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From Delhi, India:
What do you mean by anxiety neurosis? What are its symptoms? Do people with diabetes or blood pressure have it? What are the remedies?
Anxiety neurosis is a old term which is used to describe a condition in which anxiety occurs out of proportion to the real danger of a situation, and which can lead to maladaptive behavior. It is treated with either psychotherapy and/or medication. It does not have to be associated with another illness, but certainly a chronic illness like diabetes can exacerbate the condition.
Original posting 6 Jun 2000
Posted to Other Illnesses
Last Updated: Tuesday April 06, 2010 15:09:10
This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other health care professional.
This site is published by T-1 Today, Inc. (d/b/a Children with Diabetes), a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, which is responsible for its contents. Our mission is to provide education and support to families living with type 1 diabetes.
© Children with Diabetes, Inc. 1995-2016. Comments and Feedback.
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|Carnegie Mellon | Robotics Institute | Field Robotics Center | USDA | Smart Farms|
There are several irrigation modes that the grower can use.
|Irrigation Mode||Description||The WSN Advantage|
|Manual||Allows the grower to send manual irrigation commands.||Irrigation can be determined remotely based on sensor data.|
|Schedule||Irrigated based on a predefined schedule.||Irrigation nodes can easily be reconfigured and/or moved based on the current crop.|
|Local "Setpoint" Control||Uses the schedule but also looks at current soil moisture to determine if irrigation is needed at that nodes location.||Irrigation is determined at each location for precise irrigation control.|
|Global Control||This is used to control irrigation based on values external to the node. Examples of global control can be a sensor on a different node, a computed value from a growing tool, or from a plant science model.||This entire method of control that is completely data driven and allows for feed-forward predictive control is completely unique to WSN's.|
|Pulse Types||This is a sub-mode for the modes listed above. With this option irrigation can be issued in pulses to allow sensors time to react, increase precision, or allow irrigation lines time to recharge.||The ability to do this on each node allows for localized irrigation control.|
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As debate stirs over whether Americans are willing to create and print items using 3-D printers in their homes, one Chinese design and engineering firm is printing houses.
Massive 3-D printers have been used to construct 10 full-sized homes in China in just 24 hours, according to WinSun, a private Chinese firm.
WinSun’s assembly line of four printers, each about 33-feet wide and 22-feet high, spray a mixture of quick-drying cement and construction waste used to print layers of walls, according to Xinhua state news agency.
Because the material is inexpensive and there are no labor costs, each house can be printed for less than $5,000, Xinhua reported.
Ma Yihe, who designed the printers, says creating 3-D houses is cheaper and better for the environment because the machines use recyclable materials. Ma wouldn’t discuss in detail the technology used to print the homes, Xinhua reported.
Earlier this year, USC professor Behrokh Khoshnevis was testing a 3-D printer that could build a 2,500-square-foot house in 24 hours using a technology called “contour crafting.” Khoshnevis told MSN.com the technology could be used to provide affordable housing in impoverished parts of the world as well as quickly create shelter in the wake of natural disasters.
Here’s a closer look at contour crafting:
Follow Michelle @m_cof.
More from MarketWatch:
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Acute cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a condition caused by a member of the herpesvirus family.
CMV mononucleosis; Cytomegalovirus (CMV)
Infection with cytomegalovirus (CMV) is very common. The infection is spread by:
Most people come into contact with CMV in their lifetime, but typically only individuals with weakened immune systems become ill from CMV infection. Some otherwise healthy people with acute CMV infection develop a mononucleosis-like syndrome.
In the U.S., CMV infection most commonly develops between ages 10 - 35. Many people are exposed to CMV early in life and do not realize it because they have no symptoms. People with a compromised immune system can have a more severe form of the disease.
CMV is a type of herpes viruses. The virus remains in your body for the rest of your life. If your immune system becomes weakened in the future, this virus may have the chance to reactivate, causing symptoms.
Less common symptoms include:
Your health care provider will perform a physical exam and feel your belly area. Your liver and spleen may be tender when they are gently pressed (palpated). You may have a skin rash.
Special lab tests such as a CMV DNA serum PCR test may be done to check for substances in your blood that are produced by CMV. Other tests such as a CMV antibody test may be done to check your body’s response to the CMV infection.
Other tests include:
Most patients recover in 4 - 6 weeks without medication. Rest is needed, sometimes for a month or longer to regain full activity levels. Painkillers and warm salt water gargles can help relieve symptoms.
Antiviral medications are usually not used in people with normal immune function.
Fever usually goes away in 10 days, and swollen lymph glands and spleen return to normal in 4 weeks. Fatigue may linger for 2 to 3 months.
Throat infection is the most common complication. Rare complications include:
Call for an appointment with your health care provider if you have symptoms of acute CMV infection.
Go to the emergency room or call the local emergency number (such as 911) if you have sharp, sudden pain in your left upper abdomen. This could be a sign of a ruptured spleen, which requires emergency surgery.
CMV infection can be contagious if the infected person comes in close or intimate contact with another person. You should avoid kissing and sexual contact with an infected person.
The virus may also spread among young children in day care settings.
When planning blood transfusions or organ transplants, the CMV status of the donor can be checked to avoid passing CMV to a recipient who has not had CMV.
Crumpacker CS II, Zhang JL. Cytomegalovirus. In: Mandell GL, Bennett JE, Dolin R, eds. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone; 2009:chap 138.
Drew WL. Cytomegalovirus. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 384.
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"It’s time to stop being so “amazed” at things that are just part of the technological and cultural landscape of life in the 21st century. It’s not “amazing” that computers can edit video, manage numbers or manipulate digital images. It’s not “amazing” that mobile phones can stream live video or GPS your current position. It’s not “amazing” that you can make phone calls to the other side of the planet at no cost. None of these things are really “amazing” any more… they just “are”. To be “amazed” at this sort of stuff is to fail to recognise the invisible role that technology plays in all our lives these days. To anyone working in education, working with young people, you need to realise that simple tasks performed with technology are not something to be “amazed” at, marveled at and gushed over. For our students, the use of technology as the enabler for such tasks seems as natural as breathing air.
I was in another meeting with some students and a teacher the other day, and the teacher was trying to show the kids about a Ning they’d had set up for a class project. The teacher was all effusive, gushed about the Ning’s “amazing” features and wanting to show the students all the “amazing” things it could do… “Look! You can use it to leave messages for each other!”, she said excitedly. One of the students confided to me later “I can’t believe how worked up she was getting about that Ning… it’s just a blog. It’s like Facebook. Of course we know how to use it.” It reminded me of that wonderful line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, where the people of Earth were considered a bit of a joke for being “so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”Here is my own response that I have for Chris (as left in the comments):
I think it is important to realize that everyone has their own personal journey into this computing age. As change agents it is important to realize that just because something isn't amazing to us does not mean that it is not amazing to another person. I think the reason more people don't jump into technology is the condescension of those already in technology.
If someone thinks it is amazing, the first thing to do is to put their hand on the mouse and then let them try it. Then it travels from amazing to "I can do it." And when it becomes non-amazing and part of what they do on a daily basis, then, we have enacted positive change and helped people transform.
We have to help these things move from amazing to normal for people and as long as people are thinking these things are amazing we aren't making it real enough for them to think that they can do it!
Please be kind to the others you work with - they are probably great people who just aren't there yet and need some encouragement. And when the light bulb goes on, we all gush on and get excited and then we move on and just use it. Newbies need some kindness and grace from those who know more and not made to feel like dummies. How will those you help feel if they read this post - will they feel appreciated and accepted or will they feel like you're on the inside looking down at their stupidity? They aren't stupid they might just be newbies and that, in itself is a HUGE accomplishment because each person needs to start somewhere.
It is also amazing that we have the ability to build our own social networks and do it for free and that we can set these things up. There are a lot of amazing things computers can do -- does it mean that separating conjoined twins or the stars in the sky aren't more amazing. I guess it is sort of like how the Eskimos have so many words for snow -- perhaps we need more words for how it feels when something is really really cool.
I do think Chris is right that it is about time for many of these things to move from "amazing" status to just what we do. But we're not there yet AT ALL. The fact is that these things really are amazing to a whole lot of people.
Honestly, I find my iTouch's ability to coach or help me manage my christmas list or my calendar pretty amazing because it has made my life better and I remember just a year a go when I didn't have it. I also find Twitter's ability to connect me to everyone else all over the place pretty amazing as well - since we didn't have this ability around 4 years a go.
Do I find it as amazing as the sparkle in my young son's eyes as we play with the cat? Or as seeing my Mom serve Thanksgiving yesterday when we didn't know last year if she'd live through 2008? Gosh, not - those things are transcendent.
I think we just have to give people time. Love them, encourage them, help them and also teach a true patience when newbies are just learning something because truly we're all newbies and gush on about something new to us that is old hat for someone else.
Chris is a great guy and I'm sure as he helped these people that he was just thinking inside himself: when, when is this going to move on and be something everyone knows how to do? Why am I the only one doing this? Why can't they see that this is no big deal? We all feel this.
And yet, we have to temper how we feel with the reality that a lot of good people in education out there are really just now starting to begin to understand these tools and patience and helpfulness when they are ready is a great asset in our desire for change.
In sports - I would do anything for my coach who was kind, loving, and encouraging but the most arrogant coach I ever had coached the sport I loved the most (basketball) but the one I quit because he was so frustrated that we didn't get things that were old hat to him but very new to us. Coaches gotta keep coming back to the fundamentals when new people are on their team.
Progress is being made - keep it going. Help teachers connect themselves using an RSS reader and Twitter - that is a great first step to helping them connect and learn themselves without being so dependent upon a few people at their school.
And one side note: when these things are no longer amazing, they no longer carry a premium price tag for the people who can help them with it -- so if you're an IT person worth your salt, you'd better be working in the realm of amazing to the other folks at your school, that IS what they pay you for.
Finally, it is all about learning and helping students learn. To me, when my students in 8th grade first make a video, they think it is amazing but by the time they are done with tenth grade - videos are just what you do and are part of what they know how to do. We should be part of transforming these important tools, skills, and knowledge from amazing to just what we do for the students and the teachers -- although this is something we will have to continue to do as long as new humans are being born on this planet.
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Toilets are a popular research subject. They’re an essential part of modern life. Everybody has one, everybody uses them everyday, and everybody has an opinion.
Manufacturers are constantly researching new designs, products, and technologies. To be approved for market, fixtures must go through rigorous tests in which the flushing mechanism is deployed thousands of times.
This toilet model, made by Niagara Conservation, flushes by a tipping bucket rather than a conventional flapper. Photo source: Aquacraft, Inc., by permission.
Currently there are several research projects that are evaluating the effectiveness of several new toilet models as well as customer satisfaction with these products. Sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and two water providers (East Bay Municipal Water Utility District and City of Tampa Water Department), these studies measure water use in single-family homes before and after the installation of high-efficiency fixtures including toilets and clothes washers. Results from these studies should be available in 2002.
There are ongoing research efforts into toilet performance and toilet flapper durability being conducted by a number of independent laboratories. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California bench tests toilets and flappers to ensure that they meet performance standards. The National Association of Home Builders also has a bench testing lab for toilets.
For information on toilet research you can visit the following web sites:
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In its nearly 70 years, the United Nations has won many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize several times for its work on peacekeeping, climate change, children, refugees and more.
But lesser known is that the UN has been decorated by the film industry – with an Oscar! In 1947, the UN short film “First Steps” won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject.
The 10-minute piece about the treatment of children with disabilities takes us on the journey of one young boy as he learns to walk – first to move his legs, then to stand and then finally to take his first steps.
Several aspects of the film are now outdated and over the last decades the UN has supported the full participation and inclusion of persons with disabilities in all aspects of society, including through the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Yet the film’s overall theme of achieving a life of dignity for all is one that continues to guide the work of the UN.
The Oscar still resides at UN Headquarters in New York and recently took a quick tour of the building in honour of this weekend’s Academy Awards ceremony.
Oscar even paid a visit to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who wished luck to this year’s nominees!
The Academy Award also posed with several UN staff, including Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson.
- Find out more about the UN’s work for persons with disabilities.
- Check out the UN’s YouTube channel for more film and video from around the world.
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|February 20, 2010||Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design|
Science Daily reports on new work examining cellular motors:
Life’s smallest motor — a protein that shuttles cargo within cells and helps cells divide — does so by rocking up and down like a seesaw, according to research conducted by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Brandeis University.
The researchers created high-resolution snapshots of a protein motor, called kinesin, as it walked along a microtubule, which are tube-shaped structures that form a cell’s “skeleton.” The result is the closest look yet at the structural changes kinesin proteins undergo as they ferry molecules within cells.
“We see for the first time how kinesin’s atomic-scale moving parts allow it to pull itself and its cargo along a microtubule,” says Ken Downing, a biophysicist with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. He conducted the research with postdoctoral fellow Charles Sindelar, now at Brandeis University. “We found that there is a pivot point, where the kinesin motor attaches to the microtubule, which acts like a fulcrum and causes kinesin to rock up and down like a seesaw as it moves along the microtubule,” adds Downing. Their research is reported in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The first-ever glimpse of kinesin’s seesaw motion offers key insights into one of life’s most fundamental processes. Fueled by an energy-giving compound called ATP, kinesin proteins motor along microtubules like trains on a railroad track, towing cargo to various locations within cells and assisting in cell division. Microtubules are a cylindrical weave of proteins found throughout cells that serve as cellular scaffolding.
Writing in PNAS (www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0915158107, subscription required), Franck Fournio and Carolyn A. Moores state “Thus the cell’s nanomachines have evolved to use ATP only when they can couple it to essential work.”
Incredible. The language of teleology is, as always, inescapable. Let’s count the words in these two brief quotations that imply design: “motor” “railroad track” “machine” “shuttle” “seesaw” “cargo” “ferry” “fueled” “towing” “scaffolding”
They even admit they are dealing with MACHINES. Machines are designed for a purpose. It takes a staggering amount of blind faith in materialist philosophy to believe machines somehow “evolved” through unguided natural processes. Yet Fournio and Moores say “machines” evolved with no hint of irony or the slightest qualm regarding the fact that they appear to have absolutely no idea how such a thing could have happened (or if they do, they certainly do not share it with us).
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Image courtesy of Jeroen de Vries, University of Twente
If you want to store information for a long time—like several thousand years—your best bet is still etching in stone. All the newcomers, dating back to paper and moving up through magnetic storage and DVDs, are fragile and perishable. To send a note to a million years in the future, it takes tougher stuff than what we have readily available.
That’s why the QR code above was etched into tungsten and coated in silicon nitride. Hopefully, the message it contains can outlast humanity itself. Huge aspirations, to be sure, but it’s just one step on Human Document Project, a new group that aims to preserve a document about mankind for a million years.
“If you do nothing with the purpose of storing information for a long time, what will be stored and what will be found will be just a matter of coincidence,” explains Dr. Miko Elwenspoek, a professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. “In a few thousand years lots of things will be found, but what will be found, there will be no control over... What will be left will be architecture and everything in stone and not even all metal—everything in steel will be gone. The basis of our culture will drift somewhere, and during this drift lots of things will be lost.”
Elwenspoek is part of the Human Document Project, which he says isn’t a formal organization yet, but is rather “just a loose group of enthusiastic people from all over the world.” They’ve had two symposia, one in Germany and one at Stanford, with another coming up in England. They're meetings where people who work independently in their labs in their spare time can come together and exchange and develop ideas on how to preserve culture as a “gift to our far and away descendants.”
As you might imagine, there are huge practical barriers to preserving anything for a thousand millennia. Physical objects are subject to decay and destruction, and digital objects even more so. Even though we’re always saying things like, “Everything on the internet is permanent,” that adage is only really true on a human timescale, not on a geologic one—cultures drift, global catastrophes strike. Link rot is already afflicting the internet, which, far from being self-contained, relies on servers, unbroken connections and power grids.
The ideal super long-term data storage system should be able to survive without losing content; it should be self-evidently decodable for someone who doesn’t speak any currently-existent or known language, and it needs to be stored somewhere where it can eventually be found.
Jeroen de Vries, a PhD candidate at the University of Twente, headed the team that designed the QR code-bearing disk that, they say, can still be readable a million years from now. That's 25 times longer than the oldest known cave drawings. And de Vries and his team want to spare our distant descendants the mystery that surrounds prehistoric drawings, whose purpose, authors, and meanings are lost to time.
A close up of the storage device's tiny QR codes.
They chose tungsten because it is an extremely tough metal, and one that holds its shape well, even in extreme heat, as they proved by cooking the disk like bacon. They coated it in silicon nitride to toughen it up further. To prove just how densely they could pack the data on the disk, they not only etched on the QR code, they made it out of smaller QR codes.
“The QR is not important itself,” Elwenspoek, who also worked on the project, told me. “More important is that we are able to make dots, of a very small size. The [lifespan] of the dots is a very long time. That’s the main point. The QR codes are just for demonstration.”
While fairly ubiquitous now, the QR isn't ideal because it needs to be decoded somehow. Elwenspoek laid out why even the proper language or highly dense data for the message is one complex part of the complex problem.
“You first need a guide into the code,” Elwenspoek said. “Of course no one will be able to speak any existing language. Even in a few thousand years it’s improbable that anyone will speak English or Chinese—or understand it."
“So first you’ll need to teach them a language, then you can explain how the system works—how to crack the code, how to build a machine to read the code,” he explained.
The mechanism for reading the code could be anything from an optical microscope up to an electron microscope “for a really high density of data,” de Vries said.
“If we want high data density, we’ll probably move to something like binary or a binary language,” said de Vries. “But one of the first things that the human document project disk should do, is teach how to read the disk. It could be by images, like the record that was sent on Voyager.”
The golden records that were loaded onto Voyager, which launched in 1977, stand as one of the most well-known efforts to preserve the human record for future cultures. They're still riding outward from Earth, bearing instructions on how to listen to the “Sounds of Earth” for any extra-terrestrials that find it.
The Human Document Project is more focused on storing something on Earth, something that will “only” last until complex life becomes impossible on Earth. (Elwenspoek pegged that at around 500 million years or so from now.) They’re looking into geologically stable places on Earth to store that future disk, considering burying something on the Moon, and even thinking about stashing something in a stable part of the solar system for safe keeping.
It’s an incredibly compelling problem—one that leads to solutions so creative they border on bizarre. Taking a totally different approach, Canadian poet Christian Bok wanted to translate a poem into DNA and splice it into a bacteria, which would reproduce and preserve the writing until the Sun swallowed the Earth. The openness and complexity is what drew Elwenspoek to the field.
“First of all thinking of these things is just fun,” he said. “It’s very complex; you have to talk to many different people with different backgrounds—linguists, scientists, computer scientists. The choice of what to preserve needs people who know literature and music and culture so that’s a fun part.”
Fun aside, Elwenspoek is also motivated by trouble he sees in the long-term: a world heavy on people and getting heavier, short on resources and getting shorter, and with enough nuclear warheads around that conflicts can turn catastrophic.
I jokingly responded that with all the pressure, they’d better hurry up and get this human document going. “That’s what I’m saying,” was his straight-faced reply.
“So there is enough concern that there will come a major catastrophe within the next few thousand years and this could destroy our culture,” he explained. “In 10,000 years, something terrible could happen.”
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Despite the abundance of earthworms in soils all around the world, there is a lack of information concerning the geographical distribution of many lumbricid species. Researchers from eight European countries have collected information on earthworm communities to map the biodiversity of these invertebrates and to put soil conservation on the political agenda.
Even though we cannot see them, there are numerous, unevenly distributed organisms which are living in the top most layer of the Earth's crust. The soil, considered a "forgotten resource", is home to more than a quarter of our planet's biodiversity. One single gram of healthy soil contains millions of organisms, one of the reasons why 2015 was named the International Year of Soils.
"In 2015, several initiatives were organised with the aim of bringing some justice to this system (edaphic environments) that we step on every day and feed on, and that makes it possible for the forests, meadows and crop fields, among others, to function properly," says María Jesús Briones to SINC, a researcher at the University of Vigo and one of the authors of a study that, for the first time, gathered information on the biodiversity of one of the groups of terrestrial invertebrates that has a significant impact on soils: the Lumbricidae, or earthworms.
During the study, published in the journal Applied Soil Ecology, scientists from eight different countries, including Spain, created the first large-scale European map of earthworm abundance and diversity in addition to distribution maps of widespread species such as Aporrectodea caliginosa and Lumbricus terrestris.
In recent years, "the classification of edaphic invertebrates and their distribution patterns have not received priority for funding, meaning that a lot of information from unpublished studies has not been digitised," states the researcher regretfully. In addition, these animals -affected by the use of soils- were not well documented in the records, but their presence and role in the ecosystem greatly enhance the quality of the soils where they live.
In total, the research team analysed earthworm records from 3,838 locations from eight European countries, and the results were modelled in order to compare them to the rest of the continent. With regard to the rest of the world outside of Europe, however, "there is not enough quantitative data concerning the properties of soil to be able to make accurate estimations," stresses Briones.
Completing the map in Spain
France, Ireland and Germany were the top countries to gather information regarding the biodiversity of these invertebrates -France collected data from 1,423 locations- thanks to access to substantial funding to study the entire territory. On the other hand, there is still a lot to be done in Spain.
In fact, the records from Spain focus on approximately one third of the country's territory: this study included earthworm data from 63 sites representing four provinces in northwestern Spain (Asturias, Leon, Zamora and Salamanca). According to the expert, "the urgency now is to gather more data in order to validate the data we already have".
For this reason, the researcher is currently overseeing a project to collect more data. Specifically, "we are digitising the data from Galicia to complete the northwestern Iberian Peninsula," highlights Briones, who included data from her thesis in this study. The ultimate objective is to make further contributions, even from Portugal and Italy, to obtain detailed maps of the diversity and abundance of the European earthworm.
"The study is the first step to creating a database of European earthworms, which needs to be improved on," point out the authors. Given its environmental importance -being a reflection of the quality of their habitat-, the study strives for a better understanding of these invertebrate communities in addition to improved monitoring.
"We hope that studies such as this one put a greater weight on the need to understand the diversity of these invertebrates that are so important to the proper functioning of soils," concludes Briones who is involved in another initiative called Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas which will soon be published.
Rutgers, Michiel et al. "Mapping earthworm communities in Europe" Applied Soil Ecology 97: 98-111 DOI: 10.1016/j.apsoil.2015.08.015 January 2016
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Electronics Components: Parallel Resistors
So how do you calculate the total resistance for resistors in parallel on your electronic circuit? Put on your thinking cap and follow along. Here are the rules:
First, the simplest case: Resistors of equal value in parallel. In this case, you can calculate the total resistance by dividing the value of one of the individual resistors by the number of resistors in parallel. For example, the total resistance of two, 1 kΩ resistors in parallel is 500 Ω and the total resistance of four, 1 kΩ resistors is 250 Ω.
Unfortunately, this is the only case that's simple. The math when resistors in parallel have unequal values is more complicated.
If only two resistors of different values are involved, the calculation isn't too bad:
In this formula, R1 and R2 are the values of the two resistors.
Here's an example, based on a 2 kΩ and a 3 kΩ resistor in parallel:
For three or more resistors in parallel, the calculation begins to look like rocket science:
The dots at the end of the expression indicate that you keep adding up the reciprocals of the resistances for as many resistors as you have.
In case you're crazy enough to actually want to do this kind of math, here's an example for three resistors whose values are 2 kΩ, 4 kΩ, and 8 kΩ:
As you can see, the final result is 1,142.857 Ω. That's more precision than you could possibly want, so you can probably safely round it off to 1,142 Ω, or maybe even 1,150 Ω.
The parallel resistance formula makes more sense if you think about it in terms of the opposite of resistance, which is called conductance. Resistance is the ability of a conductor to block current; conductance is the ability of a conductor to pass current. Conductance has an inverse relationship with resistance: When you increase resistance, you decrease conductance, and vice versa.
Because the pioneers of electrical theory had a nerdy sense of humor, they named the unit of measure for conductance the mho, which is ohm spelled backward. The mho is the reciprocal (also known as inverse) of the ohm.
To calculate the conductance of any circuit or component (including a single resistor), you just divide the resistance of the circuit or component (in ohms) into 1. Thus, a 100 Ω resistor has 1/100 mho of conductance.
When circuits are connected in parallel, current has multiple pathways it can travel through. It turns out that the total conductance of a parallel network of resistors is simple to calculate: You just add up the conductances of each individual resistor.
For example, suppose you have three resistors in parallel whose conductances are 0.1 mho, 0.02 mho, and 0.005 mho. (These are the conductances of 10 Ω, 50 Ω, and 200 Ω resistors, respectively.) The total conductance of this circuit is 0.125 mho (0.1 + 0.02 + 0.005 = 0.125).
One of the basic rules of doing math with reciprocals is that if one number is the reciprocal of a second number, the second number is also the reciprocal of the first number. Thus, since mhos are the reciprocal of ohms, ohms are the reciprocal of mhos.
To convert conductance to resistance, you just divide the conductance into 1. Thus, the resistance equivalent to 0.125 mho is 8 Ω (1 ÷ 0.125 = 8).
It may help you remember how the parallel resistance formula works when you realize that what you're really doing is converting each individual resistance to conductance, adding them up, and then converting the result back to resistance. In other words, convert the ohms to mhos, add them up, and then convert them back to ohms. That's how — and why — the resistance formula actually works.
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Remember Watson? The supercomputer made star status when it competed on the game show Jeopardy. Now, IBM and Cleveland Clinic are collaborating to give Watson a new assignment: helping healthcare workers make faster decisions.
The IBM researchers who created Watson will work with Cleveland Clinic clinicians, faculty and medical students to build up the capabilities of Watson's Deep Question Answering technology in the medical field. The goal is to unlock important knowledge and facts buried within huge volumes of .
"Every day, physicians and scientists around the world add more and more information to what I think of as an ever-expanding, global medical library," said C. Martin Harris, M.D., chief information officer of Cleveland Clinic. "Cleveland Clinic's collaboration with IBM is exciting because it offers us the opportunity to teach Watson to 'think' in ways that have the potential to make it a powerful tool in medicine. Technology like this can allow us to leverage that medical library to help train our students and also find new ways to address the public health challenges we face today."
Tapping Watson's Strengths
Instead of trying to memorize everything in textbooks and medical journals -- now acknowledged as an impossible task -- students are learning through doing. In other words, students are taking patient case studies, analyzing them, coming up with hypotheses, and then finding and connecting evidence in reference materials and the latest journals to identify diagnoses and treatment options in the context of medical training.
That's one of Watson's core strengths. As part of the collaboration, medical students will interact with Watson on challenging cases as part of a problem-based learning curriculum and in hypothetical clinical simulations. A collaborative learning and training tool that taps Watson technology will help the students learn the process of navigating the latest content, suggesting and considering a variety of hypotheses and finding key evidence to support potential answers, diagnoses and possible treatment options.
"The practice of medicine is changing and so should the way medical students learn," said Dr. David Ferrucci, IBM Fellow and principal investigator of the Watson project. "In the real world, medical case scenarios should rely on people's ability to quickly find and apply the most relevant knowledge. Finding and evaluating multi-step paths through the medical literature is required to identify evidence in support of potential diagnoses and treatment options."
Students Make Watson Smarter
For their part, students will help improve Watson's language and domain analysis capabilities by judging the evidence it provides and analyzing its answers within the domain of medicine. The collaboration will also focus on leveraging Watson to process an electronic medical record (EMR) based on a deep semantic understanding of the content within an EMR.
IBM expects Watson will get "smarter" about medical language and how to assemble good chains of evidence from available content. Students will learn how to focus on critical thinking skills and how to best leverage informational tools like Watson in helping them learn how to diagnose and treat patients.
"New discoveries and medical breakthroughs are growing our collective knowledge of medicine at an unprecedented pace, and tomorrow's doctors will have to embrace new tools and technology to complement their own knowledge and experience in the field," said James Stoller, M.D., chair of the Education Institute at Cleveland Clinic. "Technology will never replace the doctor, but it can make us better. Our students and faculty are excited to play a role in getting us there."
Posted: 2012-11-02 @ 6:10am PT
Great News!!! Hope Watson replaces Doctors down the line:) At least the evidences provided by Watson to make a decision will make some Doctors to think out of box.
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Lori J. Rachul
NASA Lewis Research Center
FORMER NASA OFFICIAL RECEIVES GUGGENHEIM MEDAL
CLEVELAND, OH-- Abe Silverstein, a leading figure in 20th century aerospace engineering and a former NASA center director, was presented today the prestigious Guggenheim Medal by representatives from the Guggenheim Medal Fund and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The medal, established in 1927, honors those who have made significant contributions to the advancement of flight. Silverstein joins the distinguished company of previous winners that include Orville Wright, William Boeing, Donald Douglas, James Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, James McDonnell, Jr. and Clarence "Kelly" Johnson.
Silverstein was selected to receive the award by representatives from the U.S., Canada and six European countries. Silverstein's citation praises his "technical contributions and visionary leadership in advancing technology of aircraft and propulsion performance, and foresight in establishing the Mercury and Gemini manned space flight activities."
"Lewis is an outstanding center because of the contributions made by many dedicated researchers and leaders who have gone before us. Dr. Silverstein stands head and shoulders above all others in terms of contributions in the areas of aeronautics and space. It is for this reason that he is richly deserving of the award," NASA Lewis Director Donald Campbell said.
Silverstein began his career at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' (NACA) Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, in 1929. There, he helped design and was in charge of the full-scale wind tunnel. He directed significant aerodynamic research that led to higher-speed performance for most of the United States' World War II combat aircraft.
In 1943, Silverstein was transferred to the NACA laboratory in Cleveland where he directed research in the historic Altitude Wind Tunnel that was later named for him. This work led to outstanding improvements in both reciprocating and early turbojet aircraft engines such as the development of supersonic jet afterburners. He also pioneered research on large-scale ramjet engines.
After World War II, Silverstein was instrumental in the development of U.S. supersonic propulsion wind tunnels that supported work on developed supersonic aircraft. In 1958, he moved to NACA Headquarters in Washington, DC, where he helped create and subsequently directed the efforts leading to the Mercury space flights and established the technical basis for the Apollo program to send U.S. astronauts to the Moon. He also is credited for proposing the name "Apollo" for the lunar landing program.
He returned to Cleveland to become Director of NASA's Lewis Research Center from 1961-1969. Silverstein oversaw expansion of the center and was a driving force behind creation of the Centaur launch vehicle.
- end -
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/ fuel mixture, the more frugal the engine is. But there are two
prevent conventional engines from operating in lean air / fuel mixture:
Today, Lean Burn technology has evolved into Direct Injection, which is basically the former added with direct fuel injection. Toyota, Mitsubishi and Nissan all concentrate in DI engines development.
Mitsubishi claimed GDI consumes 20 to 35% less fuel, generates 20% less CO2 emission and 10% more power than conventional engines. How can it be so magical ? The following paragraphs will tell you its secret.
Theory of GDi
Gasoline direct injection technology is one of the branches of "Lean Burn Technology". What it differs with Lean Burn is the adoption of directly fuel injection system.
Direct fuel injection
been used in diesel engines for many years, but not in petrol engine
recently. Inherently, direct injection has two advantages :
How can Mitsubishi applied direct injection without such problem? Let us look at the following diagrams:
The fuel injector is another new feature. It pumps out the fuel at higher pressure, enables better pulverisation and more uniformal spread.
Fuel injection takes place in two phases. During intake stroke, some amount of fuel is "pre-injected" into the combustion chamber, cools the incoming air thus improve volumetric efficiency, and ensuring an even fuel / air mixture in everywhere.
Mitsubishi GDI engine has an extraordinarily high compression ratio of 12.5 : 1, this is perhaps the highest record for production petrol engine. The result is higher power output.
How can it prevent combustion knock under such pressure ? The secret is the pre-injection process. During compression, the heated air is cooled by the fuel spray, thus knocking becomes less easy to occur.
One of the few drawbacks of GDI engine is the higher NOx pollutant level. Luckily, a newly developed catalytic convertor deal comfortably with it. Nevertheless, USA and many developing countries cannot be benefited by it because their high-sulphur petrol will damage the catalyst.
Also see : The Problem of GDI in Europe
As tested by a UK magazine, Mitsubishi Carisma GDI did not deliver higher fuel efficiency than competitors with conventional engines, very different to what the company claimed. This is simply not explainable until Renault launched its own direct injection petrol engine recently. In Renault’s press release material, there is implication that "a Japanese design" suffers from the relatively high Sulphur fuel in Europe, which is 150ppm compare with Japan’s 10-15ppm (although still a lot lower than that of the US). In Japan the GDI needs a special catalyst to clean the excessive NOx generating under ultra-lean combustion. However, the high Sulphur fuel could "pollute" the catalyst and makes it permanently ineffective.
Therefore the European Carisma GDI runs at much richer air fuel mixture than Japan’s sisters in order to reduce NOx, hence require only a normal Catalyst. While the Japanese GDI achieve a fuel / air ratio of 1 : 40 at light load, the European GDI can only reach 1 : 20 or so, compare to conventional engine’s 1 : 14. This greatly reduce fuel efficiency.
Another problem lies on different testing method between Japan and Europe. The test carried out by Transportation Department of Japan was done on a route and conditions consists of mostly light load operation, which suits GDI’s character (at light load GDI runs at 1 : 40 lean mode, otherwise at the 1 : 14.5 normal mode). European’s combined cycle test requires much more high load, high speed operation, thus resulting in mpg figures far worse than Japan’s claim.
Renault’s IDE (Injection Direct Essence)
Renault launched the first European direct injection petrol engine. It avoids the troubles encountered by Mitsubishi by implementing in a completely different way.
Instead of pursuing ultra-lean air / fuel mixture, they adopt ultra-high EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation). EGR, as mentioned here before, reduces fuel consumption by reducing pumping loss as well as by reducing the effective engine capacity during light or part load. At the lightest load, Renault’s IDE engine enables as much as 25% EGR compare with conventional car’s 10-15%.
How can IDE engine run at 25% EGR without failing to combust ? Thanks to the direct injection, which is at the center of the cylinder head in place of spark plug. The latter is relocated to the side nearby, very close to the injector outlet. The Siemens injector injects high pressure fuel (at 100 bar or 1450 psi) directly to the combustion chamber. As the inclined spark plug locates just at the path of the fuel spray, successful combustion is guaranteed even at 25% exhaust gas in the chamber.
Without the precise direct injection, conventional engines pulverize the fuel spray in the induction port thus enter the combustion chamber uniformally. As a result it is impossible to concentrate more fuel to the spark plug.
Depends on engine load, IDE runs at one of the 3 preset EGR ratios, among which the full load mode has no exhaust gas recirculation at all for the need of maximum power. Therefore, like GDI, running at full load saves no fuel. However, overall speaking Renault claims 16% reduction of fuel comsumption in real world, that is, according to the European test method. Well done.
Another to note is the enhance of performance. The 1998 c.c. engine output a solid 140 hp and a class-beating 148 lbft. As a comparison, the non-IDE but variable valve timing-equipped version output the same 140 hp but merely 139 lbft of torque. Not even the VVT matches the IDE.
Gain in performance is due to the increase of compression ratio to an unusually high 11.5 : 1 (GDI is even at 12.5 : 1). Like the Mitsubishi, a pre-injection in prior to the normal injection helps cooling the combustion chamber, thus raising knock resistance and enables a higher compression ratio.
To reduce the time
to bring the catalyst to its operating temperature, apart from using
converter and pre-heated engine, Mercedes also tried to reduce the
area of the exhaust port - by using a single exhaust valve in each
rather than 2.
|Mercedes 3 valves V6, one of the Ten Best Engines in AutoZine's engine award.|
Of course, the drawback is some power loss. Therefore many other technology were employed to compensate - variable valve timing, variable intake manifold and twin-spark.
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The Pew report “Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population,” concluded that the world wide Muslim population was 1.6 billion and that the majority of Muslims today reside beyond the birth place of Islam. It is estimated that over 30% of Muslims – the largest – reside in Hind, which comprised of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Contact between the Muslims from Baghdad – the Abbasid Khilafah [800-1300 CE] – took place before the expedition of Muhammed bin Qasim, which has come to be seen as a seminary period in the regions history books. The Arabs used to visit the coast of Southern India, which then provided the link between the ports of South and South East Asia. After the Arab traders became Muslim, they brought Islam to South Asia. A number of local Indians living in the coastal areas embraced Islam through contact with the Muslim traders.
Over a period of 500 years Islam expanded across the Indus plains. By the 12th century Islam had reached Delhi. The Islamic conquests were different compared to the previous invasions into the region, as many conquerers did nothing regarding the prevailing customs and in many cases assimilated into the existing architecture. Hind had an abhorrent caste system which differentiated between people on ethnic lines which led to the supremacy of princely rulers who enslaved many to work in their fields in return for basic wages. As Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms came under the fold of Islam, the Khilafah became a highly centralising force that facilitated the creation of a common legal system that gradually replaced the caste system.
Letters of credit issued in Egypt or Tunisia were honoured in India and in order to create and sustain such an internationally consistent legal system, local and traditional systems of governance were uprooted.
In an analysis of the Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent, one researcher highlighted: “Unlike earlier conquerors who assimilated into prevalent social systems, Muslim conquerors retained their Islamic identity and created legal and administrative systems that challenged and destroyed existing systems of social conduct, culture, religious practices, lifestyle and ethics.”[i]
The Muslims when they came to the region introduced a new culture, which was very different from the existing cultures. Muhammad bin Qasim set up an administrative structure that incorporated a newly conquered land, inhabited by non-Muslims. He adopted a conciliatory policy, asking for acceptance of Muslim rule by the natives in return for non-interference in their religious practices, so long as the natives paid Jizya, without forced conversion. Shari’ah law was applied over the people of the region; however, Hindus were allowed to settle their marital disputes according to their own laws. Hindus and Buddhists were inducted into the administration as trusted advisors and governors.[ii] A Hindu, was at one point the second most important member of Muhammed bin Qasim’s administration.[iii]
Islam created a system where political power, law and worship became fused in a manner so as to safeguard the interests of all people. This stability led to the subcontinent to become the hub between the Far East and the Mediterranean. The Khilafah has also been credited for creating the Karkhanas – small factories in the subcontinent. New towns were created that specialised in a particular category of manufactured goods, which led to development and prosperity that had not been seen for centuries.
While the spread of Islam in the Sub-continent is the story of untiring efforts of numerous saints and Sufis who dedicated their lives to the cause of Islam, by the time the Muslims conquered Delhi and established what came to be known as the Delhi Sultanate, Sufi fraternities had come into being and the Sufi influence was far more powerful than it was in earlier days under the Arabs in Sindh.
One Hindu historian described this period as follows: “Throughout its existence the Delhi Sultanate (1205-1526), remained a legal part of the worldwide Muslim empire functioning under the de jure suzerainty of the Abbasid caliphs. Sultans considered themselves the deputies of the caliph and derived their validity of their administrative and legal authority only on the basis of delegation. Since the supreme authority of the community legally remained with the caliph, every king and potentate claimed to exercise governmental power for, and on behalf of the Imam of Islam.”[iv]
In this way many people who were discriminated against due to the caste system embraced Islam.
It was only the weakness that overcame Muslims in understanding Islam that became the cause of their decline as under Islam the people of the region only saw progress.
Today, Hind is widely, though incorrectly, recognised as encompassing India alone. In spite of the apparent economic growth of India today, the region is the most poverty stricken in the world after Africa. The resources of the region have not been marshalled for the people and corruption runs rampant as it was before Islam came to the region.
We also unfortunately see the ancient caste system return to the region which has turned the region into hereditary groups creating huge fault-lines which has led to the ugly head of sectarianism returning to the region when the early Muslims dedicated their lives to removing it.
The Hind region today is a far cry from the heights it achieved in the past.
[i] M. S. Asimov and C. E. Bosworth, ‘History of Civilizations of Central Asia,’ Vol IV: The Rise of Islam and Nomadic
and Military Empires in Central Asia, Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998
[ii] Nicholas F. Gier, FROM MONGOLS TO MUGHALS: RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN INDIA 9TH-18TH CENTURIES, Presented at the Pacific Northwest Regional Meeting American Academy of Religion, Gonzaga University, May, 2006 http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/mm.htm
[iii] H. M. Elliot and John Dowson, The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, (London, 1867-1877), vol. 1, p. 203.
[iv] Shashi S. Sharma, Caliphs and Sultans – Religious ideology and political praxis, pg. 247
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A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds light on a question that continues to vex industry executives and policymakers alike: How significant are fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas production?
The study claims that U.S. methane emissions may be as much as 50 percent higher than estimates in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) annual Inventory – the equivalent to adding 2.3 million cars to the road. Most significantly, the study’s authors assert that methane that is leaked or vented during oil and gas production—aka “fugitive methane”—may be up to five times greater than current estimates. If these results are correct and applicable to oil and gas development nationwide, it would fundamentally alter the scale of the fugitive methane problem and seriously undermine any climate advantage natural gas possesses over coal.
Here, we seek to address some of the biggest questions this new study raises.
What Does the Study Say?
The study’s authors, led by researchers from Harvard University, used atmospheric measurements of methane – a greenhouse gas at least 25 times as powerful at trapping heat as CO2 – from aircraft and stationary towers. Overall, the study found that methane emissions from all U.S. sources—including agriculture, oil and gas development, landfills, and coal mining—are 50 percent greater than estimates from the EPA Inventory, which recently lowered its estimate of methane emissions from oil and gas systems. The study found evidence of even greater discrepancies in individual sectors; methane emissions from livestock, for example, were estimated at twice the level estimated by EPA. But it was the oil and gas sector – the largest source of methane emissions in the United States – where the variance was greatest, and which is the greatest cause for concern.
Measurements of methane were taken in 2007 and 2008 in Texas and Oklahoma, the locus of U.S. oil and gas extraction during that time period. The authors estimated that the region’s methane emissions were 3.7 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, almost five times greater than the 0.75 million metric tons previously estimated (according to the study, methane emissions from oil and gas operations are 2.3-7.5 times greater than earlier estimates). Furthermore, the methane was highly correlated with propane, a byproduct of oil and gas extraction and refining, which strengthens the researchers’ contention that these methane emissions are coming from oil and gas production.
What Are the Implications of this Study? And What Are the Caveats?
If fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas systems are indeed five times greater than previously estimated, that would imply a leakage rate in the range of 5-15 percent of total production. Not only is this a substantial quantity of product vanishing into the air (natural gas is primarily methane), it is also significantly higher than most previous estimates – including from industry – and would reduce or eliminate any advantage natural gas has over coal from a climate standpoint. While natural gas emits roughly half the CO2 of coal at the point of combustion, because methane is such a powerful greenhouse gas, any fugitive methane that escapes during the drilling, processing, or transmission of natural gas serves to lessen that benefit.
However, it’s important to note that much has changed since Harvard researchers took their measurements in 2007 and 2008. The boom in natural gas development due to hydraulic fracturing had not yet begun in earnest; there are now hundreds of thousands of hydraulically fractured wells across the United States. How their emissions compare to those of conventional wells is still an open question. The industry has also changed in important ways in the last five years. We know a lot more about where fugitive methane emissions come from and how to address them. While it’s clear that some companies are taking advantage of best practices to reduce these emissions, there are also now many more companies operating in this space—it’s impossible to determine how many of them are actively reigning in fugitive methane. And while the Harvard researchers plan to repeat their measurements with data from 2012, even these updated estimates may overstate current emissions. EPA rules affecting some of the larger sources of U.S. methane emissions went into effect just this year.
Despite these caveats, this is nonetheless a valuable and important study—one that sheds light on an issue that remains all too murky. The EPA Inventory uses bottom-up estimates and engineering calculations in determining emissions levels. While this data is still the definitive source for all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, it’s far from perfect. Any direct measurement data helps bring clarity to the confusing world of fugitive methane emissions.
How Does this Study Compare to Other Recent Studies?
Another recent study, led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, measured methane emissions from natural gas development. However, the two studies are not entirely comparable for a number of reasons. The most significant is that the UT Austin study looked only at the production stage of natural gas, while the Harvard study used atmospheric measurements to estimate methane emissions from all sources. The UT Austin measurements were also more recent and demonstrate the impact that the aforementioned EPA rules are having on fugitive methane emissions during the production stage. It is worth repeating that, despite widespread reports to the contrary, the UT Austin study does not confirm that EPA estimates of methane emissions from natural gas systems are correct and accurate. Although the study’s estimated leakage rate for production operations was in line with EPA’s estimate, several processes leaked more than previously thought, while another (well completions) emitted much less due to the effectiveness of recent EPA rules.
What More Can Be Done?
Ultimately, more direct measurements are needed to get a better handle on the size and scale of the fugitive methane problem. We do, however, know enough on how to reduce fugitive methane now—for the good of the environment and human health.
In addition to the EPA rules, many states have taken a lead role in addressing air and water pollution from natural gas development. Colorado, for example, has proposed rules that would require companies to monitor new and existing oil and gas infrastructure for leaks, and to repair those leaks within 15 days. While Colorado could still strengthen its rules – for example, by requiring the immediate repair of leaking equipment – the state is demonstrating to both the federal government and other states that natural gas development can be improved without economic harm. With the litany of policies and cost-effective technologies available to governments and industry, we can reduce fugitive methane emissions and take a step toward preventing the worsening impacts of climate change.
- LEARN MORE: Download WRI's publication, Clearing the Air: Reducing Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Natural Gas Systems
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|Description: This is a detail of a map of Florida showing counties, railroads, cities, inland waters, etc for Madison County. Each color represents a different route. The origin and destination for each route is found on the main map in an Explanation key. Features of this detail include the Aucilla River, Madison, and Westfarm.|
Place Names: Madison, Aucilla, Greenville, Hamburg, Madison, Ellaville, Westfarm, Moseley Hall, Harmony,
ISO Topic Categories: inlandWaters, oceans, boundaries, transportation
Keywords: Madison County, physical, historical, political, transportation, physical features, county borders, railroads, inlandWaters, oceans, boundaries, transportation, Unknown,1889
Source: Wm. M. Bradley and Bros., Bradley's atlas of the world for commercial and library reference (Philadelphia, PA: Wm. M. Bradley and Bros., 1889) 240-241
Map Credit: Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, University of South Florida.
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In How Learning Works, Susan Ambrose and her colleagues identify the following principle: "How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know."
Students often struggle to connect new concepts to what they already know. Concept mapping can help students make sense of complex information by providing a means of organizing and representing knowledge. A visual format can help students gain an overview of the concepts being studied. Concept maps can be used as a tool for learning, for teaching, and for assessment. In this interactive session, you will learn about these different ways to use concept maps in your course.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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GDANSK, Poland (AP) — The outbreak of World War II 75 years ago shows why Europe must put an end to the war in Ukraine now, Poland's prime minister said Monday.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, chosen by EU leaders to be the next president of the European Council, spoke at the Westerplatte peninsula on the Baltic coast, where some of the first shots of World War II were fired on Sept.1, 1939, by the Nazi warship Schleswig-Holstein. Two weeks later Soviet troops invaded from the east, acting on a Moscow deal with Germany to carve up Poland.
More than five years of brutal, global war followed, taking the lives of almost 60 million people.
"Today, looking at the tragedy of Ukraine at war — because we should use this word — in the east of our continent, we know that September 1939 must not be repeated," Tusk said.
He said the lesson that Europe should draw from its past "must not be a lesson of naive optimism" because the continent's security requires "courage, imagination and resolute action."
Europe's security is the top priority for a NATO summit Thursday in Wales. Mindful of their painful history, Poland and the Baltic nations are calling for a sizeable, permanent presence of NATO troops on their territory, a goal that may prove hard to achieve.
"There is still time to stop all those in Europe and in the world for whom violence, force, aggression are again becoming an arsenal of political activity," Tusk said.
German President Joachim Gauck, also speaking at Westerplatte, called for the 28-nation European Union to "stand together."
"Stability and peace on our continent are in danger again," Gauck said. "We will oppose those who break international law, annex foreign territory and provide military support to breakaway movements in foreign countries."
His comments were a clear reference to Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine.
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There are two types of rabbits you're likely to run into: wild and domesticated. Wild rabbits run free through the countryside, while domesticated rabbits are usually kept as pets. Both varieties are herbivores which like to eat small amounts throughout the day. However, because of their different living conditions, the two also have very different diets.
Most domestic rabbit owners provide hay at all times for their pets, but bunnies also love fresh vegetables as treats. Before you throw out unwanted produce such as carrot tops, leftover salad fixings or cabbage, toss it to your grateful bunny instead! Many rabbit owners also grow their own food for their rabbits. Lettuce and carrots are both high-yield plants and bunny favorites. Be careful not to feed too much of a new veggie too soon, though, as rabbits need time to adjust to any changes in their diets. You should also avoid sweet fruits and other sugary foods, which are not part of a rabbit's natural biology. If you have found a baby rabbit or want to know what wild rabbits eat, keep reading for the information you need.
Wild rabbits don't have an owner to feed them, and so must forage for themselves. They sleep in large, community burrows and begin grazing at dawn when they are less likely to be attacked by predators. Wild rabbits nibble grass, preferably all day if they feel safe, and may also eat leafy ground plants and flowers. Because they may be scared away from their food, the first minutes of grazing are the most important for rabbits. They quickly eat whatever is available, usually grass. Once their basic hunger is satisfied, they can afford to be a little more choosy with their dining. So, what do rabbits eat? Clover is a favorite, as well as anything they can nab from a local garden. Almost every gardener knows what it's like to come out in the morning and find that their precious plants have provided a feast for the neighborhood rabbit warren.
All that grass means that a rabbit's diet is very high in fiber. Because of this, it's hard for them to digest everything efficiently. In response, rabbits have developed a rather gross way of reclaiming the nutrients they excrete too quickly: they eat their own droppings! Much like a cow chews cud, rabbits actually excrete a special kind of dropping that is soft and full of plant material. After being processed a second time, the food comes out as the hard pellets you often see on lawns.
If you have found an abandoned baby bunny in the wild, it may be best to put it back where you found it. Rabbit nests are often located in the open on lawns or lightly overgrown areas. The mother returns to the nest twice a day to nurse her kits and care for them. Unless you know the mother is dead, it's likely she will return for her kits later that night. If returning the kit is not an option, call a local wildlife shelter, rescue group or vet. They will be able to take the rabbit in and give it the care it needs. This is especially important if the bunnies still have their eyes closed, as they are very fragile and need professional care. Raising a wild rabbit is very difficult, and it may be better to save yourself the heartache of losing a baby bunny.
If you have a domestic orphaned bunny, it will need intensive care to keep alive. It must be kept warm and hydrated, and will likely need a milk substitute. A local tack store or vet may carry dried rabbit milk, but you will more likely need to buy goat's milk instead. Even the goat's milk sold at a grocery store is fine for use with rabbits. Sit the baby upright before feeding, and only feed it twice a day. This is the same schedule a mother rabbit would follow, so don't be tempted to overfeed the kit. Use a syringe to administer the milk and make sure not to choke the kit with too much at once. Caring for an orphaned bunny may be one of the hardest things you ever do, but if done right the rewards of saving a life can be well worth the effort.
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Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
dissociation (plural dissociations)
- The act of dissociating or disuniting; a state of separation; disunion.
- (chemistry) The process by which a compound body breaks up into simpler constituents; said particularly of the action of heat on gaseous or volatile substances.
- the dissociation of the sulphur molecules
- the dissociation of ammonium chloride into hydrochloric acid and ammonia
- (psychology) A defence mechanism where certain thoughts or mental processes are compartmentalised in order to avoid emotional stress to the conscious mind.
- "Project MONARCH could be best described as a form of structured dissociation and occultic integration, carried out in order to compartmentalize the mind into multiple personalities within a systematic framework." —Ron Patton
act of dissociating
chemistry: process of breaking up
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After completing the Tantrik sadhana Sri Ramakrishna followed the
Brahmani in the disciplines of Vaishnavism. The Vaishnavas are worshippers
of Vishnu, the "All-pervading", the Supreme God, who is also known as
Hari and Narayana. Of Vishnu's various Incarnations the two with the
largest number of followers are Rama and Krishna.
Vaishnavism is exclusively a religion of bhakti. Bhakti is intense love of God, attachment to Him alone; it is of the nature of bliss and bestows upon the lover immortality and liberation. God, according to Vaishnavism, cannot be realized through logic or reason; and, without bhakti, all penances, austerities and rites are futile. Man cannot realize God by self-exertion alone. For the vision of God His grace is absolutely necessary, and this grace is felt by the pure of heart. The mind is to be purified through bhakti. The pure mind then remains for ever immersed in the ecstasy of God-vision. It is the cultivation of this divine love that is the chief concern of the Vaishnava religion.
There are three kinds of formal devotion: tamasic, rajasic, and sattvic. If a person, while showing devotion, to God, is actuated by malevolence, arrogance, jealousy, or anger, then his devotion is tamasic, since it is influenced by tamas, the quality of inertia. If he worships God from a desire for fame or wealth, or from any other worldly ambition, then his devotion is rajasic, since it is influenced by rajas, the quality of activity. But if a person loves God without any thought of material gain, if he performs his duties to please God alone and maintains toward all created beings the attitude of friendship, then his devotion is called sattvic, since it is influenced by sattva, the quality of harmony. But the highest devotion transcends the three gunas, or qualities, being a spontaneous, uninterrupted inclination of the mind toward God, the Inner Soul of all beings; and it wells up in the heart of a true devotee as soon as he hears the name of God or mention of God's attributes. A devotee possessed of this love would not accept the happiness of heaven if it were offered him. His one desire is to love God under all conditions — in pleasure and pain, life and death, honour and dishonour, prosperity and adversity.
There are two stages of bhakti. The first is known as vaidhi-bhakti, or love of God qualified by scriptural injunctions. For the devotees of this stage are prescribed regular and methodical worship, hymns, prayers, the repetition of God's name, and the chanting of His glories. This lower bhakti in course of time matures into para-bhakti, or supreme devotion, known also as prema, the most intense form of divine love. Divine love is an end in itself. It exists potentially in all human hearts, but in the case of bound creatures it is misdirected to earthly objects.
To develop the devotee's love for God, Vaishnavism humanizes God. God is to be regarded as the devotee's Parent, Master, Friend, Child, Husband, or Sweetheart, each succeeding relationship representing an intensification of love. These bhavas, or attitudes toward God, are known as santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and madhur. The rishis of the Vedas, Hanuman, the cow-herd boys of Vrindavan, Rama's mother Kausalya, and Radhika, Krishna's sweetheart, exhibited, respectively, the most perfect examples of these forms. In the ascending scale the-glories of God are gradually forgotten and the devotee realizes more and more the intimacy of divine communion. Finally he regards himself as the mistress of his Beloved, and no artificial barrier remains to separate him from his Ideal. No social or moral obligation can bind to the earth his soaring spirit. He experiences perfect union with the Godhead. Unlike the Vedantist, who strives to transcend all varieties of the subject-object relationship, a devotee of the Vaishnava path wishes to retain both his own individuality and the personality of God. To him God is not an intangible Absolute, but the Purushottama, the Supreme Person.
While practising the discipline of the madhur bhava, the male devotee often regards himself as a woman, in order to develop the most intense form of love for Sri Krishna, the only purusha, or man, in the universe. This assumption of the attitude of the opposite sex has a deep psychological significance. It is a matter of common experience that an idea may be cultivated to such an intense degree that every idea alien to it is driven from the mind. This peculiarity of the mind may be utilized for the subjugation of the lower desires and the development of the spiritual nature. Now, the idea which is the basis of all desires and passions in a man is the conviction of his indissoluble association with a male body. If he can inoculate himself thoroughly with the idea that he is a woman, he can get rid of the desires peculiar to his male body. Again, the idea that he is a woman may in turn be made to give way to another higher idea, namely, that he is neither man nor woman, but the Impersonal Spirit. The Impersonal Spirit alone can enjoy real communion with the Impersonal God. Hence the highest est realization of the Vaishnava draws close to the transcendental experience of the Vedantist.
A beautiful expression of the Vaishnava worship of God through love is to be found in the Vrindavan episode of the Bhagavata. The gopis, or milk-maids, of Vrindavan regarded the six-year-old Krishna as their Beloved. They sought no personal gain or happiness from this love. They surrendered to Krishna their bodies, minds, and souls. Of all the gopis, Radhika, or Radha, because of her intense love for Him, was the closest to Krishna. She manifested mahabhava and was united with her Beloved. This union represents, through sensuous language, a supersensuous experience.
Sri Chaitanya, also known as Gauranga, Gora, or Nimai, born in Bengal in 1485 and regarded as an Incarnation of God, is a great prophet of the Vaishnava religion. Chaitanya declared the chanting of God's name to be the most efficacious spiritual discipline for the Kaliyuga.
Sri Ramakrishna, as the monkey Hanuman, had already worshipped God as his Master. Through his devotion to Kali he had worshipped God as his Mother. He was now to take up the other relationships prescribed by the Vaishnava scriptures.
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by H. Brett Melendy
The Philippine Islands, off the east coast of Asia, are part of the Pacific Ocean's fiery volcanic rim. The Philippine archipelago, consisting of about 7,100 islands, lies along a north-south arc of 1,152 miles. From east to west, its widest dimension is 682 miles. Most islands, large and small, have high mountains, and many are surrounded by coral-reef shorelines.
The Philippines' land area is 115,831 square miles, slightly larger than the state of Nevada. Eleven islands comprise about 95 percent of the land mass of the Philippines, with the two largest, Luzon and Mindanao, accounting for 65 percent of the total. The national capital, Quezon City, and the de facto capital and largest city, Manila, are both situated on Luzon, on which over 25 percent of the country's population lives. Thirty-five percent inhabits the Visayan Islands, a cluster of islands—Samar, Leyete Bohol, Cebu, Negros, Panay, and Masbate—that lie between Luzon and Mindanao. Cebu has the highest population concentration with more than 400 people per square mile. The country's total population in 1992 was about 67,144,000. Malays are in the majority; major ethnic minorities are Chinese, Americans, and Spanish. Eighty-three percent of the population is Roman Catholic, nine percent is Protestant, and five percent is Muslim. Mindanao has the greatest Islamic concentration.
Climatic conditions, which are about the same throughout the archipelago, help determine the islanders' lifestyle. The climate, both tropical and maritime in nature, usually has high humidity and high temperatures. Monsoons and typhoons, over-riding normal conditions, bring periods of heavy rain. All of these factors have determined where and how Filipinos have cultivated their land. Agriculture, ranging from subsistence farming to export plantations, remains the basis of the islands' economy. Even so, given the mountainous terrain, only about 15 percent of the land is cultivated. Major domestic crops are rice and corn; important export crops are abaca (Manila hemp), copra (dried coconut meat, from which coconut oil is made), pineapple, sugar, and tobacco.
One of the persistent problems for Philippines islanders has been inequitable land distribution. A share tenant system has made most farmers captives of landlords, or caciques. At the time of independence in 1946, over 70 percent of the crops went to caciqueors. Share tenancy has brought considerable political and social unrest. Historically, limited economic opportunities tied to tenancy and a high birthrate led to immigration to Hawaii and the mainland United States.
The islands have seen the arrival of different peoples over the centuries leading to the evolution of the present diverse culture. Among the earliest immigrants were the Little People, shorter than five feet tall. They were dark skinned, had Negroid features, and were named Negritoes by the Spanish. They may have arrived about 25,000 years ago, and they lived throughout the islands. In recent decades, they occupied the mountain interiors of Luzon, Mindanao, and Palawan, living in isolation and not mixing with later arrivals.
Sometime between 4000 B.C. and 3000 B.C., the first Indonesians arrived from the Asian continent. A second Indonesian influx occurred about 1000 B.C. and lasted about 500 years. Both waves of Indonesians settled throughout the islands, and over the centuries assimilated with subsequent immigrants. Present-day Ilonggo are one result of tribal intermixing.
The Malays, an Iron Age people, began arriving in the third century A.D. Peak influxes started in the thirteenth century and continued well into the next. The Bontoks, Igorots, and Tinguians are descendants of the Malays. Tribes that in time became dominant were the Visayans, Cebunos, and Ilocanos. European and American colonists discovered some of these groups were "head-hunting pagans." Those Malays who came in the later waves had elements of an alphabet and metal tools. More peaceful than earlier arrivals, they were the ancestors of most present-day Filipino Christians. While considered primitive by Western standards, these Malays were in fact far advanced over the earliest immigrants. During the fourteenth century, Islamic Arab traders arrived; their descendants, the Moros, populated the southern islands and remained militant Muslims.
The Chinese and Japanese have had a major impact in the twentieth century, although trade between the Philippines and South China began to develop as early as the fourteenth century as Chinese emigrants became successful merchants and traders. Descendants of Filipino and Chinese marriages continued this domination of island businesses, gaining economic successes and power. Their virtual monopoly of the nation's big businesses in the twentieth century led some Filipinos, particularly those in urban areas, to resent the Chinese and to engage in occasional hostile activities. Japanese immigration occurred after 1900; emigrants from Japan settled first on the island of Mindanao, and they developed several large abaca plantations. Unlike the Chinese and earlier Malay emigrants, the Japanese remained largely a homogeneous group, rarely intermarrying. At the outbreak of World War II, Japanese could be found throughout the islands, working mostly at such crafts as cabinetmaking and photography.
The first European immigrants did not intend to settle permanently in the Philippines. Spanish settlement proved transitory during the 400 years of Spain's colonial occupation. The first contact between Spain and the Philippines occurred in March of 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan's fleet reached the island of Samar on its circumnavigation of the earth. Magellan claimed the archipelago for Spain and the Catholic church, but Spain did not make his claim official until 1565. The country was named the Philippines in the 1550s after King Philip II of Spain.
In 1565, nine years after ascending to the Spanish throne, Philip II sent a royal governor to the Philippines. The governor, from his first seat of government on Cebu, sent expeditions to other islands and imposed Spanish rule. From the outset, colonial officers exerted forceful and lasting control, using the colonial methods used in the Americas as their model.
From 1565 to 1810 the Acapulco-Manila galleon trade flourished. It connected the Spanish empire in Latin America with the Asian market via the Philippines. Manila served as the entreport to the China trade route. Gold bullions were extracted by the Spanish in Latin America and exchanged for silk, spices, and tea in the East. The galleon trade provided the first opportunity for native Filipinos to leave the islands as members of the crews aboard the Spanish ships.
As royal governors gained greater dominion over the islands, they moved the colonial capital to Manila, with its superior harbor. Endorsing European ideas of mercantilism and imperialism, Spain's monarchs believed that they should exercise their power in the Philippines to enrich themselves. In the course of almost four centuries, Spanish settlers and their descendants in the islands came to own large estates and to control the colonial government.
The Catholic church, supported by the colonial powers, controlled large areas of land and held a monopoly on formal education. The church and the Spanish language were major Spanish cultural institutions imposed upon Filipinos. By 1898, over 80 percent of the islanders were Catholics. Most young Filipinos, migrating to Hawaii and the mainland before World War II, came from Catholic backgrounds.
The Spanish, in installing an autocratic imperialism that alienated Filipinos, created a class society and a culture that many Filipinos later tried to imitate. Some of the Spanish, who made the islands their home, married Filipinos; the descendants of these marriages were known as mestizos . By the nineteenth century, mestizos had inherited large areas of agricultural lands. This Filipino upper class found that the lighter their skin color, the easier it became to mingle with Europeans and Americans. They also learned to control local politics through power and corruption. This economic-political dominance came to be known as caciquism.
Local revolts against Spanish imperial corruption, caciquism, racial discrimination, and church abuse began late in the nineteenth century. These first revolts called for reform of the economic-political system but not for independence. An early leader, Jose Rizal, who formed La Liga Filipina (the Filipino League), called for social reform. After the Spanish banished Rizal, more radical leaders emerged. When Rizal returned to the islands, the Spanish colonial government arrested, tried, and executed him in 1896, thus unwittingly creating a martyr and national hero.
Twenty-seven-year-old Emilio Aguinaldo became the next leader of the insurrectionists— now fighting openly against the Spanish. In 1898, Aguinaldo conferred with American officials in Hong Kong and Singapore. He was led to understand that the Filipinos would become allies with the United States in a war against Spain, the anticipated outcome of which would be an independent Philippine nation. Admiral George Dewey and Consul General E. Spencer Pratt, with whom Aguinaldo met, later denied that they had made such a promise. In 1898, the United States declared war against Spain, and as a result of the ensuing Spanish-American War, the United States went to war with the Philippines. The war took more than one million Filipino lives and 6,000 American lives. The Treaty of Paris, approved on February 6, 1899, made the United States an imperial power and started a 47-year relationship with the Philippines.
Filipinos, following Aguinaldo's lead, protested the arrival of American imperialism, and the insurrection first launched against the Spanish continued. After annexation of the Philippines by the United States, the U.S. Army fought to quell uprisings throughout the islands. With his capture on March 23, 1901, Aguinaldo advised his followers to swear allegiance to the United States. On July 4, 1902, the Army declared the insurrection to be at an end, even though the Moros, who had become largely independent under Spanish rule, continued to fight until 1913.
U.S. President William McKinley sent several commissions to the Philippines even as the U.S. Army fought the Filipinos. William Howard Taft, president of the Philippine Commission, began installing American control on September 1, 1900. A year later, he became the first governor-general of the Philippines. Between 1901 and 1913, American officials, controlling executive, legislative, and judicial offices, rebuilt the islands' government from the village to the national level. An elected lower house, the Philippine Assembly, soon participated in national affairs. Both the judicial system and the civil service, modeled after American counterparts, replaced the Spanish system.
Undoubtedly, the great American impact came in education, with primary schools set up in most communities and high schools in each province. Nationwide vocational schools and teacher colleges were established, as was the University of the Philippines in Manila, founded in 1908 as the capstone of the islands' education program. Religious freedom was guaranteed, and government support of the Catholic church as the state religion ended. Most of the provincial colleges remained under Catholic control with a curriculum reflecting the church's traditional education. A major cause of Filipino unrest under Spanish imperialism was church-controlled Friar lands. To ease this crisis, the United States bought about 400,000 acres from the Catholic church. This land was then sold, mostly to former tenants at low prices and with easy payment terms.
While American administrators tended to be benevolent authorities, Filipinos still desired independence. From the outset of American rule, the leaders of the Nacionalista party called for immediate independence. From 1907 on, the Nacionalistas gained and held control of elective offices in villages, provinces, and the Philippine Assembly. A small number of wealthy party members, drawn from among large landowners, used caciquism to control the Nacionalista party. Early major political leaders were Sergio Osmena and Manuel Quezon. By 1917, these two men had concentrated national political power under their absolute control. Most immigrants to the United States and the Territory of Hawaii were Nacionalistas.
In 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, committed to making the Philippines an independent nation, supported passage of the Jones Act, which promised that the Philippines would be free as soon as a stable government was established. The act provided that during a transitional period, executive power would remain with an American appointed governor-general while Filipinos elected members to the Assembly and to the newly established Senate. The Jones Act helped Osmena's and Quezon's political machine entrench itself. In 1921, with the election of a Republican administration in the United States, independence was no longer strongly advocated, as Republican governor-generals insisted that the islands were not ready to be set free.
During the late 1920s, concerns over the large influx of Filipinos into the West Coast of the United States and falling agricultural prices for certain American commodities led to agitation that called for change in the relationship between the islands and the United States. American farmers wanted an end to free trade of commodities from the islands while exclusionists wanted to stop Filipino immigration. These two political forces began calling for Philippine independence.
In December 1931, Congress passed the Hare-Hawes-Cutting bill, which was intended to grant independence to the islands after a ten-year period. It then overrode President Herbert Hoover's veto, and the bill became law. The new law provided that American goods would be imported into the islands duty free, while Philippine goods exported to the United States would be subject to increasing tariff rates during these ten years. During this period, Filipino immigration would be limited to an annual quota of 50, and general United States immigration laws would apply. The Philippine national legislature had to approve the act, but in October 1933, Quezon-led forces rejected the proposal, which had the backing of Osmena and Manuel Roxas adherents. Quezon then led a delegation to Washington to negotiate with the new American president, Franklin Roosevelt.
Quezon obtained only a slight modification of the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act; key issues relating to the island economy and immigration to the United States remained unchanged. At the end of the ten-year transition period, the United States was to withdraw its forces from all military and naval bases, something that did not actually happen until the 1990s. The Tydings-McDuffie Act, signed into law on March 23, 1934, promised independence after ten years and created the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The Philippine legislature approved this act on May 1, 1934, and a year later the Filipino people approved a constitution.
At the first presidential election in September 1935, Filipinos elected Quezon as president and one of his major rivals, Osmena, as vice president. With their inauguration on November 15, 1935, the Commonwealth of the Philippines came into being, although many Filipinos were ambivalent about the prospect of complete independence. While independence appealed to their sense of nationalism, the hard economic fact was that the islands depended upon tariff-free American markets. Many felt that, in due course, imposition of a tariff upon Philippine products could be disastrous.
With the Tydings-McDuffie Act, independence was to come to the Philippines in 1944, but the Japanese conquest of the islands in 1942 brought a two-year hiatus to the commonwealth. The Quezon government fled, first to Australia with General Douglas MacArthur and then to the United States, where Quezon continued to serve as the commonwealth's president until his death in 1944.
After U.S. President Harry Truman proclaimed the independence of the Philippines on July 4, 1946, Manual Roxas was elected the first president of the Republic of the Philippines. However, the Philippine
The new republic struggled to nationhood during the turmoil of the postwar years. Communistdominated Huks soon confronted Roxas' government with armed resistance in an internal war that lasted until 1954. Huks is a shortened term for Hukbon Magpapalaya ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon, or People's Anti-Japanese Liberation Army. Since independence in 1946, urban and rural violence have continued; election days in the Philippines are marked by many deaths. Under the leadership of Ramon Magsaysay, who succeeded Elpidio Quirino, the republic by 1955 came to be seen as a sturdy bastion of democracy in the Far East, one that the United States hoped would be a model for other Asian countries.
In 1965, Ferdinand Marcos was elected president. When several groups conducted terrorist tactics and the Moros continued to fight for their independence, Marcos, declaring martial law in September of 1972, seized dictatorial powers. This state of affairs lasted fourteen years. Early in 1973, Marcos proclaimed a new constitution, naming himself as president. In 1978, he gave his wife, Imelda, extensive powers to control national planning and development. In the face of growing political repression, many of Marcos's political opponents found it expedient to leave the country as croyism was elevated to the national level. Marcos lifted the decree of martial law in 1981 and turned political power over to the national legislature. He was then elected to another six-year term as president.
Following the 1983 assassination of Benigno S. Aquino Jr., a leading rival of Marcos, political unrest and violence became commonplace until 1986, when Marcos fled the country, and Corazon Aquino, Benigno Aquino's widow, was declared president. The end of the Marcos era did not bring political and economic calm to the nation, however; unsuccessful coups against the government have continued and the national economy has remained weak. Additionally, widespread poverty and communism have posed threats to the unstable central government.
Since the end of Mrs. Aquino's presidency in 1992, there have been two peaceful transitions of power through the process of elections. Under presidents Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada the communist rebellion and the Muslim rebellion have been severely weakened and the Philippines has made substantial economic strides.
Filipino arrivals in the Territory of Hawaii and the United States mainland came in three waves. The earliest, from 1903 to 1935, brought many young men to enroll in American universities and colleges and then return to the Philippines. Also during this time, plantation workers arrived to work in Hawaii from 1906 to the 1930s, with a parallel movement occurring along the Pacific Coast during the 1920s—an immigration that lasted until enactment of the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934. A much smaller influx to American shores occurred following World War II. The third and largest immigration wave arrived after passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. Since 1970 the Philippines have been surpassed only by Mexico in the number of immigrants coming to the United States.
The first Filipino immigrants came to the United States seeking higher education. Governor-General Taft's administration prepared an educational plan, the Pensionado Act, to send promising young Filipinos to United States' institutions of higher learning. Beginning in 1903, a group of 100 students left for the United States, and by 1910 all had returned. Once home, these new college graduates were met with confusion and jealousy by fellow Filipinos and with hostility by American colonials. However, these men came to play key roles in agriculture, business, education, engineering, and government.
Other students followed; a later estimate indicated that between 1910 and 1938 almost 14,000 Filipinos had enrolled in educational institutions throughout the United States. Most of these came as independent students, apart from the Pensionado program. Many of these hopefuls became over-whelmed by the high cost of living, their inadequate academic preparation, insufficient language skills, and an inability to determine what level of American education best suited their state of educational preparation. These Filipinos soon found themselves trapped as unskilled laborers. Those who were successful in graduating from major universities returned to the Philippines to take their places with Pensionados as provincial and national leaders.
A chance encounter in 1901 between a trustee of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association (HSPA) and a band of Filipino musicians en route to the United States led the planter to speculate about Filipinos as potential plantation workers, for he felt that these musicians had a "healthy physique and robust appearance." Even before 1907, Hawaii had begun looking for other pools of unskilled labor on the island of Luzon. During 1907 some 150 workers were sent to Hawaii. Two years later, with Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans now banned from immigrating to the United Sates, the HSPA returned to the Philippines, looking for workers. The Bureau of Census reported that there were 2,361 Filipinos in Hawaii in 1910. Recruiting efforts after 1909 centered on the Visayan Islands, Cebu in particular, and Luzon's Tagalogs.
In 1915 recruiters focused on Luzon's northwestern Ilocano provinces: Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and La Union. Immigrants from Pangasinan, Zambales, and Cagayan account for about 25 percent of those from Ilocano. The Ilocanos, suffering greatly from economic hardship and overpopulation, proved willing recruits. The HSPA awarded a three-year labor contract to Filipinos migrating to Hawaii; this paid their passage to Hawaii and guaranteed free subsistence and clothing. If they worked a total of 720 days, they received return passage money. A worker was not penalized for violating his contract, but if he did, he forfeited all guarantees, including his return passage. Plantation owners found the Ilocanos to be the "best workers," and poverty in their provinces provided a stimulant for out-migration. By 1935, young single Ilocano men were the largest Filipino ethnic group in Hawaii.
According to census figures, the Filipino population in Hawaii climbed from 21,031 in 1920 to 63,052 in 1930, but dropped to 52,659 by 1940. The decline in the number of Filipinos during the late 1930s is attributable to the return of many to the Philippines during the Depression years and to others seeking greener pastures on the West Coast. The high point of immigration to Hawaii occurred in 1925, when 11,621 Filipinos arrived in Honolulu. At that point, the HSPA closed active recruiting in the Philippines, relying upon self-motivation to maintain the influx of workers.
In 1910, only 406 Filipinos lived on the United States mainland. The largest group, of 109, lived in New Orleans, the remnants of a nineteenth-century settlement of Filipino sailors who came ashore at that port city, married local women, and found jobs. The state of Washington had 17 and California had only five. In 1920, 5,603 Filipinos lived along the West Coast or in Alaska. California then had 2,674 Filipinos while Washington had 958. The northeastern United States had the second-largest number: 1,844.
The 1920s saw dramatic changes as California's Filipino population, mostly single young men, increased by 91 percent; over 31,000 Filipinos disembarked at the ports of San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 1930, there were 108,260 Filipinos in the United States and the Territory of Hawaii. California had 30,470, and this number rose to 31,408 by 1940. Washington had 3,480 in 1930 and 2,222 in 1940. Apart from the West Coast and Hawaii, the next largest concentration was in New York, which in 1930 had 1,982 and 2,978 in 1940. Many of these Filipinos experienced significant racial discrimination.
Emigrants in the second wave left the Philippines in increasing numbers during the late 1940s and 1950s. This group included war brides, the "1946 boys," and military recruits. War brides were the spouses of American GIs who married Filipina women while being stationed in the Philippines. After the passage of the War Brides Act of 1946, it is estimated that 5,000 brides came to the United States. Contracted workers called the "1946 boys", or Sakadas, numbered 7,000 were a major component of the second wave. They were the last large group of agricultural laborers brought to Hawaii by the sugar planters. Plantation owners brought them in an effort to break up the first interracial and territorial-wide strike organized by the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). The Philippine workers supported the ILWU strike, which resulted in the first major victory for Hawaii agricultural workers. Filipinos who came to the United States through the U.S. military were another component of the second wave. A provision of the 1947 US-RP Military Bases Agreement allowed the Navy to recruit Filipino men for its mess halls. During the same year President Truman ended racial segregation in the military and the Filipino replaced African Americans in mess halls. By the 1970s, more than 20,000 Filipinos had entered the United States through the U.S. Navy.
Internal conditions in the new republic contributed to many moving from the islands to the United States. By 1960 Hawaii, which had become a state a year earlier, had 69,070 Filipinos, followed closely by California with 65,459. The two states together accounted for 76 percent of all Filipinos living in the United States. The Pacific Coast states had 146,340 (83 percent of the total), while the East and the South had slightly more than 10,000 each and the Great Lakes states had 8,600. Included in these census numbers were second-generation Filipino Americans.
Changes in American immigration law in 1965 significantly altered the type and number of immigrants coming to the United States. Unlike pre-war immigrants who largely worked as unskilled laborers in West Coast and Hawaiian agriculture and in Alaska's salmon canneries, the third wave was composed of larger numbers of well-educated Filipinos between the ages of 20 and 40 who came looking for better career opportunities than they could find in the Philippines. This highly skilled third-wave population had a command of the English language, allowing them to enter a wide range of professions.
Unlike earlier arrivals, most of the Filipino immigrants after 1970 came to the United States without intending to return to the Philippines. In 1970, 343,060 Filipinos lived in the United States; in 1980, the number was 781,894, with 92 percent of these living in urban areas. By 1990, the number of Filipinos had reached 1,450,512. The West, as reported in the 1990 Census, had 991,572, or 68.4 percent of the Filipinos. The other three areas, Northeast, Midwest, and South, ranged from 8.8 to 12.5 percent. California in 1990 had the largest Filipino population, almost 50 percent of the total; Hawaii had fallen to second place. Every state in the union had a Filipino population. Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington had Filipino populations in excess of 30,000.
From the outset of their arrival in Hawaii and the Pacific Coast, Filipinos, as a color-visible minority, encountered prejudice and discrimination as they pursued their economic and educational goals. One major problem for Filipinos prior to 1946 was the issue of American citizenship.
From 1898 to 1946, Filipinos, classified as American nationals, could travel abroad with an American passport and could enter and leave the United States at will, until the Tydings-McDuffie Act limited the number entering as immigrants to 50 a year. The opportunity for most Filipinos to become American citizens before 1946 was closed to them by the United States Supreme Court in its 1925 decision, Toyota v. United States. This decision declared that only whites or persons of African descent were entitled to citizenship, thus closing the opportunity for Filipinos to become United States citizens. Those Filipinos, however, who had enlisted and served three years in the United States Navy, Marine Corps, or Naval Auxiliary Service during World War I and who had received an honorable discharge could apply for citizenship. In 1946, Congress passed a law that permitted Filipinos to qualify for American citizenship.
The inability to acquire citizenship, besides being a social stigma, presented serious economic and political implications. Since most states required citizenship to practice law, medicine, and other licensed professions and occupations, Filipinos were prohibited from these occupations. Filipinos had no recognized voice of protest to speak
Throughout the Depression years of the 1930s, Filipinos found it difficult to qualify for federal relief. Although the Works Progress Administration in 1937 ruled that Filipinos were eligible for employment on WPA projects, they could not receive preference since they were not citizens. During the 1920s and 1930s, those Filipinos living on the Pacific Coast encountered prejudice and hostilities resulting in hateful discrimination and race riots. A sagging economy made assimilation difficult if not impossible.
At the height of discrimination in California, the California Department of Industrial Relations published in 1930 a biased study, Facts about Filipino Immigration into California, claiming that Filipinos posed economic and social threats. On the West Coast, Filipinos were frequently denied service in restaurants and barbershops and were barred from swimming pools, movies, and tennis courts. They found that their dark skin and imperfect English marked them, in the eyes of whites, as being different and therefore inferior. White Californians presented several contradictions that confused Filipinos. Farmers and certain urban enterprises welcomed them because they provided cheap labor. However, discriminatory attitudes relegated them to low-paying jobs and an inferior social existence. Consequently, many other Californians criticized the Filipinos' substandard living conditions and attacked them for creating health problems and lowering the American standard of living. Faced with discrimination in real estate, Filipinos were forced into "Little Manilas" in California cities. Filipinos in cities such as Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C., also clustered together.
Discrimination against Filipinos has persisted into the late twentieth century, but civil rights legislation, affirmative action, and equal opportunity laws have improved the daily lives of most Filipinos who have arrived in recent decades. A perhaps unexpected form of discrimination for immigrants arriving after 1965 was the hostility that they met from second-generation Filipinos who saw the new arrivals as snobs and upstarts who were benefitting from advances made by the older group. At the same time, more recent Filipino immigrants have treated their older compatriots with disdain, considering them the equivalent of "hillbillies."
During the 1990 Census, Filipinos reported a median income of $46,698, while the median income for the entire United States was $35,225. This can be attributed to the ongoing stream of highly educated and highly skilled Filipinos from the Philippines and to second and third generation Filipino Americans finishing college.
The Filipinos who came to Hawaii and the West Coast during the 1920s and 1930s sought a range of leisure-time activities to relieve the monotony of unskilled labor. A result of the recruitment tactics of the agribusiness industry in Hawaii and the West Coast, the pre-World War II Filipino Community was made up mostly of single, uneducated men, with few or no relatives in the United States. These men attended and enjoyed spectator sports, bet on prize fights and wrestling matches, and gambled at poker, blackjack, and dice. During the 1930s they increased the profits of Stockton gambling operators and prostitutes by about $2 million annually. Gambling, dance halls, and prostitution gave credence to white Americans' complaints that Filipinos were immoral and lawless. Many in California traveled to Reno, Nevada, looking for the proverbial "pot of gold." Pool halls in the "Little Manilas" provided both recreation and gambling. Cockfighting, a major source of entertainment and gambling, was imported from the Philippines. The fighting of cocks, although illegal, continues to attract Filipinos in Hawaii and on the mainland.
Filipino Americans, like other immigrants, brought with them cuisine from their native country. As with many Eastern Pacific Rim countries, rice is the basic staple. Three favorite foods are lumpia , kare kare , and chicken and pork Adobo . Lumpia is an egg roll—a lumpia wrapper filled with pork, shrimp, cabbage, beans, scallions, and bean sprouts and fried in peanut oil. Kare Kare is a peanut-oil-flavored, stewed mixture of oxtail and beef tripe mixed with onions and tomatoes. Chicken and Pork Adobo consists of these two meats boiled in vinegar and soy sauce and flavored with garlic and spices. This dish is then served over rice.
Second-wave Filipinos incurred severe health problems as they aged. One illness that seemed almost endemic was gout arthritis, coupled with an excessive amount of uric acid in the blood. Doctors have speculated that a genetic characteristic makes these Filipinos unable to tolerate the American diet. Unmarried men also had a high rate of venereal disease. Complicating these health problems was the fact that these men did not or could not obtain regular health care when they had good health.
There is evidence, according to a study conducted in Hawaii, that Filipino women have a higher rate of heart disease and circulatory problems than does that state's general population. The same study noted that Filipino men suffered more from lateral sclerosis than other men did. Other diseases of high incidence were liver cancer and diabetes. The more highly educated fourth-wave Filipinos know the value of good health care and have utilized the medical services available to them.
The official languages in the Philippines are Pilipino (a derivative of Tagalog) and English. Linguists have identified some 87 different dialects throughout the country. At the time of Philippine independence, about 25 percent of Filipinos spoke Tagalog, the language of central Luzon. About 44 percent spoke Visayan; Visayans in the United States generally spoke Cebuano. The language most commonly spoken by Filipinos in Hawaii and the United States mainland is Ilocano, although only 15 percent of those in the Philippines speak this language. The coming of the fourth wave of Filipinos brought more Tagalog speakers. However, the high number of university graduates in the fourth wave communicated easily in English. Others, however, did not know English or spoke it poorly. In Hawaii, social service centers taught English by showing Filipinos how to shop in supermarkets and how to order in restaurants.
The distinct migration patterns of the Filipinos have led to unique community dynamics. The vast majority of the second wave of Filipinos migrating to Hawaii and the West Coast, as noted, were single young men. Only a very few married and had families in the United States. The dream that most Filipinos never realized—of returning to the Philippines—led in time to disillusionment as these young men grew old, trapped as unskilled laborers. Many of these "birds of passage" sent money to the Philippines to help their families pay taxes, buy land, finance the education of relatives, or meet obligations owed by the Philippines' family alliance system.
Relatively few Filipinos of the second wave who returned to the Philippines came from the West Coast. Many more from Hawaii's plantations were able to do so. Those who did return were called Hawayanos. In comparison to those in their Philippine villages, they had a degree of affluence. Filipino American philanthropy aimed mostly to benefit relatives in the Philippines. Filipinos sent funds to their families in Philippine barrios. Several mayors of villages in the Ilocos Norte reported that about $35,000 a month was received through the pension checks of returned Ilocanos workers and from remittances sent by fourth-wave immigrants. During the Marcos regime the Philippine government offered inexpensive airfares and incentives to foster return visits by recent immigrants, who in turn furnished information about life in America and provided money, as had earlier immigrants, to pay taxes, buy land, and finance college education.
While some Americans believed that Filipinos of the second wave were headhunting savages, others feared that they were health hazards because of a meningitis outbreak in the early 1930s. However, the greatest concern came from the attention that these young men lavished on white women. Given that in 1930 the ratio of Filipino males to females was fourteen to one, it was only natural that the men would seek companionship with white women. Young men frequented taxi-dance halls (where white girls, hired to dance with male customers, were paid ten cents for a one minute dance) during the 1920s and 1930s, seeking female companionship. Many white citizens believed that meetings between the young Filipinos and white women, whose morals were assumed to be questionable, led to inappropriate behavior by these men. In addition to these urban dance halls, "floating" taxi-dancers followed the Filipino migrant workers from California's Imperial Valley to the central and coastal valleys. Coupled with white hatred of Filipino attention to white women was an economic motive—the fear of losing jobs to the migrant labor force.
Filipino Americans came from a society where families, composed of paternal and maternal relatives, were the center of their lives. The family provided sustenance, social alliances, and political affiliations. Its social structure extended to include neighbors, fellow workers, and ritual or honorary kinsmen, called compadres. All of these people were welded together by this compadrazgo system. Through this system, which stemmed from the Roman Catholic church's rituals of weddings and baptisms, parents of a newborn child selected godparents, and this in turn led to a lifelong interrelated association. This bound the community together while excluding outsiders. Given the tightly knit villages or barrios, the compadrazgo system created obligations that included sharing food, labor, and financial resources. This system assured the role of the individual and demanded loyalty to the group.
To offset the absence of kin in the Philippines or to compensate for the lack of Filipina immigrants, Filipino Americans sought out male relatives and compadres from their barrios to cook, eat, and live together in bunk houses. Thus they formed a surrogate family, known as a kumpang, with the eldest man serving as leader of the "household." In addition, Filipino Americans compensated for the lack of traditional families by observing "life-cycle celebrations" such as baptismals, birthdays, weddings and funerals. These celebrations took on a greater importance than they would have in the Philippines, providing the single Filipino men without relatives in the United States the opportunity to become part of an extended family. Such new customs became an important part of the Filipino American strategy to adapt to the new world and culture in the United States.
A few Filipinos in California married Filipinas or Mexicans, while those living in Hawaii married Filipinas, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, or Portuguese. These women who married Filipinos in mixed marriages came from cultures whose value systems were similar to those of the men. However, large weddings, common in the barrios, did not occur because of the lack of family members. The birth of a child saw the duplication of the compadrazgo system. The rite of baptism gave an opportunity for those of the same barrio to come together for a time of socializing. As many as 200 sponsors might appear to become godparents, but there was not the same sense of obligation as there was in the Philippines. Marriages and funerals were also occasions that brought Filipino Americans together to renew their common ties.
Recent immigrants, unlike the agricultural workers of the 1920s and 1930s, have moved to major metropolitan areas of the United States, finding that urban areas provided better employment opportunities. They came with their families or sent for them after becoming established in the United States. These recent arrivals also brought with them the barrio familial and compadrazgo structures. Having complete families, they found it much easier to maintain traditional relationships. Those in the greater New York area settled in Queens and Westchester County in New York and in Jersey City, Riverdale, and Bergen County in New Jersey. A part of New York City's Ninth Avenue became a Filipino center, with restaurants and small shops catering to Filipinos' needs. Unlike the West Coast, however, there was no identifiable ethnic enclave. Outsiders saw these East Coast Filipinos merely as part of the larger Asian American group. They were largely professionals: bankers, doctors, insurance salesmen, lawyers, nurses, secretaries, and travel agents.
Filipinos have organized community groups representing a wide range of concerns, but the tendency to fragment has made it difficult to present a common front on issues of mutual concern. Organizations may be based upon professions or politics, but most have evolved from a common religion, city or barrio, language, school, or church in the Philippines. In 1980 California had more than 400 cultural and social organizations representing Filipinos.
Second-wave Filipinos in California, finding white society closed to them, organized three major fraternal organizations: Caballeros de Dimas-Alang, Legionairos del Trabajo, and Gran Oriente Filipino (Great Filipino Lodge). The first, organized in 1921, honored Jose Rizal, the Philippine national hero (his pen name while writing revolutionary tracts was Dimas-Alang). This fraternal lodge at one time during the 1930s had 100 chapters throughout the United States and was one of many that commemorated Rizal's execution on Jose Rizal Day, December 30. Legionairos del Trabajo, organized in San Francisco in 1920, originated in the Philippines. Centered in the Bay City, it had about 700 members, some of whom were women. Filipinos established Gran Oriente Filipino in San Francisco in 1924. At one time it had 3,000 members in 46 states and in the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii. All lodges sponsored beauty pageant contests and dances in their various communities. Such pageants continue, and now often include a Mrs. Philippines pageant.
Besides these formal organizations, Filipinos gather with others from their province for ritualistic and religious ceremonies and festivals. Most Filipinos, from the first wave of immigrants, were either nominal or practicing Roman Catholics, and in the United States, they participated in church celebrations. Some Filipinos have, however, become members of evangelical churches.
As second-wave Filipinos grew old and remained in California, various organizations started looking after their welfare. Caballeros de Dimas-Alang, using federal and city agencies, built the Dimas-Alang House in San Francisco to care for elderly and low-income Filipinos. The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee established the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village near Delano for older Filipino field workers. As younger Filipinos worried about the fate of these aging agricultural workers, the organization Pilipino Bayanihan built in 1972 the largest federally funded community located in Stockton; subsequently, branches were built in Tulare County, Cochella, Brawley, and Ventura. Pilipino Bayanihan hoped to fulfill the needs of the unemployed, underemployed, and senior citizens.
The vast majority of Filipino Americans are Roman Catholic, although about five percent are Muslim. Both Roman Catholicism and Islam, however, are heavily influenced by a belief in the intervention of spirits, reminiscent of religious beliefs that existed in the Philippines prior to European and Asian settlement. Because the majority of early Filipino immigrants to the United States were single males, few Catholics attended church with any regularity. Once families began settling in the United States, however, religion became a central component of family and community life.
Second-wave Filipinos came primarily "to get rich quick"—by Philippine standards—and return to their home provinces to live in affluence. Thus their goal was not to adjust to life in the United States but to find high-paying jobs. They faced severe handicaps because of limited education and job skills, inadequate English, and racial prejudice.
Some found ready but low-paying employment as Pacific Coast migratory field hands and cannery workers. Others were employed in the merchant marine, the United States Navy, and Alaska's salmon canneries. Compared to Philippine wages, agricultural workers' pay seemed high. The workers, however, became ensnared in these jobs due to the higher cost of living in the United States. Consequently, many of the young Filipinos grew old in California, unable to fulfill their dream of returning to their homeland.
California agriculture, with its specialty crops, relied on migratory field workers. From the Imperial Valley to the Sacramento Valley, farmers sought cheap field labor to harvest their crops. Filipino and Mexican workers dominated in harvesting asparagus, cantaloupes, citrus fruits, cotton, lettuce, potatoes, strawberries, sugar beets, and tomatoes. Filipinos returned annually to work as members of an organized work gang headed by a padrone who negotiated contracts with growers. The padrone supervised the gang's work and provided housing and meals, charging a fee against wages. These gangs followed the harvest season north from California into Oregon's Hood River Valley and Washington's Wenatchee Valley. As late as the 1950s, Filipinos provided the largest number of migrant workers for western agriculture.
Migrant jobs ended after the harvest season. Filipinos then moved to cities in the late fall and winter in search of employment. But most usually had to return to the fields in the spring. By 1930, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Stockton, and Seattle each had "Little Manilas," as discriminatory real estate covenants restricted Filipinos to congested ghettos. The number living in these racial enclaves varied depending on the time of year, with the population highest in the winter months. A few Filipinos catered to their countrymen's needs—barbershops, grocery stores, pool rooms, dance halls, restaurants, and auto-repair garages. Others found employment in hotel service jobs, working as dishwashers, bellhops, and elevator operators. Some worked in various unskilled restaurant jobs or as houseboys.
Second-generation Filipino Americans, descendants of immigrants of the 1920s and 1930s, worked in unskilled and skilled jobs. California trade unions remained closed to them, keeping them out of many industrial jobs. Second-generation Filipinos in Hawaii found employment on plantations and in the islands' urban centers. Unions there became open to all Asians during the New Deal years. Many who immigrated to the United States after 1970 with limited education entered the unskilled labor market and soon found themselves joining second-generation Filipinos on welfare.
Declining market prices for agricultural produce in the late 1920s and during the Great Depression of the 1930s seriously affected the Filipinos. As migrant workers saw their wages fall lower and lower, they threatened strikes and boycotts. Given the American Federation of Labor's antipathy to non-white workers, minority workers, such as Filipinos, sought to organize ethnic unions. In 1930, an Agricultural Workers Industrial League tried without success to organize all field workers into a single union. California's Monterey County saw two short-lived unions emerge in 1933—the Filipino Labor Supply Association and the Filipino Labor Union.
The Filipino Labor Union, utilizing the National Industry Recovery Act's collective bargaining clause, called on the Salinas Valley lettuce growers to recognize the union. The lettuce workers struck, leading to violence, white vigilante action, and defeat for the workers time and time again. The Filipino labor movement generally failed during the Depression years and well into the 1950s as growers used strikebreakers and court injunctions to quash union activities.
During the 1920s many Filipinos spent summer seasons in salmon canneries in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Again, Filipinos worked in labor gangs under a contractor for seasonal work lasting three or four months. In 1928 there were about 4,000 Filipinos employed in Alaskan canneries but at low wages. Wages remained in dispute each season. This conflict continued until 1957 when Seattle's Local 37 of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) became the sole bargaining voice for cannery workers in California, Oregon, and Washington.
In 1959, the AFL-CIO formed the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to organize grape pickers in California's lower San Joaquin Valley. About the same time, Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). Both unions were ethnically integrated, but Larry Itliong led the largely Filipino AWOC union. Itliong, born in the Philippines in 1914, campaigned during the 1960s to improve the lot of Filipinos and other minorities. Other Filipino union leaders were Philip Vera Cruz, Pete Velasco, and Andrew Imutan.
Both AWOC and NFWA spent their initial energy recruiting members. In 1965, the unions protested the low wages being paid to grape pickers. On September 8, at the height of the picking season, AWOC struck against 35 grape growers in the Delano, Kern County, area. Domestic pickers, including Filipinos and Mexicans, demanded $1.40 an hour plus 20 cents a box. They argued that domestic pickers were receiving $1.20 an hour while Braceros, under a United States Department of Labor order, received $1.40. Chavez's NFWA joined the strike, which lasted for seven months.
In August of 1966 AWOC and NFWA joined forces to end any unnecessary conflict between themselves. The merger resulted in the formation of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC). Some major grape growers recognized this union as the bargaining agent for workers in the vineyards. Itliong was instrumental in securing three contracts with a $2.00 minimum wage for field workers. The battle between the growers and their workers continued as the UFWOC challenged California's agriculture strongholds.
Filipinos were also instrumental in Hawaii's labor union movement. The key figure during the 1920s was Pablo Manlapit (1892-1969), who organized the Filipino Federation of Labor and the Filipino Higher Wage Movement. His organizations ran head long into the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association (HSPA), which refused to meet the Filipinos' demands. This led to a 1920 sugar strike that lasted about six months. To rebuild his union, Manlapit continued to organize Filipinos as they arrived from the Philippines. A second confrontation between Manlapit's followers and plantation owners caused a strike in 1924 which resulted in a bloodbath in Hanapepe, Kauai, where sixteen workers and four policemen were killed. During the 1930s, the Filipinos' ethnic union, Vibora Luviminda, failed to make headway against the powerful HSPA. The ILWU started organizing dock and plantation workers in the 1930s and gained economic and political power after World War II. An important ILWU president was Filipino Carl Damasco. Another key labor leader was Pedro dela Cruz, born in Mindanao. He was a leading spokesman for the workers on the island of Lanai who worked in Dole's pineapple fields.
By 1980, Filipinos constituted 50 percent of the Hawaii branch of the ILWU. Agricultural workers were not the only union members; Filipinos also formed 40 percent of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers' Union.
Many of those Filipinos arriving during the 1970s and after created a "brain drain" for the Philippines. By 1980, the Philippines had replaced all European countries as the leading foreign provider of accountants, engineers, nurses, physicians, teachers, and technical workers. It is noteworthy that the Philippines have had a higher number of college and university graduates per capita than any other country. In the early 1970s, one-third of all immigrants seeking licensure in the United States were Filipino, and many found employment easy to obtain. Such was often not the case for physicians, pharmacists, dentists, lawyers, and teachers. These professionals ran into the highly protective bureaucratic screens that had been enacted by western state legislatures in earlier years. A Filipino dentist, who had served in the United States Navy for eight years, found it took him three years to gain a California license. A physician, licensed in the Philippines in 1954, had been in practice for 16 years before moving to Hawaii, where he was denied a license and forced to take a job as a janitor in a drive-in restaurant. He eventually found employment as a meat cutter. His employer thought he "was very good at separating the meat from the bone." Those professionals who settled in eastern and middle states found it easier to start careers because these states had less stringent laws or had reciprocity agreements.
By the 1990s, with affirmative action and equal opportunity programs, the lot of Filipino American professionals improved greatly, and they were able to employ their talents in the skills for which they were trained. Doctors and nurses found ready employment once they gained certification. In most urban areas with a high concentration of Filipino businessmen, Filipino chambers of commerce were organized. The purpose of such organizations was to stimulate business, but these chambers also provided support groups for small businessmen.
During the Depression years, discrimination against Filipinos led to efforts by exclusionists to bar further emigration from the Philippines. Some Filipino organizations, concerned about the economic hardships confronting their fellow countrymen, suggested a program of repatriation to the Philippines. Several members of Congress tried to enact a repatriation measure, but did not gain much support until Representative Richard Welch of San Francisco introduced his repatriation bill. This bill provided that the federal government would pay repatriation expenses of those wishing to return to the Philippines. These repatriates could only return to the United States as one of the annual quota of 50 immigrants. When this program ended in 1940, 2,190 of the 45,000 Filipinos living in the United States had elected to be repatriated. Many who took this opportunity for free transportation across the Pacific were university graduates who had already planned to return to assume leadership roles in the Philippines.
Repatriation did not satisfy California's exclusionists, who attempted to demonstrate that Filipinos were taking scarce jobs. However, Los Angeles County reported that of the 12,000 Filipinos who lived in the county in 1933, 75 percent could not find work. At the time, they were not eligible for federal relief programs. During the Depression, not only did Filipinos face legal discrimination in obtaining licenses to practice their professions, but they found that restrictive housing covenants prohibited them from living where they wished. During the New Deal era, Filipinos registered for relief projects only to be denied positions by the Civil Works Administration. In 1937, the United States Attorney General restated that Filipinos were American nationals and thus eligible for employment on Works Progress Administration projects. However, they could not receive preference because they were not citizens.
Filipinos found that miscegenation laws denied them the right to marry white women. In 1901, the California legislature had enacted a law forbidding whites to marry blacks, Mongolians, or mulattos. In the early 1930s, California Attorney General U. S. Webb ruled that Filipinos were Mongolians, but since his opinion did not have the force of law, it was up to each of the 58 county clerks to make his/her interpretation as to the racial origin of Filipinos. By 1936, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington had enacted laws prohibiting marriages between Filipinos and whites. Consequently, white women became common-law wives. In 1948, the California Supreme Court ruled in Perez v. Sharp that the miscegenation law violated individual civil rights, thus freeing Filipinos to marry whomever they pleased.
During World War I, some Filipinos enlisted in the United States Navy and the Marine Corps. Men who had served three years and had received an honorable discharge could apply for American citizenship, and several did so. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines in 1941, which triggered America's involvement in World War II, Filipinos tried to volunteer for military service and/or work in defense factories. Existing law had no provisions to enlist nationals, thus denying Filipinos employment in war industries. However, given the need for Army personnel, Secretary of War Henry Stimson on February 19, 1942, announced the formation of the First Filipino Infantry Battalion, which began training at Camp San Luis Obispo in California. It was activated on April 1, 1942, but in July the Army reformed the unit as the First Filipino Regiment. A few weeks later, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order that opened the way for Filipinos to work in government and in war industries. He also ordered a change in the draft law, reclassifying Filipinos from 4-C to 1-A, making them eligible for Army service.
The First Filipino Regiment, after training in several California Army posts, transferred to Camp Beale near Marysville, California. The citizenship of the troops remained a major issue. On February 20, 1943, Army officers on Camp Beale's parade grounds administered the oath of allegiance, granting citizenship to 1,000 Filipinos. Many in the First Regiment believed that citizenship gave them the right to marry their common-law wives, thus providing family allowances and making these women their federal insurance beneficiaries. An appeal of the miscegenation law fell upon deaf ears, leading the regimental chaplain and the Red Cross to obtain emergency leaves so that couples could travel to New Mexico to become legally married before the regiment went overseas.
A second Army unit, the Second Filipino Infantry Battalion, was formed in October 1942 and reorganized in March 1944, training at Camp Cooke, California. This battalion and the First Infantry were sent to Australia and fought in New Guinea before landing in the southern Philippines. The First Infantry Regiment also went to Australia and then to New Guinea. They fought in Mindanao, the Visayan Islands, and northern Luzon. From the First Infantry Regiment came the First Reconnaissance Battalion, organized in 1944, to undertake pre-invasion intelligence in Luzon. Some 1,000 went ashore from submarines to work undercover as civilians.
The First Filipino Infantry Regiment earned the prestige of fighting bravely and with honor, closely paralleling the record of the more widely known Japanese American 442 Regimental Combat Team. At the war's end, 555 soldiers returned to the United States, 500 of whom reenlisted; 800 of the regiment remained in the Philippines. Altogether, more than 7,000 Filipinos served in the United States Army.
The United States Navy began early to recruit Filipinos in the Philippines, Hawaii, and the mainland. By the end of World War I, about 6,000 Filipinos had served in the Navy or the Marine Corps. During the 1920s and 1930s, enlistments totaled about 4,000. However, the only billet open to these men was mess steward, for the Navy had determined during World War I that this was the best assignment for Filipinos. During World War II, the Navy continued its mess-boy policy and denied these men the opportunity to secure other ratings and privileges.
In 1970, over 14,000 Filipinos served in the Navy. Most had sea duty as personal valets, cabin boys, and dishwashers. Captains and admirals had Filipino stewards assigned directly to them. Others worked at the White House, the Pentagon, the United States Naval Academy, and at naval bases. At the same, the Navy discovered that its ships' galleys had become "Filipino ghettos." The Navy then provided opportunities for a few to train for other ratings. Some 1,600 Filipinos gained new assignments. The Navy continued to recruit mess stewards in the Philippines. Of the some 17,000 Filipinos in the Navy in 1970, 13,600 were stewards. Those in the Navy did not complain quite as much as did outsiders. The steward's entry-level pay of $1,500 equalled the salary of a lieutenant colonel in the Philippine Army. Naval service was an important way for Philippine nationals to gain American citizenship.
James Misahon was a prominent administrator at the University of Hawaii and served as the chairperson of the 1969 Governor's Statewide Conference on Immigration in Hawaii. Many other Filipinos are active in public and higher education.
Two prominent authors of earlier years were Manuel Buaken, who wrote I Have Lived with the American People and Carlos Bulosan, author of America Is in the Heart.
Several Filipinos have entered politics and won election to office. Those in Hawaii have had the most success, in part because of large Filipino enclaves and because of their strength in the ILWU, a strong arm of the Democratic Party in Hawaii. In 1954, the Democratic Party gained control of the legislature and won the governorship in 1962; Democrats have controlled Hawaii's politics ever since. Between 1954 and the winning of statehood in 1959, three Filipinos were elected to the House of Representatives. Peter Aduja, born in Ilocos Sur, received his education in Hilo, Hawaii, and graduated from the University of Hawaii before completing his law degree at Boston University. He was elected to one term in 1955 but was defeated in his bid for a second term. After statehood, Aduja was elected to three terms, starting in 1966. Bernaldo D. Bicoy, another of the five Filipino lawyers in the Territory of Hawaii, was elected in 1958. He was defeated in 1959 for a seat in the new state senate, but he won election for one term to the House in 1968. The third pioneer Filipino legislator was Pedro dela Cruz of Lanai, a longtime ILWU labor leader who was first elected to the House in 1958 and served 16 years until his defeat in 1974. In his later years in the House, he served as vice speaker. During the 1970s Emilio Alcon and Oliver Lunasco served as representatives from the island of Oahu.
Alfred Laureta became Hawaii's first Filipino director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Born in Hawaii on May 21, 1924, he graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1947 and then received his law degree from Fordham University. Governor John Burns appointed him to the directorship in 1963 and then in 1969 appointed him judge of Hawaii's Circuit Court One. He then became the first federal judge of Filipino ancestry. Since then Benjamin Menor and Mario Ramil were appointed to the Hawaii Supreme Court. In 1999, there were five judges in Hawaii and two in California.
In 1974 Benjamin Menor, born in the Philippines on September 27, 1922, became the first Filipino appointed to the Hawaii State Supreme Court. He migrated to Hawaii in 1930 and graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1950, later earning his law degree from Boston University. After practicing law in Hilo, he served for a time as Hawaii county attorney. In 1962 he was elected to the Hawaii State Senate, becoming the first Filipino in the United States to be elected as a state senator.
Two other Filipino firsts also occurred in Hawaii. In 1975, Eduardo E. Malapit, who had served several terms on the Kauai County Council, was elected mayor of Kauai. In 1990, Benjamin Cayetano, a member of the Hawaii legislature, was elected lieutenant governor of Hawaii.
Only a few Filipinos have achieved political success outside of Hawaii. In California, Maria L. Obrea has served as Los Angeles municipal judge; G. Monty Manibog served as mayor of Monterey Park; Leonard Velasco held the same office in Delano. Glenn Olea was a councilman in the Monterey Bay community of Seaside.
Most American sports enthusiasts remember Roman Gabriel, who gained national recognition as quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams football team.
For a good list of Filipino media, try the Kang & Lee list at http://www.asian.mediaguide.com/filipino/ fm.html .
From the early 1920s to the late 1980s, several Filipino newspapers were published, although their existence was generally short-lived. In Hawaii, the Kauai Filipino News became the Filipino News in 1931. In California, early papers were the Philippine Herald of 1920, the Commonwealth Courier of 1930, and the Philippine Advocate of 1934. In 1930, the Philippine Mail began publishing in Salinas, California. It succeeded the Philippine Independent News, started in Salinas in 1921. The Philippine Mail is still published in Salinas, making it the oldest Filipino newspaper in the United States. Over the years, it has reported news from the Philippines as well as news stories about Filipinos in the United States. In the 1990s, Filipino publications included the Philippine News, printed in South San Francisco, the Filapinas Magazine of San Francisco, and The Philippine Review of Sacramento and Stockton, California.
Bi-weekly newspaper for Filipino communities. Most widely-read periodical for Filipinos in the United States.
Address: Tri-Media Center Building, 4515 Eagle Rock Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90041.
Telephone: (323) 344-3500.
Fax: (323) 344-3501.
Contact: Rene Ciria-Cruz, Editor.
Address: Filipinas Publishing, Inc., 655 Sutter Street, Suite 333, San Francisco, California 94102.
Telephone: (415) 563-5878; or (800) 654-7777.
Online: http://www.filipinasmag.com .
Magazine founded in 1992. Covers Filipino American interests and affairs.
Weekly newspaper for the Filipino community with six U.S. editions.
Contact: Alex A. Esclamado, Publisher.
Address: 371 Allerton Avenue, San Francisco, California 94080.
Telephone: (415) 872-3000; or (800) 432-5877.
Fax: (415) 872-0217.
Online: http://www.philippinenews.com .
Filipino American National Historical Society.
Gathers, maintains, and disseminates Filipino American history.
Contact: Dorothy Cordova, Director.
Address: 810 18th Avenue, Room 100, Seattle, Washington 98122.
Telephone: (206) 322-0203.
Fax: (206) 461-4879.
Asian American Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles; Asian American Studies Department at the University of California, Davis; the Oakland Museum History Department in Oakland, California; and the Social Science Research Institute of Hawaii at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.
Ave, Mario P. Characteristics of Filipino Organizations in Los Angeles. San Francisco: R & E Research Associates, 1974.
Cabezas, Amado, et al. "New Inquiries into the Socioeconomic Status of Pilipino Americans in California," Amerasia Journal, 13, 1986; pp. 1-21.
Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans (Golden State Series). San Francisco: MTL/Boyd & Fraser, 1991.
Dorita, Mary. Filipino Immigration to Hawaii. San Francisco: R & E Research Associates, 1975.
Dunne, John. Delano. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971.
Espiritu, Yen Le. Filipino American Lives. Temple University Press, 1995.
Gamalinda, Rancia and Eric, eds. Flippin: Filipinos on America. Asian American Writers Workshop, 1996.
Lasker, Bruno. Filipino Immigration to the Continental United States and to Hawaii. New York: Arno Press, 1969 (first published in 1931).
Letters in Exile: An Introductory Reader on the History of Pilipinos in America, edited by Jesse Quinsaat. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian Studies Center, 1976.
McWilliams, Carey. Brothers under the Skin, revised edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1951.
Melendy, H. Brett. Asians in America: Filipinos, Koreans and East Indians. New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1981.
Navarro, Jovina. "Immigration of Filipino Women" in Asian American Women. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976.
Okamura, Jonathan. Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora: Transnational Relations, Identities and Communities. Garland, 1998.
Rafael, Vince. Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays on Filipino Culture. Temple University Press, 1995.
Root, Maria, ed. Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity. Sage Publications, 1997.
San Juan, E., Jr. From Exile to Diaspora: Versions of the Filipino Experience in the United States. Westview Press, 1998.
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A Close-Up Look at Worms under the Microscope
In this microscope lesson, we will be performing an interesting simple science experiment and activity using the microscope. First of all, we will be using both a low power and a high power microscope. Unlike some microscope experiments wherein we only have to raid our kitchen for samples, this time we are going to dirty our fingers in obtaining our next sample. We are going to dig for worms as part of our field nature experiment.
First, we are going to look for a tubifex. A tubifex is a thread-like worm that measures from half an inch to one and a half inches in length. They live at the mud floor of ponds. To obtain one, we have to look carefully at the mud on the bottom of the pond. You will notice that there seem to be a red tinge among the brown. If you look at it closely, you will see that these are actually numerous tubifex.
The tubifex builds and lives in a tube. It buries its head inside the tube while its tails sticks up to the surrounding mud. This worm feeds on the decaying organic matter in the bottom of the mud and ejects its waste from its tail.
Let us gather the mud where a tubifex lives and separate it from its habitat. We can observe a tubifex under low power binocular stereo microscope and we will see that the worm is actually colorless and transparent. The bright red hue that we see is due to the worm’s blood. If there are a lot of tubifex gathered together, it will give the mud a colored appearance.
Tubifex are under the same group as earthworms. Like earthworms, they are divided into rings or segments that can be more clearly seen under a simple child microscope. On each segment, we can see a short hair-like bristles that arranged in a single row on the sides of the worm’s body. They also have curved spines that the worms use in locomotion and are called foot spines. These foot spines may be hard to spot because they retract so it is advisable to compress the worm between a microscope slide and it cover slip. If we look at them under a high power compound light microscope, we will see that these foot spines appear to be curved or forked.
There are also aquatic worms that have so many bristles that they are called bristleworms. A species of these is called Nais that are commonly found in mud, algae, or on the leaflets of water plants. Under a low power microscope, they look like yellowish or whitish in color and we can see how the bristles aid it in moving about. Another species that can be observed under a kid microscope is the Dero. The dero measures not more than quarter of an inch and with an end that is broad and looks like a funnel.
There are many more worms that we can observe by using a child microscope. One of the most common ones that we can find over submerged stems and leaves are flatworms. Flatworms belong to the group of Turbellaria because the turbulent lashing of their cilia that is responsible for their movement. In viewing the cilia, however, we will need a high power compound microscope. If we only need to know the impact of the cilia’s movements, a one inch objective lens can be used to observe the currents in the water that is created by the cilia’s motion. We will see small objects being swept away because of the rapid motion.
One of the most common flatworms goes by the name of Planaria. If we look at these leech-like creatures under a student microscope, we will see that they are velvety black in color and with slender bodies. They have broad heads and a pointed tail and measure about a quarter of an inch long. Another kind of tapeworm is the Dendrocoelum. Under a child educational microscope, they look smaller compared to the planaria and have a creamy white color.
These worms are among the many other worms that we can obtain and observe under a child microscope. While they are interesting as well as educational to examine, we have to be reminded that these are still dirty little creatures that can harm our health. Let us remember to wash our hands after the experiment.
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According to the most reliable information obtainable, the first school in
Manistee was taught by Mrs. PARSONS in the year 1852 near CANFIELD's Mill
at the mouth of the Manistee River. But little can now be learned respecting
this pioneer school. It was doubtless a very primitive affair with small
attendance and was supported by private contributions. A short time afterwards
a school house was built on the northwest corner of Spruce and First streets,
where the first public school was established. It was a plain, unpainted,
one room building with crude interior furnishings, such as may still be seen
in some remote country districts. A row of pine board benches ran along the
inner walls with open desks in front. Attached to these was another row of
seats without desks, for the smaller children, who were thus always kept
within easy annoying distance of the older pupils occupying the back seats.
Movable benches without arms or backs were used for recitation purposes.
Some of Manistee's well-known citizens taught in this building.
Mrs. T.J. RAMSDELL had charge of the school in 1861 and for her services
received the munificent sum of twenty-eight dollars per month. Her sister
taught during the following year and it was in the early sixties that T.J.
RAMSDELL taught for a short time. The annual school meeting had voted to
employ a man teacher. It transpired that Mr. Ramsdell was the only available
man in the entire district, so he consented to wield the rod during a three
months' term. Miss TIBBITTS, now Mrs. Dr. FAIRFIELD, also taught here. While
the building was still used for school purposes, the stumps which had been
left underneath when it was built, began to appear above the floor. As stumps
do not grow the presumption is that manistee's first public school house
had not a very durable foundation. The First Congregational church, which
now owns the costliest edifice in the city, was then homeless and held it's
Sunday services and week-day prayer meetings in the little school house.
As political meetings were also held there, it appears that there was once
a time in our history when public education, politics and religion could
dwell amicably together under the same roof. But notwithstanding the fact
that that a private school had meanwhile been established near the present
site of A.O. WHEELER's residence, the little school house at last became
inadequate and on May 10th, 1865, a public meeting was held for the purpose
of selecting a location for a new building. The present site of the Central
school was chosen and a four-room brick building ordered built. The contract
for its construction was afterward let to T.J. RAMSDELL, who completed it
School opened in a new building in 1867 with D. CARLETON as principal. At
that time it was thought that this building would accommodate the children
of the entire city for many years, but in 1870 we find its capacity doubled
by the addition of four more rooms and supplementary schools established
in the first and third wards. A year later a single room building was erected
in the fourth ward near the foot of RIETZ's hill. Charles HURD was then
My intimate acquaintance with the schools began in 1872 when I assumed the
superintendency. They remained in my charge four years, during which time
they were thoroughly organized and graded. The first courses of study, a
uniform set of text books and regulations for the guidance of teachers and
pupils were adopted and printed, and in 1874 the first annual report containing
complete and useful statistics was published in pamphlet form and gratuitously
distributed among the school patrons. Music, as a district branch of study,
was introduced into the schools in 1873. Mrs. D.H. BUTLER was the first special
music teacher. This was about the time of the great temperance crusade which
resulted in materially increasing the library fund. About five hundred dollars
were invested in books which was the beginning of the school library. Frequent
additions were made until at the time of its destruction by fire it numbered
over 2,000 volumes. High school courses of study were adopted in 1874 and
the first pupils graduated in 1879. There were only two in the graduating
class, viz. Nora B. BULLIS and Kittie P. EDINGTON. Upon my retirement Charles
HURD again became superintendent, retaining the position two years. He was
succeeded by David BEMISS, who was followed in 1881 by Webster COOK, who
remained four years, then Mr. GILLETT had charge for one year, which takes
us to Mr. JENNING's administration.
There are now nearly four times as many pupils and six and one-half times
as many teachers as in 1874, and the amount paid the high school teachers
alone is greater than the total received by the entire corps of teachers
twenty-five years ago. Truly we have grown, but growth has been so quiet
and gradual that we only realize its extent when confronted with strong contrasts
between periods separated by years of time. Since the erection of the 4-room
building in the second ward in 1866 our capacity has increased sixteen-fold.
Every new building or addition has seemed to be the last, yet the demand
still is for more room. Passing the quarter century in review we are reminded
of some critical periods through which our schools have passed. The great
temperance movement in the early seventies threatened to invade them, but
the god judgment and continued firmness of those in authority preserved their
non-partisanship and carried them safely through that memorable struggle.
The religious contest of later years seemed still more threatening but was
finally settled without materially interfering with the progress of the schools.
On the whole the people have reason to rejoice over the past and present
prosperity and good management of the schools and should continue to heartily
support those having them in charge.
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Imagine you were a very clever ant, living on a large log, floating in a big lake…
…a very large, deep, cold lake.
Being a not incurious, clever ant, you contemplate the lake in its infinite and insurmountable vastness.
Surely knowing what lies on the lake, or even beyond the lake (if such can be conceived) is not feasible.
Then, you notice that the lake has ripples.
Ripples, and waves, and swirls.
So, being a methodical sort of ant, you start measuring the ripples and waves and swirls, and you get your student ants to measure them also.
You measure lots of waves, very very carefully.
Being a very clever ant, you realise that you can figure out something about the lake!
For example, you realise that while it is a very deep lake, it is not infinitely deep.
In fact you can, eg by measuring some of the swirls, and where the waves break, figure there are shallows in some parts of the lake.
You can also measure your drift speed in the lake, relative to some arbitrary standard of rest for the bulk water.
You then make a tremendous discovery: the lake has a boundary!
It is as if you are on a great circular lake, surrounded by steep hard cliffs.
The waves bring you information from the edge of the lake!
Oh, you also, incidentally, discover from the bends in the ripples on the lake, that there are other floating logs and structures on the lake, far away, but much closer than the edge.
That could be useful.
Surely this is it. There can be no more known.
Even the most diligent student ant could never swim to the edge of the lake to explore the cliff, it is too far. They’d barely make it to the nearest floating log. By the time they got back their advisor would be retired, their candidacy stale, a caution on their matriculation.
They’d never get to be doctor ants.
No point swimming those waters…?
But, then you realise that very very very careful measurements of lots more ripples and waves and swirls might, just might, tell you something about the cliffs!
The cliffs themselves will interact with the water waves differently depending on the height, and slope and composition of the cliff stuff. Why, the cliffs themselves might propagate internal waves which interact with the lake waves, carrying information about what, if anything, lies beyond the cliff edge.
So you send your best observant to the quietest most isolated tip of the log, and have them listen to the ripples and waves and swirls for a long long time.
And, you find that, indeed, the subtlest swirls of the the waves do in fact tell you something about the cliffs: they are tall cliffs, but they are not infinitely tall; they appear to plateau and extend back for a considerable distance, but, if you measure carefully, there is, maybe, a hint of a rise to mountains in those hinterlands, taller than the cliffs, but not infinitely so.
Maybe the lake came from waters that flowed when the snow in those mountains melted a long time ago, as once conjectured by a wise theorant.
There is something beyond the lake!
This opens up a new world of speculation for even the most conservative doctor ants: maybe, just maybe, beyond those mountains, are other lows in the landscape, holding other lakes!
Big lakes, small lakes.
Round lakes, lochs, lakes through which rivers flow onto other lakes, lakes of all sorts of varied shapes and even different chemistries, and, perhaps, even oceans.
And on those various other lakes and rivers and seas, there might be other log-like things floating along, and, perhaps, on some of those logs are clever little ant-like creatures watching the ripples and waves and swirls in the waters and wondering if there are, anywhere else, other ants sitting on their logs, watching the ripples and waves and swirls in their waters.
The ants’ world just got a lot bigger.
Of Particular Significance… – good blog analysis of BICEP2 results
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Asylum seeker and refugee support
In most countries a person must apply for asylum before they are recognised as a refugee. An asylum seeker is someone who arrives in a new country and makes an asylum application. It is then up to the Government to decide if their claim meets the definition of a refugee, as below.
The 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees defines a refugee as someone who has fled their country due to 'a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion'.
Hampshire has relatively few refugee families. This means that many of them are isolated and very vulnerable. Schools will need to be flexible in their approach and provide a planned induction programme. This may be in conjunction with Hampshire Social Care if the child concerned is unaccompanied.
Please note that government law and guidance regarding asylum seekers and refugees is under constant review
Support available from EMTAS
Hampshire EMTAS can
provide detailed guidance on asylum seeker/refugee issues including immigration, admission to schools/colleges, teaching and learning, pastoral advice, resources, useful contacts.
provide a bilingual assistant to translate or interpret.
give you practical teaching support, including an early profiling assessment of the pupil's previous education and current achievement levels to enable early and correct placement.
provide advice on the best course of action regarding GCSE choices/other courses when admitting pupils into Year 10 or Year 11.
provide in-class support for the child/young person.
provide training for school staff.
Hampshire EMTAS and the Virtual School for Children in Care have jointly produced a set of Frequently-Asked Questions 428 kB in relation to Asylum-Seeking children and young people. Download the document.
Entitlement to compulsory education
Children/young people who are asylum seekers or refugees have the right to free education. This includes young people aged 16-19 who are entitled to attend school sixth forms or Further Education(FE) colleges.
Schools must by law treat any application from a child/young person seeking asylum in the same way as any other application. The fact that the child/young person may speak little or no English does not matter.
Free school meals
If your family has been issued with vouchers from the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) then your child is entitled to free school meals (and milk, where provided).
Schools may be able to provide you with some school uniform items for your child.
At the discretion of Hampshire Local Education Authority school uniform grants may be available.
Please ask the school to obtain a bilingual dictionary for use in school.
If you have a problem or are worried about your child's education, please speak to the class teacher or form tutor.
Continue to use your own language at home. Children who speak their first language well will become better speakers and users of English. Talk to your child about their lessons. This will help your child to understand more.
Information for unaccompanied children and young people
You can listen to sections of the 'Welcome to Hampshire' booklet being read aloud in English.
Asylum process introduction
Asylum process screening
Asylum process first meeting
Asylum process interview
Asylum process decision
Asylum process appeal
Working in the UK
Sport and recreation facilities
Contacting family and friends
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A Viable Alternative in Electric Power Production
Caterpillar offers durable and reliable solutions for the use of biogas. The initial investment can yield significant long-range savings, in addition to being environmentally responsible. Biogas, which is derived as a byproduct of many agricultural, food processing and industrial processes, is used today as a fuel source for engine generators.
By tapping into biogas resources with proven Caterpillar technology, agricultural biogas and industrial biogas projects result in the:
- Reduction of carbon emissions through the destruction of naturally occurring methane
- Reclamation of valuable land space normally utilized for purifying organic wastewater
- Elimination of odor and pest issues that are caused by the decomposition of organic material
How It Works
Consisting primarily of methane and carbon dioxide, biogas is produced through the anaerobic decomposition of organic waste. Instead of allowing uncontrolled decomposition of these wastes and the release of gases into the atmosphere, they are contained in an oxygen-deprived environment such as a covered lagoon or aboveground steel tank. From there, methane is extracted and burned to generate electricity or heat.
Because of the impurities and inconsistencies in biogas, pretreatment is generally required. However, using a gas engine specifically designed to operate on biogas can reduce the amount of investment in pretreatment. Cat® low-energy fuel generator sets are engineered to handle fuel with variations in methane content typical of biogas operations.
Cat biogas engines typically include:
- A crankcase ventilation pump to eject potentially acidic blow-by gases
- Specially designed aftercooler cores, cylinder heads, main bearings and connecting rod bearings that are hardened against corrosive elements
- Differentiated cooling systems to operate at elevated jacket water temperatures to prevent condensation of contaminants
Cat switchgear with PLC based controls is supplied to parallel the generator to the local electrical grid to export renewable power at a premium to the local electric utility. For more remote installations, the power produced can be consumed by the facilities on site.
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Why did the City create a Stormwater Management Utility?
The City of Santa Cruz is required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Water Resources to address water pollution associated with stormwater runoff from streets and properties in the City. Studies indicate that stormwater runoff is a major contributor of pollutants to the San Lorenzo River and Monterey Bay. In addition to pollution control requirements, the City faces significant flood control commitments for the San Lorenzo River Flood Control Project.
The City created the Stormwater Management Utility and established utility fees to help pay for the City's share of costs for flood control projects and stormwater pollution prevention. Total costs to implement the San Lorenzo Flood Control Project are estimated at over $66 million, shared between the federal government, state and City, with the City's share of costs estimated at around $4.4 million. These costs include the reconstruction of four bridges, levee raising, river landscaping, and the Laurel Street Extension/Third Avenue Riverbank Stabilization Project. Estimated costs for stormwater pollution abatement are over $650,000 per year.
How does the City address stormwater pollution?
The City implements programs to monitor stormwater for pollutants, improve stormwater system maintenance, and provide educational activities to individuals, businesses and agencies impacting stormwater. The City has a Stormwater Ordinance that establishes standards for keeping stormwater clean. Best management practices for specific areas such as retail, industrial, and construction activities were developed and are codified by the Stormwater Ordinance. These activities support the goal of the City to minimize the pollutants from the City storm drain system entering Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Stormwater utility fees and Clean River, Beaches and Ocean tax (Measure E) funds pay for these activities.
What is the Citywide Stormwater Management Fee?
A stormwater management fee is charged to each property within the Santa Cruz city limits. The stormwater fee is based on the average stormwater runoff from various land use types within the City and on property size. Property land uses which have a high percentage of area covered by buildings and pavement generate more stormwater runoff than vacant land or uses with less coverage. Therefore those properties with more impermeable area are charged a higher user rate per acre.
Parcels with single-family residences are charged a flat amount of $21.24. All other rates are based on acreage. A vacant parcel is charged at $5.28 per acre. An average commercial parcel would be charged around $85 per year, based on the $261.09/acre rate. Citywide fees fund stormwater pollution reduction programs and the City's share of bridge improvements on the San Lorenzo River.
City Stormwater Management utility fees are billed on the property tax statements mailed by the Santa Cruz County Tax Collector. The fees should be paid with property taxes. Fees collected by the County are then turned over to the City.
What will the Flood Levee Improvement Project do?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the City of Santa Cruz have agreed to jointly fund a project to raise the height of the San Lorenzo River levees from one to five feet, depending on location, and to restore riparian habitat along the levees. The San Lorenzo River Flood Control and Restoration Improvements project has been in the works since 1978, and has cost over $22 million. The City's share of this cost is $1.1 million.
The improvements will be built in several phases depending on Congressional funding. Congress approved $4.8 million in the Fiscal Year 2000 federal budget and construction of Phase I began in August, 1999. Phase I of the project extends from Highway 1 to Water Street and Soquel Avenue Bridge to Riverside Bridge. A small section of the levee was raised in 1998 near Highway 1 behind the new Gateway Shopping Center. Phase II covers Water Street to Soquel and Riverside to the River mouth, and construction is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2000. The State Legislature in 2000 passed legislation authorizing State assistance to the project. This assistance will cover a large percentage of the required City share of the Corps portion of the project.
A second part of this project was replacement of the Riverside Avenue Bridge, the northern two lanes of Water Street Bridge, the Soquel Avenue Bridge, and retrofit of the Broadway/Laurel Bridge. The new structures are higher and allow freer flow of flood waters. Bridge construction is funded by a separate Federal program and the City's share has been financed from the citywide stormwater fees, since all City residents benefit from the improved bridges.
The third part of the project is the Laurel Street Extension/Third Street Riverbank Stabilization. This project constructed a natural rock form wall along this section of the river to prevent the collapse of these streets into the river. Vegetation will be planted along the toe of the wall adjacent to the river to provide shade for fish and other wildlife. The project cost $6.2 million and the City's share after federal and state assistance was $120,000.
The primary purpose of the project is to reduce flood damage and loss within the City of Santa Cruz 100-year floodplain. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the December 1955 flood caused over $40 million in damage. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that today a 100-year flood in the downtown area would cause $86 million in damage.
Which properties are affected by levee improvements? All parcels which lie within the 100-year flood plain of the San Lorenzo River within the Santa Cruz city limits receive increased flood protection from the levee improvements. About 1600 parcels lie within the floodplain.
What are the flood insurance benefits to affected parcels?
Most properties within the 100-year floodplain are required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to purchase flood insurance. Annual premiums for a single-family home range from $200 to $300. In 2002, FEMA recognized that the levees are already providing increased flood protection and granted an interim A99 flood zone designation to most parcels in the 100-year floodplain. This designation allows flood insurance premiums to be reduced by 40%. Property owners can get more information on this change on the City website under Flood Insurance Premium Reduction or by contacting their insurance agent. Once the river levee is completely finished, the City will apply to FEMA to have the 100-year floodplain boundry revised. This should remove the FEMA flood insurance requirements for these properties. Most property owners will save money when this happens; they will pay less in annual stormwater fees for the levee project than they now pay for flood insurance premiums.
What is the flood levee improvement fee?
Those parcels which lie within the 100-year floodplain are charged a stormwater utility fee to pay the City's share of the flood levee project. This fee is in addition to the existing citywide stormwater utility fee which is financing bridge improvements and citywide floor management issues. Both fees were approved by the City Council in 1994. The fees are based on the average amount of stormwater runoff for the various land uses and on parcel size.
|Land Use Type||Rate|
|Vacant land||$ 21.85/acre|
|Single-family parcel||$ 87.86/year|
|Commercial parcel||$ 1,079.50/acre|
The City Flood Levee Improvements utility fees are billed on the property tax statements mailed by the Santa Cruz County Tax Collector. The fees should be paid along with annual property taxes. Fees collected by the County are turned over to the City.
For more information contact:
Public Works Principal Management Analyst
City of Santa Cruz Public Works Department
809 Center Street, Room 201
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
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19 August 2013 The Truth about the Texas Lizard “Conservation” Plan Posted by: Ya-Wei Li | 22 comments Ya-Wei Li, Policy Advisor, Endangered Species Conservation Crane County, Texas is a land peppered with oil and gas wells, connected by arteries of pipelines and dirt roads. It’s one of the top counties for oil and gas production in Texas. It’s also where the dunes sagebrush lizard is trying to persist amidst all the mayhem. Last June, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service decided that it no longer needed to list the lizard under the Endangered Species Act, partly because it had signed a conservation plan (called the Texas Habitat Conservation Plan) for the lizard with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Earlier this year, we explained why the plan can’t protect the lizard. For one reason, it doesn’t describe how landowners will protect the species from oil and gas development, off-road vehicle use and other activities that can squish lizards. Without this information, the Service has absolutely no idea whether the plan will live up to its promises. The Comptroller certainly believes it will. Ever since it signed the plan in April 2012, it’s been reporting every month to the Service that not a single acre of enrolled habitat has been disturbed. That’s right, nothing across over 138,640 acres in some of the most productive oil and gas counties in Texas. Sound too good to be true? We thought so too, so we launched our own investigation. My colleague, Andy Shepard, and I compared aerial images taken immediately after an area was enrolled in the Texas plan, with images taken four and then thirteen months later. What we discovered were multiple instances of habitat destruction that the Comptroller was required to report to the Service, but never did. We’re talking about new oil drilling pads, dirt roads and land clearings. You can see all the before and after images in our newly-released report and supplemental presentation, which show the images in higher quality. As an example, the images below show three oil well pads, each about 400 feet wide, created after the plan went into effect. ©Defenders of Wildlife ©Defenders of Wildlife A website that collects Texas oil and gas permitting information (www.texas-drilling.com/crane-county) places a red dot on all the areas in Crane County with recently issued oil and gas drilling permits. As expected, a dot appears over each of these well pads. Only a few hundred feet away, we found more new oil pads and roads that apparently don’t exist – at least, according to the Comptroller they don’t. The story gets even better. You might be wondering how the Comptroller keeps track of which areas are destroyed by oil and gas development. A non-profit organization called the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation was created to collect and report this information to the Comptroller, and to administer other crucial parts of the Texas Plan. As it turns out, however, this so-called “conservation” foundation is directed solely by lobbyists for the Texas Oil and Gas Association. Legally, every time oil and gas developers disturb lizard habitat, they are required to pay a fee under the Texas plan to offset the impacts of their development activity. If no disturbance is reported, then there are no fees to pay. It’s hard not to suspect a conflict of interest here. Dune sagebrush lizard (©Mark L. Watson) Monetary suspicions aside, without knowing how much habitat is destroyed, the Service can’t effectively ensure that the lizard is protected. Under the Texas plan, habitat destruction is capped at one percent of the total habitat for the species within the first three years. If this limit is exceeded, the Service will likely have to reconsider listing the lizard. But without a system to verify the Comptroller’s claims about habitat disturbance, the Service might not know if and when this one percent limit is exceeded. We hope our investigation sends a signal far and wide that conservation plans like this one where the Service is completely in the dark about plan compliance simply don’t work. At the most basic level, a plan shouldn’t leave the public or the Service in the dark about how it will protect a species – especially if the plan is used as an excuse to avoid listing an imperiled species. And if a plan relies on self-reporting, it shouldn’t be performed solely by lobbyists for the industry that poses the greatest threat to the species. Fortunately, tools like GIS mapping allow us to shed light on some of the darkest corners of how states try to avoid listing an endangered species. Ya-Wei Li, Director of Endangered Species Conservation Ya-Wei (Jake) is an environmental lawyer who specializes in endangered species law, policy, and science. He focuses on improving how the Endangered Species Act is implemented, so that it becomes more effective and efficient at conserving wildlife.
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Over the Holiday season, Santa Claus sees his face plastered around the world, from commercials for Coca-Cola in the U.S, to reprising his role as Dun Che Lao Ren, or ‘Christmas Old Man,’ in China. But did Santa Claus even exist? KPCC’s Patt Morrison spoke with Adam C. English, author of ‘The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus: The True Life and Trials of Nicholas of Myra’ to find out how Saint Nicholas was transformed into a worldwide phenomenon.
It’s difficult to think of Christmas without thinking about Santa Claus: the plump, white-bearded jolly man in a red suit, who brings gifts to well-behaved kids on his reindeer-led sleigh. But the story behind the real Santa Claus isn’t quite so refined.
Santa Claus is an interpretation of sorts of St. Nicholas, an actual Saint and Greek Bishop with a remarkable story. In his new book The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus, Adam C. English pulls together an historical portrait, based on documents, archaeology, and legend, of a charitable bishop with a passion for social justice, and an important role in perhaps Christianity’s most important period: the conversion of the Roman Empire.
St. Nicholas served as the Bishop of Myra, in present-day Turkey, and was renowned for his commitment to the impoverished citizens of his town. The legend of Santa Claus and his gifts derived from Nicholas giving away his possessions to impoverished families. St. Nicholas was also involved in critical historical events that saw Christianity emerge as a dominant world religion. He played a key role in the destroying the temple of Artemis in Myra, a pivotal event looking to erase Rome’s pagan past and cement its Christian future. He also attended the Council of Nicaea, one of the seminal events in early Christianity, and the birthplace of the Nicene Creed.
This interview originally aired on KPCC's Take Two
St. Nicholas as an activist:
“That was some of the most surprising bits for me to discover, to really sort of reshape the jolly elf of generosity that we’ve come to imagine him to be, and to see that he was also a man of public action. Yes, there are stories about him stopping the beheading of three innocent men, and him going all the way to the capitol to petition for lower taxes, and stopping grain ships to barter for grain for the starving people of Myra. So he worked for the people, and did much more than simply give gifts.”
The reasons for St. Nicholas' early popularity:
“Some of the earliest stories about Nicholas tell him getting on board ships with the sailors, rolling up his sleeves, and going to work, helping with the oars and the ropes. And so he was immensely popular with them. I think that’s one of the reasons for the early spread of his story and his fame. Sailors are taking icons and images and statues, and of course stories, with them up rivers and across seas, and everywhere they’re going, of course, they’re telling the stories of St. Nicholas. So very quickly he becomes a very popular saint throughout Europe.”
Adam English on his hopes of the impact of St. Nicholas:
“My real hope is that learning more about St. Nicholas really enriches our own family and Santa Claus traditions. I don’t want to simply say no to Santa Claus, but I really want to say yes to St. Nicholas. What Nicholas does, is challenge us to broaden our horizons. The Santa Claus traditions of gift giving focus on our immediate, intimate family. What St. Nicholas does, and what families do by bringing St. Nicholas into the home, is to broaden beyond the walls of the family. St. Nicholas gave to those whom he did not know, and did not love, those in the most need, and that is really something that can be added into family celebrations of Christmas, giving gifts not only to their family members whom they know and love, but to those who are in need whom they do not know.”
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