitivity and specificity from above (90% sensitive, 95% specific), 9 of the 10 patients are true positives, and 940 (0.95 x 990) patients are true negatives. This leaves 1 false negative, and 50 false positives. Some simple math shows that a positive test in this case imparts a 15% probability of having the disease, while a negative test suggests a 99.8% probability of not having the disease. Change the prevalence to 10% and the positive predictive value changes to 66%. This still means that a test with 90% sensitivity and 95% specificity is poorly able to predict whether you have a given disease or not. Basically, if testing is taking place in a low prevalence population the test specificity has to be very high to be useful. Graphed below is predictive values graphed over a range of prevalences (interactive shiny app here) for a test with 99% specificity. As is shown, even in a scenario with a much more specific test, the prevalence of disease in the population tested needs to be over 10% for the test to be useful to doctors and patients. Luckily RT-PCR is an incredibly specific test because the primers used are highly specific for the genetic information of interest. Unless the sample gets contaminated with genetic material from another COVID positive sample the test is essentially 100% specific. With that level of specificity, the positive predictive value is basically a 100% for a positive test. Unfortunately, serologic testing and lateral flow immunoassays are not as specific as PCR. SARS-COV2 belongs to the coronavirus family which has a number of related viruses that cause important diseases in humans. It is possible that antibody tests may cross-react to other non SARS-COV2 coronaviruses. Finding out the specificity of a test requires validation against samples that one “knows” to be negative. It may be impossible to be 100% certain about anything (more on that later) but in the case of SARS-COV2, there are a few approaches that may be taken. We can try to rely on judgement to decide who is negative by taking patients who have no symptoms, and have no recent known contact with the virus. Since it is believed SARS-COV2 may have relatively mild or no symptoms this risks the negative validation population being contaminated with patients that are actually positive. Another approach would be to take people with a recent confirmed infection with another coronavirus. This would be attractive because it would directly examine the tests ability to cross react with other coronaviruses, but it would also run the risk of including patients that may have had SARS-COV2 co-infections. The best approach is probably to use samples stored from a time prior to the onset of the current outbreak around the time of the year other coronaviruses are circulating, though even this is imperfect. We don’t know exactly when other coronaviruses circulate, and the antibody response to a circulating virus may wane over different periods of time. Clearly, this is very hard, and no test is going to be perfect. RT-PCR is unfortunately poorly sensitive. This has much to do with sample acquisition. The attempt to retrieve sample from the nasopharynx may not be successful because of inappropriate technique, patient discomfort, or low amounts of viral shedding at the time of testing. Reports of large numbers of false negatives suggest sensitivity ranges from 40-70% (1,2,3). Establishing sensitivity also has the same problems Specificity has: a gold standard. Known positive patients are the validation cohort. But barring another accepted test, a clinical gold standard is used. In this case it usually means patients with a clinical picture of COVID19 in the midst of a pandemic. This isn’t an unfair assumption at all, but it is possible that other viruses may cause a very similar clinical picture to COVID19. This should, of course, cause an underestimation of the sensitivity of COVID. Practical considerations with use of testing for physicians and patients Everyone agrees that it is incredibly useful to know which individuals in the community have been infected by SARS-COV2. Much of the call for expansive testing capacity rests on the idea that understanding who has COVID in the community will allow for effective isolation and contact tracing to mitigate further spread of the virus. But there are some inherent limitations with testing that deserve consideration when physicians try to apply results to the patients they are treating. This also, of course, has ramifications for public health policy making. RT-PCR has limited sensitivity for the virus, and cannot be used to exclude the presence of the virus. Anywhere from 20 – 40% of patients may have COVID but be PCR negative. Serology testing, unfortunately, does not help. Serology can also yield a negative test result in an infected patient because it can take weeks to develop antibodies in the blood, and they may develop in amounts that could fall below some set threshold for detection. Both of these tests are of limited value in the immediate diagnosis of patients where COVID-19 is suspected. RT-PCR is able to effectively rule in the presence of the virus because of its very high specificity, but serology tests unfortunately cannot. As discussed, the probability of cross-reactivity of an antibody test with non SARS-COV2 viruses raises the possibility of false positives and so have little utility in a patient population that has a low likelihood of having the infection. Even if antibodies are found, immunity to SARS-COV2 is still being understood, and it’s not known yet if the simple presence of antibodies establish immunity to the virus, or how long this may last. Other coronaviruses do show waning immunity. So RT-PCR can rule in disease, can’t rule out disease, and serologic testing can neither rule in or rule out disease. That isn’t to say testing isn’t important. With a virus that creates as much havoc as coronavirus, testing allows society to keep track of the virus in the population generally. Think of it as a GPS that gets you to the right block, but can’t be used to get to the right house. Testing allows tracking of the rise or fall of disease spread in a population, and thus may be very important in guiding public policy but should be viewed by physicians as simply one data point to consider how best to manage a patient. Given the poor test characteristics in patients unlikely to have the disease, it’s also unclear who exactly we should be expanding testing to. The CDC recognizes these limitations as their recommendations are to prioritize patients that have a higher risk for having COVID. It’s important to understand that this is done, not because there is limited testing capacity, but because the test result is much more useful in this population. The CDC did recently update the potential symptoms from COVID-19 and in addition to the cardinal symptoms of cough and shortness of breath, added headaches. This expands the net of patients that can be tested and hopefully increases the number of patients we can capture, but realize that wider the net that’s cast with regards to symptoms that aren’t particularly specific, the lower the likelihood of disease, and the less useful the test is at predicting disease. Guiding policy with testing There are important ramifications for a number of policy prescriptions discussed. One area of active controversy relates to trying to establish the prevalence of the disease in the population. The prevalence of the disease circulation in communities is vital to understanding how useful testing is, and consequently the mitigation strategy that may need to be taken by citizens, businesses and government. The level of mitigation that is needed also depends on the perceived risk of the virus, and it’s hard to understand the risk of the virus in different communities without understanding how many people have been or are actively infected. Attempting to establish the true prevalence of COVID has unfortunately become controversial because of the politics surrounding calculations of the fatality rate of COVID, but I’ll attempt to review some of the current data neutrally. One study by a group of Stanford researchers looked at Santa Clara County, California. Santa Clara had the largest number of confirmed cases in any county in Northern California, and had some of the earliest known cases of COVID-19. Researchers attempted to estimate the seroprevalence in this county using targeted Facebook ads. Over 24 hours, they were able to register 3,285 adults and eventually draw blood samples from them. The test they used was a SARS-CoV-2 lateral flow assay from Premier Biotech, Minneapolis, MN. Although the test had been validated by the maker of the test (not by the FDA), the researchers sought to validate the test again in 37 samples of PCR positive COVID patients, as well as 30 pre-COVID samples from hip surgery patients. 25 of the PCR positive patients were kit positive, while 30 of the 30 pre-COVID samples were negative. They combined the validation test results provided to them from the company to arrive at a sensitivity of 80% (CI 72.1-87) and a specificity of 99.5% (CI 98.3 – 99.9). There were 50 positive tests in the survey, which translates to a crude prevalence rate of 1.5%. Weighting their sample to match the county by zip, race and sex increases their prevalence rate to 2.8%. There is a lot of uncertainty here with the estimate because the very low numbers mean slight changes in test characteristics could completely invalidate the prevalence estimates. The authors note in their discussion that a specificity less than 97.9% would raise the possibility that all 50 positive cases were false positives. But using the current test characteristics, they estimated 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected in Santa Clara. The number of confirmed cases at the time of testing was ~1000, suggesting the true rate of infection was 50-80x that of the confirmed cases. If that many people are infected, this suggests the risk of dying from COVID in Santa Clara is between 0.12 – 0.2 %. This very low number was the major result that many seized on. Those hoping for a quicker reopening of the economy amplified the study results, while those in favor of longer lockdowns focused on the limitations of the study. The authors were also explicit in discussing the major limitations of the study, but clearly didn’t feel that the uncertainty invalidated the results. Interestingly, a Bayesian re-analysis performed by a skeptical physician still suggested a prevalence of 20 times the reported cases. This would suggest 20,000 cases, and an infection fatality rate of 0.5%. The Stanford group contributed to another study (not in pre-print, or peer reviewed) from Los Angeles County that suggested 4% of LA county had been infected. This suggested 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county had been infected, an estimate that was 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID, which again pegs an Infection Fatality Rate close to 0.1-0.2%. Though these studies are an important contribution to understand seroprevalence, the small size of the studies and incompletely understood test performance results in a significant amount of uncertainty. They may reflect truth, but it’s hard to say much definitively without larger studies to further corroborate these results. Additional data does come from the epicenter of COVID in the US is New York, which is of interest because it reflects the worst case that every other part of the country wants to avoid. On April 23rd, Governor Cuomo of New York released data to suggest that New York City has a 20% prevalence of disease, which roughly translates to 1.7 million infected New Yorkers. As of April 23rd New York City had 151,000 cases with 16,300 deaths, which suggests an infection fatality rate of 0.9% (16,300 / 1.7 million) – a much higher estimate than the California studies, though still much lower than many have feared. Not surprisingly some attacked the number citing use of an unknown, not-yet-validated test. As should be clear, without knowing how well the test performs, the numbers are hard to interpret, but all is not lost. One can make assumptions and arrive at a worst case scenario. Dr. Venk Murthy – a cardiologist/researcher in Michigan – walked through a theoretical exercise on twitter that assumed all the tests done outside of the hard hit NYC metropolitan area in the state were false positives. Governor Cuomo noted 3000 antibody tests total were done, which meant 984 (32.8% x 3000) tests were done in the rest of the state and 35 of those tests were positive (3.6% x 984). This allows a calculation of the true negatives : 984-35 = 949. Specificity can then be calculated by taking the true negatives and dividing by the total number of negative tests (sum of the true negatives and false positives.) This gives us a specificity of 96.4 % ( 949/(949+35) ). This renders a 95% confidence interval of 95.1 % -97.5 % , which is an impressively high number considering we just invalidated all positive tests in one third of the population. This is, of course, unlikely and the actual specificity is probably higher than this, meaning a 20% prevalence in New York City is indeed plausible. Clearly, the application of widespread testing is fraught with a number of problems that has nothing to do with the number of swabs or RNA extraction kits the country may be running out of. The frustration of many public health experts has focused on the inability to ramp up testing for the virus, because it may be unsafe to open the country back up without it. The plan, as best as I can understand, is to have a vast testing capacity available to allow for the rapid isolation and quarantine of test positive citizens and their contacts. This would prevent a New York City style meltdown while keeping the economy moving in some fashion. There are some pragmatic concerns to be raised about this plan. Seroprevalence surveys as well as observations on transmission from clinical epidemiologists seems to strongly support a virus that spreads when asymptomatic, or presymptomatic. Even if a test was 100% sensitive, if it takes 48 hours for symptoms to appear. This would require tracing back contacts over 2 days that in a major metropolitan city may run into the hundreds of individuals. The figure below is a snapshot of travelers from New York fanning out over the United States over a course of 2 days in March, after a lockdown in New York was initiated. The best approach to contact tracing may piggyback off the ubiquitous smart phone and make use of bluetooth signals given off to allow for a time and location based map of every phone a positive patient’s phone came into contact with. But this plan has some holes in it as well. For it to work, it would require about 60% of the population to install a contact tracing app. Even in non-libertarian, beat-you-with-a-stick-for-chewing-gum rule following Singapore, this number is closer to 12%. The other big boring problem is false positives. Bluetooth goes through walls, so you could register a contact even if you were on either side of a wall, or if someone jogged by you while 6 feet away. The application of technology from Silicon Valley has a cool factor that seems to mesmerize large swaths of the public and government officials into sending lots of taxpayer dollars for solutions that don’t work well. But being cool shouldn’t absolve technology from demonstrating robust outcomes or at least robust plausibility prior to buy in from the taxpayer. It’s also notable that Singapore, a very small country with a population of 5 million, is in the midst of a significant outbreak that forced a widespread lockdown despite its widely praised and ballyhooed app-based contact tracing. Layer this on top of tests that aren’t effectively able to rule out the presence of disease, and you have a very high mountain to climb to make this all work well. Consider the employees of a small doctor’s office. Should asymptomatic employees be tested? Given the low positive predictive value in low risk patients, does a positive antibody test in an employee in this setting be reassuring? How often do employees need to miss work to get tested? Should we be running routine surveillance for active infection with RT-PCR? Since PCR only tells us if there’s an infection at the time of the test, how often should we be testing with PCR? If one employee does test positive, does the whole office need to shut down? The availability of widespread testing for symptomatic patients appears to be of paramount importance, not so much because it can effectively rule out disease, but because it can capture new outbreaks of disease in a population. Scaling testing to the point we can make decisions for the individual based only on the results of the test seems to be beyond the scope of current testing technology. The only evidence to support the efficacy of widespread testing seems to derive from the general idea that countries that test a lot have the lowest death rates. One such chart making the rounds is below. The circles may seem compelling to some, but beyond the foolishness of confusing correlation and causation, even correlation is hard to find when you try to draw a line through these data points. Figures below provided by Andrew Foy, (Cardiologist, Hershey, PA) demonstrates no correlation between amount of testing and death rate. This should not be surprising given that the testing hypothesis papers over the vast differences in countries with regards to size, density, geographic location, demographic, connectedness and highly variable policies related to travel and social distancing. It also fails to appreciate differences in testing availability, and assumes COVID related death counts are accurate everywhere. The certainty in some quarters that testing will be some panacea is especially surprising given the opprobrium from the same quarters for strong conclusions by Stanford researchers from the early serologic prevalence data. • Testing is important to track the trajectory of an epidemic in a community to guide local or national efforts at mitigation • The tests we currently have for COVID have limited accuracy for the individual patient • Antibody testing suggests that the fatality rate for COVID may be low in certain communities, but data from New York suggests there is the potential for significant death and morbidity in any major metropolitan area • Contact tracing enabled by smart phone technology is likely unable to be effective because they do not overcome the inherent limitations of COVID testing, require widespread adoption, and may not even be accurate at determining high risk contacts. • Mass testing alone is unlikely to completely explain the varying death rates seen by country • Testing is no panacea. This suggests a comprehensive strategy that incorporates testing, but doesn’t rely on it. Anish Koka is a Cardiologist in practice in Philadelphia. He is co-host of the podcast, The Accad & Koka Report, and can be followed on Twitter @anish_koka. An edited version of this piece appeared in Medscape. Spread the love 2 replies » 1. Very good article. An exhaustive review of the statistical science related to testing. I learned a hell of a lot. 2. The accuracy of serological testing for COVID-19 antibodies could be improved significantly by using two antibody tests , instead of just relying on a single test. Take the example with the population prevalence at 10%. A test with 90% sensitivity and 95% specificity gives the PPV 66.7% or 33.3% false positive. The PPV will increase to 97.3% or 2.7% false positive if two test approach is used. Though it is certain that the prevalence of the disease influences the chances of a correct test result, doing a repeated test can reduce the chance of having false positives. Leave a Reply
0 Contents 2 Background 2.5 Society 2.5.0 Introduction Peopling Europe 2.5.1 Society Clarification Human Society and Culture Clarification Videos of Discussion, Insights and Clarification Origin time map of the origin of Intelligent Life! Part 1 of 8 45 What survives to propagate! Part 2 of 8 46 The concept of honor and integrity. Part 3 of 8 47 Genocide in India and the Roma/Gypsies. Part 4 of 8 48 Mammalian bond and children's rights. Part 5 of 8 78 Northern European denomination and ignorance. Part 6 of 8 52 Memorization. Part 7 of 8 54 Authority. Part 8 of 8 82 Corruption of the Word Culture. Discussion 222 Social/Cultural Insight. Clarifying Terms It is fortunate that genetic investigation has taken place already. With modern mobility and immigration to the most highly developed regions, the genetic mixing will soon remove the history of origins and groups. 1. The foundation of social development and degradation 2. Indigenous 3. Society 4. Culture 5. Culture - Corrupting uses of the word Still, to understand the development of society and the differences between male and female humans it is necessary to see the physical and social environments that different genetic traits were best fitted for survival. The foundation of social development and degradation. Working on Societal Background there is so much information and misleading information. The goal is to organize the information in an order that is helpful for gestalt formation process that people can see, from their own experience, the reality and the false realities I am talking about. I was born in PA and brought up in NY in a farm town with mainly Lutheran German farmers. I was taught the human culture started in the Fertile Crescent and expanded by the Greeks and then the Romans. Building on that the Catholic/Christian "Dark Ages". Then the enlightenment with the economic development of Europe. The Protest demonization "Luther's Letter to the Archbishop of Mainz (1517)" of the Catholic Church and some included the Crusades and even the present day corruption as portraying the Moslem invasion and domination of Spain as a "period of glory". The further effect of affluence gave rise too "The Thirty Years War (1618- 1648) was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history." and "The French Revolution (1789- 1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history." . In my education (formal and informal there was nothing about Islam. The image was false nothing about the Koran. Nothing about children having to memorize the Koran. Nothing about the brutality that was left in the conquistadors from their Islamic influence. American Indians were depicted as "Noble Savages". There was nothing about the cannibalism of the Iroquois Indians, nothing about the South American cannibals that raise slaves as food. I learned that what I was taught (formally and informally) were false, that Islam was an aggressive pyramid scheme that advanced by terrorism and murder with taking slaves and booty them sharing them with the conspirators as a reward. Not respecting anyone that is not a Moslem and seeking to make a world government of Islam. Then to dominate the people with a theocracy by memorization of the Koran and the implementation of Sharia law. So that individual sovereignty is unthinkable. Even to change your religion from Islam is the death penalty. The hierocracy is real. I was glad to see the myth of the "Noble Savage" being debunked. In Jesus' day it was relatively safe to walk the street and preach in what is now Turkey. Today people are still being killed for being Christian there. It is now 98% Moslem. The Christians have all been murdered, driven out or forced to convert to Islam. What I have learned was that a million years of hunter/gatherer tribal life and war where as much as 60% of the men died in warfare and women were often raped and forced into submission. In Jesus' day under Roman law it was relatively safe. Today there has been a degradation of freedom but were are taught the reverse. The men that tended to survived were those that could work together in a trustworthy manor and the women that tended to survived were those that hid their filings and manipulated the chiefs and priests to get what they wanted. Now for the who "the indigenous people" are. This is determined by the color of the skin. I comes from the amount of sun our ancestors got. In turn that is determined by the indigenous latitude. ənəs/ in-dij-uh-nuhs] originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country; native (often fol. by to ): the plants indigenous to Canada; the indigenous peoples of southern Africa. innate; inherent; natural (usually fol. by to ): feelings indigenous to human beings. 1640-50; < L indigen ( a ) native, original inhabitant ( indi-, by-form of in- in-2 ( cf. indagate) + -gena, deriv. from base of gignere to bring into being; cf. genital, genitor) + -ous From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Accepted (latest) This is the latest accepted revision, accepted on 5 September 2010. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate")[1] is a term that has various meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions.[2] However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses: Culture - Corrupting uses of the word 1. infamous for being wicked (depriving innocent infants of life or of the mammalian needed of a maternal nursing bond) The nefarious mothers glorify the narcissism of dress, art and music, or career while while depriving children of their maternal nursing bond and paternal relationship by hearing wet nurses, babysitters and daycare or having them killed. Culture is a societies knowledge of how to grow things (cultivating). "Human culture" is how to grow healthy humans! I will show that this word and these skills are corrupted by affluence. In the nineteenth century, it came to refer first to the betterment or refinement of the individual, especially through education, and then to the fulfillment of national aspirations or ideals. "Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture". The Present Core use of the word Culture (Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture) is a prevarication brought about by the Narcissisms of upper class people deprived by their upbringing of the upper class women choosing wet nurses and babysitters as they deprive their children of a mammalian nursing bond. This leaves future mothers tending to be unable to form a nursing bond and tends to leave men and women that are unable to form heterogeneous, monogamous marital bonds. The issues of the quality of the maternal nursing bonds are well understood by any engaged in serious animal husbandry and breeding. When vacuous projections of "culture" are seen in light of the deeper truth of the quality and propagation of mammalian human life it may seem as intentionally nefarious but in fact to the upper-class-victim-projectors it is what replaces the lack of ability to grow in feelings from narcissism to homoerotic to monogamous hetroerotic to altruistic infant and home to child rearing community to parental concern for the State to grandparent concern for mankind to prophetic care for the future of intelligent life in the Universe. When added to awareness of the degradation to Narcissism, Sociopathy, and Psychopathy of the "upper classes" this core gives me insights: The name "narcissism" was coined by Freud after Narcissus who in Greek myth was a pathologically self-absorbed young man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool. Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth.[1] Andrew P. Morrison claims that, in adults, a reasonable amount of healthy narcissism allows the individual's perception of his needs to be balanced in relation to others.[2] 2 Sociopathy - What is sociopathy? To many in the field of psychology this is an outdated term that was replaced with the Antisocial Personality Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (1994) or by the term psychopathy, which is most commonly associated with the work of Dr. Robert Hare. However, David Lykken describes sociopathy as a relevant concept and presents a fairly solid argument that sociopathy helps explain the alarming increase in violent crime in the last 50 years. To be diagnosed, an individual must be age 18 or older, as well as have a documented history of a conduct disorder before the age of 15.[1] People having antisocial personality disorder are sometimes labeled "sociopaths" or "psychopaths." 3 Psychopathy was until 1980 the term used for a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct. Hit Counter
The Giant Panda Olivia Hague-Delves \| 10 November, 2016 The Giant Panda Giant panda are no longer endangered but they are still vulnerable. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are safe though. They became endangered when their climates where be chopped down. Panda live on a diet of bamboo only and in the next 80 years or so there will be a 35% decrease of bamboo forests due to them being destroyed through climate change. Currently there are around 1,864 panda living in the wild, since 2004 that is an increase of 17%. With the forests being destroyed this number might decrease and panda may become endangered again. Our ‘Moody Panda’ mug is inspired by panda. As you can probably tell. But the moody part comes from an innuendo of panda ‘never being in the mood’. You see, female panda only have 2 to 4 days to conceive out of the year. Mating season is in the spring and can last for 2 months (March to May) but there are only a few precious days for panda to conceive. They reach reproduction maturity at the age of 7 and it lasts until they are 20 years old. Put all those years together, they really only have 13 chances to reproduce. Panda can live up to 30 years in the wild. Panda are pregnant for up to 5 months. 3 of those months are known as delayed implantation. Meaning that the embryo still needs to attach itself to the uterine walls and then for the final 2 months it is the gestation period. Sadly for the females, after mating, male pandas have no role at all in raising the offspring if the fertilisation is successful. Some facts about Panda As panda grow their black spots around their eyes become tear drop shaped. Panda in captivity are more likely to have twins than in the wild. Although Panda fur may look fluffy and cosy, it is actually very thick and has a wire like texture. Panda have lived on the earth for over 2-3 million years. Even when Panda are asleep they still poo due to the amount of fibre in their diet. If they nap for less than two hours then there can be up to 10 droppings. Anything over two hours can be up to 25 droppings. Panda can eat up to 40 lbs of bamboo a day in order to obtain its nutrients. According to legend, the panda was once an all-white bear. When a small girl tried to save a panda cub from being attacked by a leopard, the leopard killed the girl instead. Panda came to her funeral wearing armbands of black ashes. As they wiped their eyes, hugged each other, and covered the ears, they smudged the black ashes.

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