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Communicating Results - Evaluating 4-H Youth Development Programs
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How Can I Use and Communicate the Results?
The whole point of evaluation is to have credible, useful information to USE in making decisions and improving your work. Hopefully you thought about how you will use your evaluation - who will use what information for what purpose - during the initial planning stage and you designed your evaluation with use in mind. Once you have your results, think creatively about other ways you might use your evaluation information.
- Using Your Evaluation: Communicating, Reporting, Improving (22 slides, 4492KB). This Power Point covers why we communicate and the Who? What? How? and When? with tips for effective communications and common myths.
- Using Graphics (31 slides, 1884 KB). This Power Point provides tips and examples of bar graphs, pie charts, line graphs, illustrations and photographs to make your presentations more interesting and understandable.
- Using Graphics to Report Evaluation Results (16 pages, 884 KB) - Guide from UW-Extension Program Development and Evaluation about when to use different graphics and characteristics of effective graphics.
- Basics of Good Evaluation Reporting (2 pages, 23 KB) – Quick Tip from UW-Extension Program Development and Evaluation
This section includes ways to communicate evaluation data to stakeholders, clientele, and colleagues. Consider that each of these samples can have multiple uses for a variety of audiences.
- Executive summary
- Impact Reports (county version of A&C, Animal Science)
- Success Stories
- News Releases
- Recruiting or Fund Development Announcement
- Grant Request
- Other Creative Ideas
4-H Youth Development Guidelines
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cheer the heart,
and the sweet caresses of little ones, as they gather around him
in the quietude of his evening hours. These are the clouds of
war that hand heavy with widows' tears, a mother's grief, a sister's
The Seventy-Eighth Regiment has lost many of its very best and bravest men. Death in every form seems to love the beautiful and the good, and selects such as companions, in its cold and chilly abode. It delights to walk where it can cause to flow the most tears, the deepest sorrow, and most painful grief; the best husband, the best son and brother, are death's delights and chosen ones. When in battle, and any one fell dead, or mortally wounded, the Captain would say, "That is one of my best and most reliable men."
The regiment when it left the State, had a strong religious element; men who were active, living, earnest Christians. The greater proportion of these have fallen; men whose loss the regiment deeply felt, and who will be much missed at home, and by their friends. Truly, the best blood of the land has been poured out to make sacred our country's flag, and baptise anew the principles which it represents.
This fact should lead our national authority to cherish her noble institutions, and to consecrate themselves anew to labor for her welfare; and to give to patriotism a significance of meaning that will shame the demagogue, and embalm in the heart the nation's honor, by doing justly, loving mercy, and keeping judgment.
Let every true patriot most earnestly cherish the names of those who have laid down their lives upon their country's altar, and cheerfully have given all that was dear to themselves and families a sacrifice for national life and honor for the peace and safety of homes, for the prosperity of national union, liberty and independence.
Those brave ones are gone beyond the reach of our benefit and reward, but those who immediately and directly feel the sacrifice are among us. Let their loss be partially made up by all that is beautiful in human kindness and tenderness; by drying up the widow's tears and the orphan's lament: in a benevolence of heart that will bestow liberally of a benefit and reward that will gladden and cheer the heart, saddened and depressed by a loss that can never be compensated. Let the lacerated feelings be healed by the balm of active, sympathising beneficence. Let the monuments to be erected in honor of the dead, be the care of the soldier's family, that his orphan children may be monuments of true patriotism, Christian greatness and praiseworthy integrity.
Let those last words that come in faint accents from the dying husband and father, "Oh! my wife, my children; what will become of them?" be answered by every patriotic heart: "They shall be taken care of." Patriot, bend your knee and listen to that soldier boy who had scarcely passed his sixteenth year, when lying upon his cot, where the candle of life was growing dim and flickering in its socket, and thought to be insensible to passing events, heard the Chaplain's voice and called aloud to him to come to his cot and pray with him. And when the Chaplain arose from his knee, the little boy exclaimed, "I feel better now," and commenced a beautiful and earnest prayer for his mother and little sister that God would comfort her in the loss of her dear boy, that He would care for both her and sister, and bring them both to meet him in heaven. Help, patriot! to answer that dear boy's prayer, by caring for that mother and that dear little sister, and the hundreds around you in similar circumstances.
Let the survivors of these four years of bloody conflict gather around their fallen comrades, and carve their names, if not on marble, on the tablets of their hearts. You rejoice that the cause for which you
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The Abstracted Engineer: Where Does Iron Man Get His Strength?
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Last week I outlined the four technologies that a high school student entering college could focus on in terms of their career path if they wanted to be part of a future in which Iron Man was feasible.
Of those four, we've covered power supplies and control systems. Today I want to focus on the 700 lb. gorilla in the room: the artificial muscle.
As a mechanical engineer by training and a biomechanist by preference, I've become intimately aware just how incredibly well-designed skeletal muscle is. Frankly, if it didn't work so well, why has the entire animal kingdom adopted it as a locomotive method? Muscle, as it turns out, is elegant in its complexity of construction while being simple in its purpose: to pull as hard as possible. Most people don't realize just how strong muscle is; during your hardest muscle flex, only about a third of your muscle fibers are firing at any given moment...much more than that and your muscles would literally rip themselves off your bones. Muscles come in a wide variety, from quickly-tiring fast-twitch to endurance slow-twitch. They, at some point in history, captured some bacterial precursor to mitochondria and enslaved them into their own built-in energy factories.
A quick math lesson: typing 120 words a minute, with an average of 6 letters per word, takes about 2,500 individual muscle actions a minute. And that's just to sit there and type!
But the real marvel of muscle is how energy dense it is. Muscle can produce about 0.35 MPa of stress, roughly 50 psi for us Americans. So a muscle with a one inch diameter can pull with about 40 lbs of force. Want to be stronger? Add muscle thickness.
Creating an artificial version of muscle, however, has been thwarting scientists and engineers for decades. Mechanical actuators, driven by motor/gear sets are promising, especially as brushless permanent magnet motors get smaller and stronger. But those assemblies trade speed for strength. Pneumatic actuators work really well at the same strength as muscle, but suffer from control issues due to the compressibility of air. Futuristic materials like "electroactive polymers" and "shape memory alloys" require high voltage, high temperature, or suffer from short lifespans.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory seems to have thrown their weight behind "mesofluidics" which is their term for hydraulic pistons the size of human muscles. They report hydraulic systems that can basically mimic human muscle in energy density in this paper. The researchers suggest the artificial hand could be used for telerobotic disassembly of roadside bombs in war areas.
TAE suggests a more likely use for these systems: powered exoskeletons. Here's two reasons why it would be better for exoskeletons: auxiliary systems and danger.
Unlike a standalone mechanical servo actuator, a hydraulic piston requires valving, pumps, and a motor assembly. These are all heavy. The ORNL team waxes over the fact that their prosthetic hand will require these systems, instead focusing on how light the actual hand it. Of course, if any artificial muscle technology could have auxiliary systems of unknown weight elsewhere, those AMT's would look amazing too!
But imagine instead, the mesofluidic actuators used as a powered exoskeleton...giving the user 3-5 times their normal strength, and the system would carry its power generator, pump, reservoir, filter, valving, and control systems on itself somewhere, unloading it from the user. This is essentially what the SARCOS/Raytheon exoskeleton intends to do; the exoskeleton is a hydraulic system that carries the weight of the auxiliary hydraulic components on its back.
The second problem with hydraulic actuation, as opposed to some of the other actuation technologies, is danger. Personally, I don't know that I want to have a mechanical component intimately attached to my body that has 3,000 psi compressed parts in it. The last time I got in the way of a power-washer (at ~200 psi), I found the sensation a little unpleasant. I can't imagine getting blasted at 15X that intensity.
Once again, though, I turn to exoskeletons. It would be a relatively simple process to plate the exoskeleton wearer with light plastic or carbon fiber that would protect that soldier/user from exposure to failed hydraulic components. Those protective plates, however, are unsuitable for an 80-year-old who lost his hand in the war.
What ORNL and SARCOS have hit on here is that really, if we are honest with ourselves, hydraulic pistons are the only things capable of producing the power, pound for pound, that muscle does.
That's not to say Tony Stark uses hydraulics in his Iron Man armor. Given that he invented a new power source for it, invented a new control system technology, and is responsible for inventing all the weapons in his company and on the suit...it wouldn't be a leap to assume he invented a novel artificial muscle too.
The Current Irrelevance Of A Flat Tax
16 minutes ago
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Helping Out | Wanderings in the Labyrinth
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One of my students is dreading an upcoming musical performance. She’s Chinese, an educational immigrant from Beijing whose family has sent her to the US for 8th and 9th grade to learn English and learn American ways. In two weeks, it’s our Family Weekend (think parent conferences, football games, and musical concerts), and she has a week and a few days to learn a piece of music well enough to play in the concert.
By way of encouragement, I showed her Tim Ferriss’s video on conquering fear:
We watched about ten minutes of it before she found herself completely lost in the complexity of his English grammar. Alas. I thought it was a lost cause, and that she wouldn’t be able to see or understand his inspiring message to “just get out there and do it; what’s the worst that could happen?”
Then she turned on the subtitles. See that button on the screen? Turns out that many of the TED.com videos are subtitled in many languages — Japanese and Chinese among them, along with Hungarian and Spanish. So she watched his talk with traditional Chinese characters scrolling underneath.
It turns out that the characters that translate as “Incredible Hulk” include the character “CHEN” which I learned a long time ago meant something like “bureaucrat”. So instead of a big green monster-person, it means “person unconstrained by bureaucracy”? I don’t know for sure, and she wasn’t able to explain it to me.
Anyway, the point is that she figured out in a few minutes how to make something useless to her — a 20-minute talk in English — into something useful, via correctly enabled Web tools. This is the kind of world we live in… and yet people still insist that we need to have paper books.
Why? Does an edition of the Great Gatsby have a scrolling gloss in Chinese? And which version do you get to read?
The educational potential of the tools we’re developing have only begun to be tapped, and holding onto traditional visions of textbooks is getting in the way of really empowering our students in incredible new ways.
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APOD: 2006 June 26 - Starry Night
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Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2006 June 26
Explanation: The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style of Starry Night appears, to many, to make the night sky come alive. Although van Gogh frequently portrayed real settings in his paintings, art historians do not agree on precisely what stars and planets are being depicted in Starry Night. The style of Starry Night is post-impressionism, a popular painting style at the end of the nineteenth century. The original Starry Night painting hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, New York, USA.
Authors & editors:
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: EUD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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MIT 600 part 3a: Iteration, Successive Approximation and Exhaustive Enumeration | Apprenticecoder�
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Computer programs calculate answers to all kinds of questions. How do they do it? It may look obvious or very mysterious, depending on whether you have already “entered” the logic of computer programming. Once you are in, it’s hard to even remember what it was like not to understand. But if you are out, it’s not trivial to know where to start from, to “get” programming and the idea that makes it click. You might start with iteration. It may even surprise you to know that the computer program often just tries many different answers until something fits. There are even fancy names for that approach, like exhaustive enumeration. No kidding. And some other names, like, I don’t know, brute force searching. A term which has, strangely enough, gained a sinister reputation in various circles, for whatever reason. Ironically, it’s a legitimate problem solving technique. I’m not being sarcastic.
MIT Open Course Ware’s 600 course (“Introduction…”) has an interesting approach to getting people to get into the mindset of computer programming. It takes you step by step and tries to make sure you don’t take those steps for granted. And talking about steps takes us right back to the concept of iteration. It’s in the nature of the computer to loop. The task of the programmer is to use this tendency to her or his own advantage. For example, we can add controls that get us out of the loops we no longer need. Or we can control how a variable changes and code behaves as the computer loops through the program. But I’m getting too abstract and vague, so let’s go back to technical and concrete.
Now you can either watch the lecture 3 video and/or read the transcripts, or click “Continue reading” to read the rest of this post, or none of the above. I’ll be mentioning flowcharts that let you really see code and its flow, and the method of iterating by hand on a piece of paper pretending you are the computer. Either way, have fun.
So, let’s imagine we want to write a program that finds a square root for a number. How do you go about that? Somebody who is new to computers may think that computers have strange and magical ways of figuring things out, including figuring out the square roots for numbers. Somebody else might just try one number after another until one works. That can, clearly, be optimized. But the idea is, finding answers by successive approximations is not dumb or “brute force”, but has its own place in the world. Especially when you are writing your first computer programs and need to grasp the basic concepts that make a programming language Turing complete. When you need to walk before you can run. I guess. I’m not an expert on algorithms, that’s for sure. One day I’m going to study all the mathematical and historical aspects of various problem solving techniques, but today I am a code apprentice and my job is to learn to code, so let’s stick to that. No running.
Getting into he mindset of computer programming has a lot to do with learning to see computer programs. Actually see, on paper. Paper is useful, don’t underestimate paper. Because putting things on paper lets us see them from above, like from an airplane. And the act of physically writing helps think, clarify and memorize, but that’s a long story. Flowcharts are useful for anyone, but pure gold for beginners. With flowcharts we can actually see iteration, and it becomes that much more intuitive. We can see all sorts of things. And this lecture teaches that too.
Not only does MIT advise the use of flowcharts, they also suggest you might try to simulate code by hand. On a piece of paper. Writing the variables down as they change. Come on, it’s not boring. Please, I know you are all Tron fans, and have a fantasy of being a computer program. Or being a person who can live out the experience of a program. Or whatever. Simulating code by hand can help you fantasize all that, while at the same time doing something useful, since it’s also a valuable tool.
Well, that’s all for now. See you in the next approximation. I mean iteration. Have a nice day. Really.
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We must protect the right of arms - Herald-Mail
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"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Virginia was a crucial state in the ratification process of the new Constitution. Mason and Madison refused to sign off on it unless the rest of the Convention agreed "at the earliest practable date" to include a Bill of Rights as amendments to the original document. It was so agreed, which allowed the ratification process to proceed. In 1789, it was done and the United States of America was in business. Two years later the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments) were added to the Constitution.
Mason and the others knew instinctively three fundamental principles about any government institution. The first is that government administrations are not necessarily humane when there is a competition between efficiency and peoples' rights.
Secondly, rights not specifically spelled out are not "inalienable" which, by definition, means "not to be separated, given away or taken away." Thirdly the most dangerous enemy of the people is not foreign armies, but the government itself! Activist judges, venal legislatures and power hungry executives are far greater threats to the peoples' rights.
The provisions of the "inalienable rights" spelled out in the Bill of Rights have largely gone unchallenged. They had never been limited until the District of Columbia passed a law some 31 years ago making it illegal in the District for anyone to possess a handgun in their house unless it was disassembled or otherwise made unusable. This is a clear contravention of the Second Amendment's provision that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
A lower court recently found that the D.C. law was such an infringement, but the lawyers for the District determined to destroy the Second Amendment rights of the entire country by arguing that the Second Amendment has been misinterpreted for all these years. They argue that the meaning of the amendment is that only government-run military organizations (in early days militias, and today National Guard units) and not the people themselves fit the definition.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, but on the narrowest of grounds. It seems that the court understands the meaning of "inalienable rights." The court will only hear arguments that the D.C. law does or does not violate the Second Amendment and not the reverse.
The Second Amendment is second only to the First Amendment, which guarantees freedoms of religion, of speech and of assembly. It is second in the Bill of Rights not by accident but by design. In the final analysis, only the peoples' right to keep and bear arms offer the ultimate protection against all enemies foreign and domestic. We must not let that ultimate right be diminished in any way.
Donald Currier is a Smithsburg resident who writes for The Herald-Mail./
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Quilting - BenThinkin’
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When it comes to creating patterns, the ability to duplicate, resize and turn a layer is one of Photoshop’s greatest features. Translucent shape layers can be very useful when creating repeated geometric “textures” of color and form. They’re easy to create, fun to play with and best of all, they can be uniquely yours.
In searching for interesting patterns, designers sometimes pass over basic shapes in favor of more complex geometrics. But simpler is often better. The trick is to pay attention more to how shapes interact than to how a shape looks on its own. The concepts are simple:
- As translucent shapes overlap, they create new shapes.
- Complex patterns emerge from apparently simple origins.
The question’s been asked: Other than looking pretty, what good is it? Like any tool, the strength of a pattern lies in its application. The examples here show how a pattern emerges from simple shapes and how patterns may be applied to text.
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POSTURE AND SPEECH PATTERN MIRRORING DURING NEGOTIATIONS | Beyond The Bar
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When people negotiate with others, they respond more favorably to persons who exhibit body postures and speech patterns similar to their own. Negotiators who hope to take advantage of this factor can work to mirror the postures and speech patterns of the individuals with whom they are interacting.
When opponents lean back in their chair, these persons assume the same posture. If opponents cross one leg over another, these persons cross the same leg over the other leg to reflect the posture of those people. When adversaries lean forward in their chairs, these negotiators lean forward in a similar manner.
Skilled negotiators can similarly mirror the speech patterns used by opponents. When those persons speak more slowly, they speak more deliberately. When adversaries speak more rapidly, they speed up. Negotiators can also reflect the speech tone of opponents. When those people elevate their voice pitch, they can do the same.
When individuals speak, they usually employ one of three sensory preferences. Some use a visual orientation, and they describe their thoughts visually. For example, they ask if others can picture what they are saying, or they indicate that they can see what someone else is requesting. These persons tend to respond more favorably to negotiators who respond using a similar orientation. It thus helps if others respond to these persons by describing their desires graphically. They might alternatively say that they can see what the other side is concerned about.
Some individuals have an auditory orientation, and they use words to describe auditory perceptions. They might ask opponents to listen to their concerns or indicate that the other side’s proposal has rung a bell with them. They may ask adversaries to voice their opinion about the subject of their discussions. Persons with this orientation react most favorably to others who use a similar frame. For example, someone who hears their concerns, or who suggests that their proposal should create a large bang in the business community.
The third group tends to exhibit a kinesthetic/feeling orientation. These are people who feel or sense things. They might indicate that a proposal smells bad or leaves a bad taste in their mouth. They tend to rely on their gut feelings. To appeal most effectively to individuals with this orientation, negotiators should reflect their kinesthetic/feeling orientation. They might indicate that a new offer feels good to them, or suggest why they are not comfortable with that proposal.
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THE BIRD FLU BLOG: 2007/05
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Vietnam's minister for agriculture has announced the country is on the brink of another bird flu epidemic.
The H5N1 virus has been found in chickens and ducks in 11 provinces. Experts find the outbreaks of the virus near the start of summer to be unusual. The virus is normally known to survive and thrive when temperatures are cooler. Warmer weather tends to weaken the virus' strength and ability to spread, and kill.
From Reuters :
Last week, the Southeast Asian country reported its first human case of H5N1 bird flu virus infection in a year and a half, a 30-year-old man in a province neighbouring Hanoi.Vietnam won praise from the World Health Organisation in 2004 and 2005 for taking "drastic steps" to halt he spread of the virus. Widespread poultry vacinnations were rolled out across the country and live birds were banned from sale in markets, a move that caused great consternation, but helped to halt the spread of H5N1.
"The recent outbreaks were found mainly in waterflowl flocks that have not been vaccinated," Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat said in what was described as an urgent telegraph to People's Committees in all 64 provinces and cities.
"Now the development of the epidemic is very complicated. The risk of the epidemic's further development and spreading on a large scale is very high," Phat's message said.
It called for the vaccination of "100 percent of ducks".
In early 2006, after millions of birds were culled, or died from the virus, and it had claimed the lives of 42 people, the World Health Organisation announced that Vietnam was bird-flu free, and its fast-response emergency programs were hailed as a world standard on fighting the virus.
H5N1 "flared up repeatedly" earlier this year, mostly in rural areas.
The number of birds killed by the virus and slaughtered this month is more than 50,000 nationwide. The full economic impact might not be known for some months until the government compensates farmers for slaughtering their poultry, a World Bank economist said.
"The consequences will be much stronger in the winter," said Martin Rama, acting director of the World Bank in Vietnam.
Bird Flu Spreads In Indonesia As Vigilance Wanes
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The Plight of Mantas and Mobulas – Ray of Hope Project « Dive The World
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One of the most popular marine creatures among divers manta rays are graceful, majestic creatures. Encountering one underwater as it swoops past while feeding or glides slowly through a cleaning station is a truly awe-inspiring experience.
Their popularity means a single animal can ‘earn’ more than US$ 1 million over its lifetime for local eco dive-tourism. However, despite this fact these gentle giants are fast disappearing from the oceans due to the extreme pressures of fishing.
It is a little known fact that rays are slaughtered for their gill rakers much like sharks are for their fins. These bony projections off the gill arch help mantas and mobula rays to feed by retaining tiny prey. The gill rakers are used by Chinese medicine practitioners as an unproven health tonic and have an estimated market value of US$ 11 million annually, and demand is increasing. However, that amount is a fraction of the value of manta ray diving and snorkelling tourism which is estimated at well over US$ 100 million a year globally.
Most of the general public are unaware of the danger of extinction rays face in some parts of the world but a new report by the Manta Ray of Hope Project, which is a collaboration between Shark Savers and WildAid, has highlighted their plight.
The report entitled “Manta Ray of Hope: The Global Threat to Manta and Mobula Rays” includes the most in-depth research ever carried out into the intensive fishing of mantas and mobulas and the trade in their gill rakers – a trade which could see the collapse of the population in certain seas.
“If action is not taken quickly, manta and mobula rays will likely face regional extinctions because of unregulated fisheries”, said Michael Skoletsky, Executive Director of Shark Savers “Anyone who has gone diving with mantas knows them to be intelligent, graceful, and engaging animals. It would be a tragedy to lose them.” the Manta Ray of Hope Project is now developing a campaign to obtain moratoriums against fishing mantas.
How you can help:
By taking a diving holiday, you can directly contribute to the protection of these creatures and help to educate your fellow tourists and divers. Marine and National parks rely on your entrance fee to fund patrols, monitor marine welfare and enforce no-fishing laws. As a dive tourist you are also sending a powerful message to the local government that manta rays are worth more alive than dead. Your trip can have a positive impact on the local environment and the protection of mantas and mobula rays in the future. What’s more it will be a thrilling and inspiring experience!
Have a look at our scuba diving video gallery for footage of mobula and manta rays.
You can dive with manta and mobula rays at many of our dive destinations including Komodo, Raja Ampat, the Great Barrier Reef, Fiji, the Maldives, Cocos Island, the Galapagos Islands, Thailand, Burma, the Red Sea and Belize.
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oriental roaches | Pest Control and Bug Exterminator Blog
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Article found on Houston Roach Control
• Cockroaches are one of the oldest groups of insects and are very successful because they are able to adapt so well to their environment. One reason for this is because of their diet. They are scavengers and will eat anything organic.
• Most species are of tropical or subtropical origin and they are not social insects, but will still be found in large numbers.
• The cockroach is of great importance to humans because they are known to carry many disease pathogens and can cause allergic reactions as well. Some disease pathogens they carry are: bacteria, such as Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Coliform, Bacillus, Clostridum, Escherchia coli (diarrhea), Shigella dysenteriae (dysentery), the protozoan-caused parasitic toxoplasmosis and hepatitis B antigen. They also carry diseases no longer a major threat in the U.S., such as cholera, plague and polio.
• The United States has about 50-70 of the approximate 4,000 species living worldwide. Only a few of these will inhabit man’s dwellings. The three most common of these are, first: the German cockroach, second: the American cockroach and third: the brown-banded cockroach.
• The body is oval in outline and usually flattened. The wings are leathery with veins and cover the body. The antenna is long and threadlike. Cockroaches are brownish in color and about ½ in. to 1 ½ in long. Color and size will vary depending on species.
• Identification is important because cockroach species vary in food preference and living habits. For example: the American cockroach prefers living in food storage areas, basements and sewers. They prefer fermenting foods and are usually brought into a home on bags, clothing or other objects and through sewer lines. The Australian cockroach is very similar in appearance, has habits like the American cockroach, except they don’t like sewers and prefer to feed on new plant shoots or starchy foods. They are most likely to be brought in on potted plants from stores and nurseries.
• Cockroaches have a simple metamorphosis: eggs, nymph, and adult. The nymph looks like the adult in appearance, except it is smaller and the adults have wings. All newly hatched cockroaches are white in color, but in a few hours, as their cuticle hardens, they assume their typical color.
• Female cockroaches lay eggs containing single egg cases or capsules, called ootheca. Each capsule has eggs arranged in two parallel rows opposite each other and may contain 4-60 eggs, depending on the species. The ootheca is usually dropped or glued to some sheltered surface near a food source, within a couple days of formation. Some species retain the ootheca, incubate it and this can give the illusion they are giving birth to live nymphs. Developmental time can vary depending on temperature, humidity and species. It can be 53 days for the German cockroach and as long as 2 years for the oriental cockroach. Usually a high temperature and high relative humidity in their harborage will shorten the developmental time.
• Cockroaches are gregarious (stay together in groups) by nature, but tend to separate by size. The size grouping depends on the size of the crack or crevice they are able to squeeze into and use as a harborage. They are nocturnal but can be found during the day when their harborage is filled to the max or overflowing. Cockroaches spend about 75% of their time in cracks and crevices which are small enough to barely squeeze into. The most preferred harborage is that of proper size and which is near a food and water source, as well as being warm with high relative humidity.
• Cockroaches feed on anything organic. They prefer foods that are starchy but will feed on sweets, grease, meat products, cheese, beer, leather, glue, hair, book bindings, flakes of dried skin or any decaying plant and animal matter.
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Blogs - Fayobserver.com - A spotted sun…
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Today’s astronomical picture of the day shows a spotted Sunday sun.
Sunspots are magnetically active cooler areas in the surface of the sun. Their numbers rise and fall over an 11-year sunspot cycle. This year is expected to be the peak of the latest cycle, but few large sunspots have appeared.
Over the last few days however a large spot group is crossing the sun’s face. Maybe the appearance of this large spot group means activity is ramping up.
This picture of the sun was made Sunday January 13 using a 5-inch refractor telescope equipped with a solar filter and a Canon T2i digital camera. You can click on the image for a larger view.
Observing the sun without the proper filters can mean instant and permanent eye damage to observers and heat damage to photographic equipment. The filter used for this picture cuts the amount of sunlight by a fraction of 1%.
Sunspots are seen to march across the face of the sun due to the sun’s rotation, which takes about a month for one full turn.
You can access a daily image of the sun on the website www.spaceweather.com
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Van Allen Radiation Belt’s Unknown Entities | Blogs @ redOrbit.com
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Van Allen Radiation Belt’s Unknown Entities
What Does Van Allen Do?
Split into two distinct belts, the entire Van Allen radiation belt extends to 7 earth radii. The most dangerous belt is the inner belt, which lies 1.1-3.3 earth radii away. With high concentrations of energetic protons, energies would typically exceed 100 megavolts (MeV). An astronaut, much less any living thing, would be lucky to survive more than a few minutes.
Given the intense proton radiation, space flight without extreme amounts of armored protection on the space vehicle would almost be impossible. In 1958, with the first satellite Explorer I checking for cosmic rays, its Geiger-Müller tube registered off-scale with radiation while traveling through the inner belt. Subsequent measurements have registered over 400 MeV (400 million volts–can penetrate 143 mm lead). [(1968) The Radiation Belt and Magnetosphere]
Gamma-ray energies from radiating nuclei range to over 1,000000 eV (1 MeV) for Cesium-137. Alpha particles from naturally decaying species, typically have 4 MeV of energy. The energy released when an atom of uranium-235 and plutonium-239 fissions (naturally or induced) is about 200 MeV (200,000,000 eV), or about 50 million times the energy released in burning an atom of carbon.
Van Allen belts are a result of the collision of Earth’s magnetic field with solar wind. Missions beyond low earth orbit leave the protection of the geomagnetic field, and transit the belts. Apollo missions were the first event where humans traveled through the Van Allen belts. Other known radiation hazards are cosmic rays, other Van Allen radiation, and solar flares. The astronauts only spent short periods of time flying through them in the heavily-shielded Command Module. ["Radiation Plan for the Apollo Lunar Mission"; AIAA paper 69-19]
NASA Knows The Dangers of Van Allen
Even though NASA was well aware of the danger of the Van Allen belts, they deliberately launched Apollo at specific times. They used lunar orbits which only crossed the edge of the belt to receive minimal radiation. Even on Skylab, 350m above earth, CNN reported astronauts saw flashes of light at this time. This radiation was seen through the walls of a heavily shielded space station, though shielded space suits, though closed eyes, and though their retinas.
Most of the other planets and moons all have intense magnetic fields, with belts just like earth’s Van Allen belt. It would be expected that most extra-solar planets (planets in other solar systems), would have the same fate.
The sun’s activity (solar maximum) has begun its 11-year cycle, and directly influences the behavior of the radiation belts. Almost anything can happen to the belts during a solar storm. Storms damage electronic components on spacecraft. Miniaturization of electronics has made satellites more vulnerable to radiation, as radiating ions could be as large as the circuit’s charge.
Back in the 1950s, the radiation belts had few effects on people. But today, geomagnetic storms from a rogue belt can force short-circuits of earth’s sensitive electronics; and weather satellites, sensors, GPS, and television can be heavily damaged. The Van Allen belts are considered the cause of the Aurora Borealis. Here, particles striking the upper atmosphere fluoresce, and become visible.
Nuclear Hi-Altitude Testing
There have been numerous high-altitude nuclear tests in space (1962), causing artificial radiation belts. Starfish Prime, one of those tests, created an artificial radiation belt that damaged one third of the satellites in low earth orbit. Solar cells, integrated circuits, and sensors can also be damaged by radiation from an artificial belt.
Several (known) locations of high altitude nuclear testing were at Johnston Island (Pacific), ARGUS (South Atlantic), and the Russian continent (Kazakhstan). The Soviets formally accused US of manufacturing the inner belt from nuclear testing. The US has also accused the USSR of creating the outer belt from nuclear testing. Strangely, it has been confirmed the belts have not weakened since a treaty banned all atmospheric testing.
Scientists believe the belts carry some protection against solar wind. This means a weakening of the belts could harm electronics and/or organisms. That means they may influence the earth’s telluric current (a usually natural electric current flowing near the earth’s surface). Scientists also believe that dissipating the artificial belts could influence the location of the magnetic poles on earth.
Can Space Travel Ever Be Safe?
Can space travel be done safely? Why hasn’t any additional manned trips been made to the moon in 40 years? All future programs to bring humans to the Moon again, and to Mars and beyond, have been cancelled indefinitely by NASA.
There’s likely many technical facts that have not been revealed to the general public. What happens when an astronaut gets radiation poisoning a few million miles away from home? Can space vehicles ever be shielded with enough lead to limit radiation exposure?
Maybe the Van Allen-type belt is universal—that is—one exists in every portion of the universe. Portions of the belt would be detrimental to any organic life form we’re aware of. Maybe the universe is devoid of any life as we know it, and we are the lone existing life form, in a very lonely place.
And yet, some of us want to limit our population.
Image Credit: NASA
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Free eBooks & Guides from Microsoft - Tech Notes - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
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Over the last few years, Microsoft has been quietly publishing a series of free books and guides that show home-users, students, teachers, and IT Administrators how to get more from their computing investments. Below is a list of these jewels that I recently uncovered.
Linda McCarthy was inspired to write the first edition of Own Your Space when the two teenagers in her house managed to destroy what she thought was a pretty darn secure home computer network. Linda was more inspired when she realized that Douglas and Eric weren’t looking to break things or even trying to impress her when they brought down her home network. They were just using the Internet the way normal teenagers do.
Microsoft Education published an entire series of teacher guides. Watch videos, and download guides and e-books to inspire your class and to help you make the best use of tools and technology in your lessons.
Bing is more than an Internet search engine. It’s the decision engine that helps teachers and students find what they need—fast—in a visually dynamic and organized way. In short, Bing can help teachers:
Students have more information at their fingertips than ever before, yet the challenge remains for them to find, evaluate, and apply the information they discover in the classroom and beyond. Applying critical thinking skills through web research can help students:
The ancient tradition of storytelling meets the digital age. When students create a movie or interactive slideshow to tell their story, learning becomes personal. Digital storytelling projects lend themselves well to portfolio assessment. With digital storytelling, students can:
Free tools and technologies from Microsoft can help you:
A teacher's day is nonstop—from before the first bell to after the last paper you grade at night. The Microsoft Office system can help you handle the writing, presenting, organizing, and communicating it takes to keep moving at the speed of the school calendar.
Express your ideas. Learn about the improved designs, transitions, quality graphics, and more to better engage your students with Microsoft PowerPoint.
Organize your materials. Microsoft OneNote helps organize class lessons, web articles, videos, and other multimedia classroom content in one convenient program.
Now teachers and students can view, edit, and share Microsoft Office documents from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. Office Web Apps are:
Windows 7 helps make your technology life easier. With Windows 7, your PC is more visual and intuitive, so everyday tasks are easier to do. With it, you can:
Windows Live Movie Maker is the fast, easy way to turn photos and videos into great-looking movies and slide shows you can share with your class, on the Web, or on DVDs. And it's free! With it, you can:
The key new features in Microsoft Office 2010 are freedom and flexibility—you’ll be able to see how to get more from your applications no matter how—or where—you choose to use them. Office 2010 is designed to help you express your ideas clearly and creatively, work seamlessly with a group to get things done efficiently and on time, and access and work with your files virtually anywhere with a similar look and feel, whether you’re using your PC, browser, or phone.
This book provides an overview of the Microsoft Office 2010 suites and information about how to get started with Office 2010. The audience for this book includes IT generalists, IT operations, help desk and deployment staff, IT messaging administrators, consultants, and other IT professionals.
On the Microsoft Learning website, in the Windows Server 2008 section, Microsoft has made available the eBook “Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2” in .PDF and XPS editions. The eBook is free to download and the only catch is that you must sign in to Windows Live to download.
Learn about the features of Windows Server 2008 R2 in the areas of virtualization, management, the web application platform, scalability and reliability, and interoperability with Windows 7. Sign in to download Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2, written by industry experts Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker along with the Windows Server team at Microsoft.
New to Windows 7? Even though there’s a lot in common with the version of Windows that you had before, you might still need a hand getting up to speed. This guide is filled with useful info about personalizing your PC. It covers the topics that Andy Sweet showed you in his video: Getting around the desktop. http://windows.microsoft.com/get-started
Microsoft’s eBook Deploying Windows 7 Essential Guidance from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet Magazine combine selected chapters written by industry experts Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup, Jerry Honeycutt, Ed Wilson, and the Windows 7 Team with select Windows 7 articles from TechNet Magazine. Sample topics include: Deployment Platform, Planning Deployment, Testing Application Compatibility, and 8 Common Issues in Windows 7 Migrations.
“Build a Web site That Sells” from Microsoft Office Live includes tips, techniques, and tools to help you design an effective and engaging Web site, generate more Web site traffic, maximize search engine results, provide a more secure online experience, and much more.
The Windows 7 Enterprise operating system was built with one goal in mind—to have it work the way you want. Its combination of innovation and improved performance has resonated with those who need it to deliver business-enhancing results, including increased productivity and mobility, enhanced security and compliance, and streamlined IT management. Combined with the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), a suite of Windows virtualization and management technologies, you can achieve greater automation, increase IT and end user productivity and reduce your overall management costs.
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An imaging script I wrote, please check this out - Page 2
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What defines "dark" and "bright" pixels? I know what it's theoretically meant to do, but I don't see how doing that will make an image look as it does. It seems to just make things lighter or darker, but I guess it's just bringing everything to an equilibrium.
Oh well. I don't know of a script for doing that, perhaps you or I could write one, of course, I need to know the logic behind it first.
I'm not sure exactly how it works, but contrast basically changes adjacent pixels to be further apart in their respective RGB values, or closer together.
I did an experiment in Photoshop, with a graphic that had Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, and Red -- with shades in between. Changing the contrast didn't change the core colors at all, but the mixes between did change. When contrast was at +100, all you had were the 6 colors in bars. When at -100, it was an almost perfectly uniform shade of gray all the way across, #808080.
I think the algorithm is complicated. A google search did little to turn up anything useful. You may want to simply use ImageMagick.
Use as an example a grayscale image with 256 levels.
Consider a contrast slider that can go from -128 to +128
at 0, the image is untouched. as you move the slider down towards -128 you remove that many values from the outside ends of the color range, meaning that at a slider position of -50 the actual tonal range expressed in the image is between the grayscal colors of 49 to 206 and a total of 100 different possible tones (shades) No longer can be expresses in their original color and now are their nearest surviving neighbor. this tends to create a increasingly uniform gray image.
Alternately, moving the slider to the positive side, to +50 will remove that many colors from the MIDDLE of the color range, and remove all tones (shades) between -24 through 26. This heightens the difference between dark and light, making a pixel that was previously 127 in value, now to be approximately 77.38 in value. and a pixel that was 129 in value now approximately 207.59 in value.
To do this with colour images what you'll be wanting to do is to separate the colour information in the pixel from its brightness, and then treat the "brightness channel" as if it were a greyscale image; and put the colour information back afterwards. (Trying to do the R, G, B channels separately results in ugly artefacts around edges, because the colour components of the pixels end up going out of sync.)
So you can transform the pixel being worked on out of RGB space and into, say, HSI space - hue, saturation, and intensity. The intensity channel is the one where contrast stretching the like transforms are done.
RGB=>HSI is fairly straightforward. In the following, $R, $G, $B, $H, $S and $I all have their obvious meanings, except for the fact that they're all scaled to the interval [0,1] instead of [0..255].
There are two opportunities for arithemtic exceptions. If the pixel is grey (i.e., $R=$G=$B), then $H will be undefined (what hue is grey, anyway?) - calling it 0 would be good enough. And, if the pixel is black, ($R=$G=$B=0), then $S will also be undefined (it's too dark to see what the saturation is!) - again, 0 is a good enough default.
So after doing the stretching or equalising or whatever operation on the $I channel, you'll be needing to transform the pixel back into RGB space. Because of the use of min() in the definition of $S, there'll need to be a few if() statements.
Note that $H is an angle - it runs from 0 to 2pi radians, and indicates the position of the colour on the usual colour wheel (measured anticlockwise from red). If $H is in the range 0<$H<=2pi/3, (red to green) then
Now the reason I use $r, $g, and $b instead of $R, $G, and $B should be visible in the above three bits of code: $I never got used! We still need to put that in.
There's no doubt quite a bit that can be done to streamline this (pedagogical) code, but I think it gets across the general idea. There are other things that can be done more easily in HSI space than RGB (gamma correction, for example).
I was thinking of a slightly more generalised contrast-stretching function for a bit. Instead of just one slider (and having it centred on 50% grey), have two - where you can shift the lower end of the stretched range independently of the upper. It ended up generalising to the extent that there were four parameters - $old_dark and $old_light are the intensities of the original image between which we want the contrast stretched to, and $new_dark and $new_light are the intensities we want to map them to - intensities in the range [0..$old_dark] are mapped linearly to [0..$new_dark], intensities in the range [$old_light..255] are mapped to [$new_light..255], and intensities in the range [$old_dark..$old_light] are mapped to the range [$new_dark..$new_light].
As well as contrast stretching, one can do other things as well - as an extreme example, $old_dark=0, $old_light=255, $new_light=0, $new_dark=255 would invert the image intensities.
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Connectivism and Connected Learning | Bradley Shoebottom's Weblog
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A new theory of teaching and learning arose called Connectivism has recently become popular. (Siemens, 2005) Based on constructivism, it takes that theory to a new level by tapping into the power of greater connectedness brought about by internet-based communications. However, it has not come without its detractors. Some focus on how its network theory basis has problems when applied to human behaviour. (Catherine Fitzpatrick, 2008) Some focus on the ideas that information technology should find its way into most parts of curriculum based learning. The fundamental problem is what is the “best” way to teach or learn a subject. Therein lays the rub. There are multiple ways to learn about something. For example, Gardener outlines seven. (Wikipedia, Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 2008) The opportunities and resistance in society towards new approaches to teaching and learning varies depending on the level of education. There are different opportunities and resistance in the ages 5-18 year environment (Kindergarten to grade 12), post secondary (college/university), and the corporate world. In this short discussion I will argue that there are more opportunities to make fundamental change.
To start this discussion off at Meta level, one of the key problems is that much of today’s’ society operates in a competition model. Nations compete with each other for status, resources, or followers. Companies compete with each other for market share. Individuals compete with others for jobs, promotions, or mates. In effect, people operate in a selfish mode as described by Hobbes. (Wikipedia, Jonathon Hobbes, 2008) In the effort to achieve higher status, people often operate in opposition to collaboration. Thus, it is difficult to create agreement on many ideas. In Western society, other than politics and healthcare, a subject guaranteed to have many opinions is how an education system ought to be run. So, despite the fact the internet is connecting more and more people from a larger geographical area and transcending class boundaries, the largest part of the population was born in the pre-internet era. This pre-internet group views knowledge as a precious commodity that is need in effect for self preservation. Not so, think our post Generation Y internet savvy citizens. They view that knowledge should be shared and many in fact share lots about their personal life for anyone on the web to see. (Wikipedia Generation Y, 2008) So how does this play out in our educational institutions. The next section will look at the K to12 public education system, then the post-secondary institutions, and finally the corporate training world to see where lays the resistance and opportunities for change.
K to 12
The K to 12 education environment will be the biggest hurdle to teaching and learning theory change. There is a huge inertia to change due to:
- The nature of limits to public funding. There is rarely extra money to experiment with alternative systems. (Instead, new systems are crated like Montessori.)
- Practically everyone in the western world goes through the K to 12 education system. So for most people, it is the only system they know.
- The administrators and teachers in many cases come from the previous generation with the associated “generation gap” issues of technology uptake, and attention to contemporary culture.
- Since most adults have children, almost all adults will have an opinion on any suggestion to education reform.
Despite the resistance, there are some opportunities:
- The cost of education demands new approaches because of scarcer tax dollars and competing programs such as healthcare due to the post-war baby boomer reaching retirement age.
- Most of research in education theory takes place in the context of K to 12 so the path ahead may be clearer for this group than the next two described below.
- There is more opportunity for grass roots initiatives among parents, individual teachers, and schools.
The inhibiters seem to outweigh the opportunities, but the three opportunities outlined above can be powerful persuaders to policy-makers.
The post-secondary environment faces different challenges than the K to 12. Resistance in this group includes:
- The Intellectual property aspect of professor’s knowledge. Professors guard their knowledge closely as a means of job protection and stature enhancement.
- There is 30+ years of legacy professors who are not actually taught education theory. Many still practice the oral/blackboard mode of information transmission.
- Post-secondary institutions regal in their “uniqueness” despite their sameness. (Michael A Peters, 2007)
On the opportunities side, many post-secondary institutions, whether publically or private funded face the same issues and thus opportunities:
- These institutions need to increase their student population base in a declining enrolment era to keep or increase funding/profit. Turning to technology communication tools to “poach” on other geographic draw areas and to tap into pool of student snot normally able to afford university due to travel, accommodations, or full-time work status.
- By turning to technology tools, the universities open themselves to much more socially interactive modes of learning
- Post-secondary students can be more experimental, thus a fertile ground for causing changes.
Post-secondary intuitions may be the best positioned from an institutional perspective to adopt different approaches.
The corporate world is often not thought of in an institutional framework; This is in spite the fact all companies have a distinct corporate culture. This distinctiveness continues into the teaching and learning realm. Some companies do not place a high value on self-improvement, and instead focus on extracting as much productivity as possible. Others place a high value on gaining new knowledge so that the company can adapt to changing market and technological conditions.
Companies may have the greatest resistance to different approaches to teaching and learning because:
- Most are not attuned to education theory or practice. Instructors are often specialists with no place in the organization for general educators.
- Companies continue their current path unless profits shrink to a point where savings or alternative methods are needed to ensure the survival of the company.
- Most corporations rely on accreditation status of outside organizations or product/service providers to pre-screen employees. The employer does not care what educational theory is used so long as employees have minimum capabilities and there are enough potential recruits available.
- Many companies only have a check box attitude towards teaching and learning in professional development to ensure they are covered legally that employee has received training, so the quality of training experience is not much of a factor
Opportunities that lie in the corporate world revolve around globalization.
- Globalization means increased competition so corporations look to reduce training costs and improve performance outcomes.
- Companies understand the need to grow networks of people or create alliances and partnerships for information purposes. This a key aspect of connectivism.
- Companies are actually more serious about new education theories and practice because of the need measure training outcomes against performance.
- The most agile company will be the one that continues to thrive. Agility is linked to keeping up on the latest practice, even in education theory and practice.
What’s in it for society?
If society desires fundamental and systemic change, the advantages of different teaching and learning approaches include:
- True performance based outcomes. A person can actually do math, dissect, read, write, or operate equipment. The school letter grade does not matter, it is performance based on discrete measurements.
- Institutions can teach and learners can learn in lesser amount of time. So money is saved, more knowledge covered, or there is a greater depth of understanding.
- Educators can now focus on the ideal learning environment/path for the learner.
- There is now a desire for continuous learning. Self-motivation is much more powerful that institutional based motivation.
- Create the personal and societal mechanisms for a collaborationist world.
Why listen to the inertia?
Despite the long list of points relating to the resistance to adopting new approaches to teaching and learning, there is some value to their concerns. Rather than rush into change, there is the need for facts/outcomes based research. Qualitative research is not enough. The results have to be convincing to the strongest nay-sayer.
Also, society will not change overnight. Change is a decades-long process. For example, even though some significant companies may change learning directions within a year or two, in general, it can take 10-15 years before all of industry changes. Lastly, many people that resistant change may do it at a personal level. Thus, change needs to focus on the person, and not the needs of the group. If you focus on the person, then you enable groups to succeed.
Will change happen or is this an exercise in wishfullness?
The opportunities we have outlined above offer a new direction for teaching and learning. However, is society up to the challenge? Will our group-like behaviours of weak ties and the fact the internet allows easy connections give individuals the depth of learning needed for the future with its complex challenges of globalization and climate change?
One of today’s problems is that we are a just in time society. Even our “close” family can be short shifted because of work commitments. We establish connections to get the info we need, then more often than not, bail on the connection. So, if we are that bad now at being connected, how can a theory like connectivism succeed? Why don’t we keep the connections?
Time: New problems in our lives present themselves differently than past ones so new connections to new people and information are needed. We drop the old ties for new ones.
Tools: We have not yet seen the best technology tools to keep us connected. RSS is still relatively new, email still pervasive, and there is poor integration of technology tools (task assignment tools, calendars, project management tools). The need to do manual updating of home and work-based toolsets because web platforms compatible in both places do not exist or are sometimes blocked.
I would answer that we can move beyond the weak ties and JIT connections. This course has already made me more attuned to emerging educational theory, more software tools to enhance the learning experience, to more people who can help me find the right tools, and to more case studies for their implementation.
As an example of adopting different approaches to teaching and learning, just the other day, while reading the Week 11 readings for CCK08 during my children’s swimming lesson, a peripheral acquaintance of about 5 years asked what I was reading. I told him it was for this course and how it was helping me teach better. It turns out he teaches political science part-time like me. He was getting tired of teaching the same content using the rather static lecture/seminar format and he wanted to make a change but did not now how. He started picking my brain on how to improve his course. Despite our busy lives (both of use have children the same age, and both of us have fulltime jobs in addition to teaching, and both of us are going to school part-time) we agreed to get together later in November so I could demonstrate the CCK08 course environment and my Royal Military College LMS so that he can implement a new course design in January. Because we have chosen to collaborate, we may have stronger ties than ever.
And I the CCK08 student, may become the teacher much faster than I thought.
Catherine Fitzpatrick, “Refuting Stephen Downes’ Theory of Networks Re: Blogs vs. Forums,” Connectivism and Connected Learning Course (CCK08), University of Manitoba, Forum: Week 3: Networks, 26 September 2008.
Michael A Peters. Higher Education, Globalization, and the Knowledge Economy, 2007.
George Siemens. “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age,” International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, II, 1, (January 2005).
Wikipedia, “Theory of multiple intelligences,” Accessed 16 November 2008, last updated 16 November 2008.
Wikipedia, “Jonathon Hobbes,” Accessed 16 November 2008, last updated 16 November 2008.
Wikipedia, “Generation Y,” Accessed 16 November 2008, last updated 16 November 2008.
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Group worries about Island rivers becoming anoxic - Yahoo! News Canada
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A water protection group on P.E.I. says more needs to be done to prevent the Island's rivers from become anoxic.
The problem is particularly bad this year because of the unusually hot weather, which encourages algae growth.
Excessive nutrients in rivers start a chain reaction. Algae grow in huge masses, then die. As algae rot, oxygen is consumed in the water, a condition known as anoxia.
These anoxic events can go on for days or weeks.
The river turns green and stinks.
When oxygen levels get too low, it's hard for anything to survive in rivers that go anoxic.
However, provincial biologists worry it'll happen more often this summer because rivers are low and warmer than usual.
Recent rain has actually made the problem worse, because fertilizer could run off into the rivers, and those nitrates can speed up algae growth.
The Hunter-Clyde Watershed Group is asking the provincial and federal government to help protect waterways.
Residents have complained about odour coming from the river, and some say it's worse than previous years.
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Same sex marriage threatens divorce of British church and state
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The biggest rift between Church and state for centuries is how the Church of England has described British Prime Minister, David Cameron’s plan to allow couples to have a same sex marriage.
Responding formally to the Conservative Government’s proposals, the Church of England said the move would change the “intrinsic nature of marriage as union of a man and a woman.”
“Several major elements of the government’s proposals have not been thought through properly and are not legally sound,” the Church said.
Government Ministers have been adamant that a new law would be brought in before the next election in 2015 and churches would not be oblige to marry people of the same gender.
However according to Desmond Swayne, Cameron’s parliamentary aide, same sex marriages should take place in Churches that want to have them, he said Wednesday.
But Crispin Blunt, the prisons minister, said that the current plans for a blanket ban on religious groups from carrying out gay marriages could prove “problematic legally,” adding the promised exemption for religious groups may not survive even the initial Parliamentary process.
Blunt’s view of the legal difficulties is also echoed by the Church of England which said it was doubtful that a refusal to let same sex couples marry in their churches would withstand a challenge in the European Court of Human Rights.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey has also joined the debate. Writing in The Telegraph, Carey a supporter of civil partnerships, warned of the unintended consequences of same-sex marriage.
“Same sex marriage proposals could do serious damage to Britian’s constitution,” he wrote.
Carey pointed out that way the Church of England is so inter-twined with the State means that laws of the Church have not effect if they are contrary to to customs of the realm, and he labelled Cameron’s consultation as “fatally undermined by historical and legal ignorance.”
Equally as critical are England’s Catholic bishops who warn of the instability such a move will bring to British society.
“It is of serious concern to us that this proposal, which has such immense social importance for the stability of our society and which has significant implications for the unique institution of marriage and of family life, should be proposed on this basis and with such limited argument,” said Archbishop Peter Smith, vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
- The Telegraph - George Carey
- The Telegraph - Ministers signal gay marriage could take place in church
- Catholic Bishops’ Response to the Equal Civil Marriage Consultation
- Image: The Telegraph
News category: World News.
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6,067,019
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Gluten Ataxia - Autoimmune Brain Damage Due To Gluten
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Gluten Ataxia Diagnosis
There's no accepted way to get a diagnosis of gluten ataxia, but experts in the rare condition recommend using certain blood tests for celiac disease.
Gluten Ataxia Treatment: The Gluten-Free Diet
In order to treat gluten ataxia, which involves gait, muscular and other neurological problems caused by gluten, you need to maintain an extremely strict gluten-free diet.
Do You Have Gluten Ataxia?
Do you have gluten ataxia or neurological symptoms from celiac disease or gluten sensitivity? Read others' stories and add your own.
What Is Gluten Ataxia?
When you have gluten ataxia, you suffer from progressive balance problems that are caused by a reaction to the protein gluten. Here's what you need to know about gluten ataxia.
Gluten Ataxia Symptoms
Gluten ataxia symptoms include problems with your gait -- typically clumsiness -- and balance issues that can become severe enough for you to need help walking. Symptoms also can include tingling in your extremities.
How many people have gluten ataxia?
It's unclear how many people have gluten ataxia since it's a newly recognized condition. Estimates vary, but it's possible that people with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity may suffer from some ataxia symptoms.
The gene HLA-DQ1 has been found in a significant minority of people who have gluten ataxia.
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Remote Access with Modems
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Remote Access with Modems
When discussing the limitations of serial signaling, it would be remiss not to discuss the limitations
of the public phone system and the analog technology available today. As noted earlier
in this chapter, asynchronous connections are limited to 56Kbps, or 53Kbps by FCC order. Distance
and line quality further limit this amount of bandwidth, possibly reducing throughput to
28.8Kbps or less. (This was written in a Boston hotel room, where there was no reliable connection
beyond 26Kbps.) In addition, connections might take up to a minute to establish and
might be further impeded by load coils and analog-to-digital conversions between you and the
central office (CO). Load coils are amplifiers used to accommodate longer distances than normal,
and analog-to-digital conversions are often used in new housing developments to convert
the copper pairs to fiber, again extending the length of the link. It is far cheaper to run a few
pairs of fiber to an access terminal (a small cabinet that sits in the neighborhood and converts
the fiber to copper) where the copper runs than it is to extend into the home.
You need to remember that the plain old telephone service (POTS) is exactly that—old. It was
developed from the same technology that Alexander Graham Bell developed in his lab over a
hundred years ago and was never intended to address the needs of video and data. That’s the
first problem with analog connections: they were never designed to allow millions of bits of
data to flow from one point to another.
The second problem with analog connections is their inefficiency. Voice is a specific type of
data and fits in a single 64Kbps channel. You might already be aware of the channels of voice
aggregation, or T-1 circuits—where 24 voice signals (DS0, digital signal) fit into a T-1 or DS1.
Data is unlike voice, however, which leads to inefficiency. Voice demands that the idle (or no
data) points in the conversation be communicated as well, so there is always a constant flow
of information. Data doesn’t work that way; if no data is transmitted, there is little need for the
bandwidth to be consumed. By using only the available bandwidth that is necessary, it is possible
to service more connections with data than voice. You might have heard of convergence
or time division multiplexing (TDM), two very different concepts that relate to this topic.
is the concept of voice, video, and data all using the same network, whereas
the old voice channel model—each channel always given the same amount of access to the network
regardless of the need. Convergence will remove TDM from the network and place everything
into packets that can then use only the required amount of bandwidth, as opposed to
reserving more than is necessary.
However, convergence will also effectively eliminate the analog network (an event that has
already occurred in the core of the telephone world). But before that comes to fruition, network
administrators will need to contend with the problems of the current network, including long
call-setup times, poor-quality connections, and low bandwidths.
These problems, just for the record, already have solutions in many cases. Although it is true that
analog connections are the most prevalent in the world, the availability of DSL, cable, ISDN,
Frame Relay, wireless, and Long Reach Ethernet (LRE) enables designers to incorporate alternatives
into their installations and provides an indication of what will happen in the near future.
At the beginning of this sidebar, we noted problems with analog service and the phone network.
While discussing these problems, we failed to address what is possibly the most important
problem—cost. Readers of the
CCDP: Cisco Internetwork Design Study Guide
2000) will recall the emphasis on business concerns when designing the network. Cost is frequently
the single biggest business factor, period. Business managers who do not understand
bits and protocols certainly understand the benefits of a $40-a-month fixed cost per employee
compared to a variable bill that could surpass $100 a month.
One last item: virtual private networks.
Virtual private networks (VPNs)
are encrypted sessions
between two devices over the public network, typically the Internet. These sessions are virtually
private because the encrypted data is, conceptually, protected from snooping. Users, however,
will still be affected by delay and bandwidth limitations that could be better controlled in
private network installations.
VPNs provide remote access designers with two benefits. The first is low cost, which, as noted in
the previous paragraph, is a powerful business case argument. The second benefit is universality—
or the capability to allow access from different technologies. With VPNs, the administrator no
longer cares what technology is used on the remote side of the connection. The remote side simply
needs to connect to the Internet via any available transport, or in some cases, an internationally
accessible single-vendor network (which can provide service-level agreements and other service
guarantees). Once connected, the connection traverses the network and is decrypted at the corporate
access point, typically a T-1 or DS3, depending on the bandwidth demands. For smaller support
departments, this entire service might be outsourced so the maintenance of the VPN
equipment and connections is not an additional burden on the team.
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Bosnia and Herzegovina - EVA Database - Command & Conquer 4, Red Alert 3, Generals 2 and more
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|Bosnia and Herzegovina|
Bosna i Hercegovina
Босна и Херцеговина
Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in the Balkans Peninsula in south-eastern Europe, bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast. The three major ethnic groups in the country are Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. Its capital city is Sarajevo. "Bosnia" is the name of the northern and central part of the country. "Herzegovina" refers to the warmer southern tip of the country.
The history of Bosnia stretched back many millennia. During the Bronze Age, an Indo-European people called the Illyrians settled in the area, to be followed by the Celts. Bosnia was a part of the Roman Empire, and following its collapse the region passed under the control of Goths, Avars, Byzantines and Slavs. By the early 12th century, Bosnia has became an independent kingdom. The country fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the later half of the 15th century, and would remain so until 1878, when the country became independent once again. Its freedom was short-lived, however, as Austria-Hungary soon moved in to occupy the country.
On June 28, 1914, a Serb nationalist named Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. The assassination by the so-called "Black Hand" group - was the spark which ultimately set off the First World War. After the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina found itself incorporated within the new South Slav kingdom of Yugoslavia. Like most other European countries, Yugoslavia was devastated by World War II. During the real World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina was a part of the fascist-led Independent State of Croatia, and was later incorporated to the Second Yugoslavia in 1945. Yugoslavia dissolved in 1991, as the different ethnic groups in the country battled each other. The Yugoslav Wars saw widespread devastation and cruelty, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The horrific war ended in 1995.
Tiberium Universe HistoryEdit
Bosnia became a major stronghold for the Brotherhood of Nod throughout the three Tiberium Wars. It was in Sarajevo that Kane built the first Temple of Nod, later known in the Third Tiberium War as "Temple Prime". Nod was expelled by GDI after their defeat in the First Tiberium War, but Nod forces under the command of Slavik later reclaimed the old Temple site after a battle with the local GDI garrison. Following the Second Tiberium War, Bosnia was a Nod-administered Yellow Zone. Nod rebuilt their Temple at Sarajevo, greatly expanding the compound.
The Nod assault on GDI Blue Zones in the Third Tiberium War provoked a GDI invasion of the Balkans. GDI forces approached from all sides and converged in Bosnia. The Siege of Temple Prime at Sarajevo was a crucial event in the War. GDI eliminated Nod's most important headquarter with an Ion Cannon strike, but in the process disturbed a Liquid Tiberium Bomb within the Temple. Its detonation destroyed all GDI presence in the Balkans and any surviving Nod forces, blanketing the Eastern Mediterranean under Tiberium and turning vast areas into Red Zones. The detonation was also the trigger for the Scrin invasion of Earth.
Red Alert HistoryEdit
It is unknown whether the local Yugoslav communists joined Stalin and the invading Soviet Army during the Second World War in the 1950s, or whether they resisted the invasion. However, when viewing maps during the first few missions of Red Alert 1, we can see that Yugoslavia joined the Allies.
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COASST : Features : Pelagic Cormorant
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four webbed and fabulous: The Pelagic cormorant-winter 2008
Don’t let the name fool you: Pelagic Cormorants aren’t actually pelagic. Instead of braving the off-shore habitats frequented by fulmars and albatrosses, this species makes its home in nearshore waters from Alaska to Baja. Despite the misnomer, the Pelagic Cormorant is a truly marine species rarely found in freshwater rivers and lakes like its cousin theDouble-crested Cormorant.
Unlike many seabirds, cormorants are easy to see from land. They have uniquely designed plumage that allows air to escape from between feathers during dives. This feature makes them less buoyant so they can reach incredible depths in pursuit of prey, but leaves them a soggy mess at the end of the dive. Along the outer coast Pelagics are often sighted perching on rocks or pilings ‘hanging their wings out to dry’ because structural differences in their feathers decreases their ability to repel water.
You can destinguish this Pelagic Cormorant from the larger Double-crested and Brandt's Cormorant by the two bright white butt patches. (L. Miller)
And speaking of diving, Pelagics are exceptional swimmers, reaching depths greater than 100 meters. Rather than flying under water using their wings for propulsion like murres or puffins, cormorants tuck their wings tightly to their sides and use their thick, muscular legs for power, splaying all four toes to maximize webbed area for steering.
With frequent appearances on the top 10 beached birds list, Pelagic Cormorants are familiar to many COASST participants. During the 2007–08 season, 68 turned up, mostly on the northern coasts of Washington and Oregon. There are about 400,000 Pelagics worldwide, all living in the North Pacific. Populations are not well-studied, but believed to be relatively stable, despite a negative reputation in some quarters.
Chasing fish has made cormorants, including Pelagics, a rather controversial group of seabirds. As fish-eaters, they are viewed by some people as competition and have been hazed, hunted, and had their nests destroyed in misplaced efforts to reduce their impact on local fish populations. As it turns out, Pelagic Cormorants mostly eat baitfish like sandlance and herring, as well as a smattering of marine
worms and crustaceans.
During the breeding season, you can distinguish Pelagics from the larger Double-crested and Brandt’s Cormorants by the two bright white butt patches. Cheeky males show off their nest territory and try to attract females by fluttering their dark wings over their white patches for a sexy strobelight effect. Up close, the black plumage of the adults is strikingly iridescent with an unruly tuft of spiky feathers on the forehead and bare red skin around the base of the bill up to the eye. If you’re lucky enough to visit or live in the vicinity of the Alaska Peninsula, Aleutian Islands, or Pribilof Islands, you may also see the Red-faced Cormorant. This less common species is difficult to distinguish from a Pelagic
Cormorant, but is slightly larger and, as the name suggests, has more extensive bright red facial skin completely surrounding the eye, as well as a yellow bill.
Keep a lookout for beached Pelagic Cormorants during late summer, especially during the month of September, after young, inexperienced birds have left the nest and adult birds are exhausted from raising 3–4 hungry chicks. Better yet, spend some quality time watching these graceful, prehistoric-looking seabirds as they dive for fish along a shoreline near you!
Check out these websites for more information about Pelagic Cormorants:
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Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson - Sexual Harassment - History - Employment
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Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson
Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, decided in 1986, marked the first time the Supreme Court considered a sexual harassment case under Title VII. The case involved a female employee at a bank who alleged she was forced to have sex by her supervisor, fearing the loss of her job if she refused. The evidence showed the employee had repeatedly advanced through the bank by merit, that she had never filed a complaint about the supervisor’s behavior, and that she was terminated only because of lengthy sick leave absence. Yet the Supreme Court ruled that she had a case against her former employer on the basis of hostile environment sexual harassment.
For sexual harassment to be actionable, the court declared, it must be “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of [the victim's] employment and create an abusive working environment.” In this case, the Court held, the facts were “plainly sufficient to state a claim for’hostile environment’ sexual harassment.” The Court also added that on the facts of the case, the plaintiff had a claim for quid pro quo sexual harassment as well.
The Meritor case was a landmark for sexual harassment rights in that it established the legal legitimacy of both quid pro quo and hostile environment sexual harassment claims before the Supreme Court. It also rejected the idea that there could be no sexual harassment just because the sexual relations between the plaintiff and the defendant were voluntary. The results opened a floodgate of sexual harassment litigation.
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Technology Planning/PR - Wikibooks, open books for an open world
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Dissemination and Public Relations
What is PR?
Much like marketing, public relations is a way for an organization to connect with interested parties not directly involved with the project to gather support.
Why do it?
Public relations to interested parties and stakeholders can make or break any project. Unless you somehow have infinite resources, your project will be competing with others for monetary and staffing resources. The key to continuing your project is to keep the interested parties interested by telling them how the project is progressing at various intervals, by showing them why is it important, by motivating them to speak up about what you are doing.
Who to PR to
All generations in every venue for public relations should be contacted. In today's educational world parents age can range from their 20s to 50s, depending on when they have their children. Also politicians, sponsors, funders, school boards, colleges and students may be able to help your message reach the community.
The extensiveness of the Public Relations plan will be determined by the budget given by the school district or the ability for one to reach out to the community for support and available free dissemination channels.
What to report
A well planned project is divided into phases, each of which will have its own traceable milestones. Since it's critical to give the appearance of success, be sure to include any foreseeable obstacles in the projected progress at the beginning of the PR campaign. For example, switching from a Mac to a PC based system will undoubtedly involve some sort of learning curve for learners and teachers alike. If this was anticipated in the plan, then it's perfectly reasonable to report success at meeting expectations even when progress is slow in the beginning.
Elements of Good Public Relations:
1. A mission statement that expresses the purpose of the project, the goals and the projected timeline in accomplishing those goals and objectives.
2. At the beginning of the implementation, emphasizing the goals and objectives, announcing the potential completion of the project.
3. Continuous stream of communication to all parties involved, as appropriate for the timeline of the project. Monthly communication for longer projects is recommended.
4. Incorporation of the potential students who will benefit from the project will not only create excitement from the student body, it will also convey a sense of importance to them and their parents, who are the ultimate support in the economic phase of the project.
5. Once a certain point of development and certain milestones have been reached, a special communication or event should be planned. Milestones are a measurable way to announce any advancements and changes to the project and their effect on the timeline.
6. A grand opening or a completion announcement is important for the overall success. It will boost morale and encourage continued support from the community for future projects.
Using diverse methods to reach the public is critical. One must search many different vehicles of communication in order to reach multiple level of audiences, starting from the most traditional, such as press releases to local papers, articles to interested magazines, public service announcements for radio stations, local community programming on television, newsletters (hard copy and via e-mails), blogs, email or YouTube videos.
According to Personal Relations expert, Peter Smith, "the growing influence of consumer-generated media (CGM), including blogs, online forums, podcasts, and other social media tools, has changed the environment in which public relations practitioners conduct campaigns for their clients and connect with their stakeholders. Rather than working solely with journalists to reach publics—practitioners are now becoming “part of the quirky blogging community [to be] aware of how their organization or client is being discussed” (Porter, et. al, 2007, p. 94).
Blogs, such as the One Laptop Per Child project's blog: http://www.olpcnews.com/
Tours. such as those given by Philadelphia's school of the future http://www.microsoft.com/education/schoolofthefuture/
YouTube videos, such as this one from a program in Maryland, operated by United Cerebral Palsy of Prince George's and Montgomery Counties with funding from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. "The program encourages high school students with disabilities to pursue careers in science, engineering and high technology." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_0XlWoMOE8
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Beneventan chant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Beneventan chant is a liturgical plainchant repertory of the Roman Catholic Church, used primarily in the orbit of the southern Italian ecclesiastical centers of Benevento and Montecassino, distinct from Gregorian chant and related to Ambrosian chant. It was officially supplanted by the Gregorian chant of the Roman rite in the 11th century, although a few Beneventan chants of local interest remained in use.
During the Lombard occupation of the 7th and 8th centuries, a distinctive liturgical rite and plainchant tradition developed in Benevento. It included feasts of special local importance such as the Holy Twelve Brothers of Benevento. At the time it was called cantus ambrosianus ("Ambrosian chant"), although it is a separate plainchant tradition from the chant of Milan which we call Ambrosian chant. The common use of the name cantus ambrosianus, the common influence of the Lombards in both Benevento and Milan, and musical similarities between the two liturgies and chant traditions suggest a Lombard influence in the origins of Beneventan chant.
Gregorian chant had already begun to take hold in the Beneventan orbit as early as the 8th century. The two traditions appear to have coexisted for about a century before the Gregorian chant began to replace the native Beneventan. Many Beneventan chants exist only as interpolations and addenda in Gregorian chantbooks, sometimes next to their corresponding chants in the Gregorian repertory. External ecclesiastical influences, such as two German abbots at Montecassino during the 11th century, led to an increasing insistence on the Roman rite and Gregorian chant instead of the local Beneventan traditions. One of these abbots later became Pope Stephen IX, who in 1058 officially outlawed the Beneventan rite and chant. A few Beneventan chants continued to be recorded and performed for a time, especially for the feasts of local importance such as the Holy Twelve Brothers, which had no Gregorian counterpart. However, the Beneventan repertory as a whole fell into disuse. This was commemorated in a legend of a singing contest between a Gregorian and a Beneventan cantor, which ended in victory for the Gregorian repertory when the Beneventan cantor fainted from exhaustion.
General characteristics
Beneventan chant is largely defined by its role in the liturgy of the Beneventan rite, which is more closely related to the liturgy of the Ambrosian rite than the Roman rite. The Beneventan rite has not survived in its complete form, although most of the principal feasts and several feasts of local significance are extant. The Beneventan rite appears to have been less complete, less systematic, and more liturgically flexible than the Roman rite; many Beneventan chants were assigned multiple roles when inserted into Gregorian chantbooks, appearing variously as antiphons, offertories, and communions, for example.
Like all plainchant, Beneventan chant is monophonic and a cappella. In accordance with Roman Catholic tradition, it is primarily intended to be sung by males. Like the other Italian chant repertories, the Old Roman chant and Ambrosian chant, the melodies are melismatic and ornate. The melodic motion is primarily stepwise, with a limited ambitus, giving the chants a smooth, undulating feel. Unlike Ambrosian chants, Beneventan chants do not notably specify whether any given chant is meant to be sung by the choir or by any particular singer. The chants almost all end on one of two pitches, a G or an A, and thus do not fit into the Gregorian system of eight modes.
What most distinguishes Beneventan chant is its frequent and repeated use of various short melodic motifs. Although this technique is used in other chant traditions, such as the centonization of melodic formulae in the Gregorian Graduals, it is far more frequently used in Beneventan chant than in the other Western plainchant traditions.
Chants of the Office
Many Beneventan antiphons have psalmody, but no specifically Beneventan style can be distinguished from the Gregorian sources in which it survives. Unlike the Ambrosian rite, there is no special service for nightfall, but there are about fifty extant antiphons and five responsories. Only antiphons for Sunday services survive. Much melodic material is shared among the antiphons and among the responsories.
Chants of the Mass
With rare exceptions, only Proper chants (chants which vary depending on the feast) for the Mass survive. As in the Ambrosian rite, a threefold Kyrie was sung to a simple melody following the Gloria, but this was not analogous to the more complex Kyrie of the Gregorian repertory.
Ingressae, as in the Ambrosian rite, are elaborate chants sung without psalm verses. They are analogous to the Gregorian Introit. Alleluias appear in every Mass except the Masses of Holy Week. Most of them share a single melody. Offertories and Communions are melodically more simple. Some Masses have two Communion chants. Some Communion chants appear in other services as the Offertory chant, or as a simple antiphon.
- A few pieces of Beneventan chant transcribed in square notation
- Kelly, Thomas Forrest: Beneventan Chant, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 7 May 2006), Grove Music - Access by subscription only
- Apel, Willi (1990). Gregorian Chant. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-20601-4.
- Hiley, David (1995). Western Plainchant: A Handbook. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-816572-2.
- Hoppin, Richard (1978). Medieval Music. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-09090-6.
- Kelly, Thomas Forrest (1989). The Beneventan Chant. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-34310-0.
- Wilson, David (1990). Music of the Middle Ages. Schirmer Books. ISBN 0-02-872951-X.
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Riemann hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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|Millennium Prize Problems|
In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis, proposed by Bernhard Riemann (1859), is a conjecture that the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function all have real part 1/2. The name is also used for some closely related analogues, such as the Riemann hypothesis for curves over finite fields.
The Riemann hypothesis implies results about the distribution of prime numbers. Along with suitable generalizations, it is considered by some mathematicians to be the most important unresolved problem in pure mathematics (Bombieri 2000). The Riemann hypothesis, along with the Goldbach conjecture, is part of Hilbert's eighth problem in David Hilbert's list of 23 unsolved problems; it is also one of the Clay Mathematics Institute Millennium Prize Problems.
The Riemann zeta function ζ(s) is defined for all complex numbers s ≠ 1 with a simple pole at s = 1. It has zeros at the negative even integers (i.e. at s = −2, −4, −6, ...). These are called the trivial zeros. The Riemann hypothesis is concerned with the non-trivial zeros, and states that:
- The real part of any non-trivial zero of the Riemann zeta function is 1/2.
There are several nontechnical books on the Riemann hypothesis, such as Derbyshire (2003), Rockmore (2005), Sabbagh (2003), du Sautoy (2003). The books Edwards (1974), Patterson (1988) and Borwein et al. (2008) give mathematical introductions, while Titchmarsh (1986), Ivić (1985) and Karatsuba & Voronin (1992) are advanced monographs.
Riemann zeta function
where the infinite product extends over all prime numbers p, and again converges for complex s with real part greater than 1. The convergence of the Euler product shows that ζ(s) has no zeros in this region, as none of the factors have zeros.
The Riemann hypothesis discusses zeros outside the region of convergence of this series, so it needs to be analytically continued to all complex s. This can be done by expressing it in terms of the Dirichlet eta function as follows. If s is greater than one, then the zeta function satisfies
However, the series on the right converges not just when s is greater than one, but more generally whenever s has positive real part. Thus, this alternative series extends the zeta function from Re(s) > 1 to the larger domain Re(s) > 0, excluding the zeros of (see Dirichlet eta function).
In the strip 0 < Re(s) < 1 the zeta function also satisfies the functional equation
One may then define ζ(s) for all remaining nonzero complex numbers s by assuming that this equation holds outside the strip as well, and letting ζ(s) equal the right-hand side of the equation whenever s has non-positive real part. If s is a negative even integer then ζ(s) = 0 because the factor sin(πs/2) vanishes; these are the trivial zeros of the zeta function. (If s is a positive even integer this argument does not apply because the zeros of sin are cancelled by the poles of the gamma function as it takes negative integer arguments.) The value ζ(0) = −1/2 is not determined by the functional equation, but is the limiting value of ζ(s) as s approaches zero. The functional equation also implies that the zeta function has no zeros with negative real part other than the trivial zeros, so all non-trivial zeros lie in the critical strip where s has real part between 0 and 1.
In his 1859 paper On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude Riemann found an explicit formula for the number of primes π(x) less than a given number x. His formula was given in terms of the related function
which counts primes where a prime power pn counts as 1/n of a prime. The number of primes can be recovered from this function by
where μ is the Möbius function. Riemann's formula is then
where the sum is over the nontrivial zeros of the zeta function and where Π0 is a slightly modified version of Π that replaces its value at its points of discontinuity by the average of its upper and lower limits:
The summation in Riemann's formula is not absolutely convergent, but may be evaluated by taking the zeros ρ in order of the absolute value of their imaginary part. The function Li occurring in the first term is the (unoffset) logarithmic integral function given by the Cauchy principal value of the divergent integral
The terms Li(xρ) involving the zeros of the zeta function need some care in their definition as Li has branch points at 0 and 1, and are defined (for x > 1) by analytic continuation in the complex variable ρ in the region Re(ρ) > 0, i.e. they should be considered as Ei(ρ ln x). The other terms also correspond to zeros: the dominant term Li(x) comes from the pole at s = 1, considered as a zero of multiplicity −1, and the remaining small terms come from the trivial zeros. For some graphs of the sums of the first few terms of this series see Riesel & Göhl (1970) or Zagier (1977).
This formula says that the zeros of the Riemann zeta function control the oscillations of primes around their "expected" positions. Riemann knew that the non-trivial zeros of the zeta function were symmetrically distributed about the line s = 1/2 + it, and he knew that all of its non-trivial zeros must lie in the range 0 ≤ Re(s) ≤ 1. He checked that a few of the zeros lay on the critical line with real part 1/2 and suggested that they all do; this is the Riemann hypothesis.
Consequences of the Riemann hypothesis
The practical uses of the Riemann hypothesis include many propositions which are known to be true under the Riemann hypothesis, and some which can be shown to be equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis.
Distribution of prime numbers
Riemann's explicit formula for the number of primes less than a given number in terms of a sum over the zeros of the Riemann zeta function says that the magnitude of the oscillations of primes around their expected position is controlled by the real parts of the zeros of the zeta function. In particular the error term in the prime number theorem is closely related to the position of the zeros: for example, the supremum of real parts of the zeros is the infimum of numbers β such that the error is O(xβ)(Ingham 1932).
Von Koch (1901) proved that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to the "best possible" bound for the error of the prime number theorem.
A precise version of Koch's result, due to Schoenfeld (1976), says that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to
Growth of arithmetic functions
The Riemann hypothesis implies strong bounds on the growth of many other arithmetic functions, in addition to the primes counting function above.
One example involves the Möbius function μ. The statement that the equation
is valid for every s with real part greater than 1/2, with the sum on the right hand side converging, is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis. From this we can also conclude that if the Mertens function is defined by
then the claim that
for every positive ε is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis (Titchmarsh 1986). (For the meaning of these symbols, see Big O notation.) The determinant of the order n Redheffer matrix is equal to M(n), so the Riemann hypothesis can also be stated as a condition on the growth of these determinants. The Riemann hypothesis puts a rather tight bound on the growth of M, since Odlyzko & te Riele (1985) disproved the slightly stronger Mertens conjecture
The Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to many other conjectures about the rate of growth of other arithmetic functions aside from μ(n). A typical example is Robin's theorem (Robin 1984), which states that if σ(n) is the divisor function, given by
for all n > 5040 if and only if the Riemann hypothesis is true, where γ is the Euler–Mascheroni constant.
Another example was found by Jérôme Franel, and extended by Landau (see Franel & Landau (1924)). The Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to several statements showing that the terms of the Farey sequence are fairly regular. One such equivalence is as follows: if Fn is the Farey sequence of order n, beginning with 1/n and up to 1/1, then the claim that for all ε > 0
is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis. Here
is the number of terms in the Farey sequence of order n.
For an example from group theory, if g(n) is Landau's function given by the maximal order of elements of the symmetric group Sn of degree n, then Massias, Nicolas & Robin (1988) showed that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to the bound
for all sufficiently large n.
Lindelöf hypothesis and growth of the zeta function
The Riemann hypothesis has various weaker consequences as well; one is the Lindelöf hypothesis on the rate of growth of the zeta function on the critical line, which says that, for any ε > 0,
as t → ∞.
The Riemann hypothesis also implies quite sharp bounds for the growth rate of the zeta function in other regions of the critical strip. For example, it implies that
so the growth rate of ζ(1+it) and its inverse would be known up to a factor of 2 (Titchmarsh 1986).
Large prime gap conjecture
The prime number theorem implies that on average, the gap between the prime p and its successor is log p. However, some gaps between primes may be much larger than the average. Cramér proved that, assuming the Riemann hypothesis, every gap is O(√p log p). This is a case in which even the best bound that can be proved using the Riemann Hypothesis is far weaker than what seems to be true: Cramér's conjecture implies that every gap is O((log p)2) which, while larger than the average gap, is far smaller than the bound implied by the Riemann hypothesis. Numerical evidence supports Cramér's conjecture (Nicely 1999).
Criteria equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis
Many statements equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis have been found, though so far none of them have led to much progress in proving (or disproving) it. Some typical examples are as follows. (Others involve the divisor function σ(n).)
holds for all ε > 0 if and only if the Riemann hypothesis holds.
Nyman (1950) proved that the Riemann Hypothesis is true if and only if the space of functions of the form
where ρ(z) is the fractional part of z, 0 ≤ θν ≤ 1, and
is dense in the Hilbert space L2(0,1) of square-integrable functions on the unit interval.Beurling (1955) extended this by showing that the zeta function has no zeros with real part greater than 1/p if and only if this function space is dense in Lp(0,1)
Salem (1953) showed that the Riemann hypothesis is true if and only if the integral equation
has no non-trivial bounded solutions φ for 1/2<σ<1.
Weil's criterion is the statement that the positivity of a certain function is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis. Related is Li's criterion, a statement that the positivity of a certain sequence of numbers is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis.
Speiser (1934) proved that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to the statement that , the derivative of ζ(s), has no zeros in the strip
That ζ has only simple zeros on the critical line is equivalent (by definition) to its derivative having no zeros on the critical line.
Consequences of the generalized Riemann hypothesis
Several applications use the generalized Riemann hypothesis for Dirichlet L-series or zeta functions of number fields rather than just the Riemann hypothesis. Many basic properties of the Riemann zeta function can easily be generalized to all Dirichlet L-series, so it is plausible that a method that proves the Riemann hypothesis for the Riemann zeta function would also work for the generalized Riemann hypothesis for Dirichlet L-functions. Several results first proved using the generalized Riemann hypothesis were later given unconditional proofs without using it, though these were usually much harder. Many of the consequences on the following list are taken from Conrad (2010).
- In 1913, Gronwall showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies that Gauss's list of imaginary quadratic fields with class number 1 is complete, though Baker, Stark and Heegner later gave unconditional proofs of this without using the generalized Riemann hypothesis.
- In 1917, Hardy and Littlewood showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies a conjecture of Chebyshev that
- which says that in some sense primes 3 mod 4 are more common than primes 1 mod 4.
- In 1923 Hardy and Littlewood showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies a weak form of the Goldbach conjecture for odd numbers: that every sufficiently large odd number is the sum of three primes, though in 1937 Vinogradov gave an unconditional proof. In 1997 Deshouillers, Effinger, te Riele, and Zinoviev showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies that every odd number greater than 5 is the sum of three primes.
- In 1934, Chowla showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies that the first prime in the arithmetic progression a mod m is at most Km2log(m)2 for some fixed constant K.
- In 1967, Hooley showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies Artin's conjecture on primitive roots.
- In 1973, Weinberger showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies that Euler's list of idoneal numbers is complete.
- Weinberger (1973) showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis for the zeta functions of all algebraic number fields implies that any number field with class number 1 is either Euclidean or an imaginary quadratic number field of discriminant −19, −43, −67, or −163.
- In 1976, G. Miller showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies that one can test if a number is prime in polynomial time via the Miller test. In 2002, Manindra Agrawal, Neeraj Kayal and Nitin Saxena proved this result unconditionally using the AKS primality test.
- Odlyzko (1990) discussed how the generalized Riemann hypothesis can be used to give sharper estimates for discriminants and class numbers of number fields.
- Ono & Soundararajan (1997) showed that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies that Ramanujan's integral quadratic form x2 +y2 + 10z2 represents all integers that it represents locally, with exactly 18 exceptions.
Excluded middle
The method of proof here is truly amazing. If the generalized Riemann hypothesis is true, then the theorem is true. If the generalized Riemann hypothesis is false, then the theorem is true. Thus, the theorem is true!! (punctuation in original)
Care should be taken to understand what is meant by saying the generalized Riemann hypothesis is false: exactly which class of Dirichlet series is supposed to have a counterexample should be clearly indicated to avoid confusion.
Littlewood's theorem
In 1914 Littlewood proved that there are arbitrarily large values of x for which
and that there are also arbitrarily large values of x for which
Thus the difference π(x) − Li(x) changes sign infinitely many times. Skewes' number is an estimate of the value of x corresponding to the first sign change.
His proof is divided into two cases: the RH is assumed to be false (about half a page of Ingham 1932, Chapt. V), and the RH is assumed to be true (about a dozen pages).
Gauss's class number conjecture
This is the conjecture (first stated in article 303 of Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae) that there are only a finite number of imaginary quadratic fields with a given class number. One way to prove it would be to show that as the discriminant D → −∞ the class number h(D) → ∞.
The following sequence of theorems involving the Riemann hypothesis is described in Ireland & Rosen 1990, pp. 358–361:
Theorem (Hecke; 1918). Let D < 0 be the discriminant of an imaginary quadratic number field K. Assume the generalized Riemann hypothesis for L-functions of all imaginary quadratic Dirichlet characters. Then there is an absolute constant C such that
Theorem (Deuring; 1933). If the RH is false then h(D) > 1 if |D| is sufficiently large.
Theorem (Mordell; 1934). If the RH is false then h(D) → ∞ as D → −∞.
Theorem (Heilbronn; 1934). If the generalized RH is false for the L-function of some imaginary quadratic Dirichlet character then h(D) → ∞ as D → −∞.
(In the work of Hecke and Heilbronn, the only L-functions that occur are those attached to imaginary quadratic characters, and it is only for those L-functions that GRH is true or GRH is false is intended; a failure of GRH for the L-function of a cubic Dirichlet character would, strictly speaking, mean GRH is false, but that was not the kind of failure of GRH that Heilbronn had in mind, so his assumption was more restricted than simply GRH is false.)
In 1935, Carl Siegel later strengthened the result without using RH or GRH in any way.
Growth of Euler's totient
In 1983 J. L. Nicolas proved (Ribenboim 1996, p. 320) that
Ribenboim remarks that:
The method of proof is interesting, in that the inequality is shown first under the assumption that the Riemann hypothesis is true, secondly under the contrary assumption.
Generalizations and analogs of the Riemann hypothesis
Dirichlet L-series and other number fields
The Riemann hypothesis can be generalized by replacing the Riemann zeta function by the formally similar, but much more general, global L-functions. In this broader setting, one expects the non-trivial zeros of the global L-functions to have real part 1/2. It is these conjectures, rather than the classical Riemann hypothesis only for the single Riemann zeta function, which accounts for the true importance of the Riemann hypothesis in mathematics.
The generalized Riemann hypothesis extends the Riemann hypothesis to all Dirichlet L-functions. In particular it implies the conjecture that Siegel zeros (zeros of L-functions between 1/2 and 1) do not exist.
The extended Riemann hypothesis extends the Riemann hypothesis to all Dedekind zeta functions of algebraic number fields. The extended Riemann hypothesis for abelian extension of the rationals is equivalent to the generalized Riemann hypothesis. The Riemann hypothesis can also be extended to the L-functions of Hecke characters of number fields.
Function fields and zeta functions of varieties over finite fields
Artin (1924) introduced global zeta functions of (quadratic) function fields and conjectured an analogue of the Riemann hypothesis for them, which has been proven by Hasse in the genus 1 case and by Weil (1948) in general. For instance, the fact that the Gauss sum, of the quadratic character of a finite field of size q (with q odd), has absolute value
is actually an instance of the Riemann hypothesis in the function field setting. This led Weil (1949) to conjecture a similar statement for all algebraic varieties; the resulting Weil conjectures were proven by Pierre Deligne (1974, 1980).
Arithmetic zeta functions of arithmetic schemes and their L-factors
Arithmetic zeta functions generalise the Riemann and Dedekind zeta functions as well as the zeta functions of varieties over finite fields to every arithmetic scheme or a scheme of finite type over integers. The arithmetic zeta function of a regular connected equidimensional arithmetic scheme of Kronecker dimension n can be factorized into the product of appropriately defined L-factors and an auxiliary factor Jean-Pierre Serre (1970). Assuming a functional equation and meromorphic continuation, the generalized Riemann hypothesis for the L-factor states that its zeros inside the critical strip lie on the central line. Correspondingly, the generalized Riemann hypothesis for the arithmetic zeta function of a regular connected equidimensional arithmetic scheme states that its zeros inside the critical strip lie on vertical lines and its poles inside the critical strip lie on vertical lines . This is known for schemes in positive characteristic and follows from Pierre Deligne (1974, 1980), but remains entirely unknown in characteristic zero.
Selberg zeta functions
Selberg (1956) introduced the Selberg zeta function of a Riemann surface. These are similar to the Riemann zeta function: they have a functional equation, and an infinite product similar to the Euler product but taken over closed geodesics rather than primes. The Selberg trace formula is the analogue for these functions of the explicit formulas in prime number theory. Selberg proved that the Selberg zeta functions satisfy the analogue of the Riemann hypothesis, with the imaginary parts of their zeros related to the eigenvalues of the Laplacian operator of the Riemann surface.
Ihara zeta functions
The Ihara zeta function of a finite graph is an analogue of the Selberg zeta function introduced by Yasutaka Ihara. A regular finite graph is a Ramanujan graph, a mathematical model of efficient communication networks, if and only if its Ihara zeta function satisfies the analogue of the Riemann hypothesis as was pointed out by T. Sunada.
Montgomery's pair correlation conjecture
Montgomery (1973) suggested the pair correlation conjecture that the correlation functions of the (suitably normalized) zeros of the zeta function should be the same as those of the eigenvalues of a random hermitian matrix. Odlyzko (1987) showed that this is supported by large scale numerical calculations of these correlation functions.
Montgomery showed that (assuming the Riemann hypothesis) at least 2/3 of all zeros are simple, and a related conjecture is that all zeros of the zeta function are simple (or more generally have no non-trivial integer linear relations between their imaginary parts). Dedekind zeta functions of algebraic number fields, which generalize the Riemann zeta function, often do have multiple complex zeros. This is because the Dedekind zeta functions factorize as a product of powers of Artin L-functions, so zeros of Artin L-functions sometimes give rise to multiple zeros of Dedekind zeta functions. Other examples of zeta functions with multiple zeros are the L-functions of some elliptic curves: these can have multiple zeros at the real point of their critical line; the Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture predicts that the multiplicity of this zero is the rank of the elliptic curve.
Other zeta functions
There are many other examples of zeta functions with analogues of the Riemann hypothesis, some of which have been proved. Goss zeta functions of function fields have a Riemann hypothesis, proved by Sheats (1998). The main conjecture of Iwasawa theory, proved by Barry Mazur and Andrew Wiles for cyclotomic fields, and Wiles for totally real fields, identifies the zeros of a p-adic L-function with the eigenvalues of an operator, so can be thought of as an analogue of the Hilbert–Pólya conjecture for p-adic L-functions (Wiles 2000).
Attempts to prove the Riemann hypothesis
Several mathematicians have addressed the Riemann hypothesis, but none of their attempts have yet been accepted as correct solutions. Watkins (2007) lists some incorrect solutions, and more are frequently announced.
Operator theory
Hilbert and Polya suggested that one way to derive the Riemann hypothesis would be to find a self-adjoint operator, from the existence of which the statement on the real parts of the zeros of ζ(s) would follow when one applies the criterion on real eigenvalues. Some support for this idea comes from several analogues of the Riemann zeta functions whose zeros correspond to eigenvalues of some operator: the zeros of a zeta function of a variety over a finite field correspond to eigenvalues of a Frobenius element on an étale cohomology group, the zeros of a Selberg zeta function are eigenvalues of a Laplacian operator of a Riemann surface, and the zeros of a p-adic zeta function correspond to eigenvectors of a Galois action on ideal class groups.
Odlyzko (1987) showed that the distribution of the zeros of the Riemann zeta function shares some statistical properties with the eigenvalues of random matrices drawn from the Gaussian unitary ensemble. This gives some support to the Hilbert–Pólya conjecture.
and even more strongly, that the Riemann zeros coincide with the spectrum of the operator . This is to be contrasted to canonical quantization which leads to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the natural numbers as spectrum of the quantum harmonic oscillator. The crucial point is that the Hamiltonian should be a self-adjoint operator so that the quantization would be a realization of the Hilbert–Pólya program. In a connection with this quantum mechanical problem Berry and Connes had proposed that the inverse of the potential of the Hamiltonian is connected to the half-derivative of the function
then, in Berry–Connes approach
(Connes 1999). This yields to a Hamiltonian whose eigenvalues are the square of the imaginary part of the Riemann zeros, and also the functional determinant of this Hamiltonian operator is just the Riemann Xi function. In fact the Riemann Xi function would be proportional to the functional determinant (Hadamard product)
as proven by Connes and others, in this approach
The analogy with the Riemann hypothesis over finite fields suggests that the Hilbert space containing eigenvectors corresponding to the zeros might be some sort of first cohomology group of the spectrum Spec(Z) of the integers. Deninger (1998) described some of the attempts to find such a cohomology theory (Leichtnam 2005).
Zagier (1983) constructed a natural space of invariant functions on the upper half plane which has eigenvalues under the Laplacian operator corresponding to zeros of the Riemann zeta function, and remarked that in the unlikely event that one could show the existence of a suitable positive definite inner product on this space the Riemann hypothesis would follow. Cartier (1982) discussed a related example, where due to a bizarre bug a computer program listed zeros of the Riemann zeta function as eigenvalues of the same Laplacian operator.
Schumayer & Hutchinson (2011) surveyed some of the attempts to construct a suitable physical model related to the Riemann zeta function.
Lee–Yang theorem
The Lee–Yang theorem states that the zeros of certain partition functions in statistical mechanics all lie on a "critical line" with real part 0, and this has led to some speculation about a relationship with the Riemann hypothesis (Knauf 1999).
Turán's result
have no zeros when the real part of s is greater than one then
where λ(n) is the Liouville function given by (−1)r if n has r prime factors. He showed that this in turn would imply that the Riemann hypothesis is true. However Haselgrove (1958) proved that T(x) is negative for infinitely many x (and also disproved the closely related Pólya conjecture), and Borwein, Ferguson & Mossinghoff (2008) showed that the smallest such x is 72185376951205. Spira (1968) showed by numerical calculation that the finite Dirichlet series above for N=19 has a zero with real part greater than 1. Turán also showed that a somewhat weaker assumption, the nonexistence of zeros with real part greater than 1+N−1/2+ε for large N in the finite Dirichlet series above, would also imply the Riemann hypothesis, but Montgomery (1983) showed that for all sufficiently large N these series have zeros with real part greater than 1 + (log log N)/(4 log N). Therefore, Turán's result is vacuously true and cannot be used to help prove the Riemann hypothesis.
Noncommutative geometry
Connes (1999, 2000) has described a relationship between the Riemann hypothesis and noncommutative geometry, and shows that a suitable analog of the Selberg trace formula for the action of the idèle class group on the adèle class space would imply the Riemann hypothesis. Some of these ideas are elaborated in Lapidus (2008).
Hilbert spaces of entire functions
Louis de Branges (1992) showed that the Riemann hypothesis would follow from a positivity condition on a certain Hilbert space of entire functions. However Conrey & Li (2000) showed that the necessary positivity conditions are not satisfied.
The Riemann hypothesis implies that the zeros of the zeta function form a quasicrystal, meaning a distribution with discrete support whose Fourier transform also has discrete support. Dyson (2009) suggested trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis by classifying, or at least studying, 1-dimensional quasicrystals.
Arithmetic zeta functions of models of elliptic curves over number fields
When one goes from geometric dimension one, e.g. an algebraic number field, to geometric dimension two, e.g. a regular model of an elliptic curve over a number field, the two-dimensional part of the generalized Riemann hypothesis for the arithmetic zeta function of the model deals with the poles of the zeta function. In dimension one the study of the zeta integral in Tate's thesis does not lead to new important information on the Riemann hypothesis. Contrary to this, in dimension two work of Ivan Fesenko on two-dimensional generalisation of Tate's thesis includes an integral representation of a zeta integral closely related to the zeta function. In this new situation, not possible in dimension one, the poles of the zeta function can be studied via the zeta integral and associated adele groups. Related conjecture of Fesenko (2010) on the positivity of the fourth derivative of a boundary function associated to the zeta integral essentially implies the pole part of the generalized Riemann hypothesis. Suzuki (2011) proved that the latter, together with some technical assumptions, implies Fesenko's conjecture.
Multiple zeta functions
Deligne's proof of the Riemann hypothesis over finite fields used the zeta functions of product varieties, whose zeros and poles correspond to sums of zeros and poles of the original zeta function, in order to bound the real parts of the zeros of the original zeta function. By analogy, Kurokawa (1992) introduced multiple zeta functions whose zeros and poles correspond to sums of zeros and poles of the Riemann zeta function. To make the series converge he restricted to sums of zeros or poles all with non-negative imaginary part. So far, the known bounds on the zeros and poles of the multiple zeta functions are not strong enough to give useful estimates for the zeros of the Riemann zeta function.
Location of the zeros
Number of zeros
The functional equation combined with the argument principle implies that the number of zeros of the zeta function with imaginary part between 0 and T is given by
for s=1/2+iT, where the argument is defined by varying it continuously along the line with Im(s)=T, starting with argument 0 at ∞+iT. This is the sum of a large but well understood term
and a small but rather mysterious term
So the density of zeros with imaginary part near T is about log(T)/2π, and the function S describes the small deviations from this. The function S(t) jumps by 1 at each zero of the zeta function, and for t ≥ 8 it decreases monotonically between zeros with derivative close to −log t.
Karatsuba (1996) proved that every interval (T, T+H] for contains at least
points where the function S(t) changes sign.
Selberg (1946) showed that the average moments of even powers of S are given by
This suggests that S(T)/(log log T)1/2 resembles a Gaussian random variable with mean 0 and variance 2π2 (Ghosh (1983) proved this fact). In particular |S(T)| is usually somewhere around (log log T)1/2, but occasionally much larger. The exact order of growth of S(T) is not known. There has been no unconditional improvement to Riemann's original bound S(T)=O(log T), though the Riemann hypothesis implies the slightly smaller bound S(T)=O(log T/log log T) (Titchmarsh 1985). The true order of magnitude may be somewhat less than this, as random functions with the same distribution as S(T) tend to have growth of order about log(T)1/2. In the other direction it cannot be too small: Selberg (1946) showed that S(T) ≠ o((log T)1/3/(log log T)7/3), and assuming the Riemann hypothesis Montgomery showed that S(T) ≠ o((log T)1/2/(log log T)1/2).
Numerical calculations confirm that S grows very slowly: |S(T)| < 1 for T < 280, |S(T)| < 2 for T < 6800000, and the largest value of |S(T)| found so far is not much larger than 3 (Odlyzko 2002).
Riemann's estimate S(T) = O(log T) implies that the gaps between zeros are bounded, and Littlewood improved this slightly, showing that the gaps between their imaginary parts tends to 0.
Theorem of Hadamard and de la Vallée-Poussin
Hadamard (1896) and de la Vallée-Poussin (1896) independently proved that no zeros could lie on the line Re(s) = 1. Together with the functional equation and the fact that there are no zeros with real part greater than 1, this showed that all non-trivial zeros must lie in the interior of the critical strip 0 < Re(s) < 1. This was a key step in their first proofs of the prime number theorem.
Both the original proofs that the zeta function has no zeros with real part 1 are similar, and depend on showing that if ζ(1+it) vanishes, then ζ(1+2it) is singular, which is not possible. One way of doing this is by using the inequality
for σ > 1, t real, and looking at the limit as σ → 1. This inequality follows by taking the real part of the log of the Euler product to see that
where the sum is over all prime powers pn, so that
which is at least 1 because all the terms in the sum are positive, due to the inequality
Zero-free regions
De la Vallée-Poussin (1899-1900) proved that if σ+it is a zero of the Riemann zeta function, then 1−σ ≥ C/log(t) for some positive constant C. In other words zeros cannot be too close to the line σ = 1: there is a zero-free region close to this line. This zero-free region has been enlarged by several authors.Ford (2002) gave a version with explicit numerical constants: ζ(σ + it) ≠ 0 whenever |t| ≥ 3 and
Zeros on the critical line
Hardy (1914) and Hardy & Littlewood (1921) showed there are infinitely many zeros on the critical line, by considering moments of certain functions related to the zeta function. Selberg (1942) proved that at least a (small) positive proportion of zeros lie on the line. Levinson (1974) improved this to one-third of the zeros by relating the zeros of the zeta function to those of its derivative, and Conrey (1989) improved this further to two-fifths.
Most zeros lie close to the critical line. More precisely, Bohr & Landau (1914) showed that for any positive ε, all but an infinitely small proportion of zeros lie within a distance ε of the critical line. Ivić (1985) gives several more precise versions of this result, called zero density estimates, which bound the number of zeros in regions with imaginary part at most T and real part at least 1/2+ε.
Hardy–Littlewood conjectures
In 1914 Godfrey Harold Hardy proved that has infinitely many real zeros.
Let N(T) be the total number of real zeros, be the total number of zeros of odd order of the function
lying on the interval (0, T].
The next two conjectures of Hardy and John Edensor Littlewood on the distance between real zeros of and on the density of zeros of on intervals (T, T+H] for sufficiently large T > 0, and with as less as possible value of a > 0, where ε > 0 is an arbitrarily small number, open two new directions in the investigation of the Riemann zeta function:
1. for any ε > 0 there exists such that for and the interval contains a zero of odd order of the function .
2. for any ε > 0 there exist and c = c(ε) > 0, such that for and the inequality is true.
Selberg conjecture
Atle Selberg (1942) investigated the problem of Hardy–Littlewood 2 and proved that for any ε > 0 there exists such and c = c(ε) > 0, such that for and the inequality is true. Selberg conjectured that this could be tightened to . A. A. Karatsuba (1984a, 1984b, 1985) proved that for a fixed ε satisfying the condition 0 < ε < 0.001, a sufficiently large T and , , the interval (T, T+H) contains at least cHln(T) real zeros of the Riemann zeta function and therefore confirmed the Selberg conjecture. The estimates of Selberg and Karatsuba can not be improved in respect of the order of growth as T → ∞.
Karatsuba (1992) proved that an analog of the Selberg conjecture holds for almost all intervals (T, T+H], , where ε is an arbitrarily small fixed positive number. The Karatsuba method permits to investigate zeros of the Riemann zeta-function on "supershort" intervals of the critical line, that is, on the intervals (T, T+H], the length H of which grows slower than any, even arbitrarily small degree T. In particular, he proved that for any given numbers ε, satisfying the conditions almost all intervals (T, T+H] for contain at least zeros of the function . This estimate is quite close to the one that follows from the Riemann hypothesis.
Numerical calculations
has the same zeros as the zeta function in the critical strip, and is real on the critical line because of the functional equation, so one can prove the existence of zeros exactly on the real line between two points by checking numerically that the function has opposite signs at these points. Usually one writes
where Hardy's function Z and the Riemann–Siegel theta function θ are uniquely defined by this and the condition that they are smooth real functions with θ(0)=0. By finding many intervals where the function Z changes sign one can show that there are many zeros on the critical line. To verify the Riemann hypothesis up to a given imaginary part T of the zeros, one also has to check that there are no further zeros off the line in this region. This can be done by calculating the total number of zeros in the region and checking that it is the same as the number of zeros found on the line. This allows one to verify the Riemann hypothesis computationally up to any desired value of T (provided all the zeros of the zeta function in this region are simple and on the critical line).
Some calculations of zeros of the zeta function are listed below. So far all zeros that have been checked are on the critical line and are simple. (A multiple zero would cause problems for the zero finding algorithms, which depend on finding sign changes between zeros.) For tables of the zeros, see Haselgrove & Miller (1960) or Odlyzko.
|Year||Number of zeros||Author|
|1859?||3||B. Riemann used the Riemann–Siegel formula (unpublished, but reported in Siegel 1932).|
|1903||15||J. P. Gram (1903) used Euler–Maclaurin summation and discovered Gram's law. He showed that all 10 zeros with imaginary part at most 50 range lie on the critical line with real part 1/2 by computing the sum of the inverse 10th powers of the roots he found.|
|1914||79 (γn ≤ 200)||R. J. Backlund (1914) introduced a better method of checking all the zeros up to that point are on the line, by studying the argument S(T) of the zeta function.|
|1925||138 (γn ≤ 300)||J. I. Hutchinson (1925) found the first failure of Gram's law, at the Gram point g126.|
|1935||195||E. C. Titchmarsh (1935) used the recently rediscovered Riemann–Siegel formula, which is much faster than Euler–Maclaurin summation. It takes about O(T3/2+ε) steps to check zeros with imaginary part less than T, while the Euler–Maclaurin method takes about O(T2+ε) steps.|
|1936||1041||E. C. Titchmarsh (1936) and L. J. Comrie were the last to find zeros by hand.|
|1953||1104||A. M. Turing (1953) found a more efficient way to check that all zeros up to some point are accounted for by the zeros on the line, by checking that Z has the correct sign at several consecutive Gram points and using the fact that S(T) has average value 0. This requires almost no extra work because the sign of Z at Gram points is already known from finding the zeros, and is still the usual method used. This was the first use of a digital computer to calculate the zeros.|
|1956||15000||D. H. Lehmer (1956) discovered a few cases where the zeta function has zeros that are "only just" on the line: two zeros of the zeta function are so close together that it is unusually difficult to find a sign change between them. This is called "Lehmer's phenomenon", and first occurs at the zeros with imaginary parts 7005.063 and 7005.101, which differ by only .04 while the average gap between other zeros near this point is about 1.|
|1956||25000||D. H. Lehmer|
|1958||35337||N. A. Meller|
|1966||250000||R. S. Lehman|
|1968||3500000||Rosser, Yohe & Schoenfeld (1969) stated Rosser's rule (described below).|
|1977||40000000||R. P. Brent|
|1979||81000001||R. P. Brent|
|1982||200000001||R. P. Brent, J. van de Lune, H. J. J. te Riele, D. T. Winter|
|1983||300000001||J. van de Lune, H. J. J. te Riele|
|1986||1500000001||van de Lune, te Riele & Winter (1986) gave some statistical data about the zeros and give several graphs of Z at places where it has unusual behavior.|
|1987||A few of large (~1012) height||A. M. Odlyzko (1987) computed smaller numbers of zeros of much larger height, around 1012, to high precision to check Montgomery's pair correlation conjecture.|
|1992||A few of large (~1020) height||A. M. Odlyzko (1992) computed a 175 million zeroes of heights around 1020 and a few more of heights around 2×1020, and gave an extensive discussion of the results.|
|1998||10000 of large (~1021) height||A. M. Odlyzko (1998) computed some zeros of height about 1021|
|2001||10000000000||J. van de Lune (unpublished)|
|2004||900000000000||S. Wedeniwski (ZetaGrid distributed computing)|
|2004||10000000000000 and a few of large (up to ~1024) heights||X. Gourdon (2004) and Patrick Demichel used the Odlyzko–Schönhage algorithm. They also checked two billion zeros around heights 1013, 1014, ..., 1024.|
Gram points
A Gram point is a point on the critical line 1/2 + it where the zeta function is real and non-zero. Using the expression for the zeta function on the critical line, ζ(1/2 + it) = Z(t)e − iθ(t), where Hardy's function, Z, is real for real t, and θ is the Riemann–Siegel theta function, we see that zeta is real when sin(θ(t)) = 0. This implies that θ(t) is an integer multiple of π which allows for the location of Gram points to be calculated fairly easily by inverting the formula for θ. They are usually numbered as gn for n = 0, 1, ..., where gn is the unique solution of θ(t) = nπ.
Gram observed that there was often exactly one zero of the zeta function between any two Gram points; Hutchinson called this observation Gram's law. There are several other closely related statements that are also sometimes called Gram's law: for example, (−1)nZ(gn) is usually positive, or Z(t) usually has opposite sign at consecutive Gram points. The imaginary parts γn of the first few zeros (in blue) and the first few Gram points gn are given in the following table
The first failure of Gram's law occurs at the 127'th zero and the Gram point g126, which are in the "wrong" order.
A Gram point t is called good if the zeta function is positive at 1/2 + it. The indices of the "bad" Gram points where Z has the "wrong" sign are 126, 134, 195, 211, ... (sequence A114856 in OEIS). A Gram block is an interval bounded by two good Gram points such that all the Gram points between them are bad. A refinement of Gram's law called Rosser's rule due to Rosser, Yohe & Schoenfeld (1969) says that Gram blocks often have the expected number of zeros in them (the same as the number of Gram intervals), even though some of the individual Gram intervals in the block may not have exactly one zero in them. For example, the interval bounded by g125 and g127 is a Gram block containing a unique bad Gram point g126, and contains the expected number 2 of zeros although neither of its two Gram intervals contains a unique zero. Rosser et al. checked that there were no exceptions to Rosser's rule in the first 3 million zeros, although there are infinitely many exceptions to Rosser's rule over the entire zeta function.
Gram's rule and Rosser's rule both say that in some sense zeros do not stray too far from their expected positions. The distance of a zero from its expected position is controlled by the function S defined above, which grows extremely slowly: its average value is of the order of (log log T)1/2, which only reaches 2 for T around 1024. This means that both rules hold most of the time for small T but eventually break down often. Indeed Trudgian (2011) showed that both Gram's law and Rosser's rule fail in a positive proportion of cases. To be more specific, it is expected that in about 73% one zero is enclosed by two successive Gram points, but in 14% no zero and in 13% two zeros are in such a Gram-interval on the long run.
Arguments for and against the Riemann hypothesis
Mathematical papers about the Riemann hypothesis tend to be cautiously noncommittal about its truth. Of authors who express an opinion, most of them, such as Riemann (1859) or Bombieri (2000), imply that they expect (or at least hope) that it is true. The few authors who express serious doubt about it include Ivić (2008) who lists some reasons for being skeptical, and Littlewood (1962) who flatly states that he believes it to be false, and that there is no evidence whatever for it and no imaginable reason for it to be true. The consensus of the survey articles (Bombieri 2000, Conrey 2003, and Sarnak 2008) is that the evidence for it is strong but not overwhelming, so that while it is probably true there is some reasonable doubt about it.
- Several analogues of the Riemann hypothesis have already been proved. The proof of the Riemann hypothesis for varieties over finite fields by Deligne (1974) is possibly the single strongest theoretical reason in favor of the Riemann hypothesis. This provides some evidence for the more general conjecture that all zeta functions associated with automorphic forms satisfy a Riemann hypothesis, which includes the classical Riemann hypothesis as a special case. Similarly Selberg zeta functions satisfy the analogue of the Riemann hypothesis, and are in some ways similar to the Riemann zeta function, having a functional equation and an infinite product expansion analogous to the Euler product expansion. However there are also some major differences; for example they are not given by Dirichlet series. The Riemann hypothesis for the Goss zeta function was proved by Sheats (1998). In contrast to these positive examples, however, some Epstein zeta functions do not satisfy the Riemann hypothesis, even though they have an infinite number of zeros on the critical line (Titchmarsh 1986). These functions are quite similar to the Riemann zeta function, and have a Dirichlet series expansion and a functional equation, but the ones known to fail the Riemann hypothesis do not have an Euler product and are not directly related to automorphic representations.
- The numerical verification that many zeros lie on the line seems at first sight to be strong evidence for it. However analytic number theory has had many conjectures supported by large amounts of numerical evidence that turn out to be false. See Skewes number for a notorious example, where the first exception to a plausible conjecture related to the Riemann hypothesis probably occurs around 10316; a counterexample to the Riemann hypothesis with imaginary part this size would be far beyond anything that can currently be computed. The problem is that the behavior is often influenced by very slowly increasing functions such as log log T, that tend to infinity, but do so so slowly that this cannot be detected by computation. Such functions occur in the theory of the zeta function controlling the behavior of its zeros; for example the function S(T) above has average size around (log log T)1/2 . As S(T) jumps by at least 2 at any counterexample to the Riemann hypothesis, one might expect any counterexamples to the Riemann hypothesis to start appearing only when S(T) becomes large. It is never much more than 3 as far as it has been calculated, but is known to be unbounded, suggesting that calculations may not have yet reached the region of typical behavior of the zeta function.
- Denjoy's probabilistic argument for the Riemann hypothesis (Edwards 1974) is based on the observation that if μ(x) is a random sequence of "1"s and "−1"s then, for every ε > 0, the partial sums
- (the values of which are positions in a simple random walk) satisfy the bound
- with probability 1. The Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to this bound for the Möbius function μ and the Mertens function M derived in the same way from it. In other words, the Riemann hypothesis is in some sense equivalent to saying that μ(x) behaves like a random sequence of coin tosses. When μ(x) is non-zero its sign gives the parity of the number of prime factors of x, so informally the Riemann hypothesis says that the parity of the number of prime factors of an integer behaves randomly. Such probabilistic arguments in number theory often give the right answer, but tend to be very hard to make rigorous, and occasionally give the wrong answer for some results, such as Maier's theorem.
- The calculations in Odlyzko (1987) show that the zeros of the zeta function behave very much like the eigenvalues of a random Hermitian matrix, suggesting that they are the eigenvalues of some self-adjoint operator, which would imply the Riemann hypothesis. However all attempts to find such an operator have failed.
- There are several theorems, such as Goldbach's conjecture for sufficiently large odd numbers, that were first proved using the generalized Riemann hypothesis, and later shown to be true unconditionally. This could be considered as weak evidence for the generalized Riemann hypothesis, as several of its "predictions" turned out to be true.
- Lehmer's phenomenon (Lehmer 1956) where two zeros are sometimes very close is sometimes given as a reason to disbelieve in the Riemann hypothesis. However one would expect this to happen occasionally just by chance even if the Riemann hypothesis were true, and Odlyzko's calculations suggest that nearby pairs of zeros occur just as often as predicted by Montgomery's conjecture.
- Patterson (1988) suggests that the most compelling reason for the Riemann hypothesis for most mathematicians is the hope that primes are distributed as regularly as possible.
See also
- Generalized Riemann hypothesis
- Grand Riemann hypothesis
- Riemann hypothesis for curves over finite fields
- Hilbert's eighth problem
- Millennium Prize Problems
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Hydrocleaning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Hydrocleaning, high pressure cleaning or waterblasting, are terms which describe the use of water propelled at high speeds to clean surfaces and materials. By focusing and pressurizing the water stream, the force generated can remove films and materials such as:
- Paint from walls, metal, and highways
- Rubber from runways (airfield rubber removal)
- Sealants and membranes from concrete
- Gum from side walks
In order to standardize cleaning operations and surface preparation specifications, the Steel Structures Painting Council (SSPC) has adopted the following four definitions for cleaning operations using water jetting technology:
- Low-pressure water cleaning (LP WC) uses water pressure less than 5,000 psi (34 MPa);
- High-pressure water cleaning (HP WC) uses water pressure between 5,000 to 10,000 psi (34 to 70 MPa);
- High-pressure water jetting (HP WJ) uses water pressure between 10,000 to 25,000 psi (70 to 170 MPa);
- Ultrahigh-pressure water jetting uses pressures above 25,000 psi (170 MPa).
Surface preparation
Any time a rigid surface, such as asphalt, concrete or metal, needs to have a coating applied, the surface must first be prepared. Hydrocleaning has been used to prepare for the application of such coatings. Coatings are used to protect concrete from rain and salt, and to create a smoother surface for human use. Concrete can also be covered with carpet or tiles using a heavy duty glue or mastic. Asphalt and concrete can be painted to communicate acceptable travel patterns, potential hazards, or for aesthetics. Hydrocleaning can be used to remove such materials off.
High pressure water has been used to remove:
- Hot applied
- Paint from:
- Parking structures
- Metal surfaces
Airfield rubber removal
Airports are required to keep certain levels of friction on the landing strips in order to prevent planes from skidding off. Runway design, weather and amount of rubber on the runway all play a role in the level of friction of a landing strip. If too much rubber is present, especially in rainy weather, the friction of the landing strip will be lower requiring more distance for the plane to come to a stop after touching down. Hydrocleaning can be used to remove rubber particles which are peeled off airplane tires as they touch down, and thus restore required friction levels. The level of use (number of landings) determines how often a runway needs to be cleaned. This process of removal is sometimes known as Airfield rubber removal.
General surface cleaning
High pressure water can be used to clean surfaces that are dirtied by gum, pollution or graffiti.
See also
- Steel Structures Painting Council (1995), Surface Preparation and Cleaning of Steel and Other Hard Materials by High- and Ultrahigh-Pressure Water Jetting Prior to Recoating. Pittsburgh, PA. SSPC
- U.S. Water Jet Technology Association, Recommended Practices for the Use of Manually Operated High-Pressure Water Jetting Equipment, St.Louis, MO: US Water Jet Technology Association, 1987
- More about membrane and Coating Removal
- Hydro Runway Rubber Removal
- Chemical Runway Rubber Removal
- Hydrocleaning most commonly referred to as Pressure Cleaning To Remove Moss Growth or Oil Stains
- Surface cleaning of the Cathedral of Learning
- Hydrocleaning High Pressure Cleaning Technique
- Details of Rubber removal and Videos of Runway Rubber removal in action
- Sewer Cleaning heads and equipment - Hydrocleaning and Water Jetting
Tips for Choosing a hydrocleaning or Pressure Cleaning Contractor
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Volksgemeinschaft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
Volksgemeinschaft is a German-language expression meaning "people's community". Originally appearing during World War I as Germans rallied behind the war, it derived its popularity as a means to break down elitism and class divides.
Volksgemeinschaft refers to the concept of German national identity and social solidarity that became popular during World War I as Germans initially rallied together in 1914 to support the war. National solidarity was popular because it appeared as a means to break down class divide and elitism and was popular in both democratic and populist politics in Germany. In the aftermath of World War I, the volksgemeinschaft returned as interpreting economic catastrophes and hardship facing Germans during the Weimar Republic era as a common experience of Germans and perceived the need for German unity to bring about renewal to end the crisis. It was most famously used by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) to justify actions against Jews, profiteers, Marxists, and the Allies of World War I, whom the Nazis accused of obstructing German national regeneration that resulted in national disintegration in 1918 that they claimed caused Germany's defeat in World War I.
The concept is related to Ferdinand Tönnies' theory in his work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft ("Community and Society") of 1887 However, in the 1930s Tönnies joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1932 to oppose the rise of Nazism and had his honorary professorship removed when Hitler came to power.
There is an on-going debate among historians as to whether a Volksgemeinschaft was or was not successfully established between 1933 and 1945. This is a notably controversial topic of debate for obvious ethical and political reasons, and is made difficult by the ambiguous language employed by Hitler and the Nazis when talking about the Volksgemeinschaft.
Nazi Volksgemeinschaft
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In the aftermath of the November Revolution of 1918 that marked the end of the German Empire and the beginning of the Weimar Republic, there was strong animosity amongst many Germans towards the Weimar Republic and the social democrats who sponsored its creation. This was combined with anxiety in the 1930s with the severe economic crisis in Germany and abroad, in which many Germans faced unemployment. This situation resulted in increasing popularity for the Nazi Party, including amongst workers who desired a government that would resolve the economic crisis. While ascending to power, Hitler promised to restore faith in the Volk and to bring wholeness while accusing other politicians of tearing at German unity.
Upon rising to power in 1933, the Nazis sought to gain support of various elements of society. Their concept of Volksgemeinschaft was racially unified and organized hierarchically. This involved a mystical unity, a form of racial soul uniting all Germans. This soul was regarded as related to the land, in the doctrine of "blood and soil". Indeed, one reason for "blood and soil" was the belief that landowner and peasant lived in an organic harmony.
The Nazis solidified support amongst nationalists and conservatives by presenting themselves as allied with President Paul von Hindenburg who was considered a war hero of World War I in Germany. The Nazis sought to gain support of workers by declaring May Day, a day celebrated by organized labour, to be a paid holiday and held celebrations on 1 May 1933 to honour German workers. The Nazis stressed that Germany must honour its workers. The regime believed that the only way to avoid a repeat of the disaster of 1918 was to secure workers' support for the German government. The regime also insisted through propaganda that all Germans take part in the May Day celebrations in the hope that this would help break down class hostility between workers and burghers. Songs in praise of labour and workers were played by state radio throughout May Day as well as an airshow in Berlin and fireworks. Hitler spoke of workers as patriots who had built Germany's industrial strength and had honourably served in the war and claimed that they had been oppressed under economic liberalism. Berliner Morgenpost that had been strongly associated with the political left in the past praised the regime's May Day celebrations.
Bonfires were made of school children's differently colored caps as symbolic of the abolition of class differences.
The Nazis continued social welfare policies initiated by the governments of the Weimar Republic and mobilized volunteers to assist those impoverished, "racially-worthy" Germans through the National Socialist People's Welfare organization. This organization oversaw charitable activities, and became the largest civic organization in Nazi Germany. Successful efforts were made to get middle-class women involved in social work assisting large families. The Winter Relief campaigns acted as a ritual to generate public feeling.
Volksgemeinschaft in propaganda
Nazis gave a great deal of prominence to this new "folk community" in their propaganda, depicting the events of 1933 as a Volkwerdung, or a people becoming itself. The Volk were not just a people; a mystical soul united them, and propaganda continually portrayed individuals as part of a great whole, worth dying for. A common Nazi mantra declared they must put "collective need ahead of individual greed"—a widespread sentiment in this era. To exemplify and encourage such views, when the Hitlerjugend and Bund Deutscher Mädel collected for Winterhilfswerk or Winter Relief, totals were not reported for any individuals, only what the branch raised. The Winterhilfswerk campaigns themselves acted as a ritual to generate public feeling.
Hitler declared that he knew nothing of bourgeois or proletarian, only Germans. Volksgemeinschaft was portrayed as overcoming distinctions of party and social class. The commonality this created across classes was among the great appeals of Nazism.
After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler, on the trial, omitted his usual pre-putsch anti-Semitism and centered his defense on his selfless devotion to the good of the Volk and the need for bold action to save them. The Versailles settlement had betrayed Germany, which they had tried to save. Thereafter, his speeches concentrated on his boundless devotion to the Volk, though not entirely eliminating the anti-Semitism. Even once in power, his immediate speeches spoke of serving Germany. While the Reichstag fire was used to justify anti-Communist and anti-Semitic violence, Hitler himself spoke on a new life, honor, and unity in Germany. Similarly, the Night of the Long Knives was justified as a peril to the people so great that only decisive action would save them. Goebbels described Hitler after that event as suffering "tragic loneliness" and as a Siegfried forced to shed blood to preserve Germany.
Devotion to this Volk is common in Nazi propaganda. An account, for instance, of a SA brawl depicted its leader as uncouth and therefore a simple, strong, and honest man of the people. Sturmabteilung speakers were used, in part, for the appeal of their folksy manner. One element of Horst Wessel's life that was fictionalized out of the movie Hans Westmar was the willfully provoking of violent conflicts with Communists; Westmar preaches class reconciliation, and his death unifies students and workers. This changes was also propagandized to the Sturmabteilung, whose violent, rebellious and confrontational past had to be transformed to community organization to be useful in a Germany where Nazis held official power.
This unity was what justified Nazi propaganda; its pejorative connotation had sprung solely from its selfish use, and the Nazis' honorable goal, the unity of the German people, made it honorable for them.
It also justified the one-party state as all that was needed in a society with a united will, where Hitler implemented the will of the Volk more directly than in a democracy. Attacks on Great Britain as a plutocracy also emphasized how the German, being able to participate in his Volk, is freer than the Briton.
In his pamphlet State, Volk and Movement, Carl Schmitt praised the expulsion of Jews from political life without ever using the term "Jew" and using "non-Aryan" only rarely, by praising the homogeneity of the people and the Volksgemeinschaft ensuing; merely Gleichschaltung was not sufficient, but Nazi principles must continue to make the German people pure.
The Volksgemeinschaft was also depicted in films on the home-front during World War II, with the war uniting all levels of society, as in the two most popular films of the Nazi era, Die grosse Liebe and Wunschkonzert. The Request Concert radio show, on which the latter film was based, achieved great popularity by broadcasting music claimed to be requested by men in the armed forces. Attempts to get women of "better classes" to take factory jobs were presented as breaking down class barriers and so helping create a true people's community. Failure to support the war was an anti-social act; this propaganda managed to bring arms production to a peak in 1944.
Community Aliens and National Comrades
National Socialist legal theory divided Germans into two categories, namely the National Comrades who belonged to the Volksgemeinschaft and the Community Aliens who did not. In addition to the duties and responsibilities shared by those in the community, they were expected to build and create a "Volksgeist" that would encompass the best aspects of the German people. And as such community aliens could not belong, since they were deemed an undermining element in the very foundations of the "Volksgemeinschaft".
The modern German historian Detlev Peukert wrote of his view of National Socialist social policy as:
“ The goal was an utopian Volksgemeinschaft, totally under police surveillance, in which any attempt at nonconformist behaviour, or even any hint or intention of such behaviour, would be visited with terror”.
Criminals, if deemed unable to be part of the people's community, were severely punished, even executed for crimes that did not provide for the death penalty, such as doubling the sentence the prosecution asked for when a defendant had not helped put out a fire, thus showing a disregard for the life of his "volksgenossen" and community.
In support of this, Peukert quoted two articles from the projected “Law for the Treatment of Community Aliens” of 1944, which though never implemented owing to bureaucratic quarrels showed the intentions of Nazi social policy:
Community Aliens (Gemeinschaftsfremde)
“Community Aliens” are such persons who:
1, Show themselves, in their personality or in the conduct of their life, and especially in light of any unusual deficiency of mind or character, unable to comply by their own efforts with the minimum requirements of the national community.
2.(a) owning to work-shyness or slovenliness, lead a worthless, unthrifty or disorderly life and are thereby a burden or danger to the community:
Display a habit of, or inclination towards beggary or vagrancy, idling at work, larceny, swindling or other less seriously offences, or engage in excessive drunkenness, or for any such reasons are in breach of their obligation to support themselves.
(b) through persistent ill-temper or quarrelsomeness disturb the peace of the community;
3. show themselves, in their personality or the conduct of their life, mentally disposed towards the commission of serious offences (community-hostile criminals [gemeinschaftsfeindliche Verbrecher]) and criminals by inclination [Neigungsverbrecher]).
Police Measures Against Community Aliens
1. Community aliens should be subject towards police supervision.
2. If supervisory measures are insufficient, the police shall transfer the community aliens to the Gau (or Land) welfare authorities.
3. If, in the case of any community alien persons, a stricter degree of custody is required than is possible within the institutions of the Gau (or Land) welfare authorities, the police shall place them in a police camp. ”
Children and youth
In their desire to establish a total state, the Nazis understood the importance of “selling” their ideology to the youth. To accomplish this, Hitler established Nazi youth groups. Young boys from 6–10 years old participated in the Pimpfen, similar to the cub scouts. Boys from 10–14 years old participated in the Deutsches Jungvolk, and boys 14–18 years old participated in the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth). The two older groups fostered military values and virtues, such as duty, obedience, honor, courage, strength, and ruthlessness. Uniforms and regular military drills were supplemented by ceremonies honoring the war dead. Most importantly, the Hitler Youth did their utmost to indoctrinate the youth of Germany with the ideological values of Nazism. Youth leaders bore into the youth a sense of fervent patriotism and utter devotion to Hitler. By 1939, when membership in the Hitler Youth became compulsory, each new member of the Jungvolk was required to take an oath to the Führer swearing total allegiance.
Young girls were also a part of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany. Girls from 10–14 years old were members of the Jungmädelbund, while girls fourteen to eighteen belonged to the Bund Deutscher Mädel. Hitler youth girls were indoctrinated in the principles of service, regimentation, obedience, and discipline. Girls were taught to be dutiful wives and mothers. Members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel were educated in the skills needed for domestic chores, nursing, and hygiene.
Daily life in Nazi Germany was manipulated from the beginning of Nazi rule. Propaganda dominated popular culture and entertainment. Anti-intellectualism was used to prevent the people from thinking and feeding into their strong sense of national and military pride. Finally, Hitler and the party realized the possibilities of controlling Germany’s youth as a means of continuing the Reich as they wanted the generation of Germans to follow to be dedicated to the strengthening and preservation of the German Volk and of the "Greater German Reich".
See also
- Peter Fritzsche. Life and Death in the Third Reich. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2008. p. 38.
- Fritzsche, p. 39.
- Francis Ludwig Carsten, Hermann Graml. The German resistance to Hitler. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, USA: University of California Press. p. 93
- Ferdinand Tönnies, José Harris. Community and civil society. Cambridge University Press, 2001 (first edition in 1887 as Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft). Pp. xxxii-xxxiii.
- Fritzsche. p. 41.
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 18 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- fascism. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 15, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/202210/fascism
- "The Volk"
- Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p166 ISBN 0-396-06577-5
- Fritzsche, p. 44-45.
- Fritzsche, p.45.
- Fritzsche, p. 46.
- Fritzsche, p. 47.
- Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p 46, ISBN 03-076435-1
- Fritzsche, p. 51.
- Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p 79, ISBN 03-076435-1
- Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p 18, ISBN 03-076435-1
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 6 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p232 ISBN 0-393-02030-4
- Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p 19, ISBN 03-076435-1
- Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 p105 1995 University of Chicago Press Chicago
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 21 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p3 ISBN 0-393-02030-4
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 25 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 31 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 40 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 96 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- Anthony Rhodes, Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II, p16 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York
- George Lachmann Mosse, Nazi culture: intellectual, cultural and social life in the Third Reich p 18 ISBN 978-0-299-19304-1
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 89 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 85-6 ISBN 06740117204
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 86-8 ISBN 06740117204
- Leila J. Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War, p 99-100, ISBN 05239-5
- Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p58-9 ISBN 0-393-02030-4
- Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War 1939-1945: Organisation, Policies and Publics in Britain and Germany, p163 ISBN 0-7100-0193-2
- Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 59-60 ISBN 0-674-01172-4
- George Lachmann Mosse, Nazi culture: intellectual, cultural and social life in the Third Reich p 199 ISBN 978-0-299-19304-1
- Erwin Leiser, Nazi Cinema p63 ISBN 0-02-570230-0
- Robert Edwin Hertzstein, The War That Hitler Won p294-5 ISBN 399-11845-4
- Leila J. Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War, p 131, ISBN 05109-7
- Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War 1939-1945: Organisation, Policies and Publics in Britain and Germany, p373 ISBN 0-7100-0193-2
- Peukert, Detlev Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism In Everyday Life, London : Batsford, 1987 page 220.
- Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p 122-3, ISBN 03-076435-1
- Peukert, Detlev Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism In Everyday Life, London : Batsford, 1987 page 221.
- Walter S. Zapotoczny, "Rulers of the World: The Hitler Youth"
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tb » Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog
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Dr Paul Nunn, head of the WHO’s global TB response team, is leading the efforts against multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). Nunn said that, while TB is preventable and curable, a combination of bad management and misdiagnosis was leaving pharmaceutical companies struggling to keep up. Meanwhile, the disease kills millions every year.
“It occurs basically when the health system screws up,” said Nunn. “Treating TB requires a carefully followed regime of medication over six months. In places where health services are fragmented or underfunded, or patients poor and health professionals ill-trained, that treatment can fall short, which can in turn lead to patients developing drug-resistant strains. It’s been estimated that an undiagnosed TB-infected person can infect 10 others a year.
We tend to do a poor job of dealing with systemic effects of poorly functioning systems. Direct present threats get out attention. And we are decent at directing brain power and resources to find solutions. We are not very good at dealing with failures that put us in much worse shape in the long term. For small threats we can wait until it becomes a present threat and then deal with it. There are costs to doing this (economic and personal) but it can be done.
Some problems though become enormously complicated to deal with once they become obvious. Global climate change, for example. And often, even once they are obvious, we won’t act until the costs (economic and in human lives) are very large. It is possible that once we decide to get serious about dealing with some of these issues that the costs (economic and in human lives) will be catastrophic.
The failure to use anti-biotics medicine properly is a very serious threat to become one of these catastrophic societal failures. While tuberculosis failures may be larger in poorer countries, rich countries are failing probably much more critically in the misuse of anti-biotics (I would guess, without having much evidence at my fingertips to back up my opinion. I believe the evidence exists I am just not an expert). These failures have huge costs for all of humanity but we are risking many premature deaths because we systemically fail to deal with issues until the consequences are immediate.
Related: Extensively Drug-resistant Tuberculosis (XDR TB) (2007) – What Happens If the Overuse of Antibiotics Leads to Them No Longer Working? – Antibiotics Too Often Prescribed for Sinus Woes – Overuse of Antibiotics (post from 2005) – CDC Urges Increased Effort to Reduce Drug-Resistant Infections (2006)
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Hatunrumiyoc and the Twelve Angle Stone | ...en Perú - Travel Culture History News
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The origins of the magnificent ruins of a building that we call Hatunrumiyoc are lost in time. Built with huge polygonal stones, cut and fitted with exceptional precision, it is one of the most impressive structures of ancient Cusco. Its imposing walls hide a number of surprises, from the famous 12-Angle Stone, to shapes of local animals built into the structure itself.
Cusco’s early history isn’t clear. When the Spanish conquered the Inca Empire in 1532, it had only really existed for about 100 years. It was only when, in 1438, that Pachacutec became Sapa Inca, that the small Cusco city state began to be transformed into an empire by its new expansionist warlord leader.
This 100 or so year period from the conquest of the first strong regional rival to the Andes-spanning empire the Spanish encountered seems well documented. After the conquest, Spanish chroniclers were able the write the stories of the achievements of Pachacutec (1438-1471), Túpac Inca Yupanqui (1471-1493), Huayna Cápac (1493-1527), as well as Huáscar (1527–1532) and his civil war with half-brother Atahualpa (1532-1533) in a detailed way. The stories were common knowledge. But…
It was before this period of time where things get more confusing. Accounts differed about the era of the city state, about who did what and when. In fact, the Incas of imperial times are thought to have simply made up vast amounts of their early history and the stories surrounding their early leaders, for political reasons, to exaggerate their greatness to conquered tribes and for their own benefit, to “honour” their less war-like predecessors. Sapa Incas (kings) who were content to rule over their valley, or to extend their control over a village or two were exaggerated to be “great expanders of the empire”.
Hatunrumiyoc – Great Stone
This building, found on the street typically taken by tourists up to the modern district of San Blas and its bars, is from this time in Inca history. What it’s real name is no-one knows. The street is called Hatun Rumiyoc, a name given to it in much more recent times that in Quechua means big stone, supposedly referring to the famous 12-angle stone found in the wall half way up the street. This Inca building, which contains this stone, is in turn named after the street that is named after the stone. If the people of Cusco at the time of the conquest knew what the building’s name was, or who for sure built it, they unfortunately didn’t tell or were not asked by any Spanish chronicler.
So it is said, based on common opinion, that the building was the palace of Inca Roca, the sixth Sapa Inca who ruled sometime around 1350. But the Qoraqora, another building that is located on the plaza, is also said to be his palace. Perhaps they both were, or perhaps the Hatunrumiyoc was Sinchi Roca’s palace 100 to 150 years before. There’s no way to be sure who built it and when, and like the Incas, we have taken to inventing history for our own purposes. Maybe, contradicting the modern “inventions” of those academics who try to make sense these things today, one of the more fabulous local tales is true. One states that Inca Roca only rebuilt the structure, which had been in ruins for a unknown period of time, from the existing bricks he found scattered around. Who knows?
What we do know about Hatunrumiyoc is that it is exquisitely constructed, reaching the same perfection of many other Inca structures. There were two main building styles used in Inca architecture, aligned rectangular bricks and complex jigsaw-like polygonal bricks like those used here and in Sacsayhuamán. Although the walls of polygonal bricks look more complex, perhaps they were easier to carve and set, mostly left in the natural shape in which they were found? (The Incas didn’t quarry stone, they collected from landslides) Regardless, it is this building style the allowed Inca architects get away with some really cool tricks.
The Incas considered many aspects of nature to be sacred, including animals. Their favourites, for reasons that they represented gods (e.g. snakes) or that they served a vital purpose for humans (e.g. llamas, guinea pigs), would sometimes be hidden in the brick designs of their buildings.
In the Hatunrumiyoc, which used to be about double its current height there are probably several. On one side of the building are these three below, but I think I found another couple on another side.
12 Angle Stone
Although not the Inca-carved stone with the most sides or angles (there is a 13 angle stone on the opposite side of the building, some say there is a 14 angle stone, and in other places in the region there are stones with up to 44 angles) but it is the stone that has its sides most clearly defined and placed together with such perfection. It is as famous for this perfection as its still quite extraordinary number of angles, becoming symbolic of the skill of Inca stonemasons and architects.
It has also become a local symbol and object of pride for Cusqueños and for Peru in general, perhaps what enticed two tourists from Chile (a neighbour who successfully invaded Peru and Bolivia for their mineral wealth) to deface it.
It now has someone to keep permanently watch, as well as dozens of young locals who point it out for a small tip.
* * *
Personally, this is my favourite building within the city of Cusco, as I am sure it is for many others. It is a terrible shame that only the bottom half of the wall survives, that sections are missing, and that the Spanish used such poor bricks to fill in the gaps.
What happened to the missing bricks? Did the Spanish tear them down, use them elsewhere, then regret it and rebuilt the structure for their own use? Were these ruins even in the time of the Incas? Did the walls collapse in colonial times?
I can’t find anyone who knows for sure. It’s sad how little is known, and how it has only been a few decades that anyone actually cared to know. You might say the Spanish chroniclers, who recorded something of Inca history, were better Peruvians than the post-Colonial Peruvians were.
If you have a theory or an opinion, feel free to leave a comment below.
Tags: 12-angle stone, 1500s, atahualpa, cusco, hatunrumiyoc, huascar, huayna capac, inca roca, incas, pachacutec, qoraqora, quechua, ruins, sacsayhuaman, san blas, sinchi roca, spaniards, tupac yupanki
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Fall 2011 | Momentum | Institute on the Environment | University of Minnesota
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Mother Nature's Pest-B-Gone
Tiny wasps could play a big role in minimizing the environmental impacts of pesticide use.
By Mary Hoff
It wasn’t your typical summer job. While friends flipped burgers, babysat or worked on landscaping crews, George Heimpel spent his high school vacations rearing insects that eat other insects alive from the inside out.
The insects under his watch were parasitoid wasps, and the job, though exotic, was far from frivolous. Heimpel’s employer, a California company called Beneficial Biosystems, sold the rice-grain-sized, people-friendly wasps for natural fly control. Released into barnyards or stables, the wasps would lay eggs inside fly pupae. When they hatched, the larvae would feast on the innards of their hosts, providing a sort of self-perpetuating pest control that obviated the need for toxic chemicals.
“I liked working with insects, I liked doing something that had the possibility for helping the environment and I liked the people there,” Heimpel says. “It was fun.”
As summer jobs sometimes do, this one stuck. Today, as professor of entomology in the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and Institute on the Environment resident fellow, Heimpel continues to spend much of his time working with parasitoid wasps in hopes of providing Earth-friendly ways to minimize insects’ adverse impacts on people.
Heimpel’s current area of focus is not fly-eaters, but wasps that attack tiny insects called aphids. Aphids are notorious competitors for human food supplies, cutting yields of crops by up to 50 percent in the case of bad infestations. The conventional way farmers reduce the toll is to spray infested fields with powerful pesticides, which not only kill their target but also have the potential to harm a variety of other species that get in their path, including honeybees, birds and fish.
In particular, Heimpel is homing in on control strategies for a relative newcomer to the North American pest scene: the Asian soybean aphid. Unheard of here before it showed up in a Wisconsin field in 2000, the aphid has spread so far that producers now spray tens of millions of acres of soybean fields—acres that previously needed no pesticides—each year.
Heimpel and colleagues have been testing Asian parasitoid enemies of the Asian soybean aphid in search of one that would, were it released into the environment, be able to keep the aphid in check without otherwise upsetting the ecosystem apple cart. The screening process is understandably rigorous, and the bar set high to prove no possibility of harming native species before receiving government permission to release the nonnative wasps.
“We’ve been doing tests to learn how other insects might be affected by the release of these Asian parasitoids,” Heimpel says. “The question is, do they pose a danger to native aphids?”
Five years into the project, the research team has gotten approval to release one parasitoid wasp species that has shown limited effectiveness in driving down soybean aphid populations. Several other species are undergoing safety testing in a quarantine laboratory.
Heimpel recently began exploring whether parasitoids might be good news when it comes to global warming as well. Working with Jason Hill, another IonE resident fellow who’s an assistant professor of bioproducts and biosystems engineering in CFANS, he’s comparing the carbon footprint of five different options for dealing with soybean aphids: three conventional pesticide treatments, a cropping strategy to reduce the aphid, and biological control using a parasitoid that serves as a natural control to soybean aphids in Asia.
In a separate study, Heimpel and IonE resident fellow David Tilman, a professor in the College of Biological Sciences, are co-investigators with agronomy and plant genetics faculty members Don Wyse and Craig Scheaffer on a $1 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant led by agronomy and plant genetics associate professor member Gregg Johnson to assess whether growing biofuel plants might contribute to the biological control of soybean aphids. The researchers are evaluating the pest control benefits provided by insects that hang out in willow plantings adjacent to croplands, in prairie plantings adjacent to croplands and in settings in which both willow and prairie plants are planted near crops.
“We’re going to look at the interface of those biofuel plantings and the surrounding productive agricultural land to see whether the biofuel plantings help with biological control,” Heimpel says.
Besides carrying out specific research projects, Heimpel is using his IonE resident fellowship to spread the word about the environmental benefits of parasitoid alternatives to conventional chemical pest control.
“Not that many people know about biological control,” he says, “so I can be an ambassador for that type of work.”
Video: Eating Aphids from the Inside Out
Tiny wasps hold promise for helping control nonnative soybean aphids without pesticides. Watch how a similar wasp uses aphids as both nursery and buffet for its babies. Watch the video at video.nationalgeographic.com
- © 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer
Last modified on January 23, 2012
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"Effects of vitamin D supplementation on bone density in healthy childr" by Tania Winzenberg, Sandi
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Effects of vitamin D supplementation on bone density in healthy children: systematic review and meta-analysis
Winzenberg, T, Powell, S, Shaw, KA & Jones, G 2011, 'Effects of vitamin D supplementation on bone density in healthy children: systematic review and meta-analysis', British Medical Journal, vol. 342, pp. 267-275.
Published version available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c7254
Objective To determine the effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation for improving bone mineral density in children and adolescents and if effects vary with factors such as vitamin D dose and vitamin D status.
Design Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Data sources Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Medline (1966 to present), Embase (1980 to present), CINAHL (1982 to present), AMED (1985 to present), and ISI Web of Science (1945 to present), last updated on 9 August 2009, and hand searching of conference abstracts from key journals.
Study selection Placebo controlled randomised controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation for at least three months in healthy children and adolescents (aged 1 month to <20 years) with bone density outcomes. Two authors independently assessed references for inclusion and study quality and extracted data.
Data synthesis Standardised mean differences of the percentage change from baseline in bone mineral density of the forearm, hip, and lumbar spine and total body bone mineral content in treatment and control groups. Subgroup analyses were carried out by sex, pubertal stage, dose of vitamin D, and baseline serum vitamin D concentration. Compliance and allocation concealment were also considered as possible sources of heterogeneity.
Results From 1653 potential references, six studies, totalling 343 participants receiving placebo and 541 receiving vitamin D, contributed data to meta-analyses. Vitamin D supplementation had no statistically significant effects on total body bone mineral content or on bone mineral density of the hip or forearm. There was a trend to a small effect on lumbar spine bone mineral density (standardised mean difference 0.15, 95% confidence interval −0.01 to 0.31; P=0.07). Effects were similar in studies of participants with high compared with low serum vitamin D levels, although there was a trend towards a larger effect with low vitamin D for total body bone mineral content (P=0.09 for difference). In studies with low serum vitamin D, significant effects on total body bone mineral content and lumbar spine bone mineral density were roughly equivalent to a 2.6% and 1.7% percentage point greater change from baseline in the supplemented group.
Conclusions It is unlikely that vitamin D supplements are beneficial in children and adolescents with normal vitamin D levels. The planned subgroup analyses by baseline serum vitamin D level suggest that vitamin D supplementation of deficient children and adolescents could result in clinically useful improvements, particularly in lumbar spine bone mineral density and total body bone mineral content, but this requires confirmation.
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"Meeting Summary: Embracing Mental Health Care: Lessons Learned for Suc" by Jeffrey Brown and David
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Department of Pediatrics
Medical Subject Headings
Mental Health; Mental Health Services; Child
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is a national organization comprising more than 62,000 members, 66 state and local chapters, 29 national committees, 49 sections, 9 councils, and staff of approximately 400. On July 28, 2011, the AAP Mental Health Initiatives hosted a preconference on “Embracing Mental Health Care: Lessons Learned for Success” in Chicago, IL. The goal was to empower pediatricians to address the health and well-being of children and youth with mental health concerns.
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Scientists complete two-year study on short-day onions - Physorg | e! Science News
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Monday, October 4, 2010 - 16:30 in Paleontology & Archaeology
Texas AgriLife Research scientists have recently completed a two-year study on the impact of deficit irrigation and plant density on the growth, yield and quality of short-day onions.
- AgriLife Research scientists complete two-year study on short-day onionsMon, 4 Oct 2010, 17:34:22 EDT
- Artichokes grow big in TexasWed, 14 Dec 2011, 16:38:24 EST
- AgriLife Research breeder develops drought-tolerant cornMon, 25 Aug 2008, 17:14:57 EDT
- AgriLife Research drip irrigation project yields promising resultsTue, 3 Mar 2009, 13:56:20 EST
- Cover crop mulches tested for no-till organic onionsWed, 21 Apr 2010, 10:13:20 EDT
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“The Fisher and the Little Fish” | Aesop's Fables | Aesop | Lit2Go ETC
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- Year Published: 1867
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: Greece
- Source: Aesop (1867) Aesop's Fables
- Flesch–Kincaid Level: 3.1
- Word Count: 93
Aesop, . (1867). “The Fisher and the Little Fish”. Aesop's Fables (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved May 22, 2013, from
Aesop, . "“The Fisher and the Little Fish”." Aesop's Fables. Lit2Go Edition. 1867. Web. <>. May 22, 2013.
Aesop, "“The Fisher and the Little Fish”," Aesop's Fables, Lit2Go Edition, (1867), accessed May 22, 2013,.
It happened that a Fisher, after fishing all day, caught only a little fish. “Pray, let me go, master,” said the Fish. “I am much too small for your eating just now. If you put me back into the river I shall soon grow, then you can make a fine meal off me.”
“Nay, nay, my little Fish,” said the Fisher, “I have you now. I may not catch you hereafter.”
A little thing in hand is worth more than a great thing in prospect.
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Dyson DC01 - Everything2.com
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The DC01 was Dyson’s first vacuum cleaner, and the start of a new era. As James Dyson puts it himself:
“In 1978, I became frustrated with my vacuum cleaner – it quickly clogged with dust, destroying the suction. I set about solving this problem. More than 5,000 prototypes later, I was at last able to launch the DC01, with patented Dyson Dual cyclone technology, the first vacuum cleaner that didn’t lose suction.”
The wheels on the DC01 are made of the thermoplastic polymer TPE. This is a soft synthetic rubber material. They prevent noise, and make the sweeping action smoother. The rubber also had a lot of friction, meaning the vacuum cleaner won’t slide around, which may otherwise result in damage. The part of the DC01 around the cyclone is made of polycarbonate. This is used because it is very hard, strong, and durable, so it will not be damaged by larger objects which may be sucked up and hit the plastic at high speed. It was also used because it can be transparent, and psychological studies have shown that when people can see what they are sucking up, they think they are sucking up more, which is good news for Dyson as it exaggerates the effects of their new cyclone technology. For other parts of the DC01 which need to be strong and sturdy, such as the front bumper, a plastic based on the acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer (ABS) is used.
The DC01 is almost entirely made by injection moulding. Two half-moulds are pushed together and injected with liquid plastic at a very high pressure. When the plastic cools is it the shape of the mould permanently, and the process is repeated. Injection moulding is used over other plastic forming techniques, such as vacuum forming, because the shape of the mould can be much more intricate, and can include much more detail. Since Dyson produce so many of their products to be shipped worldwide, the fact that each mould costs so much to make doesn’t matter, as it will be used so many times. The ABS plastic is an enhancement to polystyrene plastic, and it’s made by adding a small amount of styrene-butadiene rubber for better impact resistance. Acrylonitrile is also added to the styrene before it is polymerized, for hardening. This means it can be flexible under impact while still being rigid enough to keep the required shape.
Before the Dyson DC01, vacuum cleaners used bags to hold the dust that was sucked up. The outside of the bag acted like a filter, allowing the clean air to go out and trapping the dust inside. The problem with this was that dust deposited on this filter and caused it to clog. This resulted in a loss of suction over time (up to 70%), which meant that dirt was not picked up. Other non-Dyson bagless cleaners used filters separate from bags, which still clogged up in much the same way. Dyson developed technology to stop this happening. By creating a cyclone of air, rather than just a flow, the centrifugal force pushes the dust particles out to the edge, away from the filter. This not only stops loss of suction resulting in a more economical cleaner, but it also expels cleaner air. The discovery of this technology is what pushed Dyson to manufacture the DC01, but there was also market pull. People wanted a vacuum cleaner that sucked everything up in 1 stroke, rather than having to go backwards and forwards over the same patch 3 or 4 times. They also wanted to be able to see the dust that they had sucked, as it gave them a sense of satisfaction and made it look like they’d done a lot of work. This wasn’t possible for bag cleaners.
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The Job | Film English
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This lesson is based on an award-winning comedy short film called The Job directed by Jonathan Browning , and the themes of jobs and employment. Students predict the content of a short film, watch a short film and speaking about jobs.
Language level: Intermediate (B1) – Advanced (C1)
Learner type: Teens and adults
Time: 60 minutes
Activity: Predicting the content of a short film, watching a short film, and speaking about jobs
Topic: Jobs and employment
Language: Vocabulary related to jobs and employment
Materials: Short film, infographic and discussion questions
Write Top Jobs on the board and then ask your students what they consider the best jobs to be.
Show them the infographic of the top jobs in the USA. Go through the vocabulary and ask them if they agree with the ranking, and what criteria have been used. Ask them if they would like to do any of the jobs.
Put students into pairs and ask them to tell their partner what their perfect job would be and why it would be their top job.
Tell your students that they are going to watch a short film called The Job in which the people in this photo appear.
Ask them the following questions:
What jobs do you think the people do?
What do you think the film is about?
What story does it tell?
What images do you expect to see?
Show the students the film and ask them to compare their answers in Step 4 with what they see in the film.
Get feedback from your students. Ask them what the message of the film is.
Give your students the discussion questions about jobs and employment, and ask them to discuss them in small groups.
I hope you enjoy the lesson.
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Be part of the solution — take this five-minute Fiscal IQ quiz #fiscalIQquiz
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Discuss Question 21
21. FISCAL KNOWLEDGE: On average, the top one percent of federal taxpayers by income pay an effective income tax rate of less than 20 percent.
ANSWER: True – According to data from the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan tax analysis partnership between the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, the median effective income tax rate of the top one percent is about 18.8%, which is far below the top tax bracket of 35%. This is due in large part to the fact that the wealthiest Americans earn most of their income through long-term capital gains, which are taxed at a flat rate of 15%. It’s important to note that this only relates to income taxes and not payroll taxes or other taxes.
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Tense back | Go Ask Alice!
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Originally Published: May 1, 1994 - Last Updated / Reviewed On: November 2, 2012
The muscles in my back become extremely tense/tight throughout the term as I am cramped down studying all the time. What should I do?
Studying can be a real pain in the neck; or, in your case, back. You’re right to attribute your back tightness to being “cramped down studying all the time.” Indeed, poor posture can lead to back pain. There are other pieces to this posturing problem, though. Back pain can be caused by a number of things including chronic stress (causing your back muscles to tense up), tight hamstring muscles (shifting weight from the pelvis to your lower back), and back injuries among other factors. Lack of exercise, improper sleeping positions, incorrect lifting, smoking, and being overweight can all put you at risk for back pain or injury.
Here are some simple things you may want to try in order to prevent and relieve back tension and tightness:
- Get your workstation in tip-top shape. Are you hunched while reading or while working on your computer? If you are working on a computer, it’s best to have the monitor at eye level. Keep your elbows bent near 90 degrees. In addition, keep the mouse comfortably close to your keyboard, avoid slouching, and place the monitor 18-28 inches away from your face. When you are sitting and studying, your lower back needs to be flat or slightly rounded outward. Your knees need to be slightly higher than your hips, with both feet planted firmly on the floor. A footrest can help keep your knees at a comfortable position.
- Take regular breaks. When you're studying, take frequent breaks and stretch your body every fifteen or twenty minutes. Also, rest your eyes and change your position often.
- Keep stress in check. Stressors, worry, and anxiety all produce muscle tension. It's part of the natural fight-or-flight response, and is one of the ways that our bodies respond to threats and demands — whether those challenges are actually happening, or if they're just in our heads. Some people are more prone to feel this stress response in their muscles, while others may be dogged by fatigue, indigestion, or moodiness. Check out Stress is a pain in the neck — literally! for a few stress- and muscle tension-reduction suggestions.
- Get plenty of physical activity, and don’t forget about your core muscles! Strengthening your core with regular exercise can help prevent back pain or keep it from becoming chronic. Additionally, regular exercise can help maintain a healthy weight, which can also help prevent back pain considering obesity is associated with back pain.
- Get a massage or back rub. Relieve the tension! If you are a Columbia student, check out Seeking massage therapist for information about getting a professional massage. If you are on the Morningside campus, check out the Stressbusters, a team of trained Columbia students who give free neck and back rubs to members of the Columbia community.
- Heating pads, warm moist towels, or heat creams can be used to help relax stiff joints and muscles. In addition, over-the-counter painkillers such as acetaminophen or NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) can help relieve symptoms of a tense and tight back.
If your back tension and tightness don't subside after three to fourteen days, you may want to speak with a healthcare provider. Additionally, if the tightness worsens or turns to pain, talking with your healthcare provider can help. Columbia students on the Morningside campus can make an appointment with Medical Services using Open Communicator or by calling 212-854-7426. Columbia students at the Medical Center campus can make an appointment with Student Health.
Best of luck relieving the tension!
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SRTS Guide: Adult School Crossing Guard Guidelines
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Adult School Crossing Guard Guidelines
Adult school crossing guards play an important role in the lives of children who walk or bicycle to school. They help children safely cross the street at key locations. They also remind drivers of the presence of pedestrians. The presence of adult crossing guards can lead to more parents feeling comfortable about their children walking or bicycling to school. While the primary role of an adult school crossing guard is to guide children safely across the street, children also remain responsible for their own safety. In this manner, a guard plays another key function — a role model helping children develop the skills necessary to cross streets safely at all times.
The design and implementation of an adult school crossing guard program is largely the decision of local communities. Some federal guidance exists and there are some state and local requirements pertaining to the operation of guard programs, but these vary across the country. Ideally, the development of an adult school crossing guard program involves a community partnership that includes the expertise of law enforcement agencies, traffic engineering or planning departments and school systems. Working together with parents, this community group identifies the locations where adult school crossing guards are needed and the appropriate number of guards for each location. The group establishes crossing procedures for a variety of traffic situations as well as hires, trains and equips the guards and secures long-term funding for the program.
For more information read the sections below.
- Role of the Adult School Crossing Guard
- Elements of a Crossing Guard Program
- Crossing Procedures for a Variety of Situations
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Health Literacy & Communications | Health Research for Action
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the grade level of written information, using validated readability tests. And we provide extensive feedback on the many aspects of readability and usability that are not addressed in tests of grade level, including content, organization, cultural appropriateness, and design. We use validated tests to assess both print and web-based materials. We provide you with documentation of the strengths and weaknesses of your materials, as well as concrete suggestions for improvements.
• Diabetes in Vulnerable Populations in Contra Costa County
• Evidence of Coverage Project
Writing & Designing for Readability & Usability
We can help you develop and revise health communications materials using our tested and reliable six-step process.
2. Content organization
4. Design and layout
5. Tailoring to your audience
• Health Communication Tips (PDF)
• Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs Fact Sheets
Health Literacy Trainings & Audits
Our customized and interactive health literacy trainings help staff from your writing, education, legal, marketing, medical, and management departments work together to create health communication materials that are effective and clearly written. The training includes video, lecture, discussion, and hands-on activities.
Training topics can include:
1. What health literacy is and why it is important
2. Planning and processes for developing clear materials
3. Organizing information for clarity
4. The basics of readability and usability testing
5. Identifying and assisting people with limited literacy
We also provide consultation on communication issues, including communication audits and health literacy standardization.
• California Health Communication Project
Linguistic & Cultural Adaptation
We translate and adapt materials in Spanish, Chinese, and over 12 other languages, including American Sign Language. We focus on maintaining easy-to-read content that is culturally appropriate. We conduct focus groups and usability tests in these languages to improve the readability, usability, and cultural appropriateness of materials.
• Parents Guide (California)
• Medi-Cal Access Project Part 1
Alternative Formats & Accessible Design
We develop materials in Braille, audio (MP3, CD, and cassette), large print, text-only, and DVD for people with disabilities. We use a wide variety of graphic design techniques to create materials that are both usable and appealing.
• DMHC Website Redesign
Broad Areas of Expertise
We have successfully developed easy-to-read information on a wide variety of topics, including Medicare, Medicaid, private health insurance, HMOs, diabetes, medication safety, physical activity, fall prevention, parenting, caregiving, and environmental health issues. Our health literacy experts have created easy-to-use adaptations of many consumer health communications: Evidence of Coverage templates, legal language, forms, patient correspondence, newsletters, notices, patient instructions, etc.
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Hester Fine Art Ltd
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During his career spanning more than 60 years Dali was a prolific printmaker and used techniques such as etching,drypoint,woodcut and lithography to create a remarkable body of work. more
Born on May 11th 1904, Salvador Dali was probably the best-known surrealist painter of the 20th century due to a combination of technical accomplishment, haunting imagery and thirst for publicity.
In 1921, Dali won acceptance to the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. During his student years, he discovered what would become one of the most important influences on his painting style, Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. Dali's personal take on Freud's theory of the subconscious became the basis of his so-called "Paranoic-critical method" of painting, by which Dali discovered or hallucinated images of his own subconscious desires and painted the results. Dali called the paintings of this period "Hand-painted dream photographs"
As a result of his "Paranoic-critical method", Dali achieved his first significant recognition as an artist and soon became identified with the Surrealist movement. In 1925, Dali had his first one-man show in Barcelona and in 1928, three of his paintings were shown in Pittsburgh. 1928 also marked his first trip to Paris, where Spanish painter Joan Miro introduced Dali to the Surrealists, an artistic movement led by the poet André Breton and dedicated, in Breton’s words, to “reuniting the realms of conscious and unconscious experience.”
In later years, Dali became known as much for his decadent and outrageous social life as for his art. Later, in his final years of life, he lived in seclusion, receiving almost no visitors (with the exception of the King and Queen of Spain) and receiving medical help from private nurses. On January 23rd, 1989, Salvador Dali died from heart failure and respiratory complications.
During his career spanning more than sixty years, he was a prolific printmaker with an output of at least 1700 prints. He was undoubtedly one of the finest graphic artists of the 20th century and amongst the principal printmaking techniques he used were drypoint, etching, woodcut and lithography.
This exhibition features around 50 etchings, drypoints and lithographs, most of which are hand signed in pencil.
(The Angel of Melancholy)
From Aurélia, a set of 4 etchings with drypoint. Signed and numbered in pencil, on Arches. Dali drew his inspiration for this etching from Gérard de Nerval's hallucinatory Aurélia, ou le rêve et la vie, 1855. 1972, Edition size 175. Catalogue number 72
(Butterflies of Anti-Matter. Date 1972)
Drypoint etching on chromolithograph with embossing, signed and numbered E/A (artist's proof)in pencil, aside from the edition of 585. Catalogue ref:74. Date 1972
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Aims and Vision Statement
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THE BRONZE AGE
Other Pages | Archived Pages | History | Prehistoric and Early Historic Sites in the Bray area
THE BRONZE AGE IN WICKLOW
- Around 2,000 B.C, smiths began making copper. Wicklow was very important at this time because copper was found there.
- Copper was found at Avoca and gold was discovered in rivers. The smiths made gold bracelets and earrings for important people.
- They also made copper axeheads.
- The early metal workers travelled from place to place. Some of their tools were found in Avoca and Enniskerry.
- Later they learned that a small amount of tin with copper you got a much stronger metal that they called bronze.
- When the metal workers died they were crematd on a funeral pyre and their ashes were put in a pot called a urn. The urn was put in a stone box with a smaller pot of food.
- Sometimes the metal workers would have a standing stone over their grave. They also had stone circles.
- From the map you can see that people travelled all over the mountains from West Wicklow to search for copper.
THE LATE BRONZE AGE IN WICKLOW
By 700 B.C, the people of Wicklow were often fighting each other. They built hill-top forts with earthen defences to protect their kin and livestock.
At one fort in Rathgall, a smith's workshop was found where swords and spears were being made.
When the need to cook arouse people built a fulacht fiadh near a stream. A wooden trough or dry-lined pit was filled with water. The hot stones form the water would crack when put into water. Stones from a fire were put into water to boil it. Food was then put into the water to cook it.
The biggest group of fulacht fiadh were found in Kilmacanogue.
From the map you can see where the main hill forts and where most fulacht fiadh were found.
PREHISTORIC AND EARLY HISTORIC SITES IN THE BRAY AREA
Top of Page
- Ballybetagh Cairn (trace of ancient road
- Glenruid or Brennanstown, Portal Tomb
- Kilteran, Portal Tomb
- Shankill (Carrickgallogan) Portal tomb
- Parknasillage Tomb (portal)?
Bronze Age Sites
- Wedge Tomb at Loughanstown (beside Tully)
- Balleyedmonduff (Wedge) Field systems
- Standing Stones (Glencullen & Newtown Hill)
- Stone Circle (Rathmicheal)
- Rathmicheal Hill Fort
Early Christian Period
- Killegar Ring Forts (at least 10, see early O.S. maps)
- Stone Cashel (The Scalp)
Other Pages | History | Top of Page
- Kiltuck Cross.
- Blackrock Cross heads.
- Fassaroe Cross.
- Aghnahaskin Church, Fassaroe.
- Killeagr: nave & Chancel Church.
- Kilternan: Early Church Note: Blocked up doorway.
- Kill of the Grange: Early Church, Cross bases, slabs & bullaun stone.
- Tully: Romanesque Church, Crosses & slans, enclosure.
- Rathmicheal: Enclosure, remains of round tower, cross slabs and Medieval Church ruins.
- Monastery Townland: Site of Early Monastery, Holy Well.
- Raheen a 'Chluig: (Bray) Early Church.
- Ballyman: Ruins of Early Church with decorated slabs.
- St Kevin's Well, Glendalough
- Cross base at Old Court (Base of High Cross with Scriptural Carvings)
- Fairy Hill, Kilbride: Cross
- Early Cross slab in National Museum: From Bray
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Glossary - 8-bit Color Images
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Full RGB color requires that the intensities of three color components be specified for each and every pixel. It is common for each component intensity to be stored as an 8-bit integer, and so each pixel requires 24 bits to completely and accurately specify its color. If this is done, then the image is known as a 24-bit color image. However there are two problems with this approach:
Because of this, many image formats (e.g. 8-bit GIF and TIFF) use 8-bit colormaps to restrict the maximum number of different colors to 256. Using this method, it is only necessary to store an 8-bit index into the colormap for each pixel, rather than the full 24-bit color value. Thus 8-bit image formats consist of two parts: a colormap describing what colors are present in the image, and the array of index values for each pixel in the image.
When a 24-bit full color image is turned into an 8-bit image, it is usually necessary to throw away some of the colors, a process known as color quantization. This leads to some degradation in image quality, but in practice the observable effect can be quite small, and in any case, such degradation is inevitable if the image output device (e.g. screen or printer) is only capable of displaying 256 colors or less.
The use of 8-bit images with colormaps does lead to some problems in image processing. First of all, each image has to have its own colormap, and there is usually no guarantee that each image will have exactly the same colormap. Thus on 8-bit displays it is frequently impossible to correctly display two different color images that have different colormaps at the same time. Note that in practice 8-bit images often use reduced size colormaps with less than 256 colors in order to avoid this problem.
Another problem occurs when the output image from an image processing operation contains different colors to the input image or images. This can occur very easily, as for instance when two color images are added together pixel-by-pixel. Since the output image contains different colors from the input images, it ideally needs a new colormap, different from those of the input images, and this involves further color quantization which will degrade the image quality. Hence the resulting output is usually only an approximation of the desired output. Repeated image processing operations will continually degrade the image colors. And of course we still have the problem that it is not possible to display the images simultaneously with each other on the same 8-bit display.
Because of these problems it is to be expected that as computer storage and processing power become cheaper, there will be a shift away from 8-bit images and towards full 24-bit image processing.
©2003 R. Fisher, S. Perkins,
A. Walker and E. Wolfart.
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Quiz on Chapter 11: Slip-in Cartridge Valves (Logic Valves)
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1. Slip-in cartridge valves are:
2. Slip-in cartridge valves have___________ response than/as a spool valve.
3. It takes ___________ slip-in cartridge valves to operate a double-acting cylinder.
4. To control the speed of an actuator powered by slip-in cartridge valves, use a:
5. Load-induced pressure can hold a running away load in place by using a cover with a:
6. A slip-in cartridge 4-way valve can be set up as:
7. A slip-in cartridge relief valve uses a:
8. Slip-in cartridge valves with working pressure at either port must always have pilot pressure on the poppet to stay closed.
9. A slip-in cartridge relief valve operates the same as:
10. Unloading valves are different from relief valves because they:
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Short-tailed Pygmy-Tyrant (Myiornis ecaudatus) | the Internet Bird Collection
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Short-tailed Pygmy-tyrant (Myiornis ecaudatus) - HBW 9, p. 316
French: Microtyran à queue courte
Spanish: Mosqueta Colicorta
Taxonomy: T[odirostrum] ecaudatum d’Orbigny and Lafresnaye, 1837, Yuracarés, Bolivia.
Formerly placed in a separate genus, Perissotriccus, along with M. atricapillus. The two form a superspecies and were previously treated by many authors as conspecific. Two subspecies recognized.
Subspecies and Distribution:
- miserabilis (Chubb, 1919) - Venezuela (Carabobo, Mérida, Táchira, Barinas, N Amazonas, Bolívar), Trinidad, the Guianas, E Colombia (Meta) and N Brazil (Amapá).
- ecaudatus (d’Orbigny & Lafresnaye, 1837) - Amazon Basin of E Ecuador, E Peru, Brazil (from Amazonas E to Pará) and N Bolivia (S to Cochabamba and Santa Cruz).
- Least Concern Enlarge map
VideosSee all 8 videos
A bird calling from a twig, wiping it's bill once, and eventually flying away. Locality Apoera, Sipaliwini District, Suriname (ssp miserabilis)
Pieter de Groot Boersma 4 May 2011 1 year ago 39 sec 4.5
A bird collecting nesting material and calling, while it's mate calls nearby. Locality Apoera, Sipaliwini District, Suriname (ssp miserabilis)
Pieter de Groot Boersma 4 May 2011 1 year ago 25 sec 4.2
A bird singing on a branch. Locality Serra das Araras, Pantanal, Mato Grosso State, Brazil (ssp ecaudatus)
herve jacob 26 September 2009 3 years ago 16 sec 4.2
A bird perched on a branch, lookink around Locality Delta Amacuro, Venezuela (ssp miserabilis)
DAVID ASCANIO 31 May 2006 5 years ago 12 sec 4
an individual at the canopy of an emergent tree Locality Río Grande, Imataca Forest Reserve, Venezuela (ssp miserabilis)
DAVID ASCANIO 30 April 2008 2 years ago 38 sec 3.5
A perched bird, eventually flying away. Locality Apoera, Sipaliwini District, Suriname (ssp miserabilis)
Pieter de Groot Boersma 4 May 2011 1 year ago 35 sec 3
An adult in the canopy at 35 m high.
Locality Manaus, Amazonas State, Brazil
Anselmo d Affonseca 1 year ago 4.7
mistnetted bird in hand; interior of lowland tropical forest
Locality Los Amigos Biological Station (CICRA), Madre de Dios Department, Peru (ssp ecaudatus)
Jacob R Saucier 26 August 2010 2 years ago 4.1
A perched bird.
Locality Pousada Kuryala, Sao Felix do Araguaia, Mato Grosso State, Brazil (ssp ecaudatus)
Bradley Davis 2 December 2008 3 years ago 2
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IEEE Xplore - Multispectral imaging of paintings
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Skip to Main Content
Identifying the materials of a painting is a crucial step in any conservation process. When the objective is to prepare an intervention plan, it is absolutely necessary to understand the matters the restorer is going to encounter. Also, when the aim is a better understanding of the artwork, and perhaps an authenticity check, it is highly relevant to know which materials were employed, since they may differ depending on the period of execution and on the specific artist as well. To identify materials on a painting's surface in a reliable manner, currently the most popular and trustworthy method is the analysis of microsamples of the paint layer. However, chemical analyses although reliable, have a number of drawbacks. The first is linked to the fact that this is an invasive method. The samples used need to be detached from the painting and will not be put back in place. Moreover, the achieved results are in principle - and often also in practice - valid only for that specific specimen and cannot generally be extended to neighboring areas.
Date of Publication: July 2008
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Financing Campaigns | IIP Digital
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Federal law dictates how candidates for the federal offices of president, senator and representative — and certain of their political allies — may raise funds, as well as from whom and in what amounts. Federal campaign finance laws are separate from state laws that regulate elections for state and local offices.
In the American system, presidential candidates raise hundreds of millions of dollars for a campaign directed at a nation of more than 100 million voters. Though in many cases the fundraising is from private sources, the process by which they raise and spend the money is highly regulated.
A candidate for president must establish a campaign organization, called a political committee. The political committee must have a treasurer and must register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Notwithstanding its name, the FEC only supervises and enforces campaign finance laws; it does not actually conduct the elections. (The process of registering voters, conducting the balloting and counting the votes is the responsibility of state and local election officials.)
Various types of political committees are registered with the FEC. In addition to the candidates, political parties must register their own committees with the agency. In addition, any group of private citizens may form a political committee.
Once registered, political committees may start raising campaign funds. Such funds, as well as expenses, are reported to the FEC on either a quarterly or monthly basis. The reports may be filed electronically and are available to the public on the FEC’s website [www.fec.gov]. Numerous private organizations also maintain websites to monitor contributions and expenses of the candidates, political parties, and political action committees. The point of this is to make it easier for the press and the voters to know which groups are giving money to which candidates and causes. There are legal limits to how much money individual citizens and individual committees can give to candidates they favor. Accordingly, a candidate for president who needs to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for a presidential campaign must attempt to find thousands of contributors.
In 2010, a controversial Supreme Court ruling drastically changed campaign finance law. Before the ruling, the law prohibited corporations and labor unions from spending directly to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress. Groups of individuals were allowed to establish separate segregated funds in what are called political action committees (PACs) to make contributions to political parties or candidates’ campaigns without using corporate or union treasury funds. After the ruling, corporations and unions directly can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect or defeat candidates as long as they do not do so in coordination with the candidates’ campaign organization.
To campaign for office, a candidate needs to hire staff; arrange for office space and travel; conduct research; issue position papers; advertise on radio and television, in publications and on the Internet; and conduct numerous public appearances and fundraising events. A candidate for the House of Representatives will base these activities in his or her specific congressional district, while a Senate candidate will do likewise throughout his entire state. (Representatives and senators may also conduct specific fund-raising events elsewhere, such as in Washington.) Candidates for president have the daunting task of organizing their primary campaigns state by state and then, if nominated, their general election campaign throughout the nation.
Since 1976, candidates for president have been eligible to participate in a public financing system. Until the 2000 elections, all candidates nominated for president participated in this system by accepting government funds in exchange for a promise not to spend more than a specified amount. However, this system has become increasingly unappealing to candidates because the imposed spending limit is considered too low — and less than the amount that major candidates can often easily raise from private sources. Consequently, many major candidates have been opting out of public funding.
Spending invariably increases from one election to the next. In addition to candidate spending, the political parties, PACs, and other interest groups will spend money to influence elections. A recent development in funneling money for elections, for example, is the “527 political organization,” named for a section of the U.S. tax code. These groups are organized primarily for the purpose of influencing the selection, nomination, election or appointment of an individual to a federal, state or local public office. 527 political organizations, such as MoveOn and Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, are not regulated by the Federal Election Commission or by a state elections commission, and are not subject to the same contribution limits as PACs. Critics of these and similar groups have long asserted that high spending in U.S. elections, combined with the reliance on private sources for funds, raises the specter of undue influence over public policy by wealthy donors and powerful interest groups.
Proposed reforms have been opposed by those who see election spending as proportionate with both the costs of goods and services in today’s economy. In this regard, election spending is seen as the price a democracy pays for electoral competition, with large contributions and expenditures by interest groups as the contemporary expression of America’s long-standing pluralism. It is hard to prove any specific connection between interest-group donations and government policy. Courts have also questioned whether further restrictions on campaign giving and spending might unduly limit donors’ constitutionally protected right to free speech in the political arena. Given the immense expense of modern campaigning, certain extremely wealthy individuals simply fund their own campaigns for public office — there is no rule against it. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don’t.
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Cançonièr and the Black Dragon | Harmonia Early Music - Indiana Public Media
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Photo: Tom Schapell
When we hear the name Dracula, the image of a bloodthirsty vampire comes to mind thanks to the writer Bram Stoker and his famous 19th-century novel. Yet it seems that Dracula was no vampire at all.
Vlad Dracula, whose last name means “Son of the Dragon” after his father who was a member of the Order of the Dragon, was infamous, however. Dracula was responsible for horrific acts against the Turks in his resistance efforts in the Balkans during the mid-15th Century.
We know of Dracula’s incredibly violent deeds because they were told in a poem by (German poet) Michel Benheim entitled “Story of a Bloodthirsty Madman Called Dracula of Wallachia.” The poem, written during Dracula’s lifetime, was printed a number of times and helped to cement his reputation early on.
Cançonièr and “Son of the Dragon”
The American medieval ensemble Cançonièr has taken inspiration from Benheim’s poem as well as the music from Dracula’s time. Their recording “The Black Dragon” includes traditional and art music of the period in addition to excerpts from the blood-curdling poem.
Several pieces chosen for the program come down to us by way of oral tradition, including Balkan songs from Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bulgaria—regions connected with Vlad Dracula.
Eclectic dance music, which played an important role in Hungarian court celebration, is also represented in the program by two 15th-century dances—a French danse du cleves and Italian Amoroso.
Cançonièr’s members are Annette Bauer, Phoebe Jevtovic, Shira Kammen, and Tim Rayborn.
Imagem da Melancolia
The oldest city in Portugal is Braga, located in the northwestern part of the country. The city also lays claim to not only being Portugal’s oldest archdiocese but also one of the oldest Christian cities in the world.
During the late 17th Century, one of Braga’s more prominent composers and organists was Pedro de Araújo, who left us just a handful of pieces for the organ which he composed in a style typical of his day.
The modern Portuguese recorder consort Imagem da Melancolia has arranged several of Araújo’s organ pieces and included them in the recording The Bad Tempered Consort, which contains numerous 17th-century Portuguese works (giving Araújo pride of place).
Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord have been recorded over and over again, giving many artists an opportunity to put their mark on some of Bach’s more virtuosic music.
Harpsichordist Robert Hill and viola da gambist Ekkerhard Weber have done likewise in an Ars Musici label recording, yet with a twist. Instead of a traditional harpsichord, Hill plays a lautenwerck (basically, a harpsichord with strings made of gut instead of metal). Bach is said to have owned at least one lautenwerck at the time of his death.
The combination of a viola da gamba and lautenwerck, both strung in gut, creates quite a special sound, to say the least.
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Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building » Oil Platfo
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- Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building - http://inhabitat.com -
Oil Platforms Transformed Into Sustainable Seascrapers That Produce Clean Water
Posted By Diane Pham On March 9, 2011 @ 2:34 pm In Architecture,Water Issues | 4 Comments
The team’s design provides a new use for existing drill pipes, using them to pull up water , rather than oil, to be stored in a spherical tank. The narrow and long capillary tubes have the power to raise water vertically and harnesses a natural phenomenon that doesn’t require a separate energy source. Amazingly, the water movement will even generate enough energy that it can be channeled and used for the site’s facilities.
After the water is drawn up it will go through a series of distillation processes, in turn producing fresh water that could later transported to countries in need. The out of commission drill points would also be used to create space for labs, lodging and management space focused on studying the marine eco-system. The concept sees the structures spread out across the ocean and to also aid in lowering the sea level and mitigating the effects of CO2 and global warming.
This clever reclamation and reuse of drill ships speaks volumes for green innovative design, first by addressing the environmental costs of oil drilling, the subsequent CO2 emissions resulting from the oil, and of course the water issues facing the world’s population today.
Article printed from Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building: http://inhabitat.com
URL to article: http://inhabitat.com/oil-platforms-transformed-into-sustainable-seascrapers-that-produce-clean-water/
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Copyright © 2011 Inhabitat Local - New York. All rights reserved.
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Scientists find evidence of liquid water on the surface of Mars
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We've known for a while that there are frozen water deposits just beneath the surface of the Martian poles, but now it seems that there are seasonal streams of liquid water that wind across the red planet's surface. Today, a group of scientists announced their discovery in Science, and told io9 what this liquid water might be like — and whether it changes the prospects for life on Mars.
The watery streams were spotted by NASA's HiRISE Martian orbiter in several different locations on the Martian surface. They look like thin, dark rivulets coming down from the tops of craters - much like mountain streams on Earth. The dark streaks appeared seasonally over a period of three years, so the researchers are relatively certain that they're seeing what might be equivalent to a spring thaw on Earth. But what kind of water could maintain liquid form on the surface of Mars, which is such an icy planet? The answer is that it's probably extremely brackish and packed with salts that lower the freezing temperature of water.
Researchers on the project dubbed these seasonal flows "recurring slope lineae" or RSLs for short.
University of Arizona astronomer Shane Byrne, who worked on the discovery, said:
What the specific salts are is an open question at the moment. NaCl [common table salt] only depresses the melting point by about 21 degrees Celsius, so it's likely that a different, more-effective, salt would be required to keep water liquid under all the circumstances where we've seen this activity. The Phoenix lander discovered perchlorate salts at a different location on Mars so they are a good candidate salt in this case too.
Added Byrne's Georgia Tech colleague James Wray, "We don't have a good way to estimate the salt content from orbit, but . . . some sites with these flows could have water no more salty than Earth's seawater (~3.5% salt content)." Though there are a lot of good possibilities for what kind of salts might be allowing this water to remain liquid, we won't know until we can actually get a sample or examine them using an instrument that can do a chemical analysis.
The scientists said that sites with RSLs show new streaks of water for a few months every Martian year (about 1.9 Earth years), but it's hard to say how long these seasonal trickles have been occurring since we've only had HiRISE observations for 3 Martian years.
Here, at left, you can see the features that the researchers have identified as RSLs in the Newton Crater. This image shows the crater during the off-season when there is no water.
And here at left you can see the same region during the wet season. Long, tan fingers of brackish water flow down from the crater top into the land below. This pattern has been documented over the past three Martian years in at least three other regions of the planet.
The next big question is where this water comes from. Could these flows be left over from an ancient Martian ocean that's disappeared or gone underground? Byrne said it's too early to say, but there are a few leading possibilities:
Where the water is coming from really is the core mystery here. It may be delivered from the sub-surface along cracks in the rocks (which would imply a larger reservoir of liquid nearby) or small amounts in the atmosphere might freeze onto the surface during winter. We're really right at the beginning of the investigation into these features so expect more findings in the years to come!
So it could be coming from underground, or it might be from the Martian equivalent of melting snow.
The point is that we now have compelling evidence that there is water on the surface of Mars, and possibly more flowing beneath the surface of the planet. This is an entirely new discovery, and could be a gamechanger when it comes to the planet supporting life. Could it mean that there's a better chance that we'll find some kind of extraterrestrial life on Mars? Byrne isn't ruling it out:
I think this is something the scientific community will have to chew over for years to come and perhaps one day we will send a landed mission to investigate these sites. Life on the Earth has evolved to fill every ecological niche possible so if life ever existed on Mars then these locations might be the best place to go looking for it despite the fact that it would still be a challenging environment by terrestrial standards.
Wray emphasized that liquid water isn't evidence for life, but adds that the water flows "could help shape the future search for microbial life on the planet, as subsurface pockets of brine are indeed one type of plausible habitat for microbes." We won't know more until we can land on the surface and investigate further.
Another big question is whether this water bodes well for an Earth colony on the planet. Have we found a good water source for our future colonists. Probably not. The amount of water we've seen so far is really small, and only in a few locations. Byrne pointed out that we've already found the best source of water for a colony, and that's from ice right beneath the Martian sands:
Much more useful to future astronauts are the vast deposits of water ice in the shallow subsurface that cover half of Mars. An astronaut who needed water could go collect it with a shovel. This ice is usually on the cold (pole facing) slopes in the mid-latitudes as opposed to these RSL features that HiRISE has been monitoring which are on the warmest slopes.
So, given the evidence gathered so far, we're not likely to see a Martian colony erected at the edges of these seasonal streams of water — unless they turn out to be trickles from a vast, underground sea. More likely our future colonists will get their water with picks and shovels. Ice mining may be the first big industry on Mars.
Additional reporting by Keith Veronese
Images courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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Information Literacy
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Last updated 9/11/12
Isothermal Community College
P.O. Box 804, Spindale NC 28160
(828) 395-1307 fax (828) 286-8208
Charles P. Wiggins, Director of Library Services
"Data Never Sleeps" 1-- link to a cool data graphic!
Information and Information Literacy
Information is knowledge acquired in any manner; facts; data; learning; lore... information applies to facts that are gathered in any way, by reading, observation, hearsay, etc., and does not necessarily connote validity.2
Information literacy, as defined by the American Library Association, is the ability to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."3 Information literacy skills are not just for classroom use; they are life skills:
"...information literate people are those who have learned how to learn... they learn how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them. They are people prepared for lifelong learning, because they can always find the information needed for any task or decision at hand."4
Information literacy skills include the following:
Determine the need: Do you need information, and if so, what information do you need? lincoln1
Identify information options, and choose your sources: What kinds of information are appropriate for your needs and how do you search for them? Coke can LCSH
- Pinpoint your question, or be sure you completely understand your assignment
- Think about what you already know about this subject
Evaluate: Is your research method bringing you appropriate and helpful information? Is the information reliable?
- Consider the Information Cycle Timeline5 to see sources of specific kinds of information. Do you need eyewitness accounts, early news, or later studies? Can the needed information be found by searching in the library catalog, in periodical databases, or other indexes?
- Think of keywords you can use to research this topic; using synonyms and related terms will help you find more information than is possible by using only one term.
KwMap is a website that will help you find keywords to use online, and you can search in Library of Congress Subject Headings for authoritative subject headings for research using books.
- To determine the validity of information, consider aspects in Evaluating Resources, or apply the CRAAP Test.6
Use information ethically:
- Keep good records of the sources of information you use so that you can give credit to them.
- Avoid plagiarism by giving credit properly to all sources you use.
Analyzing content is another information literacy skill that normally is addressed in English courses.
Information literacy skills are well illustrated in Seattle Central Community College's excellent web page resource, Research Process: Reflect Learn Connect.7
Illustration: "Information Literacy IFLA-UNESCO Logo." Logo. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO). InfoLit Global. Web. 3 September 2010.
1"Domo Infographic." Inside the Domosphere. Domo. 2011. Web. 27 June 2012.
2"Information." Def. 3 & Syn. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language. College ed. 1968.
3, 4American Library Association. Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. Final Report. (Chicago: American Library Association, 1989.)
5Vassiliadis, Kim. "Published Information - The Information Timeline." Library Research Tutorial. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 5 Aug. 2008. Web. 3 Sept. 2010.
6 "Evaluating Information - Applying the CRAAP Test." Meriam Library. California State University, Chico, 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 3 Sept. 2010.
Comments, questions, or corrections should be submitted to Charles P. Wiggins, Director of Library Services; Engle Troxler, or Becky Cleland, Librarians
Some links on this site go to external web sites not connected with Isothermal Community College. Their inclusion is not an endorsement by Isothermal and Isothermal is not responsible for accuracy of their content.
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Jefferson working to update stormwater ordinance - journal-news.net | News, sports, jobs, community
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CHARLES TOWN - Stormwater finds a way to affect many things - water quality, habitat, local streams - and Jefferson County is working to draft a new stormwater ordinance to protect those very things.
The county is working with Region 9 Planning and Development Council to update the current stormwater management ordinance, which will be pulled from the subdivision regulations and stand alone as its own ordinance, explained Matthew Pennington, Region 9 Chesapeake Bay Program coordinator.
As nitrogen, phosphorous and other pollutants are being swept into streams and rivers, Chesapeake Bay regulations require that Jefferson County reduce the amount of these harmful components that flow into the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.
Journal photo by Michelle Horst
Signs welcome travelers into West Virginia with the reminder of conserving natural resources.
The ordinances are designed to regulate new developments or redevelopments of commercial, industrial or larger subdivision residential developments, which increases the volume of water generated from impervious surfaces.
Impervious surfaces include rooftops, parking lots and driveways.
"What that does is create less room for water to infiltrate into the water table, and so the water goes to its lowest point in the form of discharge into local creeks and streams," Pennington said.
Stormwater management examines the original state of the piece of property, as engineers recreate the original site discharge in order to prevent flooding out area roadways or rivers near the project.
Pennington said quantity is one part of the program, while quality is the second.
"Now that you have parking lots with oil and dirt and sediment on these roadways, and other types of nutrients that are getting picked up from the fertilizers, the water isn't as clean as what it was when it was just a vacant piece of property," Pennington said.
The stormwater is picking up all the pollution from the ground, and making the quality element in the ordinance is part of the change being introduced to the Jefferson County standard.
Currently, Pennington said, the county and Region 9 are examining the possible adoption of imposing a one-inch capture requirement; that means any time rain falls onto an impervious surface or turf grass, engineers would have to show designs in which they are able to capture the first inch.
"Another component is to look at some subdivision ordinances and identify areas where there are barriers in place that do not allow or permit for engineers or designers to design certain types of facilities to be able to reduce the amount of runoff from a project," Pennington said.
An example, he said, would be developing one parking lot for every 500 square feet of commercial retail space instead of every 100 square feet. This would reduce the amount of overall impervious surface, which would reduce the amount of stormwater.
A tentative date for the draft of the stormwater ordinance is between late spring and summer.
"We are looking for comments," Pennington said. "When the draft comes out, the public will have an opportunity to read and comment on it."
County officials are working with Delta Development Ground Inc. of Pennsylvania on the ordinance update.
- Staff writer Michelle Horst can be reached at 304-263-8931, ext. 138, or firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Beautiful, Beautiful White Flowers... - Photo Essay - JPG
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Beautiful, Beautiful White Flowers...
2 Apr 2008
A flower, also known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Magnoliophyta, also called angiosperms).
The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds. The process begins with pollination, is followed by fertilization, leading to the formation and dispersal of the seeds. For the higher plants, seeds are the next generation, and serve as the primary means by which individuals of a species are dispersed across the landscape. The grouping of flowers on a plant are called the inflorescence.
In addition to serving as the reproductive organs of flowering plants, flowers have long been admired and used by humans, mainly to beautify their environment but also as a source of food.
Each flower has a specific design which best encourages the transfer of its pollen. Cleistogamous flowers are self pollinated, after which, they may or may not open. Many Viola and some Salvia species are known to have these types of flowers.
Entomophilous flowers attract and use insects, bats, birds or other animals to transfer pollen from one flower to the next. Flowers commonly have glands called nectaries on their various parts that attract these animals. Some flowers have patterns, called nectar guides, that show pollinators where to look for nectar.
Flowers also attract pollinators by scent and color. Still other flowers use mimicry to attract pollinators. Some species of orchids, for example, produce flowers resembling female bees in color, shape, and scent. Flowers are also specialized in shape and have an arrangement of the stamens that ensures that pollen grains are transferred to the bodies of the pollinator when it lands in search of its attractant (such as nectar, pollen, or a mate). In pursuing this attractant from many flowers of the same species, the pollinator transfers pollen to the stigmas�arranged with equally pointed precision�of all of the flowers it visits.
Anemophilous flowers use the wind to move pollen from one flower to the next, examples include the grasses, Birch trees, Ragweed and Maples. They have no need to attract pollinators and therefore tend not to be "showy" flowers. Male and female reproductive organs are generally found in separate flowers, the male flowers having a number of long filaments terminating in exposed stamens, and the female flowers having long, feather-like stigmas.
Whereas the pollen of entomophilous flowers tends to be large-grained, sticky, and rich in protein (another "reward" for pollinators), anemophilous flower pollen is usually small-grained, very light, and of little nutritional value to insects.
Reprinted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Javascript Examples - TUTORIALS
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Breaking this down a bit:
statements until the first ";" (semi-colon) is reached.
statements between the first ";" and the second ";".
follow the last ";".
A very simple FOR statement that outputs the numbers from
1 to 10:
for (var _i=1;_i<=10;_i++) document.write(_i+"<BR>");
This FOR loop declares a variable "_i" to be only valid
inside the for loop and preset to the value of 1.
The test for this loop to be finished is checked:
_i<=10 (_i is 1 and 1 is less than or equal to 10) so
the first itieration of the loop starts.
The document.write statement is the only statement inside
the loop since there are no curly braces for the body
of the FOR loop. I is displayed along with a BR tag (1<BR>)
After each iteration of the loop, the value _i is incremented by 1
(_i++). So the next evaluation for exiting the loop is tested:
_i<=10 (2<=10)... This continues until _i is 11 - at which point
of the for loop is processed.
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design of living systems « Julio Terra
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ITPWC is a phytoremediation device based on the Eco-Machine systems developed by Dr. John Todd* and research done by the ITPWC team on aquaponics systems. Built in the men’s bathroom on the ITP floor, our inspiration for this project was to create a system that made a positive impact on air quality while also improving the overall ambiance of the space.
Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. Aquaponic systems are designed to grow plants and fish symbiotically in one integrated system. The fish waste provides a food source for the growing plants and the plants provide a natural filter for the water that the fish live in.
A large scale aquaponic system build on the Eco-Machine paradigm has been designed to filter human-created wastes from water, so that water can be recycled for human usage. This system lives at the Omega Center in upstate New York. Two members of ITPWC team had an opportunity to visit Omega, and get a tour of this new inspirational creation.
To track the impact that this system had on the air quality in the men’s room, we installed sensors that measure changes in the level of methane and solvent vapors. These sensors were attached to an Arduino that uploaded average readings every five minutes to data feed on Pachube.
Here is an overview of how the different components in this system work together to create a symbiotic ecosystem and to remediate the water:
- Aquaculture: The fish living in this component excrete waste and ammonia into the water, which will act as fertilizer for the plants. Water is pumped up to the grow bed and then gravity does the rest to keep things moving.
- Phytoremediation: These plants remove chemical vapors from the air, as well as help rid the water of pollutants. They absorb nutrients from the nitrate-rich water and produce oxygen at a high rate. Plants used include dresden, boston fern, golden pathos, english ivy, peace lily.
- Aquaticremediation: Aquatic plant roots provide habitat for waste eating microbes. Filter feeders, like the clams in this system, help remove algae and other toxic particulates from the water. Plants used include penny worts, banana plant, freshwater plant, freshwater flat clams, and duckweed.
- Bio-Filter: The bio-filter is an anaerobic environment (no oxygen) where micro-organisms and bacteria strip any excess ammonia, nitrates, nitrites and phosphorus that remain in the water. The mud used to inoculate the system comes from Prospect Park lake in Brooklyn.
I want to thank the ITP WC team for all the hard that they devoted in building this system. We all wore many hats on this project but I want to give credit where it is due. Macaulay took the lead on the physical design and production of this living system, while Adib became our resident aquaponic/eco-machine expert, and Marko led the way in creating the communications for to system.
Here are some pictures from the installation itself:
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Rama Setu: satellite image zoom, themes | Hinducivilization
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The National Geographic website clearly shows a zoomable satellite picture of Rama Sethu. Thematic maps can also be seen.
1. Please click on this URL :
2. Double click on the India Srilanka border region
3. Continue to double click till you reach the Rameswaram – Ramar bridge – Mannar location
4. Switch to Satellitle view (click on the Satellite tab above the map)
You can very clearly see the coral bridge connecting India and Srilanka.
Google Earth and Yahoo maps do NOT show this region clearly, where as National Geographic shows it very clearly. You may circulate this URL to interested parties.
Monday, May 21, 2007
In the last couple of months, there has been a big hue and cry about the Government of India going ahead with the construction of a canal by cutting through the middle of Rama Setu – a bridge like formation between India and Sri Lanka.
This bridge has been celebrated as the bridge constructed by Lord Rama to get his army to Sri Lanka to rescue his kidnapped wife Sita. Check the link below for a wonderful podcast by Dr. S. Kalyaranaraman on why this Sethusamudram canal project should be done differently. This podcast discusses scientific, environmental, religious and historical aspects of the Rama Setu. The thesis is that Setusamudram canal, if it cuts through Rama Setu can have disastrous results for the coasts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Please visit the podcast below and get educated on the Rama Setu issue.
The funny thing is that this bridge – known as Rama Setu for a long time – was renamed as Adam’s bridge by the British and our maps in school still refer to them as Adam’s bridge and Adam’s peak. Why?
While I can understand why the British behaved as they did, I can’t understand why the DMK and its allies – who are after all our compatriots, derive perverse pleasure in maligning the Hindu religion and its monuments,beliefs and personages. In fact, DMK leaders secretly involve themselves in Hindu rituals! Why this facade of hatred?
The other interesting thing is that a study shows that the Rama Setu is apparently man-made (more information in the podcast). I use the word ‘apparently’ as I don’t seem to fully believe that a bridge of that length and especially of that age could be man-made. But the study is beginning to appear more and more convincing to me.
A better development in this matter is that Hindu leaders across the country are rising against this onslaught against one of their symbols. The Jagadguru of the Sringeri Shankara maTha Sri Sri bhAratI tIrtha swAminaH has himself spoken in this regard. Known for his complete non-involvement in matters even remotely political, Sri swAmIji has now issued statements voicing great concern about possible damage to rAma setu.
The UPA government might continue with its project – but not without some very stiff opposition.
PS: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE watch and listen to that podcast and pass it on to your friends to educate them about this matter. Thanks to Dr. S. Kalyanaraman for such a painstaking analysis and lucid explanation of the matter for lay people such as myself.
Posted by nIlagrIva at 2:12 AM
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KnittingKel: Knitting Needles
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Straight needles are what most people think of when they think about knitting. They are sticks with a point on one end and a knob on the other end. These needles are used to make flat items, like blankets, scarfs, and shawls.
Circular needles, which are my favorite types of needles have two parts. There is a cord which is typically made of plastic. The other part is the needle part. This part is typically made of metal or aluminum and connected to the cord by a plastic piece that changes in diameter from the needle size to the smaller diameter of the cord. These needles can be used to make anything the straight needles can make and they can also be used to make tubes. Knitting in the round is a good way to make seamless sweaters, bags, and skirts. Another good thing about circular needles is that it seems like the weight of the knitted fabric is better distributed and there is less hand strain with these. There are also sets with interchangable needles. They come with most of the needle sizes and different lengths of cord. This is nice when you are trying to figure out what size needle to use to get the gauge of the pattern. Also, different lengths of cords enable the knitter to use the same needles to make a sleeve and the body of the sweater. The set I have was purchased at Michael's with a 1/2 off coupon. The one thing about these needles is that the needle part screws into the cord and sometimes the connection will get loose and the cord will seperate from the needle. There are other needle sets that have different ways of connecting, which I've heard isn't as likely to come undone during knititng. A company called Knit Picks has a set and there are other companies who make sets like this.
Double Pointed Needles, or DPNs as they are more commonly called are used for small things that are knit in the round. They are just sticks with points on each side. The most common uses for DPNs are socks and sleeves.
Knitting has been around for a long time, so there are different ways to measure the diameters of knitting needles. Needles are measured by at least three different systems, the US, the British and the metric. Always make sure that the needle size that a pattern calls for is the system that you think it is. The British system runs in the opposite direction of the US, so using a British Size 3 needle when the pattern called for a US size 3 would not work so well.
Knitting Needles also come in many different materials. The most common are wood/bamboo, metal/aluminum and plastic. I have found that the wood ones are good for yarns that are more slippery, like cotton. The metal ones are good for wool and things that may slide off of the needles.
What is your favorite kind of knitting needle? Have you tried the other interchangeable circular needle sets, if so, how did you like it?
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Snow melt | kris's space
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This small program aims to create an estimate of the expected increase in water levels in catchment areas that you mark out this map (using a ruler) Map. I chose this card because of two very important benefits: – clear embossed image – very good "Measuring distances"-ruler – as well as maintenance of the Bulgarian language.
An important feature is that the first opening of the card is not in this form, so the menu: Map type / kind of map /-tick – satellite . To find the right place, move and zoom the map when you find out you are interested click on the ruler – then you will see this:
Start to mark out your interest catchment areas, always start from the horizontal (parallel) of the water catchment area stretches for the program to work correctly – it will calculate the volume of water quantity in the form of snow like this:
In the picture, I marked the horizontal sections, a1, a2, a3, a4, and are vertical; b1, b2, b3, b4. Record the data in the program by converting measured distances from km to m (2.5 km = 2500 m / 1.2 km = 1200m) The program will need to apply and the average thickness of the snow that measured in centimeters, use the following conversion dependencies (100 cm = 1 m; 10cm = 0.1 m; 5 cm = 0.05 m) Window on the program:
It is not necessarily to fill in all data areas, but not necessarily enter the average thickness of the snow after you enter data and click the "calculate" the program will calculate the total water amount accumulated in the form of snow, using the relationship: 5 volume parts snow = 1 parts water (this is the ratio of unbeaten snow)
The program will display the depth of the water catchment area with a width of 20 meters, as shown in the above screenshot. For correct operation of the program, it is important to correctly apply the horizontal sections in the area, a1, a2, a3, a4 …..!
The program is indicative, it can be used to calculate the estimated amount of water that will flow in the water catchment area area during the summer rains, as predicted rainfall l / m2 move in snow field, and the ratio 1/5 is "the amount of water "you will be asked in the soil or evaporated into the atmosphere.
The program at this stage is static because it does not measure the dependence of increased average night and day temperatures and increase the speed of snow melting as well as changing the structure and color of the snow (because then it reacts differently to solar radiation) so if anyone possession of such information depends on : increasing temperature – snowmelt-LET share it as a comment or a personal email to me.
If you entered the relationship: speed of snowmelt – increasing average temperature day and night, then you can predict the height of the the shock wave of water that would be formed in a sharp increase in temperature!
The program is open source, anyone can copy it and convert to their own needs! I apologize for the wooden transfer, however, English is not my mother language!
I will be happy if you useful this program!
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Federal Administrative Law | Duke University School of Law
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Administrative law focuses on the exercise of government authority by the executive branch and its agencies. These agencies are created by Congress through "enabling legislation," and are authorized to promulgate regulations which have the same force as statutory law. Federal agencies have steadily grown in number and importance in the United States, and they affect a wide variety of social issues, such as telecommunications, the financial market, and racial discrimination. The term "administrative law" encompasses the procedures under which these agencies operate, as well as external constraints upon them (such as the Administrative Procedure Act, constitutional limitations, and judicial review).
Administrative law research can be complex due to the multiple functions of federal agencies. They act somewhat like legislatures through the rulemaking process, and somewhat like courts through the enforcement and litigation of these rules. As a result, administrative law research involves a broad spectrum of materials: from proposed regulations, to presidential orders, to the opinions of administrative law judges. This research guide describes these administrative materials and where they can be located in the Goodson Law Library and online.
Treatises provide an excellent starting point to identify the issues and leading primary materials.
- Alfred C. Aman, Administrative Law (West Hornbook), 2d. ed. Reserve KF5402 .A8 2001
- Kenneth Culp Davis & Richard Pierce, Administrative Law Treatise (3 vols.), 5th ed. KF5402 .D315 2010. Recognized as the leading work on the topic.
- William F. Fox, Jr., Understanding Administrative Law, 5th ed. KF5402 .F68 2008.
- Ernest Gellhorn & Ronald M. Levin, Administrative Law and Process in a Nutshell, 4th ed. Reserve KF5402 .G318 1997.
- Richard W. Pierce, Administrative Law: Concepts and Insights, 2d ed. KF5402 .P528 2012.
- John W. Willis, Administrative Law, Third Series (also known as Pike and Fischer Administrative Law) KF5401.A56 P54. A current awareness, digest, citator, and reporter system containing decisions of the regulatory agencies concerning procedural aspects of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Other administrative law books can be found in the General Collection at the call number range KF5402 - KF5411 on Level 2.
Although much information about agencies can now be found online, print sources provide consistent and comprehensive information. The jurisdiction, structure, and function of an agency are all important when researching administrative law. The following sources provide information about what agencies do, how they are organized, the laws and regulations under which they operate, and general contact information.
United States Government Manual
Reference Documents AE 2.108/2 and Reserve Collection (current edition)
Documents AE 2.108/2 (1940 - previous edition)
FDsys (1995 - current)
This annually-published official handbook of the U.S. government provides information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial and executive branches as well as quasi-official agencies, boards, commissions, and selected international organizations. Entries include contact information (including regional offices), and a summary of the agency’s purpose, programs, and activities. The Appendix lists agencies terminated, transferred or changed in name. A list of commonly used acronyms is also included. The Web version of the Manual is browseable and searchable.
Federal Regulatory Directory
Reference JK610 .F29 (current edition)
This directory, published by Congressional Quarterly, begins with a chapter explaining the regulatory process and describing its history and growth. Subsequent chapters provide in-depth profiles of the officials and activities of the largest agencies. Especially useful for complex agencies is the information about statutes administered and where to find the rules and regulations in the C.F.R. A list of acronyms and indexing by name and subject are detailed.
Federal Staff Directory, Reference JK641 .F42 (current edition)
Federal Yellow Book, online (earlier winter editions in storage)
These directories are best used for finding names, titles and contact information for the people who work in executive branch agencies and departments. Name and subject indexes are included. The Federal Staff Directory also includes short biographies of key staff personnel. Both titles issue new editions several times a year.
LSU Libraries Federal Agency Directory
Agency websites are generally excellent sources of information about their activities, personnel and organization. This Web site provides links to all the regulatory agencies listed in the U.S. Government Manual. Entries are organized hierarchically, alphabetically and by type of agency group.
Congress transfers legislative authority to agencies under the delegation doctrine, which can be a broad or specific grant of power. Rulemaking is one of the main mechanisms through which agencies act. Administrative rules, also referred to interchangeably as regulations, are adopted by agencies and are considered primary legal authority.
The process of rulemaking is governed by the Administrative Procedure Act. Generally, the APA requires a process that includes publication of the proposed rules, a period for comments and participation in the decisionmaking, and adoption and publication of the final rule. See 5 U.S.C. § 553. This is known as "notice and comment" or "informal" rulemaking (i.e., informal in comparison with the more complex process required for laws made by Congress).
For more information on the rulemaking process, see the following titles:
- Cornelius M. Kerwin, Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy, 4th ed. KF5411 .K47 2011
- Jeffrey F. Lubbers, A Guide to Federal Agency Rulemaking, 4th ed. KF5411 .L83 2006
Federal regulations may be located by various methods, such as the use of references in secondary sources and through cross-references from statutes to regulations in an annotated code. Individual agency websites are also generally excellent places to find their relevant regulations and proposed regulations. In addition, several reliable online sources can be searched in various ways. These sources include LexisNexis, Westlaw, and FDsys. The federal government has also created Regulations.gov, a Web portal for agencies' rulemaking documents, including proposed rules and text of public comments.
The official print index to CFR, Index and Finding Aids, is limited in the subjects it uses and works best when you already know the agency that administers the regulations. The Index and Finding Aids volume also contains a Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules that can be used to find regulations using a statute. The list is not comprehensive, however.
For historical regulatory research, the CIS Index to the Code of Federal Regulations (available from 1986-2001 in the Law Library's Microform collection on Level 1) provides highly detailed indexing. However, this source is no longer published.
Statute to Regulation
To find what regulations have been promulgated under a specific U.S. Code or Statutes at Large section, use 'Table 1 - Authorities' in the Finding Aids section of the CFR Index and Finding Aids volume. Annotated codes, such as the U.S.C.A. or U.S.C.S., will also provide relevant regulations. Note that these sources are not comprehensive lists.
Commercial Electronic Services
Regulations on specific topics (such as tax, banking, or securities) can be found in looseleaf and electronic services, which the Goodson Law Library receives primarily in electronic format. These services are generally updated weekly or bi-weekly. Regulations are well-indexed and integrated with other materials on the same topic. CCH services are available to current Duke students, faculty and staff through IntelliConnect. Publications from Bloomberg BNA are available at http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/lresources/bna or through Bloomberg Law.
The Federal Register (F.R.) has been the official daily publication of the executive branch since 1936. It includes a variety of information about agency activities (such as notices, meetings, proposed and final regulations, and Presidential executive orders and proclamations). Proposed and final regulations are accompanied by extensive explanation and background about the purpose of the action and the comments received. This information is often useful in interpreting regulations, in the same way that legislative history is used to interpret statutes. For help with using the Federal Register, visit the National Archives’ tutorial page The Federal Register: What It Is and How to Use It.
The Federal Register may be found in the library at the following locations.
- 1936 - current year (microform): Microforms, Level 1
- 1936 - 1972 (print): Documents US AE 2.106
The full text of the Federal Register may be found electronically through a variety of sources. Resources marked with an asterisk (*) are available only to current members of the Duke Law community.
- FDsys: 1994 - current (provided in PDF and .txt)
- HeinOnline: 1936 - current year (provided in PDF)
- LexisNexis*: July 1980 - current year (updated daily)
- Westlaw*: July 1980 - current year (updated daily)
The Office of the Federal Register publishes the next day's F.R. contents on the Public Inspection Desk, arranged by agency.
Many lawyers rely on a daily table of contents from the F.R. to track agency activity. The Government Printing Office (GPO) supplies the table of contents through a listserv. Westlaw includes a separate database for the table of contents (FR-TOC) from 1993 to date, and also offers the "Agency Tracker" e-mail service through its Alert Center.
LexisNexis does not provide the daily table of contents separately, but does offer a Federal Regulation Tracking source from 1997 forward. This source contains summaries of proposed regulations and status information.
The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the annual codification of the final rules published in the Federal Register. The CFR is divided into 50 titles that represent broad subject areas. Title 3 of the CFR contains presidential proclamations, executive orders, and other presidential documents that are required to be published in the Federal Register. (Sometimes the U.S. Code title and the CFR title that covers the same subject matter match, but often they do not. For instance, tax laws are in title 26 of both USC and CFR; environmental materials are found in Title 40 of CFR, but in various titles of USC.) Each title is revised once a year officially and the cover of each print booklet indicates the date of last revision. Electronic versions are updated more frequently, as described below.
The Goodson Law Library owns a full set of the Code of Federal Regulations, dating back to its inception in 1938. The current CFR is located in the Federal Alcove (Level 3). Superseded volumes are on Level 1 in the Government Documents collection (Doc. AE 2.106/3).
Note: All volumes of Title 3 (Presidential materials), whether current or superseded, are located in the Federal Alcove on Level 3. See section VII of this guide for more information.
For historical versions of the CFR, HeinOnline has all volumes and supplements in PDF from 1938-present.
Electronic versions of the CFR can be found on LexisNexis and Westlaw, beginning in the early 1980s. (Westlaw excludes the Executive Orders and other presidential documents, but provides them in the separate PRES database). The CFR may be searched across all years, or in individual years.
Predicting future proposed regulations can be assisted with the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (also known as the Semiannual Regulatory Agenda), a biennial update of planned rules for each agency, along with their justifications and expected timetables. From 1983-2007, the entire Unified Agenda was published twice a year in the Federal Register, usually in April and October. Beginning in fall 2007, the Unified Agenda became a primarily web-based publication, available at the Regulatory Information Service Center. The Federal Register version of the Unified Agenda now contains only "rules which are likely to have a significant economic impact" as well as rules which are required for inclusion by statute. Historic issues of the Agenda are available in HeinOnline's Federal Register Library (from 1983), Lexis and Westlaw (from 1985); FDsys (from 1994); and RegInfo.gov (from 1995).
A number of sources allow users to track pending agency regulations, and simplify the comment process. Regulations.Gov is the federal government's centralized site for online access to proposed and final regulations, and submission and review of public comments. RegInfo.Gov provides various breakdowns of pending agency action, allowing users to view pending actions by rule stage or by agency. Justia offers a Regulation Tracker which allows searching and updating (via RSS feeds) of regulations from 2005 – present.
Updating changes to final regulations is also greatly simplified online, since electronic versions of the CFR are continuously updated. On LexisNexis and Westlaw, the CFR databases are updated to incorporate changes within 2 weeks. Westlaw also links to pending changes in the Federal Register using the KeyCite feature. The most current version of the CFR is the unofficial e-CFR, which incorporates new amendments within 1 to 2 days.
In print, the traditional way to update the CFR is to use the List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA). This publication provides citations to the Federal Register for any changes since the last annual update of the CFR title. LSA is issued monthly and cumulates annually. You will also find a list in the Federal Register issued on the last day of each month: CFR Parts Affected in this Issue. LSA can be used to track the history of changes to a regulation over time. Each CFR volume also contains a table in the back noting repeals, amendments, renumbering and transfers of regulations. LSA is available electronically from FDsys for the years 1997 forward. HeinOnline’s Federal Register library includes LSA issues as well.
Administrative agencies also have quasi-judicial and enforcement functions, and conduct hearings and issue decisions through administrative law judges. The procedures and publication of these activities varies widely. This information is not included in the Federal Register, but may be referenced there.
About 15 agencies currently publish decisions in court reporter form. Like federal rules and regulations, these agency decisions are available in several different places: officially published reports of decisions; commercial databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw; agency Web sites; and looseleaf services. Publication of administrative decisions is more fragmented than rules and regulations, and there is no one place where all such decisions are located.
Officially Published Reports
Official publications from the agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission Decisions, resemble standard court reporters. Table 1 of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (Reserve KF245 .U55 2010) lists the official and commercial publications covering administrative adjudications, interpretations, and opinions of the major federal regulatory agencies. Most official administrative publications are located on Level 1 in the Documents collection and are arranged by Superintendent of Documents call number. Check the online catalog for Law Library holdings.
Many administrative decisions are available on LexisNexis and Westlaw. Both systems have topical databases corresponding to the various areas of law which are subject to agency regulation. LexisNexis also offers the database Federal Agency Decisions, Combined for administrative decisions and opinions. Westlaw provides administrative decisions through the database Federal Administrative Materials, All (FADMIN-ALL); opinions from individual agencies may also be searched in separate databases.
HeinOnline has digitized many official sources for administrative decisions in its U.S. Federal Agency Documents, Decisions and Appeals Library, with most dating back to volume 1 for the publication.
The public website of a particular agency may also contain the full text of its decisions. A list of available agency materials is maintained by the University of Virginia.
LLMC Digital, a project of the Law Library Microform Consortium, is another electronic database which is in the process of digitizing older materials, including agency decisions. Dates of available online collections vary.
Electronic Commercial Services
Designed to compensate for the delay in official publication of agency decisions and the lack of comprehensive indexing, looseleaf and electronic services publish administrative decisions in their subject areas. The CCH services are available to current Duke students, faculty and staff through IntelliConnect. Publications from Bloomberg BNA are available at http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/lresources/bna or through Bloomberg Law. Older looseleafs in print are available on Level 1 in the Superseded Looseleaf collection.
There are Shepard's citators for the CFR (including presidential proclamations, executive orders, and reorganization plans) and for many administrative decisions that can be used to find cases citing specific regulations and decisions. These are available in the Goodson Law Library through the online Shepard's service in LexisNexis. Westlaw's competing citator, KeyCite, also includes the CFR and selected administrative decisions. For tax research, the CCH and Prentice-Hall looseleaf services offer their own specialized citators.
Case annotations can also be located in U.S.C.S., which includes coverage from more than fifty commissions and boards.
The President of the United States issues a wide variety of documents, including executive orders and proclamations, messages to Congress, agency reorganization plans, and miscellaneous speeches, remarks, and letters. Many of these materials are included in Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations, and are also compiled into other publications.
Executive orders and proclamations are issued by the President and have legal effect. Although there is no legal difference between the two, proclamations are generally used to announce special events, such as Earth Day, and executive orders govern and direct agency activities.
Executive orders and proclamations are initially published in the Federal Register and the Daily (formerly Weekly) Compilation of Presidential Documents. They are compiled annually in Title 3 of the CFR and into the Public Papers of the Presidents. Proclamations are also published in Statutes at Large and United States Code Congressional and Administrative News.
The Law Library also owns a separate microfiche collection, Presidential Executive Orders & Proclamations, 1789-1983, which contains the full text of executive orders and proclamations from the George Washington to Ronald Reagan administrations. This set is arranged by CIS accession number and is accompanied by an extensive index (Ref. KF70 .A55 1789-1983).
Proclamations and executive orders dating from April 1945 - January 1989 are also separately codified in the Codification of Presidential Proclamations and Executive Orders, which is shelved with the CFR in the Federal Alcove. The Codification provided in one source proclamations and executive orders that have general applicability and continuing effect. Note that this source is no longer published, although it may be useful for historical research.
Individual executive orders and proclamations may be found online through a variety of sources. Resources marked with an asterisk (*) are available only to current members of the Duke Law community.
- FDsys: 1994 - present (via Federal Register; available document compilations also listed in next section)
- LexisNexis*: 1981 - present
- National Archives: 1945 - 1989
- Westlaw*: 1936 - present (executive orders); 1984 - present (other documents)
Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents (2009- )
Formerly Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (1965-2009)
FDsys (1993 - present)
HeinOnline (1965- present; select "U.S. Presidential Library")
Documents AE 2.109 (1965 - 2000), Level 1
The Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents is the most up-to-date reference source for the activities of the President. It contains proclamations, executive orders, speeches, press conferences, messages, statements, and a list of bills signed. From 1965-2009, the Weekly Compilation was published each Monday and printed all items from the President released up to 5:00 p.m. of the preceding Friday. It is now a web-only daily publication, compiled into the Public Papers (see below) each year.
The Public Papers of the Presidents contain public presidential documents and speeches in a convenient printed volume. The Public Papers have been published for every President since Herbert Hoover, with the exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose papers were published privately (see below). The Public Papers include the State of the Union Address, budget and economic messages, other formal communications to Congress, news conferences, addresses and informal remarks, letters to congressional leaders and agency heads, and the public records of meetings with foreign leaders. Beginning with the Carter administration in 1977, every item contained in the Weekly (now Daily) Compilation of Presidential Documents is also compiled into the Public Papers.
Earlier compilations of presidential documents include:
Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt
HeinOnline (select "U.S. Presidential Library")
E806 .R749 1938, Level 1 (vols. 10-13 only; full set available at Perkins or LSC)
Presidential Addresses and State Papers of Theodore Roosevelt
E660 .R77 1970, Level 1
A Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (1898)
HeinOnline (select "U.S. Presidential Library")
Documents Y 4.P 93:3, Level 1
The American Presidency Project, an unofficial Internet archive sponsored by the University of California, Santa Barbara, also provides the entire set of Public Papers and its earlier versions in HTML format.
rev. JW/jlb 10/2012
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SAU Library Hot Paper Topics Homeland Security and Open Government
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Security and Open Government
American Presidency Project
the only online resource that has consolidated, coded, and organized
into a single searchable database:
The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Washington - Taft
(1789-1913) The Public Papers of the Presidents: Hoover to
Bush (1929-1993) The Weekly Compilation of Presidential
Documents: Clinton - G.W. Bush (1993-2007)
Audit of the Withdrawal of Records from Public Access at the
National Archives and Records Administration for Classification
Purposes -- in .pdf format.
the Homefront -- A
daily chronicle of news in homeland security and military operations
affecting newsgathering, access to information and the public's
right to know.
Brief History of the NSA -- audio file by Daniel Schorr
which also discusses the establishment of the Foreign Intelligence
Administration Documents on Secrecy Policy -- primary
for Biosecurity -- from the University of Pittsburgh Medical
Center. Full-text articles and reports in .pdf format. Links too.
- Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS). Full Text reports. Searchable.
Chill Wind is blowing in this Nation -- Transcript of Tim
Robbins' Speech to the National Press Club about the attack against
our Constitution from within our own borders. A primary source.
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
CIA and the War on Terrorism -- the CIA's official take on
it all. Primary sources here!
of Homeland Security
Electronic Surveillance Laws -- state by state, enactments and
Responders -- The findings of the Council on Foreign
Relations' Independent Task Force on Emergency Responders.
"This report marks the first time that data from emergency
responder communities has been brought together to estimate national
Amendment Law: An Overview
Confidential: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to
Information and the Public's Right to Know -- in .pdf format and
prepared by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Literature -- a list of books and also some full-text
document links, including titles in the history of intelligence in
Systems & Programs -- from the Federation of American
Scientists, this includes a selection of official and unofficial
resources on intelligence gathering, policy, functions, and
Iraq Intelligence and Nuclear Evidence -- a source for
Is your Printer spying
on you?? -- an article with links to this odd form of big
Documents on FOIA and Access to Government Information --
FOIA means the Freedom of Information Act.
Memory Hole --
where articles, photos and reports go when they mysteriously
disappear from public view for political and other reasons
Information About Women's Lives -- a report by the National
Council for Research on Women on the many substantive fact sheets
and federal reporting on women and girls no longer existing on this
administration's Women's Bureau Web site.
NACo: Nat'l Assoc. of Counties -- lots of full-text fact
sheets and articles and documents for U.S. counties.
Infrastructure Protection Center Web -- news, legal issues
and more from the U.S. government.
Administration -- FAQ, these are the folks who may be spying
Security Archive -- at George Washington University, "combines
a unique range of functions in one non governmental, non-profit
institution. The Archive is simultaneously a research institute on
international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S.
documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a public
interest law firm defending and expanding public access to
government information through the FOIA, and an indexer and
publisher of the documents in books, microfiche, and electronic
formats. The Archive's approximately $2.3 million yearly budget
comes from publication revenues and from private philanthropists
such as the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and
the Ford Foundation. As a matter of policy, the Archive
receives no government funding."
Act, United States -- don't look behind you.
PATRIOT Act -- the latest news and an examination of the
issues surrounding it from the American Library Association.
Prospects for Iraq's Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead --
National Intelligence Estimate from the NIC, "The Director of
National Intelligence serves as the head of the Intelligence
Community (IC), overseeing and directing the implementation of the
National Intelligence Program and acting as the principal advisor to
the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland
Security Council for intelligence matters."
REAL ID --
the dreaded National ID
card which states
are required to implement the Real ID law by May 11, 2008, at
uncompensated expense, and some states are resisting. The National
Conference of State Legislatures offers the full text of the act here,
along with related federal and state legislation, critiques by
governors, and news stories about it.
Responding to a Biological or Chemical Threat: A Practical Guide
Sandia National Lab
--" is a national security laboratory involved in a variety of
research and development programs to help secure a peaceful and free
world through technology. " One of the areas is Homeland Security.
News -- from the Federation of American Scientists, Project
on Government Secrecy. It provides informal coverage of new
developments in secrecy, security and intelligence policies
"Taguba Report" on Treatment of Abu Ghraib
Prisoners in Iraq
Understanding the Patriot Act “Sunsets” -- from the ACLU,
Click here for
the view from the
Federation of American Scientists (that one is in .pdf)
United States Military Medicine in War on Terror Prisons --
database of primary documents
the Freedom of Information Act -- A step-by-step guide
White House -- official home page.
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Gerald Edelman | Machines Like Us
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Gerald Edelman is the founder and director of The Neurosciences Institute, a nonprofit research centre in San Diego that studies the biological basis of higher brain function in humans, and is a professor of neurobiology at The Scripps Research Institute. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 for his work on the immune system, most notably his discovery of the structure of antibody molecules. He is noted for his theory of mind, published in a trilogy of technical books, and in briefer form for a more general audience in Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind and more recently in Wider than the Sky: The Phenominal Gift of Consciousness. Topobiology contains a theory of how the original neuronal network of a newborn's brain is established during development of the embryo. Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection contains a theory of memory that is built around the idea of plasticity in the neural network in response to the environment. In The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness, Edleman argues that the mind and consciousness are wholly material and purely biological phenomena, occurring as highly complex cellular processes within the brain, and that the development of consciousness and intelligence can be satisfactorily explained by Darwinian theory. He proposes that we should attempt to construct models of functioning brains which, through interactions with their surroundings, can develop minds. In A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination, Edelman (with Giulio Tononi) propose what they call the dynamic core hypothesis to explain the neural basis of conscious experience. This hypothesis states that the activity of a group of neurons can contribute directly to conscious experience if it is part of a functional cluster, characterized by strong mutual interactions among a set of neuronal groups over a period of hundreds of milliseconds.
Edelman's latest book is Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge, a remarkable contribution to the philosophy of the mind in which he breaks new ground to an age-old problem by launching brain-based epistemology. Original, lucid, concise, succinct: easily the best in the field.
- Gerald Edelman's Nobel Prize page
- Gerald Edelman's Scripps Research Institute page
- Gerald Edelman's PBS interview
- Gerald Edelman's NPQ interview
- Gerald Edelman's Wikipedia page
Gerald Edelman Quotes
Consciousness: the remembered present.
We're inquiring into the deepest nature of our constitutions: How we inherit from each other. How we can change. How our minds think. How our will is related to our thoughts. How our thoughts are related to our molecules.
A knowledge of brain science will provide one of the major foundations of the new age to come. That knowledge will spawn cures for disease, new machines based on brain function, further insights into our nature and how we know.
Science is the imagination in the service of the verifiable truth.
Every perception is to some degree an act of creation. Every active memory is to some degree an act of imagination.
The hard problem doesn't require a solution, it requires a cure.
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Math and Text: Mathematics as science
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Mathematics as science
Carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as "the Queen of the Sciences". In the original Latin Regina Scientiarum, as well as in German Königin der Wissenschaften, the word corresponding to science means (field of) knowledge. Indeed, this is also the original meaning in English, and there is no doubt that mathematics is in this sense a science. The specialization restricting the meaning to natural science is of later date. If one considers science to be strictly about the physical world, then mathematics, or at least pure mathematics, is not a science. Albert Einstein has stated that "as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
Many philosophers believe that mathematics is not experimentally falsifiable, and thus not a science according to the definition of Karl Popper. However, in the 1930s important work in mathematical logic showed that mathematics cannot be reduced to logic, and Karl Popper concluded that "most mathematical theories are, like those of physics and biology, hypothetico-deductive: pure mathematics therefore turns out to be much closer to the natural sciences whose hypotheses are conjectures, than it seemed even recently." Other thinkers, notably Imre Lakatos, have applied a version of falsificationism to mathematics itself.
An alternative view is that certain scientific fields (such as theoretical physics) are mathematics with axioms that are intended to correspond to reality. In fact, the theoretical physicist, J. M. Ziman, proposed that science is public knowledge and thus includes mathematics. In any case, mathematics shares much in common with many fields in the physical sciences, notably the exploration of the logical consequences of assumptions. Intuition and experimentation also play a role in the formulation of conjectures in both mathematics and the (other) sciences. Experimental mathematics continues to grow in importance within mathematics, and computation and simulation are playing an increasing role in both the sciences and mathematics, weakening the objection that mathematics does not use the scientific method. In his 2002 book A New Kind of Science, Stephen Wolfram argues that computational mathematics deserves to be explored empirically as a scientific field in its own right.
The opinions of mathematicians on this matter are varied. While some in applied mathematics feel that they are scientists, those in pure mathematics often feel that they are working in an area more akin to logic and that they are, hence, fundamentally philosophers. Many mathematicians feel that to call their area a science is to downplay the importance of its aesthetic side, and its history in the traditional seven liberal arts; others feel that to ignore its connection to the sciences is to turn a blind eye to the fact that the interface between mathematics and its applications in science and engineering has driven much development in mathematics. One way this difference of viewpoint plays out is in the philosophical debate as to whether mathematics is created (as in art) or discovered (as in science). It is common to see universities divided into sections that include a division of Science and Mathematics, indicating that the fields are seen as being allied but that they do not coincide. In practice, mathematicians are typically grouped with scientists at the gross level but separated at finer levels. This is one of many issues considered in the philosophy of mathematics.
Mathematical awards are generally kept separate from their equivalents in science. The most prestigious award in mathematics is the Fields Medal, established in 1936 and now awarded every 4 years. It is usually considered the equivalent of science's Nobel prize. Another major international award, the Abel Prize, was introduced in 2003. Both of these are awarded for a particular body of work, either innovation in a new area of mathematics or resolution of an outstanding problem in an established field. A famous list of 23 such open problems, called "Hilbert's problems", was compiled in 1900 by German mathematician David Hilbert. This list achieved great celebrity among mathematicians, and at least nine of the problems have now been solved. A new list of seven important problems, titled the "Millennium Prize Problems", was published in 2000. Solution of each of these problems carries a $1 million reward, and only one (the Riemann hypothesis) is duplicated in Hilbert's problems.
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Polynomial and Rational functions - Descartes Rule Of Signs
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Sometimes finding the factors of the polynomial function can be very time consuming. The french mathematician rene descartes discovered that if a polynomial function f(x) has real coefficients and is written in decreasing degree, then the number of positive real zeros that the function has is the same as the number of sign changes in f(x) as you follow it from term to term or is less than that by multiple of two. The number of negative real seros that the function has is the same as the number of sign changes in the polynomial functon f(-x) or is less that that by a multiple of two. This is known as Descartes Rule of Signs.
Consider the polynomial function: f(x) = x^5 - 5x^4 + 3x^3 + 17x^2 - 28x + 12
a) how many sign changes are there in f(x)?
B)According to Descartes rule of signs how many positive real zeroes might f(x) have?
d)how many sign changes are there in f(-x)
e)According to descartes rule of signs how many negative real zeroes might f(x) have?
f) based on your conclusions in (b) and (e) use synthetic division to factor f(x).
G) draw a sketch of f(x)
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Delayed Justice: Cambodia and its War Tribunal | Matthew Newton
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It's been more than three decades since the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia and began its ruthless campaign under leader Pol Pot to establish a "utopian society." Though the plight of the Cambodian people became well known, especially through films like The Killing Fields (1984), the surviving members of the Khmer Rouge had never stood trial for their crimes against humanity. Under the communist rule of the Khmer Rouge an estimated 1.2 million Cambodians -- mostly artists and intellectuals -- were killed.
This past February, a U.N.-backed tribunal indicted and is now trying five former Khmer Rouge officials for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the years of 1975-79. While the timing of this tribunal is long overdue, hopefully it will act as some peace of mind for all those who suffered greatly at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The Boston Globe's "Big Picture" photo blog has a great post about the tribunal from earlier this month. You can read the full post here and check out an excerpt below.
From the Boston Globe:
Last month, Cambodia began a trial for crimes against humanity that took place three decades earlier. The U.N.-backed tribunal has indicted and is now trying five former Khmer Rouge officials for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the years of 1975-79. In that short span, while the Khmer Rouge was in power, an estimated 1.4 million Cambodians died (possibly up to 2 million) due to Khmer policies, which included forced labor, outright executions, starvation, and torture - for an idea of the magnitude, click here for a visualization. All these acts were part of the Khmer Rouge's disastrous effort to dismantle their society and build a communist utopia. Now, 30 years later, Cambodia is still recovering - a young country, with over 50% of the population younger than 25, millions of leftover land mines, extreme poverty and a still-rebuilding agricultural system. Collected here are some recent photos from Cambodia, its people, the tribunal and more. Special thanks to my friend Alicia Conway, currently in Phnom Penh."
Photo caption (above):
Chum Manh, 78, one of the 14 Khmer Rouge prisoners who survived the S-21 torture center (now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum), shows his group photo in the museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on January 31, 2009. The U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal recently opened its first trial where 66-year-old Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and homicide while he ran the S-21 torture centre. (REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea)
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Find Lessons & Resources | MediaSmarts
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Stay informed with daily news and our newsletters!Learn more
By Barry Duncan
In the media education classroom, we all want to do thoughtful media analysis in which it is understood that class discussions and reflections are the basis for constructing new knowledge. In this context, the classroom is a "site of struggle" in which meanings are negotiated. U.K. educator Len Masterman reminds us that media studies should be inquiry-centered, co-investigative (rather than seeking to impose a specific set of values), egalitarian and dialogic - though of course, dialogue is not loose, rambling discussions. They should also lead students to critical autonomy, not just critical intelligence. Such an expectation implies that students are capable of making independent judgements on future media texts.
In the course of the activities in this lesson, students will develop rules of online conduct. These rules can be grouped under a term such as “(N)ethics” or “Golden Rules.” They share the goal of avoiding, dealing with and speaking out against cyberbullying.
What is an Acceptable Use Policy?
Every year kids and teens see close to 20,000 commercials. Of these, approximately 2,000 are for alcoholic beverages.1 Add to these other forms of advertising (magazine ads, billboards, Web sites and brand-related clothing and products), signage at sporting events, sponsorship of professional and college teams and sports TV and radio programs, and most young people will have seen approximately 100,000 alcohol ads by the time they turn 18.
Blogs: A blog (which comes from the term “Web log” or “weblog”) is a Web application which contains posts like a diary or journal entry. Typically the most recent postings appear at the top of a blog. Some blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to post responses.
Chat Rooms: A chat room is an Internet environment where you can use text to have live, real-time conversations with many people at the same time. Some chat rooms use text-based conversation threads, while others create environments where visitors can represent themselves using avatars (or characters).
E-mail: E-mail stands for electronic mail, which unlike regular mail can be sent instantly, no matter how far apart the senders and receivers are.
Instant Messaging: Instant messaging (IM) is a form of Internet communications that lets you talk in real time to individuals or groups of people. Users create contact lists of friends to chat with and can block people they don't know or don't want to communicate with.
Social Networking: A social networking site allows users to create a profile that introduces them to other members of the site. Profiles usually contain information about hobbies, photos, and short blog-like posts.
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Find out how you can get involved.Learn more
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Schedule what time to shut-down or hibernate your computer [How To] | Windows 7 Customization | Wind
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Last week I talked about the different shut-down options in Windows. One of our readers (Alexandra) wanted to know how to tell Windows to shut-down or hibernate at a certain time. The easiest way to do this is to set windows to automatically shut-down or hibernate after a specific period of idleness using the Power Option Settings. There might be several reasons why you would opt out the Power Option solution, but one reason might be that you do not want the computer to shut-down at all during the day. If that be the case, you can schedule Windows to shut-down at a specific time, say at 3 am after you have fallen asleep over the keyboard.
This is how you go about to do just that (not fall asleep, but schedule the computer to …)
- Start the Windows Task Scheduler (Click The Start-button, and type “
Task” or “
Schedule” in the Search Field)
- In the Action Menu, you find the option called:
Create Basic Task. This will open the Task Wizard.
- Give the Task a Name:
"Sleep when I do", and click Next.
- Choose when you want the task to run (
Daily), Click Next
- Now choose what time we want the computer to shut-down. In this example I chose
2 am. Click Next.
- At this point Windows want to know what kind of task to run, choose “
Start a Program” and click Next
- In the Program Field, type:
- In the Add argument field, type:
-h t 60 f(or
-s t 60 f)
Translated this means, hibernate, give 60 seconds timeout to stop action, and force shutdown of any running application.
(For other options see the list below)
- Click Next
- Click Finish
And that is it.
s = shutdown
h = hibernate
l = logoff (not shut-down)
t xxx – timeout (give the user a chance to abort)
f – Force shutdown of running applications
p – Force action without timeout or prompt
How to modify scheduled task
If you want to modify or delete your scheduled shutdown task, open up the task scheduler and click on “task scheduler library” in the left sidebar. The task will be listed there as “Sleep When I do” (if that is really what you called it.
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The purpose of business in a free society - Mississippi Business Journal
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The purpose of business in a free society
What responsibility does business have to society?
Nobel prize recipient Milton Friedman and others have argued that a corporation’s purpose is to maximize returns to its shareholders, and that since only people can have social responsibilities, corporations are only responsible to their shareholders and not to society as a whole. Others have gone so far as to say that the role of business is to abolish poverty.
These ideas are colliding as we witness and debate the role of government in solving economic conditions and the role of business in influencing government policy. It seems that, if nothing else, both big business and government are losing the trust of the people as the roles of business and government are considered.
Many businesses embrace the idea of social responsibility and even have formalized corporate social responsibility statements.
State Farm Insurance, for example, states on the “Corporate Responsibility” section of its website that its mission is “… to help people manage the risks of everyday life, recover from the unexpected and realize their dreams. We achieve our mission through the products and services we offer, as well as through our involvement in and commitment to the community. We make it our business to be like a good neighbor, helping to improve the quality of life in the communities where our associates live and work.”
Whole Foods Market Inc. has a corporate values statement that reads in part, “…Our team members are part of the local community and they are passionate about supporting the local causes that are important to our shoppers and neighbors.” The company reports that its community giving exceeds five percent of net profits each year. Its CEO, John Mackey, is a good study in the area of corporate responsibility. By the way, his Aug. 11, 2009 opinion article in the Wall Street Journal titled “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare” offers a good insight on how being socially responsible is not the same as supporting government social programs.
Whole Foods is perhaps the best example of the argument that being socially responsible is good for business and actually results in increased profit and value for its shareholders. And that speaking out for or against government policies does not harm the profits of a good business. Since Mackey’s article, Whole Foods stock price has gone from just under $20 per share to almost $40 per share.
So, these days, we are witnessing an interesting blend of corporate social responsibility and business involvement in government policy. For example, most corporate social responsibility statements have an inclusion about the environment. And being environmentally responsible form a corporate standpoint means being involved in government policy as well as encouraging environmentally friendly actions on a personal basis.
But wait. What would that great profiteer and icon of American business, Henry Ford, say about corporate social responsibility? In a fascinating article titled “Toward Abolishing Poverty,” in the Aug. 16, 1930, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Ford and his co-author Samuel Crowther wrote about the role of government and business, especially government’s role in boom and bust cycles. Ford states, “One of these days I hope the politicians will cease making capital out of business conditions. They will not cease doing so, however, until the leaders of business cease trying to gain what they imagine to be business advantages through the aid of politicians.”
Ford’s hope has obviously not become reality some 80 years later. Indeed, most agree that it is worse than ever. Special interests of business have an undue effect on legislation, while Congress and government agencies use business conditions as the excuse for implementing social policy that could not have been put into effect under normal business conditions. In the article mentioned above, Ford discusses the larger role of American business as follows:
The abolishing of poverty is, as far as I am concerned, the only end of business which is worth considering. It is from this point of view, and only from this one, that we can see the futility of selfish competition and the utter fallacy of the profit motive. Once we see the ultimate purpose of business as a factor of life of man, we are through with all the twiddling fancies that formally passed for business wisdom. The abolishing of poverty is the only legitimate purpose of business, and its accomplishment is not an impossibility unless we imagine that it can be done all at once by edict.
In summary, each individual business must determine its own approach to social responsibility and its attempt at influencing government policy. For some businesses, an active involvement in social concerns is good for the bottom line. For others, the best thing they can do is market their products and services and leave social concerns to others. Every company is free to pursue its own social agenda. Whether that results in greater profits is not the same for every company. Some consumers intentionally do business with companies that support certain social concerns. Some consumers merely want the best product or service at the lowest price without regard to what a company’s social policies might be. And that is the beauty of America. As the title of one of Milton Friedman’s books says, we are “Free to Choose.”
Phil Hardwick is coordinator of capacity development at the John C. Stennis Institute of Government. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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OpCodes.Shr Field (System.Reflection.Emit)
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May 02, 2013
Shifts an integer value (in sign) to the right by a specified number of bits, pushing the result onto the evaluation stack.
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
The following table lists the instruction's hexadecimal and Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) assembly format, along with a brief reference summary:
Shifts an integer to the right (shifting in sign).
The stack transitional behavior, in sequential order, is:
A value is pushed onto the stack.
The amount of bits to be shifted is pushed onto the stack.
The number of bits to be shifted and the value are popped from the stack; the value is shifted right by the specified number of bits.
The result is pushed onto the stack.
The shr.un instruction shifts the value (type int32, int64 or native int) right by the specified number of bits. The number of bits is a value of type int32 or native int. The return value is unspecified if the number of bits to be shifted is greater than or equal to the width (in bits) of the supplied value.
Shr replicates the high order bit on each shift, preserving the sign of the original value in the result.
The following Emit method overload can use the shr opcode:
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September 2011 - Posts - Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)
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September 2011 - Posts
Trend Micro shares some excellent user safety tips and administrative design standards to help mitigate attacks. One key practice is to close secure websites by logging out to keep sessions as short as possible.
BEAST and TLS/SSL Security: What It Means For Users and Web Admins
What can users do?
• Keep time spent on sensitive SSL sessions as short as possible. The attacker needs time to decode the encrypted message. If the session cookie is invalid before the attacker has finished, this attack fails.
• When leaving an SSL protected site, be sure to actually log out, not just move to a new site. In many cases, actively logging out will invalidate any cookie/session data that the attacker may have successfully decoded.
• Standard security best practices still work. For this attack to be successful, the attacker must have access to either your network or your computer. At the very least, up-to-date security software will make life harder for an attacker.
What can website administrators do?
• Make sure your logout button performs the expected action. You are leaving users at risk if your site does not actually invalidate session cookies when they click “log out”.
• Ensure that session cookies are tied to an IP address where the session was established. If that IP address changes, consider validating that the source of the requests is still your user. This will not prevent this attack, but it will make it harder to exploit your users.
• Resist the temptation to change SSL ciphers without carefully considering the risks first. While it is true that RC4 is not subject to this attack, it presents more risk than AES. Also, it isn’t a bad idea to keep an eye on the IETF TLS working group. New versions of the TLS standard exist that eliminate the weaknesses used in this attack. Unfortunately HTTP server and browser coverage of these new standards is spotty at the moment at the moment. So you have to carefully consider both your environment and your user base before such a change.
TLS (Transport Layer Security) Working Group
TLD4 is one of the most advanced Windows malware agents circulating. It is highly stealth and hides in the master boot record of the Windows O/S. Trend Micro shares developments related to a new version:
TDL4 Worm Component Employs Bitcoin Mining
QUOTE: TDL4 is a well known variant of the TDSS malware family known for evading detection by antivirus products by infecting affected systems’ boot sector. We’ve been monitoring developments related to TDSS, and earlier this year we saw TDL4 exhibit propagation routines through a worm component that Trend Micro detects as WORM_OTORUN.ASH.
This is an interesting development as a low-cost high technology tablet:
Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet
QUOTE: The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek. The device, a souped-up version of the Kindle electronic-book reader, will run on Google Inc.’s Android software, the Seattle-based company said. Amazon also introduced a touch-screen version of its e-reader, to be called Kindle Touch.
F-Secure has developed a security product designed to integrate with Facebook and check for malicious links.
F-Secure ShareSafe Beta - Security Application for Facebook
QUOTE: Security applications and Facebook tend to mix together like oil and water. Therefore, when attempting to develop a security application for Facebook… it had better not be boring. And that brings us to our new beta: F-Secure ShareSafe. The development team behind ShareSafe aims to build an entertaining Facebook app, with security benefits tagging along for the ride.
A total of 15 screenshots illustrate some of the initial features for this new operating system.
eWeek Microsoft's Windows 8 Developer Preview: First Look
QUOTE: Microsoft has offered its Developer Preview of its upcoming Windows 8 to the world. This early glimpse of the operating system, while nowhere near finished, offers a one-of-a-kind perspective into Microsoft’s thinking when it comes to the next generation of Windows. For one thing, the company also intends Windows 8 to make substantial inroads into the tablet category, currently dominated by Apple’s iPad—and it plans to do so by offering a touch-centric “Metro” interface that consists of colorful tiles linked to applications.
Early this morning, Windows Automatic Update notified me of a second MSRT update and below are the details. Wishing them success in eradicating this malicious threat.
Microsoft MSRT - 2nd Release for September 2011
QUOTE: For the month of September, Microsoft is adding the Win32/Kelihos family to a second release of the Malicious Software Removal Tool. This additional release is to support the most recent action in Project MARS- Operation b79 which targets the Kelihos botnet. The Win32/Kelihos malware family distributes spam email messages that may contain links to web sites serving installers of Kelihos itself. It may also communicate with remote computers to exchange information that it uses to execute various tasks such as bootstrapping to the botnet, sending spam emails promoting bogus products or services, stealing sensitive information, or downloading and executing arbitrary files.
Microsoft killed Kelihos botnet
QUOTE: Great news for Internet security. Microsoft has effectively killed off the Kelihos botnet which has about 42-45K nodes. The signature to remove the botnet agent from infected machine is added to the Malicious Software Removal Tool which will be rolled out to users taking automatic updates. Microsoft also took a proactive approach on the legal front, filing for court order to get Verisign (the domain registrar for the malicious domains) to take down the malicious domains related to the botnet operations.
Users with modern systems should be able to upgrade without needing more RAM or processor power, as noted below:
Windows 8 - No increased hardware requirements from version 7
QUOTE: Microsoft says Windows 7 users won't need bigger and better hardware to run the freshly unveiled Windows 8. The PC system requirements will be the same if not less than what's needed to run Windows 7, although the new operating system definitely appears tailored for the touch-screen interfaces of tablets. Speaking at a press event at Computex in Taiwan yesterday, Microsoft's Michael Angiulo said, "Windows 8 will be able to run on a wide range of machines because it will have the same system requirements or lower" as Windows 7. Microsoft Windows President Steven Sinofsky reiterated the approach at the All Things D conference in California.
Users should avoid clicking on suspicious news alert links offered to them via Facebook:
Facebook - Fake BBC Video scams continue to surface
QUOTE: It seems scammers have a bit of thing for spoofing BBC websites at the moment. Yesterday it was work from home scams, and last month it was a Facebook wheeze which (in a nutshell) went like this: "Lady Gaga is dead and here's a BBC video to prove it, also click here." Maybe the (unrelated) work from home fakeout has inspired scammers into a fresh round of BBC shenanigans, because the phony BBC video rides again on Facebook. As usual, it's surveytacular and is geared around fake Facebook messages promoting the completely fake BBC page
Please update systems as prompted for better protection from malicious attacks currently circulating:
Adobe Flash out-of-band security update for September 2011
QUOTE: Adobe released an out-of-band security update to address six critical vulnerabilities, all affecting Adobe Flash Player. One of the six, a cross-site scripting vulnerability identified as CVE-2011-2444, is reportedly being exploited in the wild. The bug is reportedly being used in targeted attacks that involve malicious links sent out to targets through email messages. Users are strongly advised to apply the patches as soon as possible, especially since exploiting any the addressed vulnerabilities can lead to either remote code execution, or information disclosure.
Note that users who utilize multiple browsers may need to update their other browsers separately. Users can visit this page through all their browsers to check if they have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player installed, and this page to update.
Adobe continues to gradually improve internal security in each version of their products as noted below:
Adobe Flash v11 - to offer improved security
QUOTE: Adobe Flash has struggled over the last few years to conquer a bad security reputation which, combined with ubiquity, as made it one of the more problematic components on the typical computer. Flash 11, announced this past week, continues Adobe's work in tightening up the security of the product. The new version adds a private browsing mode, like those available in all web major browsers now, and a Flash control panel for mobile versions. ('Mobile versions' in this context means Android, and the control panel is available for Android Honeycomb, version 3.0).
But the more significant features will probably be those less visible to the user. Flash 11 apps will be able to open SSL socket connections so that their communications aren't completely open for all to see. There will also be a more secure random number generator, one that can be used for secure programming. Finally—and I mean finally—there will be a 64-bit version of Flash which brings with it some side benefits in security.
This law is beneficial and shares the need for companies to improve their security controls, as highlighted by ESET security
2.1 million users’ data breached in Massachusetts
QUOTE: Since 2010 that is, following a law enacted in 2007 that requires all companies doing business in Massachusetts to inform consumers and state regulators about security breaches that might result in identity theft. Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office released the information, including a breakdown of the data.
It seems her office received 1,166 data breach notices since January 2010, including 480 between January and August of 2011. About 25 percent were as a result of a deliberate hacking attempt, followed by 23 percent for accidental unauthorized sharing of information, i.e. faxes or e-mails with personal information sent to the wrong recipient. 15 percent of cases were reports of customer credit card numbers. Data was also lost through thefts or accidental losses of laptop computers and paper documents, or in cases in which workers deliberately gained unauthorized access to client files.
The ISC celebrates next month with a series of best practices and articles related to computer security.
October 2011 - Cyber Security awareness month
QUOTE: It is that time of the year again, Cyber Security Awareness Month. Over the last few years we have participated in the October Cyber Security Awareness month (just search the archive for "cyber security awareness month"). During the month, in addition to our normal diaries, we take a specific topic or theme and publish a diary on the topic.
This year the theme is the "20 Critical Security Controls". I know what you are thinking, 20 controls 31 days. A number of the controls will easily take a few days to cover. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the 20 critical security controls, please see this link:
Microsoft notes an active attack for at least one DigiNotar certificate.
MS Security Advisory Update - Fraudulent DigiNotar Certificates
QUOTE: Microsoft re-released Microsoft Security Advisory (2607712) regarding fraudulent DigiNotar Root CA. "Microsoft is aware of active attacks using at least one fraudulent digital certificate issued by DigiNotar, a certification authority present in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities Store. The update is available for all supported version of Windows here and via automatic updates.
Trend Security warns of major improvements found in this new variant in this comprehensive review:
Massive Code Change for New DroidDreamLight Variant
QUOTE: We saw several key developments in the new variant of DroidDreamLight, which we were able to analyze earlier this month. This new variant, found in a China-based 3rd party application store, comes off as applications such as a battery monitoring tool, task listing tool, and an application that lists the permissions used by installed applications. Please note though that the apps are in English, so potential victims are not limited to users who understand Chinese. This Android malware is now detected as AndroidOS_DORDRAE.N.
Another important update is the addition of information theft routines. Based on our analysis, this new variant can steal certain information from the device, such as:
* SMS messages (inbox and outbox)
* Call log (incoming and outgoing)
* Contacts list
* Information related to Google accounts stored in the device
I'm anxious to test this new operating system in the future. PC Magazine highlights the new Metro User Interface and other changes found in Windows 8
Windows 8 - PC Magazine review of Developer Preview
QUOTE: Windows 8 is a coin with two very different sides: On one side is a tablet operating system, with the tile-heavy Metro user interface inspired by Windows Phone 7. On the other is an improved version of the full Windows 7-like desktop operating system. The first is very simple and consumer-oriented, and competes with tablets like Apple’s iPad and Google Android tablets. The other is the operating system favored by power users of complex and professional Windows program.
Microsoft insists that all Windows 7 apps will run in Windows 8, and that any machine that can run Windows 7 can run Windows 8. That said, the company seems most excited about the new species of app it calls Metro-style apps--referring to the Window Phone 7 Metro UI. These are touch-optimized, full-screen affairs that only show their menus and settings if you swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Swiping from the right side of the screen towards the middle brings up what the company calls “Charms”—icons for Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings.
The Internet Storm Center shares an important emergency release that corporations should apply expediently:
Oracle Emergency Patch for CVE-2011-3192 has been released!
QUOTE: This security alert addresses the security issue CVE-2011-3192, a denial of service vulnerability in Apache HTTPD, which is applicable to Oracle HTTP Server products based on Apache 2.0 or 2.2. This vulnerability may be remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e. it may be exploited over a network without the need for a username and password. A remote user can exploit this vulnerability to impact the availability of un-patched systems. The bug is serious enough for Oracle to issue the patch outside of its usual large quarterly updates, the next of which is scheduled for Oct. 18.
QUOTE: The Obama administration argued to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday for legislation that would impose minimum sentences for anyone convicted of attacks or attempted attacks on critical infrastructure. The administration's proposed updates the Cyber Fraud and Abuse Act would also make it clear that RICO, the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a major law enforcement tool against organized crime, applies to such offenses.
Trend Micro provides an update related to bank related malware and fraud attacks:
Banking Trojan Attacks continue to target large companies
QUOTE: Trend Micro has uncovered a significant international banking malware gang. Unusually for such gangs, a wide variety of large organizations and US multi-nationals in a variety of sectors were victimized. The complete take over the first 6 months of this year was $3.2 million US. The weapons used were pretty conventional banking spyware: SpyEye, Zeus, and exploit kits to drive blackhat SEO traffic to the malware. According to Trend Micro, some pretty significant organizations, in the following categories, were hit:
- US Government (Local, State Federal)
- US Military
- Educational & Research Institutions
- Other Companies (Automobile, Media, Technology)
ESET highlights a sharp increase in mobile device malware. Users should be careful in everything they install or provide permissions to for these devices.
Android banking malware increases in wild
QUOTE: Recently, we’ve noted a steep rise in Android malware and predicted the rise in banking malware, now we see another example in the wild, this time SpyEye. Trusteer has a good rundown on it, saying “It seems that SpyEye distributors are catching up with the mobile market as they (finally) target the Android mobile platform. Ever since Man in the Mobile attacks (MitMo/ZitMo) first emerged in late 2010, SpyEye followed Zeus’ tracks by introducing its own hybrid desktop-mobile attacks (dubbed SPITMO).”
More Posts Next page »
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BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Lone leopard spotted in Georgia
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A single leopard has been discovered in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, years after the big cats were thought to be extinct in the area.
By the BBC's Natalia Antelava
Zoologists were first alerted by some footprints in the Vashlovani State Reserve, which looked far too large to belong to the much smaller lynx.
The leopard - now named Noah - was then caught on remote-sensing cameras.
Although Noah is the only leopard to be spotted in the area since 1954, many fear he is in danger from poachers.
Mythology and folklore
Thousands of years ago, close relatives of African and Asian leopards roamed over Europe, as far north as England.
Their numbers in the Caucasus were even high enough to earn them a starring role in Georgian mythology and folklore.
But the rise of humans - with their taste for hunting - took its toll: the Georgian leopard seemed to slip away into extinction.
At the beginning of the last century, naturalists described rare sightings of the secretive cat in the mountains of the great Caucasus range.
But the sightings dwindled and, when a leopard was killed in central-east Georgia over 50 years ago, it was thought to be the last.
Then, in the late 1990s, the rumours began. Local people living in the mountains started to speak of "huge, cat-like" creatures in the area.
It was enough to get the Noah's Ark Centre for the Recovery of Endangered Species (Nacres) to launch a search project. For years they found nothing.
Many years ago, relatives of African and Asian leopards roamed over Europe
"After so many years of searching we were almost ready to give up hope we would ever find the leopard here again," Nacres zoologist Levan Butkhuzi told the BBC.
"But once in a while, locals from the high mountainous villages would tell stories about seeing the leopards. We believed the stories less and less, but we kept looking."
Then, in the winter of 2003, Nacres zoologists Bejan Lortkipanidze and George Darchiashvili found some suspiciously large footprints in the Vashlovani Reserve, East Georgia.
The two researchers took plaster copies of the footprints and sent them to an Asian leopard expert for validation.
The results came back positive: without a doubt a leopard was in the area. The leopard - christened Noah after the organisation that found him - was later caught on camera.
Rather alarmingly though, poachers were also photographed.
"We are very afraid that Noah could be killed," said Dr Butkhuzi. "Poaching is a huge problem, and the last leopard we've seen in 1954 was killed by poachers as well."
Nacres is therefore desperate to find the rest of Noah's population and mobilise a protection effort, before the Georgian leopard really does disappear for good.
"We hope that if the public understands how important this discovery is, then we'll be able to keep it," Dr Butkhuzi continued. "This is a real treasure for Georgia and for the Caucasus."
Images by Nacres
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Casting the molecular net( (Toronto/Heidelberg/Cambridge June 12...)
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(Toronto/Heidelberg/Cambridge, June 12, 2007) Scientists at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital (Canada), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Germany), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) have created a new computational method called NetworKIN. This method uses biological networks to better identify relationships between molecules. In a cover story featured in the June 29, 2007 edition of the journal Cell, the scientists report insights into the regulation of protein networks that will ultimately help to target human disease.
Thousands of proteins can be changed (via phosphorylation) but until now, it has not been possible to know which protein has made the change, states Dr. Tony Pawson, distinguished investigator at the Lunenfeld.
Proteins are the functional agents that carry out processes in a cell. But they rarely act alone. Instead they accomplish their effects as part of big networks. How proteins interact in these networks often depends on phosphorylation, the addition of a phosphate at specific sites on a protein. Kinases are proteins that bring about the phosphorylation of other proteins and in this way regulate cellular processes.
By getting a network-wide view, multiple aberrant genes of kinase-controlled processes are more easily targeted, states Dr. Rune Linding, postdoctoral fellow, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute. In the future, the treatment of complex human diseases will be treated by targeting multiple genes. Complex diseases like cancer often contain defects in several processes controlled by kinases.
It works a bit like getting a recommendation from Amazon, says Dr. Peer Bork, group leader at EMBL. The fact that certain books have been bought by the same customers tells you that they have something in common. In the same way biological networks tell us about shared features between different proteins. These help us predicting which kinases are likely to
Contact: Nikki Luscombe
Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute
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Vitamin supplement use may reduce effects of Alzheimer...( Antioxidant vitamin supplements partic...
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Peter P. Zandi, PhD, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the School's Department of Mental Health, said, "These results are extremely exciting. Our study suggests that the regular use of vitamin E in nutritional supplement doses, especially in combination with vitamin C, may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease."
The researchers examined data from the Cache County Study, which is a large, population-based investigation of the prevalence and incidence of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Residents who were 65 or older were assessed from 1996-1997 and again from 1998-2000. Study participants were asked at their first contact about vitamin usage. The researchers then compared the subsequent risk of developing Alzheimer's disease over the study interval among supplement users versus nonusers to come to their conclusions.
Approximately 17 percent of the study participants reported taking vitamin E or C supplements. These individuals were significantly more likely to be female, younger, better educated and reported better general health when compared to non-supplement users. In addition to those who took vitamin supplements, another 20 percent of study participants used multivitamins, but without a high dosage of vitamin E or C.
The researchers found a tren
Contact: Kenna Brigham
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
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Revisiting a historic Ayodhya - secular and diverse | Taaza News
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Revisiting a historic Ayodhya - secular and diverse
New Delhi, Dec 7 (IANS) A 16th century historical work tells of an Afghan army which went out of Ayodhya - which was controlled by local chiefs - on an expedition. Upon its return, two groups of people awaited to welcome it at the gate of the city - Muslim clerics to offer benediction and Hindu women holding pitchers.
The Afghan soldiers first went to the women and then to the clergy, runs a line from a historical account of Ayodhya.
On Dec 6, 1992, the Babri Masjid was torn down by frenzied karsevaks who argued that the mosque was built on a temple of Lord Rama. Ayodhya, the mythical capital of Lord Rama in the epic Ramayana, was never the same again.
The act changed the politics of the nation that continued to fester on communal hate for at least a decade.
A new publication by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, "Hum Sab Ayodhya" released Dec 6 to coincide with 20th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition revisits a historic travelling exhibition of the same name (Hum Sab Ayodhya) mounted by the trust to protest the carnage.
The exhibition was attacked by Bajrang Dal at Faizabad in 1993.
The book, collated from the archives of SAHMAT that documents Ayodhya in a chronological order, walks the reader through the socio-cultural history of the town in the context of its strategic geographical terrain as the confluence of the Sarayu and Ghagra rivers with photographs, reproductions of plates and texts in panels.
The exhibition comments on the anachronistic nature of the violence in the city - secular exposure to diverse influences beginning with Buddhism and Hinduism to Islamic influence in the middle era.
The exhibition was historic because of the controversy it courted - both in Uttar Pradesh and in the national capital.
"They attacked us because of a text on the Ram Katha, a Buddhist interpretation of the tale of Lord Rama from the Dashrathi Jataka. In the Buddhist version, there is no Ravana and no kidnapping of Sita. Rama and Sita are brothers and sister. What the Bajrang Dal accused us was of blasphemy," Ram Rahman, a senior functionary of the SAHMAT, recalled.
The exhibition later earned the wrath of the government when it came to the capital - despite the fact "everything was compiled from historical text".
"On the orders of the lieutenant governor of Delhi, the police removed the Ram Katha panel from the exhibition. For eight years, we could not show it in India till lawyer Rajiv Dhavan won a suit with a strong judgment in favour of the panel," Rahman said.
Releasing the book, social activist Aruna Roy, the founder of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana, said "nobody thought that the mosque will be brought down".
"After that, history took a new turn. One of my worst days as the citizen of India was the day when the mosque was brought down. It was an assault on reasonable people like me who hold independence dear," Roy said.
Prabhat Patnaik, Marxist economist and political commentator, said the notion of a pan-Indian identity was in crisis.
"We should be committed to an India as a fraternity of equals. Where does this event 20 years ago fit in? It was a milestone in the counter-revolution, the fact you do so and get away with it," Patnaik said.
On a more introspective note, former chief justice of India J.S. Verma, who had ruled in Aryodhya cases, summed up: "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."
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Major Symptoms of Breast Cancer, What are the Signs and Symptoms of Breast Cancer
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Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women across the world and several countries including USA are considered to be the most sufferer of this type of cancer. The major symptoms of breast cancer are needed to be well known for the early detection of the disease. Though in several circles these symptoms are viewed with awe and panic, the major symptoms of breast cancer are needed more scientific as well as clinical attention than associating them with the individual panic and social fear. According to the guideline provided by the American Cancer Society the unusual changes or reactions that can be considered to be the major symptoms of breast cancer include swelling in the breast, irritation in the skin of the breast, breast pain or nipple pain or the turning of the nipple inward, redness or appearance of scales on the breast skin, nipple discharge other than breast milk, lump in the underarm area, etc.
Here we would introduce some of the major symptoms of breast cancer.
Feeling of a lump in the breast
This is considered to be the first major symptom of the breast cancer. This feeling of lump which feels different than the other breast tissues is considered to be a major symptom of breast cancer in many cases. Lumps in the armpits can also be considered to be a major symptom of breast cancer.
Symptoms related to size of the breast
The thickening or growing of one breast in comparison to the other breast is a major symptom of the breast cancer.
Symptoms of inflammation
Many symptoms like regular and frequent or constant swelling of the breasts, itching sensation in the breast, swelling beneath the armpit or around the collarbone, etc. are regarded to be the major symptoms of breast cancer.
Symptoms related to nipples
The discharge of nipples other than the milk is a major symptom of breast cancer. Nipples of the breast changing position or shape or becoming inverted are considered to be other major symptoms of breast cancer.
Upper Back Pain
In many cases pain in the upper back region comes as the very first syndrome of breast cancer and there is enough evidence of the connection between breast cancer and pain in the upper portion of the back. So if you are feeling pain in that portion without any apparent reason this can as well be a symptom of breast cancer.
The major symptoms of breast cancer as mentioned above are considered to form the basic signs of the disease that should alert the sufferer to go through possible course of diagnosis and detection. Most importantly as some kinds of breast cancer is treated well if diagnosed early and within the specified period of their detection and as early detection and the treatment of the disease can render the patient with longer life and sustainability, the detection of the major symptoms of breast cancer is crucial to the diagnosis and further treatment of the disease.
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Si(001)(2x1)-Sb
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You can see the abstract if you wish.
To understand our motivations in studying this system, please see our overview of Surfactant Mediated Growth.
It has long been known that the clean Si(001) surface reconstructs into at least a (1x2) structure by the formation of dimers (bonded pairs of atoms) at the exposed surface. What has been an issue of some debate is the question of whether these dimers are symmetric (i.e. both atoms lying at the same distance above the substrate) or asymmetric (i.e. buckled). A possible geometry is shown below. Please note that although the image is of symmetric dimers we are not making such a claim here: the image is for illustrative purposes only. Click on the image to download a larger version. If you have a viewer for .xyz files (e.g. xmol) then you can download the geometry and play with it yourself....Let us define our co-ordinate system with reference to this system as follows: the direction perpendicular to the surface is the z-direction, the direction along a given dimer is the y-direction, and the direction along a given dimer row is the x-direction. Because the periodicity is doubled along the y-direction, but remains the same along the x-direction, we call such a surface (1x2).
Upon deposition of Sb (Antimony), the Si dimers are broken apart and the surface is instead characterised by Sb dimers which are arranged in rows perpendicular to the Si dimers found on the original clean surface. For this reason we refer to the reconstruction as (2x1), in contrast to the (1x2) reconstruction of the original clean surface (of course, depending on how we view the surface, we could just as easily swap these designations as long as we retain the distinction between the two reconstructions).
We have performed first principles pseudopotential LDA calculations (using the EKSETER code) on the Sb-covered Si(001) surface, determing the structure shown below. A (1x1) structure with no dimers is also possible, but we calculate that it is unstable relative to the (2x1) structure (the energy difference between the two structures is 0.10 eV per dimer). The (1x1) surface is metallic, and it is the saturation of one partially occupied dangling bond per Sb atom which explains the stability of the dimerised surface.
In the image below, the Sb atoms are shown in purple. Note also that we are now viewing the surface along the direction perpendicular to the viewing direction used for the clean surface (above):
Once again, you can download the geometry in .xyz format, or click on the image to see a larger version.
The Sb dimers are symmetric, in agreement with previous theoretical studies (Cho and Kang, Phys. Rev. B51, 5058 (1995); Tang and Freeman, Phys Rev B47, 1460 (1993)). Our calculated Sb-Sb and Sb-Si bond lengths are also in accord with previous theory, and with experiment (Richter et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 3417 (1990)).
It is instructive to examine the total valence charge density for the system. Click on any of the images below to download a enlarged view, including numerical values for the density.
It is important to note that these images show only the valence electron density, since they were calculated using the pseudopotential method. Thus the atomic core sites show up as minima in the valence electron density (blue), while bonds show up as maxima (red/yellow).
This is a vertical plane chosen to cut through the Sb dimer, i.e. y=0.0 (in lattice co-ordinates). The nearest neighbours of the Sb atoms do not feature in this plot, because they are located on the plane y=0.5.
This is another vertical plane, chosen to include the nearest neighbours of the Sb dimer, i.e. y=0.5 (in lattice co-ordinates). The Sb dimer itself does not appear since it lies on the y=0.0 plane. Clearly there is some charge transfer to the Si-Si bonds which lie nearest to the Sb dimer, at the expense of those which are further away.
An angled plane has been chosen here, to include both the Sb dimer atoms and the nearest neighbour Si atoms. That is, it includes the Sb-substrate bonds. Note that these are much stronger than the bonds between the two Sb atoms.
This view combines the y=0.0 and y=0.5 planes to give a 3D impression of the total valence electron density.
Our calculated electronic band structure for the system is shown below. The blue shaded region is the projection of the bands of bulk Si onto the (001) surface Brillouin zone. The additional bands are those which are associated with the surface. There are two fully occupied bands in the band gap and one unoccupied band. The (2x1) structure is semiconducting, unlike the (1x1) structure mentioned earlier.
By examining the valence charge density associated with individual states we have determined that the two occupied surface bands are due to pi-ungerade and pi-gerade (bonding/antibonding) combinations of the remaining Sb dangling bonds. The notation "gerade" implies symmetry under inversion with respect to the bond centre, while "ungerade" means the orbital is asymmetric. You can see these two combinations below. Normally for pi orbitals the ungerade orbital lies lower in energy than the gerade orbital. The reversal of this normal ordering for the present situation is very interesting.
This is a vertical y=0.0 slice through the higher lying of the two bands (at the K-point). It is a pi-ungerade combination of pz-like dangling bonds and might ordinarily be expected to make a significant contribution to the strength of the dimer bond.
This is a vertical y=0.0 slice through the lower lying of the two bands (at the K-point). It is a pi-gerade combination of pz-like dangling bonds. In, for example, the carbon dimers at the diamond (001) surface, such a band would lie at higher energy than the pi-ungerade bonding orbital. Here, because of the extra two electrons per Sb dimer (as compared to the carbon dimer), the pi-gerade orbital is occupied. This results in additional electron-electron interactions which not only lower the energy of the band below the pi-ungerade orbital, but also change the dispersion of the band so that it follows that of the pi-ungerade orbital very closely.
The contribution of the pi-ungerade bonding orbital to the strength of the dimer bond is largely cancelled by the effect of the pi-gerade antibonding orbital. The main contribution to the dimer bond therefore comes from the sigma bond formed by px-like Sb dangling bonds. This band lies at energies far below the band gap region and thus does not appear in the band structure shown above.
The unoccupied surface state visible in the band structure is located in the first two layers of the Si substrate.
In conclusion, we have studied the geometry of the Si(001)(2x1)-Sb system and find that our results for bond lengths are in agreement with previous theory and with experiment. We also present the first thorough explanation of the nature of the Sb dimer bonding. We find that the main contribution to the dimer bond is from sigma bonding of px orbitals, while fully occupied pi-ungerade and pi-gerade orbitals cancel each other. The role of these orbitals in the adsorption of Ge onto the Sb covered surface will be the focus of future work.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this page. If so, why not e-mail us and let us know ? Preprints/reprints can be requested by e-mail or at the addresses quoted on our home pages.
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Quantum computing and superconductive computing
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A pdf from the National Security Agency that assesses the potential of superconducting technology. It includes an assessment of Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ). RSFQ is a digital electronics technology that relies on quantum effects in superconducting materials to switch signals, instead of transistors. However, it is not a quantum computing technology in the traditional sense. They project 100,000 josephson junctions at 50 GHz by 2010 and then a few years after 250 million jj at 250 GHz.
adiabatic quantum computer
superconducting quantum computer
Rapid Single Flux Quantum
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The Nuclear Green Revolution: Kirk Sorensen to Announce Silver Bullet in Manchester
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Kirk Sorensen has been invited to offer a presentation at the Manchester, England International Festival on July 4 or 5. The Manchester Festival and the Guardian, a newspaper historically associated with Manchester organized a festival event to be held in the Manchester Town hall on July 4 and 5. People with innovative ideas for solving climate change were invited to make submissions to the festival. The top submissions have now been chosen and Kirk's submission was one of them. Kirk's submission will be included in the Manchester Report, which will be an account of the two day Manchester proceedings.
Kirk and I agree that the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) has great potential for fighting global climate change. In contrast with the conventional wisdom. We and others have pronounced the LFTR to be the silver bullet in fighting climate change. Thorium is an exceedingly abundant mineral that can be substituted for uranium in the nuclear process. The technologies for LFTR were designed by Oak Ridge scientists 60 years ago, to efficiently convert Thorium into heat and electrical energy. Despite the success of Oak Ridge technology research in the 1950's and 60's, the United States government decided during the 1970's to commit to coal rather than thorium as a major energy. Despite warnings from Oak Ridge scientists about the dangers of the commitment to coal, political leaders such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter chose to commit to coal rather than thorium with potentially disastrous consequences.
LFTR technology remains a viable future energy option. Oak Ridge scientists solved many of the technological problems related to LFTR development, and were confident that they could solve the rest. They left a detailed research and development program that can guide future scientists in developing the LFTR. A number of years ago Kirk Sorensen began to explore the tens of thousands of pages of research reports left by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers. He discovered that ORNL researchers had between 1950 and 1976 had made steady and often dramatic progress toward the development of the LFTR.
Kirk was not alone in this discovery. Researchers in France, Russia, the Czeck Republic, and Japan are currently investigating LFTR potentials. Kirk discovered that the Nobel winning scientist Eugene Wigner had advocated a LFTR-type reactor for electrical production during World War II, and that famous nuclear scientists such as Alvin Weinberg and Edward Teller were LFTR backers.
Reactor pioneers Eugene Wigner and Enrico Fermi both recognized that reactors could either be built with solid cores or fluid cores. Eugene Wigner, who had a PhD in chemical engineering, recognized that while fluid core reactors posed some technological challenges, they also offered solutions to many of the problems of solid core reactors. Wigner believed that thorium offered a superior basis for a nuclear fuel cycle, and that when used in a fluid core reactor, a thorium fuel cycle would solve many of the problems created by solid core reactors. The Molten-Salt Reactor was invented by Oak Ridge engineers in 1947. It was originally intended to be a light weight but powerful reactor that could offer nuclear power to jet aircraft. In 1954 a test molten-salt reactor, the Aircraft Reactor Experiment was successfully tested in Oak Ridge. During the 1960's a more advanced reactor the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was built and tested in Oak Ridge. By that time the USAEC had determined that LFTR type technology was very promising as a future energy source. The MSRE was a proof of principle test of the LFTR idea, and was very successful.
With the success of the MSRE, Oak Ridge scientists set out to design both small modular LFTR-type reactors as well as well as very large LFTR's. Work on the project was shut by the Nixon-Ford administration for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with project merit.
Kirk rediscovered the Oak Ridge LFTR story, and quickly recognized that the LFTR held promise as a superior energy technology that could replace fossil fuels in many energy applications including electrical production, heat for industrial processes, large scale desalinization of sea water, and district space heating. The LFTR has a number of unusual "inherent" safety features. It is the most efficient energy producer ever designed. On ton of thorium in a LFTR will produce as much electric power as three million tones of coal. The LFTR produces very little nuclear waste, and has significant proliferation advantages.
My father was an Oak Ridge scientist who was a pioneering researcher of LFTR technology. Because of my father's work I have always been aware of the LFTR and its potential. In 2007 I determined that the LFTR was potentially the most easily scalable, low cost technology available for rapid replacement of fossil fuel generated energy. I determined that mass production of LFTRs in factories was possible, and that enough LFTRs could be built by 2050 to supply a greatly expanded world energy demand, with as much as 80% of the world's energy coming from LFTR's as soon as 2050. I realize that this is an exceedingly bold claim, but no one has ever offered a serious refutation of the claim.. Thus from 2007 I have supported Kirk's effort to create greater public awareness of LFTR potential. I have done so by posting on my own blog, Nuclear green, and on Kirk's blog Energy from Thorium. I have posted on other bogs as well including The Oil Drum, Daily Kos, Harry's Place, and The Energy Collective.
My posts have covered a variety of topics including the history of the LFTR, practical approaches to lowering LFTR costs, the compatibility of the LFTR with "Green" goals, the sustainability of LFTR technology, and LFTR competitiveness with both traditional nuclear and renewable technologies.
Update: Kirk just announced that he will be giving a talk for google on July 20. Picking up the pace.
Update 2: The Silver Bullet
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How to calulate your electrical needs | Off Grid Works
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When you talk to people about going off grid most of the questions they ask are about solar power. Everyone wants to know how much it costs and how do you figure out what size system to put in?
How many panels? Are you going to have batteries and if so how many? Oh and how much does it cost?
If you are thinking of going off grid you are going to ask the same questions and it doesn’t matter whether you are going to have solar power, a wind turbine, or a water powered hydro generator.
In order to size any of the above systems you are first going to have to calculate your electrical needs. Until you do that you can’t have an intelligent conversation about what type of system or what size system you are going to need or how much it is going to cost.
There are whole books written on this subject so I am just going to share the actual steps we took to figure out what our power needs would be.
The first thing I did was read the book Solar Power for Dummies. I’m not kidding. What did I know about off grid power systems? One book led to another and there was a fair amount of time spent on the Internet researching as well.
In all the research, one simple tool stood out time and again in slightly different formats but similar in nature and practical use. It was a chart which listed all of your typical electrical appliances with their associated wattage and how much time you used each appliance each day. A sample is worth 1000 words so you can click here to see one Power Use Spreadsheet. I created this one on Excel so that I could enter the formulas to make it automatically calculate the watts per day. On this spreadsheet all you have to do is write down the appliance and figure out how long it will run each day and how many watts it uses.
Some of our appliances only listed amps not watts and there is a simple conversion formula for that too. Watts = Volts X Amps. If your stereo is rated at 3 amps and you plug it into an 110v wall outlet then just multiply 3 x 110 = 330 watts! You will find most watts or amp ratings somewhere on the appliance tag. If not, look up the appliance online and pull up the specification sheet or just use something similar. Remember this is an estimate and not an exact accounting.
When we were done our Spreadsheet looked like this – Essex Solar Use. Now we had something to talk about. This was the starting point to research what kind of system and how large a power system we would need. Your daily electrical use will determine the size of the system. We knew we needed something that produced at least 6 kWh per day in order to meet our needs
If we were going to go with solar power this information would tell us how large an inverter, how many solar panels, and how large a battery bank would be needed. If we went with wind turbines it would tell us how large a turbine and also the inverter and batteries for that system. The same would apply to hydro.
Notice that what appliances you decide to go with affect this chart. You can see right away you had better switch from an electrical stove and oven to propane or gas or wood. By creating this chart, this is where you start making lifestyle decisions about how you are going to live, where you are going to live,
It’s a very exciting exercise because you get to choose. You get to choose where to draw the line in every category of living – food, water, and shelter. We made a lot of choices that were different than the way we had been doing things and it made us feel really good to know we were doing a better job for us, our family, and the environment and the best part is, we didn’t have to give up anything to do it. We just made better choices. Research works. The technology is there.
Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State where they operate their websites goodideasforlife.com and Off Grid Works.
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Test yourself - Audio course: Get to know Excel: Create your first workbook - Office.com
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Complete the following test so you can be sure you understand the material. Your answers are private, and test results are not scored.
You need a new workbook. How do you create one?
On the Insert menu, click Worksheet.
On the File menu, click New. In the New Workbook task pane, click Blank workbook.
On the Insert menu, click Workbook.
The Name Box shows you the contents of the active cell.
In a new worksheet, you must start by typing in cell A1.
There are three worksheets with every new workbook. You can change that automatic number if you want to.
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Klippart, John H. - Ohio History Central
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From Ohio History Central
John Hancock Klippart was Ohio's fifth Secretary of Agriculture. The Secretary of Agriculture served as the head of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture. Klippart served in this position longer than any other person.
Klippart was born on July 26, 1823, in Stark County, Ohio. He received minimal schooling as a child. Usually, he was working to help support his family. He found employment in a woolen mill, as a delivery clerk for a local general store, and as a drugstore clerk. By the late 1840s, Klippart had opened his own dry goods store and also was serving as the postmaster of Osnaburg, Ohio. From 1853 to 1856, he also helped construct the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne, and Chicago Railroad, however, this venture proved not to be lucrative for the businessman. During this same period he also served as editor or co-editor of Canton, Ohio's Democratic Transcript, Cleveland, Ohio's Ohio Farmer, and of The Ohio Cultivator.
Klippart became Ohio's fifth Secretary of Agriculture in 1856. He remained in this position until his death in 1878. During his tenure as secretary, Klippart encouraged the introduction of scientific methods to farming and called for the creation of schools dedicated to teaching agricultural practices. Realizing that Ohio had a sizable German population, Klippart also had Ohio Board of Agriculture documents published in German.
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Adams Apple « Ask The Rabbi « Ohr Somayach
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What is the identity of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
Soon I’ll discuss what, according to Jewish sources, it might have been. But first allow me to set the record straight about what it wasn’t: an apple. This is a common misconception based on non-Jewish sources and illustrations but is not found anywhere in authentic Jewish texts. The Adam’s apple, then, so called because of the purported lodging of the forbidden fruit in Adam’s throat, is a misnomer.
So, what was this forbidden fruit?
There are at least three opinions in the rabbinical literature: The grape, the fig, wheat.
The grape. This is based on the wording of the verse that states that Eve “took from its fruits” (Gen. 3:6) and not that “she took its fruits”. The implication is that she did not take the fruit of the tree itself, but rather derived a product from it, namely wine which is the fruit of the vine. Thus, this opinion in our Sages posits that “Eve pressed grapes and gave Adam wine”. This, of course, is in keeping with the Torah’s many warnings against the vices of alcohol and the way that wine in particular can cause folly and offense.
The fig. This is based on the narrative that relates how after the sin Adam and Eve covered their newly realized nakedness with fig leaves (3:7). The explanation is that when the first couple became aware of the magnitude of their misdeed they sought to hide themselves from G-d. As they grasped for straw to cover their iniquity all trees in the Garden recoiled from abetting their escape. Only the fig tree, their accomplice in sin, offered cover in its leaves. However, conversely, it was this cooperation to conceal that initiated the rectification of their wrong.
Wheat. This most interesting assertion is based on the idea that an infant only starts to call his father “abba” when he is able to eat and digest wheat. This ability reveals a certain degree of intelligence and discernment. While a child’s first drooling “daddy” is most endearing, it paradoxically plants the first seeds of rebellion. How so? Initially, an infant is in speechless awe of his father. However, when he starts to call him “abba”, he begins to quantify and thereby limit him such that eventually he second-guesses him until he finally attempts to outdo him. Accordingly, it is wheat which caused Adam and Eve to second-guess G-d’s intention and to ultimately rebel against His Will.
Interestingly, this opinion maintains that wheat originally grew on trees in baked form. When Adam sinned, this marvelous tree, which grew ready-made baked goods, was reduced to a lowly kernel sprouting plant. Yet, in the future, when all mankind returns to G-d and rectifies the sin of Adam and Eve, the Tree of Knowledge will be restored to its former glory. Then, all humanity will use its G-d given intelligence and power of discernment not to outdo G-d, but to wholeheartedly do His Will.
- Sanhedrin 72
- Bereshet Rabba 19
- Rashi, Gen. 3:7
- Ketubot 111b
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FHWA Operations - Enhancing Emergency Transportation Response
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Improving Mobility and Security through Better Emergency Management
The surface transportation system is vital to our economy, defense, and quality of life. The need for ensuring the function and integrity of the nation’s surface transportation system became clear following the events of September 11, 2001. Effective transportation operational strategies both during and after an event (manmade or natural) are key to ensuring safe and continuous movement of people and goods during a national emergency. State and local transportation agencies play key roles in ensuring that the transportation network operates effectively in the event of an emergency. Response begins the moment an event occurs—assessment of the event and what it means to the transportation system. It may involve determining not only how to move people and goods, but also military deployments.
Throughout all daily activities, public safety and security must be considered by preparing for emergency transportation response.
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Passport to Texas » 2012 » July » 05
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This is Passport to Texas
Findings from research conducted at Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) provide biologists with information to guide them when developing habitat management strategies.
11—And we are continually doing research and learning more and more and adjusting our habitat management strategies so that we can accomplish the best possible strategies for managing wildlife in Texas.
Well managed, healthy habitat and wildlife is good for Texas’ environment and economy. WMA facilities coordinator, Dennis Gissell, says the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program (WSFR) program has been integral in the acquisition and management of many of these sites.
14—[The] Wildlife and sport fisheries act is absolutely essential to our ability to manage and conserve wildlife habitats and wildlife populations in Texas. Not only on the wildlife management areas, but in support of our biologists who work with private landowners statewide.
A set of management tools described by Aldo Leopold in 1933, are still used today on WMAs.
16—Aldo Leopold, who was widely accepted as the father of conservation in America, outlined five different general types of habitat management practices that can be used to restore and maintain habitat. And those involve the axe, cow, plow, fire and gun.
We tell you more about those tomorrow.
The WSFR program supports our series and is celebrating 75 years of funding diverse conservation projects throughout Texas…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti
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Choose an Internet Connection Method (Step 29 of 34)
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In this step, Windows XP wants to know whether your computer connects to the Internet through a network or if it connects to the Internet directly.
If you have a broadband connection, like DSL or a cable or fiber connection, and are using a router (or if you're on another type of home or business network) then choose Yes, this computer will connect through a local area network or home network.
If your computer connects directly to the Internet via a modem (dial-up or broadband), choose No, this computer will connect directly to the Internet.
Windows XP will see most modern Internet connection setups, even those involving only a single PC, as on a network so the first option is probably the most likely choice for most users. If you're really not sure though, choose No, this computer will connect directly to the Internet or click Skip ->.
After making a choice, click Next ->.
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THE LION OF THE NORTH
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THE LION OF THE NORTH
THE LION OF THE NORTH
MY DEAR LADS
You are nowadays called upon to acquire so great a mass of learning
and information in the period of life between the ages of twelve
and eighteen that it is not surprising that but little time can be
spared for the study of the history of foreign nations. Most lads
are therefore lamentably ignorant of the leading events of even
the most important epochs of Continental history although as many
of these events have exercised a marked influence upon the existing
state of affairs in Europe a knowledge of them is far more
useful and it may be said far more interesting than that of the
comparatively petty affairs of Athens Sparta Corinth and Thebes.
Prominent among such epochs is the Thirty Years' War which arose
from the determination of the Emperor of Austria to crush out
Protestantism throughout Germany. Since the invasion of the Huns
no struggle which has taken place in Europe has approached this
in the obstinacy of the fighting and the terrible sufferings which
the war inflicted upon the people at large. During these thirty
years the population of Germany decreased by nearly a third and
in some of the states half the towns and two-thirds of the villages
The story of the Thirty Years' War is too long to be treated in
one volume. Fortunately it divides itself naturally into two parts.
The first begins with the entry of Sweden under her chivalrous
monarch Gustavus Adolphus upon the struggle and terminates with
his death and that of his great rival Wallenstein. This portion of
the war has been treated in the present story. The second period
begins at the point when France assumed the leading part in the
struggle and concluded with the peace which secured liberty of
conscience to the Protestants of Germany. This period I hope to
treat some day in another story so that you may have a complete
picture of the war. The military events of the present tale the
battles sieges and operations are all taken from the best authorities
while for the account of the special doings of Mackay's afterwards
Munro's Scottish Regiment I am indebted to Mr. J. Grant's Life of
Sir John Hepburn.
G. A. HENTY
CHAPTER I THE INVITATION
It was late in the afternoon in the spring of the year 1630; the
hilltops of the south of Scotland were covered with masses of cloud
and a fierce wind swept the driving rain before it with such force
that it was not easy to make way against it. It had been raining
for three days without intermission. Every little mountain burn had
become a boiling torrent while the rivers had risen above their
banks and flooded the low lands in the valleys.
The shades of evening were closing in when a lad of some sixteen
years of age stood gazing across the swollen waters of the Nith
rushing past in turbid flood. He scarce seemed conscious of the
pouring rain; but with his lowland bonnet pressed down over his
eyes and his plaid wrapped tightly round him he stood on a rising
hummock of ground at the edge of the flood and looked across the
"If they are not here soon" he said to himself "they will not
get across the Nith tonight. None but bold riders could do so now;
but by what uncle says Captain Hume must be that and more. Ah!
here they come."
As he spoke two horsemen rode down the opposite side of the valley
and halted at the water's edge. The prospect was not a pleasant
one. The river was sixty or seventy feet wide and in the centre
the water swept along in a raging current.
"You cannot cross here" the boy shouted at the top of his voice.
"You must go higher up where the water's deeper."
The wind swept his words away but his gestures were understood.
"The boy is telling us to go higher up" said one of the horsemen.
"I suppose he is" the other replied; "but here is the ford. You
see the road we have travelled ends here and I can see it again
on the other side. It is getting dark and were we to cross higher
up we might lose our way and get bogged; it is years since I was
here. What's the boy going to do now? Show us a place for crossing?"
The lad on seeing the hesitation of the horsemen had run along
the bank up the stream and to their surprise when he had gone a
little more than a hundred yards he dashed into the water. For a
time the water was shallow and he waded out until he reached the
edge of the regular bank of the river and then swam out into the
"Go back" the horseman shouted; but his voice did not reach
the swimmer who in a few strokes was in the full force of the
stream and was soon lost to the sight of the horsemen among the
short foaming waves of the torrent.
"The boy will be drowned" one of the horsemen said spurring his
horse up the valley; but in another minute the lad was seen breasting
the calmer water just above the ford.
"You cannot cross here Captain Hume" he said as he approached
the horsemen. "You must go nigh a mile up the river."
"Why who are you lad?" the horseman asked "and how do you know
"I'm the nephew of Nigel Graheme. Seeing how deep the floods were
I came out to show you the way for the best horse in the world
could not swim the Nith here now."
"But this is the ford" Captain Hume said.
"Yes this is the ford in dry weather. The bottom here is hard rock
and easy to ride over when the river is but waist deep but below
and above this place it is covered with great boulders. The water
is six feet deep here now and the horses would be carried down
among the rocks and would never get across. A mile up the river
is always deep and though the current is strong there is nothing
to prevent a bold horseman from swimming across."
"I thank you heartily young sir" Captain Hume said. "I can see
how broken is the surface of the water and doubt not that it would
have fared hard with us had we attempted to swim across here. In
faith Munro we have had a narrow escape."
"Ay indeed" the other agreed. "It would have been hard if you and
I after going through all the battlefields of the Low Countries
should have been drowned here together in a Scottish burn. Your
young friend is a gallant lad and a good swimmer for in truth it
was no light task to swim that torrent with the water almost as
cold as ice."
"Now sirs will you please to ride on" the boy said; "it is
getting dark fast and the sooner we are across the better."
So saying he went off at a fast run the horses trotting behind
him. A mile above he reached the spot he had spoken of. The river
was narrower here and the stream was running with great rapidity
swirling and heaving as it went but with a smooth even surface.
"Two hundred yards farther up" the boy said "is the beginning of
the deep; if you take the water there you will get across so as to
climb up by that sloping bank just opposite."
He led the way to the spot he indicated and then plunged into
the stream swimming quietly and steadily across and allowing the
stream to drift him down.
The horsemen followed his example. They had swum many a swollen
river and although their horses snorted and plunged at first they
soon quieted down and swam steadily over. They just struck the spot
which the boy had indicated. He had already arrived there and
without a word trotted forward.
It was soon dark and the horsemen were obliged to keep close to
his heels to see his figure. It was as much as they could do to
keep up with him for the ground was rough and broken sometimes
swampy sometimes strewn with boulders.
"It is well we have a guide" Colonel Munro said to his companion;
"for assuredly even had we got safely across the stream we should
never have found our way across such a country as this. Scotland
is a fine country Hume a grand country and we are all proud of
it you know but for campaigning give me the plains of Germany;
while as for your weather here it is only fit for a water rat."
Hume laughed at this outburst.
"I sha'n't be sorry Munro for a change of dry clothes and a corner
by a fire; but we must be nearly there now if I remember right.
Graheme's hold is about three miles from the Nith."
The boy presently gave a loud shout and a minute later lights
were seen ahead and in two or three minutes the horsemen drew up
at a door beside which two men were standing with torches; another
strolled out as they stopped.
"Welcome Hume! I am glad indeed to see you; and -- ah! is it you
Munro? it is long indeed since we met."
"That is it Graheme; it is twelve years since we were students
together at St. Andrews."
"I did not think you would have come on such a night" Graheme
"I doubt that we should have come tonight or any other night
Nigel if it had not been that that brave boy who calls you uncle
swam across the Nith to show us the best way to cross. It was a
gallant deed and I consider we owe him our lives."
"It would have gone hard with you indeed had you tried to swim
the Nith at the ford; had I not made so sure you would not come I
would have sent a man down there. I missed Malcolm after dinner
and wondered what had become of him. But come in and get your wet
things off. It is a cold welcome keeping you here. My men will take
your horses round to the stable and see that they are well rubbed
down and warmly littered."
In a quarter of an hour the party were assembled again in the sitting
room. It was a bare room with heavily timbered ceiling and narrow
windows high up from the ground; for the house was built for
purposes of defence like most Scottish residences in those days.
The floor was thickly strewn with rushes. Arms and trophies of the
chase hung on the walls and a bright fire blazing on the hearth
gave it a warm and cheerful aspect. As his guests entered the room
Graheme presented them with a large silver cup of steaming liquor.
"Drain this" he said "to begin with. I will warrant me a draught
of spiced wine will drive the cold of the Nith out of your bones."
The travellers drank off the liquor.
"'Tis a famous drink" Hume said "and there is nowhere I enjoy it
so much as in Scotland for the cold here seems to have a knack of
getting into one's very marrow though I will say there have been
times in the Low Countries when we have appreciated such a draught.
Well and how goes it with you Graheme?"
"Things might be better; in fact times in Scotland have been getting
worse and worse ever since King James went to England and all the
court with him. If it were not for an occasional raid among the
wild folks of Galloway and a few quarrels among ourselves life
would be too dull to bear here."
"But why bear it?" Captain Hume asked. "You used to have plenty
of spirit in our old college days Graheme and I wonder at your
rusting your life out here when there is a fair field and plenty of
honour to say nothing of hard cash to be won in the Low Country.
Why beside Hepburn's regiment which has made itself a name
throughout all Europe there are half a score of Scottish regiments
in the service of the King of Sweden and his gracious majesty
Gustavus Adolphus does not keep them idle I warrant you."
"I have thought of going a dozen times" Graheme said "but you see
circumstances have kept me back; but I have all along intended to
cross the seas when Malcolm came of an age to take the charge of
his father's lands. When my brother James was dying from that sword
thrust he got in a fray with the Duffs I promised him I would be
a father to the boy and see that he got his rights."
"Well we will talk of the affair after supper Graheme for now
that I have got rid of the cold I begin to perceive that I am well
As the officer was speaking the servitors were laying the table
and supper was soon brought in. After ample justice had been done
to this and the board was again cleared the three men drew their
seats round the fire Malcolm seating himself on a low stool by
"And now to business Nigel" Colonel Munro said. "We have not come
back to Scotland to see the country or to enjoy your weather or
even for the pleasure of swimming your rivers in flood.
"We are commissioned by the King of Sweden to raise some 3000
or 4000 more Scottish troops. I believe that the king intends to
take part in the war in Germany where the Protestants are getting
terribly mauled and where indeed it is likely that the Reformed
Religion will be stamped out altogether unless the Swedes strike in
to their rescue. My chief object is to fill up to its full strength
of two thousand men the Mackay Regiment of which I am lieutenant
colonel. The rest of the recruits whom we may get will go as drafts
to fill up the vacancies in the other regiments. So you see here
we are and it is our intention to beat up all our friends and
relations and ask them each to raise a company or half a company
of recruits of which of course they would have the command.
"We landed at Berwick and wrote to several of our friends that
we were coming. Scott of Jedburgh has engaged to raise a company.
Balfour of Lauderdale who is a cousin of mine has promised to
bring another; they were both at St. Andrew's with us as you may
remember Graheme. Young Hamilton who had been an ensign in my
regiment left us on the way. He will raise a company in Douglasdale.
Now Graheme don't you think you can bring us a band of the men
"I don't know" Graheme said hesitatingly. "I should like it of all
things for I am sick of doing nothing here and my blood often runs
hot when I read of the persecutions of the Protestants in Germany;
but I don't think I can manage it."
"Oh nonsense Nigel!" said Hume; "you can manage it easily enough
if you have the will. Are you thinking of the lad there? Why not
bring him with you? He is young certainly but he could carry a
colour; and as for his spirit and bravery Munro and I will vouch
"Oh do uncle" the lad exclaimed leaping to his feet in his
excitement. "I promise you I would not give you any trouble; and
as for marching there isn't a man in Nithsdale who can tire me
out across the mountains."
"But what's to become of the house Malcolm and the land and the
"Oh they will be all right" the boy said. "Leave old Duncan in
charge and he will look after them."
"But I had intended you to go to St. Andrews next year Malcolm
and I think the best plan will be for you to go there at once. As
you say Duncan can look after the place."
Malcolm's face fell.
"Take the lad with you Graheme" Colonel Munro said. "Three years
under Gustavus will do him vastly more good than will St. Andrews.
You know it never did us any good to speak of. We learned a little
more Latin than we knew when we went there but I don't know that
that has been of any use to us; whereas for the dry tomes of divinity
we waded through I am happy to say that not a single word of the
musty stuff remains in my brains. The boy will see life and service
he will have opportunities of distinguishing himself under the
eye of the most chivalrous king in Europe he will have entered a
noble profession and have a fair chance of bettering his fortune
all of which is a thousand times better than settling down here in
this corner of Scotland."
"I must think it over" Graheme said; "it is a serious step to
take. I had thought of his going to the court at London after he
left the university and of using our family interest to push his
"What is he to do in London?" Munro said. "The old pedant James who
wouldn't spend a shilling or raise a dozen men to aid the cause of
his own daughter and who thought more of musty dogmatic treatises
than of the glory and credit of the country he ruled over or the
sufferings of his co-religionists in Germany has left no career
open to a lad of spirit."
"Well I will think it over by the morning" Graheme said. "And now
tell me a little more about the merits of this quarrel in Germany.
If I am going to fight I should like at least to know exactly what
I am fighting about."
"My dear fellow" Hume laughed "you will never make a soldier
if you always want to know the ins and outs of every quarrel you
have to fight about; but for once the tenderest conscience may be
satisfied as to the justice of the contention. But Munro is much
better versed in the history of the affair than I am; for to tell
you the truth beyond the fact that it is a general row between
the Protestants and Catholics I have not troubled myself much in
"You must know" Colonel Munro began "that some twenty years
ago the Protestant princes of Germany formed a league for mutual
protection and support which they called the Protestant Union; and
a year later the Catholics on their side constituted what they
called the Holy League. At that time the condition of the Protestants
was not unbearable. In Bohemia where they constituted two-thirds
of the population Rudolph II and after him Mathias gave conditions
of religious freedom.
"Gradually however the Catholic party about the emperor gained the
upper hand; then various acts in breach of the conditions granted
to the Protestants were committed and public spirit on both sides
became much embittered. On the 23d of May 1618 the Estates of
Bohemia met at Prague and the Protestant nobles headed by Count
Thurn came there armed and demanded from the Imperial councillors an
account of the high handed proceedings. A violent quarrel ensued
and finally the Protestant deputies seized the councillors Martinitz
and Slavata and their secretary and hurled them from the window
into the dry ditch fifty feet below. Fortunately for the councillors
the ditch contained a quantity of light rubbish and they and their
secretary escaped without serious damage. The incident however
was the commencement of war. Bohemia was almost independent
of Austria administering its own internal affairs. The Estates
invested Count Thurn with the command of the army. The Protestant
Union supported Bohemia in its action. Mathias who was himself
a tolerant and well meaning man tried to allay the storm; but
failing to do so marched an army into Bohemia.
"Had Mathias lived matters would probably have arranged themselves
but he died the following spring and was succeeded by Ferdinand
II. Ferdinand is one of the most bigoted Catholics living and is
at the same time a bold and resolute man; and he had taken a solemn
vow at the shrine of Loretto that if ever he came to the throne
he would re-establish Catholicism throughout his dominions. Both
parties prepared for the strife; the Bohemians renounced their
allegiance to him and nominated the Elector Palatine Frederick V
the husband of our Scotch princess their king.
"The first blow was struck at Zablati. There a Union army led by
Mansfeldt was defeated by the Imperial general Bucquoi. A few days
later however Count Thurn marching through Moravia and Upper
Austria laid siege to Vienna. Ferdinand's own subjects were
estranged from him and the cry of the Protestant army `Equal rights
for all Christian churches' was approved by the whole population
-- for even in Austria itself there were a very large number of
Protestants. Ferdinand had but a few soldiers the population of
the city were hostile and had Thurn only entered the town he could
have seized the emperor without any resistance.
"Thurn hesitated and endeavoured instead to obtain the conditions
of toleration which the Protestants required; and sixteen Austrian
barons in the city were in the act of insisting upon Ferdinand
signing these when the head of the relieving army entered the city.
Thurn retired hastily. The Catholic princes and representatives
met at Frankfort and elected Ferdinand Emperor of Germany. He at
once entered into a strict agreement with Maximilian of Bavaria to
crush Protestantism throughout Germany. The Bohemians however in
concert with Bethlem Gabor king of Hungary again besieged Vienna;
but as the winter set in they were obliged to retire. From that
moment the Protestant cause was lost; Saxony and Hesse-Darmstadt
left the Union and joined Ferdinand. Denmark which had promised
its assistance to the Protestants was persuaded to remain quiet.
Sweden was engaged in a war with the Poles.
"The Protestant army was assembled at Ulm; the army of the League
under the order of Maximilian of Bavaria was at Donauworth.
Maximilian worked upon the fears of the Protestant princes who
frightened at the contest they had undertaken agreed to a peace
by which they bound themselves to offer no aid to Frederick V.
"The Imperial forces then marched to Bohemia and attacked Frederick's
army outside Prague and in less than an hour completely defeated
it. Frederick escaped with his family to Holland. Ferdinand then
took steps to carry out his oath. The religious freedom granted by
Mathias was abolished. In Bohemia Moravia Silesia and Austria
proper. Many of the promoters of the rebellion were punished in
life and property. The year following all members of the Calvinistic
sect were forced to leave their country a few months afterwards
the Lutherans were also expelled and in 1627 the exercise of all
religious forms except those of the Catholic Church was forbidden;
200 of the noble and 30000 of the wealthier and industrial classes
were driven into exile; and lands and property to the amount of
5000000 or 6000000 pounds were confiscated.
"The hereditary dominions of Frederick V were invaded the Protestants
were defeated the Palatinate entirely subdued and the electorate
was conferred upon Maximilian of Bavaria; and the rigid laws against
the Protestants were carried into effect in the Palatinate also.
It had now become evident to all Europe that the Emperor of Austria
was determined to stamp out Protestantism throughout Germany; and
the Protestant princes now thoroughly alarmed besought aid from
the Protestant countries England Holland and Denmark. King James
who had seen unmoved the misfortunes which had befallen his daughter
and her husband and who had been dead to the general feeling of
the country could no longer resist and England agreed to supply
an annual subsidy; Holland consented to supply troops; and the King
of Denmark joined the League and was to take command of the army.
"In Germany the Protestants of lower Saxony and Brunswick and the
partisan leader Mansfeldt were still in arms. The army under the
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Social Classes of 19th Century France - PDF
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Social Classes of Nineteenth Century France (McKay 789-808) Picture source: google images Life As a Noble in 19 th Century France Picture source: google images From an economic perspective... According…
Ministers reaffirm the importance of the social dimension in the Bologna Process. The need to increase competitiveness must be balanced with the objective of improving the social characteristics of ...
This paper intends, through an examination of ECOWAS, to assess the obstacles and possibilities of incorporating social concerns relating to labour and employment into regional policies and ...
Social Classes of Nineteenth Century France (McKay 789-808) Picture source: google images
Life As a Noble in 19 th Century France Picture source: google images
From an economic perspective...
According to “A History of Western Society,” despite the increased wages and standard of living for the average person, the aristocracy (top five percent of the entire population) still controlled thirty-three percent of the national income.
A great divide between the most upper and lowest classes maintained intact during the 19 th century because of the different class levels that were continually evolving in the middle class. Specialization and occupational opportunities allowed some bourgeoisie to achieve such great wealth, they possessed almost the amount of the aristocracy. Others of the same class were making little more money than rural peasants. Such diversity within the middle class distanced the aristocracy from the working class more than ever.
While many other classes had begun to let go of the age old tradition of marrying for economic reasons, in the late 1800s, aristocratic marriages were done in much the same way they had for centuries. Young girls were kept out of the public eye until their parents decided it was time for them to “come out.” At such time, young—and sometimes quite old—bachelors courted the girls. When a young girl’s parents decided that a suitable bachelor had been found for their daughter—meaning he had the right financial and familial background to suit them—the couple’s parents began negotiations on a dowry and elaborate legal marriage contract.
Finally when the matters of the dowry and contract were settled, the couple was married lavishly. The couple was lucky if they loved each other or grew to respect one another, but infidelity was common, and love was not a requirement when aristocrats married off their children.
Picture source: google images
In previous centuries, illegitimate children were abandoned, mothers rarely nursed their children, and parents avoided showing their children any affection at all because they would afraid of getting attached to something that was only going to die.
By the late 1800s, child rearing had come full circle because medical advances and higher standards of living had begun to lower infant mortality rates substantially. Even in the upper class, mothers delighted in their children. They nursed and fed them, let them run free in the gardens. As generations progressed, mothers had less and less children so they could provide the best for each of them. Children of the nobility were given the best education possible, with private tutors and places at the most sought-after universities in Europe.
The Middle Class, Also Known as the French Bourgeoisie Google images
Facts About the Middle Class
This class fought for rights in a society controlled by the aristocracy. As productive owners of growing businesses, most of them were drawn toward the aristocratic lifestyle. To them, image meant everything. The number of servants a family had was important to the bourgeoisie and indicated the wealth of a family.
Occupations of Middle Class Members
The people of the Middle Class had many different jobs. They included bankers, money leaders, industrial entrepreneurs, doctors, dentists, engineers, architects, chemists, accountants, surveyors, managers of private and public institutes, manufacturers, teachers, nurses, and merchants.
The Middle Class spent more money on food than they did the rest of the items in their house. They ate very well. The main meal was in the middle of the day when the family came home to enjoy it together. Unlike the lower working class, the bourgeoisie could afford to eat a lot of meat.
The Middle Class also celebrated over food. Their special occasions were always accompanied by a dinner party. At the parties, eight to nine different courses could be expected. An ordinary dinner was made up of four courses usually soup, fish, meat, and dessert.
Homes and Clothing Bourgeois houses always possessed extravagant décor to showcase the wealth of the family. Many of people rented their homes instead of actually owning them. They also cared a lot about what they wore and made sure they always looked good. Although they bourgeoisie weren’t as wealthy as the nobles, they did have a wide variety of clothing. Work, church, parties, and leisurely weekends each called for a different wardrobe. New textile factories helped make the wide variety of clothes more accessible and cheaper because for the bourgeoisie. They no longer had to pay for a personal tailor to make a new outfit or them. Google images
Good behavior was expected of everyone in the Middle Class. Strict codes of conduct were upheld. Self discipline, hard work and personal achievement were stressed. Everyone was raised to know right from wrong. The people who did get into trouble, or were said to have committed some kind of crime, were assumed to be responsible for their own actions. Getting drunk and gambling were denounced.
Education Education was very important to the bourgeoisie. Parents made sure that their kids had a good education. They often provided their children with the opportunity to advance their education at a university. Most Middle Class children learned to read books and play music at a very early age with the help of a tutor or governess. The Institut Pasteur, Paris; Google images
The Proletariat : The Vast Majority of the Population of France During the 19 th Century
The larger part of France in the nineteenth century was the proletariat. Their lives depended on physical labor. They could not afford to own servants. Some were still small landowning peasants and had to hire farm hands to turn a profit.
The Proletariat Continued
Due to industrialization, agriculture declined. Most workers migrated to Paris to find work. Although the workers worked in the urban area, they still found a way to visit their families in the countryside.
Highly Skilled Workers
15% of the working classes
They were proud of their achievements such as being construction bosses or factory foremen.
Their earnings were doubled the earnings of an unskilled worker.
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runoff «
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“Despite growing health concerns about atrazine, an agricultural weed killer sprayed on farm fields across the Midwest, most drinking water is tested for the chemical only four times a year — so rarely that worrisome spikes of the chemical often go undetected.
“Atrazine has been banned in Europe because it contaminates groundwater, but it remains widely used in the U.S., where the EPA endorsed its continued use as recently as 2003. Federal records show the review was heavily influenced by industry and relied on studies financed by Syngenta, a Swiss-based company that manufactures most of the atrazine sprayed in the U.S.”
read more: Chicago Tribune
“We humans with our big cars and our big factories and our big cities were discharging terrible stuff into the air and water, and it had to be stopped or we would soon make our nest uninhabitable. The public was growing increasingly outraged. Every night on color television, we saw yellow sludge flowing into blue rivers; every day as we drove to work, we saw black smudges against the barely visible blue sky. We knew that our indiscriminate use of pesticides and toxic substances was threatening wildlife and public health.”
“But we didn’t do much about it. Until 1970, most regulation of industry was done by the states, which competed so strongly for plants and jobs that regulating companies to protect public health was beyond them.
“Environmentally, it was a race to the bottom.”
read more: Wall Street Journal
“Go to your tap and turn it on. Most likely, the second you turn the faucet handle, water gushes out. That alone might make you think there’s not a water crisis happening right now in America. Or at least that if there is, it’s not that bad. But you’d be wrong. In fact, from our infrastructure that wastes water supplies and doesn’t allow rainwater to soak back into the ground table, to our lack of measurement and management of our water use, we’re on a fast track to having very little drinkable water in the very near future. Author Robert Glennon addresses this very issue in his new book Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It. We asked Glennon his thoughts on some of the most pertinent issues facing us right now, and he provided some insight into what has to change, and how we can do it, so that we can ensure supplies of water for everything from human consumption to agriculture to manufacturing in the decades to come.
“We Americans are spoiled. Turn on the tap and out comes as much water as we want, for less than we pay for cell phone service or cable television. We must change this situation.
“We must recognize a human right to water for life’s necessities. The richest country in the history of the world can surely make that commitment to its citizens. Honoring that right does not involve a large quantity of water–only about 1% of the water that is used each day in the United States. For the other 99%, we need to encourage conservation and stewardship by pricing it appropriately: in general, the more you use the more you pay. Under this system, Americans, whether homeowners, farmers or industry would vote with their pocketbooks as to how they use water.”
read more: AlterNet
“Without first traveling through a natural filtration system, like a wetland, or artificial filtration system, pollutants end up in waterways and damage ecosystems and water quality, according to the EPA. Cars, lawns, pets and other parts of everyday life lead to a major source of pollution for waterways, while impermeable surfaces like streets, buildings and sidewalks lead to increased runoff into storm sewers.”
read more: Circle of Blue
“The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by 16 cities in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa. The communities allege that Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware counterpart Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. reaped billions of dollars from the sale of atrazine while local taxpayers were left with the financial burden of filtering the chemical from drinking water.”
read more: Huffington Post
“Nearly every time it rains, New York City’s aging sewer system diverts raw, untreated sewage directly into local waters. This untreated wastewater and storm runoff contains dangerous bacteria, pathogens, heavy metals and toxic chemicals, making kayaking or swimming in city waters an unhealthy – and rather icky – activity.”
read more: NRDC
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2.2 Basic Rate ISDN
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|The Care and Feeding of ISDN4BSD|
|2.1 The Flavours of||2 What is ISDN||2.2.1 Frame format on|
2.2 Basic Rate ISDN
Basic rate ISDN carries two full-duplex 64 Kilobit per second channels for user data called B-channels and one full-duplex 16 Kilobit per second channel used for signaling called the D-channel. The D-channel is used to transfer signaling information: when you think of what happens when you do a telephone call, then the D-channel is used to transfer such information like ``user took of the handset'', ``transmit dial tone'', ``user dialed a number'', ``transmit busy tone'' and ``user placed the handset back on hook''. In case a connection were made between two telephones, the users would talk over the B-channel.
In Europe, the user connects his ISDN equipment to the S0 bus. This bus uses 4 wires, two wires for transmit and two wires for receive.
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Personal Injury Law Practice | Personal Injury Case Information
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Although truck accidents are three times less likely to happen as compared to smaller vehicles, you are ten times more likely to die in a truck collision than a regular vehicle collision. This is because trucks are 80,000 tons of moving steel, so even the slightest collision with a truck can result in death or serious injuries. This is the reason why you should always be careful when you are sharing the road with trucks. The good news is that truck drivers are more than equipped with training and experiences, which led them to drive as carefully as possible. In fact, according to statistics, truck drivers can be the most careful drivers of all. They drive slowly and carefully, and they are always taking their time before they make their turns. The problem is that not every truck driver does this, very much similar to the fact that not all regular vehicle drivers abide by the traffic law. Some of them intoxicate themselves with illegal substances that compromise their driving.
Truck Accident Statistics
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1.2 percent of all truck accidents involved drivers caught under the influence of drugs and 3.2 percent involves drivers who were under the influence of alcohol. In the overall, there are over 500,000 truck accidents recorded every year. Over 5,000 people die out of truck collision. Truck accidents make up 12 percent of all recorded accidents in the US. 2.4 percent of them were caused by commercial trucks alone.
The US economy depends on the trucking business. In fact 75 percent of all freight transported across the United States annually is by trucks, amounting to at least 225.5 billion revenues every single year. This is how large the trucking business is in the United States, which reflects the number of trucks that you share the roads with. Today, there are over 15.5 million trucks in the US, with over 8.9 employees and 3.5 million professional truck drivers. According to statistics, the rate is still increasing as the demand for transportation is steadily increasing.
Texas is where the highest truck accidents were recorded. In 2003 alone, 438 people died in truck accidents in Texas and the number is steadily increasing. California is where the highest road accident rates were recorded. But the state comes in the number two spot for the highest truck accidents followed by Pennsylvania and Florida.
Being involved in a truck accident is not something that anyone would want to be involved in. But if in you did and one of your family members was killed in a truck collision, there are ways on how you could recover the losses. Federal laws and regulations you may sue the truck driver, the owner of the truck, the company who leased the truck, the truck manufacturer in case the accident was caused by technical failure, loader of the cargo in case the accident involves improper loading. Under the federal law any company or individual that owns a trucking permit is liable for accidents involving their vehicle as long as their name or company name appears on the placard. The law disregards the lease of contract or whether the driver of the truck at the time of the accident is an independent contractor or is not directly employed. There is a separate government agency that investigates the case which is separate from the police report.
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classical mechanics - Could life survive a pole shift caused by an asteroid collision? - Physics Sta
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Could life on earth survive a large pole shift caused by an asteroid collision?
I became aware that there are people who believe that the earth's pole suddenly shifts. That is, its rotational axis changes rather than its magnetic axis. This is listed in wikipedia as follows:
Cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis
The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis is the conjecture that there have been rapid shifts in the relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of a planet. For the Earth, such a dynamic change could create calamities such as floods and tectonic events.
The field has attracted pseudoscientific authors offering a variety of evidence, including psychic readings.
While watching a chess game at the local club a fellow member told me that he'd found the solution for where oil came from. It was long and involved. One of its features required that the earth's axis be changed by 90 degrees due to the collision of an asteroid a few million years ago. The idea was that the earth's axis used to be in the plane of the earth's orbit, but then it was knocked into its current rotation axis tilt of around 23 degrees. This changed the climate and buried a lot of stuff.
The axis shift seemed to be an obvious weak link with the theory in that it involves the simplest physics. I told him that any asteroid large enough to change the earth's axis an appreciable amount (i.e. 70 degrees!) would cause so much damage as to destroy all life on the surface of the planet including its oceans. I'd have forgotten about it, but the other night, while listening to the radio, a guest appeared who had an idea that was similar. So this seems like a common target for pseudoscience.
And so my question is this: Would an asteroid collision sufficient to immediately change the earth's rotation axis wipe out all life on the planet?
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Teens - How to Get More Respect From Your Parents - Michael Rubino, Ph.D, MFT's Blog - Pleasant Hill
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A very common problem between teens and their parents is that teens feel their parents do not give them enough respect and ignore their rights. Sometimes this may be true, but overall teens are expecting too much from their parents.
Yes it is true that as teenagers you are becoming young adults and that you should be able to handle more responsibility. The big word in that last sentence is SHOULD. Just because you turn 13 or 16 doesn't mean you are in charge of your life. You are a YOUNG adult. Noticed I capitalized the word young. There are still a number of life experiences for you to learn from and until you do, your parents are responsible for you.
A number of you have heard your parents say when you are 18 you can do as you like and that is the truth. Prior to you turning 18, any trouble you get into, your parents are responsible for it. If you damage property, your parents are legally responsible. If you get arrested and put in Juvenille Hall, your parents receive a bill from County for the length a time you were in Juvenille Hall.
You may think that you do not need your parents, but you need their permission to drive and basically for anything you want to do in life. Even if they give you permission to drive and you get your license, they have the ability to have your driver's license suspended at any time they want while you are under the age of 18.
As I started off now that you are a teenager you SHOULD be able to handle more responsibility. This responsibility is not an automatic gift you receive when you turn 13. This respect you so desperately want is something you have to earn. How do you earn it? You earn it by respecting the rules that your parents have set and by taking care of your responsibilities - for a teen, your primary responsibility is school. This means going to school on a regular basis, doing your homework, earning decent grades and not making poor choices such as drinking alcohol or smokinging cigarettes or marijuana. You may say this is unfair, well welcome to the adult world.
Ask your parents how many times they have to do something at work they feel is unfair, but if they want their job they have to do it. Ask your parents how many days they get up tired or not feeling well and they would prefer to stay home from work, but they still go to work. They go to work because the have a family to support and bills to pay. Your parents want you to succeed in life. If you feel they really are not giving you enough freedom, then ask your parents if you can discuss this issue with them. However, ask in a mature, respectful manner do not demand a conversation. When you discuss the issue with your parents have some things you have been doing, e.g., your homework, respecting curfew, that demonstrate you can handle more responsibility. Do not just demand it because your friends have it.
Remember the respect and maturity that you want, you must earn. You earn it by respecting your parents, other adults and recognizing that you have responsibilities. You do not get it because you turned 13 or because your friends have it. This can be a difficult time of life, but it can be a time when you learn a lot about the world and yourself. If you remember you need to earn your parents trust and you actively try to do so, your parents will work with you and start to trust you. The choice is yours, you can make your teen years difficult or make them easier by working with your parents - you decide.
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� Polar Shift 2012 �
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Polar Shift 2012Official 2012 Contact Website
There are a lot of theories as to why there will be mass chaos and destruction in 2012, but the most plausible and scientifically backed theory is the one about the polar shifts that will occur. But what is this whole theory even about and what should you expect to happen considering the polar shift has actually already started? (Yes, seriously!)
The Polar Shift Explained For Dummies
Most people`s first guess or assumption when it comes to a polar shift is that they think it entails the North and South Poles basically swapping. This is incorrect, to a point…
In scientific terms, the polar shift as it relates to 2012 doomsday scenarios is called a geomagnetic reversal. This polar shift is also referred to by scientists and other researchers as the cataclysmic pole shift or, in layman`s terms, the constant and rapid shift of the axis rotation. This event is expected and feared to cause natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and certain volcano eruptions (to name a few).
Doomsday pundits, based primarily on their research - a la, Google, Bing or Yahoo - refer to the polar shift in 2012 as being a change in the Earth`s magnetic field. This has actually happened many times throughout history but has not happened since 785,000 years or so ago.
Although scientific estimations as to when the last shift happened differ (they state it was about 300,000 years ago), both sides agree that a repeat event is imminent and all signs point to 2012 as being the year the shift will happen - albeit catastrophically - once again.
What Is Going To Happen?
Pretty much anything that is effected by magnetic fields will be effected including ships and airplanes losing their GPS and magnetic field equipment - essentially becoming lost in mid-air or at sea. Any and all compasses and satellites will also cease functioning correctly. All migratory animals and fish will become confused as to where to go as well. Perhaps the scariest and disastrous of all things certain to occur during the 2012 polar shifts is that all nuclear and atomic bombs may explode automatically - without any human intervention whatsoever.
The current modern society we live in will be in a frenzy - all television and radio will be jammed or non-functioning, no one`s GPS or compasses will be working, cell phones, telephones and the Internet will no longer be functioning, animals will be lost all over the world, perhaps wandering into cities and highways. Not to mention the many potential air plane and sea ship crashes and, of course, the simultaneous explosions of untold amounts of nuclear weapons. All of this essentially defines the word chaos!
We will likely look back on such chaos and wonder why precautionary measures weren`t taken, despite all signs pointing towards the polar shifts imminent occurrence. While you cannot help warn and prevent things from happening to other people, you can prepare and become more knowledgeable about the many other things practically certain to happen in 2012.
What Can You Do To Help Prepare For 2012?
The 2012 Contact can help give you the knowledge and knowhow to become prepared for any and all possibilities. When the times get tough, it all comes down to living and dying and survival of the fittest. Don`t you want to increase your own chance of survival in addition to your friends and family? Shouldn`t you take this opportunity by the horns and acquire 2012 Contact right this second?
If you`re having any doubts that the information contained within 2012 Contact isn`t worth your time and research then you can rest assured knowing the product offers a 100% risk-free money back guarantee! So what are you waiting for? The clock is ticking!
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The Weather Channel Polls Fans on Worst Weather What Ifs
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Posted on November 9, 2010
Fans help determine which episodes of It Could Happen Tomorrow will air
(Nov. 9, 2010) - The Weather Channel® (TWC) polls fans on the "Worst Weather What Ifs." This year has marked a flurry of severe weather throughout the U.S. - tornadoes, hurricanes, floods - but is the worst yet to come?
Fans can cast their votes now thru Nov. 12, at www.weather.com/whatifs or TWC's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/TheWeatherChannel to select which locations they think are the most vulnerable for the next major natural disaster such as an earthquake in Charleston, SC, or a tornado touching down in Chicago, IL. The locations and corresponding events in the poll have all been featured in specific episodes of It Could Happen Tomorrow.
After voting ends, TWC will count down the Top 10 "Worst Weather What Ifs" and air It Could Happen Tomorrow episodes with the most votes Nov. 15 - 19 at 8 p.m. ET. Each episode of It Could Happen Tomorrow examines unbelievable, yet plausible, acts of nature, which could spell disaster for cities across America. Part drama, part science and part history, the series searches the past for clues to theoretical weather events.
TWC's next fan poll will take place the week of Nov 29, where they can help determine which episodes of When Weather Changed History will air on the network. When Weather Changed History explores influential and exciting moments in history when the forces of weather intertwine with the forces of human nature to change the course of history. These weather-influenced experiences come from the fields of politics, exploration, the military, sports, entertainment and much more. The focus of the series is the epic struggle of man against the power of nature - and the dangers of underestimating that power.
For more information, visit: http://www.weather.com/
About The Weather Channel Companies
The Weather Channel companies (TWCC) are made up of The Weather Channel® television network, The Weather Channel digital properties, and WSI. The Weather Channel is based in Atlanta and is seen in more than 100 million U.S. households. TWCC also operates Weatherscan®, a 24-hour all-local weather network; The Weather Channel Radio Network; and The Weather Channel HD. The most popular source of weather news and information, TWCC properties reach 60 million monthly Web consumers (weather.com and Desktop) and 32 million monthly mobile users (mobile Web and applications) and offers the second most popular mobile app on all smartphones. WSI, headquartered in Andover, MA, primarily provides business-to-business weather services, particularly for the media, aviation, marine and energy sectors. TWCC is owned by a consortium made up of NBC Universal and the private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. For more information, visit www.weather.com/press.
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motivation - Where should I start on a large concurrent programming assignment? - Programmers Stack
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Semaphore is a resource allocation technique to manage deadlocks and race conditions via priority queues. Putting it metaphorically, you have 3 bicycles for hire. Suppose, you hire it on a first come first serve basis. So if you have hired all your 3 bicycles and a fourth person requests it, he must wait until one of them has brought the bicycle back. There are chances that you may reserve the bike for someone, someone may cancel a already reserved bike and so on. Similar in case of processes that want to acquire some resources, semaphores are used.
In case of a distributed semaphore, there could be multiple resources that could be accessed by multiple processes. Assume a server hosts an application and can host multiple instances of it and the user can use the application if it is free. Let server be S1,S2,.. Sn while the application be A1,A2,...An and users be U1,U2,...Un. So if the first server could host three instances of the application then it would be denoted as S1A1,S1A2,S1A3. Also assume the application instances as slots or boxes for easy understanding. A slot is considered empty when it is free and full when it is busy. So, in this case, the following method is suggested
- User requests the application
- The request is passed to a priority queue.
- The queue runs a continuous background process to search for free slots and once a free slot is found, passes the request to the application to start processing
- Once a slot gets the request, they mark themselves busy and starts processing and marks themselves free when they finish processing
- The slots periodically broadcasts their status to the queue so that the queue could forward the requests once a slot becomes free
- This model is based on centralized message brokering. The queue that processes the request should always be available. There can also be broker-less model that could be implemented in a different way
- Semaphore Programming on Wikipedia
- The Little Book on Semaphores is a superb resources freely available
- Semaphore is based on shared memory model. Actor Model would give a new insight to solve this problem in a different way
Specific answer to the question in context
Looking at the code, I prefer the classical version of a semaphore. Java has a built-in semaphore package to do this and you could just easily build on it.
Specifically, I'd like to know what is a good first-step goal, or a simple subsystem I can implement.
Assuming only one instance of the application should be run on the LAN
- Use the package suggested above
- Create the semaphore with a built-in queue mechanism (similar to a stack) and implement it as a server
- When a user starts the application, it searches for the semaphore, decrements the count (in this case just 0 since only a single instance is to be allowed) and gives user the access to the application
- When an other user starts the application, it searches for the semaphore, since it is 0, puts the user in the queue and gives a message to the user that the application is busy
- When the first user exits the application, the semaphore is incremented, the resource becomes available, the user is intimated and he can now start the application.
- The semaphore can be implemented as a stand-alone server (possibly with a simple web interface) that could be coupled with the application.
The following caveats are worth thinking
- Queues may be flushed entirely or priority can be changed
- Coupling it with the application as a server, requires there would be only one version of the server on the LAN
- Prepare for crashes or unattended message queues (User request access but not available when the application is free)
I would probably suggest the following for better understanding
- Follow this link for better understanding
- Try SCALA. You can use all your existing JAVA libraries plus you get good concurrency
- Have a look at ZMQ. This could be the option if you abstract out the entire process into a separate messaging application that interacts with the resources
- Read about the AutoCAD licensing system (they implement a licensing model that matches few of your requirements)
Answer completely edited since the original answer is based on a much broader perspective
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Course of Study: Mechanical Engineering: David Crawford School of Engineering: Norwich University
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Mechanical engineering, the broadest of the engineering professions, provides an opportunity for a wide range and variety of services, work, and interests. The mechanical engineer deals with the conversion of energy, the design of machines, the instrumentation and control of processes, and the control of machines and the environment. Conventional fields of interest are transportation (automobiles, aircraft, urban and mass transit); machines and systems for electrical power production from coal, oil, and gas; heating and air conditioning of buildings; and the complex machinery and methods of making steel, plastics, paper products, etc. Today the mechanical engineer is directly involved in new and challenging fields such as computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM); artificial body organs and devices (bioengineering); nuclear power generation; applications of electronics to the control of machines and to laboratory instruments; aerospace (spacecraft and rockets); and the control of environmental pollution for automobiles and industry.
The diversity of opportunities for the mechanical engineer and the extensive overlap of interests with the other engineering and scientific disciplines demand that the undergraduate education be broad rather than specialized and that it provide a thorough grounding in all of the engineering fundamentals. The curriculum is a carefully structured blend of theory and the practical aspects of engineering. Engineering applications are emphasized in the junior and senior years with three semesters of design. The diversity of the curriculum is also apparent in the senior projects courses where assignments range from the design, construction, and testing of a solar electric automobile to the investigation of air pollution detection systems.
Since three-fourths of the curriculum’s technical content consists of a foundation of engineering theory, the graduate is uniquely prepared to attack the technical challenges of the future and solve the new engineering problems of society. The graduate is well prepared for direct employment in the engineering profession or for further formal education in graduate school.
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Global Warming and the Big Shill
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Because Vice President Al Gore is an ardent environmentalist, the Clinton White House has placed a high priority on getting an international global warming treaty. One member of the National Security Council is assigned to oversee the treaty that the United States and other industrialized nations agreed to in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997. And the White House has a Climate Change Task Force consisting of eight people. But it looks as though the administration will not even send the treaty to the Senate for ratification before Clinton's term expires. That's partly because it is having difficulty getting developing countries, particularly China, India, and Mexico, to agree to specific limits on their release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But it is also because even before the Kyoto meeting occurred, conservative Republicans joined forces with business foes of the treaty to wage a fierce, take-no-prisoners campaign against it. Not the least because of Gore's involvement in the treaty, killing it has become a conservative cause celebre.
The Kyoto agreement grew out of discussions that began in the late 1980s, prompted by scientific concern that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was causing unprecedented increases in temperature that could not be explained simply by natural causes. These increases might benefit Siberia and northern Canada, but they could also cause catastrophic changes in sea level and weather, wiping away communities and threatening the world's food supply. The science is not conclusive, and probably never will be because of the sheer complexity of the models involved, but the weight of evidence has swung to the side of those who argue that human factors are causing the temperature rise.
In 1992, 178 of the world's nations met in Rio de Janeiro at the United Nations Earth Summit. The conference endorsed the idea of cutting carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2000, but the Bush administration balked at the idea of binding agreements. In 1996, in the wake of new British findings that 1995 had been the warmest year on record, the Clinton administration announced it would accept binding limits on emissions if other countries followed suit.
Then, in 1997 at Kyoto, the United States joined 38 other countries including Japan and members of the European Union in agreeing to reduce its emission of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels by the year 2012. But most of the developing countries refused to agree to any binding limits. Clinton, prodded by a 95–0 Senate resolution, declared that he would not bring the treaty up for Senate ratification until the developing countries agreed to specific limits. The U.S. has continued to negotiate to win the participation of developing nations and to gain support for financial instruments—like emissions trading—that would reduce the economic cost of the treaty. (Through emissions trading, a company that has exceeded its emissions standards in one country can gain emissions credits by financing emissions-reducing technology in another country.)
There are clearly problems with the treaty. Without participation by developing nations, it could encourage companies in developed nations to transfer their operations in order to avoid the cost of complying with stricter environmental rules. But if these developing countries were brought into the treaty, even at lower levels of compliance, the treaty itself would be an important milestone. There are environmental problems that countries cannot solve by themselves and will not solve voluntarily. For instance, the voluntary agreement at Rio to hold emissions levels to 1990 levels by 2000 has already been hopelessly breached. Getting an agreement for binding limits—even a partial, imperfect one—would represent a major step forward.
In Washington, there are two very distinct camps in the debate over the treaty. One set of organizations and businesses agrees that an international, binding treaty is necessary, but disagrees about how flawed the Kyoto treaty is and what needs to be done to improve it. Many environmental organizations, such as the National Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace, would probably back the treaty as is because they believe the threat of global warming trumps the economic strains the treaty could cause. Some large corporations, including United Technologies, Boeing, and British Petroleum, have worked through the International Climate Change Partnership to offer critical support. "We have commended the treaty from the standpoint . . . [that it is] a good start that needs a lot of work," explained Kevin Fay, the executive director of the partnership.
The other camp, consisting of businesses, organizations, conservative politicians, and political operatives, rejects the very idea of a mandatory international agreement and has waged a relentless campaign to kill the treaty. Auto mobile manufacturers, oil and mining firms, and electrical utilities believe that new limits on emissions could raise their costs and reduce the demand for their products. Working through the Global Climate Coalition, they have lobbied Congress to defeat the treaty. They claim that they support "voluntary measures," but balk at anything beyond that. "We are in favor of reducing greenhouse gases without anyone telling us what to do, including the UN," coalition spokesman Frank Maisano explained.
In addition to lobbying on Capitol Hill, many of the companies and trade associations in the coalition, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have funded the Global Climate Information Project, which is waging a $13 million national media campaign against the treaty.
Conservative Republicans in Con gress are glad to lend a hand to businesses that have contributed generously to their campaigns. The biggest campaign donor to Mich igan Represent ative Joe Knollen berg, one of the leaders of the anti-treaty offensive, is General Motors. The donor list of Indiana Repre sent ative David McIn tosh, a former director of Dan Quayle's Council on Competit iveness and former lobbyist for Citizens for a Sound Economy, is a who's who of anti-treaty forces. But the Rep ublicans are also motivated by ideological opposition to government regulation and international organizations (the latter the product of a growing isolationist sentiment on the right) and by a desire to damage Gore, the expected Democratic presidential nominee in 2000.
These treaty opponents have not been content merely to round up enough Senate votes to defeat the treaty when it comes up for ratification. They want to kill it before it ever gets to the Senate floor by preventing the administration from either defending or improving it. This year, prodded by the companies in the Global Climate Coalition, the Republicans introduced the following riders to the appropriations bill:
• A rider to the bill funding the Environmental Protection Agency which would bar the agency from undertaking outreach efforts or seminars to educate the public about global climate change.
• A rider submitted by Rep resentative Knollenberg to the appropriations for the Veterans Administration and the De partment of Housing and Urban Development prohibiting the use of federal funds to "develop, propose, or issue rules, regulations, decrees, or orders for the purpose of implementation, or in contemplation of implementation" of the treaty.
• A rider to the foreign operations appropriations effectively blocking the U.S. from encouraging "developing country participation" in the Kyoto treaty.
Knollenberg said of his rider, "We want the EPA to understand that it must stay out of the arena of actually advocating the Kyoto agreement. We don't want to see any signs of any movement that would implement the protocol." The Republicans and their business allies saw an additional bonus in the rider: it could kill any new environmental regulations by tying them to Kyoto. Indeed, after the House and Senate agreed to Knollenberg's rider, a group of Republicans demanded that the EPA stop trying to regulate the methane gas released by landfills.
The Republicans also attacked the treaty by attempting to tie up in red tape any agencies that would be in charge of promoting and implementing it. Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel's Sub committee on International Economic Policy, Representative Don Schaefer's Energy and Power Subcommittee, Representative James F. Sen senbrenner's Science Committee, and McIntosh's Subcommittee on National Eco nomic Growth began inundating federal agencies with questions and requests for materials about the treaty. Hagel's subcommittee is holding up the nomination of Frank Loy to become undersecretary of state for global affairs until the State Department responds to 60 single-spaced pages of questions. McIntosh's subcommittee has made 60 different requests to 22 different agencies. As of October, agencies have already provided him with 400,000 pages of documentation. Twenty staff members from the Council on Environ mental Quality have spent more than 500 hours responding to McIntosh's questions. And McIntosh, who regularly rebuffed congressional requests when he was director of Quayle's Council on Com pet itiveness, has threatened to hold the beleaguered government officials in contempt for not furnishing sufficient documentation.
The treaty's opponents have also used television and radio ads to take aim at public opinion, which in the last two years has shifted decidedly in favor of addressing global warming. (An Ohio State University survey earlier this year found that 59 percent of Americans thought the U.S. government should do "a great deal" or "quite a bit" to combat global warming.) Some of these ads, run by the Global Climate Information Project, the Com petitive Enterprise Institute, and Citizens for a Sound Economy, have been fair—one television ad from the Global Climate Infor mation Project focused on the lack of commitment from developing nations. But other ads deliberately misinform the public. The Com petitive Enterprise Institute, which is heavily funded by oil companies, states in one radio ad that "Thousands of scientists agree there's no solid evidence of a global warming problem." Cit izens for a Sound Economy asserts that "the vast majority" of "state climatologists, who are the real experts," believe that "reducing carbon dioxide levels to 1990 standards will not prevent warmer temp eratures on earth." True enough, but entirely misleading. The limits agreed to at Kyoto are intended to slow, but not reverse, global warming.
The lobbying offensive against the treaty has not been entirely successful. The business lobbyists got Congress to pass the anti-Kyoto riders, but the Clinton administration, with strong support from the environmental movement, threatened to veto the appropriations bills if the riders were not removed. The Republicans finally agreed to remove all but Knollenberg's rider, and it was amended to prevent the government from undertaking activities aimed "solely" at complying with the Kyoto treaty. But the anti-treaty lobby had still made its point. It demonstrated that the Repub lican majority in Congress would go to extremes to kill the treaty, even if the administration were to succeed in improving its terms.
White House officials say that winning over developing countries is a greater obstacle to treaty ratification than overcoming the Republican and business opposition. But the two are related. When the United States has demanded that other countries make commitments, foreign officials have expressed skepticism that the U.S. government, facing determined opposition at home, will be able to carry out its own commitments. Both the White House and the environmental movement are scaling back their hopes for when the treaty could be ratified. One White House official admitted to me that it was "hard to imagine" the administration sending the treaty to the Senate in 1999. But if 1999 is difficult to imagine, 2000—an election year—is inconceivable.
Greg Wetstone, the National Resources Defense Fund's legislative director, now compares the Kyoto treaty to the chemical weapons and biodiversity treaties, both of which took a long time to ratify. "It could be easily into the next century," he says. But Wetstone also acknowledges that there is an important difference between the threat of global warming and that of chemical weapons. If the science is to be believed, then with each year that a binding agreement is not reached, the problem of carbon dioxide emissions and global warming will grow worse, and the measures required to address them will become more demanding and therefore less likely to win support. Until the political climate changes, an effective global warming treaty may never come about.
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6,067,098
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Skill acquisition in psychological treatment - Psychology Wiki
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Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
A good proportion of therapeutic effort goes into helping people to develop skills so as to improve their ability to manages aspects of their feelings, thoughts and behaviour. These skils may be taught didactically or encouraged more dynamically. Skills are physical or mental strategies and procedures which people perform to a better standard with practice.
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The Oceans Their Physics, Chemistry, and General Biology "d3_8_ch18"
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The migrations and concentrations of nektonic animals are governed largely by two biologic factors, reproduction and search of food. Mention need only be made of such truly phenomenal alternating wanderings as are witnessed in the salmon and the eel. Many other fishes also migrate, although the reasons for the migration of some of them have not been ascertained even in a general way. As a matter of fact, even in the
Among the great wanderers of the seas are the marine mammals. The habits of the Alaskan fur seal in returning to the Bering Sea to breed are widely known, and some whales migrate regularly to warm waters for breeding and between breeding times to the feeding grounds of the polar regions for food.
It will be realized from the above that any study of migratory animals and their habits as related to these biologic factors is complicated to the extent to which breeding and feeding grounds do not coincide.
It is well known among whalers and scientists that blue, fin, sei, and humpback whales feed wholly or partly upon planktonic life. Scientific investigations carried on in cooperation with whaling companies have shown, as might be expected, that the occurrence of plankton-feeding whales is correlated with the distribution of the planktonic life upon which they are known to subsist. In Davis Strait it was shown by Hjort and Ruud (1929) that young euphausiid crustaceans (the young are considered to reflect numbers of old specimens not so readily caught with vertically hauled nets) had their maximum concentration over certain coastal banks, and it is precisely in these waters that the maximum numbers of whales also occurred (fig. 244). The euphausiids tend to collect in swarms during breeding and the appearance of blue whales coincides with the periods of spawning of the dominant species in the region. Sperm whales, which feed largely on squids and not directly on plankton, are found to be present farther offshore, as indicated in the figure. The same authors compare the numbers of sei whales (Balaneoptera borealis) with the concentration of Calanus finmarchicus during the same period from the coastal banks. Figure 245 shows a striking correlation in the abundance of these animals, with the increase in Calanus preceding somewhat the appearance of the whales. Data also
Correlation of the catch of sei whales (Balaneoptera borealis) with the number of copepods. (After Ruud.)
Investigations by the Discovery likewise showed a positive correlation between distribution of blue and fin whales and abundance of zooplankton, especially with their favorite food Euphausia superba (Mackintosh. 1934, Hardy and Gunther, 1935).
Histograms showing (in black) the individual catches of herring in half-monthly periods arranged in each period from left to right in the order of ascending values of Calanus in the associated plankton samples. The average catches of herring are shown as shaded histograms. The left half of each series represents catches in the poorer, and the right half in the richer Calanus water as indicated in the graph for associated Calanus values. (From Lucas.)
Numerous other examples might be given showing the concentration of whalebone whales in coastal areas rich in plankton food, and their instinctive migrations into these waters at the swarming season of such forms as euphausiids is truly phenomenal. One is impressed with the efficiency of the metabolism of some of the large animals which feed upon the animal plankton. For instance, at birth the blue whales are about 7 m long and weigh about 2000 kg (4400 lb), and at weaning, seven
Among the pelagic fishes the best material illustrative of correlation with plankton comes from studies of the herring. It has long been believed that the movements and concentrations of these fish are associated with the relative concentrations of the zooplankton upon which they feed. Hardy, Lucas, Henderson, and Fraser (1936) have recently investigated the plankton by means of the plankton indicator (a quick-sampling device) and, in correlating the numbers of Calanus copepods of the plankton with the amount of herring caught by fishermen in the same areas, they have shown in most instances that the greatest number of adult herring are caught in Calanus-rich waters. Theoretically the gains derived through fishing exclusively in Calanus-rich waters may be as high as 21 per cent. In Fig. 246, from Lucas, is shown the general trend of the relation that exists when the Calanus series are arranged in ascending order of numbers and each half of the series compared with the average catch of herring for the period.
A negative correlation is found between heavy phytoplankton and herring. North Sea fishermen have observed this in practice, and designate the heavily diatom-populated waters as “weedy water” or “stinking water” and consider it a bad omen to fishing.
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