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517574_4 | other instructions directly in a paper document. Other researchers say it will be possible in the future to embed "hypertext" pointers from one document to others in Glyph so that a single form could be used to track, collate and distribute dozens or hundreds of related documents. Other applications are also intriguing. "Just imagine if your fax machine could understand something about the document it was receiving," said Paul Saffo, a researcher at the Institute for the Future, a research and consulting firm in Menlo Park, Calif. He suggests that in the future such documents might automatically be routed to a specific desk or assigned a level of urgency. The Paperworks program allows people to interact with their personal computers while traveling by simply faxing information requests and other commands on special forms to their desktop machine. The computer processes the requests and can retrieve information, which is then transmitted back as a fax document. A typical Paperworks document form includes a Glyph area that identifies it to the computer and acts as a security device; a series of check boxes for giving instructions for storing, retrieving and distributing information; and special areas for capturing handwritten information. Once the handwritten information is captured, it can be displayed in a standard Windows directory on an I.B.M. or compatible computer and used to identify a document later. While the digitized handwritten information is not yet translated using optical character recognition software, the file can be identified and sorted by date and document size. Xerox researchers say this makes it much easier to scan in data and not worry about typing in identification information until later. A number of smaller companies are also aiming at portions of the same market. For example, Cardiff Software, a Solana Beach, Calif., software company, now sells a product called Teleform that allows a fax machine to serve as a remote data entry terminal for a computer. Softstrip Inc. of Waterbury, Conn., has developed a new method for encoding and reading data from a personal computer. Xerox's potential advantage will be in integrating a variety of separate office technologies. Xerox's underlying belief is that modern office work practices are centered on documents, whether they are stored on paper or in a computer. Xerox views documents as "ratchets," or mechanisms for capturing the current state of any kind of collaboration or discussion in the workplace. Flexible documents are the | Technology; Is the Elusive Paperless Office About to Become a Reality? |
517457_1 | operating systems, packets of data are sent along the network until they reach their intended destinations. Much of that data involves requests for access to expensive shared resources, such tasks as producing something on a color laser printer. In some cases, the data might travel quite a distance before getting to the right place. A print request might originate with a user in Chicago, but the only color printer is in New York. If there are three other offices on the network between Chicago and New York, each would get the print request, reject it and send it on. A solution is a device called a router attached to the network. It acts as a traffic cop and sends data to the proper destination via the most efficient route. Even with a traditional router, the amount of network traffic can still swamp a remote LAN connected via a regular phone line, since the phone line can handle only a small amount of data at any one moment. A T1 line, a dedicated high-speed phone service, eases the problem, but it can add significantly to the cost of servicing the remote LAN. One solution is to put additional routing power within the LAN itself by installing a router circuit board and software on the network's server computer. The local router decides what to do with outward bound data before it leaves the local network. "For those companies committed to internetworking and running a single network operating system, like Novell's Netware, router cards are the way to go," said Paul Callahan of Forrester Research Inc., a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass. Eicon Technology of Montreal goes beyond the traditional with Router for Netware and its accompanying software and circuit board, known as the Eiconcard, to speed data to and from the remote LAN. The system acts as a mini-router by figuring out which router on the network would handle a particular user request. It then passes the request to the appropriate router, using the most efficient, or cheapest, connection on the network. Router for Netware comes in two versions. One is for packet switched commercial data networks that use a communications protocol known as X.25. (Packet switched networks are akin to long distance lines for computer data.) The other version is for point-to-point connections using private phone lines. Both models retail for $995. The Eiconcard for each PC retails for $1,095. | Networking; Keeping the Costs Down When Office Hopping |
517459_1 | operating systems, packets of data are sent along the network until they reach their intended destinations. Much of that data involves requests for access to expensive shared resources, such tasks as producing something on a color laser printer. In some cases, the data might travel quite a distance before getting to the right place. A print request might originate with a user in Chicago, but the only color printer is in New York. If there are three other offices on the network between Chicago and New York, each would get the print request, reject it and send it on. A solution is a device called a router attached to the network. It acts as a traffic cop and sends data to the proper destination via the most efficient route. Even with a traditional router, the amount of network traffic can still swamp a remote LAN connected via a regular phone line, since the phone line can handle only a small amount of data at any one moment. A T1 line, a dedicated high-speed phone service, eases the problem, but it can add significantly to the cost of servicing the remote LAN. One solution is to put additional routing power within the LAN itself by installing a router circuit board and software on the network's server computer. The local router decides what to do with outward bound data before it leaves the local network. "For those companies committed to internetworking and running a single network operating system, like Novell's Netware, router cards are the way to go," said Paul Callahan of Forrester Research Inc., a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass. Eicon Technology of Montreal goes beyond the traditional with Router for Netware and its accompanying software and circuit board, known as the Eiconcard, to speed data to and from the remote LAN. The system acts as a mini-router by figuring out which router on the network would handle a particular user request. It then passes the request to the appropriate router, using the most efficient, or cheapest, connection on the network. Router for Netware comes in two versions. One is for packet switched commercial data networks that use a communications protocol known as X.25. (Packet switched networks are akin to long distance lines for computer data.) The other version is for point-to-point connections using private phone lines. Both models retail for $995. The Eiconcard for each PC retails for $1,095. | Networking; Keeping the Costs Down When Office Hopping |
517406_4 | on crises. Dr. Paster said that after a suicide the teams helped students with their grief and mourning, and tried to identify students who might be at risk, in order to avoid further suicide attempts. After an accident or homicide, she added, the goal is to re-establish an equilibrium. Reactions to a student's death vary greatly among children of different ages, Dr. Paster said, and depend on a youngster's psychological makeup, experiences with death and mourning and the relationship with the child who died. "Younger children up to age 10 don't grieve in the same way other kids do," she said. "They don't have a sense of time, space or permanence and don't have a clear conception of death. In high school, kids have an additional sense of loss and mourning." Reactions to a sudden death can encompass emotions like withdrawal, depression or anger, and most are normal responses, Dr. Paster said. Only when the reactions last more than a few weeks or show severe symptoms like deep depression or the loss of sleep or appetite, she said, should parents and educators be concerned and seek additional counseling. Crisis teams encourage children to discuss their grief, and at the same time the teams try to identify the most vulnerable children. "If a child expresses any notions of suicide," Dr. Paster said, "this must be taken seriously and responded to immediately." Schools are now beginning to plan before tragedies, said James Dougherty, principal of Southwoods Middle School in Syosset. He is completing a doctoral dissertation on the sudden deaths of students. "The best management response to the sudden death of a student begins with a plan that has been developed prior to the crisis," Mr. Dougherty said. "There is a general sense that there is an increase in the number of kids' dying suddenly and unexpectedly. "There is also a recognition that these tragedies do something to a school and must be addressed. In addition, there is a cultural factor that, as a nation, we are facing the truth that death is a natural part of life, and children should be included in the process." Long Beach has developed a plan over 10 years, since a student was killed in a traffic accident, for resource teams and principals' workshops, said Superintendent Elliott Landon. "The publicity today associated with a child's death is instant and widespread," Dr. Landon said. "This has forced | Coping With Death of a Classmate |
517458_1 | operating systems, packets of data are sent along the network until they reach their intended destinations. Much of that data involves requests for access to expensive shared resources, such tasks as producing something on a color laser printer. In some cases, the data might travel quite a distance before getting to the right place. A print request might originate with a user in Chicago, but the only color printer is in New York. If there are three other offices on the network between Chicago and New York, each would get the print request, reject it and send it on. A solution is a device called a router attached to the network. It acts as a traffic cop and sends data to the proper destination via the most efficient route. Even with a traditional router, the amount of network traffic can still swamp a remote LAN connected via a regular phone line, since the phone line can handle only a small amount of data at any one moment. A T1 line, a dedicated high-speed phone service, eases the problem, but it can add significantly to the cost of servicing the remote LAN. One solution is to put additional routing power within the LAN itself by installing a router circuit board and software on the network's server computer. The local router decides what to do with outward bound data before it leaves the local network. "For those companies committed to internetworking and running a single network operating system, like Novell's Netware, router cards are the way to go," said Paul Callahan of Forrester Research Inc., a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass. Eicon Technology of Montreal goes beyond the traditional with Router for Netware and its accompanying software and circuit board, known as the Eiconcard, to speed data to and from the remote LAN. The system acts as a mini-router by figuring out which router on the network would handle a particular user request. It then passes the request to the appropriate router, using the most efficient, or cheapest, connection on the network. Router for Netware comes in two versions. One is for packet switched commercial data networks that use a communications protocol known as X.25. (Packet switched networks are akin to long distance lines for computer data.) The other version is for point-to-point connections using private phone lines. Both models retail for $995. The Eiconcard for each PC retails for $1,095. | Networking; Keeping the Costs Down When Office Hopping |
517456_1 | operating systems, packets of data are sent along the network until they reach their intended destinations. Much of that data involves requests for access to expensive shared resources, such tasks as producing something on a color laser printer. In some cases, the data might travel quite a distance before getting to the right place. A print request might originate with a user in Chicago, but the only color printer is in New York. If there are three other offices on the network between Chicago and New York, each would get the print request, reject it and send it on. A solution is a device called a router attached to the network. It acts as a traffic cop and sends data to the proper destination via the most efficient route. Even with a traditional router, the amount of network traffic can still swamp a remote LAN connected via a regular phone line, since the phone line can handle only a small amount of data at any one moment. A T1 line, a dedicated high-speed phone service, eases the problem, but it can add significantly to the cost of servicing the remote LAN. One solution is to put additional routing power within the LAN itself by installing a router circuit board and software on the network's server computer. The local router decides what to do with outward bound data before it leaves the local network. "For those companies committed to internetworking and running a single network operating system, like Novell's Netware, router cards are the way to go," said Paul Callahan of Forrester Research Inc., a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass. Eicon Technology of Montreal goes beyond the traditional with Router for Netware and its accompanying software and circuit board, known as the Eiconcard, to speed data to and from the remote LAN. The system acts as a mini-router by figuring out which router on the network would handle a particular user request. It then passes the request to the appropriate router, using the most efficient, or cheapest, connection on the network. Router for Netware comes in two versions. One is for packet switched commercial data networks that use a communications protocol known as X.25. (Packet switched networks are akin to long distance lines for computer data.) The other version is for point-to-point connections using private phone lines. Both models retail for $995. The Eiconcard for each PC retails for $1,095. | Networking; Keeping the Costs Down When Office Hopping |
517409_0 | Delegates from the 160 countries planning to attend the Rio de Janeiro environmental conference in June are edging toward agreement on a sweeping plan for making economic progress ecologically sustainable, but remain deeply divided over how to pay for a global cleanup. As a five-week preparatory meeting for the Rio conference enters its final week here on Monday, rich and poor countries disagree not only over how to pay for higher environmental standards but who should accept moral responsibility for problems like global warming and pollution. As the talks on the economic plan continued, the Bush Administration made a small concession to the developing world last week on aid. But the United States remains isolated over the single most important agreement that leaders attending the Rio conference hope to announce: a binding international convention to stabilize the global climate by freezing production of gases that warm the atmosphere. This convention is being negotiated outside the preparatory meeting, and the next round of talks is to be held in Paris next month. Last week President Bush, who still has not agreed to to attend the meeting in Rio de Janeiro, called again for an agreement without gas emission targets that could force the United States to cut gasoline consumption. Statement of Principles On Wednesday, the European Community's environmental commissioner, Carlo Ripa di Meana, denounced the American stand, calling it "an attack on the very heart of the Rio conference." He accused the Bush Administration of staking out a position to win political support from industry. But delegates say they are within sight of agreement on an 800-page set of guidelines aimed at allowing economic growth without long-term destruction to the environment. The economic document, known as Agenda 21, sets nonbinding principles for promoting development while covering issues from toxic waste disposal to the protection of nature. "We are close to agreement on a detailed package for international cooperation in the field of environment and development through Agenda 21," the spokesman for the conference, Jean-Claude Faby, said on Thursday. A senior American official agreed on Friday, saying the United States expects agreement on most of Agenda 21 by the end of next week and full accord at the Rio meeting. But on the core issue of how the developing world is to pay for these higher environmental standards, North and South remain far apart. Putting Agenda 21 into effect will cost developing | Some Gains Seen in Environmental Talks, but Big Divisions Remain |
512453_1 | Brazil. Rondonia grew at 7.9 percent a year, and Mato Grosso at 5.4 percent. For the first time, two Amazon cities, Belem and Manaus, broke into the ranks of cities with populations over one million. Brazil's 10 other cities in this category are, in descending order: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, Brasilia, Recife, Curitiba, Nova Iguacu and Porto Alegre. The slowest growth rates were detected in the crowded, older states and cities on the Atlantic coast. The census started a year late because of a Government hiring freeze. When many numbers released last month proved sharply lower than estimates, many mayors and governors demanded recounts, fearing cuts in federal revenue sharing. Census officials admit only to a maximum undercount of 2 percent. Officials attribute Brazil's declining birth rate to major social changes under way in the population. "There are many factors at work: urbanization, more women in the labor force, and more access to family planning," David Wu Tai, coordinator of the census, said in an interview in Rio. Indeed, Brazil's move toward smaller families is part of a worldwide trend. Annual growth rates have dropped in China to 1.5 percent, and in India to Brazil's level, 1.9 percent. Brazil's Government, which supported population growth as late as the 1970's, has celebrated the drop as a step toward improving education and living standards. The slowing population growth has been defined by special circumstances. For one, the economy was largely stagnant in the 1980's, a condition that pushed couples to limit family sizes. In addition, falling fertility rates have come about without any Government program for family planning or sex education. Birth control methods here are often drastic. Although abortion is illegal in Brazil, the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that 1.4 million to 2.4 million abortions are performed annually. Abortions alone could account for the seven million population shortfall between today's reality and forecasts made a decade ago. In addition, demographers estimate that nearly 30 percent of married Brazilian women of child-bearing age are sterilized. In contrast, the corresponding sterilization rate for United States women is 17 percent, and for Latin American women, 7 percent. Brazil's high female sterilization rate is due to several factors: the high price and unreliability of local contraceptives, and a new discrimination by Brazilian companies against hiring unsterilized women of child-bearing age. This bias, usually expressed verbally but amply documented by union | Brazil Welcomes Drop in Population Growth |
512578_0 | YORKTOWN 'PETER PAN' "Peter Pan," the two-hour-and-45-minute Broadway musical, performed by a 32-member cast and a 15-piece orchestra, will be presented by the Yorktown Theater Company Saturdays and Sundays through March 22. Just as Mary Martin, the first Peter in the musical, and Cathy Rigby, in a recent revival, flew high above the stage, rigged to wires, so will Ann Shankman in this production. Kevin J. Kearns will direct the musical, using the book by Carolyn Leigh and score by Mark Charlap and Jule Styne, with additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Frances Flanagan is in charge of choreography, and Chloe Sasson is the music director. Wendy will be played by Tina Prestia, and the Lost Boys will be portrayed by local children. Performances are scheduled Saturdays at 1 and 7 P.M. and Sundays at 3 P.M. One Friday performance, March 20, begins at 7 P.M. Tickets are $15 and $18, $13 for children and people 65 and older in seats other than the first 15 rows center. The theater is at 1974 Commerce Street in Yorktown Heights. The box office number is 962-6665. WOMEN'S HEALTH FORUM Women's health issues are to be discussed in a free public forum organized by the League of Women Voters in Chappaqua. It will take place in the Chappaqua Library Theater on Friday from 9:15 A.M. to 12:30 P.M., and the only reservations required are for baby-sitting. Call 238-3506. Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of Westchester, will give the keynote address at 9:30 A.M., titled "The Politics of Women's Health," focusing on the need for increased Federal aid for women's health problems and the lack of clinical studies that include women or are focused on women's health. Workshops headed by four local physicians will begin at 10:30 A.M. Dr. Beverly Deren will address the subject of breast cancer; Dr. Deanna Sandor will deal with heart disease in women. A workshop on estrogen replacement therapy will be led by Dr. Adelaide Nardone, and Dr. Debra Spicehandler's topic will be AIDS and the heterosexual population. Dr. Spicehandler, chairwoman of the forum, said there is an alarming rise in the number of Westchester mothers infected with the AIDS virus, presenting a bleak future for their children. For more information, call 238-8945 or 666-6635. TOSCANINI CD REISSUES The reissue of Toscanini recordings on CD's will be discussed today by Igor Kipnis, harpsichordist and contributor to Stereophile | WESTCHESTER GUIDE |
512395_0 | When Haitian and international economists are asked when this wretchedly poor nation might recover from the effects of five months of political turmoil and economic isolation, many pause, shake their heads and deliver a somber verdict: perhaps never. Haiti was already the hemisphere's poorest country before the army overthrew its first democratically elected President on Sept. 30. And experts say the nation may now have lost the chance in a rapidly changing world to lay the foundations of a modern economy able to support the more than six million people. While other Caribbean countries have built the hotels, airports and roads needed to support tourism, turbulent Haiti has almost completely dropped out of the business. Where others have made steady gains in producing traditional cash crops like sugar, bananas and citrus fruit, and have moved to diversify their agriculture, in Haiti much of the once-fertile soil has washed into the sea because of disappearing tree cover and poor land management. Nowadays, Haiti is hard pressed to produce exportable crops like coffee and cocoa, and specialists here concede that what the country does produce is of spotty quality. Since the coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, many fear that an economic embargo that shut off almost all Haitian imports and exports may also have destroyed the small, export-based industries that had been among the few relatively bright spots in this gloomy tableau. The embargo came after four consecutive years of sharp economic decline. Most investors responded by quickly moving their operations to other countries in a region where labor costs are low. Diplomats estimate that of the approximately 40,000 jobs in Port-au-Prince's Industrial Zone before the embargo, most of which involved the assembly of electronic components or the stitching of fabrics, 5,000 or so will remain -- assuming there is no further political instability. In all, some experts estimate, well over 100,000 jobs may have been lost since the coup. Now, as an internationally brokered settlement to Haiti's political crisis begins to take hold, many worry that the country's critical economic situation will encourage more instability. "There is no doubt that many of the places that closed will never open again," said Caroll Long, local director of the United Nations Development Fund, referring to the embargo's effects. "The tricky thing is that we have to move quickly, and that means now." When Haitians look to the future, it is hard for | Haitian Economy Is Getting Ever More Desperate |
512472_0 | The Potter Building, now a 41-unit co-op with ground-floor commercial tenants that fronts on Nassau Street (Nos. 139-145), Park Row (Nos. 35-38) and Beekman Street (Nos. 2-8), has stood as an 11-story testament to terra cotta since 1886. To preserve that image, a facelift, costing more than $1 million, is in progress behind orange netting that is draped over part of the Beekman Street facade.(In the afternoon, the screen catches the shadow of the twin-spired Temple Court building across the street.) "The impetus came in 1985 when an engineer told us the facade was O.K., but there was significant deterioration particularly in the mortar jointings," said Robert Polifka, a member of the co-op board. The exterior will be entirely repointed. The masonry, terra cotta and ornamental beetlebrow cornice will be repaired. Overseeing the job, expected to be finished in early 1993, are Siri + Marsik, architects, and Henry Restoration, the contractor. The loft-like 1,700-square-foot apartments have 11-foot ceilings and 18 1/2-inch-thick walls, a legacy of the building's original use as a printing plant on old Newspaper Row. It launched the craze for terra-cotta fireproofing of structural steel. "It's a waterproofing project with an eye toward historical preservation," said Marc G. Wallack, partner of Wallack Management, which runs the building. | POSTINGS: $1 Million Facelift; Preserving the Terra Cotta |
512489_3 | what we can to keep it." David L. Wagner, president of Joshua's Trust -- the organization was named for the Indian who bequeathed to settlers in the 17th century the land that is now the 10-town Windham region covered by the organization -- said the effort in Hampton will be a model for others. He said he knew of no other effort to keep an entire river pristine. "It's acting out the idea that we should think globally but act locally," Mr. Wagner said. "This is a great example of that theory in action." Mr. Wagner said an easement is better for Joshua's Trust than outright ownership of the land, because the trust does not have to maintain the property or be liable if it turns out that a former owner dumped toxic materials there. "It's a way of circumventing development without having ultimate legal liability," Mr. Wagner said. "This is the quickest, easiest way to preserve corridors along a river. In fact, rather than buy property, we encourage just the opposite. We encourage people to give us an easement and put up an endowment for the future maintenance of the property." Daniel K. Lamont, a lawyer in nearby Mansfield and the legal adviser to Joshua's Trust, said people do not give up many rights when they grant the easement. "It really is, from the standpoint of the use of the property, a fairly innocuous thing," Mr. Lamont said. "Most of what they agree not to do they could not do anyway, without going through planning and zoning, and inland-wetlands and other approvals processes. Because of that, it really has very little impact on the value of the land." In some situations these types of conservation easements, granted in large blocks, can be attractive to people who want to live in an area that is guaranteed to remain unspoiled, Mr. Lamont said, thereby increasing the value of the land. Joshua's Trust has an impassioned preservation partner in Earth Care, a group that is an outgrowth of Ecology Action, formed during the first Earth Day more than 20 years ago, said one of its founders, Alison B. Davis. "Initially what we did was waste management at the dump," Mrs. Davis said. "We were recycling things in Hampton long before most other towns." The group acquired a trailer for newsprint recycling, then expanded into bottles, cans, tires and other materials. "After a | Landowners Endorse an Effort To Preserve a Scenic Riverside |
512342_3 | for the drop was the installation of a sewage incinerator, installed with a $15,000 grant from the Pan American Health Organization. "Before, untreated sewage from the cholera wards was coming up at street level five blocks below the hospital," Segundo Pinillos Reyes, chairman of the region's anti-cholera campaign, said in an interview at the hospital. Despite such local improvements and the attention that the cholera outbreak has focused on the need to improve basic sanitation, epidemiologists believe that cholera will probably be present in the Americas through the 1990's. Last week, one year's worth of Brazilian public health prevention was put to the test when hundreds of people suffering from cholera symptoms flooded hospitals in Recife, a major city on Brazil's impoverished northeast coast. On Friday, Brazil's Health Minister, Adib Jatene, declared cholera an epidemic in his nation. Over the last year, the bacteria has moved slowly down the Brazilian Amazon to the coast, hospitalizing 3,600 people, 54 of whom have died. With the exceptions of Paraguay and Uruguay, all Latin American nations have reported cholera cases. Advance Warning But this is still relatively encouraging. Of the total of 441,000 cases, 81 percent have occurred in Peru. Many of the other countries have kept their case rates comparatively low by taking advantage of the advance warning offered by the initial appearance of the disease in Peru on Jan. 23, 1991. Hundreds of Latin American doctors flew to this country to learn how to prevent cholera and how to treat victims. "It was not as bad as we expected," Barbara Lopes Cardozo, a Dutch doctor for the international aid group, Doctors Without Borders, said in Manaus, capital of Brazil's Amazonas state. "People had been warned to cook food, to boil their water, and to wash their hands." With the return of the Southern Hemisphere summer in December, Peru has been experiencing a resurgence of the bacteria, which is historically associated with coastal areas and which has thrived in Lima, a Pacific Coast capital of eight million people. On Friday, Los Angeles health examiners said food prepared in Lima gave cholera to 76 passengers on a Feb. 14 flight from Buenos Aires to Lima and Los Angeles. Because of a severe drought, half of Lima's population underwent water rationing in February. With water precious, drinking inevitably takes precedence over washing and sanitation suffers. "Cholera is a misery thermometer," said Luis Antonio Loyola, | How the Cholera Scare Is Waking Latin America |
511109_0 | World Economies | |
511007_0 | A proposal to give poor countries billions of dollars to help development without damaging the environment will be made on Monday at the opening of a major conference here. Industrialized countries would provide such "earth increments" through existing aid-giving institutions. The conference was called to prepare for the world environmental summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro in June, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The aid proposal, to be made by Maurice F. Strong, the Canadian who is Secretary General of the Rio meeting, highlights the major problem: how to pay the huge cost of the environmental cleanup that the Rio session is expected to endorse. In an interview, Mr. Strong said the developing countries would need about $125 billion a year in aid to pay for the new environmental programs, or $70 billion more than all the financial assistance they now receive. These new programs, intended to make economic development environmentally sustainable, include steps to stabilize the climate by reducing emissions of gases implicated in global warming and to protect threatened plant and animal species. In addition, the Rio conference is expected to adopt a general statement of ecological principles called the Earth Charter. As their price for accepting these goals, developing countries are demanding additional financing from the industrialized world. Mr. Strong said that asking for another $70 billion a year in aid was unrealistic in today's economy. But he said his consultations with governments suggested that developing countries would be satisfied if the industrialized nations offered "an initial commitment" to provide "$5 billion to $10 billion a year in extra aid. He said this money should be made available through several sources rather than from the single new Green Fund under third-world control that China and several developing countries favor. In his address Monday, Mr. Strong will suggest that industrialized countries agree to add $1 billion or $2 billion as an "earth increment" to the planned replenishment next year of the International Development Agency at the World Bank, which provides money virtually interest-free to the poorest countries. This money would be earmarked for environmental projects. Major aid-giving countries are discussing replenishing the development agency with some $17.5 billion over three years, starting in July 1993, when its current fund will be exhausted. In addition, Mr. Strong said, he will call for rich countries to give more money to a new branch of the World Bank, | U.N. Seeks Third-World Ecology Aid |
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509871_0 | To the Editor: As the new evidence of ozone layer damage reported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shows, we have yet to experience the full impact of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-destroying emissions on the earth's atmosphere. A ban on chlorofluorocarbons is a first step toward reducing even worse atmospheric damages. But with the world's population growing by 95 million a year, and 90 percent of this growth occurring in the world's poorest countries, future human demands threaten to outpace environmental regulations. As "The Ozone Hole Over Mr. Bush's Head" (editorial, Feb. 5) notes, in 1990 the White House refused a request from the developing world for $20 million to finance conversions of CFC's to safer chemicals. Currently, developing nations produce 17 percent of all CFC's; by early next century, their CFC production will rise to 29 percent of the world's total. Meanwhile, India hopes to provide its citizens with 300 million refrigerators by early in the next century. China plans to expand CFC production tenfold by the year 2000, since only one in three of China's 250 million households has a refrigerator. Although both countries are now willing to join in CFC reduction plans, economic demands and environmental planning present conflicts here and in the rest of the world's fastest growing and poorest countries. In 1984 the Reagan Administration turned its back on international family planning efforts, stating that population growth was a "neutral phenomenon," later withdrawing financing from the United Nations Population Fund, the largest multilateral supporter of family planning programming. President Bush, once an advocate of family planning, has continued the population policies of his predecessor. At this crucial juncture, it is vital that industrialized countries alter their own policies of consumption and support initiatives in the developing world for population growth reduction as well as efforts to preserve the environment. WERNER FORNOS President, Population Institute Washington, Feb. 7, 1992 | Third World Growth Poses Threat to Ozone |
509885_2 | special gene inserted; the gene destroys one of the enzymes that makes the plant ripen, so that although tomatoes can be matured on the vine, they will not soften and shrivel until long after they are shipped to stores. Another promising product is a cotton plant that biologists have equipped with its own natural pesticide by inserting a bacterial gene that makes a product toxic to insects. Despite the promise of such products, critics have worried about the dangers of introducing novel organisms into the environment, arguing that some might run riot if unrestrained by natural enemies. Defenders of the policy have countered that adding a few genes of known purpose is unlikely to change a familiar species into an Andromeda strain. Officials of the Environmental Protection Agency who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the new policy was more acceptable to the agency than previous drafts, which threatened to cancel current law governing biotechnology products. 'An Important Step' The new policy says that organisms that are only slightly different from their parent organisms, a category that includes the vast majority of products so far proposed, need not be regulated more than the parent organisms. Allen Goldhammer, a spokesman for the Industrial Biotechnology Association, a major trade group for biotechnology companies, said the policy was "an important step after years of debate." Industry has anxiously awaited new regulatory rules in the area so that companies can be sure of what products will be regulated and what safety tests will be required. Rebecca Goldburg, senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, said: "If that is the best they can do, I'm disappointed. The vagueness is enough for the Council on Competitiveness to do what it wants, to rewrite any regulation." Important revisions of two major regulatory laws, governing pesticides and toxic chemicals, may be issued soon, now that biotechnology policy has been set. Under these laws, a company introducing a new biotechnology product must notify the proper regulatory agency -- the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department or the Food and Drug Administration -- and then submit safety data. Testing the first such products in the mid-1980's met with such opposition that a product called ice-minus, intended to increase strawberries' tolerance to frost, was sprayed by scientists dressed in protective "moon suits" under the glared of television lights. Dawn of an Era That era is ended, and now the Government | BUSH TO EASE RULES ON PRODUCTS MADE BY ALTERING GENES |
509837_1 | flows from headwaters in a state now called Rondonia. "We hope to bring the 1914 spirit of Brazilian-American scientific cooperation alive to a new generation," said Charles T. Haskell, the expedition's leader and an officer of the National Wildlife Federation, a sponsor. Other sponsors of the $400,000 expedition are the American Museum of Natural History and the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Numerous Brazilian and American companies have provided support. Navigating the river through mid-April, two Brazilian scientists are to study fish populations and the extent of environmental degradation since 1914. With the exception of a ferry crossing by the Trans-Amazonian Highway, the remote river environment is believed to have changed little in the last 78 years. On the lightly settled lower half, a Brazilian pharmacologist is to study techniques used by subsistence farmers to draw food and medicine from the rain forest. A Brazilian botanist will collect specimens and interview the river dwellers about their uses of rain forest plants for medicine and food. In 1914, two scientists from the American Museum of Natural History accompanied Roosevelt and his son Kermit, collecting a total of 3,000 bird, mammal and reptile specimens from Paraguay and the Brazilian Amazon. This time, in deference to modern views of biological sovereignty, the expedition team will leave all collected specimens in Brazil. "This trip is important because access is very difficult to headwaters of Amazon rivers," said Geraldo Mendes dos Santos, a participating ichthyologist from the National Institute of Amazon Research in Manaus. "We believe that 40 percent of the fish species in the Amazon have not been identified, and most of them are in headwaters." In June, a preliminary scientific report will be submitted to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. High-Technology Equipment Although the drenching rain, rough rapids, biting ants and clouds of mosquitoes are a constant on the river, today's participants hope that the latest in high-technology equipment for expeditions will ease their descent. In 1914, Roosevelt and his party ran the 950-mile river in wooden dugout canoes, smashing five of the original seven canoes on rocks. After one accident, a doctor had to operate on Roosevelt's leg without anesthetic. Today, participants are to set off in inflatable, puncture-proof, self-bailing rubber rafts. Supplementing an old-time compass, the party will be able to plot its location within 10 yards by using a hand-held Trimble Global Positioning System device, | In T. R.'s Footsteps, Scientists Embark on Amazonian Expedition |
505417_2 | In one mode, a "conveyor belt" of global currents delivers heat to the northern Atlantic, causing continental ice sheets to melt; in the other, the conveyor belt ceases to operate, and the ice sheets grow. Now Dr. Christopher D. Charles and Dr. Richard G. Fairbanks, two of Dr. Broecker's colleagues at Lamont-Doherty, have found that the current pattern of deep-water circulation in the Atlantic Ocean did indeed "turn on," delivering more heat to the north Atlantic, at precisely the time when ice-age glaciers last began to melt in the Northern Hemisphere from 12,600 to 12,200 years ago. Through a chemical analysis of sediments in the southern Atlantic, Dr. Charles and Dr. Fairbanks determined that cold north Atlantic waters suddenly began to sink and flow south to Antarctica. North Atlantic waters carry a characteristic signature in the form of relatively rich concentrations of a carbon isotope, carbon-13. At the same time that this water appeared in the southern Atlantic, or slightly earlier, the North American ice sheets began to shrink, the two scientists report in the current issue of the British journal Nature. They determined this by analyzing a record of sea-level fluctuations preserved in fossil remains of surface-dwelling corals near Barbados. By producing a continuous, precisely dated record of sea levels, they were able to calculate when the ice sheets began to retreat. Glaciers release water to the sea, raising its level, when they melt. Melting of Glacial Ice The scientists believe that when the cold North Atlantic surface waters suddenly began to sink, they released enormous amounts of heat to the atmosphere. To replace the water that had sunk and begun flowing to the South Atlantic, great quantities of warm water were sucked northward from the tropics, thus continuing to fuel the north Atlantic with heat in such a "pulse" that the glacial ice began to melt. How do the changes in seasonality brought about by alterations of the earth's tilt, rotation and orbit turn the conveyor belt on and off? No one is entirely sure. The prevailing view is that the changes in seasonality alter patterns of evaporation and rainfall and that this, in turn, changes the salt content of ocean surface water. The more water that evaporates from the ocean's surface, the saltier, denser and heavier it gets. It sinks, according to this view, and the formation of the deep-water current sets the conveyor belt in motion. | Ocean Currents Tied To Timing of Ice Ages |
505450_3 | for the five major active Democratic candidates in New Hampshire expressed doubt that the write-in effort would have a major impact. For example, Paul Johnson, the state manager for Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, argued that "people here have taken Governor Cuomo at his word, and they're looking at the real candidates, the ones who are running." Easy Procedure But there are a few reasons to think that Mr. Rose may have reasons for suggesting that some Cuomo delegates could come out of the primary. The write-in procedure is relatively easy. Two-thirds of the state's voting places use paper ballots, with a spot clearly marked for write-ins, and the other third, including the large towns of Manchester, Nashua, Portsmouth and Exeter, use machines that make write-ins only slightly harder. In addition, mounting an effective campaign is comparatively cheap. The mailing that began today will cost only $16,000, Mr. Rose estimated, and $25,000 will buy television commercials on WMUR in Manchester, New Hampshire's only network affiliate. Radio costs even less. Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas is still considered the front-runner in the state, but it is unclear how strong a hold he has on his supporters. Some politicians argue that he has been weakened by accusations that he carried on a 12-year affair with Gennifer Flowers, a former singer, while others insist that his response to the accusations has strengthened him. In addition to that situation, there are other factors that suggest there might be room for a write-in bid: Even some of the most committed supporters of former Senator Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts wonder if he can convert his regional popularity into national strength; there are various troubles in other candidates' efforts, and a large number of New Hampshire voters are still undecided. But the effort is starting very late. The write-in drives that enabled Henry Cabot Lodge to win the Republican primary here in 1964 and President Lyndon B. Johnson to win the Democratic race here in 1968 (while Eugene J. McCarthy stole his thunder by finishing a strong second) had more time in which to organize. For whatever reason, whether intuition or inside information or a partisan desire to confuse the enemy, Vice President Dan Quayle said in New Hampshire last weekend Mr. Cuomo would end up as the Democrats' nominee. "Put it down," Mr. Quayle told the reporters traveling with him. "Long shot, just like me." | THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: Democrats; Write-In Campaigners Hope Pen Is Mightier Than Cuomo's Word |
505359_3 | new generation of low-cost pocket telephones will not be usable in different countries and will probably cost more to make. "I would admit that the number of customers who want to take phones from Europe to the United States is relatively small," said John Carrington, director of mobile and new business at Cable and Wireless P.L.C. in London. "But the larger the number of addressable customers that can be provided with equipment to a common standard, the lower the cost of that equipment will be." American officials respond that the United States already has plans to allocate domestic frequencies for cordless telephone technologies and finds no compelling need for a common global standard because manufacturers can easily modify their equipment for different markets. A satellite system would function as well in urban as in rural areas and would thus allow for economies of scale if the Europeans and Japanese agreed to it. But if the satellites cannot be used worldwide they would not be as economically viable. Another top issue will be setting aside frequencies for "digital audio broadcasting," a technology for broadcasting radio in the ones and zeroes of computer code that proponents say will offer a striking improvement over current FM technology. In the United States, many existing broadcasters fear that digital radio threatens their very survival. In a blow to the broadcasters, the Bush Administration decided several months ago that it would propose reserving frequencies for digital radio in a part of the spectrum that is useful only for satellite services. Broadcasters had hoped the Government would press for frequencies in a lower frequency range easier for them to use. The Europeans and the Japanese share an interest in digital radio programming but have proposed frequencies different from those proposed by the United States. The United States proposal is for frequencies the Europeans and the Japanese want to use for land-based telecommunications. The role of developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America is also a matter of debate. In many such nations, the biggest issues are the preservation of frequencies for old-fashioned short-wave radio. But because any new rules require unanimous consent, some countries could emerge as political allies of one side or another in the debate. "I don't want to minimize the problems, because there are a lot of differences, but there is a lot of good will," Mr. Carrington of Cable and Wireless said. | Governments to Begin Talks On Uses of Radio Spectrum |
505286_0 | World Economies | |
506625_0 | Air pollution has been obvious outdoors for decades, but in the last few years health experts have become increasingly aware of significant problems with the quality of air inside some office buildings as well. In fact, the name "sick building syndrome" has been given to an array of symptoms among office workers that are sometimes associated with indoor pollution. In part, the problem can be attributed to the increased energy efficiency of modern buildings. Because of better insulation and a tendency to let in less fresh air, the air becomes stale and contaminants linger. The latest standards recommended by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning require four times as much outside air as older standards. The challenge is to improve air quality without increasing energy bills as fresh air is brought into the building. Semco Manufacturing Inc. of Columbia, Mo., has developed what it describes as a total energy recovery system. The system uses a rotating "wheel" that consists of an aluminum framework coated with a "molecular-sieve" desiccant material, which attracts water vapor. The molecular sieve is a powdery ceramic material able to separate molecules based on their size. The company says the system provides selective adsorption in which airborne contaminants are allowed to pass through unadsorbed, while water vapor is captured from the exhaust stream. The water vapor is transferred from the exhaust airstream and mixed with the fresh air from the outside. Michael L. Boles, Semco's product manager for systems, said the system "transfers temperature and moisture in the most beneficial direction." Thus, in the winter, the warm water vapor that is mixed with the fresh air from outside reduces the extent that outside air must be heated and humidified. Similarly, in the summer the molecular sieve transfers heat and moisture from the outside air, reducing the cooling and dehumidification required in the building. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have conducted tests that introduced high levels of pollutants on the exhaust side of the recovery system and concluded that the Semco system's wheel did not transfer measurable amounts of pollutants into the incoming air. The researchers said their tests of Semco's system showed that it was possible to increase the fresh-air ventilation in a building without significantly increasing the amount of energy used. | Tech Notes; Office Buildings That Breathe |
506572_4 | the Hawaiian garden, designed by Herbert Ramsaier, formerly chief landscape architect for WED Enterprises, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Productions, has flourished; the camellias and the jasmine bloom according to their cycles, the hibiscus and bougainvillea flower year round, and the banana trees bear fruit. Despite the dire predictions of skeptics, the clement temperature and humidity have not produced icing or condensation during the long Canadian winter either on the glass enclosure or the apartment windows. Heating and air conditioning have functioned as expected; ventilation successfully preserves the illusion of fresh air. Nor has the operation of the greenhouse proved prohibitively expensive. But the project, caught by Montreal's current condominium glut, has been less than a total success -- 20 of the units remain unoccupied. Judging from appearances, the inhabitants relish their year-round terraces, which are furnished with hammocks, easy chairs and -- surprisingly -- dining sets, table lamps and carpets, a reminder that it never rains here. The space within the greenhouse is large enough to absorb the sounds of outdoor life, and the terraces are deep enough to preserve a sense of privacy. At night, when the far side of the greenhouse is obscured, the sensation of being in a tropical rain forest is complete. In 1960, Buckminster Fuller suggested covering all of midtown Manhattan with a giant dome, two miles in diameter. The proposal to control climate at such a gargantuan scale was greeted with incredulity. One of his harshest critics was Lewis Mumford, who foresaw a bleak future for people living in mechanically controlled environments, which he characterized as "penal colonies of the future." What was missing in Mumford's critique was an appreciation of the very real delight and physical pleasure associated with living in a winter garden. Thumbing your nose at Father Winter is fun. This is something that Joseph Paxton, the famous builder of the Crystal Palace for the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, understood. He once proposed roofing over London square "to form the most delightful and interesting places of resort at all seasons." A resort for all seasons is not a bad description of Tropics North, whose sybaritic charms fly in the face not only of the wintry Canadian climate but even, I dare say, of the stoic and withdrawn Canadian soul. ARCHITECTURE VIEW Witold Rybczynski, a professor of architecture at McGill University, is the author of "Waiting for the Weekend." | In Canada, Up Among the Sheltering Palms |
506622_2 | have been teams of academic or government researchers linked with start-up companies. For example, Genpharm International Inc., a privately held concern in Mountain View, Calif., and Dutch researchers have been working with cattle. The Genzyme Corporation of Cambridge, Mass., and researchers at Tufts University Veterinary School have concentrated on goats. Pharmaceutical Proteins Ltd. and researchers at the British Government-owned Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research, both in Edinburgh, have been concentrating on sheep. The DNX Corporation of Princeton, in cooperation with Ohio University, has specialized in pigs. Genpharm's progress in pharming is embodied in Herman, a 13-month-old Friesian bull, who resides at a research station owned by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture. Herman bears the human genes governing production of lactoferrin in the mammary gland. Researchers are confident that at least some of his female offspring that inherit the gene will produce large quantities of the hormone in their milk. He recently reached breeding age, and his first daughters' milk should be available in the spring of 1993. Genpharm thinks that standard artificial insemination techniques will allow it to build a large herd of its best transgenic cattle rapidly and that existing purification techniques to separate the hormone from the milk will be easy to scale up. Lactoferrin is envisioned as a nutritional supplement for baby formula and hospital patients. The antibiotic qualities of the hormone might also make it useful as a therapeutic agent for those with weakened immune systems, like AIDS victims and cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. "We are looking at producing lactoferrin by the ton, which is where cows have a huge advantage over traditional cell culture systems," said Otto Postma, vice president for commercial development at Genpharming Europe B.V., Genpharm's Dutch subsidiary. The Genzyme Corporation's initial pharming work with Prof. Karl Ebert at Tufts established that significant amounts of tissue plasminogen activator, or t-PA, can be harvested from the milk of goats. But rather than try to commercialize a new production method for the anti-clotting agent, which Genentech Inc. already makes in genetically altered bacteria, Genzyme shifted its attention to a large protein that might be used to treat cystic fibrosis. The new protein presented a huge challenge because it is one of a large class of hormones that are normally bound to cell membranes and thus hard to produce in milk. Like other pharming researchers, the first step of the Genzyme-Tufts team was to | Technology; The 'Pharmers' Who Breed Cows That Can Make Drugs |
506722_0 | For more than 20 years, the British have tried just about everything to stop sectarian violence in Northern Ireland: direct rule from London, deployment of troops on security patrol, internment of suspected terrorists, dialogue with Dublin and, last year, the encouragement of political talks between Catholic and Protestant parties. Military measures have not worked, and last year the political dialogue never got off the ground because the Protestant unionist parties did not trust either the Irish or British Governments enough to let talks among all of them get started. Last week, after 12 people died in mayhem that brought this year's deaths so far to 27 -- nearly a third of the total for 1991 -- Prime Minister John Major stepped in and invited the four Northern Irish parties that have clearly forsworn violence to talk with each other, with him in the chair, early this week. It had generally been thought that until the British general election is held this spring, negotiations could not get anywhere. But the election seems unlikely to make much difference to the situation in Northern Ireland, because all the main British political parties are determined to stay and resist the terrorists to the end. In the long term, recent changes in political life in Dublin might have a greater effect. For the last decade and more, to the Protestants in the North, the face of Catholic Ireland has been Prime Minister Charles J. Haughey, whom they suspected of sympathies for the Catholic republican cause. With Mr. Haughey now on his way out, the face of Ireland is President Mary Robinson, who has often spoken sympathetically of the need for understanding of the Protestants' dilemma. Mr. Haughey will be replaced this week by Albert Reynolds, a pragmatic businessman who says all Irish people just want the carnage to end. Common Ground? But politicians in Dublin and London can't stop the violence. Only the Protestant and Catholic people of Derry and Belfast can, by finding common ground to push terrorists on both sides of the divide off their toeholds. Last week that time seemed a long way off. On Tuesday, just as Mrs. Robinson had arrived for a historic visit to Belfast, a deranged Royal Ulster Constabulary policeman sprayed offices of Sinn Fein, the militant anti-British party that supports the Irish Republican Army, with gunfire. He shot three men to death and later killed himself.The next | THE WORLD: Northern Ireland; Deals Come and Go; Death Is a Way of Life |
510301_0 | The World Financial Center will celebrate the environment with a month of films, dance, music, children's programs and even an underwater installation. The center's Environmental Festival begins on Sunday with the openings of three exhibitions. They include "Brian Eno Tropical Rain Forest Sound Installation," in which 102 hidden speakers will create a two-hour sound environment incorporating sounds of the Colombian Amazon rain forest in Mr. Eno's music. Shows are at 1 and 7 P.M. most days in the Winter Garden, that elegant oasis in the midst of Wall Street's steel-and-granite canyons. In Liz Phillips's "Mer Sonic Illuminations," which opens on Monday and may be seen from noon to 6 P.M. daily in the Lecture Room Gallery, 225 Liberty Street, the movement of visitors in the room and of fish in a large tank alter sound and light in the space. Squids and octopuses will be on hand for Environmental Fun Days for Kids, on March 7 and 8 from noon to 5 in the Winter Garden and the Activity Room at 225 Liberty Street. In the Winter Garden, there will be performances by the Alice Farley Dance Theater, which specializes in huge, eerie visual effects, on March 15 at 3 P.M. and March 16 at 7:30 P.M. The Paul Winter Consort will perform there on March 18 at 7:30. And there will be environmental films from March 19 to 22 in the Activity Room. All activities are free except the films; tickets are $5, and the proceeds will be donated to Environment '92, a coalition of environmental groups in New York City. Tickets must be purchased in advance at the World Financial Center information booth in the Winter Garden. The World Financial Center and its Winter Garden overlook the Hudson River, between Vesey and Liberty Streets across West Street from the World Trade Center. Information: (212) 945-0505. | Critic's Choice/The Arts; Environmental Festival |
510367_0 | The maker of Prestone antifreeze announced yesterday that it had developed the first economical way to recycle its product. The First Brands Corporation of Danbury, Conn., said it planned to sell franchises for the preparation of antifreeze for re-use at service stations and other car-care locations. In a pilot program, First Brands also plans to pick up antifreeze left at municipal drop-off points in California, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The main ingredient in antifreeze is ethylene glycol, which is toxic and has a taste that animals like, making it an environmental hazard. Used antifreeze often also contains lead that has leaked from the solder in car radiators. Improper Disposal As with motor oil, many car owners replace antifreeze themselves, often disposing of the fluid in hazardous ways, like pouring into storm sewers. While the ethylene glycol in antifreeze does not wear out as it circulates through a car's engine, the rust inhibitors in antifreeze do. This requires that antifreeze be periodically flushed from engines and replaced. Prestone's innovation is a "reinhibitor" that can be added to old antifreeze. The company estimates that 200 million gallons of antifreeze is sold in North America annually. The fluid is then blended with equal amounts of water for use in engines, creating 400 million gallons of hazardous waste when it is flushed, and very little of that is recycled. Purification Process "Used antifreeze is a valuable resource to be recycled, not a waste for disposal," said R. J. (Rick) Bowen, president of Prestone Technology Systems Inc., a new First Brands subsidiary formed to handle recycling. Prestone's system incorporates a centrifuge to purify the ethylene glycol, allowing 99 percent of the used material to be recycled. The 1 percent that is filtered out is a sludge with the consistency of clay and is not classified as hazardous waste, the company said. The recycling equipment will be mounted in vans to be manufactured by the SPX Corporation of Muskegon, Mich., First Brands said. The finished product meets the standards of the Society of Automotive Engineers and the American Society of Testing and Materials, the company said. Pilot collection programs will begin in Newtown, Conn., which is near First Brands' headquarters; at state recycling centers in Rhode Island, and in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in California. The Antifreeze Environmental Services Corporation of Palo Alto, Calif., is a co-sponsor of the program in that state. First | Antifreeze Maker Develops Recycling Plan |
506750_1 | quiet Indian tribe and has become one of Chile's thorniest ecological debates. The question being asked is, What cost, in terms of altering the environment and disturbing indigenous cultures, does sorely needed economic development justify? For Chile, where one-third of the people live in poverty, this question is particularly difficult. "We need to grow to solve our social problems," said Rafael Asenjo, executive secretary of the National Commission for the Environment. "We cannot keep our national patrimony absolutely intact. The environmental groups say: 'Don't touch the forests. Don't touch the river. Stay away from these indigenous people.' That's unrealistic." A Pristine Challenge The Bio-Bio's natural beauty is nothing less than breathtaking, with churning rapids, towering waterfalls and soaring river embankments. Four species of large wildcat hunt along the river banks. Andean condors soar overhead and virgin forest stand untouched, bordering much of the 120 miles of river. International kayaking and rafting organizations consider the Bio-Bio one of the world's greatest challenges. "This area is considered one of the least contaminated parts of the planet," wrote Katherine Bragg, a ecologist who has studied the area for almost a decade. "Actually, it's exceptional to find such large areas as this without a significant human presence." But the project to build the first dam, called Pangue, 20 miles south of here has weighty economic arguments. Chile's electricity demand is soaring. If generating capacity is limited, industrial development will slow. The Pangue dam is designed to be one of the most efficient in the world, generating 450 megawatts of power while flooding only 1,250 acres. Brazil had to flood almost 12 times as much land to produce the same amount of power in its huge Itaipu dam. The Pangue project will also require the dislocation of far fewer people. 6 Dams, $3 Billion While the Government has approved only Pangue, five other dams on the Bio-Bio have been proposed. In all, the project would flood 52,000 acres along the river and cost more than $3 billion. As with Pangue, where almost $200 million in financing is being sought from foreign investors and the World Bank for a project that is expected to cost $470 million, the entire project is expected to need large amounts of foreign capital. The company pushing the project through Government channels is Chile's recently privatized national electric company, Endesa. Endesa officials argue that the dam will bring valuable tourism to | On Remote Chilean River, a Fight Over a Dam |
506845_0 | World Economies | |
507438_4 | coat check is available for strollers. 'The Great Kapok Tree' Children's Museum of Manhattan 212 West 83d Street (212) 721-1223 Recommended ages: 2 to 10 Through June "The Great Kapok Tree" is a book written by Lynne Cherry, an author and illustrator; it is also the name of an exhibition at the Children's Museum of Manhattan that is based on Ms. Cherry's book. The show is contained within a long, wide hallway gallery space that keeps children focused on the matter at hand: the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. The first display, a large green "tree trunk," is a good lure; if children peek inside, they can see something hiding. The show appeals to younger and older children, with interactive stations that are meant to dramatize how the living entities in the forest need one another. Some of the stations are successful; others, like the "Balance of Life," are awkward because the objects fall off too easily. One display entices children to push a button to listen to such calming rain-forest sounds as rushing water, or to smell cinnamon, which is derived from the region. Other displays require viewers to place animal-puzzle pieces within the canopy and the undergrowth of the forest, or to place colored glass pieces of the earth's rain forests in their proper spot, a puzzle with good intentions but slippery to do. The game "What Doesn't Belong in the Rain Forest?" lets children choose answers (like "a large saw"). Another conscience-pricking display asks viewers to "stamp your hand with an environmental pledge," like switching off lights when leaving a room. Ms. Cherry, who spent time in the Amazon researching her brilliantly colored and evocative book, also has some of her original drawings on display. The gallery is painted in tropical greens and browns and sings with the chattering sounds of the forest so even if younger children aren't sure what a rain forest is, they know it's green and noisy and breathing with life. As one little girl yelled: "Oh, I hear sounds! How do we get out of this forest?" The exhibition is also enhanced with readings of Ms. Cherry's book by the museum staff and by regular workshop offerings. The museum is open Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 5 P.M. and Saturdays and Sundays from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Admission is $4. 'Ring of Fire' American Museum of Natural | For Children |
507542_2 | Md., -- have already issued stock publicly. And some big drug companies, led by Sandoz Ltd. are also getting involved, in part by alliances with smaller companies. Others Plan Trials Others will enter clinical trials this year as well. Viagene Inc., based in San Diego, plans to apply for permission to begin clinical trials on AIDS patients in March and Somatix hopes to begin testing the technique in cancer patients later this year. Vical Inc., of San Diego, also plans to begin a trial on AIDS patients before the end of the year. But despite its promise, gene therapy faces an inordinate number of safety, technical and marketing issues before it can become a successful treatment. "It's one thing to treat individual patients," said Cynthia Robbins-Roth, editor of Bioventure View, a newsletter that follows biotechnology. "It's quite another to come up with a commercially successful product." Ideally, for example, pharmaceutical companies would like to sell genes in a jar or a syringe, like any other drug, that could be injected into a patient. But gene therapy as currently practiced is far more cumbersome. It involves removing skin cells, blood cells or other types of cells from a patient, growing those cells in a culture, putting genes into them and then putting the cells back into the body. Such a complex procedure is not likely to be used except for serious diseases. Moreover, such a procedure makes gene therapy more of a service business than a traditional pharmaceutical business, perhaps requiring gene therapy companies to set up their own clinics. Another looming business issue is the ownership of genes. Many of the companies working on gene therapy do not have patent rights to genetic sequences that could be useful in treatment, forcing them to license them from companies that do. But perhaps a bigger obstacle is safety. As now generally practiced, viruses, which have the ability of inserting their own genetic material into target cells, are used as genetic delivery vehicles. The virus's own genetic material is removed and replaced by the therapeutic gene, like the gene to produce the blood clotting factor needed by hemophiliacs. The virus is also rendered incapable of reproducing and causing an infection. There are two main risks with this. One stems from the fact that the virus inserts the new genetic material at random into the chromosomes of the target cell. There is a chance | Commercial Test of Gene Therapy |
509950_3 | after accepting China's promise to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime, which bans the sale of missiles and missile technology. In addition, senior Bush Administration officials forcefully lobbied key senators to urge them to renew most-favored-nation status for China when the current certification expires in June. Responding to Chinese arms exports as well as concern over its human-rights and trade policies, the Senate voted today to impose conditions on renewal of Beijing's preferential trade status. When asked whether he had information that China was violating either the treaty on the spread of nuclear weapons or the missile agreement, Mr. Gates replied, "We have no indication that I'm aware of that they are selling technologies now that would be a violation of the agreements they've signed up to." An intelligence official explained that Mr. Gates was looking ahead to China's future conduct rather than discussing sales or shipments in the recent past. The official did not deny that China had been engaged in "suspicious activity" in the past, but said there had been no indication of such activity in recent days. Dual-Use Technology The White House and State Department have played down the significance of the sales, saying that they do not necessarily violate the missile technology agreement. "Talking points" made available to The New York Times that have been used by Administration officials to defend the lifting of sanctions explain that recent reports of "missile-related deliveries or potential transfers by China to Iran, Syria and Pakistan" involve dual-use items that "could be applied to the manufacture" of missiles, "but also can be used for other purposes, civilian as well as military." The issue is particularly divisive within the Administration, pitting experts on the spread of nuclear arms against the White House and State Department. The arms-control experts take a hard line on the transfer of all suspicious missile technology, recalling the example of Iraq, which bought vast quantities of advanced dual-use technology from the United States and many other countries for use in its various weapons programs. The White House and State Departments, on the other hand, have been eager to get China to sign on to the missile control agreement in the hopes of moderating its future behavior. Mr. Gates's comments about North Korea, on the other hand, were part of an Administration effort to draw attention to its ongoing nuclear weapons program in the hope of putting | C.I.A. Chief Says North Koreans Are Hiding Nuclear Arms Projects |
510026_5 | lasagna, are no less tasty than their higher-fat counterparts. Cooking on an industrial scale is different than cooking at home. Certain ingredients don't work. Flour, for instance, cannot be used in gravies because it does not stand up to the pumping action of the automated equipment; modified food starch has to be used instead. The foods also must freeze without losing flavor, which Conagra found to be a big hurdle. "Some of the spices change over time," said Jim Seiple, vice president of product development. "Some flavors get more intense, and some fade." Making healthful foods is even more daunting, especially when it comes to duplicating the "mouth feel" of fat, its fullness and richness on the tongue. Taking out salt is easier, Mr. Seiple said, because other spice combinations can be used to mimic that taste. Mr. Harper frequently goes to the lab to try new foods, taking bites from the test products. He has become accustomed to judging the taste of things like egg substitute, low-fat cheese and turkey sausages. That's a long way from his childhood in South Bend, Ind., where his mother served things like creamed spinach and plum kuchen, a kind of torte. "She was an unbelievably great cook," Mr. Harper said. "I should weigh 500 pounds." Although Mr. Harper said he believes that Healthy Choice meals fill a need, he is not trying to push the entire company in that direction, nor are his executives. "We are not trying to give everyone a religious experience," Mr. Tindall said. Indeed, Conagra sells plenty of other foods. Among the company's familiar brands are Armour Classics, Banquet, Chun King, Wesson oil, Orville Redenbacher's popcorn, Peter Pan peanut butter and Hunt's tomato products. Healthy Choice is now bringing in millions in revenue, but it is not yet profitable, analysts say, because the money is being spent on expansion. To keep Conagra ahead in the healthful-food race, the company is working on products with Dr. Dean Ornish, a researcher and physician in California who uses diet and exercise to treat people with heart conditions. "We'll have some products that will take health to the next level," said Philip B. Fletcher, the company's president. "The next level is the one that maintains good health and tends to reverse health problems." Timing, of course, is all. If Healthy Choice had been available five years ago, Mr. Fletcher said, it probably would | How a Heart Attack Changed a Company |
510007_1 | produced by conventional means. Unlike agricultural products, which are released into the environment, biotech drugs have not faced notably greater barriers to the market than conventional drugs. "The devil's in the implementation," said Jerry D. Caulder, chairman, president and chief executive of the Mycogen Corporation in San Diego, which makes genetically engineered pesticides. "If it's implemented such that the regulatory process will center around the products, rather than the process used to make the products," he said, "it will be a big help to biotechnology in general." 'Added Confidence' Another biotechnology executive agreed. The Bush proposal "establishes a clear guideline that if the cost of the regulatory burden outweighs the social benefits of the product, then the regulations ought to be relaxed," said Roger Salquist, president and chief executive of Calgene Inc., based in Davis, Calif., a company that is developing a genetically altered tomato. "It doesn't accelerate our timetable at all," he said, "but it gives us much added confidence and assurance." Because the products of genetic engineering typically are copies of naturally occurring substances, industry leaders say they pose no special risk and should face no stiffer regulatory scrutiny than any other type of products. But critics contend that biotechnology is a new science that has yet to show that its products will not behave in unexpected ways when released into the environment. They worry that a seemingly benign substance could mutate into a harmful one and spread out of control. Lingering Uncertainty Richard Godown, president of the Industrial Biotechnology Association, said the President's proposal would give biotechnology companies more assurance that their products would reach the market. "It takes away a good deal of uncertainty," he said. But some industry executives said the uncertainty now passed to the regulatory agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, which have acted with increasing independence in recent years. While the President can influence policy, they say, those in charge of carrying out regulations still wield the ultimate authority. "How are people like the U.S.D.A., who already have rules in place, going to respond?" said Scott Thenell, regulatory affairs director for DNA Plant Technology, a producer of genetically engineered plant products based in Cinnaminson, N.J. "Will they in fact no longer require a permit for interstate transfer?" he asked. "Will they no longer require a permit for field trials which have already been approved?" | Biotechnology Industry Rejoices With Caution |
506043_0 | "The new world order in the next two years will feature two developments that are now being played out in Europe - increased national sentiment among countr4ies in the East, and increased emphasis on political and economic integration among countries in the West. "In the international arena, nationalism can prove to be destructive in the long run. Given that, the United States should work to curb the excesses of nationalism by promoting forms that buttress the mutual cooperation of nations. I think you can become a powerful giant if you lead by example. We're having severe problems with population growth in the world. The United States could step up and say: 'We recognize this. Here's what we should do.' "I also have in mind the creation of some international economic policy whereby various countries would reach agreement on economic strategies that would maximize stability and growth in all nations. Our economies are so interdependent it's no longer possible for amodern nation to take steps to confront account economic policies in other countries. "There is also a need to reach agreement on international solutions to such issues as the massive and growing immigration of citizens frompoor to rich nations and the growing gap between rich and improverished nations. The United States could in m any ways try to strengthen the United Nations so it could adequately address these problems. It would be a serious mistake to return to isolationism cloaked in nationalist sentiment." AFTER THE THAW | 'Lead by Example' |
506069_0 | To the Editor: "Dispute Over a Dam on the Scenic Yangtze" (Science Times, Jan. 21), on Chinese Government plans to construct the world's largest hydroelectric dam at Three Gorges, points out that internal opposition to the project was suppressed after the Tiananmen Square massacre. For the project, China will need massive foreign loans, particularly the support of the World Bank. Unfortunately, the bank is one of the few institutions that still support the top-down centralized economic planning to force through a megaproject like Three Gorges. For years environmentalists and human rights activists have criticized the bank's secrecy and lack of economic accountability largely because of financing large dams like Three Gorges, which cause ecologic devastation, create millions of reservoir refugees and add to third-world debt when the projects fail to deliver promised economic benefits. The World Bank's complicity in promoting this project was shown when the Canadian environmental group Probe International obtained the project's engineering feasibility study through the Canadian freedom of information act. This study, by Western engineering consultants eager for lucrative contracts, contained so many egregious technical and planning errors that Probe International filed complaints with Canadian professional engineering boards. Not the least of the errors was failure to disclose that more than half a million people would be left subject to flooding in the active reservoir zone. Yet the report was approved by the secret findings of a World Bank "independent panel of experts." If the Chinese Government proceeds with the dam, it will ask the World Bank for loans largely underwritten by United States taxpayers. Patrick Coady, United States executive director to the World Bank, has shown awareness of problems with such projects but has been outvoted by directors from other countries. It is essential that the Bush Administration dissociate itself from this repressive project and provide clear support and direction to Mr. Coady in advancing openness, accountability and respect for human rights at the World Bank. PHILLIP B. WILLIAMS HAIPEI XUE San Francisco, Jan. 24, 1992 The writers are, respectively, president, International Rivers Network, and coordinator, Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars' Three Gorges Working Group. | World Bank Backs Unsound China Dam |
506089_5 | Most of the arguments between the two schools revolve around the often mentioned and seldom explained concept of comparative advantage. First detailed by David Ricardo in 1817, the theory of comparative advantage holds that countries should export products that they can produce relatively more efficiently than other countries and import products for which they are relatively high-cost producers. Free trade economists typically contend that comparative advantages occur naturally from the available labor, capital and natural resources available in a given country. Interventionist economists contend that the government can choose industries that will thrive and give them subsidies and protection. The unresolved question in this debate is whether government-assisted industries take away resources that a free market might otherwise send to new industries. Take the case of Judith J. Meadows, a 19-year employee of a small-town blanket mill in North Carolina. She is an example of how people sometimes stay in protected industries instead of moving to more competitive businesses. After years of interest in nursing, she finally enrolled two years ago in part-time nursing courses at a local community college. She wants to become a licensed practical nurse and leave the shrinking textile industry even though it has been protected with trade barriers. "People are just unsure of what's going on," Ms. Meadows said, and so are starting to look to other industries for job security. Her new field, health care, has relatively few protections; it also does little to help the nation's trade deficit. And the Federal Government offers little retraining and relocation assistance to hundreds of thousands of American workers in industries that, unlike Ms. Meadows's, have not been given decades of protection to adjust to foreign competition. The Pressures Powerful Lobbies, National Security Few industries have been as successful as America's sugar producers in keeping prices two or three times above the world price with Washington's blessing. Sugar currently sells for 8.5 cents a pound internationally. But food processors that use sugar cannot import more than a quarter of the nation's consumption, and must pay 21.5 cents a pound in tariffs and foreign grower fees even for that. For decades, the nation's big sugar producers and large users, led by the Coca-Cola Company, used to meet every year at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel in Washington and strike deals on how much sugar each state would produce, how much sugar would be imported and what the price would be. | As U.S. Urges Free Markets, Its Trade Barriers Are Many |
508846_4 | the most intense ever produced by the Endangered Species Act. A committee of Federal scientists has been meeting for months to develop a plan to help the owl recover by saving ancient forests in accordance with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. The committee is expected to make its plan public in April. Mr. Lujan said today that he expected the plan to restrict cutting of the great forests. Moral Questions Last October, Mr. Lujan took his first step to lessen the effects of the Endangered Species Act in the Northwest by convening a committee of Cabinet-level officers to consider the struggle over forests and jobs in the Northwest. The law contains a provision that allows for the formation of such a committee that can weigh economic concerns against the moral questions involved in saving an animal or plant species from extinction in difficult circumstances such as those in the Northwest. The group is expected to announce its decision in April, a month later than previously announced. But environmental groups have raised legal questions about the authority of that committee, known in environmental circles as the God Squad, to issue directives because of the steps the Interior Department did and did not take in the case of the northern spotted owl in the years leading up to the committee's formation. Mr. Lujan, as a result sought other measures to resolve the dispute and to protect jobs in a region that is politically important to both parties. The Washington caucus is on March 3, the Oregon primary will be held May 19, and the California primary is June 2. In the Pacific Northwest, timber industry and forest workers enthsiastically greeted Mr. Lujan's plan to study the economic effects of saving the owl and bypassing the Endangered Species Act. "This is the missing link that we've all been waiting for," said Evelyn Badger, the owner of a Sears Catalog Store in Canyonville, Ore., and co-director of Workers of Oregon Development, a community group that represents loggers, farmers, and business owners. "Secretary Lujan has stepped forward in a very bold move, obviously recognizing the hardships and the devastation that have come to the people of the Northwest. "But it will also be important to other resource dependent people across the nation," Ms. Badger said. "The spotted owl of the Northwest will be coming to their neighborhood very soon in a different form." | U.S. to Push for Logging in Owls' Forest |
507417_3 | livery-service storefronts in Bay Ridge. None displayed a city permit to operate what the industry calls a car service base, with telephones, two-way radios and at least 10 cabs. In fact, only 3 of the 10 car services were properly licensed, said Rebecca Bowser, a spokeswoman for the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Illegal storefront operations are especially a problem in Bay Ridge and Borough Park, Ms. Bowser said, although city officials do not know why. One operation in Bay Ridge is particularly subterranean. Called Ridgeview Services, it is run out of an insurance broker's office at 6743 Third Avenue. In the corner of the front window of the streetfront office is a small sign that says Ridgeview Services. On the sidewalk is a sign with a phone number. A reporter who called the number was told that Ridgeview was a car service, and, upon request, was given the price for rides to various airports. Ms. Bowser said city officials were aware that Ridgeview was an illegal car service and had recently issued it a summons. One part of the Dinkins plan that pleased livery owners was a proposal to give them the same right now enjoyed only by the 11,787 yellow cabs, which operate primarily in central and downtown Manhattan and at the airports: picking up street hails. Riders in the boroughs outside Manhattan were divided, though, on whether they want to hail livery cabs on the street. "Sure, I'd like that, it's convenient," said Timothy Curley, as he stepped into a livery cab in Bay Ridge one evening on his way home from work. "If you can just hail them, you're in the cab one, two, three, and you can go." But others, especially women and older people, say they enjoyed the security and familiarity of the radio-cab companies that they use frequently. They said they would be reluctant to hail just any cab on the street. "I know the guys here and I like them," said Anna Ferrero, who was waiting for a cab at Apple Express's storefront on Bay Ridge Avenue. "I wouldn't take another car service." Need to Hail Cabs Experts on New York's taxi industry said it was uncertain how Mr. Dinkins's proposal would affect cab service outside central Manhattan. In middle-class, less densely populated areas, people have grown accustomed to the radio-cab services and are not likely to feel a pressing need to hail | A Swarm of Gypsy Cabs |
507395_2 | Kanemaru's political strength that gets attention. His support for the American position, while often not as strong as Washington would like, is a secret asset of the American strategy in Japan. But the future is in doubt because a new generation, less certain of its feelings for America, will be coming to the fore. Gruff-voiced, with heavy-lidded eyes and craggy features that make him look something like a wily old crocodile, Mr. Kanemaru almost never gives interviews but is paid enormous deference in the political world. He also has many enemies. "The right wing considers Shin Kanemaru the most dangerous politician in Japan," he said. "I'm not afraid of the right wing. I'm not afraid of their Molotov cocktails. You cannot let U.S.-Japan relations become shaky. I won't have any regrets, even if I am killed because of this conviction." Despite these comments, Mr. Kanemaru prefers to run things as a kuromaku, or string-puller behind the scenes, and as a master of pork barrel politics who has brought huge sums to the governing Liberal Democratic Party. Every Prime Minister since 1980 is said to have been politically indebted to Mr. Kanemaru. Mr. Kanemaru was born in a village northwest of Tokyo, the first son of a wealthy sake-brewing family. After serving as a sergeant in Manchuria during World War II, he achieved success in his own liquor, concrete and souvenir businesses. He entered Parliament in 1958 and quickly rose as a protege of the grandfather of modern Japanese patronage politics, Kakuei Tanaka. In recent months, Japanese political gossip has focused on the feud between Mr. Kanemaru, who might be comfortable in a Chicago ward office, and the courtly and cerebral Prime Minister, Mr. Miyazawa. For years, the two were said to cordially loathe each other. Last fall, for instance, Mr. Miyazawa was quoted as saying that he wished Mr. Kanemaru would sink in the Kamanashi River in his district. For his part, Mr. Kanemaru was quoted as saying that despite his support of the Miyazawa Government, it was sinking like a boat made of mud. But a couple of weeks ago Mr. Miyazawa, stung by several legislative defeats and criticism of his lack of leadership, turned to his old rival and named him vice president of the governing party, in effect handing over control of all logrolling to the old master. The astonishing union of the two rivals was reportedly | Japanese Leaders Taken to Task By Political Boss for Bashing U.S. |
509301_0 | NEARLY half a century after colonial empires began to crumble and dozens of new countries were born with high hopes of ending dependency and deprivation, a significant number of those nations have seen growth stall and desperate poverty grow instead. Billions of aid dollars and armies of experts later, international lending and development organizations, with thinning resources for the post-cold-war world, are tackling the blunt question: Why do some countries fail? The answer, more often than not, is bad government -- in its broadest sense. And as a result of a lot of rethinking in an age of scarcity, aid is getting a new look in both content and methods of delivery. In voluntary organizations, think tanks, national aid agencies and the World Bank, experts say with increasing frequency that technical assistance and sound economic prescriptions are just not enough in many countries, even if they are rich in natural resources. The United Nations Development Program, which will publish its third Human Development Report in April, says that more than one-fifth of the world's people have no access to safe water or basic health care; 14 million children die every year before the age of 5, mostly from preventable disease, and more than a billion people go hungry every day. Two regions account for much of the misery: South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where literacy is low, population growth high, local government weak and education minimal, often because of national policy priorities. In such areas, where industrial nations and the former Soviet bloc once rushed in to compete at building dams, roads, bridges and steel mills, the emphasis is shifting to developing people, their institutions and the public policies of their leaders. The catch phrase is "good governance." Without it, experts say, aid is often wasted. "The relatively good growth performances of the developing countries between 1965 and 1980 helped conceal the deep-seated problems of governance, which affected the efficient use of resources, and retarded adjustment efforts to respond to a changing external environment," said an internal World Bank study titled "Managing Development: The Governance Dimension." After 1980, it said, "it was becoming increasingly clear that investment lending could not achieve its objectives in the absence of an appropriate policy environment." In Britain, Lynda Chalker, Minister for Overseas Development, said an emphasis on good governance has meant "shifting substantial amounts of British aid to training for the judiciary, the police, | Givers of Foreign Aid Shifting Their Methods |
509429_0 | Freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania here were given homework before they even set foot on campus last fall, but no one is complaining. In fact, it worked out so well, administrators said, that this idea was expanded into a continuing course and next year's freshmen will be given homework, too. For the university's academic orientation program, its first, all 2,300 incoming freshmen were sent copies of Euripides' Greek tragedy "The Bacchae" and asked to read it before arriving on campus. Penn administrators said they chose the work, which is about struggles between Pentheus, the King of Thebes, and Dionysus, the god of wine and sexuality, because it provides a basis for discussion of current issues facing students including alcoholism, relations between the sexes and religion. " 'The Bacchae' shows how classical culture is as contemporary as a Spike Lee movie," said Norman Adler, the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. New Version of 'Bacchae' The project has evolved into a continuing project, spanning two semesters and several disciplines. In late January and early February, Penn sponsored the American premiere of "The Bacchae of Euripides," written by Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1986. The Theater Arts Department will produce a student production of the original Euripides version in April. The production coincides with Penn's annual spring festival, and the play will be held in an outdoor amphitheater to mimic ancient theater techniques. In March, the Philomathean Society, which calls itself the oldest continuing collegiate literary group in the nation, will hold a mock trial for Dionysus. When the project began in September, students from all four undergraduate schools at the University of Pennsylvania discussed the play in small groups led by a faculty member before regular classes began in September. 'A Community-Type Thing' Several freshmen said they enjoyed the sessions, calling them good introductions to college life. "The whole idea of a community-type thing where everyone came in with a body of knowledge was very interesting," said Shawn Klein, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences from Livingston, N.J. Doug Levy, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences from Dallas majoring in international relations, said the recent production of the Soyinka version of "The Bacchae" made him more able to see the ties to contemporary issues. "With the original Euripides version, I thought it was | CAMPUS LIFE: Pennsylvania; Freshman Orientation, by Euripides |
510551_0 | The tiger in your tank is about to be reformulated. Federal and state air-pollution regulations have already required some changes in gasoline around the nation, and many more are coming by 1995. The object is to clean up what comes out of the tailpipe. The question is: How will the engine like it? Maybe better, maybe worse than with the fuel sold now, depending on the age of the car and the estimate of the engineer. Pessimists say that some older cars, with carburetors, may tend to stall on reformulated fuel. Some may be harder to start on cold mornings. But newer cars, with fuel injection, may perform better. And car exhaust will not smell as bad. A Change in Priorities There will also be less hype in the marketplace, said William R. Berman, the chief environmental affairs lobbyist of the American Automobile Association. Oil companies now push hard to sell high-octane gasoline, Mr. Berman said, because the companies make a bigger profit margin on that grade, but it does most cars no good. But when the new fuel regulations take effect, refineries will be so strained meeting the standards that they will not have the equipment to produce as much high-octane fuel, he said, and "instead of high-octane gas you'll have 'green' gas, which is better for all of us." The price will not be better, though. Estimates vary on how much more the new gas will cost to produce. The price at the pump, as always, will be determined by what the market will bear. But an additional 25 cents a gallon or so would not surprise many refiners and regulators. Widespread changes in gasoline began in the late 1980's, when regulators in New York, New Jersey and the six New England states required the reduction of gasoline "volatility," or the tendency of the liquid to evaporate. The goal was to reduce the volume of hydrocarbon fumes that rise into the atmosphere and, after cooking in the summer sun with nitrogen oxides, turn into smog. But from the engine's point of view, volatility is desirable. While gasoline may be sold as a liquid, in the cylinders it is burned as a gas, and fuel that will not turn to a gas will not burn thoroughly. When the eight Northeastern states first debated requiring lower volatility in fuel sold in summer, some oil companies and even the A.A.A. warned | Reformulated Gas: Cleaner and Greener |
506979_0 | Moving beyond a "Save The Panda approach," an international team plans to make public here on Tuesday a comprehensive strategy to protect the world's diversity of plant and animal species and to tap this diversity for human benefit. The fruit of a three-year effort involving 500 advisers around the world, the "Global Biodiversity Strategy" addresses growing concern that the extinction of species will deprive future generations of new medicines and new strains of food crops. With as many as 50 plant species disappearing each day, scientists calculate that the planet's biodiversity could be reduced by 10 percent by the year 2015. "We have got to realize that next to the human mind, the earth's biological wealth is the greatest thing about this planet," said James Gustave Speth, president of World Resources Institute, a Washington organization that was one of the sponsors of the 244-page report. A Guide for Policy Makers Sponsors hope the report's 85 recommendations will guide world environmental policy makers who are to meet next June in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, a once-a-decade gathering. Recommendations involve human actors ranging from the United Nations down to forest tribes. On the international level, the report recommends the establishment of an early warning network to identify and protect ecosystems around the world that suddenly become threatened. The report calls on governments and multilateral development agencies to devote at least $1 billion a year to conserving endangered ecosystems. On the national level, countries are being encouraged to assert control over their genetic resources and to exact royalties for their commercial uses. In one pioneering effort, the recently formed National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica has started to conduct an inventory of that Central American nation's plant and animal species. Merck Pharmaceutical has signed a contract to pay the institute 2 percent royalties on sales of any new medicines developed from the institute's samples. One-fourth of all prescriptions now dispensed in the United States contain active ingredients from plants. The number of plant species used in traditional medicine is 2,000 in northwestern Amazonia, 2,500 in the area of the former Soviet Union and 5,100 in China. To preserve and to promote such traditional knowledge, the Global Strategy recommends furthering recognition of local lore and local use of wild products. Recognizing the development needs of third-world countries, the report steers away from sentimental appeals for conservation. | Global Plan To Rescue Species Set For Release |
506944_0 | The Lyondell Petrochemical Company said today that it had found a way to recycle used motor oil and other lubricants into gasoline and heating oil. Many large refiners for years have converted used commercial oils into lubricants or industrial fuels. But Lyondell seems to be the first to produce what it says is high-quality gasoline from recycled lubricants. Refining experts said the process was inexpensive and, if adopted by major refiners, could produce large amounts of gasoline while reducing ground-water pollution from used motor oils that would otherwise be dumped. Lyondell, which is 50 percent owned by ARCO Inc., said it planned to buy used lubricants from railroads, trucking companies, other operators of large vehicle fleets and industrial plants. It will substitute the used oils for raw crude in its own refining operations. A Lower-Cost Source Lyondell's president and chief executive, Bob G. Gower, said his company thought it would save money because costs to collect the used lubricants would probably be much less than for crude oil and other petroleum sources used at the refinery. If other refiners followed, the amount of used motor oils in ground water could be significantly reduced, said Charles D. Holland, president of the Texas Institute for the Advancement of Chemical Technology at Texas A & M University. "It would be good for everybody if the people selling the oil can get some money for it, and Lyondell and others could buy it instead of crude oil," Dr. Holland said. "The biggest problem with all of this recycling stuff is to get people collecting." 32% Is Dumped in Landfills Motorists in the United States generate about 1.3 billion gallons of used oil a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. More than half of the oil is burned for fuel, mainly in industrial furnaces. Another 32 percent is dumped in landfills, and only 2 percent is recycled. Lyondell, which operates the nation's 10th-largest refinery, in Houston, plans to recycle up to 30 million gallons of used lubricants a year, an amount comparable to the dirty motor oil collected from 25 million passenger cars. Mr. Gower said Lyondell might eventually expand its program for buying used motor oil to include purchases from individual motorists. "We're not set up to handle that kind of system right now," he said. "But we think systems like that will develop." Several large gasoline retailers, including Exxon, Shell Oil and | New Process To Recycle Old Motor Oil |
506304_3 | violence, partly because hotheads from the streets replaced the known veterans the police had incarcerated. So far, the Government of Prime Minister John Major has resisted the idea. On Thursday, Mr. Major called on the leaders of the four Northern Irish political parties that condemn the use of violence to sit down together with him early next week to give "the clearest possible lead" in the search for peace. All accepted. Mr. Adams was not invited, because Sinn Fein does not rule out violence to achieve its aim, which is to get the British out of Northern Ireland. "We would have gone if we had been invited," he said at the funeral today. Surging Death Toll After the attack on the bookmaker's shop, the I.R.A. on Thursday issued a statement saying that retaliation against Protestants would only serve British interests, and called on its followers not to drop their sights from the main target -- the British forces and those who support them here. On Jan. 17, the I.R.A. set off a 600-pound bomb at Teebane Crossroads near Cookstown that killed eight Protestant construction workers going home from a Government job. The Ulster Freedom Fighters had claimed its own raid on the betting parlor this week was in retaliation for that. In all, there have been 27 violent deaths here so far this year, compared with 94 in all of 1991. Most of the men of violence come from grim poor neighborhoods of cities like Belfast and Londonderry that would be called working-class if the people who lived in them didn't suffer from unemployment rates as high as 50 percent. In Belfast, Catholics live along the Falls Road, and Protestants along the Shankill Road a few blocks away, bleak brick terraces winding west up into the hills. Except for the murals extolling the I.R.A. on one and the Ulster Freedom Fighters and its still-legal cover organization, the Ulster Defense Association, on the other, a stranger would have trouble telling the difference between them. "We have to look for the reasons and the causes that have indeed created that situation in both communities in the north of Ireland," said Albert Reynolds, designated to become the new Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland next Tuesday. "It's first of all about reconciliation of minds, reconciliation of people to try and build a situation where they can live together, build a future together." | Fear, Anger and Funerals: Belfast's Troubles Mount |
505033_2 | stone, but could be mass produced and was light in weight. Most of the facades at City College were bearing walls, instead of masonry veneers supported on steel framing, and Post used the terra cotta as if it were stone, piling one block on top of another, sometimes with no real backing or other stiffener, especially in the big, square central tower. But terra cotta is not like stone -- it cracks easily, is not nearly as strong and its hollows easily trap water which can freeze and expand. The current work is being supervised by the Stein Partnership. An associate, Christopher Tavener, said that patchwork repairs indicate that problems with the terra cotta arose decades ago. In recent years, the main tower walls have shifted dramatically -- and with no steel skeleton, the entire structure depended on their stability. The Stein Partnership has had to redesign the building from the inside out, install new concrete walls and floors, and remove 12,000 pieces of terra cotta -- so far. These have been replaced with a hollow material called Design-Cast, a cast of cement reinforced with fiberglass carefully supervised for color and glaze. This in turn is bolted onto an internal spiderweb of steel so that one piece may be removed in the future without jeopardizing the ones above. Ultimately, says Mr. Tavener, all 50,000 elements will have to be replaced. IT'S a 10- or 15-year project, costing at least $210 million, according to Robert McLaughlin, project manager for the owner, the Dormitory Authority of New York State. Terra-cotta failure is familiar now in projects like the Woolworth Building, where 26,000 units had to be replaced in the 1970's because water penetration rusted internal steel pins and cracked the blocks. In the strictest sense, such a failure is not one of design but of maintenance. But the case of Shepard Hall shows an experienced architect using a new material in new ways on a large scale and apparently without considering the possibility that the material might not hold up. He left little margin for safety or evidence of awareness that something new was under way. This upends notions of older times as periods in which builder and architect worked in unison with tried and true techniques to build structures that could last for centuries. In the case of Shepard Hall, Post's terra-cotta experiment will be completely gone by its 100th birthday. | Streetscapes: City College; A Case of Terra-Cotta Failure |
504850_2 | and to protect sensitive tissues during ophthalmic surgery, particularly in removing cataracts and implanting intraocular lenses. Kabi Pharmacia, the Swedish company that is the leader in this market, had United States sales of $72.5 million for its product, known as Healon, in 1991. For all vendors combined, worldwide sales are estimated to be about $200 million. But hyaluronic acid has not yet blossomed into a bigger product, partly because it is difficult to manufacture and is expensive. The material used in eye surgery sells for millions of dollars a pound, said James W. Bracke, founder and chief executive of Lifecore Biomedical. Fortunately, he said, only about $100 to $200 worth is needed for an eye operation. Kabi obtains its hyaluronic acid from the combs of roosters, which, for reasons not yet fully understood, have a high concentration of the stuff. But several companies, including Lifecore, Genzyme and Biotechnology General, now make hyaluronic acid through fermentation of certain types of bacteria, allowing, they say, for the production of greater quantities at lower prices. Another factor that could presage broader use is that companies have also succeeded in modifying natural hyaluronic acid to improve its properties. They can make forms that last longer in the body and thus would be more effective as medical treatments, and they have produced solids, gels, membranes and other forms for specific functions. Biomatrix, which was founded and is headed by Dr. Balazs, has linked natural hyaluronic acid strands together to form larger patented comcalled hylans, which it says would be superior to natural hyaluronic acid in medical use. The company, which went public last year, is developing 13 different products from hylans. The one attracting the most attention is a formulation called Synvisc, which Biomatrix hopes to inject into the knees of patients with osteoarthritis to lubricate the joints and reduce pain. Hyaluronic acid is a natural component of the fluid in the joints, and it is already used for arthritis in Japan and for treating the knees of racehorses in the United States. Synvisc is still in clinical trials for the United States market, but Biomatrix says it has met the requirements to begin selling Synvisc in Canada this year. Dr. Balazs said some patients in a clinical trial in Germany saw pain relief that lasted six months, with the best results coming in patients in early stages of the disease, before the joint had | Technology; Using the Body's Lubricant To Heal Scars and Knees |
504925_1 | the Government. APRIL 22, 1954: The Senate Army-McCarthy hearings begin. NOVEMBER 1956: Soviet troops crush a popular uprising in Hungary. OCT. 1, 1957: B-52 bombers begin flying on full-time alert; planes carrying nuclear weapons are airborne 24 hours a day in case of Soviet attack. OCT. 4, 1957: The Soviet Union announces it has successfully launched the first man-made earth satellite, Sputnik. OCT. 23, 1958: The Soviet Union lends money to the United Arab Republic to build the Aswan High Dam, opening Soviet influence in the Middle East. FEBRUARY 1960: Cuba and Soviet Union sign a sugar agreement; in September, Cuba receives its first Soviet military aid. MAY 26, 1960: An American U-2 reconnaissance plane is shot down over the Soviet Union and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, is captured. APRIL 12, 1961: A Soviet astronaut Yuri A. Gagarin completes the first human space flight. APRIL 17, 1961: About 1,500 C.I.A.-trained Cuban exiles invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in a fruitless attempt to overthrow the Government of Fidel Castro. MAY 25, 1961: Following up on America's first manned space flight by Alan B. Shepard Jr., President Kennedy asks Congress to approve a program to send a man to the moon and back by the end of the decade. AUGUST 1961: East Germany erects the Berlin wall. NOVEMBER 1961: The Kennedy Administration announces that the number of United States military advisers in South Vietnam will be increased from 685 to 16,000 by late 1963. OCTOBER 1962: President Kennedy orders an air and naval blockade to force Cuba to remove Soviet missiles from its territory. AUGUST 1963: A diplomatic "hot line" designed to reduce the risk of accidental war goes into operation between Moscow and Washington. AUG. 7, 1964: After a reported clash between North Vietnamese gunboats and United States ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, Congress passes a resolution authorizing President Johnson to prusue a military buildup in Vietnam. APRIL-MAY 1965: President Johnson sends troops into the Dominican Republic for the announced purpose of protecting and evacuating Americans. The force is expanded to 14,000 after the Administration charges that the country is being taken over by the Communists. 1968: The United States increases arms sales to Israel, from $9 million to over $300 million, in part to counter growing Soviet influence in the region. AUG. 21, 1968: Soviet troops and tanks roll into Czechoslovakia and crush reformists' efforts to | The Cold War: From Containment to Commonwealth |
505038_6 | Q. Do you see much evidence of discrimination in employment? A. I don't know about that, but People First does worry about benefits. I get benefits at Stop and Shop, but people who are disabled and are in a workshop, or work only part-time, don't get benefits. They don't get vacation pay, they don't get sick time. If you don't have any benefits, forget it. We'd like to see people get more hours and better pay. Q. People First is also pushing for inclusive education, integrating people with disabilities into the mainstream. Were you mainstreamed before you were institutionalized? A. When I went to high school, one class out of the whole school was "special." And there were some really nasty kids at school, they would tease you if you were in the special class. They didn't think you were right, they didn't think you were smart. But you know, when I went to school, I was a good student, and I never let any of those kids bother me. Q. Will you still see some of that if we go to inclusive education? A. I think you'll see a lot of people being that way, until they get used to the people. You just can't force anybody to change their way of thinking. Look how many years they've been thinking one way. My mom still thinks the same way she did 24 years ago. Q. Is there any problem with being a self-advocate? A. When you are a self-advocate, the public expects more of you. There's a lot more pressure. You have to look 100 percent smart, clean -- well, you're supposed to do that anyway -- bright, cheerful. Oh, that's the Girl Scout promise. I was a Girl Scout, too. Q. When were you brought to Wil lowbrook? A. I was an A student in the special classes, and I had one more year to go, and my mom took me to Willowbrook. Q. Why did your mother bring you to Willowbrook ? A. I still can't figure that out. She always wanted me to be with her, to be living with her. But I guess she couldn't handle me living with her, and some people said, "Put her away." She claims that what she did made me what I am today. She said she wanted to see how smart I was. But you don't put your children | Speaking Out for Disabled People |
505055_0 | "Discovering Ways to Dump Garbage" [ Jan. 5 ] did not address a very important issue that is essential in dealing with the economic and environmental costs of solid-waste management. Municipalities that make recycling the key component of waste management can prolong the life of existing nonpolluting landfills in rural areas and reduce the high cost of incinerator use and municipal solid-waste-composting facilities. The answer to the garbage dilemma lies not in new disposal technology, but in changes from disposal to reuse. But municipal programs are handicapped by lack of demand for recyclable materials they collect. What is needed to assure supply and demand for recycled materials is Federal and state legislation to reverse the trend that currently emphasizes disposal by eliminating government subsidies that discourage recycling. Packaging and containers comprise nearly one-third of municipal solid waste. Reducing excessive packaging and providing incentives to discourage manufacturers to consider disposal when they design products would help lighten the load. Recycling and source-reduction programs have become economic, as well as environmental, imperatives. But without the help of Federal and state mandates to spur market development, eliminate existing market inequities and support existing local efforts, the full potential of waste management will not be realized. Local solid-waste-management plans should be "living" documents that are updated as conditions, technology and economics change. Source reduction must be a major priority, or any plan for waste management will fail. JOHANNA NORTHAM Southold The writer is natural-resource director of the League of Women Voters of Suffolk County. | Recycling Offers Real Economy |
505192_1 | Glory," said he had been considering a terrorism exhibit for nearly a decade. After the Pan Am bombing he proposed the show as a way "to try to talk about it." Response Is Emotional The result was a collection of paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos by 36 American and international artists addressing all forms of terrorism, from random bombings to state-sponsored terror. "A person coming in here can't help but respond emotionally," said Ms. Dater's mother, Joan, who traveled from her home in Ramsey, N.J., to attend the Jan. 24 opening and found herself recalling the horror, shock, guilt and rage she and her family felt after the bombing. Mrs. Dater has been active with the Victims of Pan Am 103, a group working for increased airline security and changes in government policy toward terrorism. The artwork in the exhibit, she said, might help make terrorism and its repercussions "more personal, more real." Scott G. Kelly, an admissions counselor at the institute, who was a graduate student when Ms. Dater and Ms. Rogers were students, said the exhibit left him with a feeling of "complete anger." "These students were 20 years old," Mr. Kelly said. "They gave up an incredible future for someone to make a statement." Cherubs into Helicopters Mr. Brown said that what began as an expression of grief evolved into a search for a definition of terrorism. Terry Berkowitz, an associate professor at Baruch College and the creator of "T/ERROR," said, for example, that she used to think of terrorism as random violence. "But terrorists act because they feel they have no other recourse," she said. She emphasized that she does not support terrorism, but now believes that "we need to fight the causes of terrorism." Other artwork in the exhibit, which runs through March 15, addresses the ambiguity of terrorism. As Greg Barsamian's "Putti," a mobile, spins, winged cherubs turn into helicopters and back again to cherubs. The piece can represent an "angel of death, angel of mercy" dichotomy in a world where many think of only death and destruction at the sight or sound of a helicopter, Mr. Barsamian said. And Paul Graham's photograph, "Graffiti," shows a Northern Ireland town, the peaceful scene scarred only by the word "BEWARE" scrawled in bright orange across a concrete wall. As an outgrowth of the exhibit, the Maryland Institute last weekend held a symposium, "The Politics and Imagery | CAMPUS LIFE: Maryland Institute; Students' Deaths Inspire Art Show on Terrorism |
505226_4 | will go on a tankful of gasoline. The range may eventually be substantially greater, but for now, proponents hope that recharging stations will be readily available and that consumers will accept the car as useful for everyday drives. So how can a car with such energy limitations be so lively? It is an unexpected result of a combination of technological limitations and marketing considerations, which drove G.M. to a series of choices. Among them, the auto company chose to use the familiar lead-acid battery rather than one based on newer technology. Amid disadvantages like a prodigious size and weight, G.M. found a compelling marketing benefit in the lead-acid battery: its ability to deliver power fast. On the down side, lead-acid batteries offer limited storage. The Impact's lead acid holds about 35 watt-hours per kilogram, compared with 100 watts per kilogram for sodium sulfur batteries, which Mercedes is working with, and 165 watts per kilogram for lithium iron disulfide, another newer technology. Yet lead-acid batteries deliver power faster, much as a bigger garden hose will drain a tank of fixed capacity faster than a smaller hose. In the case of lead-acid, the hose is large; it can deliver 280 watts per kilogram of battery weight, versus 110 for sodium sulfur and 200 for lithium iron disulfide, according to G.M. engineers. And just as lead acid batteries deliver power faster, they also accept it faster. The Impact has "regenerative braking," or the ability when a driver lifts his foot off the accelerator to turn the motors that power each front wheel into generators instead. Rather than converting electricity into mechanical force, they turn mechanical force -- the inertia of the car -- into electricity, which is dumped back into the battery. In city driving, regenerative braking captures two-thirds of the energy lost at each stop sign or red light, energy that in a conventional car is converted to heat by the brakes, and then dissipated. To make up for the heaviness and low storage capacity of lead-acid batteries, the company chose an induction motor, which at high speed turns electricity into mechanical force with an efficiency of about 95 percent. Unlike other motors, it is also very efficient at low speed. It can also run at up to 15,000 revolutions per minute, which eliminates the need for a transmission. At 57 horsepower each, the two motors together have about the same power | Cars That Whirrr And Burn Rubber |
505045_7 | are expected by 1994. Last year four million passengers from the United States and Canada took cruises, a big increase over the industry's 500,000 passengers in 1970. And, despite concerns by some in the industry that too many ships are coming on line, others insist cruising is in its infancy. "An enormous number of Americans have never cruised," Mr. Sbarsky said. Many attribute the growth of cruising to a change of strategy on the part of the cruise lines. "Until the mid 80's, cruise lines were run by maritime people, and passengers were considered just another cargo to move around," said Mr. Buchin. These days, cruise lines are managed and marketed like resorts or hotels. The creation of sharply focused lines like Carnival, and television shows like "The Love Boat," attracted new types of passengers, as well. According to the 1990 survey by Cruise Lines International, 41 percent of the adults who had taken a cruise in the previous two years were under 40. Income levels were also surprisingly varied. In the same survey, 35 percent had incomes under $40,000, while 30 percent exceeded $60,000. Cruising's broadening audience is reflected in the popularity of short cruises, particularly the affordable three- and four-day cruise, one of the market's fastest growing segments. In 1984 there were three or four ships offering short cruises, according to a spokesman for Carnival. This year there will be 10. This market could expand dramatically if Cuba is opened to Americans, according to Ron Bitting, owner of Personal Touch Cruise Consultants in Freeport, L.I., and president of the National Association of Cruise Only Agencies. " It would be one of cruising's most exciting events, and it could happen in 1992." At the same time, demand continues for longer cruises by older passengers. In most cases, older, smaller ships are used for the longer journeys. Fantasy's Britanis, which dates from the 1930's and is one of the oldest cruise ships afloat, makes a 50-day South American cruise each autumn. "It carries 926 passengers, but they take about 500 and use the more comfortable cabins," said Mr. Wellmeier. Ships in 1992 will sail to nearly every corner of the world, from Antarctica and the Amazon to Africa and the so-called Atlantic Frontier (Boston to Labrador). Alaska has become a cruise classic, though just 16 ships will visit this year, six less than in 1991. (Most cruise lines, concerned that | New Ships, New Destinations |
505663_3 | included only 44 women but its publication sent researchers scurrying to their data banks to see if they could find a similar effect. "Initially people were very hostile, but then other positive results started to appear," said Dr. Hrushesky, senior oncologist at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Hospital in Albany. Since then, doctors at Sloan-Kettering and Guy's Hospital have reported that the timing of breast surgery did seem to influence survival, but in their larger studies the advantageous period for operating was different from that recommended by Dr. Hrushesky: between days 14 and 30 of the menstrual cycle. Dr. Rosen said the hormonal fluxes of the menstrual cycle might explain the findings. The hormone estrogen dominates the first two weeks of the menstrual cycle, called the follicular phase, while the hormone progesterone is the directing force of the second two weeks, or luteal period. To explain how the timing of an operation might alter survival, researchers have suggested that estrogen may act to promote the growth of breast cancer cells that escape at the time of surgery, while progesterone may inhibit them from dividing. It is a clever hypothesis, but one that has left most doctors unwilling to act. All the studies to date were performed by reviewing old medical records of women who had breast surgery years before a timing effect was suspected. They had been scheduled for surgery without respect to menstrual timing and had been routinely asked the date of their last period as part of physical exams they had when they were admitted to the hospital for surgery. Critics say such self-reporting is inherently flawed, since neither doctors nor patients had any reason to demand precision about the estimate and a response of "about two weeks ago" could easily misplace the menstrual phase. Others have complained that the studies showing a correlation between the timing of surgery and survival have identified different optimal times. "If this information strikes someone's fancy, I'd say O.K., there's no harm delaying surgery for 10 days, but then I'm not sure right now which of these intervals I'd choose," Dr. Door said. He said the new data being collected by the cancer institute would try to pin down the date of each patient's last menstrual period using more precise history-taking or even hormone levels. Dr. Wood said he was skeptical about a timing effect because a number of researchers who had looked | Cancer Surgeons Debate Timing of Breast Operations |
505765_0 | A New York State Supreme Court judge ruled yesterday that the Dinkins administration has violated the city's mandatory recycling law by failing to collect the required amount of paper, glass, metal and plastic. The city's recycling effort has fallen sharply behind targets mandated in a 1989 law because of severe budget problems that have frozen expansion of the program for the past two years. Under the law, the city's Sanitation Department is required to recycle 2,100 tons of its 17,000 tons of daily residential trash by April. But city officials have said that they would be lucky to reach 1,000 tons a day this year. New Law Considered The ruling is a victory for environmentalists, who said yesterday that the decision will force the city to move ahead faster on recycling. They intend to ask the judge to set a new deadline for the city to comply with the law. But the City Council leadership said yesterday that the 1989 goals are unachievable and that it is considering legislation to scale back the targets. And aides to Mayor Dinkins said they are working with the City Council to amend the law. Responding to a lawsuit filed by two City Council members and environmentalist groups to force the city to comply with the law, Judge Irma V. Santaella ruled that the provisions of the recycling law, Local Law 19, are mandatory and not discretionary, as the city had argued. The judge ordered the city to comply with the law's requirements, including meeting tonnage goals for recyclable materials, establishing a program to collect dry-cell batteries and tires and creating a recycling center and buy-back center in each of the five boroughs. Peg Breen, a spokeswoman for the City Council's leadership, said that while the Council is committed to expanding recycling, the goals mandated in the 1989 law are unrealistic and should be revised. A major reason the goals are no longer reasonable, city officials have said, is that the city has not found a way to sell much of what has been recycled at a reasonable price. In addition, the city is still looking for ways to increase the productivity of the program -- by extending routes of drivers who make curbside pickups, for example. "The original goals were based on market assumptions that have not proved true and the city has compounded the problem by sending out signals that they are | Court Orders Dinkins to Obey Recycling Law |
505604_5 | close in his traverse of the Empty Quarter. He came upon a wide caravan track that his Bedouin companions spoke of as the "road to Ubar." He visited the Ash Shisar water hole, where he noted the ruins of a "rude fort," but he took it to be no more than a few hundred years old. That account and Ptolemy's map coordinates were about all Mr. Clapp had to go on when he turned for help to the computer-enhanced images from both satellites and a radar system flown on the shuttle. On its first test in 1981, the shuttle imaging radar detected previously unknown river beds beneath the sands of Egypt. As Dr. Blom recalled, Mr. Clapp telephoned and said, "If a city was buried in the desert, could you see it by this radar?" Once satisfied this was no crank call, Dr. Blom and others joined the effort and arranged for the next shuttle radar flight, in 1984, to take aim on the region described in the Thomas account. Detecting Ancient Tracks Despite some malfunctions, the radar did record a broad swath of the Empty Quarter. No buried ruins could be detected, but there were tracks of caravan routes. Many of them ran for miles, disappeared under a vast sand dune, then emerged from the other side. These, it was concluded, must be extremely ancient. "I was surprised to find that we were able to readily detect ancient tracks in the enhanced images," Dr. Blom said. Then the J.P.L. scientists obtained and processed images from the American Landsat spacecraft and the French SPOT satellite. The black-and-white SPOT photography is the most detailed available to civilian users. The Landsat mapping images record terrain in visible light and otherwise invisible near-infrared wavelengths, which geologists find to be revealing of rock and soil conditions. Dr. Blom explained that the space imagery has three important advantages for such exploration. First, the images are obtained in digital form and so can be manipulated by computers to bring out subtle detail. Second, a single image can cover a vast area, revealing regional patterns that might not be obvious in close-up pictures. Octogon With Towers Third, the images in nonvisible wavelengths exposed in detail disturbances in the surface geology. Soil along the caravan routes, for example, has been beaten down to finer-grain particles than on the surrounding rocky surface. The difference often does not show up | On the Trail From the Sky: Roads Point to a Lost City |
507966_0 | Portable Children | |
507915_0 | Frozen cornfields and mud-brick villages now dominate the landscape around this remote town, where a shallow river called the Tumen marks the intersection of the borders of Russia, North Korea and China. As local peasants huddle for warmth on the kang -- the beds built over fireplaces in each room of their cottages -- officials in a half-dozen Asian capitals are considering an extraordinary plan for jointly developing this bleak spot into an international trading center that would rival Rotterdam as the world's busiest port. The United Nations is helping organize discussions of the project, called the Tumen River Area Development Program. Whether or not the trading center is ever built, the discussions are already bringing together nations that were once cold war enemies. The Tumen River -- now a sheet of ice on which peasant children skate -- delineates the border between China and North Korea and between Russia and North Korea. The project would straddle the area where the three nations converge, creating a duty-free shipping and processing zone covering up to 4,000 square miles, a bit smaller than Connecticut. Enthusiasts say this multination zone would become the trading locus of northeast Asia. 'A Pretty Good Chance' "It's got a pretty good chance of becoming reality," Ding Shicheng, an architect of the project, insisted in an interview in the provincial capital, Changchun. Mr. Ding, a scientist and Government official whose large office is full of maps and statistical abstracts from countries in the region, has been backing the project since 1984. Only in the last 18 months have international discussions begun with the United Nations and foreign countries. "China wants to see this happen," Mr. Ding added. "So does North Korea. The Soviet Union is having some problems, but the project would be good for Russia, and I think they'll support it. Mongolia and other nations will also back it, along with the U.N., so with all these countries supporting it, it's more than just an idle hope." While the zone would consist of land from just the three countries bordering on the Tumen River, any other nation would be invited to invest in the program or use the port. In particular, the plans call for Mongolia, a landlocked nation of mountains and desert, to build a rail line to trade through the port. Japan and South Korea would be involved in planning and financing the project, and | In Corner of Asia, Hope for New Trading Center |
507929_2 | Office of Consumer Affairs, Department of Transportation, I-25, Washington, D.C., 20590. Ages and Restrictions United States airlines will not accept children younger than 5 alone; 5- to 7-year-olds may travel alone only on direct flights (those that do not require a change of planes); 8-year-olds and older may travel alone even if a connection is required. When there is a connection, even if it involves another carrier, all airlines will provide an escort. United, USAir and American charge an extra $25 for the escort service; Delta provides it free. After age 11 or 12, depending on the airline, youngsters are no longer required to have an escort. United has one of the strictest policies about late connections: children traveling alone are not permitted to connect to the last flight on a given day. For example, recent schedules showed 13 flights to Des Moines, Iowa, from Boston. All required a change of planes and children under 8 could not be booked on them. But all four flights after 3:30 P.M. connected to flights that would be the last of the day to Des Moines. United will not book children on those flights. If something went wrong, there would be no way to reach Iowa that day. American also refuses to book unaccompanied children on flights that connect to a last flight out of O'Hare, Chicago, which has had a history of problems with children. The restriction does not apply to other airports. USAir and Delta do not have such limits. Whatever the airline policy, reserve the flight as far in advance as possible and ask for a nonstop or direct flight. The best flights are the least crowded: the middle of the day is better than 8 A.M. Tell the travel agent or reservation clerk the child's age and that he or she will be alone. And ask about children's meals. Things to Pack It is also a good idea to provide the child with a backpack with some toys, a book, a piece of fruit, gum to chew at takeoff and landing and a few dollars for treats or emergencies. A card with the child's name and address and the name and address of the person meeting the flight should be in every piece of luggage. On the day of the flight, try to arrive 60 to 90 minutes before departure. At airports where gates are restricted to passengers, an | When Kids Take To Skies Alone |
507934_3 | Invasion' Indian defenders assert that miners expose the long-isolated tribe to fatal diseases and to environmental degradation. Brazil's Indian protection service reports that in 1991, 180 Yanomami died of malaria and 17 died of yellow fever. Also under international pressure to protect the tribe, Venezuela moved last year to establish a 32,000-square-mile reserve for the 10,000 Yanomami living in Venezuela. To protect that new reserve and to monitor the border, Venezuela started to establish a series of military posts. In an escalating series of incidents since 1989, Venezuelan soldiers detained 70 garimpeiros. "We are the victims of invasions, with the presence of illegal miners who spread through Brazil's Amazon forest and who penetrate Venezuelan territory," Venezuela's President said last month to justify the eviction campaign. Venezuela's Congress recently passed tough new environmental legislation that provides 10-year jail sentences for people convicted of extracting minerals without obtaining a concession from Caracas. With penalties scheduled to go into effect in April, the Venezuelan Government informed the Brazilian Government in early January that it would begin a pre-emptive drive to clear its territory of illegal foreign miners. Despite mutual advance knowledge of the operation, both Governments asserted for two weeks that the operation's first action, the shooting down of the miners' airplane, was an accident caused by engine failure. But, to the embarrassment of both Governments, the truth came out after a Globo Television reporter hiked three days through the jungle and filmed the wreckage of the Cessna C-206, which was riddled with more than 30 bullet holes. According to surviving passengers, the pilot, Jose Xavier de Mendonca, filed a false flight plan before taking off from Boavista, the capital of Roraima. Instead of flying south and alone, the Amazon bush pilot flew west to Venezuela, and with four passengers. Pilot Shot by Troops Once over a Brazilian-operated mining camp in Venezuela, the passengers threw food supplies through an open door. But on a third pass, Venezuela National Guard troops appeared from hiding and fired automatic rifles at the plane. Although wounded, the pilot successfully crashed the plane in the forest. Three of his passengers were injured. The next day, a Venezuelan National Guard helicopter discovered the four Brazilians waiting at the "Saddam Hussein" air strip for medical evacuation. According to the miners, the Venezuelan troops landed, shot to death the pilot and an injured miner, dynamited the strip, and evacuated two injured | Venezuela's Policy for Brazil's Gold Miners: Bullets |
507947_0 | Last year, Hoffmann-La Roche stunned the medical and scientific communities when it paid $300 million to acquire a technology -- known as the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR -- from the Cetus Corporation. Last week, Roche formed a new business unit to make the technology broadly available to research institutions and diagnostic facilities through a licensing program. The aim is "to insure that PCR technology reaches its full potential as rapidly as possible," said Kathy Ordonez, who left a position as president of Roche's diagnostics business to head the new unit, Roche Molecular Systems Inc. Ms. Ordonez said she expects about 100 diagnostic laboratories in the United States to license the technology, with licensing programs in Europe and Japan to follow. Invented by Dr. Kary Mullis in 1983, PCR technology has already revolutionized the fields of molecular biology and genetics. The technology allows a single strand of DNA to be replicated millions of times in less than two hours, which permits scientists to zero in on a target DNA segment and amplify it to the point where it can be readily identified. Roche Molecular Systems will be split between Branchburg, N.J., where the United States headquarters of the Swiss parent company are located, and Alameda, Calif., where most of the scientists from Cetus's PCR program will work. Non-medical applications of PCR will be licensed in collaboration with the Perkin-Elmer Corporation, which has formed a strategic alliance with Roche. Ms. Ordonez, who is 41 and will be based in Branchburg, said she was drawn to the new position partly by the opportunity to build an organization from the ground up. But she added that a more important attraction was the significance of the technology itself. "I consider PCR technology to be one of the most important scientific advances of my lifetime, if not the most important," Ms. Ordonez said. "Few of us would have the opportunity to participate in a project that will impact health care the way PCR will." | Making a Difference; Chance of a Lifetime |
509709_0 | World Economies | |
508758_0 | A novel form of radiation injury, one that causes longterm genetic damage to living cells, has been discovered independently by two groups of researchers. The effect, if confirmed, may eventually lead to more stringent standards for protecting nuclear power workers and others from radiation. One research group, in a report being published in today's issue of the journal Nature, said that when they exposed mouse cells to the type of radiation known as alpha particles, abnormalities of the chromosomes appeared in some descendant cells several generations of cell division later. Alpha particles are emitted by radioactive plutonium and by radon gas. This long-delayed effect is novel, and different from the immediate genetic damage caused by experimental X-rays and gamma rays, said Dr. Eric G. Wright, leader of the team from the British Medical Research Council Radiobiology Unit in Didcot, Oxfordshire. Separately and in related work, Dr. John D. Little and colleagues at the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston said they had found a similar "delayed mutation effect" when using X-rays to irradiate hamster cells. Dr. Little said in a telephone interview that it appears both research groups found the same or similar phenomena while approaching the problem from different directions and with different types of radiation. "We did our experiments with X-rays and we saw evidence of a delayed genetic phenomenon that is different from normal radiation-induced mutation.," Dr. Little said. Usually, radiation alters the genetic makeup of a cell, causing its immediate descendants to take on new characteristics. In the new findings, some of the cells that survive radioactive assault appear normal through several divisions, Dr. Little said. "We think the whole thing is set off by an induced metabolic process that continues to produce damage, unnoticed as the cell reproduces, until it suddenly becomes apparent for some reason," he noted. Dr. Wright said in a telephone interview that the work by his group, including Munira A. Kadhim, a postdoctoral fellow, showed that some cells that survive an assault by low-level alpha radiation can pass on some unknown changes through many generations. This could have implications for the eventual rise of leukemias and other cancers long after exposure to radiation, he said. Estimates of leukemia risk are at present based on a person's possible exposure to high-energy, penetrating radiation, such as beta, gamma and X-ray radiation, and allow for little contribution from the weakly penetrating alpha | British and U.S. Researchers Find a New Form of Radiation Injury |
508363_2 | extent, is like a giant crystal of quartz or other transparent material. Data on Gamma Rays In another project, researchers have installed new instruments to aid detectors already at the station seeking the origin of high energy gamma rays from space. This included constructing a "swimming pool" eight feet on a side, packed with photo sensors. It detects directional information on gamma rays at an energy not accessible to other detectors at the pole. The photo sensors were installed in a blue, water-filled plastic tub -- "a big blue swimming pool" Dr. Lynch called it. The water was then allowed to freeze. Like neutrinos, gamma rays, having no electric charge, presumably travel to earth directly from their source, without being bent by magnetic fields like other radiation. Some astrophysicists suspect that a substantial percentage of gammas, produced by some unknown process, may be coming from a specific source in the southern sky, but this remains controversial. As gamma rays, the most powerful radiation in nature, strike the atmosphere, they produce fragments, chiefly electrons and positrons, that continue earthward in the same direction. To detect the resulting "air shower" and the direction of its source, 24 widely spaced boxes have for several years been standing on legs near the pole station. The project is based on proposals made several years ago by Dr. Martin Pomerantz of the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware and Dr. Michael Hillas of the University of Leeds in England. They argued that, if the gammas were coming intermittently from certain spots in the heavens, those spots could be monitored continuously from the South Pole. According to Dr. Thomas Geiser of the Bartol group, showers produced by other types of very powerful radiation produce 10 times more muons than gamma showers. Since muons can penetrate ice, detectors embedded in the ice should reveal those showers too rich in muons to be of gamma ray origin. In another scientific project at the pole, a cluster of telescopes is to be installed by the Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica, a consortium of astrophysicists led by Dr. Doyal Alexander Harper Jr. of the University of Chicago. With a five-year grant of $13.6 million from the National Science Foundation, the investigators will take advantage of the high altitude and dry air at the pole for clear observation of infrared and submillimeter wavelengths. Foundations for the center have been | At 100 Below Zero, Scientists Seek Evidence of Radiation From Space |
508440_1 | might suggest, for example, that manufacturers and doctors who insert them disclose the problems with the implants and agree to keep track of the health of the women for some years to come. This monitoring could be conducted through a registry for women who already have the implants. The Dow Corning Corporation, the leading silicone gel implant maker, has already agreed in principle to establish such a registry. Another set of hearings by the expert panel last year revealed a lack of safety data on the implants; under Federal law, thatmeans the implants should already have been removed from the market. But the law allows exceptions for "public health needs," and doctors and company officials argue that the implants fill such a need. It is clear that implants can interfere with mammograms, the X-rays that detect breast cancer in its earliest, more curable stages. And many women develop painful scar tissue around the implants. But the most troubling questions involve autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. In information supplied to the expert panel, the agency noted that more than 600 cases of autoimmune disorders have been reported in women with breast implants, and in a substantial number of the cases when implants were removed, symptoms of the illnesses were relieved. But it is still not known if the effect is coincidental. Implants of silicone gel enclosed in silicone bags have been put in women's breasts since 1962. A dozen companies have sold them over that period; Dow Corning, McGhan Medical Corporation, Mentor Corporation and Bioplasty Inc. remain in the market. Although estimates vary, about one million American women are believed have implants, and the procedure is one of the most common in plastic surgery. About 80 percent of the women had implants to enlarge the size of their breasts. The rest had implants in reconstructive surgery after breast cancer or to correct some other medical condition. But even among women who have had mastectomies, use of implants is uncommon, as 90 percent of those women choose to use prostheses or nothing at all. Between 1962 and 1976, the implants and other medical devices were not regulated by the Federal Government. But after deaths and illnesses were attributed to defective drugs and devices, Congress passed a law in 1976 requiring that companies selling medical devices carry out studies of their safety and effectiveness under F.D.A. supervision. Agency staff members suggested as early | Panel to Consider What Sort of Rules Should Control Gel Implants |
507078_0 | Helped by lower costs for raw materials and a push to limit expenses, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company yesterday reported sharply higher quarterly earnings. It was the company's best quarterly performance in nearly four years. Analysts said the earnings demonstrated that the company was strengthening its competitive position, even as tire sales continued to be weak and pricing rivalry remained fierce. Moreover, they saw strong signs of the influence of Stanley C. Gault, who became chairman of the giant tire maker nine months ago. The company reported net income of $105.1 million for the fourth quarter, or $1.65 a share, compared with $11.6 million, or 20 cents a share, in the 1990 period. Sales slipped to $2.78 billion, from $2.81 billion in the quarter a year earlier, a result of lower demand from automobile makers, the company said. Goodyear's results for the quarter were helped by a $43 million after-tax gain from the sale of a tire-cord plant in Alabama. As recently as nine months ago, the company was losing money while seeing its longstanding position slip away as the world's largest tire producer. "They have gotten their costs down," said Harry W. Millis, an independent tire analyst in Cleveland. "It looks like the company is becoming lean and mean." In a telephone interview, Mr. Gault said that the company "has come a lot farther a lot faster than anyone would have thought possible a few months ago." Mr. Gault added that the company had been helped by the introduction of new products, a new advertising program "and reducing our debt by $1 billion in just a few short months." Goodyear reported operating income of $783.3 million for the quarter, compared with $604.6 million for the quarter a year earlier. For all of 1991, Goodyear earned $96.6 million, or $1.61 a share, compared with a net loss of $38.3 million in 1990. On the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, Goodyear was up 87.5 cents, closing at $61.25. Several Painful Years Goodyear's result in the last three months of 1991 come after several painful years, characterized by selling assets and widespread layoffs that left 13 percent of the company's work force furloughed in the last four years. Since 1986, the company has been on a tumultuous roller-coaster ride, beginning with the takeover attempt by Sir James Goldsmith, the British-French investor. Although Sir James failed in his efforts to win control, | Goodyear's Earnings Up Sharply |
507199_0 | Vice President Dan Quayle warned today that failure to complete an often-delayed global trade agreement would be disastrous. He spoke as he wound up a European tour before flying back to the United States to be with President Bush when the President announces his candidacy tomorrow for a second term. Referring to talks on a new treaty by members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which are now at an impasse between Europe and the United States over agricultural subsidies, Mr. Quayle said, "If we don't conclude the GATT negotiations, we run the risk of seeing the cold war being replaced by the beginning of a trade war." The Vice President's last day here, after stops in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, France, Germany and Switzerland, proved turbulent. A few hours before he was to meet with Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, Scotland Yard sealed the entire British Government quarter in central London because of a telephoned bomb threat. An explosive device hidden in a small wooden box was found before it could go off, in a phone booth on Parliament Street. George Churchill-Coleman, head of the police anti-terrorist squad, said the bomb appeared to be the work of the Irish Republican Army, on a day when Prime Minister John Major was talking with leaders of four political parties in Northern Ireland to try to prevent further violence there. Leaders of Sinn Fein, the legal political movement that supports the I.R.A., were not invited, and the I.R.A., in a statement in Dublin, condemned the talks as "a cynical and cosmetic exercise." Mr. Major, speaking after those talks ended, said the four party leaders, Roman Catholic and Protestant, had been "unanimous in condemning terrorist attacks, whatever their source may be." They had agreed to more meetings with him, he said, and to continue discussions in Northern Ireland. American officials said the London bomb scare and other alerts did not prevent Mr. Quayle either from meeting with the Foreign Secretary or having dinner tonight with the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. Some British newspapers criticized Mr. Quayle today. The Times, among others, said that at a security conference in Munich on Sunday, Mr. Quayle had linked a continued American commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with progress in the trade negotiations. The only direct quotes from the meeting came from members of Congress who were present. Mr. Quayle denied he | Quayle, Ending European Trip, Urges Trade Pact |
507223_1 | return. Then experts focused on women whose lymph nodes were seemingly free of cancer cells when their breast tumors were treated. About 30 percent will also suffer a recurrence, usually within five years of initial treatment. Shouldn't they too be offered a chemical mop? Would potential benefits be worth the treatments' discomforts and risks, and which patients are likely to benefit most from which treatments? Lasting Benefits Now, thanks to a remarkable report published last month, some encouraging answers are beginning to emerge that could have lifesaving significance for thousands of American women each year. The report summarizes the results of adjuvant therapy among 75,000 women with "early" breast cancer and gives reason to believe that a significant dent can be made in deaths caused by this disease, which will afflict one out of nine American women. The report, which collated the 10-year results of 133 well-designed studies worldwide, clearly demonstrated the lifesaving value of adjuvant therapy with drugs or hormones for women whose cancers seem confined to the breast or the lymph nodes under the arm. The combined studies, published in two consecutive issues of the British medical journal The Lancet, clearly showed that adjuvant therapy was not merely a stopgap measure to delay the inevitable. Rather, the therapy can significantly improve a woman's chances of remaining alive and free of cancer 10 or more years later. The beneficial treatments studied included chemotherapy with a combination of three cancer-killing drugs, the anti-estrogen drug tamoxifen and measures like surgery, radiation or drugs to stop ovarian function. The report explored the separate and combined benefits of these treatments for women of different ages and stages of disease. It indicated clearly for the first time that nearly all patients could benefit and that the benefits are lasting. Only women with very tiny cancers confined to the milk duct in which they arose would not be expected to benefit, since surgery alone cures nearly 100 percent. The new findings surprised the 78 cancer experts who directed the original studies. They had expected the modest benefits seen after five years either to remain the same or to diminish with time. Instead, they found that as the years passed after treatment was stopped, there were continuing improvements in survival. As Dr. Richard Peto, director of cancer studies at Britain's Oxford University who headed the research team, pointed out: "Mortality differences at five years don't just | Personal Health |
504772_0 | Navigation devices used by United States soldiers to find their way around the Saudi Arabian desert are available to sportsmen. But yachtsmen and airplane pilots are among the few who have discovered the devices' usefulness so far. The technology -- the Global Positioning System -- gets its information from satellites. The newest G.P.S. devices are portable units about the size of a hand. They weigh one to four pounds and operate on AA batteries or with an electrical adapter. When you turn one on, it will tell you where you are -- accurate to within 30 to 300 feet -- or direct you to where you want to go. The positions, given in latitude and longitude, are displayed on a tiny liquid crystal display screen. A topographical map may be useful as a backup. Many companies like the Magellan Systems Corporation, Trimble Navigation Limited and the Sony Corporation produce G.P.S. hand-held receivers. Retail prices range from $900 to $3,000 at marine electronic stores. Such a device could be useful, for example, if you are a hiker who likes to explore isolated areas. The G.P.S. can monitor your route and get you back to where you started by storing your starting position in the device's memory as a waypoint, or marker. When it is time to turn around, you ask for the waypoint, as you would call up information on a computer. The receiver displays a compass direction indicating the way back. If you want to know how fast you're walking in miles per hour or how far it is to get back home in tenths of a mile, it will tell you that. Most of the devices are used by people who have to gauge longer distances like airplane flights, sailboat voyages or treks in the wilderness. But as the devices are made smaller, lighter and less expensive more people are likely to find them helpful. "A lake fisherman who finds a certain stream that he wants to remember can enter its waypoint position in the G.P.S. receiver," said Wayne Tiedemann, a technical expert for Challenge Electronics, a marine electronics concern in Warren, R.I. "Later, he can come back to the same spot without having to leave a trail of crumbs behind." Mr. Tiedemann's company sells and services the devices. The system, developed by the Department of Defense, went into operation in the late 1980's. As many as 16 satellites | Lost in the Woods? All at Sea? Help Is at Hand, via Satellites |
505939_0 | Environmentalists and recycling advocates say they fear that paper recycling standards due to be set today by an advisory group to the Environmental Protection Agency will do little to divert waste paper from landfills. Since one of the main goals of recycling is to reduce the amount of trash, environmentalists say recycling standards should take account of paper products that have been used by consumers and thrown away. In the past, they say, many paper companies have been able to meet Government rules using only scraps from their own mills, a situation that has no effect on trash. Shifting Emphasis Paper of all kinds is the biggest single component of municipal trash, and many municipalities, including New York, have looked to recycling to reduce the cost of trash disposal. When paper is recycled, it is broken down into its wood fibers, and then ink and other contaminants are removed and the fibers are re-formed into new paper products. More demanding definitions are needed, environmental groups say, to induce paper companies to invest in recycling equipment capable of handling the more heavily contaminated paper taken from offices and homes. To help overcome these shortcomings, the E.P.A. has helped finance the Recycling Advisory Council of the National Recycling Coalition. The council is made up of representatives of industrial companies, environmental groups and political officeholders. The group has been trying to develop standards for recycled paper that would be eligible for purchase by the Government in programs intended to promote recycling through buying paper with recycled content. The E.P.A. is planning to revise its own standards, and the council's recommendations are expected to have an important influence. The council's current proposal would require that printing and writing paper being considered for purchase by the Government be made of 50 percent recycled fiber and that 15 percent of the total fiber be from trash or comparable sources. This is an improvement, from the environmental point of view, from the current standard of 50 percent content regardless of the source. But recycling advocates say the use of paper deemed "comparable" to trash gives mills an incentive to collect relatively clean scrap from printers and packagers and avoid trash. "A bale of scrap from a packager is clean and homogeneous and a lot easier to deal with than post-consumer paper," said Resa A. Dimino, an official of the Environmental Action Foundation, an advocacy group. "But we | New Paper Recycling Rules Stir Concern |
507680_1 | in large part because several of the aides to Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who is the hero of the film, had donated their files to the center. Two young women identifying themselves as writers and filmmakers walked in the door and said they were interested in the life of the gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen. James H. Lesar, the president of the center, was courteous and discussed his own interest in Miss Kilgallen, who died before she completed a book for which she had done an exclusive prison interview with Jack Ruby. Mr. Lesar agreed with the women that it could be useful to acquire the F.B.I. files on Miss Kilgallen, whose notes from her interview with Ruby were never found. "I'm interested in the threads that tie the Kennedy assassination to Watergate and to Iran-contra," said one of the women. "It goes all the way to Bush. Remember, the only two ships used in the Bay of Pigs were named 'Barbara' and 'The Houston."' Mr. Lesar, who had seen the type before, turned cool. "One of the boats was Barbara J.," he said, "and Barbara Bush has no middle initial." A rotund, somewhat tousled lawyer, Mr. Lesar appears sober compared with many conspiracy theorists. "I haven't given up hope, although the chances are probably slim of solving the case," he said of the death of President Kennedy, intently pushing his palm through his hair. Mr. Lesar said he hoped that the expected release of all documents by the House Select Committee on Assassinations would offer some clues, particularly on the possibility that a Lee Harvey Oswald impostor might have applied for visas in Mexico City to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union shortly before the assassination. The chairman of the committee, Louis Stokes of Ohio, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the brother of President Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, have endorsed the release of Government files on the deaths. By obtaining hundreds of documents related to the three assassinations, he has gained a reputation as an expert in filing freedom-of-information applications -- the source of much of the collection not donated by other researchers. Noting that he and the center depend on the $25 annual fees of its 400 members and other donations, he shrugged, "It isn't much of a living." Even as he gently criticized Mr. Stone's movie, he said he hoped it | Washington Journal; For Conspiracy-Minded, Archives of Their Own |
510081_3 | to try different approaches to schoolwork so that they can make the most of their strengths. For example, some children may need to have their textbooks read to them; others have difficulty following oral instructions, but do well reading them. By adjusting their approaches to take advantage of their children's strengths, parents can help break through some of the emotional barriers that hold these children back. If the children realize that they are fundamentally competent, even though they may not learn the same way or as quickly as their friends, they'll feel much better about themselves both in school and at home. "Help your children understand that they're not lazy or stupid or clumsy," said Dr. Silver. "You know you're doing a good job if your children accept your help and take risks at learning." THE CLASSROOM CAN BE A VERY SCARY PLACE THE most difficult problem for children who have learning disabilities is staying excited about school. All too often, they see the classroom as a place for failure and, therefore, one to be avoided. But there are several things you can do as a parent or teacher to help children with these problems: Examine your own attitudes first. If you find yourself getting very angry about your child's problems at school, try to step back and figure out why. "Ask yourself whether you're upset at your child or upset at yourself for having 'failed' in some way because your child isn't perfect," said Dr. Jane C. Conoley, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska and a past president of the division of school psychology of the American Psychological Association. Don't think of a learning disability as an inability to learn. This is a trap that some children fall into, often leading them to give up and drop out of school. Even though it takes longer, see that your child masters basic skills with letters, shapes and numbers. "Encourage your child to read, no matter what the disability," Dr. Conoley advised. "That's critical." Remember that your child may not learn things the same way you did. "Don't force a style of studying on your child because it worked for you," said Dr. Larry B. Silver, a child psychiatrist at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington. If that style doesn't meet your child's needs, it's likely to lead to failure and resentment. Instead, ask your child | PARENT & CHILD |
510140_0 | To the Editor: "Experts Say Logging of Vast Siberian Forest Could Foster Warming" (Science Times, Jan. 28) quotes Roger Sedjo, an expert in world forests, as saying that Siberian logging operations would be among the costliest in the world. Because wages in Russia are extremely low compared with United States standards -- $100 month is a substantial salary -- the costs Dr. Sedjo speaks of are presumably from transportation. Six months ago I would have agreed that transportation costs would hinder development of this resource. However, the dizzying pace of political and economic change in the former Soviet Union have accelerated the threat to the forests. Siberians are now desperate for cash. They do not have a meaningful level of agriculture, and must trade natural resources for food. But the devolution of control over resources has resulted in chaos. Forests are being sold in timber commodities exchanges in Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude; they are being sold by the Russian Forest Ministry; they are being sold by cooperatives and local authorities. Timber at the harvest level is going for less than one-twentieth its price on the world market. Our environmentalist colleagues in Siberia believe, with such bargains, foreign timber companies will put in their own roads to get the timber. Terms are being accepted now that a year ago would have been unthinkable. For example, a joint venture that Louisiana Pacific tried to forge in 1990 was never completed, because the regional forest ministry believed that the terms were too lopsided. A virtually identical contract is being pursued by Aurima-Woods, and the Prime Minister in Buriatia is leaning toward acceptance. The threat of large-scale cutting is no longer remote. Despite the insistence by Scott Marshall, Weyerhaeuser Corporation spokesman, that "We're not doing anything yet" in Siberia, another Weyerhaeuser representative, Harthon Bill, has informed me and Armin Rosencranz, my colleague, that the company hopes to be cutting by midyear. Weyerhaeuser's efforts have been confirmed by our colleagues in Khabarovsk, who have observed a public relations campaign by the company to convince locals that it is a "green" company. The threat that Siberian deforestation presents to global carbon warming is not so straightforward as deforestation of tropical rain forests. There is a tremendous difference between the rate of carbon release when a forest is burned and when the timber is converted to pulp and lumber. But two points need to be made. All cut | Soviet Central Asia's Politics Aren't Simple; Siberian Timber Rush |
530899_3 | sharp cuts in guaranteed overtime and other economies. From the companies' perspective, the contracts seek to secure labor peace through the year 2000 and clear the way for the opening of a new Times printing plant in Edison, N.J. The contracts would give management considerable new leeway in redrawing routes and curbing overtime. They would also permit the first introduction of part-time workers, while easing driver advancement and providing some wage and benefit increases. Earlier Contract Rejected An earlier version of the contracts, also approved by the union leadership, was decisively rejected by the membership on May 6. Mr. Imperatore then hired replacement drivers for the Westfair center and a second distribution center in East Farmingdale, L.I., setting off the dispute. Mr. LaChance, who is besieged by vocal dissidents and other opponents in the ranks, sought this week to win amnesty for some of the union pickets charged with disruptions at Mr. Imperatore's two suburban centers as a way of bringing in a victory that could help pass the contracts. But Mr. LaChance said yesterday that Mr. Glassman backed out of an understanding on amnesty that left the union leader embarrassed and exposed. Mr. Glassman acknowledged yesterday that "we had the germ of a settlement" but he said it had not yet been agreed on when Thursday night's violence "took amnesty off the table." The Times's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said yesterday that the latest violence nearly cost a life and said "these terrible actions must cease." "I'm saddened by the events of last night and also by the slow response to them by the New Rochelle Police Department," he said in a statement. Lieutenant Murphy said the police did respond quickly and added: "Both sides complained about us -- we just walk the line." Times Cites Other Incidents A Times spokeswoman, Nancy Nielsen, said there were several other "serious acts of violence" that in some cases delayed delivery of papers to parts of Manhattan and Long Island. At 3:30 A.M. yesterday, she said, a truck owned by Metropolitan News, a New York City distributor that is one of the two wholesalers The Times plans to acquire, was "hijacked" in lower Manhattan by three men wearing bandannas over their faces. After forcing the driver to abandon the truck, they fled with it, she said. The New York City police said that in a second incident an hour later, three men | Violence Flares Again in Delivery Drivers Dispute |
532172_2 | vast network of American scientists and conservationists who devote entire careers to Costa Rica. Longtime American conservationists here believe it was their insistence that woke up Costa Ricans to the value of the tropical rain forests in the late 1960's, but they found an early interest in the subject by Costa Rican scientists as well. Today, much of the leadership is being taken by Costa Ricans like Dr. Gamez. "The outsiders couldn't do it without the enthusiastic push of local institutions," said Dr. Joseph A. Tosi, president of the Tropical Science Center, who came here in 1951 after finishing his doctorate at Clark University and is now a Costa Rican citizen. All of this would appear to make Costa Rica the ideal example of a developing country that has recognized the importance of protecting its environment and is finding the means to do so. Tourism Is Big Business Yet many experts say the country is losing parts of its precious tropical rain forest almost as fast as it is saving other parts. With awareness and knowledge have come controversy and debate, pitting agricultural growth and the needs of the rural poor against conservationists and the country's growing business in "eco-tourists," the nature lovers who come to hike and observe in the parks and preserves. Tourism of all kinds now brings more than $300 million a year to Costa Rica, in the same range as coffee and bananas, the traditional hard-currency earners. The success, however, has produced even more controversy, this about how much conventional tourist development the country can absorb along its popular Pacific beaches and whether even the growing number of eco-tourists is placing a strain on the ecosystem. Costa Rica is a land of three million people covering 19,575 square miles between Panama and Nicaragua, with coasts on both the Pacific and the Caribbean. It is bisected by mountain ranges of volcanic origin. The Caribbean side of the country is soaked by rain year around, while the Pacific side has a wet season from May to December. When the Spanish colonizers first saw what is now Costa Rica, it was almost entirely covered by tropical rain forest. They immediately began to take out fine hardwoods to fashion the beautiful balconies and other adornments of Lima, Quito and other seats of imperial power. Still, in 1900 Costa Rica was still 85 percent forest. The forested area is now greatly | There's a Bonanza in Nature for Costa Rica, but Its Forests Too Are Besieged |
532148_0 | Newspaper delivery drivers approved far-reaching labor contracts last night that ended a bitter three-week labor dispute with The New York Times and a newspaper distributor and carried the prospect of labor peace in the industry to at least the year 2000. The new contracts promise to change the way the industry operates, giving management sweeping new powers to decide how papers will be delivered, in what size trucks, by how many drivers and along what routes. And the contracts set the stage for similar reordering, as well as other long-range agreements, with other unions. A Bad Bargain to Many In the case of The Times, the ratification appears to clear the way for the long-delayed opening of its $450 million color printing plant in Edison, N.J. Last night's vote resulted from the dissolution of existing contracts when distribution companies changed hands. After rejecting an earlier version of substitute contracts, union drivers at two distributors were replaced, setting off scattered violence and delivery disruptions. Yesterday, after the proposed contracts were amended, 1,428 of the union's 2,900 drivers voted by substantial margins to accept what many said they still believed was a bad but unavoidable bargain. Nevertheless, cheers greeted the results, announced at 10:30 P.M. outside the Long Island City, Queens, headquarters of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers' Union of New York and Vicinity. "Let's go back to work!" shouted the union president, Douglas LaChance, who steered the four contracts to ratification over often vociferous opposition. The Times contract, which passed by the narrowest margain, was approved 754 to 655. The votes on two other contracts with wholesale distributors to be acquired by The Times was 782 to 600 for the contract with the Metropolitan News Company and 834 to 543 for the contract with the Newark Newsdealers Supply Company. A contract between the union and two wholesale distributors owned by Arthur E. Imperatore of Imperial Delivery Service was approved 932 to 457. The two Imperial wholesalers are Westfair Newspaper Distributors in New Rochelle, N.Y., and Newspaper Distributors Company in East Farmingdale, L.I. The results drew praise from the publisher of The Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "I couldn't be more pleased by the ratification of the contracts," he said last night. "This has been a long and painful process for everyone." He credited the efforts of Mr. LaChance and three union-appointed intermediaries who helped bring the parties together two weeks ago. In | Newspaper Drivers Ratify Pacts With The Times and a Distributor |
527655_0 | World Economies | |
527818_0 | *3*** COMPANY REPORTS ** *3*Arnold Industries (OTC) Qtr to March 31 1992 1991 Revenue 51,410,834 46,979,947 Net inc 9,394,449 8,620,610 Share earns .46 .42 Year-ago results are restated reflect the acquisition of SilverEagle Transport Inc. in March 1992. | Arnold Industries reports earnings for Qtr to March 31 |
527758_0 | After a weekend of scattered violence, several arrests and disrupted deliveries of The New York Times, a complex labor dispute between the drivers' union and a wholesale newspaper distributor and The Times returns to court today for a hearing on a possible contempt citation against the union. The hearing, before Judge Pierre N. Leval of Federal District Court in Manhattan, will be held this morning to determine if the union has violated a restraining order issued by the judge last Friday directing the drivers not to interfere with deliveries of The Times. Leaders of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers' Union of New York and Vicinity had said their members would comply with the order, and picket lines were noisy but mostly nonviolent at wholesale delivery centers in New Rochelle, N.Y., and East Farmingdale, L.I., where 220 drivers lost their jobs last Thursday after rejecting contract terms from a new owner, Arthur E. Imperatore. However, officials of The Times -- which is not a direct party to the dispute but is affected because it uses Mr. Imperatore's wholesalers to deliver papers in some suburbs -- said that hundreds of thousands of copies were not delivered or were delivered late on Long Island and in Westchester County, north of the city, and Fairfield County, Conn., over the last four days. Deliveries Disrupted Nancy Nielsen, a Times spokeswoman, said trucks carrying 320,000 copies of the Sunday paper rolled passed jeering, cursing picket lines and reached the wholesalers in New Rochelle and East Farmingdale Saturday night, unlike Friday night, when some trucks were blocked or turned away from the wholesale centers and as many as 140,000 copies were not delivered. But Ms. Nielsen said the distribution of the Sunday papers to newsstands and home-delivery depots by the wholesalers was then disrupted Saturday night and early yesterday, with some 143,000 copies undelivered and 37,000 late on Long Island, and 95,000 copies undelivered and 65,000 late in the Westchester and Fairield County areas. The causes of these disruptions were not all clear, officials of The Times noted. Delays in printing the Sunday editions as a result of a computer problem contributed to the lateness of distribution. The police reported several attempts to intimidate drivers on the road, some smashed windshields, spiked tires, broken headlights and other violence. There were also reports that some newsdealers and home-delivery depot operators, apparently fearing violence, had refused to take deliveries. | Times's Delivery Dispute Back in Court |
532412_5 | resources. Malaysia, an important exporter of tropical hardwoods, has resisted proposals that would limit cutting. "If this initiative helps break the negotiating log jam on forests, then it would be very useful," said Rafe Pomerance, senior associate with the World Resources Institute, an environmental research group in Washington. The proposed treaty will offer ideas to slow cutting and burning of the world's tropical forests, develop improved methods of reforestation and encourage an approach to harvesting trees that would insure that more trees are planted than cut. The forestry issue was discussed in preliminary talks last year, when negotiators agreed that a draft treaty could not be agreed on in time for the Earth Summit. Instead, they agreed to work for a statement of principles on forests at Rio, laying the groundwork for subsequent negotiations on a draft treaty. Plans for even a set of principles have run into problems, however, with heavily forested nations expressing opposition. Along with the Administration's decision not to sign the biological diversity treaty, European leaders and many environmentalists in the United States have expressed dismay over the Administration's successful effort to thwart aggressive measures to set limits and deadlines for emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global climate change. Instead, the United States negotiated a treaty that aims at, but does not require, reductions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. U.S. Eases Restriction Just two weeks ago, five Cabinet-level officials voted to exempt the Government from the Endangered Species Act and allow cutting of 1,700 acres of Oregon forests that are home to the threatened northern spotted owl. The same day, the Administration introduced legislation to cut roughly four million acres of ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest. It is unclear how the international treaty Mr. Bush plans to propose would affect the management of forests in the United States. Ecologists say the world's forests play a central biological role in maintaining the Earth's environment. They are the Earth's lungs, taking in carbon dioxide and then separating the carbon for storage as plant tissue and releasing the oxygen. Forests also provide habitats for hundreds of thousands of species of plants, animals and microbes. They hold the soil, filter water, nurture soil and provide wood for industrial uses and fuel. Forests, especially in the tropics, are disappearing under saw and fire. Scientists estimate that about half the forests that covered the developing world | U.S. to Reject Pact on Protection Of Wildlife and Global Resources |
532316_0 | It was not a hallucination. A young black bear today popped up in this mecca of malls and busy highways. And the chase was on -- as the chases are in New Jersey almost every spring when bears' age-old territorial instincts collide with man's need to put up buildings on any available land. The bear, probably a befuddled yearling, wandered across some yards, the campus of Bergen Community College and a golf course fairway. It then took shelter from about eight police cars, the state's two-man bear-response team, and a small horde of onlookers in the best, and only, patch of woods around. "Compared to where he should be, this is an urban center," said Bob Eriksen, a state wildlife biologist dispatched with Rich Goszka about 8 A.M. to tranquilize the bear and take it to normal bear habitat in the mountains of Sussex County, at the northwestern tip of New Jersey. Since the mid-80's, more and more black bears have wandered each May, June and July into the spreading outer edges of suburbia in northern New Jersey. But few have been spotted this far east. And certainly none has poked this close to the whiz of traffic at Routes 4 and 17, the busiest crossroads in Bergen County. Outwitting a Stakeout The object of today's bear hunt was last seen in late morning, darting across a bicycle path and into trees in Saddle River County Park off Grove Street, about a mile from the Paramus Park Mall, two miles north of the Garden State Plaza and about 10 miles west of the George Washington Bridge and Manhattan. Mr. Eriksen and Mr. Goszka waited by their pickup outside the thick woods at the northern end of Saddle River Park for the bear to re-emerge. It never did, and they left, empty- handed, just before 1 o'clock. "Bears are nocturnal," Mr. Eriksen said. "He's probably got a shady spot and will wait for darkness before moving again. If we went in looking for him, he could run circles around us." Based on his experience chasing wayward bears around north Jersey, Mr. Eriksen said this one was probably less than 2 years old, weighed about 150 pounds and had been forsaken by its mother and chased away by a territorially dominant male. Residents need not fear, he said. "Black bears are shy and they don't look at human beings as potential food." | Young Bear, Picked On, Heads for Paramus Mall |
532406_0 | America is finally kicking the habit. The days when conversation, cocktails and coffee were incomplete without a cigarette appear to be gone. Thanks to a powerful public health campaign, legislation and rising cigarette prices, Americans are smoking less and less. At this rate, the Centers for Disease Control reported recently, only 15 percent of Americans will be smoking by the year 2000. Sadly, it will be years before the drop is reflected in a decline of premature deaths -- before age 70 -- attributed to cigarettes. The damage done to Americans who were smoking two or three decades ago will show up for many more years, especially among women -- whose smoking rate began to rise just as men's began to drop. In much of the rest of the world, the cigarette habit has taken a firm and fatal hold. According to a comprehensive study conducted by the American Cancer Society, Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the World Health Organization, cigarettes are projected to kill one in five people in industrialized countries over the next 30 years. Eventually, they may kill even more in developing countries. In China, with almost one-third of the developing world's population, more than 60 percent of men smoke. Should Chinese women start smoking at a comparable rate, the number of deaths attributable to lung cancer and emphysema will be staggering. Half of all Polish men who die between the ages of 35 and 69, the study reports, die of smoking-related causes. If there is any good news to be found in these grim statistics, it is that more governments are beginning to recognize just how grim they are. At least 90 countries are taking action to strengthen health warnings, control tar and nicotine levels and keep public places and workplaces smoke-free. And the World Health Organization has declared May 31 World No-Tobacco Day. Many health problems in the developing world will take years and much money to conquer. By comparison, it should be simple to overcome the greatest cause of preventable disease and death. | Smoking and World Health |
525151_0 | Thousands of young children with disabilities were unable to get to private preschool programs throughout New York City yesterday after contracts between the city and the private bus companies that transport the children expired at midnight Thursday. Many of the preschool programs, which offer classes to about 14,000 3-to 5-year-olds, reported absentee rates of 80 to 90 percent, according to the Inter-Agency Council, a private nonprofit group that represents about half the programs. The situation stems from a dispute between the city and the state over how the contracts should be awarded. The state insists on competitive bidding before it will reimburse the city for half the transportation costs. Last year, the bus service cost $42 million. But the city says the competitive bidding will drive the transportation costs up by as much as $30 million. In the past, the city has ignored the state, negotiated its contracts and paid the costs itself. This year, however, with costs rising and a tight budget, the city wants the state to change the law and share the costs. The contract expired Dec. 31, but was extended for four months. "Either City Hall must act to extend the emergency contracts or Albany must find a permanent solution through legislation, authorizing the city to continue its transportation contracts," said Margery Ames, the executive director of the Inter-Agency Council. Government Indifference At City Hall yesterday, some 250 of the school buses with parents and children assembled to protest against what one participant called "the government bureaucratic indifference and indecision that has led to this situation." "We're appealing to the Mayor and the legislators for help," said Richard L. Steer, counsel to the Pre-School Transportation Alliance, which represents 27 bus companies that transport the children. He said the companies would refuse to work until "a mechanism is in place that authorizes us to transport the children." Ms. Ames estimated that 10,000 disabled children were unable to get to school without bus transportation. Tots, a school for disabled children in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, did better than most because parents found ways to transport their children. Susan Baitler, executive director of Tots, said that 20 out of 56 children were able to attend morning and afternoon classes. "But it's going to be increasingly difficult for our working parents to sustain this effort," said Ms. Baitler. She noted that even a temporary halt in the | Bureaucratic Dispute Halts Bus Service for Disabled Preschoolers |
526178_10 | "The very best scientists of any time," they wrote, "may only poorly understand the fundamental processes governing nature, society and the relationships between them." And even if fears about the biosphere's health are genuine, they said, "the gloomiest of forecasts may not be realized because society takes them seriously and acts upon them." POPULATION Pressure Is Building THROUGHOUT most of history, humans have been a quite minor presence on the planet. Only 200 million people were alive at the time of the birth of Christ. By the time Europeans first settled in America 1,600 years later, the world population had grown to 500 million. But the human population spurted to 1 billion in 1850, more than doubled by 1950 and then more than doubled again, to 5.3 billion, in just the next 40 years. This post-Industrial Revolution expansion -- and especially the last 50 years -- is generally held responsible for most of the stress humans have put on the biosphere. Demographers say that though women have been having fewer children since 1950, improved health and control of disease have caused death rates to plummet, so that global population increased. At the same time, population growth feeds on itself: more people means more women of childbearing age. The United Nations now projects that if fertility ultimately stabilizes at a replacement rate of about 2.06 births per woman, the global population will reach 10 billion in the year 2050 before leveling off and stabilizing at around 11.5 billion soon after 2200. But those numbers could vary greatly if fertility rates turn out to be higher or lower. At a rate of 2.5 births per woman, the U.N. calculates, world population would reach 28 billion in 2150. At a rate of 1.7, which a few industrialized countries have achieved, it would reach 7.8 billion in 2050 but then fall to 4.3 billion a century later. Economics and Population According to conventional wisdom, a country's population will stabilize as its economy develops and living standards rise. This "demographic shift," as it is called, has already taken place in industrialized countries, where the fertility rate is generally at or below replacement level. But the shift is only starting in developing countries of the Southern Hemisphere, where fertility rates, while dropping in many instances, are still double and even triple those in the affluent countries of the North. As a result, the developing countries in | Humanity Confronts Its Handiwork: An Altered Planet |
526178_19 | chances. FOREST Chain-Saw Progress OF ALL the differences humans have made in the face of the Earth, perhaps none is so striking as the disappearance of forests. People have long been cutting down trees, but only in recent decades have they become alarmed at the scope and rate of deforestation. Trees play a vital role in the maintenance of the biosphere. They hold soil in place, preventing erosion and the silting of rivers. They absorb water and give off moisture, helping to recycle water. They absorb vast amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and lock it up in their cells. And they contain a disproportionate share of the world's living species. Estimating the extent of forest cover and of deforestation is chancy, since many forests regenerate and are in constant flux. In fact, deforestation of temperate-zone forests in the industrialized countries has reversed in this century as marginal farm land is taken out of production and trees reclaim it. There were an estimated 7.7 million square miles of forest in the developed nations in 1900, and about 8 million in 1985. Pressure on Forests But the population explosion in the developing countries has intensified the pressure on forests there, which are one of the last sources of fuel and of new pasture and arable land, however marginal. The advent of the chain saw, truck and tractor have made it immeasurably easier to clear trees. As a result, according to United Nations estimates, an area of tropical forest larger than the state of Florida is disappearing each year. Scientists estimate that about half the forest cover of the developing world has vanished in this century, and the rate of tropical deforestation is believed to have increased by 50 percent in the 1980's. Worldwide, scientists say, there has been a net loss of more than 3 million square miles of forest, an area roughly equal to the 48 contiguous states of the United States. About half the loss has come since 1850. Figures on deforestation vary somewhat, but experts agree that trees are being destroyed on a large scale, and many believe the rate in the tropics is accelerating. Assuming that about 3 million square miles of forest have been lost, that would be 12 to 13 percent of the pre-agricultural worldwide total. Forests may therefore cover an area 85 to 90 percent as large as they did 10,000 years ago. Scientists nevertheless | Humanity Confronts Its Handiwork: An Altered Planet |
528922_0 | Face-to-face talks between representatives of The New York Times, the drivers' union and a delivery wholesaler continued for a second day yesterday as a panel of intermediaries reported further progress in efforts to resolve a bitter 10-day labor dispute. "We are pleased to report that the structure set up by the panel, as the way to an accord, is being followed," said a statement issued by the panel late yesterday, while talks were still going on. "To that extent," it added, "progress is being made." The members of the panel are Michael M. Connery, a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, who is representing unions in talks on the sale of The Daily News; Barry Feinstein, head of Joint Council 16 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and John P. Kennedy, president of the New York Newspaper Printing Pressmen's Union No. 2, which has a close relationship with the drivers' union. The three were selected by members of the Newspaper and Mail Delivers' Union of New York and Vicinity on Tuesday night to act as go-betweens with The Times and Arthur E. Imperatore, the owner of Imperial Delivery Service. No Significant Disruption For the third straight night, The Times reported no significant disruption of deliveries on Thursday. This was in contrast to a week of scattered violence and vandalism that delayed production and deliveries after members of the deliverers' union voted down proposed contracts with The Times and Mr. Imperatore on May 6. The disruptions began after Mr. Imperatore started hiring replacement drivers at two newly purchased delivery centers, one north of the city in New Rochelle and the other in East Farmingdale, L.I. Mr. Imperatore's purchase of the assets of the two delivery centers did not include the contract with the drivers' union. Mr. Imperatore and The Times -- which negotiated its own new contracts in connection with two other wholesalers and a new printing plant in Edison, N.J. -- are seeking pay concessions and work rule changes from the union in exchange for job security and other benefits. A spokeswoman for The Times yesterday gave the paper's reasons for making a $10 million line of credit available to Imperial before it bought the Westchester and Long Island operations. Questions about the line of credit had been raised in a column in The Village Voice. Nancy Nielsen, the spokeswoman, said the line of credit was not made | Progress Reported in Newspaper Drivers' Dispute |
531061_1 | way you would in the downtown streets of a large American city. Leave your hotel with the minimum -- a cheap watch, a photocopy of your passport, enough cash for the day and, if necessary, a camera hidden in an old shopping bag. Cultural Events The major official event of the Earth Summit will be "The Concert for Life" with the Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, the American trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the Brazilian composer Tom Jobim, the Argentine dancer Julio Bocca, and others, who will perform June 7 at the Estadio de Remo da Lagoa (Rowing Stadium at Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon), beginning at 5 P.M.; entrance free. At the Museum of Modern Art (85 Avenida Infante Dom Henrique; 210-2188) six expositions will take place ($2 for entrance to all of them). From June 5 to July 26, noon to 9 P.M., the Eco Art 92 gathering of 120 artists from the Americas will exhibit their paintings on ecology. Concurrently, there will be an exhibit by Franz Krajcberg, a renowned Brazilian artist. Starting June 1, there will be two English-language, event-oriented programs on Rio radio: "That Man in Rio" every day from 6 to 6:05 P.M. on Tropical FM 104.5 and Eco Radio on Imprensa FM (102.1) from 6 to 10 A.M. until June 20. Tips on how to avoid muggers will be given every morning on ECO Radio by Ronald Biggs, the British mastermind of the 1963 Great Train Robbery, who has lived in Rio since 1970. What to See The way to truly enjoy Rio's exuberant flora and fauna is on foot. For $1 admission, doors swing open at the Botanical Garden, in the neighborhood of the same name, Jardim Botanico. One square kilometer of greenery planted in the heart of the city, the 184-year-old garden contains 6,200 species of plants and trees from all over the tropics. Spruced up with its largest cleanup in 40 years, the garden's well-kept paths are ideal for quiet walks and quiet talks. The garden is open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Visitors who do not have the time to fly 2,000 miles north to the Amazon will be happy to discover that an untouched chunk of rain forest is a 20-minute $10 cab ride from downtown Rio. Tijuca National Forest, a dense, 13-square-mile tangle of Atlantic jungle, is considered the largest urban forest in the world. Hikers routinely | Rio de Janeiro |
531166_0 | The spring rain had been falling all morning. But among the 10 New York City families gathered for the weekend, few spirits were dampened. Donna Boyd, a 10-year-old from Brownsville, Brooklyn, gazed out a nearby window. "It's like a jungle out there," she said, a smile creeping across her face. "Look, I can stand on my head!" called out Lamont Lawrence, 12, who arrived with his mother, Queenie Lawrence, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, and who spent the morning playing games with the others gathered at the Fresh Air Fund's 3,000-acre site here. Rain on the streets of the city is one thing. Rain in the woods of upstate New York, especially for parents and children who rarely, if ever, travel out of the city, is quite another. Camp Is a Bonus And on a recent weekend, the families of some of the Fund's disabled campers were invited not only to see the rain, but also to find out what camp life is about before the two-week summer sessions begin. Since 1877, the Fresh Air Fund, an independent nonprofit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.6 million disadvantaged New York City children. That families who are curious about the camp can come for a weekend is a bonus. For Donna, a fourth-grade student who has cerebral palsy and wears braces on both legs, the morning games were out. But when it came time for a walking tour of the camp, Donna pulled on her raincoat, grabbed her sister Deseri's hand and headed out the door. "She has never been away to camp and she wanted to know what it was like," said Patricia Boyd, 34, a mother of six, as she watched her daughter's eager face. As she walked carefully along the tour through the woods and around a pond, Donna and the other campers-to-be, whose disabilities include asthma and mental retardation, giggled and gawked at the trees and sounds. But the walk -- and the weekend -- would turn out to be one of discovery for the parents as well. Robert Boyd, who works as a floor sander, lifted his face into the cool spring air as he walked a few paces behind his daughter. "I've been in the woods before," he said, "but nothing like this." He slowed his pace to look around. "Are my eyes playing tricks on me?" he said suddenly, pulling his wife in front | Prelude To Sounds And Sights Of Nature |
531147_0 | Weak and wobbly though it may be in some ways, the treaty on preserving the world's biological species adopted on Friday in Nairobi, Kenya, is being characterized by some conservationists as a bona fide breakthrough in dealing with the central problem to be addressed at next week's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: how to accommodate economic development without damaging the planet's life support system. As the global economy expands and the population of developing countries soars, humans are destroying natural ecosystems and habitats at a rate that some biologists fear will result in the extinction of perhaps a quarter of the world's plant, animal and microbial species in the next 50 years. The organisms are part of the interdependent web of life vital to all species, including Homo sapiens. Now, for the first time, 98 nations have taken formal steps to deal with the situation. The United States, Japan and perhaps other countries object to some aspects of the agreement and may not sign it, but if 30 or more countries ratify the treaty it will take effect and be binding on them. 'Breaks New Ground' The treaty aims to reconcile the twin imperatives of economic development and the protection of species and ecosystems. It "is the first attempt to marry the two concepts in practice," said Richard Mott, the treaties officer of the World Wildlife Fund, who attended the Nairobi talks. "It is a treaty that truly breaks new ground. It will not put an end to the extinction of plant and animal species overnight, but it is the first attempt by governments to tackle the problem at its root causes in a systematic manner." The treaty, he said, also institutionalizes a new concept that many conservationists are beginning to embrace: conservation will fail unless it is integrated with human activity. The agreement was reached after two weeks of talks that turned chaotic near the end because of pressure to have the treaty ready for heads of state to sign in Rio. The biodiversity treaty is one of two pillars of the summit; the other, a treaty committing its ratifiers to stablize emissions of gases believed to cause global warming, was negotiated earlier this month. Critics say both cases represent a lowest-common-demoninator approach to the problem and therefore fall far short of the ideal. But many experts, including some critics, also say that each nevertheless establishes a framework | Striving for Balance |
531147_2 | that could provide the basis for dealing with the two global problems over the long term. Commits Nations to Act The biodiversity treaty commits nations that ratify it to take actions aimed at preserving species and ecosystems while pursuing economic development and attacking poverty. The nations would develop national strategies to integrate conservation into their planning in the hope that species and ecosystem protection would become an everyday component of economic and social policy. They would also set up protected areas, promote the protection of whole ecosystems as well as individual species, manage biological resources with the aim of protecting them both inside and outside formal preserves and restore degraded ecosystems. The treaty requires countries to inventory and monitor their biological assets and calls for signers to meet periodically to assess progress. They could take further action if necessary. While most of the concern about species protection has been voiced by the rich industrialized nations, most of the species themselves are found in the developing countries of the tropics, where economic survival is by far the top preoccupation. So the specific conservation actions required are hedged about with qualifiers like "as far as possible" and "as appropriate." Helping Poor Countries The treaty says conservation should take fully into account that economic and social development and the eradication of poverty are the first priority of the developing countries. It says that any conservation efforts they undertake will depend on the flow of money from rich nations. And it calls for the poorer, species-rich countries to reap a fair share of the profits when enterprises in rich countries exploit their biological resources. "There will be those who will say the convention is too weak, barely addressing the magnitude of the threat to the global web of life," said Dr. Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, under whose auspices the treaty was negotiated. But, he said, "the process of international environmental law requires us, for better or for worse, to walk before we can run and to crawl before we walk." As precedent, he cited the 1985 Vienna treaty -- "not strong in itself" -- that established a process and framework for dealing with depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer. That treaty later led to a series of later measures that have culminated in the banning the production of ozone-destroying chemicals. The United States, which had pressed | Striving for Balance |
530232_2 | being so intelligent. "If I made any comment in class, they would say, 'There he goes again.' " He graduated in three years at the age of 15 from Marlton High School and applied to Johns Hopkins, where his brother Vikas had graduated. "Initially I was a little worried because I didn't know what to expect," Mr. Merchia said. "But then I met the guy down the hall and I felt better. He was 16." Although there are no special programs on the campus of 7,800 students for these bright teen-agers, Mr. Merchia felt accepted, he said, "because of the openness of the students who are the normal age, and the professors, who think who you are is more important than how old you are." By taking 18 to 28 credits a semester, he earned bachelor's degrees in mathematics, biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering in three years. "But Latin was my downfall," he said in a concerned tone. "I made a C-plus. I was shocked." Professors who know him marvel at his relaxed demeanor. "He's very bright, but he really doesn't come across that way," said Dr. David T. Yue, a biomedical engineering professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School, where Mr. Merchia was a laboratory assistant last summer. "I had heard about these young students, but he is the first one I had. He's very laid back." Mr. Merchia's father had not been keen on his son going away at such a young age. "I had gone to college early in India and had a very bad experience, and I didn't want him to face the same problems," said the elder Mr. Merchia, an accounting and computer science professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He said he was just 12 1/2 years old when he enrolled in Punjab University. The father also tried to persuade his son to defer his research study. But he relented on the fellowship, too, and concedes that his son has done better than he did as an under-age college student. The younger Mr. Merchia plays squash, parties with friends and dates on occasion. In India, he will study medicinal uses of yoga and meditation to see whether they can be incorporated into Western medicine. "I don't know if it's in the genes, or of it's the grace of God or just good luck," said the elder Mr. Merchia. "But he clearly is extraordinary." | Campus Journal; Another Early Bloomer Out of Johns Hopkins |
530242_0 | Peter S. Kalikow's plan to replace 4 of 14 historic tenements on the Upper East Side with an enormous apartment tower was blocked yesterday by a New York State appeals court, which upheld the landmark designation of the entire tenement complex. As significant as the impact is on Mr. Kalikow's project, the unanimous ruling by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in Manhattan could send an even broader signal: that landmark designations cannot be compromised for political reasons. The 14-building complex between 78th and 79th Streets is known as the City and Suburban York Avenue Estate. It was given landmark status in April 1990, over the protest of Mr. Kalikow, who owns it. Four months later, however, the Board of Estimate stripped the four easternmost buildings of their designation, to accommodate the building plans of Mr. Kalikow, a real estate developer and the owner of The New York Post. Last August the board was upheld by Justice Charles E. Ramos of State Supreme Court. Yesterday his order was reversed by Presiding Justice Francis T. Murphy and four other justices in the Appellate Division. No Immediate Reaction "The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the complex as a 'landmark site' and not 14 individual buildings," they wrote. "The position that a part of the complex should be considered worthy of designation as a landmark for its historical, architectural, cultural and esthetic value, and part should not, is inherently inconsistent." There was no immediate reaction from Mr. Kalikow. His spokesman, Martin J. McLaughlin, said, "We're looking at the decision to determine what course of action we're going to pursue." The city's Law Department has not decided whether to pursue an appeal, an assistant corporation counsel, Elizabeth Dvorkin, said. Laurie Beckelman, the chairwoman of the landmarks commission, warned at the time that the Board of Estimate had set a "very bad precedent." She said it might be interpreted by the City Council, which assumed the role of reviewing landmark actions, as a signal "that our designations can be negotiated." Yesterday she had no comment. Among others who had fought to preserve the designation intact, there was jubilation. Borough President Ruth W. Messinger of Manhattan said the court's decision "sends a clear message that landmarking -- if it is to have any value -- must be a process with reason and integrity; not a process that can be cut up to satisfy competing political demands." | Court Blocks Giant Tower Proposed By Kalikow |
530120_0 | International A3-13 THAILAND ROUNDS UP PROTESTERS Soldiers arrested thousands of demonstrators in Bangkok, snuffing out a new round of protests led by Thais enraged by army attacks that have left dozens of civilians dead. The military-dominated Government appears to have succeeded, for now, in quelling the protests. A1 The Thai middle and upper classes are protesting, too. A10 Japan said it would not press Bangkok to halt the crackdown. A10 POLISH GENERAL UNBOWED Wojciech Jaruzelski, the former leader of the formerly Communist Poland, seems unbowed these days as he works to secure his place in history. The general is in the midst of a publicity blitz: He has completed two books, a memoir, and a detailed defense, issued this week, of his 1981 decision to impose martial law. A1 NORTHERN NIGERIA BLEEDS Nigerian troops put down communal riots in the north that have taken at least 200 lives of Muslims and Christians in the last three days in Kaduna state. Hospitals and morgues in the region are overflowing. A3 WAS IRAQ TRULY NUCLEAR? An extraordinary secret gathering of nuclear weapons designers from the United States, Britain, France and Russia has concluded that on the eve of the Persian Gulf war, Iraq was further from producing a weapon than had been estimated. A6 Voters in Iraq's Kurdish north lined up early and late to cast ballots. A6 NUCLEAR PACT WITH KAZAKHSTAN President Bush and the visiting leader of Kazakhstan agreed on plans to make the former Soviet republic a non-nuclear state within the decade, effectively clearing the way for application of the strategic arms reduction treaty between Washington and the Soviet Union's heirs. A3 BOSNIAN CRIES OUT FOR HELP In an impassioned plea for intervention to save his country, the Foreign Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina said in Washington that he regarded international inaction thus far as a "disgrace for humanity. A5 ISRAELI LABOR PARTY LEADS POLLS Israel's campaign got officially under way, with the opposition Labor Party enjoying an impressive lead in polls and the governing Likud Party seemingly in trouble with many of its traditional supporters. A7 Deopham Green Journal: The Yanks are back in East Anglia. A4 Azerbaijan's Parliament dissolves and transfers its authority. A12 National A14-21, B7 QUAYLE SEES URBAN DECADENCE In a direct appeal to Republican conservatives two weeks before the California Presidential primary, the Vice President delivered a speech in which he said that the | NEWS SUMMARY |
530052_0 | DESPITE renewed interest in estrogens to treat the sometimes distressing symptoms of menopause and its long-term effects on the health of the heart and bones, fewer than one woman in five who has reached that stage of life now uses hormone replacement therapy. For those who do not, many other options are available to help limit the immediate and distant health effects of the menopausal decline in estrogen. Hormone replacement is clearly not for every menopausal woman. Some have medical conditions or family medical histories that make hormone therapy inadvisable. Some fear the suspected long-term risks, like breast cancer, and others react adversely to the treatment. Even among those who start hormone therapy, only about one-third use it regularly, and many abandon the treatments after the most common immediate symptoms of menopause, hot flashes, subside. Also, many women are simply opposed to the idea of taking any kind of medication day after day, year after year, when they feel perfectly fine. Among those who are seriously bothered by hot flashes, vaginal dryness or other menopausal symptoms, many seek alternatives to hormones. Relieving Symptoms Many nonhormonal drugs and nondrug approaches have been tried with varying degrees of success. In a coming report on the treatment of menopause, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment states that only one nonhormonal drug, Bellergal, has been officially approved for use in treating hot flashes, sweating, restlessness and insomnia associated with menopause. And the agency said the drug, which mainly contains the sedative phenobarbital, helped only half the women who took it and was potentially addictive. As for "natural remedies" like vitamins and herbs, and approaches like diet, exercise and biofeedback, only limited research has been done and most of the claims for effectiveness are not based on scientifically designed studies. Still, there are many anecdotal reports and several clinical studies that indicate they are helpful to some women. Among the most popular approaches to relieving menopausal symptoms are these: *Vitamin E, in daily doses of about 400 to 800 International Units, has been said to reduce the frequency and severity of hot flashes and enhance energy and a sense of well-being in many women who have tried it. The vitamin, taken for a long time, has also been associated with relief of vaginal dryness and related symptoms. Vitamin E may have other benefits to the postmenopausal woman. It is a potent antioxidant that could reduce | Personal Health |
530203_0 | WITH talk of menopause reaching a passionate pitch nationwide, many are beginning to ask how the other half of the baby-boom generation is faring as it approaches 50. They are wondering whether middle-aged men experience a drop in the sex hormones that sculptured their youthful bodies and minds, and if so how that biochemical dip might affect their health and temperament. Endocrinologists, who study the delicate balance of hormones, emphasize that there is no true male equivalent of menopause. While women's levels of the female hormone estrogen plunge sharply in a relatively short time, falling to vestigial amounts sometime between 48 and 52, men almost never undergo a precipitous change in concentrations of the male hormone testosterone. Some doctors have dismissed the idea of a male menopause as a faintly ridiculous myth, the product of an overmedicalized culture obsessed with its health and pathologically fearful of aging and death. Drop in Testosterone Nevertheless, a number of recent studies have suggested that testosterone levels do slump gradually with age, perhaps by as much as 30 to 40 percent between the ages of 48 and 70. Some researchers suggest the drop in testosterone causes a broad range of symptoms, including a decline in muscle mass and strength, a buildup of body fat, a loss of bone density, flagging energy, lowered fertility and fading virility. Older men also tend to lose the circadian rhythms that affect testosterone fluxes in younger men. In a man of 21, for example, hormone levels are at their peak first thing in the morning, which is one reason why young men often awake with erections; the levels then fall steadily throughout the afternoon and surge again slightly later in the evening. . In a man of 65, said Dr. Alvin Matsumoto, an associate professor of gerontology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Seattle, "that variation is generally blunted." In Europe, researchers call the overall decline in testosterone activity "andropause," after the class of androgen hormones that includes testosterone; in America, a man's struggle with aging is more likely to be described with the sardonic and more encompassing phrase, "midlife crisis." Scientists are fiercely divided over whether any of the effects of gradual testosterone loss are serious enough to merit treatment with hormone supplements, the male counterpart of estrogen replacement therapy in postmenopausal women. Some gerontologists suggest that many elderly men may benefit from testosterone supplements, and the | A Male Menopause? Jury Is Still Out |
530013_0 | PRESERVING the rain forests was the goal, and "glamazon" was the look, at Don't Bungle the Jungle II, a benefit party on Monday night at Amazon Village on Pier 25. Eerie, windy and dark, it was a night for ferocious fashion, rap music and a traditional American Indian sundown ceremony. At dusk on the bank of the Hudson River, Chief Oren Lyons of the Onondaga nation led a sundown ritual that included solemn chanting. It was followed by a sitdown dinner for 600. The setting was dramatic: the Amazon Village nightclub, at North Moore Street and the West Side Highway, with its boardwalks, canvas umbrellas, grass huts, tiki bars and sand beach, surrounded by the glittering spires of the the Woolworth Building and the World Trade Center. At one table, John F. Kennedy Jr. sat with Deborah Harry, the rock singer, and Elle Macpherson, the model. Calvin and Kelly Klein dined with Barry Diller, Diane Von Furstenberg and Jann Wenner. Backstage, the models, hairdressers and designers milled around in a Fellini-esque tableau of sequins, feathers, leopard spots and serious eye liner. Many top designers had donated jungle-inspired outfits to be auctioned. The artist Kenny Scharf, who was the chairman of the event, said it raised about $150,000 for the Companion of Arts and Nature, a foundation established to work with native peoples to preserve tropical rain forests. He said the immediate goal was to send 1,000 rain-forest dwellers to the United Nations' Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro next month. "They're the ones who know how to make a living from the forest without destroying it," Mr. Scharf said. Maria Snyder, a New York designer, applied paint and sequins to the legs of three models dressed in brief two-piece ivy, orchid and feather costumes. Nancy Erickson, of the fashion company Coviello-Erickson, fastened a jeweled crocodile to a model's shoulder. "The environment is something close to our hearts," Ms. Erickson said. The runway show, with celebrity models and narration by the author Fran Lebowitz, was wild. Claudia Schiffer, the tall blonde Guess model, came out in a sequined python sheath by Mr. Klein. "A very simple dress, worn by a very simple girl," Miss Lebowitz said. For Donna Karan, two men moved down the runway in body stockings with painted tribal markings and large topiarylike Afro hairdos. "These are very much out of step with Donna's recent woman-as-president ad campaign," Miss | Eerie Night Sounds, to Save the Jungle |
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