validation.jsonl

{"text": "The Independent Jane\nFor all the love, romance and scandal in Jane Austen’s books, what they are really about is freedom and independence. Independence of thought and the freedom to choose.\nElizabeth’s refusal of Mr. Collins offer of marriage showed an independence seldom seen in heroines of the day. Her refusal of Mr. Darcy while triggered by anger showed a level of independence that left him shocked and stunned.\nThe freedom she exhibited in finally accepting him in direct defiance of Lady Catherine and knowing her father would disapprove was unusual even for Austen. In her last book Anne Elliot is persuaded to refuse Captain Wentworth at Lady Russel’s insistence.\nAlthough Jane played by the rules of the day, all of her writing is infused with how she wanted life to be. She ‘screams’ her outrage at the limitations for women in Emma.\nWhen accosted by Mrs. Elton, Jane Fairfax says,\n“Excuse me, ma’am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce something — offices for the sale, not quite of human flesh, but of human intellect.”\n“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition.”\n“I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane; “governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly, as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies.”\nThat same sentiment is emphasized in Emma’s shock when Mrs. Weston tells her of Frank Churchill’s secret engagement to Jane.\n“Good God!” cried Emma, “Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself — to suffer her even to think of such a measure!”\nI find it interesting that at the moment of Austen’s birth or there about, John Adams left his farm in Massachusetts for the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Doesn’t sound particularly interesting, I know but consider this.\nJohn Adams left his home in mid-December 1775 to attend an unprecedented meeting of colonial representatives to consider severing ties with their mother country and her monarch; a decision that culminated in a document unlike any ever written. In the mother country, one day in that same cold December a baby girl was born at Steventon Rectory. Her cry was heard by only the people in the house but the years to come would see her pen create works unlike any the world had ever seen.\nComparing Austen’s words with Thomas Jefferson’s may seem a trivialization but I believe that Austen’s impact on the world is no less important than Jefferson’s. The effect of Jane’s writing maybe more subtle than that of the Virginian but it is no less influential.\nJefferson’s words instigated and promoted a revolution, a war of independence. Jane’s words had no such excessive consequence. Still in her own quiet, genteel yet powerful way she declared and promoted the same principles of freedom and self-regulated independence as our American forefathers. In all her novels Jane advocates independence of person and thought, the rights of all and acceptance of responsibility for those rights.\nJane may not have incited military action as Jefferson did but even as an avowed royalist, I doubt not that Jane Austen firmly believed in his declaration of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."}
{"text": "Taking Play Seriously\nBy ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG\nPublished: February 17, 2008\nOn a drizzly Tuesday night in late January, 200 people came out to hear a psychiatrist talk rhapsodically about play -- not just the intense, joyous play of children, but play for all people, at all ages, at all times. (All species too; the lecture featured touching photos of a polar bear and a husky engaging playfully at a snowy outpost in northern Canada.) Stuart Brown, president of the National Institute for Play, was speaking at the New York Public Library's main branch on 42nd Street. He created the institute in 1996, after more than 20 years of psychiatric practice and research persuaded him of the dangerous long-term consequences of play deprivation. In a sold-out talk at the library, he and Krista Tippett, host of the public-radio program ''Speaking of Faith,'' discussed the biological and spiritual underpinnings of play. Brown called play part of the ''developmental sequencing of becoming a human primate. If you look at what produces learning and memory and well-being, play is as fundamental as any other aspect of life, including sleep and dreams.''\nThe message seemed to resonate with audience members, who asked anxious questions about what seemed to be the loss of play in their children's lives. Their concern came, no doubt, from the recent deluge of eulogies to play . Educators fret that school officials are hacking away at recess to make room for an increasingly crammed curriculum. Psychologists complain that overscheduled kids have no time left for the real business of childhood: idle, creative, unstructured free play. Public health officials link insufficient playtime to a rise in childhood obesity. Parents bemoan the fact that kids don't play the way they themselves did -- or think they did. And everyone seems to worry that without the chance to play stickball or hopscotch out on the street, to play with dolls on the kitchen floor or climb trees in the woods, today's children are missing out on something essential.\nThe success of ''The Dangerous Book for Boys'' -- which has been on the best-seller list for the last nine months -- and its step-by-step instructions for activities like folding paper airplanes is testament to the generalized longing for play's good old days. So were the questions after Stuart Brown's library talk; one woman asked how her children will learn trust, empathy and social skills when their most frequent playing is done online. Brown told her that while video games do have some play value, a true sense of ''interpersonal nuance'' can be achieved only by a child who is engaging all five senses by playing in the three-dimensional world.\nThis is part of a larger conversation Americans are having about play. Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits. Alarming headlines about U.S. students falling behind other countries in science and math, combined with the ever-more-intense competition to get kids into college, make parents rush to sign up their children for piano lessons and test-prep courses instead of just leaving them to improvise on their own; playtime versus r?m?uilding.\nDiscussions about play force us to reckon with our underlying ideas about childhood, sex differences, creativity and success. Do boys play differently than girls? Are children being damaged by staring at computer screens and video games? Are they missing something when fantasy play is populated with characters from Hollywood's imagination and not their own? Most of these issues are too vast to be addressed by a single field of study (let alone a magazine article). But the growing science of play does have much to add to the conversation. Armed with research grounded in evolutionary biology and experimental neuroscience, some scientists have shown themselves eager -- at times perhaps a little too eager -- to promote a scientific argument for play. They have spent the past few decades learning how and why play evolved in animals, generating insights that can inform our understanding of its evolution in humans too. They are studying, from an evolutionary perspective, to what extent play is a luxury that can be dispensed with when there are too many other competing claims on the growing brain, and to what extent it is central to how that brain grows in the first place.\nScientists who study play, in animals and humans alike, are developing a consensus view that play is something more than a way for restless kids to work off steam; more than a way for chubby kids to burn off calories; more than a frivolous luxury. Play, in their view, is a central part of neurological growth and development -- one important way that children build complex, skilled, responsive, socially adept and cognitively flexible brains.\nTheir work still leaves some questions unanswered, including questions about play's darker, more ambiguous side: is there really an evolutionary or developmental need for dangerous games, say, or for the meanness and hurt feelings that seem to attend so much child's play? Answering these and other questions could help us understand what might be lost if children play less."}
{"text": "How do you get HIV?\nHIV can be passed on when infected bodily fluid, such as blood or semen, is passed into an uninfected person. Semen is the liquid which is released from a man's penis during sex which carries sperm. It can be infected with HIV or AIDS when someone is HIV positive or is carrying the AIDS virus. This can happen during unprotected sex. For example when two people have sex without using a condom when one partner is already infected, or between drug users who inject and share needles.\nIt can't be transmitted by things like coughing, sneezing, kissing, sharing a toilet seat, swimming pools, sweat and tears."}
{"text": "CTComms sends on average 2 million emails monthly on behalf of over 125 different charities and not for profits.\nTake the complexity of technology and stir in the complexity of the legal system and what do you get? Software licenses! If you've ever attempted to read one you know how true this is, but you have to know a little about software licensing even if you can't parse all of the fine print.\nBy: Chris Peters\nMarch 10, 2009\nA software license is an agreement between you and the owner of a program which lets you perform certain activities which would otherwise constitute an infringement under copyright law. The software license usually answers questions such as:\nThe price of the software and the licensing fees, if any, are sometimes discussed in the licensing agreement, but usually it's described elsewhere.\nIf you read the definitions below and you're still scratching your head, check out Categories of Free and Non-Free Software which includes a helpful diagram.\nFree vs Proprietary:\nWhen you hear the phrase \"free software\" or \"free software license,\" \"free\" is referring to your rights and permissions (\"free as in freedom\" or \"free as in free speech\"). In other words, a free software license gives you more rights than a proprietary license. You can usually copy, modify, and redistribute free software without paying a fee or obtaining permission from the developers and distributors. In most cases \"free software\" won't cost you anything, but that's not always the case – in this instance the word free is making no assertion whatsoever about the price of the software. Proprietary software puts more restrictions and limits on your legal permission to copy, modify, and distribute the program.\nFree, Open-Source or FOSS?\nIn everyday conversation, there's not much difference between \"free software,\" \"open source software,\" and \"FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software).\" In other words, you'll hear these terms used interchangeably, and the proponents of free software and the supporters of open-source software agree with one another on most issues. However, the official definition of free software differs somewhat from the official definition of open-source software, and the philosophies underlying those definitions differ as well. For a short description of the difference, read Live and Let License. For a longer discussion from the \"free software\" side, read Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software. For the \"open-source\" perspective, read Why Free Software is Too Ambiguous.\nPublic domain and copyleft.\nThese terms refer to different categories of free, unrestricted licensing. A copyleft license allows you all the freedoms of a free software license, but adds one restriction. Under a copyleft license, you have to release any modifications under the same terms as the original software. In effect, this blocks companies and developers who want to alter free software and then make their altered version proprietary. In practice, almost all free and open-source software is also copylefted. However, technically you can release \"free software\" that isn't copylefted. For example, if you developed software and released it under a \"public domain\" license, it would qualify as free software, but it isn't copyleft. In effect, when you release something into the public domain, you give up all copyrights and rights of ownership.\nShareware and freeware.\nThese terms don't really refer to licensing, and they're confusing in light of the discussion of free software above. Freeware refers to software (usually small utilities at sites such as Tucows.com) that you can download and install without paying. However, you don't have the right to view the source code, and you may not have the right to copy and redistribute the software. In other words, freeware is proprietary software. Shareware is even more restrictive. In effect, shareware is trial software. You can use it for a limited amount of time (usually 30 or 60 days) and then you're expected to pay to continue using it.\nEnd User Licensing Agreement (EULA).\nWhen you acquire software yourself, directly from a vendor or retailer, or directly from the vendor's Web site, you usually have to indicate by clicking a box that you accept the licensing terms. This \"click-through\" agreement that no one ever reads is commonly known as a EULA. If you negotiate a large purchase of software with a company, and you sign a contract to seal the agreement, that contract usually replaces or supersedes the EULA.\nMost major vendors of proprietary software offer some type of bulk purchasing and volume licensing mechanism. The terms vary widely, but if you order enough software to qualify, the benefits in terms of cost and convenience are significant. Also, not-for-profits sometimes qualify for it with very small initial purchases.\nSome of the benefits of volume licensing include:\nLower cost. As with most products, software costs less when you buy more of it.\nEase of installation. Without volume licenses, you usually have to enter a separate activation code (also known as a product key or license key) for each installed copy of the program. On the other hand, volume licenses provide you with a single, organisation-wide activation code, which makes it much easier to find when you need to reinstall the software.\nEasier tracking of licenses. Keeping track of how many licenses you own, and how many copies you've actually installed, is a tedious, difficult task. Many volume licensing programs provide an online account which is automatically updated when you obtain or activate a copy of that company's software. These accounts can also coordinate licensing across multiple offices within your organisation.\nTo learn more about volume licensing from a particular vendor, check out some of the resources below:\nQualified not-for-profits and libraries can receive donated volume licenses for Microsoft products through TechSoup. For more information, check out our introduction to the Microsoft Software Donation Program, and the Microsoft Software Donation Program FAQ. For general information about the volume licensing of Microsoft software, see Volume Licensing Overview.\nIf you get Microsoft software from TechSoup or other software distributors who work with not-for-profits, you may need to go to the eOpen Web site to locate your Volume license keys. For more information, check out the TechSoup Donation Recipient's Guide to the Microsoft eOpen Web Site.\nAlways check TechSoup Stock first to see if there's a volume licensing donation program for the software you're interested in. If TechSoup doesn't offer that product or if you need more copies than you can find at TechSoup, search for \"volume licensing not-for-profits software\" or just \"not-for-profits software.\" For example, when we have an inventory of Adobe products, qualifying and eligible not-for-profits can obtain four individual products or one copy of Creative Suite 4 through TechSoup. If we're out of stock, or you've used up your annual Adobe donation, you can also check TechSoup's special Adobe donation program and also Adobe Solutions for Nonprofits for other discounts available to not-for-profits. For more software-hunting tips, see A Quick Guide to Discounted Software Programs.\nPay close attention to the options and licensing requirements when you acquire server-based software. You might need two different types of license – one for the server software itself, and a set of licenses for all the \"clients\" accessing the software. Depending on the vendor and the licensing scenario, \"client\" can refer either to the end users themselves (for example, employees, contractors, clients, and anyone else who uses the software in question) or their computing devices (for example, laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, PDAs, etc.). We'll focus on Microsoft server products, but similar issues can arise with other server applications.\nOver the years, Microsoft has released hundreds of server-based applications, and the licensing terms are slightly different for each one. Fortunately, there are common license types and licensing structures across different products. In other words, while a User CAL (Client Access License) for Windows Server is distinct from a User CAL for SharePoint Server, the underlying terms and rights are very similar. The TechSoup product pages for Microsoft software do a good job of describing the differences between products, so we'll focus on the common threads in this article.\nMoreover, Microsoft often lets you license a single server application in more than one way, depending on the needs of your organisation. This allows you the flexibility to choose the licenses that best reflect your organisation's usage patterns and thereby cost you the least amount of money. For example, for Windows Server and other products you can acquire licenses on a per-user basis (for example, User CALs) or per-device basis (for example, Device CALs).\nThe license required to install and run most server applications usually comes bundled with the software itself. So you can install and run most applications \"out of the box,\" as long as you have the right number of client licenses (see the section below for more on that). However, when you're running certain server products on a computer with multiple processors, you may need to get additional licenses. For example, if you run Windows Server 2008 DataCenter edition on a server with two processors, you need a separate license for each processor. SQL Server 2008 works the same way. This type of license is referred to as a processor license. Generally you don't need client licenses for any application that's licensed this way.\nClient Licenses for Internal Users\nMany Microsoft products, including Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, require client access licenses for all authenticated internal users (for example, employees, contractors, volunteers, etc.). On the other hand, SQL Server 2008 and other products don't require any client licenses. Read the product description at CTXchange if you're looking for the details about licensing a particular application.\nUser CALs: User CALs allow each user access to all the instances of a particular server product in an organisation, no matter which device they use to gain access. In other words, if you run five copies of Windows Server 2008 on five separate servers, you only need one User CAL for each person in your organisation who access those servers (or any software installed on those servers), whether they access a single server, all five servers, or some number in between. Each user with a single CAL assigned to them can access the server software from as many devices as they want (for example, desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, etc.). User CALs are a popular licensing option.\nDevice CALs: Device CALs allow access to all instances of a particular server application from a single device (for example, a desktop computer, a laptop, etc.) in your organisation. Device CALs only make sense when multiple employees use the same computer. For example, in 24-hour call centres different employees on different shifts often use the same machine, so Device CALs make sense in this situation.\nChoosing a licensing mode for your Windows Server CALs: With Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, you use a CAL (either a User CAL or a Device CAL) in one of two licensing modes: per seat or per server. You make this decision when you're installing your Windows Server products, not when you acquire the CALs. The CALs themselves don't have any mode designation, so you can use either a User CAL or a Device CAL in either mode. Per seat mode is the default mode, and the one used most frequently. The description of User CALs and Device CALs above describes the typical per seat mode. In \"per server\" mode, Windows treats each license as a \"simultaneous connection.\" In other words, if you have 40 CALs, Windows will let 40 authenticated users have access. The 41st user will be denied access. However, in per server mode, each CAL is tied to a particular instance of Windows Server, and you have to acquire a new set of licenses for each new server you build that runs Windows. Therefore, per server mode works for some small organisations with one or two servers and limited access requirements.\nYou don't \"install\" client licenses the way you install software. There are ways to automate the tracking of software licenses indirectly, but the server software can't refuse access to a user or device on licensing grounds. The licenses don't leave any \"digital footprint\" that the server software can read. An exception to this occurs when you license Windows Server in per server mode. In this case, if you have 50 licenses, the 51st authenticated user will be denied access (though anonymous users can still access services).\nSome key points to remember about client licensing:\nThe licensing scenarios described in this section arise less frequently, and are too complex to cover completely in this article, so they're described briefly below along with more comprehensive resources.\nYou don't need client licenses for anonymous, unauthenticated external users. In other words, if someone accesses your Web site, and that site runs on Internet Information Server (IIS), Microsoft's Web serving software, you don't need a client license for any of those anonymous users.\nIf you have any authenticated external users who access services on your Windows-based servers, you can obtain CALs to cover their licensing requirements. However, the External Connector License (ECL) is a second option in this scenario. The ECL covers all use by authenticated external users, but it's a lot more expensive than a CAL, so only get one if you'll have a lot of external users. For example, even if you get your licenses through the CTXchange donation program, an ECL for Windows Server 2008 has an £76 administrative fee, while a User CAL for Windows Server 2008 carries a £1 admin fee. If only a handful of external users access your Windows servers, you're better off acquiring User CALs. Also, an ECL only applies to external users and devices. In other words, if you have an ECL, you still have to get a CAL for all employees and contractors.\nEven though Terminal Services (TS) is built into Windows Server 2003 and 2008, you need to get a separate TS CAL for each client (i.e. each user or each device) that will access Terminal Services in your organisation. This TS license is in addition to your Windows Server CALs.\nMicrosoft's System Centre products (a line of enterprise-level administrative software packages) use a special type of license known as a management license (ML). Applications that use this type of licensing include System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and System Center Operations Manager 2007. Any desktop or workstation managed by one of these applications needs a client management license. Any server managed by one of these applications requires a server management license, and there are two types of server management licenses – standard and enterprise. You need one or the other but not both. There are also special licensing requirements if you're managing virtual instances of Windows operating systems. For more information, see TechSoup's Guide to System Center Products and Licensing and Microsoft's white paper on Systems Center licensing.\nSome Microsoft server products have two client licensing modes, standard and enterprise. As you might imagine, an Enterprise CAL grants access to more advanced features of a product. Furthermore, with some products, such as Microsoft Exchange, the licenses are additive. In other words, a user needs both a Standard CAL AND an Enterprise CAL in order to access the advanced features. See Exchange Server 2007 Editions and Client Access Licenses for more information.\nWith virtualisation technologies, multiple operating systems can run simultaneously on a single physical server. Every time you install a Microsoft application, whether on a physical hardware system or a virtual hardware system, you create an \"instance\" of that application. The number of \"instances\" of particular application that you can run using a single license varies from product to product. For more information see the Volume Licensing Briefs, Microsoft Licensing for Virtualization and the Windows Server Virtualization Calculator. For TechSoup Stock products, see the product description for more information.\nThere are a lot of nuances to Microsoft licensing, and also a lot of excellent resources to help you understand different scenarios.\nAbout the Author:\nChris is a former technology writer and technology analyst for TechSoup for Libraries, which aims to provide IT management guidance to libraries. His previous experience includes working at Washington State Library as a technology consultant and technology trainer, and at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as a technology trainer and tech support analyst. He received his M.L.S. from the University of Michigan in 1997.\nOriginally posted here.\nCopyright © 2009 CompuMentor. This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.\nThe latest version of Microsoft Office Professional Plus is an integrated collection of programs, servers, and services designed to work together to enable optimised information work."}
{"text": "Hold the salt: UCLA engineers develop revolutionary new desalination membrane\nProcess uses atmospheric pressure plasma to create filtering 'brush layer'\nDesalination can become more economical and used as a viable alternate water resource.\nBy Wileen Wong Kromhout\nOriginally published in UCLA Newsroom\nResearchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have unveiled a new class of reverse-osmosis membranes for desalination that resist the clogging which typically occurs when seawater, brackish water and waste water are purified.\nThe highly permeable, surface-structured membrane can easily be incorporated into today's commercial production system, the researchers say, and could help to significantly reduce desalination operating costs. Their findings appear in the current issue of the Journal of Materials Chemistry.\nReverse-osmosis (RO) desalination uses high pressure to force polluted water through the pores of a membrane. While water molecules pass through the pores, mineral salt ions, bacteria and other impurities cannot. Over time, these particles build up on the membrane's surface, leading to clogging and membrane damage. This scaling and fouling places higher energy demands on the pumping system and necessitates costly cleanup and membrane replacement.\nThe new UCLA membrane's novel surface topography and chemistry allow it to avoid such drawbacks.\n\"Besides possessing high water permeability, the new membrane also shows high rejection characteristics and long-term stability,\" said Nancy H. Lin, a UCLA Engineering senior researcher and the study's lead author. \"Structuring the membrane surface does not require a long reaction time, high reaction temperature or the use of a vacuum chamber. The anti-scaling property, which can increase membrane life and decrease operational costs, is superior to existing commercial membranes.\"\nThe new membrane was synthesized through a three-step process. First, researchers synthesized a polyamide thin-film composite membrane using conventional interfacial polymerization. Next, they activated the polyamide surface with atmospheric pressure plasma to create active sites on the surface. Finally, these active sites were used to initiate a graft polymerization reaction with a monomer solution to create a polymer \"brush layer\" on the polyamide surface. This graft polymerization is carried out for a specific period of time at a specific temperature in order to control the brush layer thickness and topography.\n\"In the early years, surface plasma treatment could only be accomplished in a vacuum chamber,\" said Yoram Cohen, UCLA professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and a corresponding author of the study. \"It wasn't practical for large-scale commercialization because thousands of meters of membranes could not be synthesized in a vacuum chamber. It's too costly. But now, with the advent of atmospheric pressure plasma, we don't even need to initiate the reaction chemically. It's as simple as brushing the surface with plasma, and it can be done for almost any surface.\"\nIn this new membrane, the polymer chains of the tethered brush layer are in constant motion. The chains are chemically anchored to the surface and are thus more thermally stable, relative to physically coated polymer films. Water flow also adds to the brush layer's movement, making it extremely difficult for bacteria and other colloidal matter to anchor to the surface of the membrane.\n\"If you've ever snorkeled, you'll know that sea kelp move back and forth with the current or water flow,\" Cohen said. \"So imagine that you have this varied structure with continuous movement. Protein or bacteria need to be able to anchor to multiple spots on the membrane to attach themselves to the surface — a task which is extremely difficult to attain due to the constant motion of the brush layer. The polymer chains protect and screen the membrane surface underneath.\"\nAnother factor in preventing adhesion is the surface charge of the membrane. Cohen's team is able to choose the chemistry of the brush layer to impart the desired surface charge, enabling the membrane to repel molecules of an opposite charge.\nThe team's next step is to expand the membrane synthesis into a much larger, continuous process and to optimize the new membrane's performance for different water sources.\n\"We want to be able to narrow down and create a membrane selection system for different water sources that have different fouling tendencies,\" Lin said. \"With such knowledge, one can optimize the membrane surface properties with different polymer brush layers to delay or prevent the onset of membrane fouling and scaling.\n\"The cost of desalination will therefore decrease when we reduce the cost of chemicals [used for membrane cleaning], as well as process operation [for membrane replacement]. Desalination can become more economical and used as a viable alternate water resource.\"\nCohen's team, in collaboration with the UCLA Water Technology Research (WaTeR) Center, is currently carrying out specific studies to test the performance of the new membrane's fouling properties under field conditions.\n\"We work directly with industry and water agencies on everything that we're doing here in water technology,\" Cohen said. \"The reason for this is simple: If we are to accelerate the transfer of knowledge technology from the university to the real world, where those solutions are needed, we have to make sure we address the real issues. This also provides our students with a tremendous opportunity to work with industry, government and local agencies.\"\nA paper providing a preliminary introduction to the new membrane also appeared in the Journal of Membrane Science last month.\nPublished: Thursday, April 08, 2010"}
{"text": "Not Just for Kids\nThe Hunt for Falling Leaves...\nNature's Color on the Ground\nby Mary Catherine Ball\nBeing a reporter, I am always looking for an adventure. Last week, I found one.\nI left work to go on a simple journey, but it turned out to be much more.\nFirst, I crossed a mud-ridden stream. Then, I came face to face with flying creatures, fighting to get near me. I even endured webmakers spinning my hair into a shiny maze.\nWhere did I go? Into the woods, of course. Why? I wanted to gather some fallen leaves.\nMy luck was good that day. I was able to spy lots of different kinds of leaves lying on the ground. Some were leaves I had never seen. Some were still green, while others were changing to their autumn colors.\nHave you ever hunted for leaves? I wonder if you know the names of five of the trees that live in your neighborhood? I bet the answer is no.\nWell, me neither. So I had five of the leaves analyzed. I had found the leaves from an oak, a beech, a sweet gum tree and more.\nNow, I invite you to make this journey.\nNarrow body with pointy edges\nNarrow body with pointy edges\nMay grow berries\nGood for sap & color\n3 distinct leafs\nMay grow nuts\nThis is your task...\nTravel to the deep, dark woods (in the daylight) to find these 5 leaves. Cut out the page and take it with you. Make sure you can match your discovery with mine. Happy leaf-hunting!\nStone Soup October 9 (11:30am)-Enjoy lunch and a show. After you eat peanut butter & jelly, watch Stone Soup, performed by the Lost Caravan. Lunch is at noon; show starts at 12:30. Chesapeake Music Hall, Off Rt. 50 approaching the Bay Bridge: 410/406-0306.\nAll Aboard October 9 & 10 (2pm)-Chug a chug to Zany Brainy for train fun. Listen to stories and sing railroad songs. Build your own trains. Ages 3+. Zany Brainy, Annap. Harb. Ctr.: 410/266-1447.\nTiny Tots Fall for Nature Tues. Oct 12 (10:30am-noon) Three- to five-year-olds (and their adult) hike into the woods to hear autumn stories, gather leaves and make a craft. Bring a bag lunch to enjoy w/apple cider @ King's Landing Park, Huntingtown. $3 rsvp: 800/735-2258.\nSpooky Stories in the Woods Tues. Oct. 12 (10:30-noon)-Hike with a ranger to a clearing in the woods. Listen to autumn stories and drink warm apple cider. Gather leaves to make a craft. Bring a bag lunch. Kings Landing Park, Huntingtown: 410/535-5327.\nMusical Minds Wed. Oct. 13 (4-4:45pm)-Music makes the world go round. So sing, listen to stories and play musical instruments. Ages 2-4. Chesapeake Children's Museum, Festival at Riva. $8.50; rsvp: 410/266-0677.\nNature Designs Deadline Oct. 15-Create your favorite nature scene out of clay or on paper to win prizes. Age categories are 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12 years. Place winners win nature books or statues. All art forms accepted. Take your masterpiece to Wild Bird Center, Annapolis Harbour Center: 410/573-0345.\nTiny Tots get in Touch with Mother Nature Sat. Oct 16 (10-10:30am)\nTiny tots (2-3 w/adult) learn nature by touch, feeling the many different\ntextures rough and soft in the world around us. @ Battle Creek Cypress Swamp,\nPrince Frederick: 800/735-2258.\n| Issue 40 |\nVolume VII Number 40\nOctober 7-13, 1999\nNew Bay Times\n| Homepage |\n| Back to Archives |"}
{"text": "The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft is expected to discover its 1,000TH comet this summer.\nThe SOHO spacecraft is a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency. It has accounted for approximately one-half of all comet discoveries with computed orbits in the history of astronomy.\n\"Before SOHO was launched, only 16 sun grazing comets had been discovered by space observatories. Based on that experience, who could have predicted SOHO would discover more than 60 times that number, and in only nine years,\" said Dr. Chris St. Cyr. He is senior project scientist for NASA's Living With a Star program at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. \"This is truly a remarkable achievement!\"\nAbout 85 percent of the comets SOHO discovered belongs to the Kreutz group of sun grazing comets, so named because their orbits take them very close to Earth's star. The Kreutz sun grazers pass within 500,000 miles of the star's visible surface. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, is about 36 million miles from the solar surface.\nSOHO has also been used to discover three other well-populated comet groups: the Meyer, with at least 55 members; Marsden, with at least 21 members; and the Kracht, with 24 members. These groups are named after the astronomers who suggested the comets are related, because they have similar orbits.\nMany comet discoveries were made by amateurs using SOHO images on the Internet. SOHO comet hunters come from all over the world. The United States, United Kingdom, China, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, and Lithuania are among the many countries whose citizens have used SOHO to chase comets.\nAlmost all of SOHO's comets are discovered using images from its Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument. LASCO is used to observe the faint, multimillion-degree outer atmosphere of the sun, called the corona. A disk in the instrument is used to make an artificial eclipse, blocking direct light from the sun, so the much fainter corona can be seen. Sun grazing comets are discovered when they enter LASCO's field of view as they pass close by the star.\n\"Building coronagraphs like LASCO is still more art than science, because the light we are trying to detect is very faint,\" said Dr. Joe Gurman, U.S. project scientist for SOHO at Goddard. \"Any imperfections in the optics or dust in the instrument will scatter the light, making the images too noisy to be useful. Discovering almost 1,000 comets since SOHO's launch on December 2, 1995 is a testament to the skill of the LASCO team.\"\nSOHO successfully completed its primary mission in April 1998. It has enough fuel to remain on station to keep hunting comets for decades if the LASCO continues to function.\nFor information about SOHO on the Internet, visit:\nExplore further: Long-term warming, short-term variability: Why climate change is still an issue"}
{"text": "Bolivia: Coca-chewing protest outside US embassy\nIndigenous activists in Bolivia have been holding a mass coca-chewing protest as part of campaign to end an international ban on the practice.\nHundreds of people chewed the leaf outside the US embassy in La Paz and in other cities across the country.\nBolivia wants to amend a UN drugs treaty that bans chewing coca, which is an ancient tradition in the Andes.\nBut the US has said it will veto the amendment because coca is also the raw material for making cocaine.\nThe protesters outside the US embassy also displayed products made from coca, including soft drinks, toothpaste, sweets and ointments.\nThey were supporting a Bolivian government campaign to amend the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs to remove language that bans the chewing of coca leaf.\nThe convention stipulates that coca-chewing be eliminated within 25 years of the convention coming into effect in 1964.\nBolivia says that is discriminatory, given that coca use is so deeply rooted in the indigenous culture of the Andes.Eradication\nThe US is opposed to changing the UN convention because it says it would weaken the fight against cocaine production.\nIn a statement, the US embassy said Washington recognised coca-chewing as a \"traditional custom\" of Bolivia's indigenous peoples but could not support the amendment.\n\"The position of the US government in not supporting the amendment is based on the importance of maintaining the integrity of the UN convention, which is an important tool in the fight against drug-trafficking,\" it said.\nThe US is the world's largest consumer of cocaine and has been leading efforts to eradicate coca production in the Andes for decades.\nBolivia is the world's first biggest producer of cocaine after Peru and Colombia, and much of its coca crop is used to make the illegal drug.\nBolivian President Evo Morales has long advocated the recognition of coca as a plant of great medicinal, cultural and religious importance that is distinct from cocaine.\nAs well as being Bolivia's first indigenous head of state, Mr Morales is also a former coca-grower and leader of a coca-growers trade union.\nThe Bolivian amendment would come into effect on 31 January only if there were no objections."}
{"text": "Breaking the COX code\nUsing the team approach\nEditor’s Note: This story, first published in 2004, has been updated.\nProstaglandins, which were first isolated from the prostate gland in 1936, are very rapidly metabolized, or broken down, making measurement in the blood difficult. Researchers at Vanderbilt led by John Oates, M.D., developed methods for measuring levels of prostaglandin metabolites (breakdown products) in the urine using mass spectrometry.\nUsing this technique, the research team—which by the late 1970s included L. Jackson Roberts, M.D.—identified prostaglandin D2 as a product of the human mast cell and demonstrated its release during allergic asthma.\nWith colleagues including Garret A. FitzGerald, M.D., now chair of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania, Oates and Roberts showed that low doses of aspirin blocked the production of thromboxane, a prostaglandin made by platelets that causes blood clotting and constriction of blood vessels. Their findings supported the use of low dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks.\nIn the early 1990s, Vanderbilt researchers led by Ray DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., discovered a link between the COX-2 enzyme and colon cancer. That work helped lead to current tests of COX-2 inhibitors as a potential way to prevent cancer.\nIn 2004 another group led by the late Jason Morrow, M.D., and David H. Johnson, M.D., director of the Hematology-Oncology division at Vanderbilt, reported that urine levels of a prostaglandin metabolite called PGE-M could predict the effectiveness of a COX-2 inhibitor in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. This suggests, Morrow said in 2004, “that the measurement of these inflammatory ‘mediators’ and their suppression may be useful in the treatment of lung cancer.”\nCOX enzymes also may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to prostaglandins, the COX pathway can lead to the production of highly reactive molecular compounds called levuglandins, which, in turn, can form “adducts,” or irreversible attachments to proteins that may be toxic to nerve cells.\nAlso in 2004, Oates and his colleagues at Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins University reported that they found a 12-fold increase in the level of adducts in the brains of patients who had Alzheimer’s disease compared to age-matched control brains.\n“These are the first clear data showing that COX products are elevated in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” says Oates, Thomas F. Frist Professor of Medicine and professor of Pharmacology.\nVanderbilt currently is participating in a national trial to see if long-term use of COX inhibitors will reduce the incidence of the disease."}
{"text": "Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.\n2012 June 23\nExplanation: As seen from Frösön island in northern Sweden the Sun did set a day after the summer solstice. From that location below the arctic circle it settled slowly behind the northern horizon. During the sunset's final minute, this remarkable sequence of 7 images follows the distorted edge of the solar disk as it just disappears against a distant tree line, capturing both a green and blue flash. Not a myth even in a land of runes, the colorful but elusive glints are caused by atmospheric refraction enhanced by long, low, sight lines and strong atmospheric temperature gradients.\nAuthors & editors:\nJerry Bonnell (UMCP)\nNASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.\nA service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC\n& Michigan Tech. U."}
{"text": "Network With Us\nJoin us on Facebook to get the latest news and updates.\nLauren Boulden's Story\nUsing Think-Alouds to Get Inside Langston Hughes' Head\nOver my past few years of teaching, there have been multiple occasions where I have been stumped on how to present a particular concept to my students. I've always been able to turn to ReadWriteThink.org for hands-on, engaging lessons. For example, I knew I wanted my students to develop their skills when it came to interacting with text, particularly with poetry. While searching through the myriad options on ReadWriteThink, I came upon \"Building Reading Comprehension Through Think-Alouds.\"\nAt first, I planned to use the lesson exactly as written: Read Langston Hughes's poem \"Dream Variation\" and model a think-aloud with students; then have the students try their hand at some think-alouds using other poetry. After working out all of the details, I realized I could develop some additional skills, which would fit perfectly into the scope and sequence of my class. After completing the think-aloud to \"Dream Variation,\" I broke students into selected groups. Each group was given a different Langston Hughes poem and asked to complete a think-aloud. The next day, the students were put into a new jigsaw group where they were solely responsible for sharing what their Langston Hughes poem conveyed. Based on the meanings behind their group mates' poems, along with using the knowledge of both their poem and \"Dream Variation,\" students were asked to figure out who Langston Hughes was as a man. What did he stand for? What were his beliefs? What did he want out of life? Students used clues from the various poems to fill in a head-shaped graphic organizer to depict their understanding of who Hughes could be. This simple lesson of working with poems and think-alouds turned into a few days of group communication, text deciphering, inferences, and even an author study!\nWithout great lessons available on ReadWriteThink.org, such as \"Building Reading Comprehension Through Think-Alouds,\" my students would never have been able to tackle so many key reading strategies in such a short amount of time.\nGrades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson\nStudents learn components of think-alouds and type-of-text interactions through teacher modeling. In the process, students develop the ability to use think-alouds to aid in reading comprehension tasks.\nLauren describes how she used ReadWriteThink in her classroom.\nI have been teaching seventh- and eighth-grade language arts in Delaware for the past five years. I grew up in Long Island, New York, but have called Delaware my home since completing my undergraduate and master’s work at the University of Delaware. Teaching and learning have become my prime passions in life, which is why my days are spent teaching English, directing plays, organizing the school newspaper, and teaching yoga in the evenings."}
{"text": "King James II of England (who was also James VII of Scotland) inherited the throne in 1685 upon the death of his brother, Charles II. James II was unpopular because of his attempts to increase the power of the monarchy and restore the Catholic faith. Deposed in the \"Glorious Revolution\" of 1688-89, he fled to France. His daughter and son-in-law succeeded him as Queen Mary II and King William III. James II died in 1701.\nUnless otherwise noted, these books are for sale at Amazon.com. Your purchase through these links will help to support the continued operation and improvement of the Royalty.nu site.\nJames II by John Miller. Biography from the Yale English Monarchs series.\nJames II: The Triumph and the Tragedy by John Callow. Charts James' life using little-known material from the UK National Archives. Includes James' own description of the Battle of Edgehill, his reasons for his conversion to Catholicism, and his correspondence with William of Orange.\nA Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689-1718 by Edward Corp. After James II was deposed, he established his court in France. The book describes his court and the close relationships between the British and French royal families.\nKing in Exile: James II: Warrior, King and Saint by John Callow. Reassesses James's strategy for dealing with his downfall and exile, presenting a portrait of a man who planned for great political rewards and popular acclaim.\nJames II and the Trial of the Seven Bishops by William Gibson. The trial of seven bishops in 1688 was a prelude to the Glorious Revolution, as popular support for the bishops led to widespread welcome for William of Orange's invasion.\nThe Making of King James II by John Callow is about the formative years of the fallen king. Out of print, but sometimes available from Alibris.\nThe Countess and the King: A Novel of the Countess of Dorchester and King James II by Susan Holloway Scott. Novel about Katherine Sedley, a royal mistress forced to make the most perilous of choices: to remain loyal to the king, or to England.\nThe Crown for a Lie by Jane Lane. Novel about how James II lost his throne. Out of print, but sometimes available from Alibris."}
{"text": "RWJF Priority: Use pricing strategies—both incentives and disincentives—to promote the purchase of healthier foods\nPrices can significantly affect family food choices and are emerging as an important strategy in the movement to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic. For example, when healthy foods like fruits and vegetables are more affordable, children are less likely to gain excess weight. And leading health authorities, including the Institute of Medicine, recommend new policies to reduce overconsumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, which are one of the top sources of calories in the American diet.\nThe resources below, from RWJF grantees and partners, explore the possible health and economic impacts of using pricing strategies to promote consumption of healthy foods and beverages and discourage consumption of unhealthy products."}
{"text": "This section provides primary sources that document how Indian and European men and one English and one Indian woman have described the practice of sati, or the self-immolation of Hindu widows.\nAlthough they are all critical of self-immolation, Francois Bernier, Fanny Parks, Lord William Bentinck, and Rev. England present four different European perspectives on the practice of sati and what it represents about Indian culture in general, and the Hindu religion and Hindu women in particular. They also indicate increasing negativism in European attitudes toward India and the Hindu religion in general. It would be useful to compare the attitudes of Bentinck and England as representing the secular and sacred aspects of British criticism of sati. A comparison of Bentinck’s minute with the subsequent legislation also reveals differences in tone between private and public documents of colonial officials. Finally, a comparison between the Fanny Parks and the three men should raise discussion on whether or not the gender and social status of the writer made any difference in his or her appraisal of the practice of self-immolation.\nThe three sources by Indian men and one by an Indian woman illustrate the diversity of their attitudes toward sati. The Marathi source illuminates the material concerns of relatives of the Hindu widow who is urged to adopt a son, so as to keep a potentially lucrative office within the extended family. These men are willing to undertake intense and delicate negotiations to secure a suitably related male child who could be adopted. This letter also documents that adoption was a legitimate practice among Hindus, and that Hindu women as well as men could adopt an heir. Ram Mohan Roy’s argument illustrates a rationalist effort to reform Hindu customs with the assistance of British legislation. Roy illustrates one of the many ways in which Indians collaborate with British political power in order to secure change within Indian society. He also enabled the British to counter the arguments of orthodox Hindus about the scriptural basis for the legitimacy of self-immolation of Hindu widows. The petition of the orthodox Hindu community in Calcutta, the capital of the Company’s territories in India, documents an early effort of Indians to keep the British colonial power from legislating on matters pertaining to the private sphere of Indian family life. Finally, Pandita Ramabai reflects the ways in which ancient Hindu scriptures and their interpretation continued to dominate debate. Students should consider how Ramabai’s effort to raise funds for her future work among child widows in India might have influenced her discussion of sati.\nTwo key issues should be emphasized. First, both Indian supporters and European and Indian opponents of the practice of self-immolation argue their positions on the bodies of Hindu women, and all the men involved appeal to Hindu scriptures to legitimate their support or opposition. Second, the voices of Indian women were filtered through the sieve of Indian and European men and a very few British women until the late 19th century.\n- How do the written and visual sources portray the Hindu women who commit self-immolation? Possible aspects range from physical appearance and age, motivation, evidence of physical pain (that even the most devoted woman must suffer while burning to death), to any evidence of the agency or autonomy of the Hindu widow in deciding to commit sati. Are any differences discernible, and if so, do they seem related to gender or nationality of the observer or time period in which they were observed?\n- How are the brahman priests who preside at the self-immolation portrayed in Indian and European sources? What might account for any similarities and differences?\n- What reasons are used to deter Hindu widows from committing sati? What do these reasons reveal about the nature of family life in India and the relationships between men and women?\n- What do the reasons that orthodox Hindus provide to European observers and to Indian reformers reveal about the significance of sati for the practice of the Hindu religion? What do their arguments reveal about orthodox Hindu attitudes toward women and the family?\n- How are Hindu scriptures used in various ways in the debates before and after the prohibition of sati?\n- What is the tone of the petition from 800 Hindus to their British governor? Whom do they claim to represent? What is their justification for the ritual of self-immolation? What is their attitude toward the Mughal empire whose Muslim rulers had preceded the British? What is their characterization of the petitioners toward those Hindus who support the prohibition on sati? How do the petitioners envision the proper relationship between the state and the practice of religion among its subjects?\n- Who or what factors do European observers, British officials, and Indian opponents of sati hold to be responsible for the continuance of the practice of sati?\n- What were the reasons that widows gave for committing sati? Were they religious, social or material motives? What is the evidence that the widows were voluntarily committing sati before 1829? What reasons did the opponents of sati give for the decisions of widows to commit self-immolation? What reasons did opponents give for widows who tried to escape from their husbands’ pyres?\n- What are the reasons that Lord Bentinck and his Executive Council cite for their decision to declare the practice of sati illegal? Are the arguments similar to or different from his arguments in his minute a month earlier? What do these reasons reveal about British attitudes toward their role or mission in India? Do they use any of the arguments cited by Ram Mohan Roy or Pandita Ramabai?\n- What do these sources, both those who oppose sati and those who advocate it, reveal about their attitudes to the Hindu religion in particular and Indian culture in general?"}
{"text": "March 30, 2012\nCDC Releases New Report on Autism Prevalence in U.S.\nResearchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health contributed to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that estimates the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) as affecting 1 in 88 U.S. children overall, and 1 in 54 boys.\nThis is the third such report by the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM), which has used the same surveillance methods for more than a decade. Previous ADDM reports estimated the rate of ASDs at 1 in 110 children in the 2009 report that looked at data from 2006, and 1 in 150 children in the 2007 report, which covered data from 2002. The current prevalence estimate, which analyzed data from 2008, represents a 78 percent increase since 2002, and a 23 percent increase since 2006.\nASDs include diagnoses of autistic disorder, Asperger disorder, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). ASDs encompass a wide spectrum of conditions, all of which affect communication, social and behavioral skills. The causes of these developmental disorders are not completely understood, although studies show that both environment and genetics play an important and complex role. There is no known cure for ASDs, but studies have shown that behavioral interventions, particularly those begun early in a child’s life, can greatly improve learning and skills.\nThe latest CDC report, “Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders – Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 14 Sites, United States, 2008,” provides autism prevalence estimates from different areas of the United States, including Maryland. The purpose of the report is to provide high-quality data on the extent and distribution of ASDs in the U.S. population, to promote better planning for health and educational services, and to inform the further development of research on the causes, progression, and treatments.\n“We continue observing increases in prevalence since the inception of the project in 2000,” said Li-Ching Lee, PhD, a psychiatric epidemiologist with the Bloomberg School\"s Departments of Epidemiology and Mental Health and the principal investigator for the prevalence project’s Maryland site. “In Maryland, we found 27 percent of children with ASDs were never diagnosed by professionals. So, we know there are more children out there and we may see the increase continue in coming years.”\nThe new report, which focuses on 8-year-olds because that is an age where most children with ASD have been identified, shows that the number of those affected varies widely among the 14 participating states, with Utah having the the highest overall rate (1 in 47) and Alabama the lowest (1 in 210). Across all sites, nearly five times as many boys as girls are affected. Additionally, growing numbers of minority children are being diagnosed, with a 91 percent increase among black non-Hispanic children and a 110 percent increase for Hispanic children. Researchers say better screening and diagnosis may contribute to those increases among minority children.\nThe overall rate in Maryland is 1 in 80 children; 1 in 49 boys and 1 in 256 girls. In Maryland, the prevalence has increased 85 percent from 2002 to 2008. The increase was 41 percent between 2004 and 2008, and 35 percent between 2006 and 2008.\nThe data were gathered through collaboration with the Maryland State Department of Education and participating schools in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Cecil, Harford and Howard counties, as well as clinical sources such as Kennedy Krieger Institute, Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, and University of Maryland Medical System.\nWhile the report focuses on the numbers, its authors acknowledge that the reasons for the increase are not completely understood and that more research is needed. They note that the increase is likely due in part to a broadened definition of ASDs, greater awareness among the public and professionals, and the way children receive services in their local communities. “It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to tease these factors apart to quantify how much each of these factors contributed to the increase,” Dr. Lee said.\nBut whatever the cause, “This report paints a picture of the magnitude of the condition across our country and helps us understand how communities identify children with autism. One thing the data tell us with certainty – there are more children and families that need help,” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH.\nResearchers also identified the median age of ASD diagnosis, documented in records. In Maryland, that age was 5 years and 6 months, compared with 4 years, 6 months nationally. Across all sites, children who have autistic disorder tend to be identified earlier, while those with Asperger Disorder tend to be diagnosed later. Given the importance of early intervention, ADDM researchers carefully track at what age children receive an ASD diagnosis.\n“Unfortunately, most children still are not diagnosed until after they reach age 4. We’ve heard from too many parents that they were concerned long before their child was diagnosed. We are working hard to change that,” said Coleen Boyle, PhD, MSHyg, director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.\nTo see the full report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6103a1.htm?s_cid=ss6103a1_w\nTo the Community Report with state statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/documents/ADDM-2012-Community-Report.pdf\nMedia contact for Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Natalie Wood-Wright at 410-614-6029 or email@example.com"}
{"text": "- Yes, this is a good time to plant native grass seed in the ground. You may have to supplement with irrigation if the rains stop before the seeds have germinated and made good root growth.\n- Which grasses should I plant? The wonderful thing about California is that we have so many different ecosystems; the challenging thing about California is that we have so many different ecosystems. It’s impossible for us to know definitively which particular bunchgrasses used to grow or may still grow at your particular site, but to make the best guesses possible, we recommend the following:\n- Bestcase scenario is to have bunchgrasses already on the site that you can augment through proper mowing or grazing techniques.\n- Next best is to have a nearby site with native bunchgrasses and similar elevation, aspect, and soils, that you can use as a model.\n- After that, go to sources such as our pamphlet Distribution of Native Grasses of California, by Alan Beetle, $7.50.\n- Also reference local floras of your area, available through the California Native Plant Society.\nContainer growing: We grow seedlings in pots throughout the season, but ideal planning for growing your own plants in pots is to sow six months before you want to put them in the ground. Though restorationists frequently use plugs and liners (long narrow containers), and they may be required for large areas, we prefer growing them the horticultural way: first in flats, then transplanting into 4\" pots, and when they are sturdy little plants, into the ground. Our thinking is that since they are not tap-rooted but fibrous-rooted (one of their main advantages as far as deep erosion control is concerned) square 4\" pots suit them, and so far our experiences have borne this out.\nIn future newsletters, we will be reporting on the experiences and opinions of Marin ranchers Peggy Rathmann and John Wick, who are working with UC Berkeley researcher Wendy Silver on a study of carbon sequestration and bunchgrasses. So far, it’s very promising. But more on that later. For now, I’ll end with a quote from Peggy, who grows, eats, nurtures, lives, and sleeps bunchgrasses, for the health of their land and the benefit of their cows.\n“It takes a while. But it’s so worth it.”"}
{"text": "I’m struggling a bit to teach my children to pack for themselves. I want them to learn how to be self-reliant, but I also want to make sure they have everything they need for the day. If I don’t triple check every detail, they’re likely to be fully prepared for snack time but missing important papers or sports equipment. What’s the right thing to do?\nYour desire to raise self-reliant children is fantastic. But there’s no doubt that passing the baton can be tough. The first question has to be: how old are your children? A good general rule of thumb is, if they’re old enough to read, they’re old enough to pack their own bags. Assuming your little ones are old enough, the most effective thing to do is give them some time frame to take complete responsibility for getting themselves ready, ask questions to help prompt them if you think they aren’t paying attention to something crucial, and most importantly, when things aren’t crucial (e.g. do they have the right uniform packed), letting them fail. Nothing teaches quite like experience. As you let go of the reigns a bit, here are some more ideas to guide you.\n• Planning Starts the Night Before. Mornings are not the right time to teach your children how to pack themselves. You’re rushed, and they’re often bleary-eyed and grumpy. The ideal time to sit down with them, explain what you are trying to accomplish, and get them to start preparing for the next day is after homework but before TV time. That way you have time to ask them questions and offer un-stressed help in the initial stages. This is a process that will take time and spending time in the evenings helping them learn how to become responsible for themselves is time well spent.\n• Explain as You Go. You need to develop a checklist with them and then go through the items. Don’t criticize or watch over the task being done. Accept that the task will not be done exactly the way you would do it but recognize that as long as it is accomplished and done on time, that it is okay. In the beginning, be prepared to patiently ask and answer a lot of questions! Why do emergency numbers need to be in the backpacks? Because you might need to call someone. Why does lunch have to be prepared? So that mom knows they are eating healthy and, besides, too much sugar will make them feel bad, Why do you keep asking about permission slips or projects that need to go with them? Because it’s important they do not miss out on something the rest of the class is doing. This is just a primer but you get the idea.\n• Provide Feedback. Once the task has been completed, give constructive feedback to the person. As a guideline, tell your son or daughter five great things about the job for every one criticism. If after some time you notice they are consistently sloppy or forgetful, be patient but firm and make sure there are consequences for actions."}
{"text": "Newegg.com - A great place to buy computers, computer parts, electronics, software, accessories, and DVDs online. With great prices, fast shipping, and top-rated customer service - once you know, you Newegg.\nIf you are reading this message, Please click this link to reload this page.(Do not use your browser's \"Refresh\" button). Please email us if you're running the latest version of your browser and you still see this message.\nTable of contents\nBluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless data transfer. Bluetooth connectivity is often found in high-end keyboards and mice. Bluetooth generally provide an operating range of up to 30 feet and is less prone to interference in comparison to RF technology.\nDPI and FPS\nDPI (dots per inch) and FPS (frames per second) are the number of counts in an inch of movement and the number of times the sensor reads the surface in a second respectively. These figures are measures of the amount of information recorded by the mouse's sensor. The greater the amount of information that is gathered, the more accurately and precisely the surface can be tracked. To detect movement, optical and laser mice use sensors to read beams of light as they are reflected from the tracking surface.\nCurrently 400 and 800 DPI optical mice as well as 800 DPI laser mice are very popular, but some high-end models are capable of 1000, 1600 or even 2000 DPI tracking speeds.\nThe Personal System/2 or PS/2 was the designation for IBM's second generation of personal computers. The PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports were introduced with it. PS/2 ports connect the keyboard and mouse to a computer and are usually color-coded on today's systems - purple for keyboards and green for mice. Most desktop motherboards still provide PS/2 ports, but an increasing number of keyboards and mice are using USB ports.\nRadio Frequency (RF) is a wireless communication technology. Using RF technology allows keyboards and mice to computers without annoying cables.\nThe USB (Universal Serial Bus) port is a popular I/O interface used for connecting computers and peripherals or other devices. It is capable of supporting up to 127 daisy-chained peripheral devices simultaneously. The latest USB 2.0 specification can deliver 480Mbps data transfer bandwidth. In addition, USB provides plug-and-play capabilities to allow device changes while the computer is powered on. Today, many keyboard and mice use the USB interface."}
{"text": "exactly located (exactlyLocated)\nThe actual, minimal location of an\nObject. This is a subrelation of the more general Predicate\nSUMO / BASE-ONTOLOGY\nRelated WordNet synsets\n- the precise location of something; a spatially limited location; \"she walked to a point where she could survey the whole street\"\nAgar obj is partly located in region, to yah kuch subobj nahin, ki subobj is a part of obj aur subobj is exactly located in region.\n(partlyLocated ?OBJ ?REGION)\n(part ?SUBOBJ ?OBJ)\n(exactlyLocated ?SUBOBJ ?REGION))))\nAgar obj is exactly located in region, to yah kuch otherobj nahin, ki otherobj is exactly located in region aur otherobj is not equal to obj.\n(exactlyLocated ?OBJ ?REGION)\n(exactlyLocated ?OTHEROBJ ?REGION)\n(equal ?OTHEROBJ ?OBJ))))))\n\"thing ki jagah time tha\" is equal to region agar hai thing is exactly located in region during time.\n(WhereFn ?THING ?TIME)\n(exactlyLocated ?THING ?REGION)))"}
{"text": "Reishiki - the external expression of respect\nIn Iaido dojo you will practice with a wooden sword (Bokken), or a training sword (Iaito), or even a real Japanese sword with a cutting blade (Katana). There will be numerous people practicing, all in one room. Following the rules of etiquette ensures that no one gets injured. Also, following the rules of etiquette enhances practice in other ways. The teacher can more quickly determine skill levels when students line up in the order of rank. The ceremonial bowing serves as a concentration and focusing point; when bowing, practitioners shows respect for others. Maintaining observant silence allows students to focus their attention and practice reading body language. Cleaning the dojo after practice leaves it ready for the next group.\nAlways remember, reishiki comes from the heart and without sincere respect it will be only an empty gestures.\n- Be on time.\n- Do not make class wait.\n- Finger and toe nails must be cut short and all jewelry removed.\n- Remove shoes before entering.\n- A sword should be untied and held in the right hand.\n- Step directly in to the dojo.\n- Do not block doorway.\n- Stop and bow to Shinzen.\n- Avoid drawing or pointing a sword toward Shinzen.\n- Before practice, be sure your sword is in proper shape.\n- Check the Mekugi.\n- Place it at Shimoza (opposite side of room from shinzen) with the Ha to the wall.\n- Never touch a sword without the owner's permission.\n- Do not knock or step over any sword.\n- The floor must be cleared and swept.\n- Leave the Dojo ready for those who practice after you.\n- Eating, drinking, and smoking are not allowed on the Dojo floor.\n- When on the practice floor do not have private conversations other than iaido related subjects.\n- Tell the teacher of any injuries or problems, or of having to leave early.\n- Do not leave without permission.\n- Do not speak when teacher is speaking.\n- Thank the teacher.\n- Show respect to other iaidoka (students)\n- Do not draw directly towards others.\n- Do not do anything that may distract or injure a fellow practitioner or spectator."}
{"text": "- Enter a word for the dictionary definition.\nFrom The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:\nNectarine \\Nec`tar*ine\"\\ (n[e^]k`t[~e]r*[=e]n\"), n. [Cf. F. nectarine. See Nectar.] (Bot.) A smooth-skinned variety of peach. [1913 Webster] Spanish nectarine, the plumlike fruit of the West Indian tree Chrysobalanus Icaco; -- also called cocoa plum. It is made into a sweet conserve which is largely exported from Cuba. [1913 Webster]"}
{"text": "Throughout life there are many times when outside influences change or influence decision-making. The young child has inner motivation to learn and explore, but as he matures, finds outside sources to be a motivating force for development, as well. Along with being a beneficial influence, there are moments when peer pressure can overwhelm a child and lead him down a challenging path. And, peer pressure is a real thing – it is not only observable, but changes the way the brain behaves.\nAs a young adult, observational learning plays a part in development through observing and then doing. A child sees another child playing a game in a certain way and having success, so the observing child tries the same behavior. Albert Bandura was a leading researcher in this area. His famous bobo doll studies found that the young child is greatly influenced by observing other’s actions. When a child sees something that catches his attention, he retains the information, attempts to reproduce it, and then feels motivated to continue the behavior if it is met with success.\nObservational learning and peer pressure are two different things – one being the observing of behaviors and then the child attempting to reproduce them based on a child’s own free will. Peer pressure is the act of one child coercing another to follow suit. Often the behavior being pressured is questionable or taboo, such as smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.\nPeer Pressure and the Brain\nRecent studies find that peer pressure influences the way our brains behave, which leads to better understanding about the impact of peer pressure and the developing child. According to studies from Temple University, peer pressure has an effect on brain signals involved in risk and reward department, especially when the teen’s friends are around. Compared to adults in the study, teenagers were much more likely to take risks they would not normally take on their own when with friends. Brain signals were more activated in the reward center of the brain, firing greatest during at risk behaviors.\nPeer pressure can be difficult for young adults to deal with, and learning ways to say “no” or avoid pressure-filled situations can become overwhelming. Resisting peer pressure is not just about saying “no,” but how the brain functions. Children that have stronger connections among regions in their frontal lobes, along with other areas of the brain, are better equipped to resist peer pressure. During adolescence, the frontal lobes of the brain develop rapidly, causing axioms in the region to have a coating of fatty myelin, which insulates them and causes the frontal lobes to more effectively communicate with other brain regions. This helps the young adult to develop judgment and self-control needed to resist peer pressure.\nAlong with the frontal lobes contributing to the brain and peer pressure, other studies find that the prefrontal cortex plays a role in how teens respond to peer pressure. Just as with the previous study, children that were not exposed to peer pressure had greater connectivity within the brain as well as abilities to resist peer pressure.\nWorking through Peer Pressure\nThe teenage years are exciting years. The young adult is often going through physical changes due to puberty, adjusting to new friends and educational environments, and learning how to make decisions for themselves. Adults can offer a helping and supportive hand to young adults when dealing with peer pressure by considering the following:\nSeparation: Understanding that this is a time for the child to separate and learn how to be his own individual is important. It is hard to let go and allow the child to make mistakes for himself, especially when you want to offer input or change plans and actions, but allowing the child to go down his own path is important. As an adult, offering a helping hand if things go awry and being there to offer support is beneficial.\nTalk it Out: As an adult, take a firm stand on rules and regulations with your child. Although you cannot control whom your child selects as friends, you can take a stand on your control of your child. Setting specific goals, rules, and limits encourages respect and trust, which must be earned in response. Do not be afraid to start talking with your child early about ways to resist peer pressure. Focus on how it will build your child’s confidence when he learns to say “no” at the right time and reassure him that it can be accomplished without feeling guilty or losing self-confidence.\nStay Involved: Keep family dinner as a priority, make time each week for a family meeting or game time, and plan family outings and vacations regularly. Spending quality time with kids models positive behavior and offers lots of opportunities for discussions about what is happening at school and with friends.\nIf at any time there are concerns a child is becoming involved in questionable behavior due to peer pressure, ask for help. Understand that involving others in helping a child cope with peer pressure, such as a family doctor, youth advisor, or other trusted friend, does not mean that the adult is not equipped to properly help the child, but that including others in assisting a child, that may be on the brink of heading down the wrong path, is beneficial.\nBy Sarah Lipoff. Sarah is an art educator and parent. Visit Sarah’s website here.\nRead More →"}
{"text": "Ptosis Correction Surgery:\nPtosis Correction Surgery India offers information on Ptosis Correction Surgery in India, Ptosis Correction Surgery cost India, Ptosis Correction Surgery hospital in India, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad & Bangalore, Ptosis Correction Surgeon in India.\nPtosis is the medical term for drooping of the upper eyelid, a condition that may affect one or botheyes.\nThe ptosis may be mild - in which the lid partially covers the pupil; or severe - in which the lid completely covers the pupil.\nWhen does Ptosis occur?\nPtosis can occur at any age. When present since birth it is called congenital ptosis. When present in the elderly it is called acquired ptosis.\nWhat causes Ptosis?\nWhile the cause of congenital ptosis is often unclear, the most common reason is improper development of the levator muscle. The levator muscle is the major muscle responsible for elevating the upper eyelid. In adults ptosis is generally due to weakening / dehiscence of the levator muscle. It may also occur following injury to the muscle as after lid injuries and eye surgeries. Rarely it may be due to myasthenia gravis ( a condition where there is progressive weakness of muscles).\nWhy should Ptosis be treated?\nChildren with significant ptosis may need to tilt their head back into a chin-up position, lift their eyelid with a finger, or raise their eyebrows in an effort to see from under their drooping eyelid. Children with congenital ptosis may also have amblyopia (\"lazy eye\"), strabismus or squint (eyes that are not properly aligned or straight), refractive errors, astigmatism, or blurred vision. In addition, drooping of the eyelid may result in an undesired facial appearance and difficult social life. In moderate ptosis there is a loss of the upper field of vision by the drooping upper lid.\nHow is Ptosis treated?\nThe eye condition Ptosis is trated by a specified sugery called ptosis surgery.\nPtosis is treated surgically, with the specific operation based on the severity of the ptosis and the strength of the levator muscle. If the ptosis is not severe, surgery is generally performed when the child is between 3 and 5 years of age (the \"pre-school\" years). However, when the ptosis interferes with the child's vision, surgery is performed at an earlier age to allow proper visual development. Ptosis repair is usually completed under general anesthesia in infants and young children and under local anesthesia in adults.\nWhat to expect after surgery ?\nMost patients will tolerate the procedure very well and have a rapid recovery. Cold packs may need to be applied to the operated eyelid for the first 48 hours following surgery. Antibiotic ointments applied to the incision are sometimes recommended. The elevation of the eyelid will often be immediately noticeable, though in some cases bruising and swelling will obscure this finding. Most patients will have sutures that need removing about a week following surgery. In children, absorbable sutures are often used.\nThe bruising and swelling associated with the surgery will usually resolve in two to three weeks. Some patients may need adjustment of the sutures to better align the lid height. This may or may not require additional anaesthesia or a trip to the operating room.\nIndia Surgery Ptosis,Ptosis Correction, India Cost Price Ptosis, Ptosis Correction Surgery, Ptosis Correction, India Ptosis Correction Surgery, India Cost Ptosis Correction Surgery, Low Cost Mechanical Ptosis Correction Mumbai,, India Low Cost Ptosis Correction Surgery Hospital, Affordable Ptosis Correction Hospital Mumbai, Health Care, Ptosis Corrective Surgery, Eyelid Surgery, Drooping, Treatment On Ptosis Correction Surgery, India Ptosis Correction Surgery Surgeons, Ptosis Correction Surgery Doctors\nCall: + 91 9029304141 (10 am. To 8 pm. IST)\nEmail : email@example.com (Preferred)\n(Only for international patients seeking treatment in India)"}
{"text": "Vol. 17 Issue 6\nOne-Legged (Single Limb) Stance Test\nThe One-Legged Stance Test (OLST)1,2 is a simple, easy and effective method to screen for balance impairments in the older adult population.\nYou may be asking yourself, \"how can standing on one leg provide you with any information about balance, after all, we do not go around for extended periods of time standing on one leg?\"\nTrue, as a rule we are a dynamic people, always moving, our world always in motion, but there are instances were we do need to maintain single limb support. The most obvious times are when we are performing our everyday functional activities.\nStepping into a bath tub or up onto a curb would be difficult, if not impossible to do without the ability to maintain single limb support for a given amount of time. The ability to switch from two- to one-leg standing is required to perform turns, climb stairs and dress.\nAs we know, the gait cycle requires a certain amount of single limb support in order to be able to progress ourselves along in a normal pattern. When the dynamics of the cycle are disrupted, loss of balance leading to falls may occur.\nThis is especially true in older individuals whose gait cycle is altered due to normal and potentially abnormal changes that occur as a result of aging.\nThe One-Legged Stance Test measures postural stability (i.e., balance) and is more difficult to perform due to the narrow base of support required to do the test. Along with five other tests of balance and mobility, reliability of the One-Legged Stance Test was examined for 45 healthy females 55 to 71 years old and found to have \"good\" intraclass correlations coefficients (ICC range = .95 to .099). Within raters ICC ranged from 0.73 to 0.93.3\nTo perform the test, the patient is instructed to stand on one leg without support of the upper extremities or bracing of the unweighted leg against the stance leg. The patient begins the test with the eyes open, practicing once or twice on each side with his gaze fixed straight ahead.\nThe patient is then instructed to close his eyes and maintain balance for up to 30 seconds.1\nThe number of seconds that the patient/client is able to maintain this position is recorded. Termination or a fail test is recorded if 1) the foot touches the support leg; 2) hopping occurs; 3) the foot touches the floor, or 4) the arms touch something for support.\nNormal ranges with eyes open are: 60-69 yrs/22.5 ± 8.6s, 70-79 yrs/14.2 ± 9.3s. Normal ranges for eyes closed are: 60-69 yrs/10.2 ± 8.6s, 70-79 yrs/4.3 ± 3.0s.4 Briggs and colleagues reported balance times on the One-Legged Stance Test in females age 60 to 86 years for dominant and nondominant legs.\nGiven the results of this data, there appears to be some difference in whether individuals use their dominant versus their nondominant leg in the youngest and oldest age groups.\nWhen using this test, having patients choose what leg they would like to stand on would be appropriate as you want to record their \"best\" performance.\nIt has been reported in the literature that individuals increase their chances of sustaining an injury due to a fall by two times if they are unable to perform a One-Legged Stance Test for five seconds.5 Other studies utilizing the One-Legged Stance Test have been conducted in older adults to assess static balance after strength training,6 performance of activities of daily living and platform sway tests.7\nInterestingly, subscales of other balance measures such as the Tinetti Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment8 and Berg Balance Scale9 utilize unsupported single limb stance times of 10 seconds and 5 seconds respectively, for older individuals to be considered to have \"normal\" balance.\nThirty percent to 60 percent of community-dwelling elderly individuals fall each year, with many experiencing multiple falls.10 Because falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths in older adults and a significant cause of disability in this population, prevention of falls and subsequent injuries is a worthwhile endeavor.11\nThe One-Legged Stance Test can be used as a quick, reliable and easy way for clinicians to screen their patients/clients for fall risks and is easily incorporated into a comprehensive functional evaluation for older adults.\n1. Briggs, R., Gossman, M., Birch, R., Drews, J., & Shaddeau, S. (1989). Balance performance among noninstitutionalized elderly women. Physical Therapy, 69(9), 748-756.\n2. Anemaet, W., & Moffa-Trotter, M. (1999). Functional tools for assessing balance and gait impairments. Topics in Geriatric Rehab, 15(1), 66-83.\n3. Franchignoni, F., Tesio, L., Martino, M., & Ricupero, C. (1998). Reliability of four simple, quantitative tests of balance and mobility in healthy elderly females. Aging (Milan), 10(1), 26-31.\n4. Bohannon, R., Larkin, P., Cook, A., & Singer, J. (1984). Decrease in timed balance test scores with aging. Physical Therapy, 64, 1067-1070.\n5. Vellas, B., Wayne, S., Romero, L., Baumgartner, R., et al. (1997). One-leg balance is an important predictor of injurious falls in older persons. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 45, 735-738.\n6. Schlicht, J., Camaione, D., & Owen, S. (2001). Effect of intense strength training on standing balance, walking speed, and sit-to-stand performance in older adults. Journal of Gerontological Medicine and Science, 56A(5), M281-M286.\n7. Frandin, K., Sonn, U., Svantesson, U., & Grimby, G. (1996). Functional balance tests in 76-year-olds in relation to performance, activities of daily living and platform tests. Scandinavian Journal of Rehabilitative Medicine, 27(4), 231-241.\n8. Tinetti, M., Williams, T., & Mayewski, R. (1986). Fall risk index for elderly patients based on number of chronic disabilities. American Journal of Medicine, 80, 429-434.\n9. Berg, K., et al. (1989). Measuring balance in the elderly: Preliminary development of an instrument. Physio Therapy Canada, 41(6), 304-311.\n10. Rubenstein, L., & Josephson, K. (2002). The epidemiology of falls and syncope. Clinical Geriatric Medicine, 18, 141-158.\n11. National Safety Council. (2004). Injury Facts. Itasca, IL: Author.\nDr. Lewis is a physical therapist in private practice and president of Premier Physical Therapy of Washington, DC. She lectures exclusively for GREAT Seminars and Books, Inc. Dr. Lewis is also the author of numerous textbooks. Her Website address is www.greatseminarsandbooks.com. Dr. Shaw is an assistant professor in the physical therapy program at the University of South Florida dedicated to the area of geriatric rehabilitation. She lectures exclusively for GREAT Seminars and Books in the area of geriatric function.\nAPTA Encouraged by Cap Exceptions\nNew process grants automatic exceptions to beneficiaries needing care the most\nCalling it \"a good first step toward ensuring that Medicare beneficiaries continue to have coverage for the physical therapy they need,\" Ben F Massey, Jr, PT, MA, president of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), expressed optimism that the new exceptions process will allow a significant number of Medicare patients to receive services exceeding the $1,740 annual financial cap on Medicare therapy coverage. The new procedure, authorized by Congress in the recently enacted Deficit Reduction Act (PL 109-171), will be available to Medicare beneficiaries on March 13 under rules released this week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).\n\"APTA is encouraged by the new therapy cap exceptions process,\" Massey said. \"CMS has made a good effort to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries who need the most care are not harmed by an arbitrary cap.\"\nAs APTA recommended, the process includes automatic exceptions and also grants exceptions to beneficiaries who are receiving both physical therapy and speech language pathology (the services are currently combined under one $1,740 cap).\n\"We have yet to see how well Medicare contractors will be able to implement and apply this process. Even if it works well, Congress only authorized this new process through 2006. Congress must address this issue again this year, and we are confident that this experience will demonstrate to legislators that they must completely repeal the caps and provide a more permanent solution for Medicare beneficiaries needing physical therapy,\" Massey continued.\nThe therapy caps went into effect on Jan. 1, 2006, limiting Medicare coverage on outpatient rehabilitation services to $1,740 for physical therapy and speech therapy combined and $1,740 for occupational therapy.\nThe American Physical Therapy Association is a national professional organization representing more than 65,000 members. Its goal is to foster advancements in physical therapy practice, research and education.\nNew Mouthwash Helps With Pain\nDoctors in Italy are studying whether a new type of mouthwash will help alleviate pain for patients suffering from head and neck cancer who were treated with radiation therapy, according to a new study (International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, Feb. 1, 2006).\nFifty patients, suffering from various forms of head and neck cancer and who received radiation therapy, were observed during the course of their radiation treatment. Mucositis, or inflammation of the mucous membrane in the mouth, is the most common side effect yet no additional therapy has been identified that successfully reduces the pain.\nThis study sought to discover if a mouthwash made from the local anesthetic tetracaine was able to alleviate the discomfort associated with head and neck cancer and if there would be any negative side effects of the mouthwash. The doctors chose to concoct a tetracaine-based mouthwash instead of a lidocaine-based version because it was found to be four times more effective, worked faster and produced a prolonged relief.\nThe tetracaine was administered by a mouthwash approximately 30 minutes before and after meals, or roughly six times a day. Relief of oral pain was reported in 48 of the 50 patients. Sixteen patients reported that the mouthwash had an unpleasant taste or altered the taste of their food."}
{"text": "Hypertension is often diagnosed during a visit to your doctor. Blood pressure is measured using a cuff around your arm and a device called a sphygmomanometer. Your doctor may ask you to sit quietly for five minutes before checking your blood pressure.\nIf your blood pressure reading is high, you will probably be asked to come back for repeat blood pressure checks. If you have three visits with readings over 140/90 mmHG, you will be diagnosed with high blood pressure.\nSome people’s blood pressure goes up when they are at the doctor’s office. If your doctor suspects that may be occurring, he or she may ask you to get some blood pressure readings at home. In some cases, he or she may recommend that you wear an ambulatory blood pressure monitor. This device measures your blood pressure regularly throughout the day as you go about your activities. It is usually worn for 24 hours, even while sleeping.\n- Reviewer: Michael J. Fucci, DO\n- Review Date: 09/2012 -\n- Update Date: 00/91/2012 -"}
{"text": "Engineer your first step to a four-year degree at Edmonds Community College\nEngineers Make a Difference\nEngineering is the art of applying scientific and mathematical principles, experience, judgment, and common sense to make things that benefit people. Engineers solve problems. They improve and develop products to meet consumer and societal needs. They find ways for existing products to work better, last longer, operate more safely and cost less.\nThey also look for innovative solutions to global problems. Engineers design bridges and important medical equipment as well as processes for cleaning up toxic spills and systems for mass transit.\nIt's a Fact\nEngineering professions requiring a four-year degree are among the highest paying jobs in Washington State according to the office of Labor Market and Economic Analysis. Source: www.workforceexplorer.com"}
{"text": "Information for Students\nWelcome to the Flint Regional Science Fair! We look forward to seeing you at the Fair in March.\nTaking part in a science fair is fun, educational, and rewarding. This part of our web site provides information and links that can help you get started, conduct your research and enter the Flint Regional Science Fair.\nThe FASF is held every Spring. This means you should begin planning in the Fall and Winter prior to the Fair to ensure you pick a good research topic, and have plenty of time to do a good job and present a quality project.\nParents, teachers, and mentors are important helpers to identify projects, collect the resources required for your project, and track your progress. Ask your parents and your teachers for assistance. They are your best bet for one-on-one direction and support in your Science Fair experience.\nElementary Division and Junior Division projects follow simpler rules than Senior Division projects.\nMore Web Student Science Resources\nQuestions? Email firstname.lastname@example.org."}
{"text": "Linn, Amy. Illuminating News: What You Don't Know About Lightning Might\nCome As Shock. Providence Sunday Journal. August 21, 1988.\nAbstract: This article explains some common misconceptions about\nlightning. For example, one misconception is that lightning never strikes\nthe same place twice. This is untrue. Once lightning discovers an easy target\nit will likely strike again. The article also provides important safety\nprecautions. The safest place during a thunderstorm is inside a house away\nfrom windows or inside a closed car."}
{"text": "Problems of Philosophy\nChapter 5 - Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description\nAfter distinguishing two types of knowledge, knowledge of things and knowledge of truths, Russell devotes this fifth chapter to an elucidation of knowledge of things. He further distinguishes two types of knowledge of things, knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. We have knowledge by acquaintance when we are directly aware of a thing, without any inference. We are immediately conscious and acquainted with a color or hardness of a table before us, our sense-data. Since acquaintance with things is logically independent from any knowledge of truths, we can be acquainted with something immediately without knowing any truth about it. I can know the color of a table \"perfectly and completely when I see it\" and not know any truth about the color in itself. The other type of knowledge of things is called knowledge by description. When we say we have knowledge of the table itself, a physical object, we refer to a kind of knowledge other than immediate, direct knowledge. \"The physical object which causes such-and-such sense-data\" is a phrase that describes the table by way of sense-data. We only have a description of the table. Knowledge by description is predicated on something with which we are acquainted, sense-data, and some knowledge of truths, like knowing that \"such- and-such sense-data are caused by the physical object.\" Thus, knowledge by description allows us to infer knowledge about the actual world via the things that can be known to us, things with which we have direct acquaintance (our subjective sense-data).\nAccording to this outline, knowledge by acquaintance forms the bedrock for all of our other knowledge. Sense-data is not the only instance of things with which we can be immediately acquainted. For how would we recall the past, Russell argues, if we could only know what was immediately present to our senses. Beyond sense-data, we also have \"acquaintance by memory.\" Remembering what we were immediately aware of makes it so that we are still immediately aware of that past, perceived thing. We may therefore access many past things with the same requisite immediacy. Beyond sense-data and memories, we possess \"acquaintance by introspection.\" When we are aware of an awareness, like in the case of hunger, \"my desiring food\" becomes an object of acquaintance. Introspective acquaintance is a kind of acquaintance with our own minds that may be understood as self-consciousness. However, this self-consciousness is really more like a consciousness of a feeling or a particular thought; the awareness rarely includes the explicit use of \"I,\" which would identify the Self as a subject. Russell abandons this strand of knowledge, knowledge of the Self, as a probable but unclear dimension of acquaintance.\nRussell summarizes our acquaintance with things as follows: \"We have acquaintance in sensation with the data of the outer senses, and in introspection with the data of what may be called the inner sense—thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.; we have acquaintance in memory with things which have been data either of the outer senses or of the inner sense. Further, it is probable, though not certain, that we have acquaintance with Self, as that which is aware of things or has desires towards things.\" All these objects of acquaintance are particulars, concrete, existing things. Russell cautions that we can also have acquaintance with abstract, general ideas called universals. He addresses universals more fully later in chapter 9.\nRussell allocates the rest of the chapter to explaining how the complicated theory of knowledge by description actually works. The most conspicuous things that are known to us by description are physical objects and other people's minds. We approach a case of having knowledge by description when we know \"that there is an object answering to a definite description, though we are not acquainted with any such object.\" Russell offers several illustrations in the service of understanding knowledge by description. He claims that it is important to understand this kind of knowledge because our language uses depends so heavily on it. When we say common words or proper names, we are really relying on the meanings implicit in descriptive knowledge. The thought connoted by the use of a proper name can only really be explicitly expressed through a description or proposition.\nBismarck, or \"the first Chancellor of the German Empire,\" is Russell's most cogent example. Imagine that there is a proposition, or statement, made about Bismarck. If Bismarck is the speaker, admitting that he has a kind of direct acquaintance with his own self, Bismarck might have voiced his name in order to make a self-referential judgment, of which his name is a constituent. In this simplest case, the \"proper name has the direct use which it always wishes to have, as simply standing for a certain object, and not for a description of the object.\" If one of Bismarck's friends who knew him directly was the speaker of the statement, then we would say that the speaker had knowledge by description. The speaker is acquainted with sense-data which he infers corresponds with Bismarck's body. The body or physical object representing the mind is \"only known as the body and the mind connected with these sense-data,\" which is the vital description. Since the sense-data corresponding to Bismarck change from moment to moment and with perspective, the speaker knows which various descriptions are valid.\nStill more removed from direct acquaintance, imagine that someone like you or I comes along and makes a statement about Bismarck that is a description based on a \"more or less vague mass of historical knowledge.\" We say that Bismarck was the \"first Chancellor of the German Empire.\" In order to make a valid description applicable to the physical object, Bismarck's body, we must find a relation between some particular with which we have acquaintance and the physical object, the particular with which we wish to have an indirect acquaintance. We must make such a reference in order to secure a meaningful description.\nTo usefully distinguish particulars from universals, Russell posits the example of \"the most long-lived of men,\" a description which wholly consists of universals. We assume that the description must apply to some man, but we have no way of inferring any judgment about him. Russell remarks, \"all knowledge of truths, as we shall show, demands acquaintance with things which are of an essentially different character from sense-data, the things which are sometimes called 'abstract ideas', but which we shall call 'universals'.\" The description composed only of universals gives no knowledge by acquaintance with which we might anchor an inference about the longest-lived man. A further statement about Bismarck, like \"The first Chancellor of the German Empire was an astute diplomatist,\" is a statement that contains particulars and asserts a judgment that we can only make in virtue of some acquaintance (like something heard or read).\nStatements about things known by description function in our language as statements about the \"actual thing described;\" that is, we intend to refer to that thing. We intend to say something with the direct authority that only Bismarck himself could have when he makes a statement about himself, something with which he has direct acquaintance. Yet, there is a spectrum of removal from acquaintance with the relevant particulars: from Bismarck himself, \"there is Bismarck to people who knew him; Bismarck to those who only know of him through history\" and at a far end of the spectrum \"the longest lived of men.\" At the latter end, we can only make propositions that are logically deducible from universals, and at the former end, we come as close as possible to direct acquaintance and can make many propositions identifying the actual object. It is now clear how knowledge gained by description is reducible to knowledge by acquaintance. Russell calls this observation his fundamental principle in the study of \"propositions containing descriptions\": \"Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.\"\nIndirect knowledge of some particulars seems necessary if we are to expressively attach meanings to the words we commonly use. When we say something referring to Julius Caesar, we clearly have no direct acquaintance with the man. Rather, we are thinking of such descriptions as \"the man who was assassinated on the Ides of March\" or \"the founder of the Roman Empire.\" Since we have no way of being directly acquainted with Julius Caesar, our knowledge by description allows us to gain knowledge of \"things which we have never experienced.\" It allows us to overstep the boundaries of our private, immediate experiences and engage a public knowledge and public language.\nThis knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description theory was a famous epistemological problem-solver for Russell. Its innovative character allowed him to shift to his moderate realism, a realism ruled by a more definite categorization of objects. It is a theory of knowledge that considers our practice of language to be meaningful and worthy of detailed analysis. Russell contemplates how we construct a sense of meaning about objects remote from our experience. The realm of acquaintance offers the most secure references for our understanding of the world. Knowledge by description allows us to draw inferences from our realm of acquaintance but leaves us in a more vulnerable position. Since knowledge by description also depends on truths, we are prone to error about our descriptive knowledge if we are somehow mistaken about a proposition that we have taken to be true.\nCritics of this theory have held that Russell's hypothesis of knowledge by description is confusing. His comments when defining sense-data, that the physical world is unknowable to us, contradict his theory of knowledge by descriptions. He implies that \"knowledge by description\" is not really a form of knowledge since we can only know those things with which we are acquainted and we cannot be acquainted with physical objects. Russell's theory amounts to the proposition that our acquaintance with mental objects appears related in a distant way to physical objects and renders us obliquely acquainted with the physical world. Sense-data are our subjective representations of the external world, and they negotiate this indirect contact.\nWhile innovative, Russell's theory of knowledge by description is not an attractive theory of knowledge. It is clearly unappealing because our impressions of the real world, on his view, are commensurate with muddy representations of reality. Though we have direct access to these representations, it seems impossible to have any kind of direct experience of reality. Reality, rather, consists in unconscious, inferential pieces of reasoning.\nReaders' Notes allow users to add their own analysis and insights to our SparkNotes—and to discuss those ideas with one another. Have a novel take or think we left something out? Add a Readers' Note!"}
{"text": "What are managed lanes?\nHighway facilities or a set of lanes where operational strategies are proactively implemented and managed in response to changing conditions.\nTransportation agencies are faced with growing challenges of congestion and a limited ability to expand freeway capacity due to construction costs, right-of-way constraints, and environmental and societal impacts. Transportation officials are taking advantage of opportunities to address mobility needs and provide travel options through a combination of limited capacity expansion coupled with operational strategies that seek to manage travel demand and improve transit and other forms of ridesharing. The managed lanes concept is gaining interest around the country as an approach that combines these elements to make the most effective and efficient use of a freeway facility.\nThe distinction between managed lanes and other traditional forms of freeway lane management is the operating philosophy of \"active management.\" Under this philosophy, the operating agency proactively manages demand and available capacity on the facility by applying new strategies or modifying existing strategies. The agency defines from the outset the operating objectives for the managed lanes and the kinds of actions that will be taken once pre-defined performance thresholds are met.\nYou will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDFs on this page.\nUnited States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration"}
{"text": "Dengue Fever in India\n04 March 2013\nDengue fever is a growing concern in India. In 2012, 247 deaths were recorded as a result of dengue fever nationwide.\nLatest data on disease prevalence released by the Health Ministry shows a significant rise in the incidence of dengue fever from 18 860 cases in 2011, to 49 606 in year 2012.\nAround 1700 dengue cases were reported from Delhi in 2012.\nAdvice for Travellers\nIndia is a popular tourist destination and travellers should be aware of the risk of dengue fever. Avoidance of mosquito bites, particularly during daylight hours, by covering up with clothing, the use of bite avoidance measures such as repellent and bed nets is advised. Elimination of breeding sites around hotel rooms/houses is advised for longer term stays."}
{"text": "Intellectual knowledge appears to be innate and privy to the few, but in fact, access to information, development of intellectual work skills, time investment, and the maintenance of intellectual appearances are key to being perceived as an intellectual.\nTo make education more equitable, professors must go beyond knowledge transmission and instruct students in the concrete skills of knowledge acquisition and knowledge presentation. Instruction in intellectual skills-acquisition implies the breakdown of the traditional professor-student relationship and of the academic intellectual hierarchy and professors must learn to cope with the consequences of adopting new pedagogies. If we wish to share the secrets of our professions, how do we prepare our students for such a democratic approach and at the same time maintain our professional status?\nThe author, a professor of Spanish language and literature, presents strategies for democratizing education and demystifying intellectual work through the application of skills-based pedagogical methodologies to the teaching of literature. The implications that these strategies have for a new type of learning and the impact that they have on social stratification will also be discussed.\n|Keywords:||Democratizing Education, Demystifying Intellectual Work, Knowledge Acquisition Skills, Interpretative Skills, Teaching Literature, Skills Based Teaching|\nAssistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Literature and Languages, Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois, USA\nThere are currently no reviews of this product.Write a Review"}
{"text": "(Phys.org)—Controlling \"mixing\" between acceptor and donor layers, or domains, in polymer-based solar cells could increase their efficiency, according to a team of researchers that included physicists from North Carolina State University. Their findings shed light on the inner workings of these solar cells, and could lead to further improvements in efficiency.\nPolymer-based solar cells consist of two domains, known as the acceptor and the donor layers. Excitons, the energy particles created by solar cells, must be able to travel quickly to the interface of the donor and acceptor domains in order to be harnessed as an energy source. Researchers had believed that keeping the donor and acceptor layers as pure as possible was the best way to ensure that the excitons could travel unimpeded, so that solar cells could capture the maximum amount of energy.\nNC State physicist Harald Ade and his group worked with teams of scientists from the United Kingdom, Australia and China to examine the physical structure and improve the production of polymer-based solar cells. In findings published in two separate papers appearing this month online in Advanced Energy Materials and Advanced Materials, the researchers show that some mixing of the two domains may not be a bad thing. In fact, if the morphology, or structure, of the mixed domains is small, the solar cell can still be quite efficient.\nAccording to Ade, \"We had previously found that the domains in these solar cells weren't pure. So we looked at how additives affected the production of these cells. When you manufacture the cell, the relative rate of evaporation of the solvents and additives determines how the active layer forms and the donor and acceptor mix. Ideally, you want the solvent to evaporate slowly enough so that the materials have time to separate – otherwise the layers 'gum up' and lower the cell's efficiency. We utilized an additive that slowed evaporation. This controlled the mixing and domain size of the active layer, and the portions that mixed were small.\"\nThe efficiency of those mixed layers was excellent, leading to speculation that perhaps some mixing of the donor and acceptor isn't a problem, as long as the domains are small.\n\"We're looking for the perfect mix here, both in terms of the solvents and additives we might use in order to manufacture polymer-based solar cells, and in terms of the physical mixing of the domains and how that may affect efficiency,\" Ade says.\nExplore further: Femtosecond 'snapshots' reveal a dramatic bond tightening in photo-excited gold complexes\nMore information: \"From Binary to Ternary Solvent: Morphology Fine-tuning of D/A Blend in PDPP3T-based Polymer Solar Cells\", Advanced Materials, 2012.\nIn the past decade, great success has been achieved in bulk hetero-junction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs) in which donor/acceptor (D/A) bi-continuous interpenetrating networks can be formed and in some recent reports, power conversion efficiency (PCE) even approach 8%. In addition to the intrinsic properties of active layer materials, such as band gaps and molecular energy levels, morphological properties of the D/A blends including crystallinity of polymers, domain size, materials miscibility, hierarchical structures, and molecular orientation, are also of great importance for photovoltaic performance of the devices. Therefore, several strategies including slow growth, solvent annealing, thermal annealing, selection of solvent or mixed solvent have been applied to modify or control of the morphology of the D/A blends. Among these, binary solvent mixtures have been successfully used in morphology control. For example, the dichlorobenzene (DCB) or chlorobenzene (CB)/1, 8-diiodooctane (DIO) binary solvent system has been widely applied in PSC device fabrication process. By mixing a few volume percent of DIO with the host solvent (DCB or CB), efficiencies of many kinds of polymers can be improved dramatically. Besides DIO, other solvents, like 1, 8-octanedithiol (OT), N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), 1-chloronaphthalene (CN), chloroform (CF), can also be used. According to these works, it can be concluded that crystallinity, as well as domain size in the blends can be tuned effectively by using binary solvent mixtures, and thus binary solvent mixtures play a very important role in high performance PSCs."}
{"text": "Heel Bursitis is another type of heel pain. The sufferer of this kind of heel pain experiences pain at the back of the heel when the patient moves his joint of the ankle. In the heel bursitis type of heel pain there is swelling on the sides of the Achilles’ tendon. In this condition the sufferer may experience pain in the heel when his feet hit the ground. Heel bruises are also referred as heel bumps they are usually caused by improper shoes. The constant rubbing of the shoes against the heel.\nWhat is bursitis?\nBursitis is the inflammation of a bursa. Normally, the bursa provides a slippery surface that has almost no friction. A problem arises when a bursa becomes inflamed. The bursa loses its gliding capabilities, and becomes more and more irritated when it is moved.\nWhen the condition called bursitis occurs, the normally slippery bursa becomes swollen and inflamed. The added bulk of the swollen bursa causes more friction within an already confined space. Also, the smooth gliding bursa becomes gritty and rough. Movement of an inflamed bursa is painful and irritating.\n“Itis” usually refers to the inflammation of a certain part of the body, therefore Bursitis refers to the constant irritation of the natural cushion that supports the heel of the foot (the bursa). Bursitis is often associated with Plantar Fasciitis, which affects the arch and heel of the foot.\nWhat causes bursitis?\n- Bursitis and Plantar Fasciitis can occur when a person increases their levels of physical activity or when the heel’s fat pad becomes thinner, providing less protection to the foot.\n- Ill fitting shoes.\n- Biomechanical problems (e.g. mal-alignment of the foot, including over-pronation).\n- Rheumatoid arthritis.\nBursitis usually results from a repetitive movement or due to prolonged and excessive pressure. Patients who rest on their elbows for long periods or those who bend their elbows frequently and repetitively (for example, a custodian using a vacuum for hours at a time) can develop elbow bursitis, also called olecranon bursitis. Similarly in other parts of the body, repetitive use or frequent pressure can irritate a bursa and cause inflammation.\nAnother cause of bursitis is a traumatic injury. Following trauma, such as a car accident or fall, a patient may develop bursitis. Usually a contusion causes swelling within the bursa. The bursa, which had functioned normally up until that point, now begins to develop inflammation, and bursitis results. Once the bursa is inflamed, normal movements and activities can become painful.\nSystemic inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, may also lead to bursitis. These types of conditions can make patients susceptible to developing bursitis.\n- Cold presses or ice packs.\n- Anti-inflammatory tablets.\n- Cushioning products.\n- Massaging the foot / muscle stimulation.\n- Stretching exercises.\n- Insoles or orthotics."}
{"text": "EVEN a material 10 billion times as strong as steel has a breaking point. It seems neutron stars may shatter under extreme forces, explaining puzzling X-ray flares.\nNeutron stars are dense remnants of stars gone supernova, packing the mass of the sun into a sphere the size of a city. Their cores may be fluid, but their outer surfaces are solid and extremely tough - making graphene, the strongest material on Earth, look like tissue paper by comparison.\nThese shells may shatter, though, in the final few seconds before a pair of neutron stars merges to form a black hole - a union thought to generate explosions known as short gamma-ray bursts.\nDavid Tsang of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and colleagues have calculated how the mutual gravitational pull of such stars will distort their shape, creating moving tidal bulges. As the stars spiral towards each other, orbiting ever faster, they squeeze and stretch each other ever faster too.\nA few seconds before the stars merge, the frequency of this squeezing and stretching matches the frequency at which one of the stars vibrates most easily. This creates a resonance that boosts the vibrations dramatically, causing the star's crust to crack in many places - just as a wine glass may shatter when a certain note is sung, the team says (Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.108.011102).\nThe star's gravity is too powerful to let the pieces fly away, but the sudden movement can disturb its magnetic field, accelerating electrons and leading to a powerful X-ray flare. That could explain observations by NASA's Swift satellite in which a blast of X-rays preceded some short gamma-ray bursts by a few seconds.\nCombining observations of X-ray flares with those of gravitational waves emitted by the stars as they spiral together could fix the exact frequency at which the shattering occurs, which would reveal more about the stars' mysterious interiors, says Tsang.\nIf you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.\nHave your say\nOnly subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.\nOnly personal subscribers may leave comments on this article"}
{"text": "When he shot President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth was 26 years old, and one of the nation’s most famous actors. (Charles DeForest Fredericks/National Portrait Gallery)\nJohn Wilkes Booth, a Maryland native, spent the war performing in theatrical productions. But the conflict was never far from his mind. In a letter to his mother, he expressed chagrin that he hadn’t joined the Confederate army, writing, “I have … begun to deem myself a coward, and to despise my own existence.” He was outraged by the reelection of Lincoln, whom he viewed as the instigator of all the country’s woes. The month after the inauguration, Booth learned that Lincoln would be attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre on April 14. That night, he crept into Lincoln’s theater box and shot him in the back of the head. It was the first time a president had been murdered. “Wanted” posters were issued for Booth, and on April 26, he was cornered in a tobacco barn and shot by a federal sergeant, acting against orders to bring him in alive.\nSeveral months later, Charles Creighton Hazewell, a frequent contributor, sought to make sense of the assassination—speculating that the plot may have been hatched in Canada (where a number of secessionist schemes had originated) and hinting at evidence that the plan had been endorsed at the highest levels of the Confederate government.—Sage Stossel\nThe assassination of President Lincoln threw a whole nation into mourning … Of all our Presidents since Washington, Mr. Lincoln had excited the smallest amount of that feeling which places its object in personal danger. He was a man who made a singularly favorable impression on those who approached him, resembling in that respect President Jackson, who often made warm friends of bitter foes, when circumstances had forced them to seek his presence; and it is probable, that, if he and the honest chiefs of the Rebels could have been brought face to face, there never would have been civil war,—at least, any contest of grand proportions; for he would not have failed to convince them that all that they had any right to claim, and therefore all that they could expect their fellow-citizens to fight for, would be more secure under his government than it had been under the governments of such men as Pierce and Buchanan, who made use of sectionalism and slavery to promote the selfish interests of themselves and their party … Ignorance was the parent of the civil war, as it has been the parent of many other evils,—ignorance of the character and purpose of the man who was chosen President in 1860–61, and who entered upon official life with less animosity toward his opponents than ever before or since had been felt by a man elected to a great place after a bitter and exciting contest …\nThat one of the most insignificant of [the secessionists’] number should have murdered the man whose election they declared to be cause for war is nothing strange, being in perfect keeping with their whole course. The wretch who shot the chief magistrate of the Republic is of hardly more account than was the weapon which he used. The real murderers of Mr. Lincoln are the men whose action brought about the civil war. Booth’s deed was a logical proceeding, following strictly from the principles avowed by the Rebels, and in harmony with their course during the last five years. The fall of a public man by the hand of an assassin always affects the mind more strongly than it is affected by the fall of thousands of men in battle; but in strictness, Booth, vile as his deed was, can be held to have been no worse, morally, than was that old gentleman who insisted upon being allowed the privilege of firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. Ruffin’s act is not so disgusting as Booth’s; but of the two men, Booth exhibited the greater courage,—courage of the basest kind, indeed, but sure to be attended with the heaviest risks, as the hand of every man would be directed against its exhibitor. Had the Rebels succeeded, Ruffin would have been honored by his fellows; but even a successful Southern Confederacy would have been too hot a country for the abode of a wilful murderer. Such a man would have been no more pleasantly situated even in South Carolina than was Benedict Arnold in England. And as he chose to become an assassin after the event of the war had been decided, and when his victim was bent upon sparing Southern feeling so far as it could be spared without injustice being done to the country, Booth must have expected to find his act condemned by every rational Southern man as a worse than useless crime, as a blunder of the very first magnitude. Had he succeeded in getting abroad, Secession exiles would have shunned him, and have treated him as one who had brought an ineffaceable stain on their cause, and also had rendered their restoration to their homes impossible. The pistol-shot of Sergeant Corbett saved him from the gallows, and it saved him also from the denunciations of the men whom he thought to serve. He exhibited, therefore, a species of courage that is by no means common; for he not only risked his life, and rendered it impossible for honorable men to sympathize with him, but he ran the hazard of being denounced and cast off by his own party … All Secessionists who retain any self-respect must rejoice that one whose doings brought additional ignominy on a cause that could not well bear it has passed away and gone to his account. It would have been more satisfactory to loyal men, if he had been reserved for the gallows; but even they must admit that it is a terrible trial to any people who get possession of an odious criminal, because they may be led so to act as to disgrace themselves, and to turn sympathy in the direction of the evil-doer … Therefore the shot of Sergeant Corbett is not to be regretted, save that it gave too honorable a form of death to one who had earned all that there is of disgraceful in that mode of dying to which a peculiar stigma is attached by the common consent of mankind.\nWhether Booth was the agent of a band of conspirators, or was one of a few vile men who sought an odious immortality, it is impossible to say. We have the authority of a high Government official for the statement that “the President’s murder was organized in Canada and approved at Richmond”; but the evidence in support of this extraordinary announcement is, doubtless for the best of reasons, withheld at the time we write. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that the assassination plot was formed in Canada, as some of the vilest miscreants of the Secession side have been allowed to live in that country … But it is not probable that British subjects had anything to do with any conspiracy of this kind. The Canadian error was in allowing the scum of Secession to abuse the “right of hospitality” through the pursuit of hostile action against us from the territory of a neutral …\nThat a plan to murder President Lincoln should have been approved at Richmond is nothing strange; and though such approval would have been supremely foolish, what but supreme folly is the chief characteristic of the whole Southern movement? If the seal of Richmond’s approval was placed on a plan formed in Canada, something more than the murder of Mr. Lincoln was intended. It must have been meant to kill every man who could legally take his place, either as President or as President pro tempore. The only persons who had any title to step into the Presidency on Mr. Lincoln’s death were Mr. Johnson, who became President on the 15th of April, and Mr. Foster, one of the Connecticut Senators, who is President of the Senate … It does not appear that any attempt was made on the life of Mr. Foster, though Mr. Johnson was on the list of those doomed by the assassins; and the savage attack made on Mr. Seward shows what those assassins were capable of. But had all the members of the Administration been struck down at the same time, it is not at all probable that “anarchy” would have been the effect, though to produce that must have been the object aimed at by the conspirators. Anarchy is not so easily brought about as persons of an anarchical turn of mind suppose. The training we have gone through since the close of 1860 has fitted us to bear many rude assaults on order without our becoming disorderly. Our conviction is, that, if every man who held high office at Washington had been killed on the 14th of April, things would have gone pretty much as we have seen them go, and that thus the American people would have vindicated their right to be considered a self-governing race. It would not be a very flattering thought, that the peace of the country is at the command of any dozen of hardened ruffians who should have the capacity to form an assassination plot, the discretion to keep silent respecting their purpose, and the boldness and the skill requisite to carry it out to its most minute details: for the neglect of one of those details might be fatal to the whole project. Society does not exist in such peril as that.\njohn wilkes booth, a Maryland native, spent the war performing in theatrical productions. But the conflict was never far from his mind. In a letter to his mother, he expressed chagrin that he hadn’t joined the Confederate army, writing, “I have … begun to deem myself a coward, and to despise my own existence.” He was outraged by the reelection of Lincoln, whom he viewed as the instigator of all the country’s woes.\nThe month after the inauguration, Booth learned that Lincoln would be attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre on April 14. That night, he crept into Lincoln’s theater box and shot him in the back of the head. It was the first time a president had been murdered. “Wanted” posters were issued for Booth, and on April 26, he was cornered in a tobacco barn and shot by a federal sergeant, who acted against orders to bring him in alive.\nSeveral months later, Charles Creighton Hazewell, a frequent Atlantic contributor, sought to make sense of the assassination—speculating that the plot may have been hatched in Canada (where a number of secessionist schemes had originated) and hinting at evidence that the plan had been endorsed at the highest levels of the Confederate government.\nRead the full text of this article here.\nThis article available online at:"}
{"text": "On January 9th, citizens living in southern Sudan will vote on a referendum to secede from the northern part of the country. A clock in the town of Juba, the political center of southern Sudan, counts down to this referendum, symbolical of the locals’ excitement to part from the hegemonic north. Nearby, the Darfur genocide crisis that continues to plague the area is not an isolated event. It’s all related, part of two brutal civil wars that have been for decades tearing the nation apart; as of late, literally.\nSudan has traditionally been seen by many as the bridge between the Arab and the African worlds—one not particularly easy to cross. The north and the south of Sudan are just about as culturally and religiously different from each other as you could possibly imagine. In the north, Arab culture dominates, and the majority religion is Islam. In the south, the predominant culture is more traditionally sub-Saharan African, and the primary religions are animist belief systems and Christianity. Ever since the country gained independence from Britain in 1956, the cultural and religious systems of the north have been heavily imposed on the whole of Sudan, resulting in southern resistance and the ongoing strife.\nIn particular, this imposition of a differing set of beliefs can in large part be attributed to the current Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir. Al-Bashir arose to power in 1989 through a bloodless coup, and this past April, won the first ostensibly democratic election the nation has held in 24 years. I hesitate to call the election democratic because many believe that al-Bashir, who is notorious for his corruption, rigged it in his favor. While there is no proof, it is generally not unsafe to consider that leaders who are in power through a coup have significant sway in any following elections. Whether he is rightfully in power or not, al-Bashir has imposed northern ideals throughout the whole nation, a primary cause of the Sudanese civil wars. Many attribute the Darfur genocide, just a single episode of the extensive bloodshed since Sudan’s independence, to al-Bashir. Because of these accusations, he is currently on trial for war crimes, the only current head of state in such a predicament. To drive home his impositional tendencies further, al-Bashir has said that if the south secedes, he will impose Shari’a in the north, in an effort to make northern Sudan officially an Islamic state.\nMy first response to this situation was wondering: How did two peoples so immensely different from one another end up together in the first place? This is not the same as the American Civil War, where regional differences led to ideological differences, which in turn led to secession. In the Sudanese case, ideological and cultural differences existed long before the country gained independence. Thus, one should look to colonialism as the primary cause of Sudan’s problems. It seems to me that Sudan’s independence process was dangerously arbitrary; occurring at the time of mass European decolonization in Africa. It’s as if Britain backed out of the region and drew a national border at random. And now, after over half a century, the people want that to change.\nDespite the referendum on schedule for next month, the potential new border still has not been set. Money, of course, is a factor. Sudan is one of the most oil-rich nations of Africa, but most of the country’s oil is found in the south. On the one hand, the north might not want to draw a new boundary where the south gets all of the resource wealth, a potential cause for even more strife. On the other hand, some see oil as a potential area that could keep the two sides friendly if they do end up splitting. Mutual desire for the oil wealth may bring the two sides together diplomatically if the split ends up happening peacefully.\nAs you can see, this situation is extremely complex, far more so than the south simply saying “we want to secede” and secession then happening. To better understand the context, one needs to consider the past, but one should also consider the future: what will happen if the current nation of Sudan does in fact split? I am wondering particularly about those who have their roots in the south but live in the north. Since the referendum was announced, many of these people have moved back to the south, but a fair number still remain in the north. What will happen to these primarily non-Muslim people (and Muslims alike) if the north does in fact impose Shari’a on al-Bashir’s whim? Al-Bashir will go from an imposer of northern Arab and Islamic values to being completely intolerant of this significant minority in his newly allotted half of Sudan, and the results would be tragic.\nWhat message would a Sudanese split portray to the rest of Africa, the rest of the world? The African Union fears that a Sudanese split would incite other secessionists around the continent. Other nations undergoing similar domestic, regional conflicts of interest may feel not only that they have a right to secede, but may even feel encouraged to do so. Is this kind of outright division the right answer to such a complicated historical struggle?\nIs there even a right answer? Experts seem to agree that the nation will inevitably split. Whether this bifurcation happens via a timely, democratic, and peaceful referendum or through continuing bloodshed is a matter that only time will tell. I will certainly be following this issue in the coming weeks, and I wrote this article before the scheduled referendum in the hope to spark more interest on the issue. I urge you to follow it in the news; the results affect a much wider area than simply Sudan.\nStay tuned for my next column, where I will compare and contrast two leaders in South America on opposite sides of the political spectrum and compare their respective political systems to that of the United States.\nLatest posts by David Klayton (see all)\n- Should Turkey be a part of \"Europe?\" - February 26, 2011\n- Moderately Extreme: Ideological Flexibility in Latin American Politics - January 27, 2011\n- When One Nation Becomes Two - December 31, 2010"}
{"text": "Hanukkah begins this year on December 1st, at sundown. Be honest. When I say “Hanukkah,” the first thing you think of is the Adam Sandler song, talking about “eight crazy nights.” If you are a little more connected to Jewish culture, you may also think about a dreidel or potato latkes (pancakes). While it’s commonly called the “Festival of Lights,” a better translation is “Dedication.” Being Jewish (circumcised at 8 days, Bar Mitzvah at age 13) and a Christ-follower (for over 15 years), I’d like to give a brief explanation of this holiday, and why it’s a meaningful opportunity to help me worship the Lord.\nHere’s the story of Hanukkah: In the 2nd century BC, Antiochus Epiphanes gained control over parts of the Middle East, including Judea (Israel). He erected an altar to Zeus in the Temple in Jerusalem, and sacrificed pigs there, which are unclean to Jews. The Maccabee family led a revolt, finally liberating Jerusalem and the Temple in 165 BC. Before God could be properly worshiped in the Temple, it had to be cleaned and dedicated. The menorah (lamp) had to burn continuously for 8 days for the purification process. Despite there only being enough olive oil for one day, the oil miraculously lasted for 8 days and nights. That is why Hanukkah is celebrated for 8 nights.\nMost people consider this miracle to be the end in itself, and I think the bigger meaning is missed. The point isn’t just that God did a miracle, but that the miracle was the means to allow Him to be properly worshiped. The Temple needed to be purified in order for Yahweh to be worshiped, but it couldn’t be purified unless He worked a miracle. God worked a miracle so that His people could be near Him in worship.\nLet us not miss that meaning, as we celebrate the Advent of Jesus Christ, the Light of the world (John 8:12). I don’t think we need merely to reflect on the birth of Jesus, but we need to consider why the Father sent His Son. God performed a miracle (the Incarnation) not as an end to itself, but as a means to allow us to be near Him in worship (through Christ’s redemptive sacrifice for our sins). Jesus did not come only to be marveled at as a baby, but to pour out His life and blood, to open the way for a new covenant with Him."}
{"text": "by Piter Kehoma Boll\nLet’s expand the universe of Friday Fellow by presenting a plant for the first time! And what could be a better choice to start than the famous Grandidier’s Baobab? Belonging to the species Adansonia grandidieri, this tree is one of the trademarks of Madagascar, being the biggest species of this genus found in the island.\nReaching up to 30 m in height and having a massive trunk only branched at the very top, it has a unique look and is found only at southwestern Madagascar. However, despite being so attractive and famous, it is classified as an endangered species by IUCN Red List, with a declining population threatened by agriculture expansion.\nThis tree is also heavily exploited, having vitamin C-rich fruits which can be consumed fresh and seeds used to extract oil. Its bark can also be used to make ropes and many trees are found with scars due to the extraction of part of the bark.\nHaving a fibrous trunk, baoabs are able to deal with drought by apparently storaging water inside them. There are no seed dispersors, which can be due to the extiction of the original dispersor by human activities.\nOriginally occuring close to temporary water bodies in the dry deciduous forest, today many large trees are found in always dry terrains. This probably is due to human impact that changed the local ecosystem, letting it to become drier than it was. Those areas have no or very poor ability to regenerate and probably will never go back to what they were and, once the old trees die, there will be no more baobabs there.\n- – -\nBaum, D. A. (1995). A Systematic Revision of Adansonia (Bombacaceae) Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 82, 440-470 DOI: 10.2307/2399893\nWikipedia. Adamsonia grandidieri. Available online at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia_grandidieri>. Access on October 02, 2012.\nWorld Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998. Adansonia grandidieri. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Access on October 02, 2012."}
{"text": "Ki Tisa (Mitzvot)\nFor more teachings on this portion, see the archives to this blog, below at March 2006.\nThis week’s parasha is best known for the dramatic and richly meaningful story of the Golden Calf and the Divine anger, of Moses’ pleading on behalf of Israel, and the eventual reconciliation in the mysterious meeting of Moses with God in the Cleft of the Rock—subjects about which I’ve written at length, from various aspects, in previous years. Yet the first third of the reading (Exod 30:11-31:17) is concerned with various practical mitzvot, mostly focused on the ritual worship conducted in the Temple, which tend to be skimmed over in light of the intense interest of the Calf story. As this year we are concerned specifically with the mitzvot in each parasha, I shall focus on this section.\nThese include: the giving by each Israelite [male] of a half-shekel to the Temple; the making of the laver, from which the priests wash their hands and feet before engaging in Divine service; the compounding of the incense and of the anointing oil; and the Shabbat. I shall focus here upon the washing of the hands.\nHand-washing is a familiar Jewish ritual: it is, in fact, the first act performed by pious Jews upon awakening in the morning (some people even keep a cup of water next to their beds, so that they may wash their hands before taking even a single step); one performs a ritual washing of the hands before eating bread; before each of the daily prayers; etc. The section here dealing with the laver in the Temple (Exod 30:17-21) is also one of the four portions from the Torah recited by many each morning, as part of the section of the liturgy known as korbanot, chapters of Written and Oral Torah reminiscent of the ancient sacrificial system, that precede Pesukei de-Zimra.\nSefer ha-Hinukh, at §106, explains the washing of hands as an offshoot of the honor due to the Temple and its service—one of many laws intended to honor, magnify, and glorify the Temple. Even if the priest was pure and clean, he must wash (literally, “sanctify”) his hands before engaging in avodah. This simple gesture of purification served as a kind of separation between the Divine service and everyday life. It added a feeling of solemnity, of seriousness, a sense that one was engaged in something higher, in some way separate from the mundane activities of regular life. (One hand-washing by kohanim, in the morning, was sufficient, unless they left the Temple grounds or otherwise lost the continuity of their sacred activity.) Our own netilat yadaim, whether before prayer or breaking bread, may be seen as a kind of halakhic carryover from the Temple service, albeit on the level of Rabbinic injunction.\nWhat is the symbolism of purifying one’s hands? Water, as a flowing element, as a solvent that washes away many of the things with which it comes in contact, is at once a natural symbol of both purity, and of the renewal of life. Mayim Hayyim—living waters—is an age old association. Torah is compared to water; water, constantly flowing, is constantly returning to its source. At the End of Days, “the land will be filled with knowledge of the Lord, like waters going down to the sea.” A small part of this is hinted in this simple, everyday gesture.\n“See that this nation is Your people”\nBut I cannot pass over Ki Tisa without some comment on the incident of the Golden Calf and its ramifications. This week, reading through the words of the parasha in preparation for a shiur (what Ruth Calderon, founder of Alma, a secularist-oriented center for the study of Judaism in Tel Aviv, called “barefoot reading”—that is, naïve, without preconceptions), I discovered something utterly simple that I had never noticed before in quite the same way.\nAt the beginning of the Calf incident, God tells Moses, who has been up on the mountain with Him, “Go down, for your people have spoiled” (32:7). A few verses later, when God asks leave of Moses (!) to destroy them, Moses begs for mercy on behalf of the people with the words “Why should Your anger burn so fiercely against Your people…” (v. 11). That is, God calls them Moses’ people, while Moses refers to them as God’s people. Subsequent to this exchange, each of them refers to them repeatedly in the third person, as “the people” or “this people” (העם; העם הזה). Neither of them refers to them, as God did in the initial revelation to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:7 and passim) as “my people,” or with the dignified title, “the children of Israel”—as if both felt a certain alienation, of distance from this tumultuous, capricious bunch. Only towards the end, after God agrees not to destroy them, but still states “I will not go up with them,” but instead promises to send an angel, does Moses says “See, that this nation is Your people” (וראה כי עמך הגוי הזה; 33:13).\nWhat does all this signify? Reading the peshat carefully, there is one inevitable conclusion: that God wished to nullify His covenant with the people Israel. It is in this that there lies the true gravity, and uniqueness, of the Golden Calf incident. We are not speaking here, as we read elsewhere in the Bible—for example, in the two great Imprecations (tokhahot) in Lev 26 and Deut 28, or in the words of the prophets during the First Temple—merely of threats of punishment, however harsh, such as drought, famine, pestilence, enemy attacks, or even exile and slavery. There, the implicit message is that, after a period of punishment, a kind of moral purgation through suffering, things will be restored as they were. Here, the very covenant itself, the very existence of an intimate connection with God, hangs in the balance. God tells Moses, “I shall make of you a people,” i.e., instead of them.\nThis, it seems to me, is the point of the second phase of this story. Moses breaks the tablets; he and his fellow Levites go through the camp killing all those most directly implicated in worshipping the Calf; God recants and agrees not to destroy the people. However, “My angel will go before them” but “I will not go up in your midst” (33:2, 3). This should have been of some comfort; yet this tiding is called “this bad thing,” the people mourn, and remove the ornaments they had been wearing until then. Evidently, they understood the absence of God’s presence or “face” as a grave step; His being with them was everything. That is the true importance of the Sanctuary in the desert and the Tent of Meeting, where Moses speaks with God in the pillar of cloud (33:10). God was present with them there in a tangible way, in a certain way continuing the epiphany at Sinai. All that was threatened by this new declaration.\nMoses second round of appeals to God, in Exod 33:12-23, focuses on bringing God, as it were, to a full reconciliation with the people. This is the significance of the Thirteen Qualities of Mercy, of what I have called the Covenant in the Cleft of the Rock, the “faith of Yom Kippur” as opposed to that of Shavuot (see HY I: Ki Tisa; and note Prof. Jacob Milgrom’s observation that this chapter stands in the exact center, in a literary sense, of the unit known as the Hextateuch—Torah plus the Book of Joshua).\nBut I would add two important points. One, that this is the first place in the Torah where we read about sin followed by reconciliation. After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Garden, they were punished without hope of reprieve; indeed, their “punishment “ reads very much like a description of some basic aspects of the human condition itself. Cain, after murdering Abel, was banished, made to wander the face of the earth. The sin of the brothers in selling Joseph, and their own sense of guilt, is a central factor in their family dynamic from then on, but there is nary a word of God’s response or intervention. It would appear that God’s initial expectation in the covenant at Sinai was one of total loyalty and fidelity. The act of idolatry was an unforgivable breach of the covenant—much as adultery is generally perceived as a fundamental violation of the marital bond.\nMoses, in persuading God to recant of His jealousy and anger, to give the faithless people another chance, is thus introducing a new concept: of a covenant that includes the possibility of even the most serious transgressions being forgiven; of the knowledge that human beings are fallible, and that teshuvah and forgiveness are essential components of any economy of men living before a demanding God.\nThe second, truly astonishing point is the role played by Moses in all this. Moshe Rabbenu, “the man of God,” is not only the great teacher of Israel, the channel through which they learn the Divine Torah, but also, as it were, one who teaches God Himself. It is God who “reveals His Qualities of Mercy” at the Cleft of the Rock; but without Moses cajoling, arguing, persuading (and note the numerous midrashim around this theme), “were it not for my servant Moses who stood in the breach,” all this would not have happened. It was Moses who elicited this response and who, so to speak, pushed God Himself to this new stage in his relation with Israel—to give up His expectations of perfection from His covenanted people, and to understand that living within a covenant means, not rigid adherence to a set of laws, but a living relationship with real people, taking the bad with the good. (Again, the parallel to human relationships is obvious)"}
{"text": "“A remote Indian village is responding to global warming-induced water shortages by creating large masses of ice, or “artificial glaciers,” to get through the dry spring months. (See a map of the region.)\nLocated on the western edge of the Tibetan plateau, the village of Skara in the Ladakh region of India is not a common tourist destination.\n“It’s beautiful, but really remote and difficult to get to,” said Amy Higgins, a graduate student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies who worked on the artificial glacier project.\n“A lot of people, when I met them in Delhi and I said I was going to Ladakh, they looked at me like I was going to the moon,” said Higgins, who is also a National Geographic grantee.\nPeople in Skara and surrounding villages survive by growing crops such as barley for their own consumption and for sale in neighboring towns. In the past, water for the crops came from meltwater originating in glaciers high in the Himalaya.”\nRead more: National Geographic"}
{"text": "America's oil and natural gas industry is committed to protecting the environment and to continuously improving its hurricane preparation and response plans. After any hurricane or tropical storm, the goal is to return to full operations as quickly and as safely as possible. For the 2012 hurricane season, the industry continues to build upon critical lessons learned from 2008's major hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, as well as other powerful storms, such as 2005's Katrina and Rita and 2004's Ivan.\nAPI plays two primary roles for the industry in preparing for hurricanes. First, it helps the industry gain a better understanding of the environmental conditions in and around the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane or tropical storm activity and then assists industry in using that knowledge to make offshore and onshore facilities less vulnerable. Second, API collaborates with member companies, other industries and with federal, state and local governments to prepare for hurricanes and return operations as quickly and as safely as possible.\nAPI member companies also independently work to improve preparedness for hurricanes and other natural or manmade disasters. They have, for example, reviewed and updated emergency response plans, established redundant communication paths and made pre-arrangements with suppliers to help ensure they have adequate resources during an emergency.\nThe API Subcommittee on Offshore Stuctures, the International Association of Drilling Contractors, and the Offshore Operators Committee, serve as a liaison to regulatory agencies, coordinate industry review of critical design standards and provide a forum for sharing lessons learned from previous hurricanes.\nThese combined efforts are critical since the Gulf of Mexico accounted for about 23 percent of the oil and 8 percent of total natural gas produced in the United States (approximately 82 percent of the oil supply comes from deepwater facilities), and the Gulf Coast region is home to almost half of the U.S. refining capacity.\nUpstream (Exploration and Production)\nDuring the major 2005 hurricanes, waves were higher and winds were stronger than anticipated in deeper parts of the Gulf so the industry moved away from viewing it as a uniform body of water. Evaluating the effects of those and other storms, helped scientists discover that the Central Gulf of Mexico was more prone to hurricanes because it acts as a gathering spot for warm currents that can strengthen a storm.\nThe revised wind, wave and water current measurements (\"metocean\" data) prompted API to reassess its recommended practices (RPs) for industry operations in the region.\n- The upstream segment continues to integrate the updated environmental (metocean) data on how powerful storms affect conditions in the Gulf of Mexico into its offshore structure design standards. This effort led to the publication in 2008 of an update to RP 2SK, Design and Analysis of Stationkeeping Systems for Floating Structures, that provides guidance for design and operation of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) mooring systems in the Gulf of Mexico during the hurricane season. API RP 95J, Gulf of Mexico Jack-up Operations for Hurricane Season, which recommends locating jack-up rigs on more stable areas of the sea floor, and positioning platform decks higher above the sea surface, was also updated.\nAPI publications are available at our (Search and Order\nAPI in the past six years also has issued a number of bulletins to help better prepare for and bring production back online after Gulf hurricanes. These include:\nProduction and Hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)\n- Bulletin 2TD, Guidelines for Tie-downs on Offshore Production Facilities for Hurricane Season, which is aimed at better-securing separate platform equipment.\n- Bulletin 2INT-MET, Interim Guidance on Hurricane Conditions in the Gulf of Mexico, which provides updated metocean data for four regions of the Gulf, including wind velocities, deepwater wave conditions, ocean current information, and surge and tidal data.\n- Bulletin 2INT-DG, Interim Guidance for Design of Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which explains how to apply the updated metocean data during design.\n- Bulletin 2INT-EX, Interim Guidance for Assessment of Existing Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which assists owners/operators and engineers with existing facilities.\n- Bulletin 2HINS, Guidance on Post-hurricane Structural Inspection of Offshore Structures, which provides guidance on determining if a structure sustained hurricane-induced damage that affects the safety of personnel, the primary structural integrity, or its ability to perform the purpose for which it was intended.\nRefineries and Pipelines\n- Days in advance of a tropical storm or hurricane moving toward or near their drilling and production operations, companies will evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin the process of shutting down production.\n- As the storm gets closer, all personnel will be evacuated from the drilling rigs and platforms, and production is shut down. Drillships may relocate to a safe location. Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often will be shut down as well because storms can change direction with little notice.\n- After a storm has passed and it is safe to fly, operators will initiate \"flyovers\" of onshore and offshore facilities to evaluate damage from the air. For onshore facilities, these \"flyovers\" can identify flooding, facility damage, road or other infrastructure problems, and spills. Offshore \"flyovers\" look for damaged drilling rigs, platform damage, spills, and possible pipeline damage.\n- Many offshore drilling rigs are equipped with GPS locator systems, which allow federal officials and drilling contractors to remotely monitor the rigs' location before, during and after a hurricane. If a rig is pulled offsite by the storm, locator systems allow crews to find and recover the rig as quickly and as safely as possible.\n- Once safety concerns are addressed, operators will send assessment crews to offshore facilities to physically assess the facilities for damage.\n- If facilities are undamaged, and ancillary facilities, like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas, are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production. Drilling rigs will commence operations.\nDespite sustaining unprecedented damage and supply outages during the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes, the industry quickly and safely brought refining and pipeline operations back online, delivering to consumers near-record levels of gasoline and record levels of distillate (diesel and heating oil) in 2008. The oil and oil-product pipelines operating on or near the Gulf of Mexico continue to review their assets and operations to minimize the potential impacts of storms and shorten the time it takes to recover. While there have been some shortages caused by hurricanes, supply disruptions have been temporary despite extensive damage to supporting infrastructure, such as electric power generation and distribution, production shut-ins and refinery shutdowns. Pipelines need a steady supply of crude oil or refined products to keep product flowing to its intended destinations.\nTo prepare for future severe storms, refiners and pipeline companies have\nRefineries and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)\n- Worked with utilities to clarify priorities for electric power restoration critical to restarting operations and to help minimize significant disruptions to fuel distribution and delivery.\n- Secured backup power generation equipment and worked with federal, state and local governments to ensure that pipelines and refineries are considered \"critical\" infrastructure for back-up power purposes.\n- Established redundant communications systems to support continuity of operations and locate employees.\n- Worked with vendors to pre-position food, water and transportation, and updated emergency plans to secure other emergency supplies and services.\n- Provided additional training for employees who have participated in various exercises and drills.\n- Reexamined and improved emergency response and business continuity plans.\n- Strengthened onshore buildings and elevated equipment where appropriate to minimize potential flood damage.\n- Worked with the states and local emergency management officials to provide documentation and credentials for employees who need access to disaster sites where access is restricted during an emergency.\n- Participated in industry conferences to share best practices and improvement opportunities.\nPipelines and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)\n- Refiners, in the hours before a large storm makes landfall, will usually evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin shutting down or reducing operations.\n- Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often are shut down or curtailed as a precaution because storms can change direction with little notice.\n- Once safe, teams come in to assess damage. If damage or flooding has occurred, it must be repaired and dealt with before the refinery can be brought back on-line.\n- Other factors that can cause delays in restarting refineries include the availability of crude oil, electricity to run the plant and water used for cooling the process units.\n- Refineries are complex. It takes more than a flip of a switch to get a refinery back up and running. Once a decision has been made that it is safe to restart, it can take several days before the facility is back to full operating levels. This is because the process units and associated equipment must be returned to operation in a staged manner to ensure a safe and successful startup.\n- If facilities are undamaged or necessary repairs have been made, and ancillary facilities - like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas - are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production.\n- Pipeline operations can be impacted by storms, primarily through power outages, but also by direct damage.\n- Offshore pipelines damaged require the hiring of divers, repairs and safety inspections before supplies can flow. Damaged onshore pipelines must be assessed, repaired and inspected before resuming operations.\n- Without power, crude oil and petroleum products cannot be moved through pipelines. Operators routinely hold or lease back-up generators but need time to get them onsite.\n- If there is no product put into pipelines because Gulf Coast/Gulf of Mexico crude or natural gas production has been curtailed, or because of refinery shutdowns, the crude and products already in the pipelines cannot be pushed out the other end.\n- Wind damage to above ground tanks at storage terminals can also impact supplies into the pipeline.\n: The 2008 hurricane season was very active, with 16 named storms, of which eight became hurricanes and five of those were major hurricanes. For the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, the two most serious storms of 2008 were Hurricane Ike, which made landfall in mid-September near Baytown, Texas, and Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall on September 1 in Louisiana.\nHurricane Gustav, a strong Category 2 storm, kept off-line oil and natural gas delivery systems and production platforms that had not yet been fully restored from a smaller storm two weeks earlier, and brought significant flooding as far north as Baton Rouge. Hurricane Ike, another strong Category 2 hurricane, caused significant portions of the production, processing, and pipeline infrastructure along the Gulf Coast in East Texas and Louisiana to shut down. Ike caused significant destruction to electric transmission and distribution lines, and these damages delayed the restart of major processing plants, pipelines, and refineries. As many as 3.7 million customers were without electric power following the storm, with about 2.5 million in Texas alone.\nAt the peak of disruptions, more than 20 percent of total U.S. refinery capacity was idled. The Minerals Management Service - now called Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)\nestimated that 2,127 of the 3,800 total oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were exposed to hurricane conditions, with winds greater than 74 miles per hour, from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. A total of 60 platforms were destroyed as a result of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Some platforms which had been previously reported as having extensive damage were reassessed and determined to be destroyed. The destroyed platforms produced 13,657 barrels of oil and 96.5 million cubic feet of natural gas daily or 1.05 percent of the oil and 1.3 percent of the natural gas produced daily in the Gulf of Mexico.\n: The 2005 hurricane season was the most active in recorded history, shattering previous records. According to the Department of Energy, refineries in the path of hurricanes Katrina and Rita accounting for about 29 percent of U.S. refining capacity were shut down at the peak of disruptions. Offshore, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimated 22,000 of the 33,000 miles of pipelines and 3,050 of the 4,000 platforms in the Gulf were in the direct paths of the two Category 5 storms. Together the storms destroyed 115 platforms and damaged 52 others.\nEven so, there was no loss of life among industry workers and contractors. An MMS report found \"no accounts of spills from facilities on the federal Outer Continental Shelf that reached the shoreline; oiled birds or mammals; or involved any discoveries of oil to be collected or cleaned up\".\n: Hurricane Ivan was the strongest hurricane of the 2004 season and among one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record. It moved across the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall in Alabama. Ivan then looped across Florida and back into the Gulf, regenerating into a new tropical system, which moved into Louisiana and Texas.\nThe MMS estimated approximately 150 offshore facilities and 10,000 miles of pipelines were in the direct path of Ivan. Seven platforms were destroyed and 24 others damaged. The oil and natural gas industry submitted numerous damage reports to MMS, including for mobile drilling rigs, offshore platforms, producing wells, topside systems including wellheads and production and processing equipment, risers, and pipeline systems that transport oil and gas ashore from offshore facilities."}
{"text": "This section provides a short description of all the major characters in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a \"key\" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.\nMuhammad Bilal - This character is the son of a farmer who is stolen from Africa and sold as a slave.\nLizzy - This character is a slave on the Live Oaks plantation in South Carolina who never has a freedom dream.\nElijah Lewis - This character is intelligent and forward thinking and dreams of making enough money to help his family hold onto the Glory Field.\nLuvenia Lewis - This character is tall and dark-skinned. He/she has ideas of his/her own and does not want to move to Curry Island with his/her...\nThis section contains 570 words|\n(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)"}
{"text": "Fun Learning with Printable Flash Cards\nHere you will find our selection of free printable flash cards for preschool learning (and beyond!). Flash cards are a great way for kids to learn the basic elements and memorize them through short repeat sessions. You’ll find helping them learn their first abc, animal names and numbers incredibly rewarding.\nA few minutes here, a few minutes there, whether at home, traveling, in the park or at Auntie’s it’s learning on the go. These lovely cards turn learning into playing (… but we also love decorating kids’ rooms by sticking them on the wall or putting them in picture frames.)\nWe’ve made all our printable flash cards here free for everybody and of course you can print them as many times as you like!\nAlphabet Flash Cards\nHelping the little one’s first learning fun and sweet!\nVocabulary Flash Cards\nLearning new words and concepts is great fun!\nNumber & Math Flash Cards\nVarious flash cards for all your math activities.\nShapes & Colors Flash Cards\nTry combining abstract shapes and pretty colors with various colorful activities.\nWe have a growing selection of children’s resources for preschool, homeschool & classroom learning activities. Please check back soon to see what’s new. Thank you!\nWe’d also love to hear from parents and teachers with suggestions."}
{"text": "• Incubation: 18-20 days\n• Clutch Size: 4 eggs\n• Young Fledge: 16-21 days after hatching\n• Typical Foods: insects, aquatic invertebrates and seeds\nFemale red phalaropes are stunning -- they are a rich chestnut color with a dark crown and white face. However, virtually all Ohio birds are in drab non-breeding plumage.\nHabitat and Habits\nThis species prefers the open waters of Lake Erie. It is most typically found along stone jetties and breakwalls in sheltered harbors. The flight call is similar to that of the red-necked phalarope, but generally higher pitched.\nReproduction and Care of the Young\nBreeding takes place in Alaska and northern Canada. Nests are hollows in the ground of marshy tundra. The male raises the young."}
{"text": "Learn something new every day More Info... by email\nA predicate is part of a sentence or clause in English and is one of two primary components that serves to effectively complete the sentence. Sentences consist of two main components: subjects and predicates. Subjects are the primary “thing” in a sentence which the rest of the words then describe through either a direct description or by indicating what type of action that subject is performing. The predicate is this secondary aspect of the sentence and usually consists of a verb or adjective, though complicated sentences may have multiple verbs and a number of descriptions affecting the subject.\nIt can be easiest to understand predicates by first understanding subjects and how sentences are constructed. A sentence just about always has a subject, though it can be implied in some way and not necessarily directly stated. In a simple sentence like “The cat slept,” the subject is “the cat,” which is a noun phrase consisting of the direct article “the” and the noun “cat.” Subjects can be longer and more complicated, but they are usually fairly simple in nature.\nThe predicate of a sentence is then basically the rest of the sentence, though this is not always the case for longer and more complicated sentences. In “The cat slept,” the predicate is quite simple and merely consists of the word “slept.” This is simple because “slept” is an intransitive verb, which means that it requires no further description or objects to make it complete. The sentence could be expanded as “The cat slept on the bed,” but this is not necessary and merely adds a descriptive component to the predicate through the prepositional phrase “on the bed.”\nIn a somewhat more complicated sentence, such as “The man gave the ball to his son,” the subject of the sentence is still quite simple: “The man.” The predicate in this sentence, however, has become substantially more complicated and consists of the rest of the sentence: “gave the ball to his son.” This has been made more complicated because the verb “gave” is transitive, specifically ditransitive, which indicates both a direct object and an indirect object.\nThe act of “giving” requires that there is a direct object, which is the item given, and an indirect object, which is who or what it is given to. In this instance, the predicate consists of the verb “gave” and the direct object “the ball” with a connecting preposition “to” and the indirect object “his son.” Predicates can become even more complicated as an idea expands, such as a sentence like “The rock rolled off the table, landed on top of a skateboard, and proceeded to roll down the hill until it was stopped by a wall.” In this sentence, the subject is only “The rock,” which means that the rest of the sentence is the predicate."}
{"text": "History of Initiative & Referendum in Arizona\n|Laws • History|\n|List of measures|\nThe History of Initiative & Referendum in Arizona began when acquired statewide initiative, referendum, and recall rights at the time of statehood in 1912. The first initiative in the state was for women's suffrage. It was a landslide victory, passing by a margin of greater than two to one on Nov. 5, 1912.\nThen, in 1914, Arizona saw of 15 qualified initiatives, which held the record until 2006 when 19 initiatives were passed. Four of the 1914 initiatives passed because of the efforts of organized labor. One prohibited blacklisting of union members; a second established an \"old age and mothers' pension\"; another established a state government contract system, and a fourth limited businesses employment of non-citizens. Lastly, the voters in 1914 passed an initiative that barred the governor and legislature from amending or repealing initiatives.\nIn response, the legislature tried to pass a constitutional amendment that would make it more difficult to pass initiatives. Because this amendment needed the approval of voters, the Arizona Federation of Labor waged a campaign against the measure. The amendment was narrowly defeated in 1916.\n- This chart includes all ballot measures to appear on the Arizona ballot in the year indicated, not just initiated measures. See also Arizona ballot measures.\n|Year||Propositions on ballot||How many were approved?||How many were defeated?|\nArizonans owe many of their reforms to John Kromko. Kromko, like most Arizonans, is not a native; he was born near Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1940 and moved to Tucson in the mid-1960s. He was active in protests against the Vietnam War, and in the 1970s and 1980s he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature several times. By night, he was a computer-programming instructor; by day, he was Arizona’s \"Mr. Initiative.\"\nKromko’s first petition was a referendum drive to stop a Tucson city council ordinance banning topless dancing, arguing for free speech. In 1976 Kromko was among the handful of Arizonans who, in cooperation with the People’s Lobby Western Bloc campaign, succeeded in putting on the state ballot an initiative to phase out nuclear power. The initiative lost at the polls, but Kromko’s leadership on the issue got him elected to his first term in the legislature.\nRepealing the sales tax on food\nOnce elected, Kromko set his sights on abolishing the sales tax on food, a \"regressive\" tax that hits the poor hardest. Unsuccessful in the legislature, Kromko launched a statewide initiative petition and got enough signatures to put food tax repeal on the ballot. The legislature, faced with the initiative, acted to repeal the tax.\nAfter the food tax victory, Kromko turned to voter registration reform. Again the legislature was unresponsive, so he launched an initiative petition. He narrowly missed getting enough signatures in 1980, and he failed to win re-election that year.\nUndaunted, he revived the voter registration campaign and turned to yet another cause: Medicaid funding. Arizona in 1981 was the only state without Medicaid, since the legislature had refused to appropriate money for the state's share of this federal program.\nIn 1982, with an initiative petition drive under way and headed for success, the legislature got the message and established a Medicaid program. Kromko and his allies on this issue, the state’s churches, were satisfied and dropped their petition drive.\nMotor Voter initiative\nThe voter registration initiative, now under the leadership of Les Miller, a Phoenix attorney, and the state Democratic Party, gained ballot placement and voter approval. In the ensuing four years, this \"Motor Voter\" initiative increased by over 10 percent the proportion of Arizona’s eligible population who were registered to vote.\nLate legislative career\nKromko, re-elected to the legislature in 1982, took up his petitions again in 1983 to prevent construction of a freeway in Tucson that would have smashed through several residential neighborhoods. The initiative was merely to make freeway plans subject to voter approval, but Tucson officials, seeing the campaign as the death knell for their freeway plans, blocked its placement on the ballot through various legal technicalities. Kromko and neighborhood activists fighting to save their homes refused to admit defeat. They began a new petition drive in 1984, qualified their measure for the ballot, and won voter approval for it in November 1985.\nArizona’s moneyed interests poured funds into a campaign to unseat Kromko in 1986. Kromko not only survived but also fought back by supporting a statewide initiative to limit campaign contributions, sponsored by his colleague in the legislature, Democratic State Representative Reid Ewing of Tucson. Voters passed the measure by a two to one margin.\nKromko’s initiative exploits have made him the most effective Democratic political figure, besides former governor Bruce Babbitt, in this perennially Republican-dominated state. And Babbitt owes partial credit for one of his biggest successes - enactment of restrictions on the toxic chemical pollution of drinking water - to Kromko. Early in 1986 Kromko helped organize an environmentalist petition drive for an anti-toxic initiative, while Babbitt negotiated with the legislature for passage of a similar bill. When initiative backers had enough signatures to put their measure on the ballot, the legislature bowed to the pressure and passed Babbitt's bill. Even today, Kromko is still active in politics, writing letters to the editor about immigration policies.\nPetition drive problems in 2008\n2008 was a tough year for ballot initiatives in Arizona. Nine citizen initiatives filed signatures to qualify for the November 2008 Arizona ballot by the state's July 3 petition drive deadline. In the end, only six of the initiatives were certified, with three initiatives disqualified as a result of an historically high number of problems with flawed petition signatures. When the November vote was held, of the six that qualified for the ballot, only one was approved.,\nCriticisms of process\nAfter 19 were proposed in 2006, legislators were worried about \"ballot fatigue\" or overuse of the initiative system. This led to legislators considering steps to limit or otherwise exert more control over the initiative process. Ironically, any attempt to alter the initiative and referendum process would require an amendment to the state constitution, and thus in itself be put forth as a referendum.\nThis article is significantly based on an article published by the Initiative & Referendum Institute, and is used with their permission. Their article, in turn, relies on research in David Schmidt's book, Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution.\nAlso portions of this article were taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under the GNU license.\n- ↑ Arizona Daily Star, \"'Clown' takes some serious initiative\", July 20, 2007\n- ↑ Arizona Republic, \"'Flawed' election petitions face review\", September 13, 2008\n- ↑ Phoenix New Times, \"Citizen initiatives have been kicked off the ballot this year in record numbers, and the problems could go much deeper than invalid signatures\", August 21, 2008\n- ↑ Legislators seeking more control over initiatives, Arizona Republic, Feb. 13, 2007\n- ↑ History of Arizona's initiative\n- ↑ Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution Temple University Press, 352 pp., ISBN-10: 0877229031, October 1991\nHistory of I&R\nAlaska · Arizona · Arkansas · California · Colorado · Florida · Idaho · Illinois · Kentucky · Maine · Maryland · Massachusetts · Michigan · Mississippi · Missouri · Montana · Nebraska · Nevada · New Mexico · North Dakota · Ohio · Oklahoma · Oregon · South Dakota · Utah · Washington · Wyoming\nDirect Legislation by the Citizenship Through the Initiative and Referendum · Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution · Direct Legislation: Voting on Ballot Propositions in the United States"}
{"text": "General Chemistry/Periodicity and Electron Configurations\nBlocks of the Periodic Table \nThe Periodic Table does more than just list the elements. The word periodic means that in each row, or period, there is a pattern of characteristics in the elements. This is because the elements are listed in part by their electron configuration. The Alkali metals and Alkaline earth metals have one and two valence electrons (electrons in the outer shell) respectively. These elements lose electrons to form bonds easily, and are thus very reactive. These elements are the s-block of the periodic table. The p-block, on the right, contains common non-metals such as chlorine and helium. The noble gases, in the column on the right, almost never react, since they have eight valence electrons, which makes it very stable. The halogens, directly to the left of the noble gases, readily gain electrons and react with metals. The s and p blocks make up the main-group elements, also known as representative elements. The d-block, which is the largest, consists of transition metals such as copper, iron, and gold. The f-block, on the bottom, contains rarer metals including uranium. Elements in the same Group or Family have the same configuration of valence electrons, making them behave in chemically similar ways.\nCauses for Trends \nThere are certain phenomena that cause the periodic trends to occur. You must understand them before learning the trends.\nEffective Nuclear Charge \nThe effective nuclear charge is the amount of positive charge acting on an electron. It is the number of protons in the nucleus minus the number of electrons in between the nucleus and the electron in question. Basically, the nucleus attracts an electron, but other electrons in lower shells repel it (opposites attract, likes repel).\nShielding Effect \nThe shielding (or screening) effect is similar to effective nuclear charge. The core electrons repel the valence electrons to some degree. The more electron shells there are (a new shell for each row in the periodic table), the greater the shielding effect is. Essentially, the core electrons shield the valence electrons from the positive charge of the nucleus.\nElectron-Electron Repulsions \nWhen two electrons are in the same shell, they will repel each other slightly. This effect is mostly canceled out due to the strong attraction to the nucleus, but it does cause electrons in the same shell to spread out a little bit. Lower shells experience this effect more because they are smaller and allow the electrons to interact more.\nCoulomb's Law \nCoulomb's law is an equation that determines the amount of force with which two charged particles attract or repel each other. It is , where is the amount of charge (+1e for protons, -1e for electrons), is the distance between them, and is a constant. You can see that doubling the distance would quarter the force. Also, a large number of protons would attract an electron with much more force than just a few protons would.\nTrends in the Periodic table \nMost of the elements occur naturally on Earth. However, all elements beyond uranium (number 92) are called trans-uranium elements and never occur outside of a laboratory. Most of the elements occur as solids or gases at STP. STP is standard temperature and pressure, which is 0° C and 1 atmosphere of pressure. There are only two elements that occur as liquids at STP: mercury (Hg) and bromine (Br).\nBismuth (Bi) is the last stable element on the chart. All elements after bismuth are radioactive and decay into more stable elements. Some elements before bismuth are radioactive, however.\nAtomic Radius \nLeaving out the noble gases, atomic radii are larger on the left side of the periodic chart and are progressively smaller as you move to the right across the period. Conversely, as you move down the group, radii increase.\nAtomic radii decrease along a period due to greater effective nuclear charge. Atomic radii increase down a group due to the shielding effect of the additional core electrons, and the presence of another electron shell.\nIonic Radius \nFor nonmetals, ions are bigger than atoms, as the ions have extra electrons. For metals, it is the opposite.\nExtra electrons (negative ions, called anions) cause additional electron-electron repulsions, making them spread out farther. Fewer electrons (positive ions, called cations) cause fewer repulsions, allowing them to be closer.\n|Ionization energy is the energy required to strip an electron from the atom (when in the gas state).\nIonization energy is also a periodic trend within the periodic table organization. Moving left to right within a period or upward within a group, the first ionization energy generally increases. As the atomic radius decreases, it becomes harder to remove an electron that is closer to a more positively charged nucleus.\nIonization energy decreases going left across a period because there is a lower effective nuclear charge keeping the electrons attracted to the nucleus, so less energy is needed to pull one out. It decreases going down a group due to the shielding effect. Remember Coulomb's Law: as the distance between the nucleus and electrons increases, the force decreases at a quadratic rate.\nIt is considered a measure of the tendency of an atom or ion to surrender an electron, or the strength of the electron binding; the greater the ionization energy, the more difficult it is to remove an electron. The ionization energy may be an indicator of the reactivity of an element. Elements with a low ionization energy tend to be reducing agents and form cations, which in turn combine with anions to form salts.\nElectron Affinity \n|Electron affinity is the opposite of ionization energy. It is the energy released when an electron is added to an atom.\nElectron affinity is highest in the upper left, lowest on the bottom right. However, electron affinity is actually negative for the noble gasses. They already have a complete valence shell, so there is no room in their orbitals for another electron. Adding an electron would require creating a whole new shell, which takes energy instead of releasing it. Several other elements have extremely low electron affinities because they are already in a stable configuration, and adding an electron would decrease stability.\nElectron affinity occurs due to the same reasons as ionization energy.\nElectronegativity is how much an atom attracts electrons within a bond. It is measured on a scale with fluorine at 4.0 and francium at 0.7. Electronegativity decreases from upper right to lower left.\nElectronegativity decreases because of atomic radius, shielding effect, and effective nuclear charge in the same manner that ionization energy decreases.\nMetallic Character \nMetallic elements are shiny, usually gray or silver colored, and good conductors of heat and electricity. They are malleable (can be hammered into thin sheets), and ductile (can be stretched into wires). Some metals, like sodium, are soft and can be cut with a knife. Others, like iron, are very hard. Non-metallic atoms are dull, usually colorful or colorless, and poor conductors. They are brittle when solid, and many are gases at STP. Metals give away their valence electrons when bonding, whereas non-metals take electrons.\nThe metals are towards the left and center of the periodic table—in the s-block, d-block, and f-block . Poor metals and metalloids (somewhat metal, somewhat non-metal) are in the lower left of the p-block. Non-metals are on the right of the table.\nMetallic character increases from right to left and top to bottom. Non-metallic character is just the opposite. This is because of the other trends: ionization energy, electron affinity, and electronegativity."}
{"text": "Cori spezzati (kor' ee spetz ah' tee), Italian for \"separated choirs,\" is the term used to describe a musical composition that uses spatial effects to emphasize the interplay between its various voices. Typically, this means placing two or more choirs or groups of instruments in various places around a performance space. Music that is intended to be performed cori spezatti is by nature antiphonal; in fact, some consider these two terms to be synonymous, at least when they refer to instrumental music.\nCori spezzati isn't a particularly common form of music, and for obvious reasons. In order for it to work out right, it must be performed in a specific type of space; namely, one which is both big enough to accomodate the separation of the instrumental/vocal groups and acoustically suited to the kind of call and answer phrasing that characterizes antiphonal music. (If the space is too echoey, the interplay among the groups just becomes muddled. If it's just moderately echoey, though, it sounds great.) And even in concert halls which meet these specifications, there's a certain awkwardness to the idea of putting half the ensemble onstage and sending the rest up to the balcony or (as I have seen done) forsaking the stage altogether and having half the group stand in the left-hand balcony and the other half in the right-hand one.\nThe type of performance space which is most obviously suited to cori spezzati is the cathedral; in churches, the problem of the stage is eliminated, and there are generally balconies and nooks and crannies galore in Renaissance-style basilicas. Unsurprisingly, a Renaissance basilica was the formal birthplace of cori spezzati: in the late 1500's, Giovanni Gabrieli, the music director, organist, and composer-in-residence at St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, began experimenting with the idea of separating his choirs and putting them in different places around the church. Gabrieli is considered to be the father of cori spezzati, and probably the only composer to write a serious volume of work in this style. He wrote both choral and instrumental pieces (mostly sacred, because of the nature of his job), some of which are still performed today and shouldn't be too hard to find recordings of. (I, unfortunately, do not own recordings of any of Gabrieli's music, although I heard his Sonata Octavi Toni for two brass choirs performed live, and it was gorgeous. I recommend it highly if you happen to like Renaissance/Baroque music.)\nThis writeup was made possible by a little bit of help from www.naxos.com/composer/gabrieli.htm, and Virginia Tech's Online Music Dictionary, found at www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary"}
{"text": "Most people still think of Web sites such as Google as places to go. Wrong. That's the old media model. In reality, every click is a command for some computer somewhere in the world. (...) Indeed, CEO Eric Schmidt says that Google essentially is a huge, distributed supercomputer \"doing all sorts of things over a fiber-optic network that eventually are services available to end-users.\" Before long, Googling will mean not just searching for something, but getting ALMOST anything done online.\nThe New York Times estimated last year that the Googleplex and its server farms contain 450,000 servers. \"The rate at which the Google computing system has grown is as remarkable as its size. In March 2001, when the company was serving about 70 million Web pages daily, it had 8,000 computers, according to a Microsoft researcher granted anonymity to talk about a detailed tour he was given at one of Google's Silicon Valley computing centers. By 2003 the number had grown to 100,000.\""}
{"text": "One of the greatest composers of all time, Franz JosephHaydn made an enormous contribution in the creation and development of virtually all musical forms and genres. 1760, Haydn was appointed the official musician for the Esterhazy Princes. Only in 1790, Haydn was released and allowed to travel. Haydn went to London where he became the most important and influential musician. Haydn retired in Vienna still being in the service of Prince Nikolaus. Haydn remains one of the most popular musicians."}
{"text": "Since 1993, RAN’s Protect-an-Acre program (PAA) has distributed more than one million dollars in grants to more than 150 frontline communities, Indigenous-led organizations, and allies, helping their efforts to secure protection for millions of acres of traditional territory in forests around the world.\nRainforest Action Network believes that Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of the world’s rainforests and that frontline communities organizing against the extraction and burning of dirty fossil fuels deserve the strongest support we can offer. RAN established the Protect-an-Acre program to protect the world’s forests and the rights of their inhabitants by providing financial aid to traditionally under-funded organizations and communities in forest regions.\nIndigenous and frontline communities suffer disproportionate impacts to their health, livelihood and culture from extractive industry mega-projects and the effects of global climate change. That’s why Protect-an-Acre provides small grants to community-based organizations, Indigenous federations and small NGOs that are fighting to protect millions of acres of forest and keep millions of tons of CO2 in the ground.\nOur grants support organizations and communities that are working to regain control of and sustainably manage their traditional territories through land title initiatives, community education, development of sustainable economic alternatives, and grassroots resistance to destructive industrial activities.\nPAA is an alternative to “buy-an-acre” programs that seek to provide rainforest protection by buying tracts of land, but which often fail to address the needs or rights of local Indigenous peoples. Uninhabited forest areas often go unprotected, even if purchased through a buy-an-acre program. It is not uncommon for loggers, oil and gas companies, cattle ranchers, and miners to illegally extract resources from so-called “protected” areas.\nTraditional forest communities are often the best stewards of the land because their way of life depends upon the health of their environment. A number of recent studies add to the growing body of evidence that Indigenous peoples are better protectors of their forests than governments or industry.\nBased on the success of Protect-an-Acre, RAN launched The Climate Action Fund (CAF) in 2009 as a way to direct further resources and support to frontline communities and Indigenous peoples challenging the fossil fuel industry.\nAdditionally, RAN has been a Global Advisor to Global Greengrants Fund (GGF) since 1995, identifying recipients for small grants to mobilize resources for global environmental sustainability and social justice using the same priority and criteria as we use for PAA and CAF.\nThrough these three programs each year we support grassroots projects that result in at least:"}
{"text": "Per Square Meter\nWarm-up: Relationships in Ecosystems (10 minutes)\n1. Begin this lesson by presenting the powerpoint, “Per Square Meter”.\n2. After the presentation, ask students to think of animal relationships that correspond to each of the following types; Competition, Predation, Parasitism, and Mutualism\na. For example, two animals that compete for food are lions and cheetahs (they compete for zebras and antelopes)\n3. Record the different types of relationships on the board.\nActivity One: My Own Square Meter (30 minutes)\n1. Have students go outside and pick a small area (about a square meter each) to explore. It is preferable that this area be grassy or ‘natural’. The school playground might be a good spot.\n2. Each student should keep a list of both the living organisms and man-made products found in their area (i.e grass, birds, insects, flowers, sidewalk etc.) Students are allowed to collect a few specimens from this area to show to the class. If students do not have jars, they can draw their observations. *See Reproducible #1\nActivity Two: Who lives in our playground? (10 minutes)\n1. After listing, collecting, and drawing specimens, students should return to the classroom and present their findings.\na. Have the students sit in a circle. Each student should read his or her list of findings out loud. If they collected specimens or drew observations, have them present them to the class.\n2. Make a list of these findings on the board. Only write repeated findings once (to avoid writing grass as many times as there are students). Keep one list of living organisms and one list of man-made products.\n3. For now, focus on the list of living organisms. As a class, help students name possible relationships between the organisms. See if they can find one of each type of relationship. For example, a bee on a flower is an example of mutualism because the nectar from the flower nourishes the bee and in return, the bee pollinates the flower.\nActivity Three: Humans and the Environment: Human Effect on one Square Meter (15 minutes)\n1. Now that students have focused on the animal relationships of their square meter, it is time to examine the effect of humans on the natural environment. Focus on the human-made product list. Ask students to consider the possible relationships between the human-made products and the environment. Prompt a brief class discussion on the effects of man-made products on the environment. Use the following questions as guidelines.\na. What is the effect of an empty drink bottle (or any other piece of trash) in a grassy field? Will it decompose? Will it be used by an animal as a habitat or food?\nAnswer: Trash is an invasive man-made product. Most trash is non-bio degradable and is harmful to the environment and to eco-system relations.Therefore, it is a harmful addition to the square meter.\nb. Who left the bottle there? Do you think they are still thinking about it? Did they leave it there on purpose? Why did they leave it there?\nAnswer: Most people litter thoughtlessly. They are not thinking about their actions and how they may effect the environment or eco-systems. It is important that people recognize that litter has a major effect on the environment.\nc. What about a bench? Does a park bench have the same effect on the environment as a piece of trash?\nAnswer: A park bench can be considered as a positive human-made product. A park bench has little negative effect on the environment and even helps humans further appreciate eco-systems. The Park Bench may even provide shelter or a perch for the eco-systems living organisms.\nd. Is there a difference between positive human-made products and negative ones? What are some examples of each?\nAnswer: Yes, there is a difference between positive and negative human-made products. Positive products have minimal effect on the functioning of eco systems whereas negative products have major effects on eco systems. An example of a positive human-made product would be a solar powered house. An example of a negative human-made product would be a car that produces a lot of pollution.\nWrap Up: Our Classroom Eco-Web (20-30 minutes)\n1. Have students create classroom artwork by illustrating the relationships between their eco-systems.\n2. Each student should draw at least two components of his or her square meter.\n3. After everyone has finished their illustrations, create a web relating the illustrations. Draw arrows between illustrated components with written indications of the type of relationship exemplified.\n4. Post the finished product in the classroom so that students can see the interconnectedness of the earth’s eco-systems.\nExtension: Exploring Aquatic Eco-Systems (On-going Activity)\nStudents can explore another type of eco-system by creating a classroom aquarium or terrarium. The supplies for both of these mini eco-systems can be found at your local pet store. Students should help set up and maintain the aquarium or terrarium throughout the year. Periodically, students should observe how the mini-ecosystem is progressing, note changes, and assess the relationships between the organisms of the eco-system. This way, students are able to directly participate in the functioning of a natural system.\nAnother related activity might be to take your students on a field trip to a different eco-system from that of your school. If you live near a river, lake, or ocean take them there to explore different ecological relations. If you live in a city, examples of diverse eco-systems can be found at the local zoo or aquarium."}
{"text": "From the time of Aristotle (384-322 BC) until the late 1500’s, gravity was believed to act differently on different objects.\n- Drop a metal bar and a feather at the same time… which one hits the ground first?\n- Obviously, common sense will tell you that the bar will hit first, while the feather slowly flutters to the ground.\n- In Aristotle’s view, this was because the bar was being pulled harder (and faster) by gravity because of its physical properties.\n- Because everyone sees this when they drop different objects, it wasn’t questioned for almost 2000 years.\nGalileo Galilei was the first major scientist to refute (prove wrong) Aristotle’s theories.\n- In his famous (at least to Physicists!) experiment, Galileo went to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and dropped a wooden ball and a lead ball, both the same size, but different masses.\n- They both hit the ground at the same time, even though Aristotle would say that the heavier metal ball should hit first.\n- Galileo had shown that the different rates at which some objects fall is due to air resistance, a type of friction.\n- Get rid of friction (air resistance) and all objects will fall at the same rate.\n- Galileo said that the acceleration of any object (in the absence of air resistance) is the same.\n- To this day we follow the model that Galileo created.\nag = g = 9.81m/s2\nag = g = acceleration due to gravity\nSince gravity is just an acceleration like any other, it can be used in any of the formulas that we have used so far.\n- Just be careful about using the correct sign (positive or negative) depending on the problem.\nExamples of Calculations with Gravity\nExample 1: A ball is thrown up into the air at an initial velocity of 56.3m/s. Determine its velocity after 4.52s have passed.\nIn the question the velocity upwards is positive, and I’ll keep it that way. That just means that I have to make sure that I use gravity as a negative number, since gravity always acts down.\nvf = vi + at\n= 56.3m/s + (-9.81m/s2)(4.52s)\nvf = 12.0 m/s\nThis value is still positive, but smaller. The ball is slowing down as it rises into the air.\nExample 2: I throw a ball down off the top of a cliff so that it leaves my hand at 12m/s. Determine how fast is it going 3.47 seconds later.\nIn this question I gave a downward velocity as positive. I might as well stick with this, but that means I have defined down as positive. That means gravity will be positive as well.vf = vi + at\n= 12m/s + (9.81m/s2)(3.47s)\nvf = 46 m/s\nHere the number is getting bigger. It’s positive, but in this question I’ve defined down as positive, so it’s speeding up in the positive direction.\nExample 3: I throw up a ball at 56.3 m/s again. Determine how fast is it going after 8.0s.\nWe’re defining up as positive again.\nvf = vi + at\n= 56.3m/s + (-9.81m/s2)(8.0s)\nvf = -22 m/s\nWhy did I get a negative answer?\n- The ball reached its maximum height, where it stopped, and then started to fall down.\n- Falling down means a negative velocity.\nThere’s a few rules that you have to keep track of. Let’s look at the way an object thrown up into the air moves.\nAs the ball is going up…\n- It starts at the bottom at the maximum speed.\n- As it rises, it slows down.\n- It finally reaches it’s maximum height, where for a moment its velocity is zero.\n- This is exactly half ways through the flight time.\nAs the ball is coming down…\n- The ball begins to speed up, but downwards.\n- When it reaches the same height that it started from, it will be going at the same speed as it was originally moving at.\n- It takes just as long to go up as it takes to come down.\nExample 4: I throw my ball up into the (again) at a velocity of 56.3 m/s.\na) Determine how much time does it take to reach its maximum height.\n- It reaches its maximum height when its velocity is zero. We’ll use that as the final velocity.\n- Also, if we define up as positive, we need to remember to define down (like gravity) as negative.\na = (vf - vi) / t\nt = (vf - vi) / a\n= (0 - 56.3m/s) / -9.81m/s2\nt = 5.74s\nb) Determine how high it goes.\n- It’s best to try to avoid using the number you calculated in part (a), since if you made a mistake, this answer will be wrong also.\n- If you can’t avoid it, then go ahead and use it.\nvf2 = vi2 + 2ad\nd = (vf2 = vi2) / 2a\n= (0 - 56.32) / 2(-9.81m/s2)\nd = 1.62e2 m\nc) Determine how fast is it going when it reaches my hand again.\n- Ignoring air resistance, it will be going as fast coming down as it was going up.\nYou might have heard people in movies say how many \"gee’s\" they were feeling.\n- All this means is that they are comparing the acceleration they are feeling to regular gravity.\n- So, right now, you are experiencing 1g… regular gravity.\n- During lift-off the astronauts in the space shuttle experience about 4g’s.\n- That works out to about 39m/s2.\n- Gravity on the moon is about 1.7m/s2 = 0.17g"}
{"text": "March 30, 2011 by Valerie Elkins\nThe short answer is keizu. The longer answer is not so easy. There several reasons why it is difficult for those of Japanese ancestry living outside of Japan to trace their lineage. One of the main reasons is a lack of understanding of the language. I am not going to sugar coat it, learning Japanese is hard, BUT learning how to pronounce it is not.\nThere are 5 basic vowel sounds in Japanese. They are always pronounced the same unlike in English! Vowel lengths are all uniformly short:\n|a||as in ‘father’|\n|e||as in ‘bet’|\n|i||as in ‘beet’|\n|u||as in ‘boot’|\n|o||as in ‘boat’|\nYou do not need to know everything in Japanese but learning some genealogical terms is helpful.\nGlossary of Japanese genealogical terms to begin building your vocabulary.\n- koseki ~ household register, includes everyone in a household under the head of house (who usually was male)\n- koseki tohon ~ certified copy which recorded everything from the original record.\n- koseki shohon ~ certified copy which recorded only parts from the original.\n- joseki ~ expired register in which all persons originally entered have been removed because of death, change of residence, etc. A joseki file is ordinarily available for 80 years after its expiration.\n- kaisei genkoseki ~ revised koseki\n- honseki ~ permanent residence or registered address (i.e. person may move to Tokyo but their records remain in hometown city hall).\n- genseki ~ another name for honseki\n- kakocho ~ Buddist death register\n- kaimyo ~ Buddist name given to deceased person and recorded in kakocho.\n- homyo ~ Buddist name given to living converts, similar to homyo.\n- kuni ~ country or nation\n- ken ~ prefecture\n- shi ~ city\n- gun ~ county\n- to ~ metropolitan prefecture (Tokyo-to). Similar to ken.\n- do ~ urban prefecture (Hokkaido). Similar to ken.\n- fu ~ urban prefecture (Kyoto-fu, Osaka-fu) similar to ken.\n- ku ~ ward in some large cities (Sapparo, Sendai, Tokyo) divided in to town (cho).\n- cho ~ town\n- aza ~unorganized district\n- machi ~ town within a city (cho) or ward (ku), town within a county (gun).\n- chome ~ smaller division of a town (cho) in some neighborhoods.\n- mura or son ~ village within a county (gun).\n- koshu or hittousha or stainushi ~ head of household, the head of the family\n- zen koshu ~ former head of household\n- otto ~ husband\n- tsuma ~ wife\n- chichi or fu ~ father\n- haha or bo ~ mother\n- sofu ~ grandfather\n- sobo ~ grandmother\n- otoko or dan or nan ~ male, man, son\n- onna or jo ~ female, woman, daughter\n- ani or kei or kyou ~ older brother\n- otouto or tei ~ younger brother\n- ane or shi ~ older sister\n- imouto or mai ~ younger sister\n- mago or son ~ grandchild\n- himago or souson ~ great-grandchild\n- oi ~ nephew\n- mei ~ niece\n- youshi ~ adopted child or son\n- youjo ~ adopted daughter\n- muko youshi ~ a man without sons may adopt his eldest daughter’s husband as his own son and the young man will take his wife’s surname and be listed on her family’s koseki\n- seimei or shime ~ full name, family name\n- shussei or shusshou ~ birth\n- shibou ~ deceased\n- nen or toshi ~ year\n- gatsu, getsu or tsuki ~ month\n- hi or nichi or ka ~ day\n- ji or toki ~ hour, time\n- sai or toshi ~ age\n- issei ~ person born in Japan and later immigrate elsewhere\n- nisei ~ child/generation of issei and born outside of Japan\n- sansei ~ child/generation of nisei and born outside of Japan\n- yonsei ~ child/generation of sansei and born outside of Japan\n- gosei ~ child/generation of yonsei and born outside of Japan\nThere is another Japanese term you really need to know. It is ganbatte which means ‘hang in there’ or ‘do your best’ and either one is will work.\nCategory Uncategorized | Tags:"}
{"text": "Writing An Acceptable Use Policy For Your School\nA helpful guide to creating an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for a school's use of services provided by the Internet. The author notes that an AUP is the most important document a school will create since it states the terms, conditions, and rules of Internet use determined by a school or district. Topics include: What is an AUP; Why Establish an AUP; Objectives of an AUP; Components; Distribution; Samples (web based); Resources (web based). Additional coverage is given to writing policy statements and consent forms, and maintaining copyrights, netiquette, privacy, and user responsibility.\nBooks & Booklets; Internet Resources\nAdministration & Leadership\nAdministrator, Teacher, Board Member / Trustee"}
{"text": "A Brief Description of Islam as the Shi'ites Believe\n5- MONOTHEISM IS THE VERY SOUL OF ALL THE ISLAMIC COMMANDMENTS\nWE BELIEVE that one of the most important subjects of the knowledge of God, is the MONOTHEISM, i.e. the belief that there is but one God. As a matter of fact Monotheism (TOWHID) is not only a principle of the religion, but the most important of the tenets. It is the very soul and the base of all the Islamic ideas and beliefs. We can say that the roots, as well as the branches of Islam take their forms in the monotheism.\nThe UNITY and ONENESS is a general topic of conversation everywhere and in every field:- UNITY OF GOD'S ESSENCE, Unity of His attributes, and actions. In other word, also the unity of prophets and their teachings, the unity of the LAW, GHIBLEH, and the books. And after all, the unity of Moslims through their brotherhood and the unity of the resurrection day. From this point of view the HOLY QURØ·N declares POLYTHEISM as an unforgiveable SIN:-\n\"Allah does not forgive those who set up partners with Him, but He may forgive any sin inferior to that, of whom he wills.\nHe that sets up CO-SHARERS with Allah is guilty of a SIN which is most heinous indeed.\"\nTHE HOLY QURAN - S4: 48\n\"It has already been revealed to you as it was revealed to those before you that:-\" If you join gods with Allah, your deeds shall be fruitless, and you surely will be one of those who lose. (all spiritual goodnesses)\nTHE HOLY QURAN - S39: 65\n6- THE BRANCHES OF MONOTHEISM\nWE BELIEVE that MONOTHEISM, (TOWHID) has many branches among which four are the most important ones:-"}
{"text": "What we ship things in makes a difference.\nTake the banana, for example. In 1876, at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, the banana was a delicacy (and very black). Millions of bunches could only be sent to U.S. shores if they were refrigerated. By 1901, as I describe in Econ 101 1/2, United Fruit was distributing 14 million bunches of bananas in the U.S. One reason, in addition to the railroad and the steamboat, was a banana vessel that could maintain a 53 degree temperature for its cargo.\nJust like refrigerated banana vessels transformed world trade, so too has the cargo container. Introduced in 1956, now one ship can carry 3,000 forty foot containers with 100,000 tons of shoes, electronics and clothing. Imagine the potential efficiency. Put everything in the container, arrive at a port, and just slip it onto a truck or a railroad car for it to move to its next stop. Journalist Marc Levinson says the result is more variety for consumers, lower freight bills, less shipping time, lower inventory costs and longer supply chains.\nThis takes us back to yesterday’s supership post and the expansion of the Panama Canal. Larger ships mean more containers on board. The NY Times said that the newest generation of superships could hold 15,000 containers that are 20 feet long.\nThe Economic Lesson\nAdam Smith would have been delighted to see his ideas about mass production and regional specialization extend around the world. Describing the productivity of factory pin production in The Wealth of Nations, he told us that one worker, functioning alone, could produce 1 pin per day. However, when that worker specialized through a division of labor in a factory, 4,800 pins per worker per day were made.\nAdam Smith used the term “distant sale” to explain the transport of goods from a factory to a distant market. He could have been describing a container ship moving from China to the U.S."}
{"text": "ASL Literature and Art\nThis section is a collection of ASL storytelling, poetry, works of art, and other creative works. It also consists of posts on literary aspects of ASL.\nSpeech language can convey sound effects in storytelling, whereas sign language can convey cinematic effects in storytelling.\nPoetry in sign language has its own poetic features such as rhymes, rhythms, meters, and other features that charactierize poetry which is not limited to speech.\nExplore ASL literary arts in this section including some visual-linguistic literary works in ASL and discussion.\nSelected works of interest\nDeconstruct W.O.R.D.: an original poetry performance.\nKnowing Fish: poetic narrative video.\nCompare three versions of the poem \"Spring Dawn\" originally written by Meng Hao-jan. The poem is translated by the literary artist Jolanta Lapiak into ASL in video and unique one-of-a-kind photograph print. Watch how ASL rhymes arise in this signed poem."}
{"text": "May 19, 2008 A vaccine created by University of Rochester Medical Center scientists prevents the development of Alzheimer's disease-like pathology in mice without causing inflammation or significant side effects.\nVaccinated mice generated an immune response to the protein known as amyloid-beta peptide, which accumulates in what are called \"amyloid plaques\" in brains of people with Alzheimer's. The vaccinated mice demonstrated normal learning skills and functioning memory in spite of being genetically designed to develop an aggressive form of the disease.\nThe Rochester scientists reported the findings in an article in the May issue of Molecular Therapy, the journal of The American Society of Gene Therapy.\n\"Our study demonstrates that we can create a potent but safe version of a vaccine that utilizes the strategy of immune response shaping to prevent Alzheimer's-related pathologies and memory deficits,\" said William Bowers, associate professor of neurology and of microbiology and immunology at the Medical Center and lead author of the article. \"The vaccinated mice not only performed better, we found no evidence of signature amyloid plaque in their brains.\"\nAlzheimer's is a progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with dementia and a decline in performance of normal activities. Hallmarks of the disease include the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brains of patients and the loss of normal functioning tau, a protein that stabilizes the transport networks in neurons. Abnormal tau function eventually leads to another classic hallmark of Alzheimer's, neurofibrillary tangle in nerve cells. After several decades of exposure to these insults, neurons ultimately succumb and die, leading to progressively damaged learning and memory centers in the brain.\nThe mice that received the vaccines were genetically engineered to express large amounts of amyloid beta protein. They also harbored a mutation that causes the tau-related tangle pathology. Prior to the start of the vaccine study, the mice were trained to navigate a maze using spatial clues. They were then tested periodically during the 10-month study on the amount of time and distance traveled to an escape pod and the number of errors made along the way.\n\"What we found exciting was that by targeting one pathology of Alzheimer's -- amyloid beta -- we were able to also prevent the transition of tau from its normal form to a form found in the disease state,\" Bowers said.\nThe goal of the vaccine is to prompt the immune system to recognize amyloid beta protein and remove it. To create the vaccine, Bowers and the research group use a herpes virus that is stripped of the viral genes that can cause disease or harm. They then load the virus container with the genetic code for amyloid beta and interleukin-4, a protein that stimulates immune responses involving type 2 T helper cells, which are lymphocytes that play an important role in the immune system.\nThe research group tested several versions of a vaccine. Mice were given three injections of empty virus alone, a vaccine carrying only the amyloid beta genetic code, or a vaccine encoding both amyloid beta and interlueikin-4, which was found to be the most effective.\n\"We have learned a great deal from this ongoing project,\" Bowers said. \"Importantly, it has demonstrated the combined strengths of the gene delivery platform and the immune shaping concept for the creation of customized vaccines for Alzheimer's disease, as well as a number of other diseases. We are currently working on strategies we believe can make the vaccine even safer.\"\nBowers expects the vaccine eventually to be tested in people, but due to the number of studies required to satisfy regulatory requirements, it could be three or more years before human trials testing this type of Alzheimer's vaccine occur.\nGrants from the National Institutes of Health supported the study. In addition to Bowers, authors of the Molecular Therapy article include Maria E. Frazer, Jennifer E. Hughes, Michael A. Mastrangelo and Jennifer Tibbens of the Medical Center and Howard J. Federoff of Georgetown University Medical Center.\nOther social bookmarking and sharing tools:\nNote: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.\nNote: If no author is given, the source is cited instead."}
{"text": "Saint ZachariasArticle Free Pass\nSaint Zacharias, English Zachary (born , San Severino, duchy of Benevento [Italy]—died March 14/22, 752, Rome; feast day March 15), pope from 741 to 752.\nThe last of the Greek popes, Zacharias was supposedly a Roman deacon when he succeeded Pope St. Gregory III in November/December 741. His pontificate was devoted to diplomatic relations with the Lombard and Frankish kingdoms and with the Byzantine Empire. He initiated a policy of conciliation with the Lombards while endeavouring to dissuade their rulers, Liutprand and Rachis, from conquering the Byzantine exarchate of Ravenna. Successful, he thus made peace with the Lombards. He maintained amiable relations with the Byzantine emperor Constantine V Copronymus, whom he advised to restore the veneration of icons.\nZacharias’s relations with the Franks were similarly cordial, and his correspondence with St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, shows how great his influence was on contemporary events in the Frankish kingdom. In 741 he made Boniface legate and charged him with the reformation of the whole Frankish church. He supported the deposition (751–752) of Childeric III, the last Merovingian king, and authorized the Frankish church to anoint Pippin III the Short as king of the Franks. Zacharias’s action in the transference of the royal crown from the Merovingians to the house of Pippin (Carolingians) began a new era for church and state by establishing the Carolingian-papal alliance, which was to be of the greatest significance in future relations between pope and emperor and was of extreme importance to the theorists and controversialists of the Investiture Controversy (11th and 12th centuries). The latter dispute concerned secular rulers’ right to invest bishops and abbots, which right became one of the paramount aspects in the struggle for power between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.\nZacharias is known especially in the East for his Greek translation of the Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory I the Great.\nWhat made you want to look up \"Saint Zacharias\"? Please share what surprised you most..."}
{"text": "Nephila jurassica: The biggest spider fossil ever found\nSpiders are small arthropods, famous for their elasticity, strength and web-making abilities. For some people, spiders are not welcome in the home; as soon as they see one crawling on the ceiling, the first thought that comes to mind is to swat it at once.\nBut spiders predate us humans by a long way. And while sometimes spiders are tiny creatures, a team of scientists has discovered the largest spider fossil ever in a layer of volcanic ash in Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia, China. The research was carried out by Paleontologist Professor Paul Selden, of the University of Kansas, with his team.\nNamed Nephila jurassica, this 165-million-year-old fossil is 2.5 cm in length and has a leg span of almost 9 cm. It is currently the largest known fossilized spider, and is from the family known as Nephilidae, the largest web-weaving spiders alive today.\nAccording to research published online in the 20th April, 2011 issue of Biology Letters, this prehistoric spider was female and shows characteristics of the golden orb weaver. Widespread in warmer regions, the golden silk orb weavers are well-known for the fabulous webs they weave. Females of this family weave the largest orb webs known.\n\"When I first saw it, I immediately realized that it was very unique not only because of its size, but also because the preservation was excellent,\" said ChungKun Shih, study co-author, and a visiting professor at Capital Normal University in Beijing, China.\nAccording to a press release: “This fossil finding provides evidence that golden orb-webs were being woven and capturing medium to large insects in Jurassic times, and predation by these spiders would have played an important role in the natural selection of contemporaneous insects.”"}
{"text": "Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.\nCleopatra, born in 69 B.C., was made Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt, upon the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 B.C. Her brother was made King Ptolemy XIII at the same time, and the siblings ruled Egypt under the formal title of husband and wife. Cleopatra and Ptolemy were members of the Macedonian dynasty that governed Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Although Cleopatra had no Egyptian blood, she alone in her ruling house learned Egyptian. To further her influence over the Egyptian people, she was also proclaimed the daughter of Re, the Egyptian sun god. Cleopatra soon fell into dispute with her brother, and civil war erupted in 48 B.C.\nRome, the greatest power in the Western world, was also beset by civil war at the time. Just as Cleopatra was preparing to attack her brother with a large Arab army, the Roman civil war spilled into Egypt. Pompey the Great, defeated by Julius Caesar in Greece, fled to Egypt seeking solace but was immediately murdered by agents of Ptolemy XIII. Caesar arrived in Alexandria soon after and, finding his enemy dead, decided to restore order in Egypt.\nDuring the preceding century, Rome had exercised increasing control over the rich Egyptian kingdom, and Cleopatra sought to advance her political aims by winning the favor of Caesar. She traveled to the royal palace in Alexandria and was allegedly carried to Caesar rolled in a rug, which was offered as a gift. Cleopatra, beautiful and alluring, captivated the powerful Roman leader, and he agreed to intercede in the Egyptian civil war on her behalf.\nIn 47 B.C., Ptolemy XIII was killed after a defeat against Caesar's forces, and Cleopatra was made dual ruler with another brother, Ptolemy XIV. Julius and Cleopatra spent several amorous weeks together, and then Caesar departed for Asia Minor, where he declared \"Veni, vidi, vici\" (I came, I saw, I conquered), after putting down a rebellion. In June 47 B.C., Cleopatra bore a son, whom she claimed was Caesar's and named Caesarion, meaning \"little Caesar.\"\nUpon Caesar's triumphant return to Rome, Cleopatra and Caesarion joined him there. Under the auspices of negotiating a treaty with Rome, Cleopatra lived discretely in a villa that Caesar owned outside the capital. After Caesar was assassinated in March 44 B.C., she returned to Egypt. Soon after, Ptolemy XIV died, likely poisoned by Cleopatra, and the queen made her son co-ruler with her as Ptolemy XV Caesar.\nWith Julius Caesar's murder, Rome again fell into civil war, which was temporarily resolved in 43 B.C. with the formation of the second triumvirate, made up of Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and chosen heir; Mark Antony, a powerful general; and Lepidus, a Roman statesman. Antony took up the administration of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and he summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus, in Asia Minor, to answer charges that she had aided his enemies.\nCleopatra sought to seduce Antony, as she had Caesar before him, and in 41 B.C. arrived in Tarsus on a magnificent river barge, dressed as Venus, the Roman god of love. Successful in her efforts, Antony returned with her to Alexandria, where they spent the winter in debauchery. In 40 B.C., Antony returned to Rome and married Octavian's sister Octavia in an effort to mend his strained alliance with Octavian. The triumvirate, however, continued to deteriorate. In 37 B.C., Antony separated from Octavia and traveled east, arranging for Cleopatra to join him in Syria. In their time apart, Cleopatra had borne him twins, a son and a daughter. According to Octavian's propagandists, the lovers were then married, which violated the Roman law restricting Romans from marrying foreigners.\nAntony's disastrous military campaign against Parthia in 36 B.C. further reduced his prestige, but in 34 B.C. he was more successful against Armenia. To celebrate the victory, he staged a triumphal procession through the streets of Alexandria, in which he and Cleopatra sat on golden thrones, and Caesarion and their children were given imposing royal titles. Many in Rome, spurred on by Octavian, interpreted the spectacle as a sign that Antony intended to deliver the Roman Empire into alien hands.\nAfter several more years of tension and propaganda attacks, Octavian declared war against Cleopatra, and therefore Antony, in 31 B.C. Enemies of Octavian rallied to Antony's side, but Octavian's brilliant military commanders gained early successes against his forces. On September 2, 31 B.C., their fleets clashed at Actium in Greece. After heavy fighting, Cleopatra broke from the engagement and set course for Egypt with 60 of her ships. Antony then broke through the enemy line and followed her. The disheartened fleet that remained surrendered to Octavian. One week later, Antony's land forces surrendered.\nAlthough they had suffered a decisive defeat, it was nearly a year before Octavian reached Alexandria and again defeated Antony. In the aftermath of the battle, Cleopatra took refuge in the mausoleum she had commissioned for herself. Antony, informed that Cleopatra was dead, stabbed himself with his sword. Before he died, another messenger arrived, saying Cleopatra still lived. Antony had himself carried to Cleopatra's retreat, where he died after bidding her to make her peace with Octavian. When the triumphant Roman arrived, she attempted to seduce him, but he resisted her charms. Rather than fall under Octavian's domination, Cleopatra committed suicide on August 30, 30 B.C., possibly by means of an asp, a poisonous Egyptian serpent and symbol of divine royalty.\nOctavian then executed her son Caesarion, annexed Egypt into the Roman Empire, and used Cleopatra's treasure to pay off his veterans. In 27 B.C., Octavian became Augustus, the first and arguably most successful of all Roman emperors. He ruled a peaceful, prosperous, and expanding Roman Empire until his death in 14 A.D. at the age of 75."}
{"text": "From Abracadabra to Zombies | View All\nN'kisi & the N'kisi Project\nN'kisi (pronounced ‘‘in-key-see’’) is a captive bred eight or nine-year-old hand raised African Grey Parrot whose owner, Aimée Morgana, thinks uses language. She doesn't think he just sounds out words. She thinks he communicates with her in language, which would in effect make N'kisi a rational parrot. For example, N'kisi utters \"pretty smell medicine\" when he wants to describe the aromatherapy oils that Aimée uses.* Furthermore, Aimée says her parrot has a fine sense of humor and knows how to laugh. Imagine having conversations with a humorous parrot. Think of all the things you could talk and joke about, besides aromatherapy. You could discuss the fame that would come to anyone who had a parrot that can think and converse in intelligent discourse, like pretty smell medicine and look at my pretty naked body.* And when some nasty skeptic makes fun of you, the two of you can joke about it.\nI'm afraid that this story stretches the boundaries of reasonable credibility, though stories of rational parrots go back at least to the 17th century. John Locke, for example, relates a tale of a Portuguese-speaking parrot of some note in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (II.xxvii.8). These cases are more likely cases of self-deception, delusion, and gullibility than of language-using parrots. Listen to this audio clip of N'kisi, Aimée, and a toy that \"talks\" when a button is pushed. First listen without reading the transcript. Some of it is intelligible, especially after the fourth or fifth repetition, but it is difficult to understand the \"conversation,\" especially with the toy making its sounds as Aimée stimulates her parrot. Some of the tape sounds like gibberish until you are told what to listen for. When you listen while reading the transcript something amazing happens: you can hear just what you're reading. Why is that? The same thing happens when you listen to audio tapes played backward. When you just listen without anyone telling you what to listen for, you usually don't understand anything intelligible. But as soon as someone shows or tells you what to listen for, you can hear the message. Such is the power of suggestion and the way of audio perception. Hearing is a constructive process, like vision, in that bits of sensory data are \"filled in\" by the brain to produce a visual or auditory perception that is clear and distinct, and in accord with your expectations. Consider the following from an interview with Dr. Irene Pepperberg, Morgana's inspiration, who has been studying Alex, an African Grey Parrot, for many years:\nWe were doing demos at the Media Lab [at MIT] for our corporate sponsors; we had a very small amount of time scheduled and the visitors wanted to see Alex work. So we put a number of differently colored letters on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and asked, \"Alex, what sound is blue?\" He answers, \"Ssss.\" It was an \"s\", so we say \"Good birdie\" and he replies, \"Want a nut.\"\nWell, I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time to eat a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, \"What sound is green?\" Alex answers, \"Ssshh.\" He's right, it's \"sh,\" and we go through the routine again: \"Good parrot.\" \"Want a nut.\" \"Alex, wait. What sound is orange?\" \"ch.\" \"Good bird!\" \"Want a nut.\" We're going on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated. He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, \"Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh.\"\nNot only could you imagine him thinking, \"Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?\" but the point was that he had leaped over where we were and had begun sounding out the letters of the words for us. This was in a sense his way of saying to us, \"I know where you're headed! Let's get on with it,\" which gave us the feeling that we were on the right track with what we were doing.*\nDr. Pepperberg thinks the bird is responding cognitively to her questions rather than simply responding to a stimulus. She thinks the bird is getting frustrated, but she has stipulated earlier in the interview:\nI never claim that Alex has full-blown language; I never would. I'm not going to be able to put Alex on a \"T\" stand and have you interview him the way you interview me.\nSo, whereas you or I might say \"give me the nut or this interview is over\" were we parrots with intentionality and language, the parrot's movements and sounds have to be less direct and more complex, so that they have to be interpreted for us by Pepperberg. In her view, Alex is \"clearly getting more frustrated\" and his frustration culminates with a \"very slitty-eyed\" expression. But this is Pepperberg's interpretation, as is her hearing the bird sound out the letters of the word 'nut'. It could have been a stutter for all we know, but Pepperberg is facilitating Alex's communication by telling us what she hears. The final paragraph indicates that Pepperberg is having a hard time drawing the line between imagining what a parrot might be thinking and projecting those thoughts into the parrot's movements and sounds. She's also having a hard time getting grant money (NIH turned her down), so she started her own private foundation, the Alex Foundation.\nWhen news of N'kisi broke on the pages of BBC online, there was no mention in the article by Alex Kirby of the parrot having conversations with people other than Aimée Morgana. (The story was originally told in USA Today in the February 12, 2001, edition.) Despite the headline \"Parrot's oratory stuns scientists,\" there was no evidence given that the parrot had stunned anyone during a conversation. It seems that Aimée is to her parrot what the facilitator is to her client in facilitated communication, except that the parrot is actually providing data to interpret and is more like clever Hans, the horse that responded to unconscious movements of his master, than a disabled human who may not be providing any content or direction at all to the facilitator. It is Aimée who gives intentionality to the parrot's sounds. She is the one who attributes 'laughter' to his shrieks and conscious awareness to his responses, though those responses could be due to any one of many stimuli, consciously or unconsciously provided by Aimée or items in the immediate environment. Nevertheless, Dr. Jane Goodall, who studies chimpanzees, met N'kisi and said that he provides an \"outstanding example of interspecies communication.\" There is some evidence, however, that much of the work with language-using primates also mistakes subjective validation by scientists for complex linguistic abilities of their animal subjects (Wallman 1992).\nAccording to Mr. Kirby, N'kisi not only uses language but has been tested for telepathy and he passed the test with flying colors:\nIn an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards.\nAnalysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance.\nKirby doesn't provide any details about the experiment, so a reader might misinterpret this claim as implying that this parrot did about twice as well as people did in the ganzfeld telepathy experiments. In those experiments, subjects in separate rooms were monitored as one tried to telepathically send information from a picture or video to the other. Typically, there was a 20% chance of guessing what the item was but results as high as 38% were reported in some meta-analyses. If the parrot scored three times better than chance, then he would have gotten 60% correct. The odds of a parrot randomly blurting out words that match up 60% of the time with pictures being looked at simultaneously in another room are so high that there is virtually no way that this could happen by chance. However, as you might suspect, Kirby's claim is a bit misleading.\nI assume that Kirby was writing about an experiment that was part of the N'kisi project, a joint effort by Morgana and Rupert Sheldrake to test not only the parrot's language-using abilities but his telepathic talents as well. Sheldrake has already validated the telepathic abilities of a dog and thinks the \"findings [of this experiment] are consistent with the hypothesis that N'kisi was reacting telepathically to Aimée's mental activity.\"*\nThe full text of Sheldrake's study published in the peer reviewed Journal of Scientific Exploration is available online. The title of the paper would send most journal editors to their grave, killed by laughter: \"Testing a Language-Using Parrot for Telepathy.\" Fortunately for Sheldrake and his associates there will always be a sympathetic editor for another story like that of J. B. Rhine and the telepathic horse, \"Lady Wonder.\" At least Sheldrake's protocols show some measure of sophistication, unlike Rhine's. Even so, as the editor at the Journal of Scientific Exploration commented: \"once again, we have suggestive results, a level of statistical significance that is less than compelling, and the devout wish that further work with refined protocols will ensue.\"* So, we'll just have to wait and see whether further study of N'kisi supports the telepathic hypothesis.\nAnyway, here is how Sheldrake set up the experiment. He first compiled a list of 30 words from the bird's vocabulary that \"could be represented by visual images.\" A package of 167 photos from a stock supplier was used for the test. Since only 20 of the photos corresponded to words on the list, the word list was reduced to 20. The word 'camera' was removed from the list because 'N’kisi \"used it so frequently to comment on the cameras used in the tests themselves.\" Thus, they were left with 19 words.\nDuring the tests, N’kisi remained in his cage in Aimée’s apartment in Manhattan, New York. There was no one in the room with him. Meanwhile, Aimée went to a separate enclosed room on a different floor. N’kisi could not see or hear her, and in any case, Aimée said nothing, as confirmed by the audio track recorded on the camera that filmed her continuously. The distance between Aimée and N’kisi was about 55 feet. Aimée could hear N’kisi through a wireless baby monitor, which she used to gain ‘‘feedback’’ to help her to adjust her mental state as image sender.\nBoth Aimée and N’kisi were filmed continuously throughout the test sessions by two synchronized cameras on time-coded videotape. The cameras were mounted on tripods and ran continuously without interruption throughout each session. N’kisi was also recorded continuously on a separate audio tape recorder. (Sheldrake and Morgana 2003)\nAccording to Sheldrake:\nWe conducted a total of 147 two-minute trials. The recordings of N’kisi during these trials were transcribed blind by three independent transcribers....He scored 23 hits: the key words he said corresponded to the target pictures....If N’kisi said a key word that did not correspond to the photograph, that was counted as a miss, and if he said a key word corresponding to the photograph, that was a hit. (Sheldrake and Morgana 2003)\nHowever, sixty of the trials were discarded because in those trials N'kisi either was silent or uttered things that were not key words, i.e., showed no signs of telepathy. A few other trials were discarded because the transcribers did not agree on what N'kisi said. In short, Sheldrake's statistical conclusions are based on the results of 71 of the trials. I'll let the reader decide whether it was proper to omit 40% of the data because the parrot didn't utter a word on the key word list during those trials. Some might argue that those sessions should be counted as misses and that by ignoring so much data where the parrot clearly did not indicate any sign of telepathy is strong evidence that Sheldrake was more interested in confirming his biases than in getting at the truth.\nN'kisi's misses were listed at 94. Ten of the 23 hits were on the picture that corresponded to the word 'flower', which N'kisi uttered 23 times during the trials. The flower image, selected randomly, was used in 17 trials. The image corresponding to water was used in 10 of the trials. The bird said 'water' in twelve trials and got 2 hits. It seems oddly biased that almost one-third of the images and more than half the hits came from just 2 of the 19 pictures.\nOne of the peer reviewers thought that the fact that the flower word and picture played so heavy a role in the outcome that the paper's results were distorted and that the paper should not be published. The other reviewer accepted Sheldrake's observation that even if you throw out the flower data, you still get some sort of statistical significance. This may be true. However, since the bird allegedly had a vocabulary of some 950 words at the time of the test, omitting sessions where the bird said nothing or said something not on the key list, is unjustifiable. Furthermore, there is no evidence that it is reasonable to assume that when the parrot is by itself uttering words that it is trying to communicate telepathically with Morgana. Or are we to accept Sheldrake's assumption that the parrot turns his telepathic interest off and on, and it was on only when he uttered a word on the key list? That assumption is no more valid that Morgana's belief that the telepathy doesn't work as well when she makes an effort to send a telepathic message to her parrot. In any case, I wonder why Sheldrake didn't do a baseline study, where the parrot was videotaped for two-minutes at a time while Morgana was taking an aromatherapy bath or meditating or doing something unrelated to the key word pictures. Had he made several hundred such clips, he could then have randomly selected 71 and compared them to the 71 clips he used for his analysis. If there was no significant difference between the randomly selected clips and the ones that emerged during the experiment, then the telepathy hypothesis would not be supported. On the other hand, if he found a robust statistically significant difference, then the telepathy hypothesis would be supported. I suggest he do something along these lines when he attempts to replicate his parrot telepathy test.\nIn some trials, N’kisi repeated a given key word. For example, in one trial N’kisi said ‘‘phone’’ three times, and in another he said ‘‘flower’’ ten times, and in the tabulation of data the numbers of times he said these words are shown in parentheses as: phone (3); flower (10). For most of the statistical analyses, repetitions were ignored, but in one analysis the numbers of words that were said more than once in a given trial were compared statistically with those said only once for both hits and misses. For each trial, the key word or words represented in the photograph were tabulated. Some images had only one key word, but others had two or more. For example, a picture of a couple hugging in a pool of water involved two key words, ‘‘water’’ and ‘‘hug.’’ (Sheldrake and Morgana 2003)\nHe calculated 51 hits and 126 misses when repetitions were included. I'm not going to bother with any more detail because by now the overall picture should be clear. Once the statisticians went to work on the data, they were able to provide support for the claim that the data were consistent with the telepathic hypothesis. But nowhere in Sheldrake's paper can I find a claim that the parrot did three times better than expected by chance. In any case, I have to agree with the editor who published Sheldrake's parrot paper: the results have a statistical significance that is less than compelling. However, unlike that editor, my devout wish is that when such studies as these are published in the future, responsible journalists continue to ignore them and recognize them for the rubbish they are. On the other hand, if you happen to think your parrot is psychic, drop Dr. Sheldrake a line. He's set up a page just for you.\nSheldrake has responded to this article. His comments and my responses are posted here.\nbooks and articles\nnew Grey parrots use reasoning where monkeys and dogs can’t \"Christian Schloegl and his team at the University of Vienna, let six parrots choose between two containers, one containing a nut. Both containers were shaken, one eliciting a rattling sound and the other nothing. The parrots preferred the container that rattled, even if only the empty container was shaken....Thus, grey parrots seem to possess ape-like reasoning skills....\" [/new]\nLast updated 16-Aug-2012"}
{"text": "Five new names have been approved for Mars: Angustus Labyrinthus, Chronius Mons, Promethei Mons, Sisyphi Tholus, and Thyles Montes. The names Australis Patera, Angusta Patera, and Cavi Frigores have been marked as dropped in the database. New imagery has shown that the two paterae were named using the wrong descriptor term, and the area previously named Cavi Frigores has been incorporated into the adjacent Cavi Angusti.\nThe definition of the descriptor term labyrinthus has been expanded from \"Complex of intersecting valleys\" to \"Complex of intersecting valleys or ridges.\"\nSee the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature for more information."}
{"text": "This is the second book wrote by Lee Lehman and presents in a very detailed manner the astrological dignities. It was published in 1989 by Whitford Press.\nIn Chapter 1 - Two Unsung Revolutions in Astrology the author explains how the Copernican Revolution changed the way astrologers understand dignities. At page 18 one can find a table with traditional and modern essential dignities.\nChapter 2 - Using Traditional Rulerships\nHere you'll find many practical examples of charts analyzed using traditional dignities. There are presented five countries (Confederate States of America, Italy, Iran, Switzerland, USSR), five corporations (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Coca-Cola, Pepsi), five individuals (Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Doyle Arthur, Niccolo Machiavelli, Mark Twain) and one horary chart.\nOf course, it is always nice to see how the theory applies in practice, but I was expecting from these examples to emphasize the different results which appears when analyzing the charts with traditional and modern dignities. Unfortunately, this is not happening, the charts are analyzed using only traditional dignities.\nIn Chapter 3 - The Origin of Rulerships: A Botanical Interlude you can find out which planer or sign rules every planet. You'll see that onion is ruled by Mars, beans by Venus, holly by Saturn etc. Also, there is a table with the medicinal uses of Jupiter- ruled plants. I didn't test these, but it may be helpful.\nChapter 4 - Modern “Rulerships”: Do They Work?\nThe author is trying to prove that modern rulerships aren't working well and to find arguments. She points out that:\n“when modern astrologers discuss the modern rulerships the criterion appears to be: Which body (planet, asteroid or comet) has qualities which most resembles the sign in question?”\nSo, modern rulerships are assigned counting if a planet qualities are similar with the sign qualities and not looking at the planet strength in a sign. See another quotation:\n“We haven't any evidence that the ancients thought that Pisces and Jupiter were synonymous. It was a question of the strength of Jupiter in Pisces, not the similarity of Jupiter and Pisces.”\nNow, I think the idea is pretty clear. I must say that I totally agree with this point of view.\nThen the charts of Marie Curie, Jeddu Krishnamurti, Adolf Hitler and Death of Dracula are analyzed. This time, Lee Lehman makes an analogy between the charts interpretations with modern and traditional rulerships. The results are pretty good and the lecture enjoyable.\nOnly one problem, from my point of view. It is analyzed the chart “Death of Dracula”, where Lee writes things like: “I have been fascinated by charts of people who are, so to speak, energy sucks”, “Scorpio Sun (life of the vampire)”, etc. Hei, I am from Romania and I tell you there is no vampire. Dracula is just a myth assigned to a Romanian prince, Vlad III of Wallachia. It is true that he was cruel and liked to kill people by impaling them on a sharp pole, but everything else is imagination.\nChapter 5 – The Meaning of Each of the Essential Dignities\nIn this chapter you'll find some general characteristics for the five essential dignities: ruler, exaltation, triplicity, term and face. At page 127 is a table with key words associated with these dignities. Starting from these key words Lee Lehman gives many descriptive explanations for dignities, but it just seems to much! There are the same things explained over and over again, it seemed pretty boring to me.\nIn Chapter 6 – A Statistical Interlude the author is trying to determine the influence of terms (both Chaldean and Egyptian) making a few tests. She selected a number of charts from different categories (suicide, scientist, sport champions) and counted the terms for each planet.\nIn the final, we can see that the planet that rules the category (for example, Mars for sport champions) obtained more points that usually, on a normal pattern. Even the results apparently validates the importance of terms I won't give to much credit to such a test. Why? Because I don't see terms so important to determine a person belong to a category or another. For example, more points in the term of Saturn won't drive you to suicide because can be many other (not even major) aspects that can change this influence.\nProbably, I just don't believe terms are so important an if Lee Lehman is making those test it is clear that she also has doubts.\nChapter 7 – Detriment, Falls and Peregrines means several pages where you can find short descriptions for every planet detriment and fall.\nIn Chapter 8 – Conclusions there are the final words.\nMY EVALUATION: 6\nConclusion. If I would have to say quickly, at my first impression, some words about this book I think would be: “too much noise for nothing”. But, then, if you think for a moment you realize that you can't say “for nothing” because dignities are a very important part in astrology and one could write a whole interesting book about this subject.\nSo, back to my reasoning, why this impression? Why “too much noise for nothing?”. Maybe, because this book presents shortly the five dignities associated with some main characteristics, ideas repeated in different chapters, but the rest of the book is somewhat near the subject.\nYou can read about history, botany, statistics, all connected with dignities, but the book doesn't seem to touch the essential points. It is a surface play. It doesn't have those clear, rational statements that gives you a better understanding of the subject.\nIf a medium astrologer reads this book I don't think will have much to learn and to integrate in his astrological system. Maybe I am a little too harsh, but it is my purpose here to criticize and to present a clear point of view about the astrological books I read. My evaluation is 6."}
{"text": "Mali has been engrossed in civil war since January 2012, when separatists in Mali’s northern Azawad region began demanding independence from the southern, Bamako-based government. After forcing the Malian military from the north, however, the separatist forces soon became embroiled in a conflict of their own, between the original Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) and extremist Islamist splinter factions closely linked with Al-Qaeda. On 11 January 2013, France responded to Mali’s urgent request for international assistance and initiated ‘Operation Serval’ to aid the recapture of Azawad and defeat the extremist group. From the 18th, West African states began reinforcing French forces with at least 3,300 extra troops.\nIn a BBC ’From Our Own Correspondent’ editorial, Hugh Schofield wrote of ‘la Francafrique’, or France’s considerable interests in West Africa held over from the end of formal empire. In fits and spurts, France has sought to extract itself from la Francafrique and to seek a new relationship with the continent. But in the complex world of post-colonial relationships, such a move is difficult. France retains strong economic, political, and social links with West Africa. Paris, Marseille, and Lyon are home to large expatriate African communities. Opinions at l’Elycée Palace, too, have wildly shifted over the years. Jacques Chirac, at least according to Schofield, was ‘a dyed-in-the-wool Guallist’, and an ideological successor to a young François Mitterand who, in 1954, defiantly pronounced that ‘L’Algérie, c’est la France’. Nicolas Sarkozy, on the other hand, dramatically distanced himself both from Chirac and from the la Francafrique role.\nThe problem is, at least in part, topographical in nature. West Africa’s geography is dangerous, vast, and difficult to subordinate. On the eve of much of West Africa’s independence from France in 1961, R J Harrison Church spoke of the so-called Dry Zone, the area running horizontally from southern Mauritania across central Mali and Niger, as the great “pioneer fringe” of the region’s civilization. David Hilling, in his 1969 Geographical Journal examination, added that by “taming” the Saharan interior, France gained an important strategic advantage over their British rivals in the early twentieth century, enjoying access to resources unavailable along the coast.\nBut, as A T Grove discussed in his 1978 review, “colonising” West Africa was much easier said than done, and the French left a West Africa mired in dispute, open to incursions, and still heavily reliant on the former imperial power. The French relationship with the region’s extreme geography was difficult at best; political boundaries were similar to those of the Arabian Peninsula and the Rub ‘al-Khali in particular: fluid, ill-defined, and not always recognised by local peoples. European-set political boundaries only exacerbated tensions between indigenous constituencies who had little or no say in the border demarcations.\nFrench and African efforts to dam the Niger River, for instance, were hampered by high costs, arduous terrain, and political instability well into the 1960s. On independence, the French left what infrastructure they could, mostly in West Africa’s capital and port cities; the vast interiors were often left to their own devices. As a result of these events, France has maintained a large military, economic, and social presence in the region ever since. The difficulty is that such areas under weak political control, such as the Malian, Somalian, and Sudanese deserts, have become havens for individuals who wish to operate outside international and national law.\nR J Harrison Church, 1961, ‘Problems and Development of the Dry Zone of West Africa‘, The Geographical Journal 127 187-99.\nDavid Hilling, 1969, ‘The Evolution of the Major Ports of West Africa‘, The Geographical Journal 135 365-78.\nA T Grove, 1978, ‘Geographical Introduction to the Sahel‘, The Geographical Journal 144 407-15.\nIeuan Griffiths, 1986, ‘The Scramble for Africa: Inherited Political Boundaries‘, The Geographical Journal 152 204-16.\n‘Le Mali attend le renfort des troupes ouest-africaines‘, Radio France Internationale, 19 January 2013, accessed 19 January 2013.\nHugh Schofield, ‘France and Mali: An “ironic” relationship’, BBC News, 19 January 2013, accessed 19 January 2013."}
{"text": "- Join The Movement\n- Media & More\n- About Us\nTypes of Builds\nMillard Fuller used to say that a home is the foundation on which human development occurs. It is also an important, positive step in working on a safer, healthier and more responsible future. Many people struggling to put food on the table, pay bills, purchase school supplies and clothing and maintain transportation to work are not thinking about repairing their homes, even though those homes might be dangerous, literally crumbling around them and their children.\nThe Fuller Center is an organization devoted to partnership, renewed opportunity and providing a hand up instead of a hand out. The construction and rehabilitation of simple, decent houses are the two basic ways we do this.\nThe work of The Fuller Center allows the elderly to live out their rest of their days comfortably in their own homes, gives families a fresh start, enables the handicapped to maintain a level of independence in accessible homes and, in some cases, transforms entire neighborhoods."}
{"text": "A fossilised little finger discovered in a cave in the mountains of southern Siberia belonged to a young girl from an unknown group of archaic humans, scientists say.\nThe missing human relatives are thought to have inhabited much of Asia as recently as 30,000 years ago, and so shared the land with early modern humans and Neanderthals.\nThe finding paints a complex picture of human history in which our early ancestors left Africa 70,000 years ago to rub shoulders with other distant relatives in addition to the stocky, barrel-chested Neanderthals.\nThe new ancestors have been named “Denisovans” after the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains of southern Siberia where the finger bone was unearthed in 2008.\nA “Denis” is thus a member of an archaic human subspecies."}
{"text": "Tips to Facilitate Workshops Effectively\nFacilitators play a very important role in the creation of a respectful, positive learning environment during a workshop. Here you will find some tips to facilitate workshops effectively.\n- Make sure everybody has a chance to participate. For example, through small group activities or direct questions to different participants. Help the group to avoid long discussions between two people who may isolate the rest of the/other participants. Promote the importance of sharing the space and listening to different voices and opinions.\n- Be prepared to make adjustments to the agenda – sometimes you have to cross out activities, but the most important thing is to achieve the general goals of the workshop.\n- Make every possible thing to have all the logistics ready beforehand to then be able to focus on the workshop’s agenda.\n- Pay attention to the group’s energy and motivation – Plan activities where everyone is able to participate and to stay active and engaged.\n- Provide space for the participants to be able to share their own experiences and knowledge. Remember that each one of us has a lot to learn and a lot to teach.\n- Relax and have fun! Be a part of the process – You are learning, too, so you don’t have to know it all nor do everything perfect.\n- Be prepared for difficult questions. Get familiarized with the topic, know the content of the workshop but remember you don’t have to know all the answers! You can ask other participants what they know about the topic, or you can find out the answers later and share them with the participants after the workshop.\n- Focus on giving general information – Avoid answering questions about specific cases. Usually, this can change the direction of the conversation and might be considered as providing legal advice without a license to do so.\n- Your work as facilitator is to help the group learn together, not necessarily to present all the information and be the “expert” in the topic.\n- Try to be as clear as possible – especially when you are giving the exercises’ instructions. Work as a team with the other facilitators during the whole workshop."}
{"text": "This Dawn FC (framing camera) image shows some of the undulating terrain in Vesta’s southern hemisphere. This undulating terrain consists of linear, curving hills and depressions, which are most distinct in the right of the image. Many narrow, linear grooves run in various directions across this undulating terrain. There are some small, less than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) diameter, craters in the bottom of the image. These contain bright material and have bright material surrounding them. There are fewer craters in this image than in images from Vesta’s northern hemisphere; this is because Vesta’s northern hemisphere is generally more cratered than the southern hemisphere.\nThis image is located in Vesta’s Urbinia quadrangle and the center of the image is 63.0 degrees south latitude, 332.2 degrees east longitude. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Oct. 25, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 700 kilometers (435 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 70 meters (230 feet) per pixel. This image was acquired during the HAMO (high-altitude mapping orbit) phase of the mission.\nThe Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington D.C. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The Framing Camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.\nMore information about Dawn is online at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.\nImage credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA"}
{"text": "|Freshwater Mussels of the Upper Mississippi River System|\nMussel Conservation Activities\n2005 Highlights: Possible fish predation of subadult Higgins eye was observed in the Upper Mississippi River, Pools 2 and 4.\nSubadult Higgins eye pearlymussels (Lampsilis higginsii) from the Upper Mississippi River, Pools 2 and 4. Shell damage may be due to predation by fish (i.e. common carp or freshwater drum). Top photo by Mike Davis, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; bottom photo by Gary Wege, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.\nSpecies Identification and Location • Threatened and Endangered Mussels • Life History • Ecology • Mussel Harvest on the River • Current Threats • Mussel Conservation Activities • Ongoing Studies and Projects • Multimedia • Teacher Resources • Frequently Asked Questions • Glossary • References • Links to Other Mussel Sites\nPrivacy • FOIA • FirstGov • Contact\nDepartment of the Interior • U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service • U.S. Geological Survey\n|Last updated on\nDecember 21, 2006"}
{"text": "Overcoming perceived GIS resource limitations\nThis module (Teaching with GIS) is designed to highlight GIS concepts that may be added to many geoscience topics and exercises. In particular, we focus on using GIS at the level of introductory geoscience; however, many of the exercises and concepts may be applied in upper level courses as well. We will attempt to answer the following questions:\nDo I need to be a GIS wizard to introduce GIS concepts in my courses?\nAnswer: No! There are numerous web-based mapping utilities, some of which are specifically designed for geoscience applications. In addition, consumer-grade GPS devices and mapping software are both cheaper and easier to learn than the professional GIS/GPS tools.\nMany students new to geoscience are unfamiliar with mapping concepts that we take for granted as professional scientists. Even simple geographic and cartographic concepts can help them understand more complex GIS tasks at a later stage. The introduction of hands-on map creation/interpretation exercises and the associated terminology can greatly enhance the learning experience of the students.\nAren't the hardware and software requirements of GIS prohibitive at the introductory level?\nAnswer: No! There are many options that may be pursued despite resource limitations or student difficulties with computer tasks. Below are some ideas on what can be accomplished with different levels of resource availability or student background. Keep in mind that this site is focused on how we can introduce GIS within existing introductory geoscience courses:\nHardware-limited options—There is little or no access to computers/internet or GPS receivers by students and/or instructor within the classroom. The students often have access to computers and the internet in public labs or have personal computers. Faculty usually have access to the internet on their computers and may have access to some GIS software.\n- Instructor generates maps for exercises/labs utilizing online resources\n- Utilize traditional paper maps (e.g. geologic maps) to introduce concepts of data-driven maps\n- Assign homework exercises that access online resources from student-owned or campus computer labs\nSoftware-limited options—Some access to computers/internet and GPS receivers, but little or no GIS software for student/instructor use in or out of the classroom.\n- Instructor generates maps for exercises/labs from online sources or GIS software. Note that there is GIS shareware available (e.g. GRASS (more info) ).\n- GPS use in lab exercises, particulary field labs\n- Shareware utilities to download GPS data to computer\n- MS Excel or other software used to analyze and plot data in x-y coordinates (convert from lat/lon in GPS software)\n- Manual digitization of data locations\n- Paper maps or using graphics editing software\nNo hardware/software limitations—easy access to computers/internet, GPS receivers, and GIS software in and out of the classroom.\n- All of the more limited options listed above are possible\n- Student use of GIS hardware/software/data in classroom or lab\n- Possibilities limited only by time for GIS within the syllabus"}
{"text": "Karuk Tribe: Learning from the First Californians for the Next California\nEditor's Note: This is part of series, Facing the Climate Gap, which looks at grassroots efforts in California low-income communities of color to address climate change and promote climate justice.\nThis article was published in collaboration with GlobalPossibilities.org.\nThe three sovereign entities in the United States are the federal government, the states and indigenous tribes, but according to Bill Tripp, a member of the Karuk Tribe in Northern California, many people are unaware of both the sovereign nature of tribes and the wisdom they possess when it comes to issues of climate change and natural resource management.\n“A lot of people don’t realize that tribes even exist in California, but we are stakeholders too, with the rights of indigenous peoples,” says Tripp.\nTripp is an Eco-Cultural Restoration specialist at the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources. In 2010, the tribe drafted an Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan, which aims to manage and restore “balanced ecological processes utilizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge supported by Western Science.” The plan addresses environmental issues that affect the health and culture of the Karuk tribe and outlines ways in which tribal practices can contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change.\nBefore climate change became a hot topic in the media, many indigenous and agrarian communities, because of their dependence upon and close relationship to the land, began to notice troubling shifts in the environment such as intense drought, frequent wildfires, scarcer fish flows and erratic rainfall.\nThere are over 100 government recognized tribes in California, which represent more than 700,000 people. The Karuk is the second largest Native American tribe in California and has over 3,200 members. Their tribal lands include over 1.48 million acres within and around the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests in Northwest California.\nTribes like the Karuk are among the hardest hit by the effects of climate change, despite their traditionally low-carbon lifestyles. The Karuk, in particular have experienced dramatic environmental changes in their forestlands and fisheries as a result of both climate change and misguided Federal and regional policies.\nThe Karuk have long depended upon the forest to support their livelihood, cultural practices and nourishment. While wildfires have always been a natural aspect of the landscape, recent studies have shown that fires in northwestern California forests have risen dramatically in frequency and size due to climate related and human influences. According to the California Natural Resources Agency, fires in California are expected to increase 100 percent due to increased temperatures and longer dry seasons associated with climate change.\nSome of the other most damaging human influences to the Karuk include logging activities, which have depleted old growth forests, and fire suppression policies created by the U.S. Forest Service in the 1930s that have limited cultural burning practices. Tripp says these policies have been detrimental to tribal traditions and the forest environment.\n“It has been huge to just try to adapt to the past 100 years of policies that have led us to where we are today. We have already been forced to modify our traditional practices to fit the contemporary political context,” says Tripp.\nFurther, the construction of dams along the Klamath River by PacifiCorp (a utility company) has impeded access to salmon and other fish that are central to the Karuk diet. Fishing regulations have also had a negative impact.\nThough the Karuk’s dependence on the land has left them vulnerable to the projected effects of climate change, it has also given them and other indigenous groups incredible knowledge to impart to western climate science. Historically, though, tribes have been largely left out of policy processes and decisions. The Karuk decided to challenge this historical pattern of marginalization by formulating their own Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan.\nThe Plan provides over twenty “Cultural Environmental Management Practices” that are based on traditional ecological knowledge and the “World Renewal” philosophy, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of humans and the environment. Tripp says the Plan was created in the hopes that knowledge passed down from previous generations will help strengthen Karuk culture and teach the broader community to live in a more ecologically sound way.\n“It is designed to be a living document…We are building a process of comparative learning, based on the principals and practices of traditional ecological knowledge to revitalize culturally relevant information as passed through oral transmission and intergenerational observations,” says Tripp.\nOne of the highlights of the plan is to re-establish traditional burning practices in order to decrease fuel loads and the risk for more severe wildfires when they do happen. Traditional burning was used by the Karuk to burn off specific types of vegetation and promote continued diversity in the landscape. Tripp notes that these practices are an example of how humans can play a positive role in maintaining a sound ecological cycle in the forests.\n“The practice of utilizing fire to manage resources in a traditional way not only improves the use quality of forest resources, it also builds and maintains resiliency in the ecological process of entire landscapes” explains Tripp.\nAnother crucial aspect of the Plan is the life cycle of fish, like salmon, that are central to Karuk food traditions and ecosystem health. Traditionally, the Karuk regulated fishing schedules to allow the first salmon to pass, ensuring that those most likely to survive made it to prime spawning grounds. There were also designated fishing periods and locations to promote successful reproduction. Tripp says regulatory agencies have established practices that are harmful this cycle.\n“Today, regulatory agencies permit the harvest of fish that would otherwise be protected under traditional harvest management principles and close the harvest season when the fish least likely to reach the very upper river reaches are passing through,” says Tripp.\nThe Karuk tribe is now working closely with researchers from universities such as University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Davis as well as public agencies so that this traditional knowledge can one day be accepted by mainstream and academic circles dealing with climate change mitigation and adaptation practices.\nAccording to the Plan, these land management practices are more cost effective than those currently practiced by public agencies; and, if implemented, they will greatly reduce taxpayer cost burdens and create employment. The Karuk hope to create a workforce development program that will hire tribal members to implement the plan’s goals, such as multi-site cultural burning practices.\nThe Plan has a long way to full realization and Federal recognition. According to the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act and the National Environmental Protection Act, it must go through a formal review process. Besides that, the Karuk Tribe is still solidifying funding to pursue its goals.\nThe work of California’s environmental stewards will always be in demand, and the Karuk are taking the lead in showing how community wisdom can be used to generate an integrated approach to climate change. Such integrated and community engaged policy approaches are rare throughout the state but are emerging in other areas. In Oakland, for example, the Oakland Climate Action Coalition engaged community members and a diverse group of social justice, labor, environmental, and business organizations to develop an Energy and Climate Action Plan that outlines specific ways for the City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create a sustainable economy.\nIn the end, Tripp hopes the Karuk Plan will not only inspire others and address the global environmental plight, but also help to maintain the very core of his people. In his words: “Being adaptable to climate change is part of that, but primarily it is about enabling us to maintain our identity and the people in this place in perpetuity.”\nDr. Manuel Pastor is Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California where he also directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and co-directs USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. His most recent books include Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions (Routledge 2012; co-authored with Chris Benner) Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton 2010; co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh), and This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Transforming Metropolitan America (Cornell 2009; co-authored with Chris Benner and Martha Matsuoka)."}
{"text": "John Langley Howard was a revolutionary regionalist painter known for depicting labor and industry in California as well as his reverence for the natural world. Howard took a strong stance on social and environmental issues and used his art to communicate his strong emotional response toward each of his subjects.\nTable of Contents\nJohn Langley Howard was born in 1902 into a respected family of artists and architects. His father, John Galen Howard relocated the family to California in 1904 to become campus architect of the University of California, Berkeley. It was only after attending the very same campus his father helped to create, that Howard suddenly decided he wanted to pursue a career as an artist and not an engineer as previously planned. Following this decision, Howard enrolled in the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and then transferred to the Arts Students’ League in New York City.\nAt the school, he met Kenneth Hayes Miller who supported Howard’s attitude because the “taught the bare rudiments of painting and composition, and stressed the cultivation of the ultra-sensitive, intuitive approach” (Hailey 56). After saving his money, Howard travelled to Paris for six months to seek out his own artistic philosophy. However, it quickly became apparent to Howard that he placed more value on pure talent than professional training. In 1924, Howard left art school to pursue his career and marry his first wife, Adeline Day. He had his first one-person exhibition at the Modern Gallery in San Francisco in 1927. Shortly after, he attempted portraiture.\nFollowing the start of the Depression, Howard found himself appalled by the social conditions and began to follow “his own brand of Marxism.” Howard and his wife began to attend meetings of the Monterey John Reed Club, discussing politics and social concerns. Soon, the artist became determined to communicate society’s needs for the betterment of the future. His landscapes began to include industry and its effects to the surrounding region. In 1934, Howard was hired through the New Deal Public Works Art Project to create a mural for the inside of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco depicting California industry. The project called for twenty-seven artists to be hired to paint frescos inside the newly erected monument funded by philanthropist Lillie Hitchcock Coit. Each artist was to depict a scene central to California living, including industry, agriculture, law, and street scenes of San Francisco.\nHoward’s completed fresco drew notorious attention for showing an unemployed worker reading Marxist materials, a gathered group of unemployed workers, and a man panning for gold while watching a wealthy couple outside of their limousine. In a nearby mural by Bernard Zakheim (1896-1985), Howard himself was used as a model. He is shown crumpling a newspaper and grabbing a Marxist book from a library shelf. This soon led to the artists being linked to a local group of striking dock workers. They were accused of attempting to lead a Communist revolution. Howard’s murals as well as the work of Clifford Wight (1900-1960) and Zakheim became highly scrutinized, and the uproar over the works led to a delay in opening Coit Tower. In order to protect their work from being defaced or completely destroyed, the muralists chose to sleep outside the tower. The SF Art Commission ultimately cancelled the opening of Coit Tower as a result of the controversy and did not open it until months later.\nDuring this time, Howard relocated his family to Santa Fe, New Mexico citing his son’s health concerns for almost two years before returning to Monterey in 1940. Following the onset of World War II, he had a renewed interest in landscape and soon ceased to include social commentary within his work, thus removing the human figure from his paintings. The artist divorced his first wife in 1949. In 1951, Howard’s art took another turn when the artist painted The Rape of the Earth which rallied against the destruction of nature by technology, making Howard one of the first “eco-artists.” During the same year he also married sculptor Blanche Phillips (1908-1976). He began illustrating for Scientific American Magazine and used this medium to refine his technique.\nHoward’s landscapes began turning to “magic realism” or “poetic realism” as Howard preferred to call it. This method is described as the use of naturalistic images and forms “to suggest relationships that cannot always be directly described in words” (Aldrich 184). His aim was to communicate a poetic and spiritual connection with the landscape depicted. Overall, Howard lived in more than 20 different locations during his career.\nIn 1997, Howard attended the dedication of Pioneer Park at Coit Tower and was the only surviving member of the twenty-seven muralists included in the original project. The murals were restored by the City of San Francisco in 1990 after water damage and age dictated the need for restoration. Howard died at the age of 97 in his sleep at his Potrero Hill home in 1999.\nII. AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK\n“I think of painting as poetry and I think of myself as a representational poet. I want to describe my subject minutely, but I also way to describe my emotional response to it…what I’m doing is making a self-portrait in a peculiar kind of way.” – John Langley Howard\nJohn Langley Howard was widely considered a wanderer and a free spirit. While Howard did receive academic training from the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and the Arts Students’ League in New York City, he chose to align himself with instructors whose opinions of art education matched his predetermined beliefs. These teachers included Kenneth Hayes Miller (1876-1952) who valued an analytical, bare bones approach to art instruction and supported greater personal development of intuitive talent. Howard expressed this viewpoint stating that:\n“I want everything to be meaningful in a descriptive way. I want expression and at the same time I want to control it down to a gnat’s eyebrow. I identify with my subject. I empathize with my subject” (Moss 62).\nIn the 1920s, Howard became known as a Cezanne-influenced landscape artist and portraitist. Tempera, oil, and etching became his primary media while his subject matter turned to poetic and often spiritually infused imagery which would resurface later in his career. Earth tones and very small brushstrokes were utilized, allowing Howard to refine his images.\nHoward exhibited frequently with his brothers Charles Howard (1899-1978) and Robert Howard (1896-1983). Critic Jehanne Bietry wrote of their joint Galerie Beaux Arts show that: “of (the Howard brothers), John Langley is the poet, the mystic and the most complex…there predominates in his work a certain quality, an element of sentiment that escapes definition but is the unmistakable trait by which one recognizes deeper art” (Hailey 60). It is significant that a critic would accurately take note of Howard artistic aims at such an early stage because what Bietry describes ultimately became the primary focus of Howard’s career.\nHoward experienced a dramatic change in medium when he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Coit Tower WPA project in 1934. The project was Howard’s first and only mural and provided the artist with an outlet for his newly discovered Marxist social beliefs. While Howard supported a political agenda rather explicitly in his image, his focus on deeper subject matter permeates throughout the work. Most important to Howard is “the idea of human conflict that [he] pictorializes and deplores – man’s tragic flaw manifest again in this particular situation” (Nash 79). Howard’s work had progressed steadily into the realm of social realism until the backlash against the Coit Tower murals led him in a new direction.\nHoward abandoned explicit statements of social commentary and returned to his roots as a landscape painter. However, this did not prevent the artist from illustrating important issues because he then became one of the first “eco-artists.” Through his painting, Howard investigated the role of technology on the environment and used the San Francisco Bay Area as well as Monterey to demonstrate his point of view. He continued following his original artistic tendencies by delving into “magic realism” or “poetic realism” which utilized the spiritual connection that Howard sought to find within his work. Art critic Henrietta Shore recognized the balance that Howard achieved within his work, stating that he “is modern in that he is progressive, yet his work proves that he does not discard the traditions from which all fine art has grown” (Hailey 65). Overall, Howard’s career presents a unique portrait of individual expression and spiritual exploration.\n1902 Born in Montclair, New Jersey\n1920 Enrolls as an Engineering major at UC Berkeley\n1922 Realizes he wants to be an artist\n1923-24 Attends Art Students’ League in New York\n1924 Leaves art school\n1924 Marries first wife, Adeline Day\n1927 First one-person exhibition held at The Modern Gallery, San Francisco\n1928 First child, Samuel born\n1930 Daughter Anne born\n1934 Commissioned to Paint Coit Tower mural, San Francisco\n1940 Studies ship drafting and worked as a ship drafter during World War II\n1942 Serves as air raid warden in Mill Valley, CA\n1949 Divorces his first wife\n1950 Teaches at California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco\n1951 Marries second wife, sculptor Blanche Phillips\n1951 Moves to Mexico\n1951 Paints The Rape of the Earth communicating his eco-friendly stance\n1953-1965 Illustrates for Scientific American magazine\n1958 Teaches at Pratt Institute Art School, Brooklyn, NY\n1965 Moves to Hydra, Greece\n1967 Moves to London\n1970 Returns to California\n1979 Blanche Phillips dies\n1980 Marries Mary McMahon Williams\n1999 Died in his sleep at home San Francisco, California\nCalifornia Palace of the Legion of Honor, CA\nCity of San Francisco, CA\nIBM Building, New York, NY\nThe Oakland Museum, CA\nThe Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.\nSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA\nSecurity Pacific National Bank Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA\nSpringfield Museum of Fine Arts\nUniversity of Utah, UT\n1927 Modern Gallery, San Francisco, CA\n1928 Beaux Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA\n1928 East-West Gallery, San Francisco, CA\n1928-51 San Franciso Art Association, CA\n1935 Paul Elder Gallery, San Francisco, CA\n1936 Cincinnati Art Museum, OH\n1936 Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA\n1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, Treasure Island, CA\n1939 Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA\n1941 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA\n1943 Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C.\n1943 M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA\n1946-47 Whitney Museum, NY\n1947 Rotunda Gallery, City of Paris, San Francisco, CA\n1952 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA\n1956 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA\n1973 Capricorn Asunder Gallery, San Francisco, CA\n1974 Lawson Galleries, San Francisco, CA\n1976 de Saisset Art Gallery and Museum, CA\n1982 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Rental Gallery, San Francisco, CA\n1983 California Academy of Sciences, CA\n1983 Monterey Museum of Art, CA\n1986 Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco, CA\n1987 Martina Hamilton Gallery, NY\n1988 Oakland Museum, CA\n1989 Tobey C. Moss Gallery, CA\n1991 M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA\n1992 Tobey C. Moss Gallery, CA\n1993 Tobey C. Moss Gallery, CA\nCalifornia Society of Mural Painters’ and Writers’ and Artists’ Union\nCarmel Art Association\nClub Beaux Arts\nSan Francisco Art Association\nSociety of Mural Painters\nMarin Society of Artists\nMonterey John Reed Club\nAnne Bremer Memorial Award for Painting, San Francisco Art Association\nFirst Prize, Pepsi-Cola Annual “Portrait of America”\nFirst Prize, San Francisco Art Association\nAward, City of San Francisco Art Festival\nCitation for Merit, Society of Illustrators, New York\n- 1. Aldrich, Linda. “John Langley Howard.” American Scene Painting: California, 1930s and 1940s. Irvine, Westphal Publishing: 1991.\n- 2. Hailey, Gene. “John Langley Howard…Biography and Works.” California Art Research Monographs, v. 17, p.54-92. San Francisco: Works Progress Administration: 1936-1937.\n- 3. Moss, Stacey. The Howards, First Family of Bay Area Modernism. Oakland Museum: 1988.\n- 4. Nash, Steven A. Facing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in Bay Area. University of California Press: 1995.\nIX. WORKS FOR SALE BY THIS ARTIST"}
{"text": "June 22, 1976. North Atlantic. At 21:13 GMT a pale orange glow behind a bank of towering cumulus to the west was observed. Two minutes later a white disc was observed while the glow from behind the cloud persisted.\nHigh probability that this may have been caused by interferometry using 3-dimensional artificial scalar wave? Fourier expansions? as the interferers.\nMarine Observer. 47(256), Apr. 1977. p. 66-68.\n\"Unidentified phenomenon, off Barbados, West Indies.\"\nAugust 22, 1969. West Indies. Luminous area bearing 310 degrees grew in size and rose in altitude, then turned into an arch or crescent.\nHigh probability that this may have been caused by interferometry using artificial scalar wave? ((Fourier expansions.))\nMarine Observer. 40(229), July, 1970. p. 107-108.\n\"Optical phenomenon: Caribbean Sea; Western North Atlantic.\"\nMar. 20, 1969. Caribbean Sea and Western North Atlantic. At 23:15 GMT, a semicircle of bright, milky-white light became visible in the western sky and rapidly expanded upward and outward during the next 10 minutes, dimming as it expanded.\nHigh probability that this may be caused by interferometry using artificial scalar wave? Fourier expansions?.\nMarine Observer, 40(227), Jan. 1970. p.17; p. 17-18.\n7B.21 - Electricity\n13.06 - Triple Currents of Electricity\n14.35 - Teslas 3 6 and 9\n((16.04 - Nikola Nikola Tesla describing what electricity is))\n16.07 - Electricity is a Polar Exchange\n16.10 - Positive Electricity\n16.16 - Negative Electricity - Russell\n16.17 - Negative Electricity - Tesla\n16.29 - Triple Currents of Electricity\n((Figure 16.04.05 and Figure 16.04.06 - Nikola Nikola Tesla and Lord Kelvin))\nPart 16 - Electricity and Magnetism\nTesla - Electricity from Space\nWhat Electricity Is - Bloomfield Moore\nPage last modified on Wednesday 19 of May, 2010 05:23:05 MDT"}
{"text": "Freighter (or barge) was the term given to any spacecraft that was used to transport freight or cargo (such as parts and supplies). Both legitimate businesspersons and smugglers could be found captaining such transports. Freighters were needed from the time space travel began because of the need for supplies to all reaches of the galaxy. Freighters usually traveled with hyperdrives because people would often pay more for quick delivery.\nFor obvious reasons, freighters were used mainly for trade. Although very few fought in great battles, many freighters did see action. Smugglers and legitimate traders alike had some tangles now and then, but freighters were often armed and shielded so that they could resist attempts on their cargo.\nSmuggling was a very prominent criminal fringe activity in the galaxy that involved the transportation of contraband between planets. To do this, a freighter generally of small size such as the Millennium Falcon, was required to transport the contraband past planetary security forces. Some examples of contraband include spice, blasters and medical supplies.\nSmugglers often added upgrades to their ships so that they could beat competitors and outwit planetary security forces. Almost every smugglers vessel had improved light speed and sub-light speed drives for increased speed as well as boosted weapons systems to fight their way out of tough situations. Another of the most prevalent modifications to a smugglers freighter were numerous secret compartments to hide contraband from security checks while legitimate cargo occupied the cargo bays. On the Millennium Falcon, these consisted of removable floor plates.\nSome freighters became so heavily modified that the mess of cross wired and non traditional parts prevented starship mechanics from working on them effectively. The smugglers themselves were therefore required to have a detailed knowledge of freighter mechanics and electronics to be able to keep their vessels in working order. Most smugglers preferred it this way as they didn't trust anyone tampering with their prized possessions.\nMost smugglers freighters required a crew of more than one and as such most smugglers hired a copilot, such as Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon or the droid LE-BO2D9 aboard the Outrider. To a smuggler, their freighter was everything; their job, their home, their lives. Many smugglers lived in their freighters as they had no terrestrial home.\n- Star Wars: The Old Republic\n- Tempest Feud\n- The Clone Wars: Decide Your Destiny: Crisis on Coruscant\n- \"The Heart\"\n- \"Maze Run\"—Star Wars Insider 131\n- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (First appearance)\n- Choices of One\n- Star Wars: Empire at War\n- Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption\n- \"Sandbound on Tatooine\" — Star Wars Galaxy 10\n- \"Slaying Dragons\"—Star Wars Adventure Journal 9\n- Slave Ship\n- Hard Merchandise\n- The New Rebellion\n- Vision of the Future\n- Emissary of the Void\n- Force Heretic I: Remnant\n- X-Wing Miniatures Mission 4: Den of Thieves\nIn other languages\n- freighter on Wikipedia"}
{"text": "Constantinople AgreementArticle Free Pass\nConstantinople Agreement, (March 18, 1915), secret World War I agreement between Russia, Britain, and France for the postwar partition of the Ottoman Empire. It promised to satisfy Russia’s long-standing designs on the Turkish Straits by giving Russia Constantinople (Istanbul), together with a portion of the hinterland on either coast in Thrace and Asia Minor. Constantinople, however, was to be a free port. In return, Russia consented to British and French plans for territories or for spheres of influence in new Muslim states in the Middle Eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire. This first of a series of secret treaties on the “Turkish question” was never carried out because the Dardanelles campaign failed and because, when the British navy finally did reach Istanbul in 1918, Russia had made a separate peace with Germany and declared itself the enemy of all bourgeois states, France and Britain prominent among them.\nWhat made you want to look up \"Constantinople Agreement\"? Please share what surprised you most..."}
{"text": "A new tool to identify the calls of bat species could help conservation efforts.\nBecause bats are nocturnal and difficult to observe or catch, the most effective way to study them is to monitor their echolocation calls. These sounds are emitted in order to hear the echo bouncing back from surfaces around the bats, allowing them to navigate, hunt and communicate.\nMany different measurements can be taken from each call, such as its minimum and maximum frequency, or how quickly the frequency changes during the call, and these measurements are used to help identify the species of bat.\nHowever, a paper by an international team of researchers, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, asserts that poor standardisation of acoustic monitoring limits scientists’ ability to collate data.\nKate Jones, chairwoman of the UK-based Bat Conservation Trust\ntold the BBC that “without using the same identification methods everywhere, we cannot form reliable conclusions about how bat populations are doing and whether their distribution is changing.\n\"Because many bats migrate between different European countries, we need to monitor bats at a European - as well as country - scale.”\nThe team selected 1,350 calls from 34 different European bat species from EchoBank, a global echolocation library containing more than 200,000 bat call recordings. This raw data has allowed them to develop the identification tool, iBatsID\n, which can identify 34 out of 45 species of bats.\nThis free online tool works anywhere in Europe, and its creators claim can identify most species correctly more than 80% of the time.\nThere are 18 species of bat residing in the UK, including the common pipistrelle and greater horseshoe bat.\nMonitoring bats is vital not just to this species, but also to the whole ecosystem. Bats are extremely sensitive to changes in their environment, so if bat populations are declining, it can be an indication that other species might be affected in the future."}
{"text": "8. Scurrula buddleioides (Desrousseaux) G. Don, Gen. Hist. 3: 421. 1834.\n滇藏梨果寄生 dian zang li guo ji sheng\nShrubs 0.5-2 m tall, young branchlets, leaves, and inflorescences with dense short grayish yellow, rarely brown, verticillate and stellate hairs. Branches brownish, glabrous, scattered lenticellate. Leaves opposite; petiole 4-12 mm, pilose; leaf blade ovate, ovate-oblong to oblong, 6-10 × 3.5-8 cm, papery or thinly leathery, abaxial surface minutely tomentose, adaxial surface glabrous, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, base obtuse to rounded, apex acute. Racemes 2-5-fascicled, axillary, sometimes at leafless nodes, 3-5(-7)-flowered; peduncle and rachis 1.5-5 mm, brownish or grayish yellow tomentose. Flowers densely alternate; bracts ovate, ca. 1 mm. Pedicel 1-1.5 mm. Calyx pyriform, 2-3 mm, limb annular, ciliate. Mature bud tubular, 1.5-2 cm, tip ellipsoid. Corolla red, slightly curved and inflated, tomentose, lobes lanceolate, ca. 5 mm, reflexed. Style red; stigma subcapitate. Berry pyriform, 8-10 × 3.5-4 mm, pilose, base tapering into stalk. Fl. and fr. Jan-Dec.\nForests, thickets, mountain slopes, valleys; 1100-2200 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [India].\nRecorded hosts include species of Caprifoliaceae, Coriariaceae, Fagaceae, Moraceae, Rosaceae, Rutaceae, and Tiliaceae."}
{"text": "The length of amyloid fibrils found in diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson appears to play a role in the degree of their toxicity, according to researchers at the University of Leeds. Their findings are published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry in a paper titled “Fibril Fragmentation Enhances Amyloid Cytotoxicity.”\nSheena Radford, Ph.D., and colleagues systematically analyzed the effects of fragmentation on three of the 30 or so proteins that form amyloid in human diseases. Their results showed that in addition to the expected relationship between fragmentation and the ability to seed, the length of fibrils also correlated with their ability to disrupt membranes and reduce cell viability. This was evident even when there were no other changes in molecular architecture.\nCo-author, Eric Hewitt, Ph.D., says that while the findings provide scientists with unexpected new insights for the development of therapeutics against amyloid deposit-related diseases, the next stage of research will involve looking at a greater numbers of the proteins that form amyloid fibrils. “We anticipate that when we look at amyloid fibers formed from other proteins, they may well follow the same rules.”\n“It may be that because they’re smaller it’s easier for them to infiltrate cells,” Dr. Hewitt suggests. “We’ve observed them killing cells, but we’re not sure yet exactly how they do it. Nor do we know whether these short fibers form naturally when amyloid fibers assemble or whether some molecular process makes them disassemble or fragment into shorter fibers. These are our next big challenges.”"}
{"text": "People vary in their reactions to mosquito bites. Most people develop itchy, raised bumps on the skin that last several days. No treatment is necessary, but calamine lotion or over-the-counter hydrocortisone cream can reduce itching.\nA few people have a significant allergy to mosquito bites. The bites can result in what’s called a large local reaction: swelling, blistering, itching, and pain affecting a wide area of the body (such as an entire arm or leg). Oral antihistamines like cetirizine (Zyrtec), diphenhydramine (Benadryl), or hydroxyzine (Atarax, Vistaril) can help ease itching. Topical hydrocortisone may also help.\nRarely, people with a severe allergy to mosquito bites develop anaphylaxis, a whole-body life-threatening allergic reaction. Symptoms of anaphylaxis include:\n• Itching or rash, especially hives, in areas of skin away from the bite.\n• Hoarseness or shortness of breath.\nAnaphylaxis requires emergency medical attention. People who have had anaphylaxis-like symptoms previously should always have injectable epinephrine (an Epi-Pen) nearby.\nThis answer should not be considered medical advice...This answer should not be considered medical advice and should not take the place of a doctor’s visit. Please see the bottom of the page for more information or visit our Terms and Conditions.\nThanks for your feedback.\n37 of 42 found this helpful"}
{"text": "These LEDs are connected to a thermistor that’s running just a little bit hotter than the ambient room temperature. So, by blowing on the thermistor, the birthday boy or girl is cooling it down, thus increasing the resistence. The microcontroller senses this and turns off a few of the LEDs as a result. Make one of these guys and you’ll never again have to worry about melted wax on your cake. For detailed instructions, head on over to Instructables."}
{"text": "This tutorial shows how to send modifications of code in the right way: by using patches.\nThe word developer is used here for someone having a KDE SVN account.\nWe suppose that you have modified some code in KDE and that you are ready to share it. First a few important points:\nNow you have the modification as a source file. Sending the source file will not be helpful, as probably someone else has done other modifications to the original file in the meantime. So your modified file could not replace it.\nThat is why patches exist. Patches list the modifications, the line numbers and a few other useful information to be able to put that patch back into the existing code. (This process is called \"patching\" or also \"applying a patch.\")\nThe main tool for creating patches is a tool called diff, which makes the difference between two files. This tool has a mode called unified diff, which KDE developers use. Unified diffs have not just the difference between the file but also the neighborhood around the differences. That allows to patch even if the line numbers are not the same anymore.\nThe most simple patch is created between the modified file (here called source.cpp) and the non-modified version of the file (here called source.cpp.orig.)\ndiff -u -p source.cpp.orig source.cpp\nThat lists the difference between the two files in the unified diff format (and with function name information if possible.) However it only displays it to screen, which is of course not the goal. So you need to redirect the output.\ndiff -u -p source.cpp.orig source.cpp > ~/patch.diff\n~/patch.diff is here an example and you can create the file where you prefer with the name that you prefer. (You will soon find out that it is probably not a good idea to create a patch where the source is.)\nBut normally, you do not just change one file and you do not keep the original version around to be able to make the difference later. But here too, there is a solution.\nThe program svn, which is used on the command line interact with the SVN server, has a diff function too: svn diff.\nYou can run it like this and it will give you the difference of the current directory and all sub-directories below it. Of course, here too, you want to redirect the output.\nsvn diff > ~/patch.diff\nThere are useful variants too (shown here without redirection)\nNote: even if svn can make the difference of another directory (svn diff mydirectory), it is not recommended to do it for a patch that should be applied again. (The problem is that the person that will apply the patch will have to be more careful about how he applies it.)\nNote: for simple diff, like those shown in the examples above, svn diff can be used offline, therefore without an active connection to the KDE SVN server. This is possible, as svn keeps a copy of the original files locally. (This feature is part of the design of SVN.)\nBy default, svn diff does not have a feature like the -p parameter of diff. But svn allows that an external diff program is called, so you can call diff:\nsvn diff --diff-cmd diff --extensions \"-u -p\"\nThe procedures described above work very well with text files, for example C++ source code. However they do not work with binary files, as diff is not made to handle them. And even if SVN can internally store binary differences, svn diff is not prepared to do anything similar yet, mainly because it currently uses the unified diff format only, which is not meant for binary data.\nTherefore, unfortunately, there is little choice but to attach binary files separately from the patch, of course attached in the same email.\nFirst, you need to make svn aware of files you have added.\nsvn add path/to/new/file /path/to/another/new/file\nThen run svn diff as before.\nNote that if you do svn revert, for example, the files you created will NOT be deleted by svn - but svn will no longer care about them (so they won't show up when you do svn diff, for example). You will have to rm them manually.\n(TODO: are there any other issues with adding new files if you don't have commit access?)\nNow you are ready to share the patch. If your patch fixes a bug from KDE Bugs, then the easiest way is to attach it there, see next section.\nThe main way of sharing a patch is to email to a mailing list. But be careful not to send big patches to a mailing list, a few 10KB is the limit.\nIf you find that the patch is too big to send to a mailing list, the best is to create a bug report in KDE Bugs and to attach the patch there, after having created the bug report.\nAnother possibility, however seldom used, is to post the patch on a public Web server (be it by HTTP or FTP) and to send an email to the mailing list, telling that the patch is waiting there.\nAnother variant is to ask on the mailing list which developer is ready to get a big patch. (Try to give its size and ask if you should send it compressed, for example by bzip2.)\nA last variant, if you know exactly which developer will process the patch and that you know or that you suppose that he currently has time, is to send the patch to a developer directly. (But here too, be careful if your patch is big. Some KDE developers have still analog modems.)\nIn this section we assume that you have chosen to add your patch to an existing KDE bug or that you have created a bug report just for your patch.\nEven if this tutorial is more meant to send patches to a mailing list, most of it can be applied to adding a patch to KDE Bugs.\nYou have two ways to do it:\nTo send an email to a bug report, you can use an email address of the form firstname.lastname@example.org where 12345 is the bug number. Please be sure to attach your patch and not to have it inlined in your text. (If it is inlined, it would be corrupted by KDE Bugs, as HTML does not respect spaces.)\nNote: if you send an email to KDE Bugs, be careful to use as sender the same email address as your login email address in KDE Bugs. Otherwise KDE Bugs will reject your email.\nNote: if you create a new bug report just for your patch, be careful that you cannot attach a patch directly when creating a new bug. However as soon as the new bug is created, you can then attach files, one-by-one, therefore also patches.\nWarning: sometimes your patch will be forgotten because the developers do not always closely monitor the bug database. In this case, try sending your patch by email as described below. If that also does not help, you can always talk to the developers on IRC\nAssuming that you have chosen to send the patch to a mailing list, you might ask yourself: to which one?\nThe best destination for patches is the corresponding developer mailing list.\nIn case of doubt, you can send any patch for KDE to the kde-devel mailing list. (However with an increased risk that you would miss the right developer.)\nOf course, if you know exactly which developer will process the patch and that you know or that you suppose that he currently has time, then you can send the patch to him directly.\nNow you have a patch redirected into a file (for this example called patch.diff), you are ready to send it by email. But the first question: where?\nNow that you have entered an email address, a good practice is to attach the patch to your file before writing anything else in the email. So you will not forget to attach it.\nA little note here: yes, in KDE (unlike for the Linux Kernel for example), we prefer to have the patches sent as attachments.\nNow you are ready to write the rest of the email. Please think of a title that matches your patch. (Think of having to find it again in the archives in a few months or even years.) A good habit is to precede the title by [PATCH]. So for example a title could be [PATCH] Fix backup files.\nAs for the body of the email, please tell to which file or directory your patch applies. For example for a file: The attached patch applies to the file koffice/kword/kwdoc.cpp or for a directory: The attached patch applies to the directory koffice/kword. This help the developers to have an overview of which code has been modified. Also tell for which branch it is meant, for example for trunk.\nThen tell what your patch does. If it fixes a bug, then please give the bug number too. If the bug was not registered in KDE Bugs, then please describe instead the bug that is fixed. Similarly, if you know that the patch fixes a bug introduced from a precise SVN revision, please add the revision number.\nTell also what could be useful to the developers, for example if you could not completely test the patch (and why), if you need help to finish fixing the code or if it is a quick&dirty solution that should be fixed better in long-term.\nNow check the email again to see if you have not forgotten anything (especially to attach the patch) and you can send the email.\nOne popular way of submitting patches is KDE's reviewboard. A big advantage over using the bugtracker of KDE is that the patches are less likely to be forgotten here. Also, the reviewboard allows inline review of diffs and other gimmicks.\nFirst you need to check if the project you've created the patch for is actually using reviewboard. For this, go to the groups section and see if the project's group is listed there. If it is listed there, you should use the reviewboard, otherwise send the patch by other means.\nFor sending a patch, you first need to register. Then simply click New Review Request and fill out the form. The most important parts of the form are:\nAfter you completed the form, a notification mail will be sent to the developers and they will answer you.\nNow you have to wait that a developer reacts on your patch. (If you are not subscribed to the mailing lists where you have sent the patch, then monitor the mailing list archives] for such a message.)\nThe reaction is normally one of the following:\nThe first case is when nobody has answered. That perhaps means that you have chosen the wrong mailing list. Perhaps you have not explained correctly what the patch fixes or you have given a title that is not precise enough. If this happens, the developer might have overlooked the patch. Perhaps the developer that should have answered has not any time currently. (That too happens unfortunately.) The best is to try to work a little more on the patch, make a better description and try again a second time, perhaps to another mailing list or to use KDE Bugs instead.\nIf the developer tells you that your patch conflicts with changes that he is currently doing, you could probably not do much against it. Maybe you can discuss with him how you can effectively work with him on this piece of code.\nIf your patch was not accepted, you could work further on it. Probably you should discuss the problem on the mailing list to know in which direction you should work further.\nIf a developer wants a few changes, then work on the code to make the changes according to the critic. If you need help because you do not understand how to do the needed change, then ask it on the mailing list.\nIf your patch was accepted, congratulations! :)"}
{"text": "The authoritative source of information about all types of bottled waters, IBWA members include U.S. and International bottlers, distributors and suppliers. IBWA represents our industry’s uncompromising commitment to the safety and availability of bottled water worldwide.\nBottled water companies work hard to protect the environment, and play an important role in promoting recycling of plastic containers and groundwater management.\nThe bottled water industry is one of thousands of food, beverage and commercial water users. Bottled Water companies actively support comprehensive ground water management practices that are science-based, treat all users equitably, multi-jurisdictional, and provide for future needs of this important resource. Learn more.\nBottled water is a safe, healthy, and convenient packaged food product, which is comprehensively regulated at both the federal and state level.\nStrictly regulated as a packaged food product by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), bottled water is a safe, refreshing, convenient, and consistently reliable beverage choice. Did you know that by mandate of federal law, the FDA regulations governing the safety and quality of bottled water must be as stringent as the EPA regulations which govern tap water? Learn more.\nMYTH: Bottled water isn't as regulated as tap water.\nFACT: By federal law, the FDA regulations governing the safety and quality of bottled water must be as stringent as the EPA regulations which govern tap water.\nTo suggest in any way that bottled water is less stringently regulated than tap water is simply not true..."}
{"text": "Started conversation May 4, 2004\nIt's incorrect to say that \"gyratory system\" is just the name for a roundabout that has got too big for its boots. In fact it's the original term which was soon displaced when they became common.\nI'm not sure if the term \"gyratory circus\" was ever really used. There are a number of junctions in London known as circuses after the circular range of buildings around them. This was a particularly 18th century fashion, so of course the most famously beautiful one is in Bath.\nThe OED says of \"gyratory\":\nApplied to a system of directing road traffic round a roundabout or through a system of one-way streets to avoid the need for one line of traffic to intersect another.\n1909 Westm. Gaz. 7 Aug. 4/2 The gyratory principle, by which vehicles are directed into circular lines ingeniously devised to avoid intersection. 1926 Rep. Comm. Police Metropolis, 1925 16 in Parl. Papers (Cmd. 2660) XV. 239 Gyratory systems for the circulation of traffic, after years of discussion, reached the point of practical demonstration this year. 1928 Observer 5 Feb. 13/7 Now that every week dedicates a new bunch of streets to the Gyratory System. 1966 Guardian 8 Sept. 5/4 A new gyratory road system to ease traffic congestion..is to be built..at Stretford.\nAnd of \"roundabout\":\nA junction at which traffic moves one way round a central island. Cf. RONDPOINT b, ROTARY n. 3.\n1927 Glasgow Herald 3 Jan. 7/2 There is only one draw~back to the roundabout, and that is the inconvenience caused to pedestrians. 1937 Times 13 Apr. (British Motor No.) p. viii/1 Roundabouts..have the advantage of keeping vehicles on the move. 1947 Daily Mail 22 May 3/4 Removal of the Mansion House to make room for a big round-about. 1955 Times 2 Aug. 9/7 Makeshift tactics are particularly evident in the proposed treatment at Hyde Park Corner which includes an extremely complicated roundabout. 1967 Listener 28 Sept. 398/1 People make only occasional use of their speedometer..on such critical occasions as the approach to roundabouts. 1977 Belfast Tel. 14 Feb. 5/9, 12 shots were fired at an armoured police vehicle near the roundabout at Narrow~water Castle.\nAnd of \"circus\":\nA circular range of houses. Also, a traffic roundabout. Often in proper names as Oxford Circus, Regent Circus.\n1714 POPE Rape Lock IV. 117 Sooner shall Grass in Hide-Park Circus grow. 1766 ANSTEY Bath Guide II. ix. 57 To breathe a purer Air In the Circus or the Square. 1771 SMOLLETT Humph. Cl. 23 Apr., The same artist who planned the Circus has likewise projected a crescent [at Bath]. Ibid. The Circus is a pretty bauble..and looks like Vespasian's amphitheatre turned outside in. 1794 Looker-on No. 89 The squares and circuses are no longer the only scenes of dignified dissipation. 1898 Tit-Bits 15 Jan. 300/3 Bridges, of light and tasty design, across all the main thoroughfares, and at the various ‘circuses’ and cross roads.\nPosted Sep 2, 2004\nI'm a little confused. The definitions you gave seem to support the idea that there *is* a difference between a roundabout and a gyratory.\nThose definitions say that a roundabout is a junction, while a gyratory is a particular kind of one way system.\nOf course a roundabout could be viewed as a very small one way system, so you could argue that all roundabouts are gyratories. But not all gyratories are really roundabouts according to the definitions you produced. (Specifically, a gyratory consisting of more than one junction is, by definition, not a roundabout.)\nBut in practice, isn't the common usage pretty much as I suggested? I'm only actually aware of two road systems commonly referred to as gyratories - one is the subject of this article, and the other is in Reading. And both of them are distinctly on the large side. In particular, they both have multiple junctions.\nSo the common usage of the word seems to be to describe overgrown roundabouts (and more specifically, multi-junction ones) in practice.\nCan you point to any counterexamples in real use? I'm just going on the gyratories I know - I've not done any exhaustive research on gryatories across the nation.\nPosted Aug 12, 2005\nThere is a gyratory system at Park Gate near Southampton that consists of a pair of roundabouts connected by a pair of one way carriage ways.\nPosted Aug 12, 2005\nI have to correct my previous entry because, while I have heard it called the Park Gate gyratory system, it is not recorded as a gyratory system on Hampshire's register of adopted roads. It is recorded as the following separate components... Botley Road roundabout, the Bridge Road dual carriageway and the Brook Lane roundabout.\nHowever, I find there is a gyratory system just east of Park Gate on the A27 at Titchfield and this is a large roundabout with traffic lights and many junctions.\nComplain about this post"}
{"text": "A notch or groove cut into a piece of material to allow two sections to be combined with a flush joint.\nA woodcutting tool used to cut an L-shaped groove into a piece of material. see also Rabbet\nA strong current in a stream or river.\n1. An enclosed metal channel, usually fire-resistant, installed in a building to hold electrical wiring.\n2. A chute that directs the flow of a material to a specific location in a device.\nA channel holding electrical wiring that is designed to look like a piece of decorative trim or molding.\nA channel holding electrical wiring designed to be installed on a floor. The unit has a low profile and sloping edges to facilitate walking over it.\nThe illegal practice of directing certain races away from some neighborhoods and into others.\n1. A storage unit designed to hold various objects.\n2. To cause a structure to shift so that it is out of plumb.\n1. A force that causes a structure to shift so that it is out of plumb.\n2. Installation of bricks or other masonry units so that each course is stepped back from the previous one.\nStraight-line outward movement from a circle's center.\nA power saw with a circular blade that is mounted on a moveable arm. The arm is lowered or raised to move the cutting blade to or away from the material to be cut.\nA drill press with a moveable arm that can be swung to various positions on the work table.\nAn HVAC system with ductwork running outward from a central heating and/or cooling unit.\nThe surface of a log cut down the center.\nHeating system where electrical or hot-water heating elements are installed in a concrete slab floor.\nsee Radiant heating\nUse of radiation to generate heat such as with baseboard heating where the circulating hot water is radiated through conduction by thin metal fins at the bottom of the wall. The room is warmed by air circulating around the heating unit using convention.\nHeating unit that is exposed and which transfers heat generated by hot eater or steam through conduction. When the air circulates around the radiator using convention, the room is heated.\nThe distance from the center of a circle to the circumference. One-half of the diameter of a circle.\nA tool used for checking the radii of convex and concave surfaces.\nRadioactive gas that seeps into some homes, from the ground, through sump pumps, cracks in the foundation, etc., it is considered a health hazard.\nAny of the beams that slope from the ridge of a roof to the eaves to serve as support for the roof.\nA metal fastener attached to the top plate of a wall to hold a rafter.\nA rafter parallel to the gable end that projects out to form an overhang.\nThe end of a rafter extending beyond the line of a building's walls.\nA guide used when cutting rafters.\nThe top plate of a building's walls. The rafters rest on the rafter plate.\nThe vertical cut made into a rafter so it will rest on the wall plate. see also Rafter Seat Cut\nThe horizontal cut made into a rafter so it will rest on the wall plate. see also Rafter Plumb Cut\nCutting a section off of the end of a rafter equal to one-half of the thickness of the ridge board (the rafter on the other side of the ridge board receives a similar cut).\nTables, often printed on a framing square, containing the data required to calculate angles and lengths of rafters for various roof types.\nsee Rafter Overhang\nA horizontal structure used as a handhold or to block off a drop or other unsafe area.\n1. Continuous metal bars on which wheeled vehicles travel (i.e. railroads).\n2. The horizontal sections of a panel door.\n3. The top and bottom sections of a window sash.\nWaterproof cap, also called weatherheads, mast heads or entrance caps, which is placed at the upper part of an electrical mast at the point where the wires are run to the inside electrical meter. Wires hang from the pole to the entrance cap so that the entrance cap is not the low point in the downhill run from the pole because water will run to the low point before dripping to the ground. Wires enter the entrance cap at an upward angle through a tight insulator. Water is further stopped from getting through the entrance cap because of this entrance angle.\nWood where the fibers have swelled, usually because of becoming wet. Wood is often sanded with the grain raised to achieve an extremely smooth finished surface.\n1. A fork-like tool used for gathering materials (i.e. leaves) or smoothing an area of soil.\n2. A roof overhang on a building's gable end.\n3. An angle between objects.\nA masonry joint where a portion of mortar has been removed, creating a groove between masonry units. A raked joint if often used in brickwork.\nMortgage, most commonly used by the elderly who have substantial equity in their homes. A periodic payment is made to the borrower from the lender thus, increasing the loan balance, causing negative amortization.\nA hydraulically powered piston used for driving a weight.\nA sloping surface used to move from one elevation to another."}
{"text": "What Is Air Pollution?\nin its great magnitude has existed in the 20th century from the\ncoal burning industries of the early century to the fossil burning technology in\nthe new century. The problems of\nair pollution are a major problem for highly developed nations whose large\nindustrial bases and highly developed infrastructures generate much of the air\nEvery year, billions of tonnes of pollutants are released into the\natmosphere; the sources include power plants burning fossil fuels to the effects\nof sunlight on certain natural materials. But\nthe air pollutants released from natural materials pose very little health\nthreat, only the natural radioactive gas radon poses any threat to health.\nSo much of the air pollutants being released into the atmosphere are all\nresults of man’s activities.\nIn the United Kingdom, traffic\nis the major cause of air pollution in British cities. Eighty six percent of families own either one or two\nvehicles. Because of the\nhigh-density population of cities and towns, the number of people exposed to air\npollutants is great. This had led\nto the increased number of people getting chronic diseases over these past years\nsince the car ownership in the UK has nearly trebled. These include asthma and respiratory complaints ranging\nthrough the population demographic from children to elderly people who are most\nat risk. Certainly those who are\nsuffering from asthma will notice the effects more greatly if living in the\ninner city areas or industrial areas or even near by major roads.\nAsthma is already the fourth biggest killer, after heart diseases and\ncancers in the UK and currently, it affects more than three point four million\nIn the past, severe pollution in London during 1952 added with low winds\nand high-pressure air had taken more than four thousand lives and another seven\nhundred in 1962, in what was called the ‘Dark Years’ because of the dense\ndark polluted air.\nis also causing devastation for the environment; many of these causes are by man\nmade gases like sulphur dioxide that results from electric plants burning fossil\nfuels. In the UK, industries and\nutilities that use tall smokestacks by means of removing air pollutants only\nboost them higher into the atmosphere, thereby only reducing the concentration\nat their site.\nThese pollutants are often transported over the North Sea and produce\nadverse effects in western Scandinavia, where sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide\nfrom UK and central Europe are generating acid rain, especially in Norway and\nSweden. The pH level, or relative\nacidity of many of Scandinavian fresh water lakes has been altered dramatically\nby acid rain causing the destruction of entire fish populations.\nIn the UK, acid rain formed by subsequent sulphur dioxide atmospheric\nemissions has lead to acidic erosion in limestone in North Western Scotland and\nmarble in Northern England.\nIn 1998, the\nLondon Metropolitan Police launched the ‘Emissions Controlled Reduction’\nscheme where by traffic police would monitor the amount of pollutants being\nreleased into the air by vehicle exhausts.\nThe plan was for traffic police to stop vehicles randomly on roads\nleading into the city of London, the officer would then measure the amounts of\nair pollutants being released using a CO2 measuring reader fixed in\nthe owner's vehicle's exhaust. If the\nexhaust exceeded the legal amount (based on micrograms of pollutants) the driver\nwould be fined at around twenty-five pounds.\nThe scheme proved unpopular with drivers, especially with those driving\nto work and did little to help improve the city air quality.\nIn Edinburgh, the main causes of bad air quality were from the vast\nnumber of vehicles going through the city centre from west to east.\nIn 1990, the Edinburgh council developed the city by-pass at a cost of\nnearly seventy five million pounds. The\nby-pass was ringed around the outskirts of the city where its main aim was to\nlimit the number of vehicles going through the city centre and divert vehicles\nto use the by-pass in order to reach their destination without going through the\ncity centre. This released much of\nthe congestion within the city but did little very little in solving the\ncity’s overall air quality.\nTo further decrease the number of vehicles on the roads, the government\npromoted public transport. Over two\nhundred million pounds was devoted in developing the country's public transport\nnetwork. Much of which included the development of more bus lanes in\nthe city of London, which increased the pace of bus services.\nIntroduction of gas and electric powered buses took place in Birmingham\nin order to decrease air pollutants emissions around the centre of the city.\nBecause children and the elderly are at most risk to chronic diseases,\nsuch as asthma, major diversion roads were build in order to divert the vehicles\naway from residential areas, schools and elderly institutions.\nIn some councils, trees were planted along the sides of the road in order\nto decrease the amount of carbon monoxide emissions.\nOther ways of improving the air quality included the restriction on the\namounts of air pollutants being released into the atmosphere by industries;\ntough regulations were placed whereby if the air quality dropped below a certain\nlevel around the industries area, a heavy penalty would be wavered against them.\n© Copyright 2000, Andrew Wan."}
{"text": "A crowd awaits a ship at Station Pier, Port Melbourne.\nSource: Italian Historical Society - Co.As.It.\nFind out why this landmark has become such an evocative symbol of Victoria's immigration history.\nStation Pier is one of Australia's longest operating passenger piers. It holds iconic significance in Victoria's heritage, and is particularly significant to Victoria's post-war immigrants for whom it is an ongoing symbol of their arrival and the start of their new life.\nThe exhibition provides an historical overview of Station Pier, including its early days as Railway Pier in the 1850s, and its upgrade in the 1920s in response to the growing needs of the city and port of Melbourne."}
{"text": "a combination of one or more elementary reaction steps which start with the appropriate reactants and end with the appropriate product(s)\na description of the path, or sequence of steps, by which a reaction occurs\na description of the path that a reaction takes\na detailed description of how a chemical reaction occurs\na detailed description of the way a reaction occurs and is based on the known experimental data about the reaction\na detailed (theoretical) description of how we think the chemical reaction proceeds\na series of elementary reactions or elementary steps that lead from reactants to products\na set of steps at the molecular level\na step by step description of the separate steps that occur during a chemical reaction\na stepwise description of the reaction path\nmechanism. A list of all elementary reactions that occur in the course of an overall chemical reaction.\nIn chemistry, a reaction mechanism is the step by step sequence of elementary reactions by which overall chemical change occurs."}
{"text": "It is fair to say that the struggle for power in the USSR between 1924 and 1929 was partially to do with the economic policy because the way in which different members of the Communist Party treated the economic policy depended how much support they got from fellow members of the Communist party. However, there were other factors involved such as a lack of democratic elections, the nature of leadership and fear of a divided party.\nYou could argue that the struggle for power was due to the differing economic policies, this is because different key players in the power struggle wanted different things. For example, the Bukharinite model wanted gradualism – to allow market forces to drive the economy forward and so letting the peasants gain wealth individually. He believed this would lead to a prosperous consumer market and heavy industry that is centrally controlled, planned economy run by a proletariat dictatorship. This would please the peasantry and results in political and economic growth as well as increased trade. Trotsky and his leftist model agreed that the party must recognise the role of the market forces during the gradual change to socialism. However, in 1926 he became increasingly critical of the gradualist approach and didn’t approve of peasants who had no obligation to sell if the market wasn’t right and therefore wanted a slightly more capitalist approach to the economic policy so that the government had greater control over produce. This created a power struggle because different people wanted different things and approached economic policy in certain ways and whilst Bukharin was trying to ensure the happiness of the public, Trotsky was trying to ensure the wealth and growth of the USSR as a trade nation. Although these two models were important in why there was a power struggle in those years it is not the most important reason.\nSecondly, you could say it... [continues]\nCite This Essay\n(2012, 05). The Struggle for Power in the Ussr. StudyMode.com. Retrieved 05, 2012, from http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Struggle-For-Power-In-The-994323.html\n\"The Struggle for Power in the Ussr\" StudyMode.com. 05 2012. 05 2012 <http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Struggle-For-Power-In-The-994323.html>.\n\"The Struggle for Power in the Ussr.\" StudyMode.com. 05, 2012. Accessed 05, 2012. http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Struggle-For-Power-In-The-994323.html."}
{"text": "Nausea and vomiting - adults\nNausea is the feeling of having an urge to vomit. It is often called being sick to your stomach.\nVomiting or throwing up is forcing the contents of the stomach up through the esophagus and out of the mouth.\nEmesis; Vomiting; Stomach upset; Upset stomach\nMany common problems may cause nausea and vomiting:\nNausea and vomiting may also be early warning signs of more serious medical problems, such as:\nOnce you and your doctor find the cause, you will want to know how to treat your nausea or vomiting\n. You may be asked to take medicine, change your diet, or try other things to make you feel better.\nIt is very important to keep enough fluids in your body. Try drinking frequent, small amounts of clear liquids\nIf you have morning sickness during pregnancy, ask your doctor about the many possible treatments.\nThe following may help treat motion sickness:\n- Lying down\n- Over-the-counter antihistamines (such as Dramamine)\n- Scopolamine prescription skin patches (such as Transderm Scop) are useful for extended trips, such as an ocean voyage. Place the patch 4 - 12 hours before setting sail. Scopolamine is effective but may produce dry mouth, blurred vision, and some drowsiness. Scopolamine is for adults only. It should NOT be given to children.\nCall your health care provider if\nCall 911 or go to an emergency room if:\n- You think vomiting is from poisoning\n- You notice blood or dark, coffee-colored material in the vomit\nCall a health care provider right away or seek medical care if you or another person has:\nBeen vomiting for longer than 24 hours\nBeen unable to keep any fluids down for 12 hours or more\nHeadache or stiff neck\nNot urinated for 8 or more hours\nSevere stomach or belly pain\nVomited three or more times in 1 day\nSigns of dehydration include:\n- Crying without tears\n- Dry mouth\n- Increased thirst\n- Eyes that appear sunken\n- Skin changes -- for example, if you touch or squeeze the skin, it doesn't bounce back the way it usually does\n- Urinating less often or having dark yellow urine\nWhat to expect at your health care provider's office\nYour health care provider will perform a physical examination, and will look for signs of dehydration.\nYour health care provider will ask questions about your symptoms, such as:\n- When did the vomiting begin? How long has it lasted? How often does it occur?\n- Does it occur after you eat, or on an empty stomach?\n- What other symptoms are present -- abdominal pain, fever, diarrhea, or headaches?\n- Are you vomiting blood\n- Are you vomiting anything that looks like coffee grounds?\n- Are you vomiting undigested food?\n- When was the last time you urinated?\nOther questions you may be asked include:\n- Have you been losing weight?\n- Have you been traveling? Where?\n- What medications do you take?\n- Did other people who ate at the same place as you have the same symptoms?\n- Are you pregnant or could you be pregnant?\nThe diagnostic tests may be performed:\nDepending on the cause and how much extra fluids you need, you may have to stay in the hospital or clinic for a period of time. You may need fluids given through your veins (intravenous or IV).\nMalagelada J-R, Malagelada C. Nausea and vomiting. In: Feldman M, Friedman LS, Brandt LJ, eds. Sleisenger & Fordtran's Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2010:chap 14.\nMcquaid K. Approach to the patient with gastrointestinal disease. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 134.\nThis article uses information by permission from Alan Greene, M.D., © Greene Ink, Inc.\nGeorge F. Longstreth, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, San Diego, California. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc."}
{"text": "Cardio and weight training are two important components of well-balanced fitness plans. Knowing which types of exercises fall into which category can help you construct your workouts more effectively, and can give you more options so you don’t get bored with your workouts. When designing your fitness plan, consider adding some stretching and flexibility training. Simply add a few minutes of stretching at the end of your cardio and weight training workouts.\nCardio, or aerobic, exercises require you to move the large muscle groups in your hips, legs and arms. The movement must be continuous and rhythmic, and you must move for a sustained period. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults get at least 2 1/2 hours of moderate-intensity cardio exercise each week. Alternately, you can perform an hour and 15 minutes of vigorous cardio exercise. By regularly performing cardio exercise, you can improve your cardiovascular health, manage your weight more easily and enjoy a sense of well-being.\nExamples of Cardio Exercises\nExamples of cardio exercise include basketball, biking, brisk walking, dancing, jogging, jumping rope, rowing, running, swimming, tennis and water aerobics. Even some household chores -- such as mowing the lawn -- can count as cardio. The intensity with which you perform these activities determines whether they are moderate or vigorous. Moderate-intensity cardio exercises will raise your heart rate and make you breathe faster, while still allowing you to talk. When performing vigorous cardio exercises, you will find it difficult to say more than just a few words before pausing to breathe.\nWeight Training Exercises\nIn weight-training exercises, you generally focus on one muscular group at a time, doing enough repetitions of the exercise to tire the muscles. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults do weight-training exercises at least twice a week. Ideally, target all your major muscle groups: chest, shoulders, arms, abdomen, back, hips and legs. By performing weight-training exercises, you can build strength in your muscles, increase the amount of lean muscle in your body, manage your weight more easily and lower your risk of injury.\nExamples of Weight-Training Exercises\nYou can perform weight-training exercises with free weights -- dumbbells and barbells. Examples of these exercises include biceps curls and squats. Weight machines offer other options for weight training. You can perform leg presses, standing calf raises, chest flyes and pull-down exercises on these machines. Other types of weight-training exercises require you to move your own body weight. These include triceps dips, situps and pushups. Although technically not weight-training exercises, resistance band exercises offer more options for strength training. You can perform variations on traditional weight-training exercises -- such as biceps curls, lunges, chest flyes and overhead presses -- with these resistance bands."}
{"text": "Download Full Text (640 KB)\nDecision-making problems in water resources are often associated with multiple objectives and multiple stakeholders. To enable more effective and acceptable decision outcome, it is required that more participation is ensured in the decision making process. This is particularly relevant for flood management problems where the number of stakeholders could be very large. Although application of multi-objective decision-making tools in water resources is very wide, application with the consideration of multiple stakeholders is much more limited. The solution methodologies adapted for multi-objective multi-participant decision problems are generally based on aggregation of decisions obtained for individual decision makers. This approach seems somewhat inadequate when the number of stakeholders is very large, as often is the case in flood management.\nThe present study has been performed to have an overview of existing solution methodologies for multi-objective decision making approaches in water resources. Decision making by single and multiple stakeholders has been considered under both deterministic and uncertain conditions. It has been found that the use of fuzzy set theory to represent various uncertainties associated with decision making situations under multi-objective multiple-participant environment is very promising. Coupled with multi-objective methods (e. g. compromise programming and goal programming), fuzzy approach has also the ability to support group decisions, to reflect collective opinions and conflicting judgments.\nDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Western Ontario\nLondon, Ontario, Canada\nOverview, Multiple objectives, Multiple stakeholders, Decision-making, Flood management\nCivil and Environmental Engineering\nAkter, Taslima and Simonovic, Slobodan P., \"A General Overview of Multi-objective Multiple-participant Decision Making for Flood Management\" (2002). Water Resources Research Report. Book 4."}
{"text": "The formation of counties was one of the first matters attended to by the Lords Proprietors  after they received their charter in 1663 from King Charles II for the vast tract of land in America he called the province of Carolina. In 1664 the Proprietors formed \"all that parte of the province which lyeth on the north east side or starboard side entering of the river Chowan now named by us Albemarle River together with the Islands and Isletts within tenn leagues thereof\" into a county that they named Albemarle County  for George Monck, the duke of Albemarle, himself one of the Proprietors. This was the site of the first permanent settlement in Carolina. They then divided the new county into four precincts: Currituck , Perquimans , Pasquotank , and Chowan . Albemarle County was subsequently enlarged, and in 1696 the area south of Albemarle Sound was removed from Albemarle and made into a new county, named Bath, which in turn was divided into the precincts of Beaufort , Hyde , Craven  and Carteret .\nThe primary reason for establishing counties (or precincts) was to provide local seats of government where citizens could record documents, such as deeds or wills, and participate in court proceedings. At the same time, the sheriff was provided with a home base from which to fulfill his basic responsibilities of collecting taxes and maintaining law and order.\nBy 1738 Albemarle and Bath Counties had been dissolved and the 14 precincts then in existence became counties, a designation that has remained since the seventeenth century. Throughout the remainder of the colonial period, as settlement spread westward and population increased, older counties were divided and new ones formed. With statehood came an even greater rate of growth, and by 1800 the number had risen to 59 counties covering all of the state. In many cases, the dividing of counties caused heated political controversy, as eastern counties were often divided to maintain that region's majority in the state legislature against expanding representation from the piedmont and mountain regions. Shifts in population continued throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, resulting in even more counties. Larger counties were divided, and those in turn were sometimes divided yet again, until the seemingly magical figure of 100 was reached in 1911. (For a time, the number of counties was actually greater than 100, but some of these were ceded to Tennessee in 1789 and others were absorbed into other counties or never fully developed.) The number remained at 100, although in 1933 the General Assembly authorized the consolidation of existing counties subject to approval of the electorate. This could have resulted for the first time in a decrease from the 100 county figure, but as of the early 2000s there had been no such consolidations.\nInitially, county government and judicial matters were in the hands of justices of the peace , who formed a body known as the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions . The justices were appointed by the governor, with strong input from the members of the colonial Assembly from the affected county, leaving the average citizen with no say as to who would run the government of the county in which he lived. At first the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions met wherever it was convenient to assemble a quorum, usually in a private home. A 1722 act of the Assembly instructed the justices to pick a site for a permanent seat of government for each precinct, where they were to buy an acre of land and build a courthouse. Whether in the early precinct days, or after the name of the local government entity was changed from precinct to county, the justices had the support of a sheriff for law enforcement, as well as a clerk of court and a register of deeds. Of the three, both the clerk of court and the register of deeds needed to remain in their offices in the courthouse, which left only the sheriff free to travel about the county. Accordingly, he was also designated tax collector, a position sheriffs continued to hold until the latter part of the twentieth century.\nThe general system of county government of the early colonial period, with the appointed members of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions running things, was carried over into statehood, and little changed until the adoption of the North Carolina Constitution of 1868 . The system called for by the new constitution, known as the Township and County Commissioner Plan, gave control of county government to five commissioners, to be elected at large by the county's voters. In addition, each county was divided into townships whose residents elected two justices to serve as the township's governing body, as well as a three-member school committee and a constable. The new system significantly reduced the General Assembly's control of county government, since the legislators no longer appointed the justices of the peace who made up the county court.\nThe Township and County Commissioner Plan, patterned after one previously adopted in Pennsylvania, did not prove universally popular in North Carolina and lasted less than a decade. At a constitutional convention in 1875, the General Assembly was authorized to change the system, and in the session of 1877 townships were reduced to little more than geographic and administrative subdivisions of the counties. This seriously reduced the authority of county commissioners.\nThe modern system of county government, in which an elected board of commissioners is responsible for managing a county's affairs, including setting the rate and collecting taxes and determining where funds should be expended, dates to the early twentieth century. Periodically after that, the General Assembly  conferred additional authority and responsibility on the county commissioners, until at the end of the century they had been provided with such a wide range of \"home-rule\" statutes that many counties found it impossible to run their greatly expanded business without professional help. This led to the adoption by many counties of the County Manager Plan. Under this plan, commissioners employ a county manager to serve as a sort of chief executive of the county business-in some instances, the largest business in the county-with the manager having certain independent authority, including that of hiring and firing employees.\nAs with other matters, the state determines what sources the counties may tap for income. Traditionally, the real estate  tax has been the primary revenue source for North Carolina counties. However, especially in the last half of the twentieth century, counties were able to prevail on the General Assembly to let them collect from a variety of other sources, among those favored being local sales taxes, land transfer taxes, meals taxes, and occupancy taxes.\nA. Fleming Bell, ed., County Government in North Carolina (3rd ed., 1989).\nDavid LeRoy Corbitt, The Formation of the North Carolina Counties, 1663-1943 (1969).\n1 January 2006 | Stick, David"}
{"text": "European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection\nTriptych showing scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Barbara and scenes from the Life of Christ\nMaster of the Laufen High Altarpiece, Austrian (active Salzburg), dated work 1467\nOil and gold on panels\nEW1993-127-2a--cPurchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, the George W. Elkins Fund, and Museum funds, 1993\nAs described in The Golden Legend, written in about 1267 by Jacopo da Voragine, Saint Barbara converted to Christianity against the wishes of her pagan father. Locked in a tower by him, she ordered workmen to construct a third window inthe building to symbolize the Christian trinity. Enraged, her father turned her over to the Roman authorities for torture, and when her execution was ordered,he himself beheaded her. The left and right panels on the front of this triptychillustrate episodes from Barbara’s gruesome martyrdom.\nThese graphic depictions are intended to help the viewer equate Barbara’s physical torments with those of Christ, whose crucifixion is depicted in the top center composition. The figures at the top left and right, probably the apostles John and Luke, hold sayings taken from the last words of Christ on the cross, which here apply also to Barbara’s death. The bottom center panel shows Barbara enthroned in heaven, wearing a crown and holding a palm frond as symbols of victory over death. A tower and chalice, her identifying attributes, appear nearby.\nBarbara’s martyrdom is paralleled on the reverse by the resurrected Christ standing in the tomb. The left and right panels of the back, which are movable and can be folded shut to appear on the front, show the angel Gabriel announcing the incarnation of Christ to the Virgin Mary.\nSocial Tags [?]austrian [x] gabriel [x] gold [x] martyr [x] three [x] trinity [x] triptych [x] [Add Your Own Tags]\n* Works in the collection are moved off view for many different reasons. Although gallery locations on the website are updated regularly, there is no guarantee that this object will be on display on the day of your visit."}
{"text": "Vocalisation has been recognised as one of the important modes of animal communication. In one anabantoid fish, the croaking gourami Trichopsis vittata, both sexes produce loud, croaking sounds during agonistic encounters and courtship. It is known that sound emission of this fish is mostly involved with the ritualised portion of the contest, which is likely to convey information between the opponents about their respective strength and status. The sound is produced by a complex mechanism that involves two modified tendons, located behind each pectoral fin. Due to the external position of these soft structures, parasites, sickness, or injury from fights can easily damage the tendons, leading to muteness. Reduction or even loss of the croaking ability may result in a substantial decreasing of the overall fitness. Experiments were designed to test whether or not croaking gouramis can repair damaged tendons and regain fully functional sound producing organs, as well as to evaluate the effect of muting and recovery on the outcomes of agonistic interactions. Fishes were muted by surgically cutting one or both the tendons that connect the \"sonic'' muscle with the fin rays. The occurrence and timing of recovery was evaluated for 30 specimens of T. vittata after surgical muting. Croaking sounds produced by the fish were recorded during staged contests after recovery. Sound from each specimen was previously recorded before and after muting as well, for comparison. The elapsed time of reconnection of each tendon to the relative fin ray was also recorded. Some fishes were found to recover completely within less than 30 days, while others needed up to three months. However, evidence for the beginning of the recovery process was noticed as early as 4 days after operation. Behavioural performance after recovery was normal. Details of sounds produced and changes of behavioural repertoires are discussed (supported by National Organization for Hearing Research, NIMH-58198, Institute of Museum and Library Service-LL90187).\nNicola Novarini, Tomonari Akamatsu & Hong Y. Yan (2002). Effects of muting and recovery on sound production in the croaking gourami Trichopsis vittata (Pisces: Anabantoidei) [abstract]. Bioacoustics 13(2): 202-203"}
{"text": "These are poly-aromatic compounds, insoluble in n-heptane, with a number of carbon atoms greater than 50. The asphalthene content of a crude may be the cause of deposits in inter-changers and/or lines. In fact, the mix of a crude having a high asphalthene content with a paraffinic crude can displace the balance of the asphalthenes, precipitating them. A high asphalthene content ensures that the vacuum pitch will be suitable for producing asphalt.\nASTM D86 distillation is a test that measures the volatility of gasoline, kerosene and diesel.\nBasic Sediment and Water (BSW)\nThe BSW relates to the content of free water (not dissolved) and sediments (mud, sand) in the crude. It is important that its reading is low in order to avoid dirtiness and difficulties during the crude processing, in which the steam produced by the free water can damage the oven. It is reported as a percentage in volume over the crude.\nThis is the weight of the residue remaining after the combustion of a fuel sample. It represents the facility of a heavy fuel to produce particles during combustion.\nThis is the measurement of the mass of a volume. It is expressed in kilograms per liter, or grams per cubic centimeter. Density depends on the temperature as this affects the volume of the substances.\nTemperature at which a liquid stops flowing when cooled, through the precipitation of crystals of solid paraffin.\nThe draining temperature is very important as, in the unloading of paraffinic crudes using sea terminals with underwater pipelines of a certain length, the temperature of the crude can fall below the draining point, creating deposits of wax or solid paraffin in the pipelines, thus obstructing the flow.\nThis is the minimum temperature at which the vapors of a product flash or detonate momentarily when a flame is applied in controlled conditions. It represents the maximum temperature at which a product can be stored or transported in safe conditions.\nThis is the temperature at which the crystals formed during the cooling of a product sample disappear completely when the temperature rises in a controlled way\nThe metals content of a crude, vanadium and nickel, gives us an indication of their content in the heaviest products obtained in the refining. This is important because, for example, the metals in gas oil in vacuum are poison for the catalytic and hydro-cracking catalysts. A high vanadium content or metals in the combustible oil may cause oven and boiler tube breakage problems because they form corrosive products during combustion.\nNumber of cetane\nThis measures the ease with which the spontaneous ignition occurs of diesel oil using a standardized engine and a reference fuel.\nThe cetane rating is determined by making a comparison of the ignition time of a mix of cetane (C16)) and hepta-methyl-nonane (C 15), which has the same delay time in ignition as the fuel being examined. The cetane rating measured is the percentage of the cetane compound in the cetane/hepta-methyl-nonane mix.\nThe C16 has a cetane rating equal to 100 (it is an easily-ignited paraffin) and C15 has a cetane rating equal to 0 (as being a slow-combustion aromatic).\nA high cetane rating represents a high ignition quality or a short delay time between the fuel injection and the start of combustion.\nThe diesel engine uses a high compression ratio to produce the spontaneous ignition of the diesel, instead of a spark as in the case of the internal combustion engine. The compressed air temperature in the diesel engine is sufficiently high to fire the diesel.\nThe lineal paraffins have a high cetane rating and therefore burn well; on the other hand, the aromatics are of a low cetane rating and burn badly, producing deposits of carbon and the production of black smoke. For that reason, high-quality diesel should have an aromatic content compatible with the specified cetane rating.\nThe cetane rating can be calculated based on the volatility (corresponding to the temperature of 50% distilled) and the density of the diesel and is called Calculated Cetane Rating. The reason for using the formula is the high cost of the cetane engine.\nOctane number (NOR)\nThe RVP and NOR are the most important parameters of gasoline quality. The NOR measures the resistance of the gasoline to self-ignition or premature detonation in an engine's functioning conditions.\nSelf-ignition is noted for the hammering or noise produced when the gasoline self-ignites, detonating before the cylinder compresses all the gasoline and air mixture, losing power. The detonation produces sound waves that are detected using special microphones.\nThe octane rating is measured by comparing the noise of the detonation made by a reference fuel mixture in a standardized engine with that for which the fuel examined is made. The reference fuels are iso-octane (2, 2, 4 trimethyl pentane), with an octane rating equal to 100 (high resistance to hammering) and the n-heptane which has an octane rating of zero (very low resistance). The octane rating determined is the percentage in volume of iso-octane in the iso-octane/heptane mixture.\nFuels with a high octane rating have greater resistance to premature detonation than those of a lower octane rating. In addition, fuels with a high octane rating can be used in engines with a high compression ratio, which are more efficient.\nThere are two types of engine for the determination of the octane rating of gasoline. One uses the Research method and the other the Motor method.\nThe Research method represents the behavior of an engine in cities at low and moderate speeds. The Motor method represents situations with fast acceleration, like climbing gradients or overtaking.\nThere is another way of expressing the octane rating of a gasoline which is called Highway Octane. The Highway Octane rating is expressed as the sum of the Research octane and the Motor octane ratings divided by 2. The Highway Octane rating is used in the United States while the Research method is used in Chile.\nReid Vapor Pressure (RVP)\nThe Reid vapor pressure is an empirical test that measures the pressure in pounds per square inch (psi) exercised by the vapors or light components of the crude or of an oil product, in a closed container at a temperature of 100 °F (38 °C).\nA high vapor pressure of the crude tells us that light products are present in it and that they will burn in the torch in the processing if there is no suitable recovery system. In the case of an internal combustion engine, excessive vapor pressure will cause a blockage which will impede the flow of gasoline.\nCrude oil contains salt (NaCI) which comes from the oil fields or the sea water used as ballast by oil tankers. It is necessary to extract the salt with desalination equipment before the crude oil can enter the atmospheric distillation oven in order to avoid corrosion that is produced in the upper part of the atmospheric tower. The salt decomposes and produces chlorhydric acid. It is expressed in grams of salt per cubic meter of crude.\nThe temperature at which some products inflame spontaneously in contact with the air (without flame), probably due to the heat the show oxidation produces, which accumulates, raising the temperature to the inflammation point. Fortunately, the oil distillers have very high self-ignition temperatures and are therefore difficult to achieve; this is 450ºC in gasoline. Oily rags, on the other hand, self-ignite easily and cause fires and so should be suitably destroyed.\nThe ratio of the weight of a substance and the weight of an equal volume of water at the same temperature. In oil, the API specific gravity is used which is measured with hydrometers that float in the liquid. The API grades are read directly on the scale that stands above the liquid at the flotation line point. The API scale arose from the facility of graduating the hydrometer rod uniformly.\n°API =141.5/(specific gravity) -131.5\nThe °API determines whether the crude or product is light or heavy and enables us to calculate the tons of this unloaded. A light crude has an API of 40-50 while a heavy one has 10-24.\nSulfur and the API are the properties with the greatest influence on the price of crude.\nThis is the resistance to degradation through heat or oxidation of an oil product. Products containing olefinic material are unstable and susceptible to degradation.\nThe sulfur content permits the foreseeing of difficulties in meeting product and atmospheric emission specifications, as treatment units are needed to meet these; it is also poison for some catalysts. It also enables us to see whether the plant metallurgy is the most suitable for processing it. It is expressed as a percentage in weight of sulfur.\nSulfuric acid (H2S)\nA prior knowledge of the sulfuric acid content of the crude permits preventive actions and avoids accidents to people. The sulfhydric acid is very dangerous because it anesthetizes the olfactory nerve which prevents people from being aware of the situation and is mortal in small quantities. Personnel working in contact with the crude have therefore to wear protection equipment and personal sulfhydric acid sensors.\nThis is the degree of resistance of a liquid to flow. The greater the viscosity, the greater the resistance to flow. Viscosity is affected by the temperature, reducing it when the latter rises. It is measured by using special viscosimeters and is expressed in USS (Universal Saybolt Seconds), FSS (Furol Saybolt Seconds) and in centi-stokes.\nViscosity is important for fuel injection in engines and burners. It is also critical in the pumping of crude oil and products by pipeline. A higher viscosity than that designed for will reduce the desired flow and make a greater pump motor capacity necessary. The viscosity also affects measuring instrument factors, altering the readings.\nThe measurement of the facility with which a product vaporizes. Volatile products have high steam pressure and a low boiling point. It is measured through the ASTM D86 test and is expressed as the temperature at which certain volumes are distilled."}
{"text": "Peter PanLiterary Hero\nBest known as:\nFanciful boy hero of Peter Pan\nPeter Pan is the mischievous hero of J.M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan. Peter is \"the boy who never grew up,\" a fantastical figure who visits the bedroom of the Darling children (Wendy, John and Michael) and flies them away to Neverland. There the children meet Peter's loyal troupe of lost boys, and have adventures and battles with the nefarious Captain Hook. The character of Peter went through several versions, from a 1902 book The Little White Bird to Barrie's hugely successful 1904 play. Barrie published the story as prose in 1911, under the title of Peter and Wendy. In 1953, Walt Disney made a hit animated movie out of a cleaned up version the story, and a 1954 Broadway musical version of the play earned a Tony award for Mary Martin, who played Peter. In films Peter has been played by Jeremy Sumpter (Peter Pan, 2003) and Robin Williams (Hook, 1991) among many others. Peter Pan is also the star of a series of adventure stories for children by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, starting with Peter and the Starcatcher (2004).\nPeter Pan is assisted by a tiny fairie named Tinkerbell, who carries a lighted wand; she has become one of the signature figures of the Walt Disney empire... Late singer Michael Jackson called his extravagant California ranch \"Neverland\"... In Barrie's story, Peter tells Wendy he lives \"Second to the right, then straight on till morning.\" In some productions this has been changed to \"Second star to the right, then straight on till morning\"... Peter is usually played onstage by women, a tradition started with the original 1904 production; gymnast Cathy Rigby and actress Sandy Duncan played the role often later in the 20th century... In 1929, Barrie donated the rights to Peter Pan to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.\nCopyright © 1998-2013 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.\nMore on Peter Pan from Infoplease:\nInformation Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved."}
{"text": "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and Economic Foundations\nHuman well-being relies critically on ecosystem services provided by nature. Examples include water and air quality regulation, nutrient cycling and decomposition, plant pollination and flood control, all of which are dependent on biodiversity. They are predominantly public goods with limited or no markets and do not command any price in the conventional economic system, so their loss is often not detected and continues unaddressed and unabated. This in turn not only impacts human well-being, but also seriously undermines the sustainability of the economic system.\nIt is against this background that TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project was set up in 2007 and led by the United Nations Environment Programme to provide a comprehensive global assessment of economic aspects of these issues. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, written by a team of international experts, represents the scientific state of the art, providing a comprehensive assessment of the fundamental ecological and economic principles of measuring and valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity, and showing how these can be mainstreamed into public policies. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity and subsequent TEEB outputs will provide the authoritative knowledge and guidance to drive forward the biodiversity conservation agenda for the next decade.\n1. Integrating the Ecological and Economic Dimensions in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Valuation\n2. Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services\n3. Measuring Biophysical Quantities and the Use of Indicators\n4. The Socio-cultural Context of Ecosystem and Biodiversity Valuation\n5. The Economics of Valuing Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity\n6. Discounting, Ethics, and Options for Maintaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Integrity\n7. Lessons Learned and Linkages with National Policies\nAppendix 1: How the TEEB Framework Can be Applied: The Amazon Case\nAppendix 2: Matrix Tables for Wetland and Forest Ecosystems\nAppendix 3: Estimates of Monetary Values of Ecosystem Services\n\"A landmark study on one of the most pressing problems facing society, balancing economic growth and ecological protection to achieve a sustainable future.\"\n- Simon Levin, Moffett Professor of Biology, Department of Ecology and Evolution Behaviour, Princeton University, USA\n\"TEEB brings a rigorous economic focus to bear on the problems of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, and on their impacts on human welfare. TEEB is a very timely and useful study not only of the economic and social dimensions of the problem, but also of a set of practical solutions which deserve the attention of policy-makers around the world.\"\n- Nicholas Stern, I.G. Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics and Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment\n\"The [TEEB] project should show us all how expensive the global destruction of the natural world has become and – it is hoped – persuade us to slow down.' The Guardian 'Biodiversity is the living fabric of this planet – the quantum and the variability of all its ecosystems, species, and genes. And yet, modern economies remain largely blind to the huge value of the abundance and diversity of this web of life, and the crucial and valuable roles it plays in human health, nutrition, habitation and indeed in the health and functioning of our economies. Humanity has instead fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity, or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world. The truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050. This volume of 'TEEB' explores the challenges involved in addressing the economic invisibility of biodiversity, and organises the science and economics in a way decision makers would find it hard to ignore.\"\n- Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme\nThis volume is an output of TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study and has been edited by Pushpam Kumar, Reader in Environmental Economics, University of Liverpool, UK. TEEB is hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UENP) and supported by the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) and the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), recently joined by Norway's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands' Ministry of Housing (VROM), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and also the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The study leader is Pavan Sukhdev, who is also Special Adviser – Green Economy Initiative, UNEP.\nView other products from the same publisher"}
{"text": "Scaevola taccada is a dense, spreading shrub that generally grows up to 3 meter in height. The light green leaves are somewhat succulent with a waxy covering and are alternately arranged along the stem.\nThe blades are elongated and rounded at the tips, 5 to 20 cm long and 5 to 7 cm wide and the edges are often curled downward. The flowers are white or cream colored, often with purple streaks, 8 - 12 mm long, and have a pleasant fragrance. They have an irregular shape with all five petals on one side of the flower making it appear to have been torn in half. The flowers grow in small clusters from the leaf axils near the ends of the stems. The fruits of Scaevola taccada are fleshy berries. They are white, oblong, and about 1 cm long. The seeds are beige, corky and ridged. The inside of the fruit is spongy or corky and the fruits are buoyant. They can float for months in the ocean and still germinate after having been in salt water for up to a year. One study showed that the seeds germinated best after 250 days in salt water.\n(National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). 1994. Naupaka. In Native Hawaiian plant information sheets. Lawai, Kauai: Hawaii Plant Conservation Center. National Tropical Botanical Garden. Unpublished internal papers.)\n(Rauch, Fred D., Heidi L. Bornhorst, and David L. Hensley. 1997. Beach Naupaka, Ornamentals and Flowers.)\n(Wagner, Warren L., Darrel R. Herbst, and S. H. Sohmer. 1990. Manual of the flowering plants of Hawai'i.)\n(Bornhorst, Heidi L. 1996. Growing native Hawaiian plants: a how-to guide for the gardener.)"}
{"text": "The common name for sedums is Stonecrop. There is a Stonecrop Nursery in eastern New York which was the first garden created by Frank Cabot. Frank created the Garden Conservancy, an organization which strives to preserve some of our exceptional gardens for posterity. Each year it also runs its Open Days Program which opens gardens to the public throughout the country. Frank Cabot went on to create Les Quatre Vents, an outstanding garden at his family home in Quebec.\nThere are two sedums which most gardeners grow; Sedum acre, a tiny low-growing\ngroundcover plant with bright yellow flowers. This is being used effectively in the Peace Garden in the plaza between the library and city hall.\nThe other is Autumn Joy which is in bloom now and will continue to provide color for\nmonths to come. Some references say it requires full sun. Not so! I have it in three locations in my garden. I have several plants growing out of a south-facing wall. But there are tall oaks and maples to the south so that the only time it gets direct sun is in spring before the oaks leaf out. The rest of the year it is dappled light. Another plant is in the east-facing bed on top of my long stone wall where it gets only morning sun. The third plant is in my shrub-perennial border where it gets a bit of sun mid-day. Mine is the ordinary run-of-the-mill Autumn Joy, but there are several cultivars offered in nurseries. Among these are: Crimson, Iceberg, which has white flowers, Autumn Fire and Chocolate Drop, growing only eight inches tall with brown leaves and pink flowers.\nThere are two native sedums: Roseroot, Sedum rosa and Wild Stonecrop, Sedum ternatum. A third Wild Live-forever, Sedum teliphiodes, grows on cliffs and rocks in Pennsylvania and southward."}
{"text": "Recent acts of violence alongside pending legislation and international pressure have brought to light the pressing need for lawmaking in support of LGBT rights in Chile. Together with protests for reforms in the education system, the public seems to be increasingly impatient about what the government is doing to protect LGBT rights. These demands are important beyond the scope of gay rights, because they have brought attention to the need for Chile to recognize, accept and protect the human rights of an evolving, heterogeneous culture as a fundamental prerequisite for continued prosperity.\nThe passage of an antidiscrimination law, which remained unresolved for over seven years, by a close 58-56 vote in the Chamber of Deputies this month was a basic necessity for the country. The Chilean Movement for Sexual Minorities (MOVILH) notes that in 2011 gay, lesbian and transgender Chileans were increasingly outspoken in reporting abuse and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. However, this recently passed antidiscrimination law does not deal with hate crimes per se, but rather defines illegal discrimination. Furthermore, certain passages have yet to be finalized in a mixed commission of Senators and Deputies on May 2. The recent death of gay youth Daniel Zamudio points to precisely why legislating solely on discrimination does not suffice in this case, serving as an exceptionally violent example as to why hate crimes require specific punishment under the law.\nZamudio received not only the public’s sympathy, but also worldwide attention including a briefing note from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ spokesman, Rupert Colville, urging Chile to enact hate crime legislation. In this regard, the MOVILH also argues that Chilean society is not opposed to legislating on issues of gay rights and antidiscrimination in its entirety, but there is a lack of bravery and willingness within Congress to approach these pending issues. The recent Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ overturning of a Chilean court ruling against lesbian Judge Karen Atala, who lost custody of her children because of her same-sex relationship, is further international pressure for Chile to meet requirements stipulated by international agreements it has signed onto.\nChile’s gay rights deficit is worrying as the country continues to be viewed as an example for continued economic growth despite global market volatility. President Sebastian Piñera’s administration is cautious about giving into all public demands, as Chile’s Minister of Finance Felipe Larraín recently said: “If we surrender to the temptation of appeasing demands by giving in to all of them, we will never get to our final goal [development].” However, most gay rights issues rely merely on political willingness rather than investment for social welfare. Furthermore, acting on gay rights is not the investment equivalent of reforming a public education system.\nOn the contrary, the lack of legislative initiative to protect gay Chileans is hindering the business community’s business opportunities. Private initiatives have been taken to reach out to gay customers, like for example the granting of access to mortgages and family insurance plans to Banco de Chile customers in same-sex relationships, proving how it is not only the public that is restless, but also the private sector that recognizes the positive effects of social inclusion in business. What could potentially prove threatening to Chile’s continued economic success might just be the lack of recognition given to the longstanding need for social inclusion of minorities in the country’s legal framework. In contrast, Chile’s neighbor Argentina has clearly reaped the benefits of gay tourism and investment since legislating on gay marriage, while Chile continues to turn a blind eye to opportunity.\nThis is not to say that Piñera’s administration has not taken basic steps to promote the rights of gay couples, like for example Piñera’s public presentation of a civil unions bill in August 2011. However, this legislative project was not only perceived as a political tool in the midst of cabinet discussions with student protest leaders, but is also minimal when considering the prominent use of gay couples in campaign ads for Sebastian Piñera during his presidential campaign. For this reason, the inclusion of a question in the 2012 census that allows gay couples to state whether they live with a same-sex partner may become an important, confidential and unbiased figure that current and future administrations could use to advocate for legislation on gay unions.\nThis paradox persists despite the heightened quality of life of Chileans. Economic growth is creating an increasingly obvious deficit in basic human rights the country has yet to attain. In spite of continued development and well-regarded fiscal policy through the recession and into today’s administration, Chile continues to be in debt to not only its citizens and the country’s business community, but also to international human rights agreements on sexual orientation and gender identity. These international standards continue to be well above those demonstrated by the current state of gay rights legislation in Chile.\nEduardo Ayala is a guest blogger to AQ Online. He is Chilean-American and works at the Council of the Americas in New York. He graduated from The George Washington University, during which time he also completed coursework at The University of Chile and The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago."}
{"text": "Language Instruction for Immigrant and Non-English Speaking Children\nTitle III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 provides Federal financial support to state and local educational agencies to supplement English language instruction in order to ensure that all English Language Learners, including immigrant children and youth, attain English proficiency, develop high levels of academic language proficiency in English, and meet the same challenging State academic achievement standards as all Maryland students are expected to meet.\nTo comply with these requirements, the Title III office of the Maryland State Department of Education works with local school districts to ensure that quality, research based ESL programs are offered to language minority students.\nTitle III, Secs. 3101, 3102 Part A"}
{"text": "Don't feel like exercise? Scientists find compound that may help you work out harderJune 12th, 2012 in Medical research /\nAs science rushes to develop safe weight loss drugs, a new research report approaches this problem from an entirely new angle: What if there were a pill that would make you want to exercise harder? It may sound strange, but a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal suggests that it might be possible.\nThat's because a team of Swiss researchers found that when a hormone in the brain, erythropoietin (Epo), was elevated in mice, they were more motivated to exercise. In addition, the form of erythropoietin used in these experiments did not elevate red blood cell counts. Such a treatment has obvious benefits for a wide range of health problems ranging from Alzheimer's to obesity, including mental health disorders for which increased physical activity is known to improve symptoms.\n\"Here we show that Epo increases the motivation to exercise,\" said Max Gassmann, D.V.M., a researcher involved in the work from the Institute of Veterinary Physiology, Vetsuisse-Faculty and Zurich Center for Integrative Human Physiology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. \"Most probably, Epo has a general effect on a person's mood and might be used in patients suffering from depression and related diseases.\"\nTo make this discovery, Gassmann and colleagues used three types of mice: those that received no treatment, those that were injected with human Epo, and those that were genetically modified to produce human Epo in the brain. Compared to the mice that did not have any increase in Epo, both mouse groups harboring human Epo in the brain showed significantly higher running performance without increases in red blood cells.\n\"If you can't put exercise in a pill, then maybe you can put the motivation to exercise in a pill instead,\" said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. \"As more and more people become overweight and obese, we must attack the problem from all angles. Maybe the day will come when gyms are as easily found as fast food restaurants.\"\nMore information: Beat Schuler, Johannes Vogel, Beat Grenacher, Robert A. Jacobs, Margarete Arras, and Max Gassmann. Acute and chronic elevation of erythropoietin in the brain improves exercise performance in mice without inducing erythropoiesis. FASEB J. doi:10.1096/fj.11-191197\nProvided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology\n\"Don't feel like exercise? Scientists find compound that may help you work out harder.\" June 12th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-dont-scientists-compound-harder.html"}
{"text": "I do a lesson with tints and shades that requires no drawing skills.\nThe kids make a large triangular banner using their first or last\ninitial-usually 24x18 or 24x36 if you have that sized paper.\nThey make the letter on a piece of 9x12 size paper. They can embellish a\nsimple block or puffy letter with a few swirls or whatever, but keep it\nsimple enough to paint in the shape with whatever their color choice is.\nThen transfer the letter onto the triangle, near the center of the upper\npart of the wide end. I have them tape the letter in place behind the\ntriangle and trace through on the light box or at the window.\nThis is a monochromatic painting the way I do it with my 3rd graders. the\nchoose one color and use it straight from the bottle to paint the letter\nshape. This is the only shape with unmixed colors.\nThen they divide the background behind the letter into large shapes using\nstraight or curved lines (nothing too nervous, if you know what I mean. Just\nsimple lines). I usually limit the number of extra shapes to about 10-12 and\nremind the kids that the letter is the star of this show, not the background\nThen they start with tints (color plus white) and paint in half the shapes.\nDo the same with shades (color plus black) to finish the background area.\nwhen dry, we outline with a wide sharpie marker to neaten up the painted\nedges between shapes and around the letter. Sometimes we edge the whole\nthing with colored construction paper strips to make the banner a bit more\nConcepts used are always mixing from light to dark to avoid needing gallons\nof white paint to lighten up a dark blue, for example. Start with the\nlightest tint and paint a shape, progressing darker by adding into that bowl\nmore of the prime color. Same with shades, starting with a drop of black\ninto the prime color, painting a shape, and progressing with more black til\nall the shapes are done. Saves a lot of paint that way!\nThe kids usually pick a color that will match their bedroom at home . My\nthird graders love this project and look forward to it each year. If you\nneed a photo, I can take one and send it tomorrow. I am off Mondays."}
{"text": "A nocturnal bird of prey.\n(AM2: dp. 1,009 (f.); l. 18710; 1 b. 356; dr. 104; s. 14 k.; cpl. 78; a. 2 3; cl. Lapwing)\nThe first Owl (AM2) was laid down 25 October 1917 by the Todd Shipbuilding Corp., Brooklyn, N.Y.; launched 4 March 1918; sponsored by Miss Ruth R. Dodd; and commissioned 11 July 1918, Lt. (j.g.) Charles B. Babson in command.\nFollowing a New York to Charleston towing assignment, Owl reported to the 5th Naval District at Norfolk, 22 August 1918. Employed as a minesweeper for the remaining months of World War I, she then served as a light ship in the inner approach to Chesapeake Bay until 10 July 1919. From that time until 1936, she was primarily engaged in providing towing services along the eastern seaboard and in the Caribbean. Between June 1936 and January 1941, she operated with units of the Aircraft Division, Base Force, providing planeguard, seaplane tender, and target and mooring buoy planting services from New England to the Caribbean. Then, temporarily attached to Train, Patrol Force at Culebra, P.R., she steamed to Bermuda in May for towing and servicing duties with MinDiv 14. Redesignated AT137, 1 June 1942, she was based at Bermuda until June 1943. During that time, towing and escort duties frequently took her to the east coast, while numerous salvage and rescue missions, including aid to the submarine R1 and torpedoed Argentine tanker Victoria, kept her busy at Bermuda and in nearby convoy lanes.\nDetached from Bermudan duty in June, Owl spent the last six months of 1943 with DesRon 30 operating out of Guantanamo Bay. She then steamed back to Norfolk for overhaul, and sailed for Europe. She arrived at Falmouth, U.K., 14 March 1944 to join the Allied forces gathering for the invasion of France. Redesignated ATO137 on 15 May 1944, she arrived off the Normandy coast two days after D-Day. As ground forces pushed inland, she towed port and road construction materials to the French coast, thus aiding the all important flow of men and equipment to the front.\nAvailability at Falmouth early in the new year, 1945, preceded her return to the United States, 27 February, and midAtlantic coast towing assignments. Transferred to the Pacific Fleet, she sailed from Newport, 5 May, with YNG11 in tow, and arrived at San Diego 23 June, to join ServRon 2. In August she continued on to Pearl Harbor for four months of target towing duty, returning to the west coast 2 January 1946. Owl then provided towing services for the 19th (Reserve) Fleet until beginning inactivation in April. She decommissioned in the 13th Naval District 26 July 1946 and on 27 June 1947 was sold for scrapping to the Pacific Metal and Salvage Co. at Port of Nordland, Wash.\nOwl received 1 battle star for World War II service."}
{"text": "When the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) was first founded in 1973 there were only 1.5 million wild turkeys across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Today, it is estimated there are more than 5.6 million wild turkeys.\nIn Utah, wild turkey restoration efforts continue to be the most aggressive in the nation. Over 2,800 wild turkeys have been relocated to suitable habitat areas in Utah since the winter of 1999. As a result, wild turkey permits have increased 20 percent for the spring 2002 season.\nHowever, this program will not be complete until over 200,000 wild turkeys roam the cottonwood river bottoms, pinyon/juniper, and ponderosa pine forests of the state. Whether you pursue wild turkeys as a hunter, or simply enjoy watching these magnificent birds in their natural surroundings, the time to view wild turkeys in Utah has never been better.\nAt the forefront of this dramatic return in Utah, has been the Federation's volunteers, working side-by-side with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.\nNow, with most restoration efforts completed in the East, all eyes have shifted to the West, where the wild turkey continues to redefine it's own idea of suitable habitat. While the release of a wild turkey into western habitat remains one of the federation's most enduring symbols, it is just one brick in a foundation of good works that are impacting people's lives and the environment in many positive ways.\nSince 1977, the NWTF has spent over 144 million dollars on over 16,000 projects nationwide. The federation helps fund transplants, research projects, habitat acquisition, education, and the equipment needed to successfully accomplish these tasks. Through the Federation's regional habitat programs, volunteers have helped improve hundreds of thousands of acres by planting trees, crops, winter food sources and grasses that provide food and shelter for not only the wild turkey, but many others species of wildlife as well. Also improved in many areas, particularly in the west, has been water quality. Projects occurring right here in southeastern Utah include a San Rafael Desert guzzler, Knolls Ranch habitat improvement, and numerous other projects on the La Sal Mountains, Blue Mountains and Book Cliffs areas.\nThis month the Price River chapter of the NWTF will be hosting it's annual Wild Turkey Banquet on January 26. For more information, please call (435) 259-9453."}
{"text": "Learn something new every day More Info... by email\nThermal epoxy is any adhesive epoxy that has one or more substances added to it to enhance thermal, or heat, transfer. These epoxies can be electrically conductive or not conductive, depending on the thermal additive used. Silver and other metal-based thermal additives are usually electrically conductive, and thermal epoxies that contain these additives must be applied very carefully so as not to cause electrical shorts. Ceramic-based additives are not electrically conductive but are also not as efficient at thermal conduction.\nManufacturers make thermal epoxies that are designed to work as high-performance engineering adhesives and structural adhesives in a wide range of applications and environments. These include aircraft, boats, marine equipment, cars, surfboards, snowboards, and bicycles, among others. There are thermal formulations for almost every application imaginable, including those that cure while under water, those that remain very flexible or get quite rigid when cured, those resistant to fire or high heat, and even those certified by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for low outgassing.\nHeat can damage or destroy electrical components, and today’s high-speed computer components produce a large amount of heat that must be removed. Devices called heat sinks are used to pull heat away from an object and dissipate the heat to the air, sometimes with the help of a cooling fan. Heat sinks are made from metal alloys designed to have excellent thermal conduction properties, and they have specially designed fins to help conduct and remove the heat. They are almost always mounted to a surface using a special adhesive thermal epoxy.\nWhen used in computer applications, a thermal epoxy can help fill microscopic voids that occur in the surfaces of heat sinks and other devices. These voids occur in the manufacturing process. When two objects are mounted together, for instance a chip and a heat sink, the voids fill with air. Air is a very poor thermal conductor, so a substance is introduced to fill the voids and help conduct the heat to the heat sink for removal. The substance used can be thermal grease, thermal tape, thermal pads or, if the device needs to be secured to the mounting surface, thermal epoxy.\nWhen applying thermal epoxy it is very important to use the least possible amount required to fill any voids and make the bond. If a too-thick coat of epoxy is applied, the electrical conductivity of the epoxy will be degraded. Once the epoxy has cured, the bond between the two surfaces is permanent. Epoxies should only be used in well-ventilated areas, and the manufacturer’s instructions should always be followed for best results."}
{"text": "DENVER – Put on your poodle skirts and tune in Elvis on the transistor radio, because it’s starting to look a lot like the 1950s.\nUnfortunately, this won’t be the nostalgic ’50s of big cars and pop music.\nThe 1950s that could be on the way to Colorado is the decade of drought.\nSo says Brian Bledsoe, a Colorado Springs meteorologist who studies the history of ocean currents and uses what he learns to make long-term weather forecasts.\n“I think we’re reliving the ’50s, bottom line,” Bledsoe said Friday morning at the annual meeting of the Colorado Water Congress.\nBledsoe studies the famous El Niño and La Niña ocean currents. But he also looks at other, less well-known cycles, including long-term temperature cycles in the oceans.\nIn the 1950s, water in the Pacific Ocean was colder than normal, but it was warmer than usual in the Atlantic. That combination caused a drought in Colorado that was just as bad as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.\nThe ocean currents slipped back into their 1950s pattern in the last five years, Bledsoe said. The cycles can last a decade or more, meaning bad news for farmers, ranchers, skiers and forest residents.\n“Drought feeds on drought. The longer it goes, the harder it is to break,” Bledsoe said.\nThe outlook is worst for Eastern Colorado, where Bledsoe grew up and his parents still own a ranch. They recently had to sell half their herd when their pasture couldn’t provide enough feed.\n“They’ve spent the last 15 years grooming that herd for organic beef stock,” he said.\nBledsoe looks for monsoon rains to return to the Four Corners and Western Slope in July. But there’s still a danger in the mountains in the summer.\n“Initially, dry lightning could be a concern, so obviously, the fire season is looking not so great right now,” he said.\nWeather data showed the last year’s conditions were extreme.\nNolan Doesken, Colorado’s state climatologist, said the summer of 2012 was the hottest on record in Colorado. And it was the fifth-driest winter since record-keeping began more than 100 years ago.\nDespite recent storms in the San Juan Mountains, this winter hasn’t been much better.\n“We’ve had a wimpy winter so far,” Doesken said. “The past week has been a good week for Colorado precipitation.”\nHowever, the next week’s forecast shows dryness returning to much of the state.\nReservoir levels are higher than they were in 2002 – the driest year since Coloradans started keeping track of moisture – but the state is entering 2013 with reservoirs that were depleted last year.\n“You don’t want to start a year at this level if you’re about to head into another drought,” Doesken said.\nIt was hard to find good news in Friday morning’s presentations, but Bledsoe is happy that technology helps forecasters understand the weather better than they did during past droughts. That allows people to plan for what’s on the way.\n“I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy,” he said."}
{"text": "EPO is a nootropicWednesday, 10 September, 2008\nErythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that increases red blood cells and is used as a performance enhancer for athletic performance, has now been shown to enhance memory in normal, healthy mice. Mice that received EPO injections had enhanced memory for 3-4 weeks afterwards, which is longer than the elevation in red blood cell count lasts.\nThis effect isn’t actually novel, as other researchers had noticed that EPO improved brain function over 18 years ago (Grimm et al, 1990), and research into mental illness has also suggested that EPO has an effect on brain function (Ehrenreich et al, 2004). But it was always thought to be dependent on the change in red blood cells, but more recent evidence has suggested it works independently of effects on blood cells (Miskowiak et al, 2007). This mouse model confirms this.\nOf course, the researchers have been focusing on this as a treatment, but anyone can see that this is a promising enhancement too. This mouse research showed that EPO enhanced memory and athletic function in healthy mice. It enhances both athletic and mental performance – how good is that?\nThen again, if EPO becomes a common cognitive enhancer, it will mean that few of us normal people would ever be able to compete in the Olympics. It was only in 2004 that caffeine was allowed in professional competition, but pretty soon college students will be doping themselves with EPO as a biochemical study aid. It will be interesting when almost all normal people would not be able to pass an Olympic-level drug test.\nThe possibility exists, however, that we may want the cognitive boost without increasing our red blood cells too much. And now that we know the cognitive effects of EPO are independent of red blood cell production, this may be possible too. Make a drug that stimulates the brain like EPO does, but doesn’t effect an increase in red blood cells. And this study has gone a long way to unraveling the relevant effects of EPO on neuronal plasticity that underly the enhancement to memory circuitry in the brain, which means that we may be able to find drugs that do so more effectively than EPO or act on other brain functions."}
{"text": "Celebrate Princeton Invention: Craig Arnold\nPosted December 21, 2009; 01:08 p.m.\nAble to adjust its focus more than 100,000 times faster than the human eye, the TAG Lens invented by mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Craig Arnold and his colleagues has applications in materials processing and imaging. (Photo: Brian Wilson)\nName: Craig Arnold, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering\nInvention: Tunable Acoustic Gradient Index of Refraction Lens (TAG Lens)\nWhat it does: The TAG lens features a cylinder made of a special material that vibrates when electricity is passed through it, enclosed inside a fluid-filled chamber. Controlling the flow of electricity changes the vibrations that propagate through the fluid, changing the lens' focus more than 100,000 times faster than the human eye can refocus.\nInspiration: After developing a low-cost lens to shape laser beam output into different patterns, Arnold and his colleagues focused their attention on understanding how the device worked and its potential applications. Finding that the lens had the unique ability to focus rapidly at a wide range of focal lengths, they realized its potential went far beyond the original intended purpose, with numerous applications in materials processing and imaging.\nCollaborators: Euan McLeod, a 2009 Ph.D. recipient, and Alexander Mermillod-Blondin, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Arnold lab\nBack to main story"}
{"text": "- 10 to 15 minutes\n- Take turns introducing each other while pretending you are on a stage.\n- Stand up, bow, and tell all the good things you can about the other person, his hobbies, good qualities, etc. Be sure to over-dramatize.\n- Take turns introducing other family members, present or not.\n- Challenge your child to introduce a best friend or a favorite teacher.\n- Think of famous people and take turns introducing them.\nCopyright © 2004 by Susan Kettmann. Excerpted from The 2,000 Best Games & Activities with permission of its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.\nTo order this book visit Amazon.com."}
{"text": "2012-2013 Service Learning Courses\nHispanic Literature in Translation—\"Defiant Acts: Spanish and Latin American Theatre\"\nIsabel de Sena\nThis course will explore the full spectrum of theatre from the early modern period in Spain and colonial Spanish America to contemporary theatre on both sides of the Atlantic, including U.S. Latino playwrights. We will read across periods to identify preoccupations and generic characteristics as theatre evolves and moves between the street and the salon, the college yard and the court, enclosed theatres and theatre for the enclosed. In the process we will address a wide swath of ideas, on gender, class, freedom and totalitarianism, the boundaries of identity. Students will be introduced to some basic concepts and figures ranging from Lope de Vega’s brilliant articulation of “comedia” to Augusto Boal’s concept of an engaged theatre, and investigate the work of FOMMA (Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya) and similar contemporary collectives. And we will read plays as plays, as literature and as texts intended for performance on a stage. At the same time students will have the opportunity to explore creative practices, through engagement with different community organizations: schools, retirement homes, local theatre organizations, etc. Students are encouraged to apply concepts learned in class to their internships, and to bring their ideas and reflections on their weekly practices for discussion in class. Each other week one hour will be devoted to discussing their work in the community. NO Spanish required, but students who are sufficiently fluent in the language may opt to work in a community where Spanish is the primary language of communication. NO expertise in theatre required though theatre students are very welcome. Open to any interested student.\nFall & Spring\nFirst Year Studies\nUmuntu ngumuntu ngabantu\n[Isizulu: A person is only a person through other persons]\nHow do the contexts in which we live influence our development? And how do these contexts influence the questions we ask about development, and the ways in which we interpret our observations? How do local, national and international policies impact the contexts in which children live? Should we play a role in changing some of these contexts? What are the complications of doing this?\nIn this course, we will discuss these and other key questions about child and adolescent development in varying cultural contexts, with a specific focus on the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. As we do so, we will discuss factors contributing to both opportunities and inequalities within and between these contexts. In particular, we will discuss how physical and psychosocial environments differ for poor and non-poor children and their families in rural Upstate New York, urban Yonkers, and rural and urban Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. We will also discuss individual and environmental protective factors that buffer some children from the adverse effects of poverty, as well as the impacts of public policy on poor children and their families. Topics will include health and educational disparities; environmental inequalities linked to race, class, ethnicity, gender, language and nationality; environmental chaos; children’s play and access to green space; cumulative risk and its relationship to chronic stress; and the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the growing orphan problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Readings will be drawn from both classic and contemporary research in psychology, human development, anthropology, sociology, and public health; memoirs and other first-hand accounts; and classic and contemporary African literature and film.\nThis course will also serve as an introduction to the methodologies of community based and participatory action research within the context of a service-learning course. As a class, we will collaborate with local high school students in developing, implementing and evaluating effective community based work in partnership with organizations in urban Yonkers and rural Tanzania. As part of this work, all students will spend an afternoon a week working in a local after-school program. In addition, we will have monthly seminars with local high school students during our regular class time.\nEnvironment, Race and the Psychology of Place\nThis service learning course will focus on the experience of humans living within physical, social and psychological spaces. We will use a constructivist, multidisciplinary, multilevel lens to examine the interrelationship between humans and the natural and built environment, to explore the impact of racial/ethnic group membership on person/environment interactions, and to provide for a critical analysis of social dynamics in the environmental movement. The community partnership/ service learning component is an important part of this class - we will work with local agencies to promote adaptive person-environment interactions within our community.\nChildren’s Health in a Multicultural Context\nThis course offers, within a cultural context, an overview of theoretical and research issues in the psychological study of health and illness in children. We will examine theoretical perspectives in the psychology of health, health cognition, illness prevention, stress, and coping with illness and highlight research, methods, and applied issues. This class is appropriate for those interested in a variety of health careers. Conference work can range from empirical research to bibliographic research in this area. Community partnership/service learning work is encouraged in this class. A background in social sciences or education is recommended."}
{"text": "BEMIDJI -The Governor's Task Force Prevention of School Bullying met with Bemidji students, parents and educators Wednesday evening kicking off a series of sessions to help redefine the state's anti-bullying statute.\n\"The Governor has organized a task force of citizens from around the state to make recommendations to the Governor and to the Legislature in regards that might be put forth that would direct all the school districts in the state as to how they should address bullying,\" said Nancy Riestenberg, School Climate Specialist at the Department of Education.\nRiestenberg joined members of the task force to speak with students from Bemidji High School and students from Schoolcraft to discuss their concerns about bullying and ways in which they think it could be prevented.\nStudents like Thomas Caddy and Tia Siddens, 9th graders at Bemidji High School, bullying is present at the school and it is seen both physically and verbally.\n\"Words hurt more than fists in a lot of situations because if the physical wound isn't there it could still leave a mark on the mind,\" Siddens said.\nThe students said the most common targets of bullying in school are people of different race, sexual orientation or people with a mental disability.\n\"People who don't have a lot of friends are targeted more because if you don't always have those friends there to help speak up,\" Schoolcraft student Katie Fgevje said. \"With less friends you are more vulnerable in my eyes because you don't have that person to kind of help you get through it.\"\nWhen asked what the students would recommend the task force do to help the bullying problem in schools, a lot of students said there needs to be an effort to teach students from a young age why bullying is wrong, but also to teach the staff how to resolve and prevent bully situations.\n\"We have some programs that address bullying and I am happy we have them but I don't think they are exactly effective because if the person is doing it they are not going to be listening to the reasons why they are not supposed to be doing it,\" Thomas Caddy said.\nRiestenberg said this was the first of many student sessions she and the task force will conduct but she said she was impressed by how engaging the students were.\n\"They confirmed for me what I teach in my job as the school climate specialist at the Department of Education and gave insight to the task force about what students face and what they need,\" Riestenberg said.\nFollowing the parent session, the task force went to the middle school to meet with parents and educators to see what their concerns and recommendations were.\nThe common concern among the parents was the issue of cyber bullying in addition to racial and sexual orientation bullying. The parents agreed that the school and the parents need to make sure students know their resources on who they can talk to when being bullied.\n\"We need to be held accountable for our own actions and we not only need to listen to our kids but we need to show them that we are trying to do something,\" Marty Cobenais, a parent in attendance said. \"If we don't make an effort to do something our kids are not going to come talk to us when they have a problem.\"\nBemidji School Superintendent James Hess said the bullying issue is one that does need to be addressed not only at the school level but also the community level.\n\"I think about bullying and I think about the school's role in bullying and I don't think the school is the place to lay all of the blame,\" Hess said. \"I know that if you walk into any classroom in the district you won't find any teachers teaching bullying. I think we need to be a part of the search for a solution to bullying but I don't think we are the stopping place, we are the starting place. We need to look at the greater community to find solutions that are going to be the lasting solutions.\"\nThe task force will be meeting with schools across the state and will pass along recommendations to the Legislature by August."}
{"text": "A Soyuz rocket launched two Galileo satellites into orbit on Friday, marking a crucial step for Europe’s planned navigation system, operator Arianespace announced.\nThe launch took place at the Kourou space base in French Guiana, at 3:15pm (6:15pm GMT).\nThree and three-quarter hours later, the 700kg satellites were placed into orbit.\nThe new satellites add to the first two in the Galileo navigation system, which were launched on Oct. 21, last year.\nTogether they create a “mini-constellation.” Four is the minimum number of satellites needed to gain a navigational fix on the ground, using signals from the satellite to get a position for latitude, longitude, altitude and a time reference.\nGalileo will ultimately consist of 30 satellites, six more than the US Global Positioning System.\nBy 2015, 18 satellites should be in place, which is sufficient for launching services to the public, followed by the rest in 2020, according to the European Space Agency.\nIt is claimed that the system will be accurate to within one meter. The US Global Positioning System, which became operational in 1995 and is currently being upgraded, is currently accurate to between three and eight meters.\nIn May, the European Commission said the cost by 2015 would be 5 billion euros (US$6.45 billion).\nAs a medium-sized launcher, Soyuz complements Europe’s heavyweight Ariane 5 and lightweight Vega rockets."}
{"text": "Did You Know\nDid you know that there is a town in Germany by the name of Reher??\nThat there is also one by the name of Stoltenberg??\nDo you know where our Reher and Stoltenberg ancestors came from in Germany??\nJohann Reher came from the town of Bebensee.\nHis father Casper came from Dreggers which was 6 miles east of there. Bad Segeberg is also associated with the family. It is about 7 miles north and the closest large town.\nSince the town of Reher is 40 miles west of Bebensee and Dreggers I'm not sure if there is any connection to our name and family. Forty miles in the mid 1800's was quite a distance to travel.\nClaus Stoltenberg came from Brodersdorf which is 46 miles north of Bebensee and about 10 miles northeast of Kiel, a major city on the Baltic Sea. Brodersdorf is two to three miles south of the Baltic Sea. Other towns associated with the Stoltenberg side of the family are all located in close proximity. They are LaBoe, Stein, Fahren, Probsteierhagen and Wentdorf.\nThe town of Stoltenberg is only seven miles to the southeast of Brodersdorf.\nThe above map of northern Germany will show you where the towns Reher, Stoltenberg, Bebensee, Dreggers, and Brodersdorf are located. I've marked these towns with a dark asterisk * to make them easier to find.\nClick on the map to make it bigger and easier to see the towns marked with an asterisk. After the larger map comes up, click on that again to zoom in.\nIt is about 60 miles from Kiel at the top of the map to Hamburg which is towards the bottom of this map. From Reher to Bebensee it is 40 miles, to Brodersdorf it is 46 miles which is also the distance from Bebensee to Brodersdorf and Stoltenberg... almost a perfect equilateral triangle. See the map below... Reher is in the bottom left corner or the triangle, Bebensee in the bottom right and Brodersdorf in the top.\nHamburg is the port that our Johann & Sophia Reher sailed out of with their two small children, Emma and Ernest when they came to America in 1872.\nThe map above shows a closer view of the area where Bebensee & Dreggers are located... where Johann Reher and his father were born.\nOnce again, click on the map to make it larger.\nThe map above shows a closer view of the area where the Stoltenberg side of the family came from. You'll see all of the towns: Brodersdorf, LaBoe, Stein, Fahren, Probsteierhagen and Wentdorf. I've added the Stoltenberg name myself as the town didn't show up on this map.\nSo Now You Know"}
{"text": "Thrombolytic drugs for heart attack\nSmall blood vessels called coronary arteries supply blood and oxygen to the heart.\n- A heart attack can occur if a blood clot completely blocks one of these arteries.\n- Unstable angina refers to chest pain and other warning signs that a heart attack may happen soon. It is most often caused by blood clots in the arteries.\nCertain patients may be given drugs to break up the clot if the artery is completely blocked. These drugs are called thrombolytics, or clot busting drugs.\n- These drugs should be given within 3 hours of when the patient first felt chest pain.\n- The medicine is given through a vein (IV).\n- Blood thinners taken by mouth may be prescribed later to prevent more clots from forming.\nThe main risk when receiving clot busting drugs is bleeding, especially bleeding in the brain.\nThrombolytic therapy is not safe for people who have:\n- Bleeding inside the head or a stroke\n- Brain abnormalities, such as tumors or poorly formed blood vessels\n- Had a head injury within the past 3 months\n- A history of using blood thinners or a bleeding disorder\n- Had major surgery, a major injury, or internal bleeding within the past 3-4 weeks\n- Peptic ulcer disease\n- Severe high blood pressure\nOther treatments that may be done instead of thrombolytic therapy are:\n- Angioplasty is a procedure to open narrowed or blocked arteries that supply blood to the heart. It is often the first choice treatment.\n- Heart bypass surgery to open narrowed or blocked arteries that supply blood to the heart may also be done. This procedure is also called \"open heart surgery.\"\nAnderson JL, Adams CD, Antman EM, Bridges CR, Califf RM, Casey DE Jr, et al. ACC/AHA 2007 guidelines for the management of patients with unstable angina/non-ST-Elevation myocardial infarction: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Writing Committee to Revise the 2002 Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Unstable Angina/Non-ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction) developed in collaboration with the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons endorsed bythe American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2007;50(7):e1-e157.\nAntman EM, Hand M, Armstrong PW, Bates ER, Green LA, Halasyamani LK, et al. 2007 Focused Update of the ACC/AHA 2004 Guidelines for the Management of Patients with ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines: developed in collaboration with the Canadian Cardiovascular Society endorsed by the American Academy of Family Physicians: 2007 Writing Group to Review New Evidence and Update the ACC/AHA 2004 Guidelines for the Management of Patients With ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction, writing on behalf of the 2004 Writing Committee. Circulation. 2008;117(20:296-329.\nReviewed By: Michael A. Chen, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington Medical School, Seattle, Washington. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc."}
{"text": "The “presidi” translates as “garrisons” (from the French word, “to equip”), as protectors of traditional food production practices\nMonday, March 23, 2009\nThe “presidi” translates as “garrisons” (from the French word, “to equip”), as protectors of traditional food production practices\nThis past year, I have had rewarding opportunities to observe traditional food cultures in varied regions of the world. These are:\nAthabascan Indian in the interior of Alaska (the traditional Tanana Chiefs Conference tribal lands) in July, 2008 (for more, read below);\nSwahili coastal tribes in the area of Munje village (population about 300), near Msambweni, close to the Tanzania border in December, 2008-January, 2009 (for more, read below); and,Laikipia region of Kenya (January, 2009), a German canton of Switzerland (March, 2009), and the Piemonte-Toscana region of northern/central Italy (images only, February-March, 2009).\nIn Fort Yukon, Alaska, salmon is a mainstay of the diet. Yet, among the Athabascan Indians, threats to subsistence foods and stresses on household economics abound. In particular, high prices for external energy sources (as of July, 2008, almost $8 for a gallon of gasoline and $6.50 for a gallon of diesel, which is essential for home heating), as well as low Chinook salmon runs for information click here, and moose numbers.\nAdditional resource management issues pose threats to sustaining village life – for example, stream bank erosion along the Yukon River, as well as uneven management in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. People are worried about ever-rising prices for fuels and store-bought staples, and fewer and fewer sources of wage income. The result? Villagers are moving out from outlying areas into “hub” communities like Fort Yukon -- or another example, Bethel in Southwest Alaska – even when offered additional subsidies, such as for home heating. But, in reality, “hubs” often offer neither much employment nor relief from high prices.\nIn Munje village in Kenya, the Digo, a Bantu-speaking, mostly Islamic tribe in the southern coastal area of Kenya, enjoy the possibilities of a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and fish/oils.\nBreakfast in the village typically consists of mandazi (a fried bread similar to a doughnut), and tea with sugar. Lunch and dinner is typically ugali and samaki (fish), maybe with some dried cassava or chickpeas.\nOn individual shambas (small farms), tomatoes, cassava, maize, cowpeas, bananas, mangos, and coconut are typically grown. Ugali is consumed every day, as are cassava, beans, oil, fish -- and rice, coconut, and chicken, depending on availability.\nEven with their own crops, villagers today want very much to enter the market economy and will sell products from their shambas to buy staples and the flour needed to make mandazis, which they in turn sell. Sales of mandazis (and mango and coconut, to a lesser extent) bring in some cash for villagers.\nA treasured food is, in fact, the coconut. This set of pictures show how coconut is used in the village. True, coconut oil now is reserved only for frying mandazi. But it also is used as a hair conditioner, and the coconut meat is eaten between meals. I noted also that dental hygiene and health were good in the village. Perhaps the coconut and fish oils influence this (as per the work of Dr. Weston A. Price).\nPhotos L-R: Using a traditional conical basket (kikatu), coconut milk is pressed from the grated meat; Straining coconut milk from the grated meat, which is then heated to make oil; Common breakfast food (and the main source of cash income), the mandazi, is still cooked in coconut oil\nNote: All photos were taken by G. Berardi\nThursday, February 19, 2009\nDespite maize in the fields, it is widely known that farmers are hoarding stocks in many districts. Farmers are refusing the NCPB/government price of Sh1,950 per 90-kg bag. They are waiting to be offered at least the same amount of money as that which was being assigned to imports (Bii, 2009b). “The country will continue to experience food shortages unless the Government addresses the high cost of farm inputs to motivate farmers to increase production,” said Mr. Jonathan Bii of Uasin Gish (Bartoo & Lucheli, 2009; Bii, 2009a, 2009b; Bungee, 2009).\nPride and politics, racism and corruption are to blame for food deficits (Kihara & Marete, 2009; KNA, 2009; Muluka, 2009; Siele, 2009). Clearly, what are needed in Kenya are food system planning, disaster management planning, and protection and development of agricultural and rural economies.\nClick here for the full text.\nPhotos taken by G. Berardi\nCabbage, an imported food (originally), and susceptible to much pest damage.\nCamps still remain for Kenya’s Internally Displaced Persons resulting from post-election violence forced migrations. Food security is poor.\nLack of sustained recent short rains have resulted in failed maize harvests.\nFriday, January 16, 2009\nToday I went to a lunch time discussion of sustainability. This concept promoted development with an equitable eye to the triple bottom line - financial, social, and ecological costs. We discussed the how it seemed relatively easier to discuss the connections between financial and ecological costs, than between social costs and other costs. Sustainable development often comes down to \"green\" designs that consider environmental impacts or critiques of the capitalist model of financing.\nAs I thought about sustainable development, or sustainable community management if you are a bit queasy with the feasibility of continuous expansion, I considered its corollaries in the field of disaster risk reduction. It struck me again that it is somewhat easier to focus on some components of the triple bottom line in relation to disasters.\nThe vulnerability approach to disasters has rightly brought into focus the fact that not all people are equally exposed to or impacted by disasters. Rather, it is often the poor or socially marginalized most at risk and least able to recover. This approach certainly brings into focus the social aspects of disasters.\nThe disaster trap theory, likewise, brings into focus the financial bottom line. This perspective is most often discussed in international development and disaster reduction circles. It argues that disasters destroy development gains and cause communities to de-develop unless both disaster reduction and development occur in tandem. Building a cheaper, non-earthquake resistant school in an earthquake zone, may make short-term financial sense. However,over the long term, this approach is likely to result in loss of physical infrastructure, human life, and learning opportunities when an earthquake does occur.\nWhat seems least developed to me, though I would enjoy being rebutted, is the ecological bottom line of disasters. Perhaps it is an oxymoron to discuss the ecological costs of disasters, given that many disasters are triggered natural ecological processes like cyclones, forest fires, and floods. It might also be an oxymoron simply because a natural hazard disaster is really looking at an ecological event from an almost exclusively human perspective. Its not a disaster if it doesn't destroy human lives and human infrastructure. But, the lunch-time discussion made me wonder if there wasn't something of an ecological bottom line to disasters in there somewhere. Perhaps it is in the difference between an ecological process heavily or lightly impacted by human ecological modification. Is a forest fire in a heavily managed forest different from that in an unmanaged forest? Certainly logging can heighten the impacts of heavy rains by inducing landslides, resulting in a landscape heavily rather than lightly impacted by the rains. Similar processes might also be true in the case of heavily managed floodplains. Flooding is concentrated and increased in areas outside of levee systems. What does that mean for the ecology of these locations? Does a marsh manage just as well in low as high flooding? My guess would be no.\nAnd of course, there is the big, looming disaster of climate change. This is a human-induced change that may prove quite disasterous to many an ecological system, everything from our pine forests here, to arctic wildlife, and tropical coral reefs.\nPerhaps, we disaster researchers, need to also consider a triple bottom line when making arguments for the benefits of disaster risk reduction.\nTuesday, January 13, 2009\nThis past week the Northwest experienced a severe barrage of weather systems back to back. Everyone seemed to be affected. Folks were re-routed on detours, got soaked, slipped on ice, or had to spend money to stay a little warmer. In Whatcom and Skagit Counties, there are hundreds to thousands of people currently in the process of recovering and cleaning-up after the floods. These people live in the rural areas throughout the county, with fewer people knowing about their devastation and having greater vulnerability to flood hazards.\nLuckily, there are local agencies and non-profits who are ready at a moment’s call to help anyone in need. The primary organization that came to the aid of the flood victims was the American Red Cross.\nThe last week I began interning and volunteering with one of these non-profits, the Mt. Baker American Red Cross (ARC) Chapter. While I am still in the process of getting screened and officially trained, I received first-hand experience and saw how important this organization is to the community.\nWith the flood waters rising throughout the week, people were flooded out of their homes and rescued from the overflowing rivers and creeks. As the needs for help increased, hundreds of ARC volunteers were called to service. Throughout the floods there have been several shelters opened to accommodate the needs of these flood victims. On Saturday I was asked to help staff one of these shelters overnight in Ferndale.\nWhile I talked with parents and children, I became more aware of the stark reality of how these people have to recover from having all their possessions covered in sewage and mud and damaged by flood waters. In the meantime, these flood victims have all their privacy exposed to others in a public shelter, while they work to find stability in the middle of all the traumas of the events. As I sat talking and playing with the children, another thought struck me. Children are young and resilient, but it must be very difficult when they connect with a volunteer and then lose that connection soon after. Sharing a shelter with the folks over the weekend showed a higher degree of reality and humanity to the situation than the news coverage ever could.\nI posted this bit about my volunteer experience because it made me realize something about my education and degree track in disaster reduction and emergency planning. We look at ways to create a more sustainable community, and we need to remember that community service is an important part of creating this ideal. Underlying sustainable development is the triple bottom line (social, economy, and environment). Volunteers and non-profits are a major part of this social line of sustainability. Organizations like the American Red Cross only exist because of volunteers. So embrace President-elect Obama’s call for a culture of civil service this coming week and make a commitment to the organization of your choice with your actions or even your pocketbook. Know that sustainable development cannot exist with out social responsibility.\nThursday, January 8, 2009\nIts been two days now that schools have been closed in Whatcom County, not for snow, but for rain and flooding. This unusual event coincides with record flooding throughout Western Washington, just a year after record flooding closed I5 for three days and Lewis County businesses experienced what they then called an unprecedented 500 year flood. I guess not.\nThere are many strange things about flood risk notation, and this idea that a 500 year flood often trips people up. They often believe a flood of that size will happen only once in 500 years. On a probabilistic level, this is inaccurate. A 500 year flood simply has a .2% probability of happening each year. A more useful analogy might be to tell people they are rolling a 500 sided die every year and hoping that it doesn’t come up with a 1. Next year they’ll be forced to roll again.\nBut, this focus on misunderstandings of probability often hides an even larger societal misunderstanding . Flood risk changes when we change the environment in which it occurs. If a flood map tells you that you are not in the flood plain, better check the date of the map. Most maps are utterly out of date and many vastly underestimate present flood risk. There are several reasons this happens. Urban development, especially development with a lot of parking lots and buildings that don’t let water seep into the ground, will cause rainwater to move quickly into rivers rather than seep into the ground and slowly release. Developers might complain that they are required to create runoff catchment wetlands when they do build. They do, but these requirements may very well be based upon outdated data on flood risk. Thus, each new development never fully compensates for its runoff, a small problem for each site but a mammoth problem when compounded downstream.\nDeforesting can have the same effect, with the added potential for house-crushing and river-clogging mudslides. Timber harvesting is certainly an important industry in our neck of the woods. Not only is commercial logging an important source of jobs for many rural and small towns, logging on state Department of Natural Resource land is the major source of funding for K-12 education. Yet, commercial logging, like other industries, suffers from a problem of cost externalization. When massive mudslides occurred during last year’s storm, Weyerhaeuser complained that it wasn’t it’s logging practices, but the fact that it was an unprecedented, out of the blue, 500 year storm that caused it. While it is doubtful the slides would have occurred uncut land, that isn’t the only fallacy. When the slide did occur, the costs of repairing roads, treatment plants, and bridges went to the county and often was passed on to the nation’s tax payers through state and federal recovery grants. Thus, what should have been paid by Weyerhaeuser, 500 year probability or not, was paid by someone else.\nFinally, there is local government. Various folks within local governments set regulations for zoning, deciding what will be built and where. Here is the real crux of the problem. Local government also gets an increase in revenue in the form of property, sales, and business income taxes. Suppress the updating of flood plain maps, and you get a short term profit and often, a steady supply of happy voters. You might think these local governments will have to pay when the next big flood comes, but often that can be avoided. Certainly, they must comply with federal regulations on flood plain management to be part of the National Flood Insurance program, but that plan has significant leeway and little monitoring. Like the commercial logging, disaster-stricken local governments can often push the recovery costs off to individual homeowners through the FEMA homeowner’s assistance program, and off to state and federal agencies by receiving disaster recovery and community development grants and loans. Certainly, some communities are so regularly devastated, and are so few resources, that disasters simply knock them down before they can given stand up again. But others have found loopholes and can profit by continuing to use old food maps and failing to aggressively control flood plain development.\nWhat is it going to take to really change this system and make it unprofitable to profit from bad land use management?\nHere’s a good in-depth article on last year’s landslides in Lewis County. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008048848_logging13m.html\nAn interesting article on the failure of best management practices in development catchment basins can be found here: Hur, J. et al (2008) Does current management of storm water runoff adequately protect water resources in developing catchments? Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 63 (2) pp. 77-90.\nMonday, December 29, 2008\nIt’s difficult to imagine a more colorful book, celebrating locally-grown and –marketed foods, than David Westerlund’s Simone Goes to the Market: A Children’s Book of Colors Connecting Face and Food. This book is aimed at families and the foods they eat. Who doesn’t want to know where their food is coming from – the terroir, the kind of microclimate it’s produced in, as well as who’s selling it? Gretchen sells her pole beans (purple), Maria her Serrano peppers (green), Dana and Matt sell their freshly-roasted coffee (black), Katie her carrots (orange), a blue poem from Matthew, brown potatoes from Roslyn, yellow patty pan squash from Jed, red tomatoes (soft and ripe) from Diana, and golden honey from Bill (and his bees). This is a book perfect for children of any age who want to connect to and with the food systems that sustain community. Order from firstname.lastname@example.org."}
{"text": "The Brazilian Supreme Court's recognition of same-sex unions in early May marks the latest victory for gay rights in Latin America. The Court's ruling grants equal legal rights to same-sex civil unions as those enjoyed by married heterosexuals, including retirement benefits, joint tax declarations, inheritance rights, and child adoption.\nAn Unlikely Victory\nAs the world's largest Roman Catholic country, Brazil was an unlikely venue for such a promising gay rights victory. The Roman Catholic Church has actively fought proposals for same-sex unions in Brazil, arguing that the Brazilian Constitution defines a \"family entity\" as \"a stable union between a man and a woman.\"2 The Catholic Church responded to the recent ruling with outrage. As Archbishop Anuar Battisti put it, the Supreme Court's decision marked a \"frontal assault\" on the sanctity of the family.3\nThe Catholic Church is losing its power in Brazil, which helped pave the way for the Supreme Court's recent decision in favor of homosexuals. Nevertheless, homophobia retains a tenacious grip on Brazilian society. Despite the fact that the nation boasts the world's largest gay pride parade, the LGBT movement has been unable to achieve fundamental progress and quell discrimination at a societal level. For instance, Marcelo Cerqueira, the head of the Gay Group of Bahia, claims the country is \"number one when it comes to assassination, discrimination and violence against homosexuals.\"4 Additionally, in a disconcerting report, the Gay Group of Bahia found that 260 Brazilian gay people were murdered in 2010, exemplifying the level of hostility towards homosexuals.5 Because of this discriminating environment, gay rights activists traditionally have had little success in Brazil. Most notably, Congress disregarded proposals for gay rights legislation for nearly ten years.\nThe Supreme Court’s recent ruling was therefore a major turning point after a history of protracted, unsuccessful struggles. The judicial decision was made in response to two lawsuits, one of which was filed by Rio de Janeiro Governor Sérgio Cabral and the other by the Office of the Attorney General. While Congress repeatedly ignored requests for equal rights for gay Brazilian citizens, the Supreme Court argued that \"Those who opt for a homosexual union cannot be treated less than equally as citizens.\"6 In this way, by appealing to the judicial system, the LGBT movement was able to achieve success despite deep-seated hostility throughout Brazilian society and in other branches of the government.\nLatin America's Gay Rights Revolution\nProfessor Omar Encarnación of Bard College calls the recent string of gay rights legislation in Latin America a \"gay rights revolution.\"7 Brazil's ruling came on the heels of several other noteworthy gay rights victories in Latin America, such as Uruguay’s legalization of same-sex civil unions in 2007. Shortly thereafter, in 2010, Argentina became the first Latin American nation and eighth nation worldwide to legalize gay marriage. Other landmark decisions in the past few years include Uruguay's decision to allow all men and women, regardless of sexual orientation, to serve in the military and Mexico City's legalization of same-sex civil unions.\nThe recent surge in gay rights victories throughout Latin America is altogether stunning, considering the region has generally been regarded as very homophobic. The Catholic Church has traditionally been a formidable enemy to gay rights movements in the region, but the secularization of much of Latin America has led to the impressive expansion of opportunities for gay rights movements.\nYet this success of gay rights movements throughout Latin America cannot be attributed solely to the declining importance of religion in the region. It is equally important, if not more so, to recognize the vital roles played by gay activist groups and the dynamic strategies these groups employ. For instance, gay rights groups in Brazil were able to reverse legislation banning gays from the workplace by forming partnerships with progressive businesses. In recent years, the use of social media has provided much of the gay movement's momentum by enhancing activist groups' ability to communicate and spread information. For instance, as Javier Corrales notes, by simply posting a video of a hate crime in San Juan or of a gay wedding in Argentina on YouTube, gay rights groups have been able to reach thousands of people and garner support.8 These innovative strategies have brought success despite a notably hostile environment towards homosexuals.\nThrough a comparison with the United States, we can see how remarkable the success of gay rights in Latin America has been. Latin America is marked by a much more homophobic environment than the US, according to a survey conducted by Mitchell Seligson and Daniel Moreno Morales.9 However, although the US has lower levels of societal discrimination towards gays, it is hard to imagine that the United States would completely legalize same-sex civil unions or gay marriage on a national scale. The fact that this legalization occurred in several Latin American nations, despite the formidable opposition there, makes these recent rulings even more significant.\nFurthermore, the recent victories for gay rights exemplify the considerable progress toward the region's consolidation of democracy. The three Latin American countries that have now legalized same-sex unions—Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay—were each ruled by repressive military regimes just over two decades ago. Even Colombia, which is one of the region's worst human rights violators, granted same-sex unions equal rights regarding social security benefits and inheritance rights in 2007. The fact that gay liberation movements have been successful in these unlikely places is a testament to how far these countries have progressed in recent years.\n Marilia Brocchetto and Luciani Gomes. \"Same-sex unions recognized by Brazil's high court.\" 5 May 2011.\nYana Marull. \"Brazil top court recognizes same-sex civil unions.\" American Free Press. 5 May 2011.\n Omar Encarnación. \"A Gay Rights Revolution in Latin America.\" Americas Quarterly. 17 May 2011.\n Javier Corrales. \"Latin American Gays: The Post-Left Leftists.\" Americas Quarterly. 19 March 2010.\n Mitchell A. Seligson and Daniel E. Moreno Morales, \"Gay in the Americas,\" Americas Quarterly, Winter 2010."}
{"text": "By Elliot Mamet\nOn June 23rd, 1972, President Nixon signed Title IX into law. Nearly 40 years later, the passage of Title IX is viewed as an unequivocal milestone in the struggle to protect, defend and expand civil liberties. As we celebrate Title IX’s 40th birthday, it is worth reflecting on its significance, as well as on the challenges that lie ahead.\nTitle IX mandates that federally funded institutions may not exclude or discriminate from an educational program or activity on the basis of sex. The law leverages federal funds in order to require equal opportunity for men and women. There are exceptions to Title IX (like sororities or the Boy Scouts), although in general, Title IX has applied quite broadly and unilaterally to different institutions. Through Title IX, the doors have opened a little wider for equal opportunity in the United States.\nTitle IX shattered the stereotype that women are too “fragile” or “weak” to play sports, but Title IX goes so much further than sports. By prohibiting discrimination based on non-conformity with gender stereotypes, Title IX has been used as an effective tool for defending the civil rights and civil liberties of LGBT students. Additionally, Title IX prohibits discrimination\nand harassment based on students’ gender identity, change of sex, and/or transgender status.\nYet even with these successes, enforcing Title IX still has its challenges. One important concern for policymakers is applying Title IX in a way that is conscious of the diversity of gender expression. In a society where gender and sexual orientation mean different things to different people, self-identifying as the normative “male” or “female” can be difficult\n. A sound approach to Title IX regulation would prioritize meeting the needs of participants in a particular sport or program. Federally funded institutions should allow students to participate in programs and sports based on the gender with which they identify, in a way that is conscious to individual needs. In this way, programs and activities could act as a safe space where program leaders are more sensitive to the diversity of gender expression.\nLooking back at the past 40 years under Title IX, it is clear that Title IX has grown to reflect a fundamental mindset—that human institutions, whether the soccer team or a PhD program—shouldn’t shut out certain categories of people a priori\n. If the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation mean anything at all to us today, surely they must be interpreted as another step on our quest to “make declarations of freedom real\n,” as Martin Luther King Jr. said. And surely, in its own way, Title IX reflects that quest. It is today, nearly 40 years after Title IX was passed into law, that Title IX’s lessons must be heeded with the utmost resolve.\nElliot Mamet is the summer Colorado College Public Interest Fellow at the ACLU of Colorado. He is an incoming sophomore at Colorado College, a four-year, private liberal arts school, where he is studying political science."}
{"text": "Jonas Salk, with both eloquence and simplicity, once stated that there are two primary approaches to treating ill people. He said that there are therapeutic techniques that directly impact specific symptoms, and there are methods that stimulate the body's own immune and defense system.\nWhereas conventional medical treatments today tend to focus on the former goal of treating or controlling symptoms, various natural therapeutics primarily attend to the latter goal of augmenting the person's own inherent defenses. Although the direct treatment of symptoms often has immediate effects, its benefits tend to be short-term. Because such therapeutic interventions do not usually strengthen the person's own defenses, the individual remains prone to recurrence of their problem.\nIn contrast, therapeutic methods that strengthen a person's immune and defense system has longer term benefit and can prevent recurrence, but the benefit is sometimes achieved more slowly.\nThese generalizations about therapeutic methods are, however, just that, generalizations. There are plenty of exceptions, but these generalizations create a useful framework from which to evaluate the benefits and limitations of various therapeutic approaches.\nHomeopathy and Immune Response\nHomeopathy obviously fits into the class of therapeutic methods that augment the body's own defenses. The basis of homeopathy, called the principle of similars, suggests that a microdose of a substance will heal whatever pattern of symptoms this substances causes in large dose. This principle is also observed in the use of vaccinations and allergy treatments, though homeopathic medicines are both considerably smaller and safer in dose and more individualized to the person they are being used to treat.\nAlthough homeopathic medicines are thought to stimulate the body's own defenses, how they do so remains a mystery. One study published in the European Journal of Pharmacology1 showed that a homeopathic medicine, Silicea, stimulated macrophages (macrophages are a part of the body's immune system which engulf bacteria and foreign substances). How or why Silicea was able to have this action or why exceedingly small doses of it are so active is unknown. In the same way that physicians and pharmacologists do not understand how many drugs work, we do not understand how homeopathic medicine actually work.\nHomeopathic medicine do not simply stimulate the body's immune system to treat ill people, for they can also calm it when this is necessary for the healing of the individual. An example of this latter effect was observed in a study of the homeopathic treatment of people with rheumatoid arthritis, a condition which is considered an autoimmune illness. People with auto-immune ailments suffer because their body's immune system is over-active and it attacks the person's own cells, not just bacteria, viruses, or foreign substances.\nThis study on 46 people with rheumatoid arthritis showed that those given an individualized choice of homeopathic medicine got considerably more relief than those given a placebo.2 A total of 82% of those people given a homeopathic medicine experienced relief of pain, while only 21% of those given a placebo got a similar degree of relief.\nHomeopathy and Infectious Diseases\nToward the end of Louis Pasteur's life, he had come to realize that germs may not be the cause of disease afterall, but instead are probably the results of disease. In other words, various bacteria and other infective organisms may be present when there is some type of disease, but infection tends to establish itself primarily when a person's own defenses are compromised sufficiently to make him susceptible to the infection."}
{"text": "Racism can be a tough thing to study. In situations where all things appear even, they might not be even at all. For example, in situations where employers are refusing to hire minority candidates, the argument could sometimes be made (although maybe not successfully) that there are extenuating circumstances. A truly successful study of race should be made in a laboratory of sorts. The only difference between two people should be skin color.\nWell, thanks to the internet, the great equalizer, we do have such a situation, eBay. Three Yale and Harvard researchers conducted a study called, “Race Effects on Ebay.” The results? Americans are racist.\nEven when selling the exact same items, buyers responded more favorably to white people than to black. From Good Technology:\nThe researchers auctioned off moderately priced baseball cards, which were photographed held in either a dark black hand or a white hand. Though the cards themselves were the same, cards held in a black hand sold for about 20 percent less than cards held in a white hand. What’s more, “the race effect was more pronounced in sales of minority player cards.”\nThe eBay study mimics a similar one from 2010. While that experiment, from the Centre for Economic Policy Research, focused on iPods sold via general online classified ads, the results were sadly the same: Black sellers received fewer responses and fewer cash offers than white sellers, and the cash offers they did receive were significantly lower. Beyond that, buyers corresponding with black sellers “exhibited lower trust,” according to the researchers. In other words, they were far less likely to accept delivery by mail (44 percent) and far more likely to object to the idea of making a long-distance payment (56 percent).\nThe 2010 study also found that there were regional discrepancies. The Northeast part of the U.S. was the worst, where black people received 32% fewer offers. The Midwest had a 23% gap and the South, 15%. There was virtually no difference in the West."}
{"text": "Memory loss (amnesia) is unusual forgetfulness. You may not be able to remember new events, recall one or more memories of the past, or both.\nForgetfulness; Amnesia; Impaired memory; Loss of memory; Amnestic syndrome\nNormal aging may cause some forgetfullness. It's normal to have some trouble learning new material, or needing more time to remember it.\nHowever, normal aging does NOT lead to dramatic memory loss. Such memory loss is due to other diseases. Sometimes, memory loss may be seen with depression. It can be hard to tell the difference between memory loss and confusion due to depression.\nSome types of memory loss may cause you to forget recent or new events, past or remote events, or both. You may forget memories from a single event, or all events.\nMemory loss may cause you to have trouble learning new information or forming new memories.\nThe memory loss may be temporary (transient), or permanent.\nMemory loss can be caused by many different things. To determine a cause, your doctor or nurse will ask if the problem came on suddenly or slowly.\nMany areas of the brain help you create and retrieve memories. A problem in any of these areas can lead to memory loss.\nCauses of memory loss include:\n- Alcohol or use of illicit drugs\n- Not enough oxygen to the brain (heart stopped, stopped breathing, complications from anesthesia)\n- Brain growths (caused by tumors or infection)\n- Brain infections such as Lyme disease, syphilis, or HIV/AIDS\n- Brain surgery, such as surgery to treat seizure disorders\n- Cancer treatments, such as brain radiation, bone marrow transplant, or after chemotherapy\n- Certain medications\n- Certain types of seizures\n- Depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia when symptoms have not been well controlled\n- Dissociative disorder (not being able to remember a major, traumatic event; the memory loss may be short-term or long-term)\n- Drugs such as barbiturates or benzodiazepines\n- Electroconvulsive therapy (especially if it is long-term)\n- Encephalitis of any type (infection, autoimmune disease, chemical/drug induced)\n- Epilepsy that is not well controlled with medications\n- Head trauma or injury\n- Heart bypass surgery\n- Illness that results in the loss of, or damage to, nerve cells (neurodegenerative illness), such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, or multiple sclerosis\n- Long-term alcohol abuse\n- Migraine headache\n- Mild head injury or concussion\n- Nutritional problems (vitamin deficiencies such as low vitamin B12)\n- Permanent damage or injuries to the brain\n- Transient global amnesia\n- Transient ischemic attack (TIA)\nA person with memory loss needs a lot of support. It helps to show them familiar objects, music, or photos.\nWrite down when the person should take any medication or complete any other important tasks. It is important to write it down.\nIf a person needs help with everyday tasks, or safety or nutrition is a concern, you may want to consider extended care facilities, such as a nursing home.\nWhat to Expect at Your Office Visit\nThe doctor or nurse will perform a physical exam and ask questions about the person's medical history and symptoms. This will almost always include asking questions of family members and friends. They should come to the appointment.\nMedical history questions may include:\n- Can the person remember recent events (is there impaired short-term memory)?\n- Can the person remember events from further in the past (is there impaired long-term memory)?\n- Is there a loss of memory about events that occurred before a specific experience (anterograde amnesia)?\n- Is there a loss of memory about events that occurred soon after a specific experience (retrograde amnesia)?\n- Is there only a minimal loss of memory?\n- Does the person make up stories to cover gaps in memory (confabulation)?\n- Is the person suffering from low moods that impair concentration?\n- Time pattern\n- Has the memory loss been getting worse over years?\n- Has the memory loss been developing over weeks or months?\n- Is the memory loss present all the time or are there distinct episodes of amnesia?\n- If there are amnesia episodes, how long do they last?\n- Aggravating or triggering factors\n- Has there been a head injury in the recent past?\n- Has the person experienced an event that was emotionally traumatic?\n- Has there been a surgery or procedure requiring general anesthesia?\n- Does the person use alcohol? How much?\n- Does the person use illegal/illicit drugs? How much? What type?\n- Other symptoms\n- What other symptoms does the person have?\n- Is the person confused or disoriented?\n- Can they independently eat, dress, and perform similar self-care activities?\n- Have they had seizures?\nTests that may be done include:\nCognitive therapy, usually through a speech/language therapist, may be helpful for mild to moderate memory loss.\nSee: Dementia - homecare for information about taking care of a loved one with dementia.\nKirshner HS. Approaches to intellectual and memory impairments. In: Gradley WG, Daroff RB, Fenichel GM, Jankovic J, eds. Neurology in Clinical Practice. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Butterworth-Heinemann; 2008:chap 6.\nLuc Jasmin, MD, PhD, Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, and Department of Anatomy at UCSF, San Francisco, CA. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Health Solutions, Ebix, Inc.\nThe information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. © 1997-\nA.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited."}
{"text": "CentOS uses both font systems and they use different folders: http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/Deployment_Guide-en-US/s1-x-fonts.html\nRed Hat Enterprise Linux uses two subsystems to manage and display fonts under X: Fontconfig and xfs.\nThe newer Fontconfig font subsystem simplifies font management and provides advanced display features, such as anti-aliasing. This system is used automatically for applications programmed using the Qt 3 or GTK+ 2 graphical toolkit.\nFor compatibility, Red Hat Enterprise Linux includes the original font subsystem, called the core X font subsystem. This system, which is over 15 years old, is based around the X Font Server (xfs).\nOn CentOS5/Redhat it seems that XFS gets its fonts from the X config file /etc/X11/fs/config which points to /usr/share/X11/fonts, and fontconfig gets its config from /etc/fonts/font.conf which points to /usr/share/fonts. By default neither font system sees the fonts from the other system.\nSeems that RH wants to move to fontconfig but still has some things that use XFS. Why they didnt just put all the fonts in 1 folder and pointed everything there so that both font systems had all the same fonts is a mystery."}
{"text": "Ears, Nose, and Throat Surgery\nOne of the most critical areas on the human body is the Ear, Nose and Throat area, commonly called ENT. Many times, obstructions or complications in this area can affect basic health system functions such as breathing, eating and sleeping.\nVarious surgeries for the ear, nose, and throat are available to improve health and functionality. Airway reconstruction is an option for patients with breathing difficulties such as constriction and noisy breathing, while vocal cord surgery addresses similar problems with sound and articulation.\nIn many cases, surgeons operate on delicate structures such as minute blood vessels, which requires a level of precision and expertise that our medical staff are skilled at providing. Common procedures in the ENT area can include:\nHead and Neck\nTo find a surgeon at Trinity visit our Physician Finder."}
{"text": "Mars is a cold desert world. It is half the diameter of Earth and has the same amount of dry land. Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons and weather, but its atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist for long on the surface. There are signs of ancient floods on Mars, but evidence for water now exists mainly in icy soil and thin clouds.\nFeatured Mission: Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity\nCuriosity, a robotic rover about the size of a small SUV, is designed to find whether the Red Planet ever was -- or is still today -- an environment suitable for life. The rover landed on Mars in August 2012.\nRead More About Mars"}
{"text": "With the hope of encouraging Pennsylvanians to better understand their personal finances, Governor Tom Corbett has declared April to be “Financial Education Month” in the state.\nThe administration believes a basic financial education is essential to ensuring that Pennsylvanians of all ages are prepared to manage money, credit, investments, and debt.\nPennsylvania Department of Banking is looking to both celebrate and draw attention to public and private education efforts. “One of our goals is to empower people. In the run up to the economic downturn, we saw a lot of very hardworking people make poor decisions with credit cards, mortgage financing, and home purchases,” said Department of Banking spokesperson Ed Novak.\nThe governor believes in order for Pennsylvanians to fully recover from the economic slide, they need to be responsible for better educating themselves. “It’s clear to us that as a starting point for getting ourselves out of this economic downturn, Pennsylvanians need to increase their financial literacy to help them navigate what is becoming an increasingly complex financial marketplace,” said Novak."}