focus on any aspect of caribbean culture. papers and panels may be presented in spanish, french, and english. please send one - page abstracts as indicated below : ( french or spanish presentations ) dr. jorge roman - lagunas department of modern languages purdue university calumet 2200 169th street hammond, in 46323 - 2094 phone : 219 - 989 - 2379 fax : 219 - 746 - 9372 email : email @ example. com ( english presentations ) dr. melvin b. rahming department of english morehouse college 830 westview dr., s. w. atlanta, ga 30314phone : 404 - 572 - 3607 fax : 404 - 614 - 8545 email : firstname. lastname @ example. org for further conference details, visitwww. icclconference. org today ( may 23, 2013 ), campus principal and pro vice chancellor, professor clement sankat, will host a public lecture and launch of britain ’ s black debt : reparation for caribbean slavery & native genocide, a book by professor sir hilary beckles, at the daaga auditorium, university of the west indies - st. augustine at 5 : 30pm. description : since the mid - nineteenth - century abolition of slavery, the call for reparations for the crime of african enslavement and native genocide has been growing. in the caribbean, grassroots and official voices now constitute a regional reparations movement. it is a fractured, contentious and divisive call, but it generates considerable public interest. britain ’ s black debt is the first scholarly work that looks comprehensively at the reparations discussion in the caribbean. author hilary mcd. beckles is a leading economic historian of the region and a seasoned activist in the wider movement for social justice and advocacy of historical truth, and as such, he is uniquely positioned to explore the origins and development of reparations as a regional and international process. beckles weaves detailed historical data on caribbean slavery and the transatlantic slave trade together with legal principles and the politics of postcolonialism, and sets out a solid academic analysis of the evidence. he concludes that britain has a case of reparations to answer, which the caribbean should litigate. international law provides that chattel slavery as practised by britain was a crime against humanity. slavery was invested in by the royal family, the government, the established church, most elite families, and large public institutions in the private and public sector. citing the legal


the scary hidden stressor in her introduction to a compelling new study, “ the arab spring and climate change, ” released thursday, the princeton scholar anne - marie slaughter notes that crime shows often rely on the concept of a “ stressor. ” a stressor, she explains, is a “ sudden change in circumstances or environment that interacts with a complicated psychological profile in a way that leads a previously quiescent person to become violent. ” the stressor is never the only explanation for the crime, but it is inevitably an important factor in a complex set of variables that lead to a disaster. “ the arab spring and climate change ” doesn ’ t claim that climate change caused the recent wave of arab revolutions, but, taken together, the essays make a strong case that the interplay between climate change, food prices ( particularly wheat ) and politics is a hidden stressor that helped to fuel the revolutions and will continue to make consolidating them into stable democracies much more difficult. jointly produced by the center for american progress, the stimson center and the center for climate and security, this collection of essays opens with the oxford university geographer troy sternberg, who demonstrates how in 2010 - 11, in tandem with the arab awakenings, “ a once - in - a - century winter drought in china ” — combined, at the same time, with record - breaking heat waves or floods in other key wheat - growing countries ( ukraine, russia, canada and australia ) — “ contributed to global wheat shortages and skyrocketing bread prices ” in wheat - importing states, most of which are in the arab world. only a small fraction — 6 percent to 18 percent — of annual global wheat production is traded across borders, explained sternberg, “ so any decrease in world supply contributes to a sharp rise in wheat prices and has a serious economic impact in countries such as egypt, the largest wheat importer in the world. ” the numbers tell the story : “ bread provides one - third of the caloric intake in egypt, a country where 38 percent of income is spent on food, ” notes sternberg. “ the doubling of global wheat prices — from $ 157 / metric ton in june 2010 to $ 326 / metric ton in february 2011 — thus significantly impacted the country ’ s food supply and availability. ” global food prices peaked at an all - time high in march 2011, shortly after president hosni mubarak was toppled in egypt. consider this : the world ’ s top nine wheat - importers are in


the upanishads, part 1 ( sbe01 ), by max muller,, at sacred - texts. com 1. next let a man meditate on the sevenfold saman which is uniform in itself 1 and leads beyond death. the word hinkara has three syllables, the word prastava has three syllables : that is equal ( sama ). 2. the word adi ( first, om ) has two syllables, the word pratihara has four syllables. taking one syllable from that over, that is equal ( sama ). 3. the word udgitha has three syllables, the word upadrava has four syllables. with three and three syllables it should be equal. one syllable being left over, it becomes trisyllabic. hence it is equal. 4. the word nidhana has three syllables, therefore it is equal. these make twenty - two syllables. 5. with twenty - one syllables a man reaches the sun ( and death ), for the sun is the twenty - first 2 from here ; with the twenty - second he conquers what is beyond the sun : that is blessedness, that is freedom from grief 6. he obtains here the victory over the sun ( death ), and there is a higher victory than the victory over the sun for him, who knowing this meditates on the sevenfold saman as uniform in itself, which leads beyond death, yea, which leads beyond death. 28 : 1 atmasammita is explained by the commentator either as having the same number of syllables in the names of the different samans, or as equal to the highest self. 28 : 2 there are twelve months, five seasons, three worlds, then follows the sun as the twenty - first. comm.


solar images to be made by unique x - ray telescope | tweet | solar images to be made by unique x - ray april 2, 1998 : a unique cluster of telescopes that make x - rays take a u - turn has been selected for a fourth flight to capture " multicolored " images that will help us understand why the sun ' s outer atmosphere is so hot. right : the sun as seen in the glow of highly ionized iron. such images are really taken in black and white. scientists assign them false colors to help in studying different images. " one of the major objectives is to follow up on something we saw on the first flight 10 years ago, " said dr. arthur b. c. walker ii of stanford university, the principal investigator for the chromospheric / corona spectroheliograph telescope. it will actually be a bundle of up to 19 telescopes, each taking pictures of the sun in a slightly different x - ray energy. the array is an upgrade of the multi - spectral solar telescope array ( mssta ) which flew on october 23, 1987, may 13, 1991, and november 3, 1994. the 1987 flight - which also made the september 30, 1988 cover of science magazine - returned pictures that showed where the sun ' s atmosphere was as hot as 1 million deg. k ( about 1. 8 million deg. f ) also showed spectral lines that indicated temperatures of about 700, 000 deg. k ( 1. 26 million deg f ). " we were mystified by this, " walker said. " we are now convinced that there is material at about 700, 000 degrees k in the transition region and which contributes to coronal heating. " nasa recently selected the chromospheric / corona spectroheliograph under the solar physics research program. richard hoover of nasa ' s marshall space flight center and troy w. barbee of lawrence livermore national laboratory are co - investigators with walker. their project is entitled investigation of the corona / chromosphere interface. this is the same region that will be studied by the transition region and coronal explorer ( trace ) scheduled for launch thursday evening from california. the chromospheric / corona spectroheliograph will complement trace by providing images of solar gases at temperatures as high as 5 million degrees k ( 9 million deg. f ). while the sun is more than 99. 9 percent hydrogen and helium, it carries significant quantities of carbon, iron, calcium, silicon, and other


of solar gases at temperatures as high as 5 million degrees k ( 9 million deg. f ). while the sun is more than 99. 9 percent hydrogen and helium, it carries significant quantities of carbon, iron, calcium, silicon, and other elements. heavier elements have more protons ( carbon is 6, iron is 26 ) in their nuclei than do lighter elements ( hydrogen is 1, helium is 2 ). that means that as electrons are stripped from heavier atoms, the charge of the larger number of protons is devoted to the few remaining electrons. it takes ever more energy to strip off another electron. as a result, light from energetic atoms acts like a tracer that reveals where the sun is hot and at what temperatures. this is important to dissecting activities from the sun ' s corona - its outer atmosphere - through the transition region and to the chromosphere and photosphere - the visible " surface. " the challenge is that the x - ray emissions are so energetic that they pass through materials rather than being reflected as visible light would be. the usual trick to making x - ray images is called grazing incidence reflection. just as light will reflect off clear glass ( or a rock will skip on a pond ) if it strikes at a shallow angle, x - rays will reflect - and be focused - if they, too, strike at an even shallower angle. several x - ray telescopes, such as, the advanced x - ray astrophysics facility use this. the mssta works by a different effect. its multi - layer mirrors comprise an ultrasmooth mirror coated by up to 100 layers of heavy elements like tungsten spaced by layers of lightweight elements like carbon. in effect, the layers work like a bragg crystal, which will reflect x - rays. everything is extremely smooth, on the order of 0. 1 nm ( a 10 billionth of a meter, or 1 / 250 millionth of an inch ). these reflect a little bit of the x - rays at the surface of each layer pair. the choice of materials and the thickness of the layers determine precisely which wavelength is making the x - rays interfere with each other reflection. in this way, the scientists can fine tune a telescope to observe in a narrow band of wavelengths ( a spectral band ) or even one wavelength. that makes it possible to measure the temperature of the solar atmosphere. to observe the sun in several wavelengths at once, several telescopes must be flown together. this unique approach makes it possible to use conventional optical layouts - like the hubble space


wavelength. that makes it possible to measure the temperature of the solar atmosphere. to observe the sun in several wavelengths at once, several telescopes must be flown together. this unique approach makes it possible to use conventional optical layouts - like the hubble space telescope ' s ritchey chretien design - and get a much larger collecting area and brighter images than are possible grazing incidence optics of the same size. the design was invented by barbee ( and separately by scientists at ibm ) and pioneered by barbee, walker, and hoover for use in telescopes. the mssta ( right ) carries up to 19 telescopes of various sizes, each with a filter designed to admit only radiation of a specific wavelength or wavelength band, each corresponding to a specific temperature in the sun ' s atmosphere. even though each image is taken in black - and - white, each represents a different wavelength and a different temperature in the solar atmosphere. to help in studying them, scientists often give them false colors to distinguish one from the other. this is similar to a color print that is really made from four black - and - white negatives, each to print a different color. on its fourth flight, the array will include a telescope that can see fe xvii ; iron stripped of 9 of its 26 electrons. that takes temperatures up to 5 million deg. k. " it would be a better indicator of the distribution of high - temperature gases in the solar atmosphere, " walker said. this may also reveal small flares that may be one source of energy being pumped into the corona. for the c / cs flight, expected by early 2000 near the around the time of solar maximum. mssta will be upgraded and some new telescopes and detectors installed. as with its first two flights, the telescope will be boosted by a terrier black brant ix launched from the white sands missile range, n. m. the c / cs payload will be boosted to an altitude of 230 km ( 144 mi ) and fall then parachute back to earth for recovery. during the coast above earth ' s atmosphere, the telescope array will be pointed precisely at the sun for about 6 minutes. each telescope will take 10 to 15 full - disk images. ground - based observatories will take pictures at the same time in white light and h - alpha, and with telescopes equipped to map magnetic fields. join our growing list of subscribers - sign up for our express news delivery and you will receive a mail message every time we post a new story!!!


change assume that nations around the world would act quickly and in concert to target the problem, something political leaders say is highly unlikely. reducing greenhouse gases vigorously and quickly probably would push americans ' heating and electric bills up by 50 percent to 100 percent, said jae edmonds, a scientist and economist with the joint global change research institute, based in maryland. gasoline prices would rise between 50 cents and $ 1 a gallon, he said. whether that is a cheap or expensive price to pay for cutting emissions is a matter of perspective, he said. " some might look at those numbers and say that ' s a pretty good buy to avoid the potential negative implications of climate change, " he said. " others might think those costs look high and say they ' d rather go slower. " choosing a sufficiently aggressive plan to stave off the worst effects of climate change without dire economic consequences is a complicated balancing act, economists say, particularly because so many variables remain unknown. too vigorous a worldwide campaign could backfire, hurting economic growth and alienating key greenhouse - gas producers. but doing too little too slowly might waste a crucial opportunity to avoid potentially catastrophic impacts of global warming and to dodge greater costs in the future. the right answer, many economists suggest, is to act quickly to launch tests of potentially useful technology and programs worldwide, then rapidly scale up those that work. in mendelsohn ' s view, the most aggressive level of greenhouse - gas cuts promoted in the u. n. report is " too radical a recommendation to be supported by mainstream economics. " because efforts to control greenhouse gases will be effective only if all of the world ' s major producers take part, " by starting with a crash program you ensure a lot of countries are not going to join in, " he said. however, " you don ' t want to get sucked into thinking the only choice is to do the crash program or nothing at all, " he said. he suggests that a much more modest target — limiting atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to perhaps 640 to 750 parts per million — would cost the united states a tenth as much as the most aggressive scenario outlined in the u. n. report. worldwide, the cost would fall by about half, according to the report. other scientists and economists say holding greenhouse - gas concentrations to about 550 parts per million, at somewhat higher cost, is a better option. under mendelsohn ' s scenario, average global temperatures would be expected to rise by 7 to 11 degrees fahrenheit by the end of the century, according


about 550 parts per million, at somewhat higher cost, is a better option. under mendelsohn ' s scenario, average global temperatures would be expected to rise by 7 to 11 degrees fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to the u. n. panel, compared with about 3 to 6 degrees under the most aggressive program. because no one knows what temperature increase might trigger disastrous environmental problems — large sea - level rises, worsening flooding and droughts, a disruption of ocean circulation patterns — the lower range of temperature increases is generally thought to be safer. development of new technology and creative use of existing technology potentially could cut the costs of reducing emissions dramatically. because plants draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when they grow, using plant fuels rather than fossil fuels effectively cuts emissions of greenhouse gases, edmonds said. if engineers are able to find efficient ways to use plants to create fuel and then capture carbon dioxide released from the smokestacks of plant - fueled power stations and pump it into storage underground, the world could potentially lower levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere while generating power. but racing too quickly toward renewable energy and other efforts to cut greenhouse - gas emissions could have problematic consequences as well, mendelsohn warned. using more nuclear power, he said, will lead to renewed concerns about what to do with nuclear waste. planting billions of acres of new crops for biofuels could lead to accelerating deforestation in places such as brazil and indonesia. and efforts to boost hydroelectric generation could result in many of the world ' s last wild rivers being dammed. david o ' reilly, the chief executive of chevron, points to a senate bill calling on the energy department to develop a plan to cut gasoline consumption by 20 percent by 2017, 35 percent by 2025 and 45 percent by 2030, largely by substituting ethanol and other renewable fuels. under the senate proposal, the amount of alternative fuels used in u. s. motor vehicles would rise to 8. 5 billion gallons by 2008 and 36 billion gallons by 2022. the problem, o ' reilly said, is that u. s. farmers cannot currently produce enough corn to make more than 15 billion gallons of fuel. producing 36 billion gallons would require huge corn imports or a massive overhaul of the u. s. agricultural economy. and chevron is not just protecting its fossil - fuels turf ; the company already produces 70 percent of the ethanol made in the united states. " we ' re dealing with a massive economy and a massive energy infrastructure that was developed to supply this


many faculty teaching at the introductory level use environmental themes and hazards to get their students excited about the geosciences. whether in the form of a stand - alone environmental geology or natural hazards course or as environmental content integrated into other introductory courses, these concepts are an important part of the geoscience education for many students who will never take another course in the sciences. this workshop will bring together educators from a wide variety of institutional settings and backgrounds with the common goal of sharing ideas about improving the pedagogy and environmental geology content of our introductory geoscience courses. as a part of this workshop, participants will : - share what works in their classrooms with each other. we will identify innovative teaching methods, approaches, and activities for teaching environmental geology and share ideas on how to teach in various contexts : large classes, courses with no lab component, courses in urban areas, etc. - examine where and how environmental geology topics are taught in the geoscience curriculum from introductory courses for non - majors to " core " geoscience courses for majors. we will discuss and develop ideas for maximizing the impact of environmental geology topics to ultimately improve undergraduate students ' experience with and knowledge of geoscience. - consider the ways that environmental geology courses and topical materials can contribute to public science literacy, particularly how to make personal and societal decisions about the range of issues facing humanity and to live responsibly and sustainably on this planet. - develop a list of best practices for integrating emerging environmental issues, recent natural disasters, and issues related to natural resources into course work and identifying how scientific data and research outcomes can inform public discourse on topical issues. - develop strategies to reach under - represented groups and expand the diversity of students who enroll in our courses. we will consider strategies for improving the overall design of an environmental geology course to maximize its appeal and effectiveness. - identify topics of high interest and need for future development as teaching modules and courses through the related integrate project, through funding from the nsf / due tues program, or through other local or national curricular initiatives. participants must arrive in bozeman in time for the first workshop event at 5 pm on saturday, june 2. ( arrive earlier if you plan to attend the optional field trips. ) the workshop will be over on wednesday evening, june 6, and participants should plan return travel on thursday, june 7 ( those who stay an extra day can attend optional local hikes ). by applying to the workshop, participants agree to do the following if accepted : - serve on a review


when we talk about network hardware, we are commonly using the term megabit. for example, a 10 / 100 fast ethernet network card is 10 / 100 megabit. 1 gigabit ( gb ) equals 1024 megabits ( mb ). when microsoft windows displays the network transfer speed, it is displayed using megabytes ( mb ) not megabits ( mb ). one megabit ( mb ) equals 0. 125 megabytes ( mb ). there are 8 megabytes ( mb ) in 1 megabit ( mb ). theoretical transfer speed since there are 8 megabytes ( mb ) in 1 megabit ( mb ), we can determine the theoretical maximum network transfer speed in megabytes. 1 gigabit equals 1024 megabits which equals 128 megabytes. in theory, a 1 gigabit network should provide us with a transfer speed of 128 megabytes. average transfer speed on a 100 megabit network using cat - 5 / cat - 6, the average transfer rate is 8. 6 megabytes to 12. 5 megabytes. on a gigabit network ( 1024 megabit ) using cat - 5 / cat - 6, the average transfer rate is 21. 5 to 45 megabytes. on a gigabit network using cat - 5 / cat - 6, why isn ' t the average transfer rate closer to the theoretical maximum of 128 megabytes? the simple answer the simple answer is the transfer rate is typically limited by the maximum transfer rate of the computer hard drive found in the origin and / or destination computer. ideally, both the origin and destination are using a modern computer with a raid controller, ssd drives, optimal motherboard bus architecture, multi - core processor, recommended ram and recommended swap file with plenty of free space. using this configuration, you should be able to obtain an average transfer rate of 72 megabytes and greater. the complete answer on a computer network ( wan, lan, vpn, etc. ), the data transfer rate for client / server can be impacted by : - raid controller - hard drive type - motherboard bus speed - swap file setting - free disk space - free ram - flow control - auto negotiation - shared resources - cabling quality and type ( fiber, cat - 5 and cat - 6 ) - cabling length - network card driver version - network card firmware - electrical interference - protocol type and overhead - hops ( routers, switches, hubs, firewalls ) - poorly


winner : quantum leap quantum - dot lasers from japan ' s qd laser will make high - speed " fiber to the home " networks simpler, cheaper, and more power - efficient image : qd laser collecting the dots one of qd laser ’ s achievements, as shown in these atomic - force microscope images, was to double the dot density in its quantum - dot lasers, from 30 billion [ left ] to 60 billion [ right ] dots per square centimeter. this is part of ieee spectrum ' s special report : winners & losers 2009, the year ' s best and worst of technology. japanese start - up qd laser ’ s yasuhiko arakawa [ left ] and mitsuru sugawara oversaw the 15 - year effort to commercialize a temperature - stable semiconductor laser. suppose you had a dog whose personality fluctuated with the weather. on cool, crisp mornings, he ’ s a champ, fetching, rolling over, and shaking hands at your slightest command. but as the sun climbs higher and the day warms up, he becomes less and less responsive, and you have to ply him with doggy treats to get him to obey. and during heat waves? forget about it — he barely plays dead unless you double or triple his kibble ration. while you could excuse such behavior in fido, something remarkably similar goes on all the time with the semiconductor lasers used in cd and dvd players and in optical communications. these tiny devices are incredibly sensitive to heat. even a small rise in temperature causes the electrons within to move around faster and migrate out of the laser ’ s active layer — the thin slice of semiconducting material where the electrons recombine with positively charged holes to make light. as a result, the laser ’ s light output fluctuates, and it needs stronger and stronger electrical currents to keep lasing. at 85 °c, the device might need two or three times as much current to produce the same amount of light as at 25 °c. to get around that shortcoming, developers of semiconductor lasers must either cool them or introduce extra circuitry that maintains the device ’ s output even as the temperature fluctuates. but those workarounds increase both the cost of making the lasers and the power they consume. ever since this problem came to light, researchers have been hunting for a semiconductor laser that is inherently stable. one promising technology, first proposed 27 years ago, is the quantum - dot laser. such a device tightly confines the electrons and holes within many nanoscale


this problem came to light, researchers have been hunting for a semiconductor laser that is inherently stable. one promising technology, first proposed 27 years ago, is the quantum - dot laser. such a device tightly confines the electrons and holes within many nanoscale blobs, or dots, of semiconducting material. with enough dots — millions or billions, that is — lasing will occur and steady output maintained, regardless of external temperature. while researchers can now grow these devices using standard molecular - beam epitaxy equipment, mass - producing them has been very tricky. the japanese start - up qd laser, of tokyo, a joint venture of fujitsu and mitsui venture capital corp., has finally succeeded. its quantum - dot lasers use inexpensive substrates made from gallium arsenide ( gaas ) and boast an industry - leading density of 60 billion dots per square centimeter [ see images, ” collecting the dots ” ]. compared with the conventional indium - phosphide lasers now used in optical networks, qd laser ’ s devices will consume just half the power while transmitting up to 10 gigabits of data per second at a wavelength of 1. 3 micrometers. best of all, they will generate the same output at any temperature from – 40 to 100 °c. to mass - produce the gaas laser chips, qd laser has partnered with one of japan ’ s leading consumer - electronics firms, which will use the same production lines on which it currently cranks out conventional red lasers for dvd and cd players, video - game consoles, and other products. ( qd laser says it will reveal the name of its partner later this year. ) the initial shipments of laser chips are destined for an unnamed optical equipment vendor, which sometime this spring will begin offering the world ’ s first optical transceivers incorporating a quantum - dot laser. fujitsu will almost certainly buy the transceivers for use in optical lans and fiber - to - the - home networks. the quantum - dot laser has long been envisioned as a successor to the quantum - well laser, itself an improvement on earlier laser designs because it confined the injected electrons to an extremely thin layer — no more than tens of nanometers thick — of active material. that way, it required less current to induce lasing. but like the ” bulk ” semiconductor lasers it superseded, the quantum - well laser is sensitive to temperature. in the active layer of a bulk semiconductor laser, which you can picture as a fat, rectangular


, it required less current to induce lasing. but like the ” bulk ” semiconductor lasers it superseded, the quantum - well laser is sensitive to temperature. in the active layer of a bulk semiconductor laser, which you can picture as a fat, rectangular slab, the electrons and holes move in three dimensions, and that makes their interactions hard to control. in a quantum - well laser, they can move in only two dimensions, but electrostatic fields tend to build up, pulling the electrons away from the holes. in both cases, an increase in temperature makes the electrons more unruly. researchers began looking at ways to confine the electrons even further. in 1980, yasuhiko arakawa, a 28a ¿ ¿ year - old associate professor at the university of tokyo, had an epiphany. ” i thought, if we fix the position of each electron by confining it in a small box, the energy distribution will not be affected by temperature, ” arakawa recalled in a recent interview at his office at the university of tokyo. each ” box ” would be a semiconducting nanosize crystal into which electrons and holes would be injected. the box would effectively prevent the electrons and holes from being thermally excited to higher energy states. he presented his quantum - box laser idea at the annual meeting of the japanese society of applied physics in march 1981. then, collaborating with another professor, hiroyuki sakaki, he published a paper on the topic in the 1 june 1982 issue of applied physics letters. the two researchers followed up with a series of experiments in which they confined electrons using 30 - tesla magnets and demonstrated that the devices worked the same over a wide temperature range. ” but i thought it would be impossible to fabricate such nanostructures until the 21st century, ” arakawa says. the quantum - box laser concept didn ’ t exactly set the world on fire. some people found it interesting but not particularly useful, while others concluded that the boxes would be structurally unstable. his early work ” attracted almost no one to the field, ” says arakawa, now an ieee fellow. today, he adds, thousands of researchers worldwide are working to advance the field. just three years after arakawa and sakaki ’ s paper, a research group at france ’ s centre national d ’ etudes des telecommunications ( cnet ) noticed a strange phenomenon in the ” superlattices ” they were trying to build out of extremely thin alternating layers of indium arsenide and gallium ars


research group at france ’ s centre national d ’ etudes des telecommunications ( cnet ) noticed a strange phenomenon in the ” superlattices ” they were trying to build out of extremely thin alternating layers of indium arsenide and gallium arsenide. studying their handiwork under an electron microscope, they noticed that some of the indium arsenide had formed tiny regular blobs atop the underlying layer of gallium arsenide. each blob, it turned out, was a quantum dot. the french team didn ’ t actually produce lasing from their weird structure, but it was a start. in 1994, a team at the tokyo institute of technology and a collaboration of the technical university of berlin, russia ’ s ioffe physico - technical institute, and the max planck institute of microstructure physics independently demonstrated the first quantum - dot lasers. ( at that point, the quantum - dot versus quantum - box terminology was still in flux, with the german - russian team using the former term and the japanese using the latter. eventually, arakawa says, the world settled on quantum dot. ” now even i call them quantum dots, ” he says. ) but it ’ s one thing to create an experimental device in the lab and another thing to mass - produce a laser that operates reliably, can be manufactured cheaply, and performs a useful function. qd laser ’ s president and ceo, mitsuru sugawara, and his colleagues began chipping away at the problem of commercialization in 1994. sugawara was then a research physicist at fujitsu, aiming to develop a temperature - stable laser that emitted at 1. 3 µm, the best wavelength for optical communications. ” we weren ’ t interested in quantum dots per se, ” sugawara recalled in an interview last fall. like the cnet group, he and his team had been working on superlattices when they noticed quantum dots forming spontaneously, sugawara says, ” like water beading up on a waxed car. ” after realizing what they ’ d done, they set to work on building a laser. ” we knew that to produce lasing, we had to increase the density of the dots, so we started to study how to grow them intentionally, ” he says. five years later, in 1999, they demonstrated their first quantum - dot laser with a wavelength of 1. 3 µm. in a perfect world, the fujitsu group would have continued to make steady progress,


grow them intentionally, ” he says. five years later, in 1999, they demonstrated their first quantum - dot laser with a wavelength of 1. 3 µm. in a perfect world, the fujitsu group would have continued to make steady progress, and a commercial quantum - dot laser would have hit the market years ago. in the real world, the it bubble burst, and corporate priorities shifted. ” my boss told me that if we didn ’ t stop our research [ on quantum dots ], he ’ d be fired, ” sugawara says. eager to keep japanese r & d on quantum - dot lasers alive, arakawa stepped in. by then his pioneering work on nanostructure devices had made him quite influential in japan ’ s scientific circles. in 2001 he persuaded the japanese government to include quantum - dot research in a national project on photonic networking. fujitsu participated, along with hitachi, mitsubishi, nec, and a number of other japanese companies. the fujitsu group resumed its efforts to increase the dot density, mainly by stacking the quantum - dot layers. in 2004, they built a stack of 10 layers containing 30 billion dots per layer and capable of transmitting data at 10 gb / s. ” at that point, we could think about starting up a venture company, ” sugawara says. though it had nurtured the early stages of research, fujitsu wasn ’ t the best place to commercialize the results, he says. the company ’ s main business is building high - end servers and optical networking systems for government and business customers. it has no expertise in the commodity chip - making methods that sugawara envisioned using for the quantum - dot lasers. in april 2006, fujitsu and mitsui venture capital formed qd laser, providing the start - up with an initial us $ 2 million. fujitsu agreed to let qd laser use its 40 or so patents on quantum - dot technology ; arakawa signed on as the company ’ s technical advisor. although qd laser ’ s official headquarters are in a central tokyo high - rise, most of the company ’ s staff, including sugawara, are based at fujitsu ’ s facility in atsugi, about 45 kilometers southwest of tokyo, and research goes on there and at arakawa ’ s labs at the university of tokyo. there are currently 30 scientists and engineers involved, including five at the university of tokyo. after its founding, the starta ¿ ¿ up continued to work on boosting the lasers ’ dot density.


arakawa ’ s labs at the university of tokyo. there are currently 30 scientists and engineers involved, including five at the university of tokyo. after its founding, the starta ¿ ¿ up continued to work on boosting the lasers ’ dot density. ” we thought we could keep adding more layers, but we realized that wasn ’ t enough, ” sugawara says. using proprietary techniques, researchers at qd laser and tokyo university eventually succeeded in doubling the dot density, from 30 billion dots per square centimeter to 60 billion. sugawara brings out two atomic - force microscope images of quantum dots. the first shows a sparsely dotted surface. ” everyone can make this density, ” he says. then, pointing to the second image, which is crowded with dots, he says, ” but only we can make this. ” qd laser isn ’ t the first company to bring a quantum - dot laser to market. that distinction belongs to innolume, a start - up based in dortmund, germany, and santa clara, calif. since 2007 it has sold quantum - dot ” comb ” lasers, which can emit tens to hundreds of colors over a range of wavelengths. the devices are potentially suitable for optical computing, laser television, and biomedical applications. but innolume has yet to find a wide market for its products. qd laser will do better because its corporate backers have the muscle to see that it does. fujitsu has already agreed to replace the standard indium - phosphide lasers in its optical networking systems with qd laser ’ s gallium - arsenide lasers. but even fujitsu had to be convinced that the new devices would be as reliable as existing lasers. ” the communications market is very conservative, ” sugawara notes. to make its products more palatable to optical equipment makers like fujitsu, his company spent months tailoring the quantum - dot laser ’ s output power and performance so that they matched those of a conventional laser. the resulting laser can seamlessly replace an indium - phosphide laser in an optical transceiver, with no significant redesign required. with telecom giant nippon telegraph and telephone corp. adding 3 million fiber - to - the - home connections each year, sugawara thinks his company could claim 5 to 10 percent of the japanese market by 2011. qd laser is also working on lasers for long - distance communications of up to 20 kilometers. at press time, the company was wrapping up reliability tests and planned to begin selling in the spring.


5 to 10 percent of the japanese market by 2011. qd laser is also working on lasers for long - distance communications of up to 20 kilometers. at press time, the company was wrapping up reliability tests and planned to begin selling in the spring. even as it tries to line up more optical equipment customers, qd laser wants to branch out into the consumer - electronics market, which buys 100 times as many lasers, or about 2 billion devices a year. that ’ s why the partnership with the japanese consumer electronics maker holds particular promise. back in 2006, shortly after his company was founded, sugawara visited four of the major japanese consumer - electronics makers to gauge their interest in quantum - dot lasers. three said no thanks. but the fourth, sugawara recalls, told him, ” we ’ ve been waiting for you. ” the partnership is unusual in japan, he adds, where there ’ s little overlap between the optical - communications sector and the consumer - electronics makers. ” we ’ re one of the first companies to bridge the gap, ” he says. for two years, qd laser engineers worked closely with the consumer electronics firm to refine the fabrication process for the laser chips. qd laser grows the 3 - inch gallium - arsenide wafers in - house and then ships them to its partner, which can print about 50 000 chips on each wafer. each 0. 3 - square - millimeter chip consists of a substrate of n - doped gallium arsenide, followed by a layer of n - doped aluminum gallium arsenide, the quantum - dot layer, and then layers of p - doped algaas and gaas. the company packages each chip in a can about 2 cm long. ” even though we ’ re a small company, we can do mass production, ” sugawara says. qd laser ’ s partner would like to start incorporating quantum - dot lasers into its cd and dvd players and other products. by varying the size and concentration of the quantum dots, you can generate different wavelengths of light. to produce red light at 650 nm, for example, you could start with a 1300 - nm quantum - dot laser and then pass it through a frequency doubler, which halves the wavelength. to make green light, you similarly start with a 1064 - nm laser and double the frequency to get a 532 - nm wavelength. quantum - dot lasers could also be used in laser tv sets, medical devices, and tiny portable projectors that fit in


green light, you similarly start with a 1064 - nm laser and double the frequency to get a 532 - nm wavelength. quantum - dot lasers could also be used in laser tv sets, medical devices, and tiny portable projectors that fit in your cellphone. in the next couple of decades, arakawa says, we ’ ll see quantum dots showing up in quantum computers and other it devices [ for more on quantum computing, see ” dot to dot design, ” ieee spectrum, september 2007 ]. but why stop there? quantum - dot researchers have been looking at ways to use quantum dots in biochemical sensors, solar cells, and other technologies. it ’ s a future arakawa modestly refers to as ” quantum dots for everything. ” for more articles, go to winners & losers 2009 special report. snapshot : a laser that ’ s right on the dot goal : to commercialize a reliable and inexpensive semiconductor laser that ’ s also immune to temperature changes. why it ’ s a winner : these high - speed, low - power, temperature - stable lasers are equally applicable to optical networking and consumer electronics. who : qd laser, a joint venture of fujitsu and mitsui venture capital corp., and university of tokyo where : tokyo and atsugi, japan staff : 30 scientists and engineers budget : us $ 14 million when : spring 2009


file organization refers to the way records are physically arranged on a storage device. intel fortran supports two kinds of file organization : the default file organization is always organization = ' sequential ' for an open statement. the organization of a file is specified by means of the organization specifier in the open statement. you can store sequential files on magnetic tape or disk devices, and can use other peripheral devices, such as terminals, pipes, and line printers as sequential files. you must store relative files on a disk device. a sequentially organized file consists of records arranged in the sequence in which they are written to the file ( the first record written is the first record in the file, the second record written is the second record in the file, and so on ). as a result, records can be added only at the end of the file. sequential files are usually read sequentially, starting with the first record in the file. sequential files with a fixed - length record type that are stored on disk can also be accessed by relative record number ( direct access ). within a relative file are numbered positions, called cells. these cells are of fixed equal length and are consecutively numbered from 1 to n, where 1 is the first cell, and n is the last available cell in the file. each cell either contains a single record or is empty. records in a relative file are accessed according to cell number. a cell number is a record ' s relative record number ( its location relative to the beginning of the file ). by specifying relative record numbers, you can directly retrieve, add, or delete records regardless of their locations ( direct access ). ( detecting deleted records is only available if you specified the - vms option when the program was compiled. ) when creating a relative file, use the recl value to determine the size of the fixed - length cells. within the cells, you can store records of varying length, as long as their size does not exceed the cell size.


currently, hundreds of satellites orbit the earth, many with instruments that improve our lives and define our lifestyles. satellite - based technology makes it possible to watch our favorite television shows, navigate unfamiliar roads and plan weather - dependent activities a week ahead. satellites also collect data that aren ’ t as easy to explain, such as the nasa instrument to be launched this spring to measure sea surface salinity over the globe. annette decharon ’ s job is to explain exactly what that instrument, dubbed aquarius, will do once it ’ s launched in 2011 and why its mission — to collect data on salt concentrations at the ocean surface — is critical for nasa and for society as a whole. from her mission control - style desk in an office at the university of maine darling marine center in walpole, maine, decharon ’ s job as senior marine education scientist is to make ocean sciences more accessible for various audiences. her work with nasa / aquarius education & public outreach targets the public, students from elementary school to college, and science communicators from classroom teachers to ocean researchers. “ many people don ’ t really interact with the ocean at all, so they don ’ t think about how it affects them, but it ’ s basically the key driver of climate, ” says decharon, who teaches a umaine semester by the sea class and directs one of the national centers for ocean sciences education excellence ( cosee ). “ in all of our education and outreach programs, we really try to emphasize that point. one approach is through visualization of ocean data and concepts. this is important because the ocean is so remote that people can ’ t readily identify with it. but if you give them visuals that help them see the big picture and how things interact, they are more likely to believe its relevance. ” the educational materials decharon and her team produce help demonstrate why monitoring sea surface salinity is key to understanding what ’ s happening in the oceans. “ most people know the oceans are salty, but they don ’ t know that patterns of salinity change geographically and over time, ” she says. “ if there ’ s a lot of rain or if ice melts in a region, the sea surface will be less salty. if you get higher evaporation, seawater will be saltier. sea surface salinity changes can tell us how the water cycle is changing over the ocean. that ’ s important because 86 percent of global evaporation and 74 percent of global precipitation happens over the oceans. ”


there is no need to turn off the light during the presentation. it will be discussed in the 6 - 12 month plan. - 4. projection unit ( $ 7, 000 - $ 10, 000 ) - projection unit is another alternative. it can accept computer video output directly and has built - in projection mechanism to produce large images on an screen. ii. multimedia presentation development 1. presentation software : powerpoint 4. 0 : as in the project plan, the machines for the faculty will be bundled with microsoft office ( $ 170 academic price ). the microsoft office suite includes microsoft powerpoint 4. 0. since this presentation package will be available to everyone, and it is one of the most popular presentation packages on the market, it will be very likely the best choice for general presentation uses. 2. scanner : usage : for scanning hardcopy graphics or text into computer readable form so that they can be incorporated in the multimedia presentations, and tutorials, etc. scanner has higher resolution than most digital cameras. however, it is only useful for flat objects - mostly printed materials. suggested system : the price difference between 300 and 600 dpi scanners are insignificant ( less than $ 200 difference ) nowadays. it is recommended to acquire one of the newer models. the cost is around $ 1200 for one from hp or epson. - 600 dots per inch ( dpi ) optical resolution, 24 bit color min. - twain interface for windows - supports both windows and mac ( if possible ) 3. optical character recognization ( ocr ) software : usage : for converting scanned text images into word - processor readable text. often you will have printed material and other text, but no electronic text files, to incorporate into your project. with ocr software and a scanner, it can save you many hours of re - typing. different packages costs from $ 100 to $ 500. omnipage professional is the most popular on the market. 4. image processing software : usage : images obtained from scanning or digital camera often require retouching or re - composition before they are in the desire form. most of the scanners come in packages / bundles that include image processing software. the most popular software is adobe photoshop which costs $ 600 / $ 250 academic. a bundle that includes photoshop should be chosen if available. 5. color printing usage : occasionally, there are needs for color hard copy printout, either on paper or transparency, which can be showed to anyone who may not have a computer available all the time. a low


. 0c is included in the suite. a free word add - on, internet assistant, is available from microsoft for creating html documents within word. v. commercial available software from physics academic software, north carolina state university comprehensive unified physics learning environment ( cuple ) cuple student version, $ 500 / 10 license, 1 cd - rom cuple developer ' s version from falcon sofware - superchemlab mac cd - rom version 1. 0 $ 300, ( by melanie cooper, clemson u. ) - exploring chemistry v cd - rom ( mac and windows ) $ 500, ( by stanley g. smith, u. of illinois and others ) - chemistry review series : general chemistry $ 40, ( by stanley g. smith ) - chemistry review series : organic chemistry $ 40, ( by stanley g. smith ) - introductory chemistry lecture package cd - rom for windows version 1. 0 $ 300, ( by iris stovall and roxy wilson, u. of illinois ) - teaching chemistry with demonstrations level 1 videodisc $ 300, ( by roxy wilson, u. of illinois and others ) - the electronic laboratory simulator ( els ) version 2. 0 for windows, $ 250 | table of contents | goals | cost summary | 1 - 6 mon. | 1 - 6 mon. price | 7 - 12 mon. | ching - wan yip, department of chemistry, wake forest university, winston - salem, nc 27109 - 7486, copyright © 1995 ching - wan yip


by dan falk toronto — in the world of sci - fi movie geekdom, aug. 29, 1997, was a turning point for humanity : on that day, according to the " terminator " films, the network of u. s. defense computers known as skynet became self - aware — and soon launched an all - out genocidal war against homo sapiens. fortunately, that date came and went with no such robo - apocalypse. but the 1990s did bring us the world wide web, which is now far larger and more " connected " than any nation ' s defense network. could the internet " wake up "? and if so, what sorts of thoughts would it think? and would it be friend or foe? neuroscientist christof koch believes we may soon find out — indeed, the complexity of the web may have already surpassed that of the human brain. in his book " consciousness : confessions of a romantic reductionist, " published earlier this year, he makes a rough calculation : take the number of computers on the planet — several billion — and multiply by the number of transistors in each machine — hundreds of millions — and you get about a billion billion, written more elegantly as 10 to the 18th. that ' s a thousand times larger than the number of synapses in the human brain ( about 10 to the 15th ). koch, who taught for more than 25 years at caltech and is now chief scientific officer at the allen institute for brain science in seattle, is known for his work on the " neural correlates " of consciousness — studying the brain to see what ' s going on when we have specific conscious experiences. of course, our brains happen to be soft, wet, and made of living tissue, while the internet is made up of metal chips and wires — but that ' s no obstacle to consciousness, he says, so long as the level of complexity is great enough. ( most researchers working on artificial intelligence would agree that the " substrate " doesn ' t matter. that is, it makes no difference what the system is made of. most philosophers, though not all, would agree. ) in a phone interview, koch noted that the kinds of connections that wire together the internet — its " architecture " — are very different from the synaptic connections in our brains, " but certainly by any measure it ' s a very, very complex system. could it be conscious? in principle, yes it can. " of course, there ' s the tricky question


very different from the synaptic connections in our brains, " but certainly by any measure it ' s a very, very complex system. could it be conscious? in principle, yes it can. " of course, there ' s the tricky question of defining consciousness, but for our purposes it is enough to say that if an entity is conscious, then it " feels like " something to be that entity. humans are conscious, at least while we ' re awake. apes and monkeys, perhaps most animals, likely have some degree of consciousness. ( koch, a dog lover, does not hesitate to include our canine companions. ) how consciousness actually works is far less clear, but koch — going somewhat out on a limb — declares it to be a fundamental property of the universe, akin to energy, mass, and space. that doesn ' t mean that any physical system is automatically conscious — only that it has the potential to be conscious. it has to have sufficient complexity, and it has to be connected in just the right way. does the internet meet those criteria? " even today it might ' feel like something ' to be the internet, " koch says. each computer feels nothing, of course, but the totality of the internet may be more than the sum of its parts. " that ' s true for my brain, too. one of my nerve cells feels nothing — but put it together with 100 billion other nerve cells, and suddenly it can feel pain and pleasure and experience the color blue. " would its first instinct to be to kill off those pesky humans, as skynet was so quick to do? not necessarily. our own evolution is an ongoing struggle that began some 2 billion years ago ( if you start the clock when we were blue and green algae ). by comparison, the internet of today is more like a newborn baby. " it may not have any of the survival instincts that we have, " koch says. " it did not evolve in a world ' red in tooth and claw, ' to use tennyson ' s famous expression. " should the internet achieve consciousness, it will — at least at first — be " utterly naive to the world. " on the other hand, the internet has only existed for a couple of decades. " so who knows where it will be 20 years from now. " of course, the science fiction writers have already explored this territory — not just in shoot - ' em - ups like the " terminator " films, but in more cerebral works like robert j. sawyer ' s


will be 20 years from now. " of course, the science fiction writers have already explored this territory — not just in shoot - ' em - ups like the " terminator " films, but in more cerebral works like robert j. sawyer ' s " www " trilogy ( the novels are titled " wake, " " watch " and " wonder " ). in " wake, " the world wide web wakes up — and, after a bit of a learning curve, becomes the smartest entity on the planet. eerily, as koch speculated on what the internet might " feel, " he described a scenario straight out of sawyer ' s trilogy ( which he had not heard of until i mentioned it ). should there be a large power failure somewhere in the world, koch said, a conscious internet could experience the equivalent of " pain. " in " wake " ( published in 2009 ), the chinese government shuts down an enormous swath of the internet to cover up a particularly nasty incident that it desperately wants to hide from the rest of the world. the still - nascent webmind " feels " all that cutting and severing — and doesn ' t like it : not just small changes. not just flickerings. upheaval. a massive disturbance. new sensations : shock. astonishment. disorientation. and _ the " www " trilogy is a work of fiction, but for sawyer, it ' s a plausible picture of what lies ahead in our increasingly wired world. we can ' t pin down the date when the internet surpasses our brains in complexity, he says, " but clearly it is going to happen at some point. " even koch admits that he doesn ' t lose any sleep over the possibility of the internet waking up. sawyer, however, sees the web ' s continued growth as a very real potential threat. as the web grows more and more complex, at an accelerating pace, there is inevitably a " tipping point, " he says. " there is a point after which you can ' t do anything about it. should we be afraid of it? absolutely. " even if those fears prove to be unfounded, such questions are still worth pondering. if the internet doesn ' t have what it takes to become conscious, it would be useful to understand why it fails. perhaps we can even come a little closer to learning how our three - and - a - half - pound brains manage to pull it off. dan falk is a science journalist based in toronto and was a 2011 - 12 knight


lightning mapping array ( lma ) the sport program works with three total lightning networks. these include the lightning mapping arrays in north alabama and washington, d. c. as well as the lightning detection and ranging network at the kennedy space center. each card represents one of these networks. a green card marked as " evaluation product, " is being used by at least one national weather service forecast office. blue cards, marked " research, " exist for academic purposes and research. real - time data are available by following the link at the bottom right of the card. the overview section below describes the north alabama network, but the basic concepts are applicable to each total lightning network. real - time 2 - minute data on a 2 x 2 km grid from the north alabama lightning mapping array. figure 1 : the location of the 11 north alabama lightning mapping array sensors ( green dots and blue dot ) and communications relays ( open green circles ) across north alabama. the north alabama lightning mapping array ( nalma ) was first activated in 2001 and officially transitioned to the huntsville, alabama national weather service office in early 2003. since the initial transition, sport has successfully transitioned nalma data to three other partner forecast offices. these include the birmingham, alabama as well as morristown and nashville, tennessee weather forecast offices. in addition, sport has worked collaboratively with the lightning group here at the national space science and technology center ( nsstc ) in huntsville, alabama to provide near real - time total lightning data to partner forecast offices in melbourne, florida and sterling, virginia using networks located in those regions. sterling uses the washington d. c. lightning mapping array ( dclma ) while melbourne receives data from the kennedy space center lightning detection and ranging network ( ldar ). both of these networks are functionally similar to the nalma network and forecast applications developed for one network can be used with another. figure 2. a comparison between what a cloud - to - ground network observes in a lightning flash ( left ) versus what a total lightning network will observe in a lightning flash ( right ). note how the cloud - to - ground network only provides a single point of information. also, the cloud - to - ground network would observe nothing if the flash were solely intra - cloud. the nalma is a three - dimensional very high frequency ( vhf ) detection network of 11 vhf receivers deployed across northern alabama with a base station and receiver located at the nsstc ( figure 1 ). solid green circles indicate a vhf receiver, while open green circles are wireless relay stations. the


high frequency ( vhf ) detection network of 11 vhf receivers deployed across northern alabama with a base station and receiver located at the nsstc ( figure 1 ). solid green circles indicate a vhf receiver, while open green circles are wireless relay stations. the blue dot is the base station and 11th sensor located at the nsstc. as of may 2009, two additional sensors located in atlanta, georgia have been added, in collaboration with researchers at georgia tech university. these are testing the effectiveness of the nalma network using long baselines in the sensor placement. figure 3. a sample of 31 thunderstorms observed by the kennedy space center lightning detection and ranging network showing the number of cloud - to - ground strikes versus total lightning observed in each storm. notice how the intra - cloud component dominates the total lightning observed in each storm. it is also interesting to note that two storms had no cloud - to - ground strikes at all, yet were still very electrically active. the nalma system locates the sources of impulsive vhf radio signals from lightning by accurately measuring the time that the signals arrive at the different receiving stations. each station records the magnitude and time of the peak lightning radiation signal in successive 80 microsecond intervals within a local unused television channel ( channel 5, 76 - 82 mhz ). typically, hundreds of sources per flash can be reconstructed, which in turn produces accurate 3 - dimensional lightning image maps ( nominally < 50 m error within a 150 km range ). the sources can be thought of as the individual stepped leaders within a lightning flash. more detailed information can be found in goodman et al. ( 2005 ). the primary advantage of nalma, and the other total lightning networks, is that the networks detect total lightning, which is the combination of both cloud - to - ground and intra - cloud lightning. figure 2 shows a rough comparison of what is detected between standard cloud - to - ground networks versus nalma or any other lightning mapping array. the importance of detecting the intra - cloud flashes is that the intra - cloud flashes typically dominate the full number of flashes in a thunderstorm ( figure 3 ). with only cloud - to - ground data, forecasters are not receiving the full breadth of knowledge of how the storm is developing. also, total lightning data are updated every 2 minutes, giving forecasters additional information about storm development in between radar volume scans. figure 4. a screen capture from awips ii showing the total lightning flash extent density ( colored contours ) versus the cloud - to - ground strike locations ( negative


a question of social justice what does “ sustainable agriculture ” mean to you? if your answer is like most, you probably will begin by talking about sustainability in relation to the environment – protecting the natural ecosystem and conserving non - renewable resources. and, you will be right. if our food and farming systems are to be sustainable over time, we must maintain the health and productivity of land and must conserve water, energy, and the other natural resources upon which agricultural productivity ultimately depends. an agriculture that is not ecologically sound, quite simply, is not sustainable. the next thing most likely to come to mind is economic sustainability – if it ’ s not profitable, it ’ s not sustainable. again, you will be right, or at least partly right. in a capitalistic economy, the markets determine who gets to use land and other resources – and how they will be used. sustainable farms need not maximize profits, and farms need not generate a profit every year. but, a farming system that is not economically viable is not sustainable, no matter how ecologically sound it may be. almost everyone agrees ; our food and farming systems must be ecologically sound and economically viable if they are to be sustainable over time. even giant agribusiness corporations, such as monsanto and du pont, have sustainable agriculture programs that address environmental and economic concerns. however, there is far less agreement concerning the third essential aspect of sustainability – the question of social justice. any system of food and farming that fails to meet the needs of a society, will not be sustained by that society, no matter how ecologically benign or profitable it may appear to be. a society has physical and material needs, however, one of the most basic needs of any society is a sense of social equity or justice. any food and farming system that is not socially just does not meet this basic need, and thus, is not sustainable. a sustainable economy must meet the material needs of people by means that are perceived to be equitable and just by the society that supports it. human society is a subsystem of the larger natural ecosystem and the economy, in turn, is a subsystem of society. while some level of individual economic or material well - being is a prerequisite for a sustainable society, a society is more that a collection of individuals ; it includes also the relationships among those individuals. the sustainability of a society perhaps depends even more upon strong relationships among its members than upon strong individual members. adam smith, the father of contemporary economics, in his landmark


is more that a collection of individuals ; it includes also the relationships among those individuals. the sustainability of a society perhaps depends even more upon strong relationships among its members than upon strong individual members. adam smith, the father of contemporary economics, in his landmark book, wealth of nations, wrote : “ no society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. ” distrust and dissention can arise among the rich as well as the poor – both groups being capable of dysfunctional relationships. however, distrust and dissention are inevitable consequences of substantial and persistent economic disparity among members within a society. economic disparity inevitably creates a sense of social injustice, and an unjust society is neither stable nor sustainable. distrust and dissention ultimately lead to civil unrest, which disrupts the economy and ultimately leads to exploitation and destruction of the natural ecosystem. eastern europe and sub - sahara africa provide two prime examples of the widespread ecological destruction that results from persistent social injustice. a market economy will not ensure social justice. a market economy provides for people only in relation to their willingness and ability to pay, not in relation to their basic needs. the abilities of people to earn money and to pay for food, clothing, and shelter do not necessarily match their needs. all people have a basic right to sufficient food, clothing, and shelter to ensure survival and normal physical and mental growth and development, although we are just beginning to accept this fact in america. our market economy will not ensure those rights. inevitably, equity and justice must be ensured through conscious, purposeful actions by the members of society – by our individual acts of human compassion and by our public acts, through government, to ensure the general welfare. both are necessary and neither absolves our responsibility for the other. a society that does not accept this responsibility for social justice is not sustainable. equity and justice do not require that everyone have access to the same quantity, quality, and variety of food, clothing or shelter, or that food, clothing, and shelter be equally convenient or effortless for all. equity and justice are matters of ensuring equal access to specific things to which all have equal rights – not equal access to all things. a right to safe, nutritious food, for example, does not imply a right to prime rib and artichoke hearts nor to packaged or pre - prepared foods. however, food and farming systems that do not accept responsibility of ensuring that all have adequate food, clothing, and shelter are not sustainable. each of


viticulture - n. : the cultivation or culture of grapes enology - n. : a science that deals with wine and wine making the v & e department combines the sciences of viticulture and enology in a single research and teaching unit that encompasses all of the scientific disciplines that impact grape growing and winemaking. for over one hundred years the university of california has maintained an active and productive program in research and education in viticulture and enology. the continuing excellence of the department has enabled california growers and vintners to develop practices that have allowed the golden state to achieve its potential and become a premier wine - producing region. eugene w. hilgard publications of professor eugene w. hilgard in the bulletin of the california agriculture experiment station eugene hilgard must have been an amazing scientist and person, but sadly most descriptions of him classify him only as " soil scientist ". he published a significant book, soils, towards the end of his career, but he was a member of the national academy of science and the first professor of agriculture in ( and later director of ) the university ' s experiment station when it was at berkeley. although hilgard hall on the berkeley campus houses the soils department today, nothing honors his contributions to the foundations of the grape and wine industry of california. below ( marked with an * ), are the title...


key : " s : " = show synset ( semantic ) relations, " w : " = show word ( lexical ) relations display options for sense : ( gloss ) " an example sentence " - s : ( n ) burning, combustion ( the act of burning something ) " the burning of leaves was prohibited by a town ordinance " - s : ( n ) burn, burning ( pain that feels hot as if it were on fire ) - s : ( n ) combustion, burning ( a process in which a substance reacts with oxygen to give heat and light ) - s : ( n ) electrocution, burning ( execution by electricity ) - s : ( n ) burning, burning at the stake ( execution by fire ) - s : ( n ) burning ( a form of torture in which cigarettes or cigars or other hot implements are used to burn the victim ' s skin ) - s : ( v ) burn, fire, burn down ( destroy by fire ) " they burned the house and his diaries " - s : ( v ) burn, glow ( shine intensely, as if with heat ) " the coals were glowing in the dark " ; " the candles were burning " - s : ( v ) burn, combust ( undergo combustion ) " maple wood burns well " - s : ( v ) bite, sting, burn ( cause a sharp or stinging pain or discomfort ) " the sun burned his face " - s : ( v ) burn, combust ( cause to burn or combust ) " the sun burned off the fog " ; " we combust coal and other fossil fuels " - s : ( v ) burn ( feel strong emotion, especially anger or passion ) " she was burning with anger " ; " he was burning to try out his new skies " - s : ( v ) burn, incinerate ( cause to undergo combustion ) " burn garbage " ; " the car burns only diesel oil " - s : ( v ) burn ( execute by tying to a stake and setting alight ) " witches were burned in salem " - s : ( v ) burn ( spend ( significant amounts of money ) ) " he has money to burn " - s : ( v ) burn ( feel hot or painful ) " my eyes are burning " - s : ( v ) cauterize, cauterise, burn ( burn, sear, or freeze ( tissue ) using a hot iron or electric current or a caustic agent ) " the surgeon cauterized the wart " - s :


| harnessing the bacterial power of nanomagnets | nanometer - size magnets have wide - ranging uses, from directed cancer therapy and drug delivery systems to magnetic recording media and transducers. such applications require the production of nanoparticles with well - controlled size and tunable magnetic properties. the synthesis of such nanomagnets, however, often requires elevated temperatures and toxic solvents, resulting in high environmental and energy costs. metal - reducing microorganisms offer an untapped resource to produce these materials in an environmentally benign way. at the als, researchers from the university of manchester have shown that fe ( iii ) - reducing bacteria can be used to synthesize magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with high yields, narrow size distribution, and magnetic properties equal to the best chemically synthesized materials. a relatively unexplored resource for magnetic nanomaterial production is a type of subsurface microorganism capable of producing large quantities of nanoscale magnetite ( fe3o4 ) at ambient temperatures. metal - reducing bacteria live in soils deficient in oxygen and conserve energy for growth through the oxidation of hydrogen or organic electron donors, coupled to the reduction of oxidized metals such as fe ( iii ) - bearing minerals. this can result in the formation of magnetite via the extracellular reduction of amorphous fe ( iii ) - oxyhydroxides, releasing soluble fe ( ii ) and completely recrystallizing the amorphous mineral into a new phase. the manchester team developed a method for producing large quantities of highly crystalline magnetite and cobalt ferrite ( cofe2o4 ) nanoparticles using the fe ( iii ) - reducing bacterium, geobacter sulfurreducens. in particular, they demonstrated that cobalt ferrite nanoparticles with the high coercivity ( i. e., resistance to demagnetization ) important for applications can be manufactured through this biotechnological route. three samples containing increasing amounts of co in the biogenic magnetite structure were analyzed. x - ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy showed that the material is nanocrystalline. moreover, the coercivity of the samples increases with increasing co content, so that it can be tuned for specific applications. the cation distribution in the ferrite nanoparticles was investigated using x ray absorption ( xa ) and x - ray magnetic circular dichroism ( xmcd ) at the fe l


it can be tuned for specific applications. the cation distribution in the ferrite nanoparticles was investigated using x ray absorption ( xa ) and x - ray magnetic circular dichroism ( xmcd ) at the fe l2, 3 and co l2, 3 edges, measured at als beamline 4. 0. 2. an xmcd spectrum is obtained as the difference between two xa spectra measured in opposite external magnetic fields. magnetite has an inverse spinel crystal structure, which contains tetrahedral ( td ) and octahedral ( oh ) sites accommodating fe2 + and fe3 + cations. each specific cation in the spinel structure generates a unique xmcd signature determined by its valence state ( number of d electrons ), site symmetry ( i. e., td or oh ), and moment direction, which can be computed using atomic multiplet calculations. by fitting a weighted sum of these calculated spectra to the measured xmcd spectra, the site occupations of the fe cations can be obtained. the biogenic materials show a striking change with increasing co amount, namely a decrease in intensity of the leading negative peak in the fe l3 edge, which implies that co is predominantly replacing fe2 + cations in octahedral sites. similarly, the site occupancy and oxidation state of the co can be directly assessed by examining the co l2, 3 xa and xmcd spectra. the close similarity with the spectra for synthetically produced cofe2o4 thin films confirmed that the bacteria were able to suitably accommodate co in the ferrite structure with the co2 + residing primarily on oh sites. the xmcd measurements indicate a dramatic enhancement in the magnetic properties of biogenically produced nanoparticles when large quantities of co are introduced into the spinel structure, a major advance over previous biomineralization studies. inclusion of other transition metals into the spinel structure by fe ( iii ) - reducing bacteria to tailor the magnetic properties of nanoferrites could lead to a suite of materials required for different technological uses. the successful production of highly ordered crystalline nanoparticulate ferrites demonstrates the potential for scaled - up industrial manufacture of nanoparticles using environmentally benign and energy - efficient methodologies. research conducted by v. s. coker, n. d. telling, r. a. d. pattrick, c. i. pearce, j. r. lloyd, f. tuna


an error in a standard definition. genocchi was by this time quite old and in relatively poor health and peano took over some of his teaching. peano was about to teach the students about the area of a curved surface when he realised that the definition in serret ' s book, which was the standard text for the course, was incorrect. peano immediately told genocchi of his discovery to be told that genocchi already knew. genocchi had been informed the previous year by schwarz who seems to have been the first to find serret ' s error. in 1884 there was published a text based on genocchi ' s lectures at turin. this book course in infinitesimal calculus although based on genocchi ' s lectures was edited by peano and indeed it has much in it written by peano himself. the book itself states on the title page that it is : -... published with additions by dr giuseppe peano. genocchi seemed somewhat unhappy that the work came out under his name for he wrote : -... the volume contains important additions, some modifications, and various annotations, which are placed first. so that nothing will be attributed to me which is not mine, i must declare that i have had no part in the compilation of the aforementioned book and that everything is due to that outstanding young man dr giuseppe peano... peano received his qualification to be a university professor in december 1884 and he continued to teach further courses, some for genocchi whose health had not recovered sufficiently to allow him to return to the university. in 1886 peano proved that if f ( x, y ) is continuous then the first order differential equation dy / dx = f ( x, y ) has a solution. the existence of solutions with stronger hypothesis on f had been given earlier by cauchy and then lipschitz. four years later peano showed that the solutions were not unique, giving as an example the differential equation dy / dx = 3y2 / 3, with y ( 0 ) = 0. in addition to his teaching at the university of turin, peano began lecturing at the military academy in turin in 1886. the following year he discovered, and published, a method for solving systems of linear differential equations using successive approximations. however emile picard had independently discovered this method and had credited schwarz with discovering the method first. in 1888 peano published the book geometrical calculus which begins with a chapter on mathematical logic. this was


systems of linear differential equations using successive approximations. however emile picard had independently discovered this method and had credited schwarz with discovering the method first. in 1888 peano published the book geometrical calculus which begins with a chapter on mathematical logic. this was his first work on the topic that would play a major role in his research over the next few years and it was based on the work of schroder, boole and charles peirce. a more significant feature of the book is that in it peano sets out with great clarity the ideas of grassmann which certainly were set out in a rather obscure way by grassmann himself. this book contains the first definition of a vector space given with a remarkably modern notation and style and, although it was not appreciated by many at the time, this is surely a quite remarkable achievement by peano. in 1889 peano published his famous axioms, called peano axioms, which defined the natural numbers in terms of sets. these were published in a pamphlet arithmetices principia, nova methodo exposita which, according to were : -... at once a landmark in the history of mathematical logic and of the foundations of mathematics. the pamphlet was written in latin and nobody has been able to give a good reason for this, other than : -... it appears to be an act of sheer romanticism, perhaps the unique romantic act in his scientific career. genocchi died in 1889 and peano expected to be appointed to fill his chair. he wrote to casorati, who he believed to be part of the appointing committee, for information only to discover that there was a delay due to the difficulty of finding enough members to act on the committee. casorati had been approached but his health was not up to the task. before the appointment could be made peano published another stunning result. he invented ' space - filling ' curves in 1890, these are continuous surjective mappings from [ 0, 1 ] onto the unit square. hilbert, in 1891, described similar space - filling curves. it had been thought that such curves could not exist. cantor had shown that there is a bijection between the interval [ 0, 1 ] and the unit square but, shortly after, netto had proved that such a bijection cannot be continuous. peano ' s continuous space - filling curves cannot be 1 - 1 of course, otherwise netto ' s theorem would be contradicted. hausdorff wrote of peano ' s result in gr


such a bijection cannot be continuous. peano ' s continuous space - filling curves cannot be 1 - 1 of course, otherwise netto ' s theorem would be contradicted. hausdorff wrote of peano ' s result in grundzuge der mengenlehre in 1914 : - this is one of the most remarkable facts of set theory. in december 1890 peano ' s wait to be appointed to genocchi ' s chair was over when, after the usual competition, peano was offered the post. in 1891 peano founded rivista di matematica, a journal devoted mainly to logic and the foundations of mathematics. the first paper in the first part is a ten page article by peano summarising his work on mathematical logic up to that time. peano had a great skill in seeing that theorems were incorrect by spotting exceptions. others were not so happy to have these errors pointed out and one such was his colleague corrado segre. when corrado segre submitted an article to rivista di matematica peano pointed out that some of the theorems in the article had exceptions. segre was not prepared to just correct the theorems by adding conditions that ruled out the exceptions but defended his work saying that the moment of discovery was more important than a rigorous formulation. of course this was so against peano ' s rigorous approach to mathematics that he argued strongly : - i believe it new in the history of mathematics that authors knowingly use in their research propositions for which exceptions are known, or for which they have no proof... it was not only corrado segre who suffered from peano ' s outstanding ability to spot lack of rigour. of course it was the precision of his thinking, using the exactness of his mathematical logic, that gave peano this clarity of thought. peano pointed out an error in a proof by hermann laurent in 1892 and, in the same year, reviewed a book by veronese ending the review with the comment : - we could continue at length enumerating the absurdities that the author has piled up. but these errors, the lack of precision and rigour throughout the book take all value away from it. from around 1892, peano embarked on a new and extremely ambitious project, namely the formulario mathematico. he explained in the march 1892 part of rivista di matematica his thinking : - of the greatest usefulness would be the publication of collections of all the theorems now known


extremely ambitious project, namely the formulario mathematico. he explained in the march 1892 part of rivista di matematica his thinking : - of the greatest usefulness would be the publication of collections of all the theorems now known that refer to given branches of the mathematical sciences... such a collection, which would be long and difficult in ordinary language, is made noticeably easier by using the notation of mathematical logic... in many ways this grand idea marks the end of peano ' s extraordinary creative work. it was a project that was greeted with enthusiasm by a few and with little interest by most. peano began trying to convert all those around him to believe in the importance of this project and this had the effect of annoying them. however peano and his close associates, including his assistants, vailati, burali - forti, pieri and fano soon became deeply involved with the work. when describing a new edition of the formulario mathematico in 1896 peano writes : - each professor will be able to adopt this formulario as a textbook, for it ought to contain all theorems and all methods. his teaching will be reduced to showing how to read the formulas, and to indicating to the students the theorems that he wishes to explain in his course. when the calculus volume of the formulario was published peano, as he had indicated, began to use it for his teaching. this was the disaster that one would expect. peano, who was a good teacher when he began his lecturing career, became unacceptable to both his students and his colleagues by the style of his teaching. one of his students, who was actually a great admirer of peano, wrote : - but we students knew that this instruction was above our heads. we understood that such a subtle analysis of concepts, such a minute criticism of the definitions used by other authors, was not adapted for beginners, and especially was not useful for engineering students. we disliked having to give time and effort to the " symbols " that in later years we might never use. the military academy ended his contract to teach there in 1901 and although many of his colleagues at the university would have also liked to stop his teaching there, nothing was possible under the way that the university was set up. the professor was a law unto himself in his own subject and peano was not prepared to listen to his colleagues when they tried to encourage him to return to his old style of teaching. the formulario mathematico


the university was set up. the professor was a law unto himself in his own subject and peano was not prepared to listen to his colleagues when they tried to encourage him to return to his old style of teaching. the formulario mathematico project was completed in 1908 and one has to admire what peano achieved but although the work contained a mine of information it was little used. however, perhaps peano ' s greatest triumph came in 1900. in that year there were two congresses held in paris. the first was the international congress of philosophy which opened in paris on 1 august. it was a triumph for peano and russell, who attended the congress, wrote in his autobiography : - the congress was the turning point of my intellectual life, because there i met peano. i already knew him by name and had seen some of his work, but had not taken the trouble to master his notation. in discussions at the congress i observed that he was always more precise than anyone else, and that he invariably got the better of any argument on which he embarked. as the days went by, i decided that this must be owing to his mathematical logic.... it became clear to me that his notation afforded an instrument of logical analysis such as i had been seeking for years... the day after the philosophy congress ended the second international congress of mathematicians began. peano remained in paris for this congress and listened to hilbert ' s talk setting out ten of the 23 problems which appeared in his paper aimed at giving the agenda for the next century. peano was particularly interested in the second problem which asked if the axioms of arithmetic could be proved consistent. even before the formulario mathematico project was completed peano was putting in place the next major project of his life. in 1903 peano expressed interest in finding a universal, or international, language and proposed an artificial language " latino sine flexione " based on latin but stripped of all grammar. he compiled the vocabulary by taking words from english, french, german and latin. in fact the final edition of the formulario mathematico was written in latino sine flexione which is another reason the work was so little used. peano ' s career was therefore rather strangely divided into two periods. the period up to 1900 is one where he showed great originality and a remarkable feel for topics which would be important in the development of mathematics. his achievements were outstanding and he had a modern style quite out of place in his own time. however this feel for


up to 1900 is one where he showed great originality and a remarkable feel for topics which would be important in the development of mathematics. his achievements were outstanding and he had a modern style quite out of place in his own time. however this feel for what was important seemed to leave him and after 1900 he worked with great enthusiasm on two projects of great difficulty which were enormous undertakings but proved quite unimportant in the development of mathematics. of his personality kennedy writes in : -... i am fascinated by his gentle personality, his ability to attract lifelong disciples, his tolerance of human weakness, his perennial optimism.... peano may not only be classified as a 19th century mathematician and logician, but because of his originality and influence, must be judged one of the great scientists of that century. although peano is a founder of mathematical logic, the german mathematical philosopher gottlob frege is today considered the father of mathematical logic. article by : j j o ' connor and e f robertson click on this link to see a list of the glossary entries for this page list of references ( 13 books / articles ) | | mathematicians born in the same country | additional material in mactutor | honours awarded to giuseppe peano | ( click below for those honoured in this way ) | speaker at international congress | | 1897 | cross - references in mactutor other web sites | previous | | ( alphabetically ) | | next | | biographies index | | history topics | | societies, honours, etc. | | famous curves | | time lines | | birthplace maps | | chronology | | search form | | glossary index | | quotations index | | poster index | | mathematicians of the day | | anniversaries for the year | joc / efr © december 1997 | school of mathematics and statistics | university of st andrews, scotland the url of this page is : |


provide the naturalistic basis for the ultimate selfish universe : nature red in tooth and claw evokes images of “ every man for himself, ” in pure randian style. in fact, herbert spencer popularized the infamous doctrine of “ social darwinism ” ( which darwin never espoused ) well before ayn rand wrote atlas shrugged. recently, however, several scientists and philosophers have been taking a second look at evolutionary theory and its relationship with ethics, and are finding new ways of realizing the project of plato, kant, and mill of deriving a fundamentally rational way of being ethical. elliot sober and david sloan wilson, in their unto others : the psychology and evolution of unselfish behavior, as well as peter singer in a darwinian left : politics, evolution and cooperation, argue that human beings evolved as social animals, not as lone, self - reliant brutes. in a society, cooperative behavior ( or at least, a balance between cooperation and selfishness ) will be selected in favor, while looking out exclusively for number one will be ostracized because it reduces the fitness of most individuals and of the group as a whole. all of this sounds good, but does it actually work? a recent study published in science by martin nowak, karen page and karl sigmund provides a splendid example of how mathematical evolutionary theory can be applied to ethics, and how in fact social evolution favors fair and cooperative behavior. nowak and coworkers tackled the problem posed by the so - called “ ultimatum game. ” in it, two players are offered the possibility of winning a pot of money, but they have to agree on how to divide it. one of the players, the proposer, makes an offer of a split ( $ 90 for me, $ 10 for you, for example ) to the other player ; the other player, the responder, has the option of accepting or rejecting. if she rejects, the game is over and neither of them gets any money. it is easy to demonstrate that the rational strategy is for the proposer to behave egotistically and to suggest a highly uneven split in which she takes most of the money, and for the responder to accept. the alternative is that neither of them gets anything. however, when real human beings from a variety of cultures and using a panoply of rewards play the game the outcome is invariably a fair share of the prize. this would seem prima facie evidence that the human sense of fair play overwhelms mere rationality and thwarts


variety of cultures and using a panoply of rewards play the game the outcome is invariably a fair share of the prize. this would seem prima facie evidence that the human sense of fair play overwhelms mere rationality and thwarts the rationalistic prediction. on the other hand, it would also provide ayn rand with an argument that most humans are simply stupid, because they don ’ t appreciate the math behind the game. nowak and colleagues, however, simulated the evolution of the game in a situation in which several players get to interact repeatedly. that is, they considered a social situation rather than isolated encounters. if the players have memory of previous encounters ( i. e., each player builds a “ reputation ” in the group ), then the winning strategy is to be fair because people are willing to punish dishonest proposers, which increases their own reputation for fairness and damages the proposer ’ s reputation for the next round. this means that — given the social environment — it is rational to be less selfish toward your neighbors. while we are certainly far from a satisfying mathematical and evolutionary theory of morality, it seems that science does, after all, have something to say about optimal ethical rules. and the emerging picture is one of fairness — not egotism — as the smart choice to make.


contrasting colors are used to indicate various anatomic structures in the human brain, making this high quality model perfect for beginning anatomy studies of the human brain. made of unbreakable vinyl, life - size and anatomically accurate. the human... this basic brain is medially divided, anatomically accurate, life - size and unbreakable! the structures of the brain are shown in one color, providing an introduction to the human nervous system and anatomy of the brain. structures of... this 4 - part brain is medially divided. all structures of the brain are hand - painted, numbered and identified in a product manual. the brain ' s right half can be disassembled into : - frontal with parietal lobes - brain stem with temporal and a very detailed model of the human brain which is medially divided. both halves of this brain can be disassembled into : - frontal with parietal lobes - temporal with occipital lobes - half of brain stem - half of cerebellum this midsagittally sectioned model is an original anatomic cast of a real human brain. the components of the brain ' s left half are : - frontal and parietal lobe - temporal and occipital lobe - encephalic trunk the c29 model shows a rat brain in approx. 6 - fold enlargement. sectioned medially, it can be disassembled into two halves. the right half of the model shows the structures of the cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem, each of which is color - coded for... the spinal cord model illustrates the composition of the spinal cord, magnified to a scale of about 5 : 1. the spinal cord is formed by a central channel surrounded by " gray matter " with an outer layer of " white matter ". the base of... this glass block brain can add a spark to any office setting. modern data and laser technologies make this filigreed masterwork possible! selected 3b models are presented in 3d inside a cube made of high - quality optical glass. an unusually elegant gift... this colorful anatomical chart details the human vegetative nervous system. not only is the function of this part of the nervous system explained on this poster but the role the vegetative nervous system plays in the function of each organ is detailed... item : vr1610uu this anatomical poster of the human nervous system comes in full colorful detail.


allergy tests are used to find the substances that are causing an allergic reaction. an allergic reaction is an immune system response to a substance in the environment known as a trigger. the healthcare professional may perform or order allergy tests on people with suspected allergies. skin testing is usually not done on children younger than age 3. it may be done on older individuals to determine the triggers that are causing allergic reactions in the person. before the procedure, a person should not take medicines, such as antihistamines, that could block a skin reaction and thus cause the test to turn out falsely negative. there are many methods of allergy testing. skin tests are used to identify specific allergens that are known to cause symptoms. the healthcare professional will select skin tests based on a person ' s particular history. test solutions are made from extracts of various inhaled, ingested, or injected substances. test solutions available include extracts from tree, grass, and weed pollens ; dust mites ; animal dander ; insect venoms ; foods ; and penicillin and penicillin derivatives. for the prick skin test, a small amount of the substance thought to cause the allergic reaction is placed on the skin. this substance is called an allergen. the skin is then pricked or scratched. this allows the substance to get under the skin ' s surface. if the person is allergic, the skin will usually get red and swell within about 20 minutes. another skin test is called an intradermal test. a small amount of the allergen is injected beneath the skin. this more sensitive test is often used when the prick test has produced a negative or uncertain result in reaction to suspected inhaled allergens. an elimination diet test may be used to diagnose food allergies. for this test, a person goes several weeks without eating any of the foods that may be causing the problem. foods are returned to the diet one at a time. if allergic symptoms come back after eating a certain food, that food is probably causing the problem. if a specific food is suspected, it can be given to the person under controlled conditions. if a reaction occurs, this food is the likely cause. the best way to test for food allergies is by using an oral food challenge. this test can be used even with small children. the suspected food is removed from the diet. after 4 to 5 days, the food should be eaten on an empty stomach. this is the best time to watch for a reaction. parents can keep a food