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How does it come about that alongside of the idea of ponderable matter, which is derived by abstraction from everyday life, the physicists set the idea of the existence of another kind of matter, the ether? The explanation is probably to be sought in those phenomena which have given rise to the theory of action at a distance, and in the properties of light which have led to the undulatory theory. Let us devote a little while to the consideration of these two subjects.
Outside of physics we know nothing of action at a distance. When we try to connect cause and effect in the experiences which natural objects afford us, it seems at first as if there were no other mutual actions than those of immediate contact, e.g. the communication of motion by impact, push and pull, heating or inducing combustion by means of a flame, etc. It is true that even in everyday experience weight, which is in a sense action at a distance, plays a very important part. But since in daily experience the weight of bodies meets us as something constant, something not linked to any cause which is variable in time or place, we do not in everyday life speculate as to the cause of gravity, and therefore do not become conscious of its character as action at a distance. It was Newton's theory of gravitation that first assigned a cause for gravity by interpreting it as action at a distance, proceeding from masses. Newton's theory is probably the greatest stride ever made in the effort towards the causal nexus of natural phenomena. And yet this theory evoked a lively sense of discomfort among Newton's contemporaries, because it seemed to be in conflict with the principle springing from the rest of experience, that there can be reciprocal action only through contact, and not through immediate action at a distance.
It is only with reluctance that man's desire for knowledge endures a dualism of this kind. How was unity to be preserved in his comprehension of the forces of nature? Either by trying to look upon contact forces as being themselves distant forces which admittedly are observable only at a very small distance and this was the road which Newton's followers, who were entirely under the spell of his doctrine, mostly preferred to take; or by assuming that the Newtonian action at a distance is only apparently immediate action at a distance, but in truth is conveyed by a medium permeating space, whether by movements or by elastic deformation of this medium. Thus the endeavour toward a unified view of the nature of forces leads to the hypothesis of an ether. This hypothesis, to be sure, did not at first bring with it any advance in the theory of gravitation or in physics generally, so that it became customary to treat Newton's law of force as an axiom not further reducible. But the ether hypothesis was bound always to play some part in physical science, even if at first only a latent part.
When in the first half of the nineteenth century the far-reaching similarity was revealed which subsists between the properties of light and those of elastic waves in ponderable bodies, the ether hypothesis found fresh support. It appeared beyond question that light must be interpreted as a vibratory process in an elastic, inert medium filling up universal space. It also seemed to be a necessary consequence of the fact that light is capable of polarisation that this medium, the ether, must be of the nature of a solid body, because transverse waves are not possible in a fluid, but only in a solid. Thus the physicists were bound to arrive at the theory of the "quasi-rigid" luminiferous ether, the parts of which can carry out no movements relatively to one another except the small movements of deformation which correspond to light-waves.
This theory - also called the theory of the stationary luminiferous ether - moreover found a strong support in an experiment which is also of fundamental importance in the special theory of relativity, the experiment of Fizeau, from which one was obliged to infer that the luminiferous ether does not take part in the movements of bodies. The phenomenon of aberration also favoured the theory of the quasi-rigid ether.
The development of the theory of electricity along the path opened up by Maxwell and Lorentz gave the development of our ideas concerning the ether quite a peculiar and unexpected turn. For Maxwell himself the ether indeed still had properties which were purely mechanical, although of a much more complicated kind than the mechanical properties of tangible solid bodies. But neither Maxwell nor his followers succeeded in elaborating a mechanical model for the ether which might furnish a satisfactory mechanical interpretation of Maxwell's laws of the electro-magnetic field. The laws were clear and simple, the mechanical interpretations clumsy and contradictory. Almost imperceptibly the theoretical physicists adapted themselves to a situation which, from the standpoint of their mechanical programme, was very depressing. They were particularly influenced by the electro-dynamical investigations of Heinrich Hertz. For whereas they previously had required of a conclusive theory that it should content itself with the fundamental concepts which belong exclusively to mechanics (e.g. densities, velocities, deformations, stresses) they gradually accustomed themselves to admitting electric and magnetic force as fundamental concepts side by side with those of mechanics, without requiring a mechanical interpretation for them. Thus the purely mechanical view of nature was gradually abandoned. But this change led to a fundamental dualism which in the long-run was insupportable. A way of escape was now sought in the reverse direction, by reducing the principles of mechanics to those of electricity, and this especially as confidence in the strict validity of the equations of Newton's mechanics was shaken by the experiments with b-rays and rapid cathode rays.
This dualism still confronts us in unextenuated form in the theory of Hertz, where matter appears not only as the bearer of velocities, kinetic energy, and mechanical pressures, but also as the bearer of electromagnetic fields. Since such fields also occur in vacuo - i.e. in free ether-the ether also appears as bearer of electromagnetic fields. The ether appears indistinguishable in its functions from ordinary matter. Within matter it takes part in the motion of matter and in empty space it has everywhere a velocity; so that the ether has a definitely assigned velocity throughout the whole of space. There is no fundamental difference between Hertz's ether and ponderable matter (which in part subsists in the ether).
The Hertz theory suffered not only from the defect of ascribing to matter and ether, on the one hand mechanical states, and on the other hand electrical states, which do not stand in any conceivable relation to each other; it was also at variance with the result of Fizeau's important experiment on the velocity of the propagation of light in moving fluids, and with other established experimental results.
Such was the state of things when H A Lorentz entered upon the scene. He brought theory into harmony with experience by means of a wonderful simplification of theoretical principles. He achieved this, the most important advance in the theory of electricity since Maxwell, by taking from ether its mechanical, and from matter its electromagnetic qualities. As in empty space, so too in the interior of material bodies, the ether, and not matter viewed atomistically, was exclusively the seat of electromagnetic fields. According to Lorentz the elementary particles of matter alone are capable of carrying out movements; their electromagnetic activity is entirely confined to the carrying of electric charges. Thus Lorentz succeeded in reducing all electromagnetic happenings to Maxwell's equations for free space.
As to the mechanical nature of the Lorentzian ether, it may be said of it, in a somewhat playful spirit, that immobility is the only mechanical property of which it has not been deprived by H A Lorentz. It may be added that the whole change in the conception of the ether which the special theory of relativity brought about, consisted in taking away from the ether its last mechanical quality, namely, its immobility. How this is to be understood will forthwith be expounded.
The space-time theory and the kinematics of the special theory of relativity were modelled on the Maxwell-Lorentz theory of the electromagnetic field. This theory therefore satisfies the conditions of the special theory of relativity, but when viewed from the latter it acquires a novel aspect. For if K be a system of coordinates relatively to which the Lorentzian ether is at rest, the Maxwell-Lorentz equations are valid primarily with reference to K. But by the special theory of relativity the same equations without any change of meaning also hold in relation to any new system of co-ordinates K' which is moving in uniform translation relatively to K. Now comes the anxious question:- Why must I in the theory distinguish the K system above all K' systems, which are physically equivalent to it in all respects, by assuming that the ether is at rest relatively to the K system? For the theoretician such an asymmetry in the theoretical structure, with no corresponding asymmetry in the system of experience, is intolerable. If we assume the ether to be at rest relatively to K, but in motion relatively to K', the physical equivalence of K and K' seems to me from the logical standpoint, not indeed downright incorrect, but nevertheless unacceptable.
The next position which it was possible to take up in face of this state of things appeared to be the following. The ether does not exist at all. The electromagnetic fields are not states of a medium, and are not bound down to any bearer, but they are independent realities which are not reducible to anything else, exactly like the atoms of ponderable matter. This conception suggests itself the more readily as, according to Lorentz's theory, electromagnetic radiation, like ponderable matter, brings impulse and energy with it, and as, according to the special theory of relativity, both matter and radiation are but special forms of distributed energy, ponderable mass losing its isolation and appearing as a special form of energy.
More careful reflection teaches us however, that the special theory of relativity does not compel us to deny ether. We may assume the existence of an ether; only we must give up ascribing a definite state of motion to it, i.e. we must by abstraction take from it the last mechanical characteristic which Lorentz had still left it. We shall see later that this point of view, the conceivability of which I shall at once endeavour to make more intelligible by a somewhat halting comparison, is justified by the results of the general theory of relativity.
Think of waves on the surface of water. Here we can describe two entirely different things. Either we may observe how the undulatory surface forming the boundary between water and air alters in the course of time; or else-with the help of small floats, for instance - we can observe how the position of the separate particles of water alters in the course of time. If the existence of such floats for tracking the motion of the particles of a fluid were a fundamental impossibility in physics - if, in fact nothing else whatever were observable than the shape of the space occupied by the water as it varies in time, we should have no ground for the assumption that water consists of movable particles. But all the same we could characterise it as a medium.
We have something like this in the electromagnetic field. For we may picture the field to ourselves as consisting of lines of force. If we wish to interpret these lines of force to ourselves as something material in the ordinary sense, we are tempted to interpret the dynamic processes as motions of these lines of force, such that each separate line of force is tracked through the course of time. It is well known, however, that this way of regarding the electromagnetic field leads to contradictions.
Generalising we must say this:- There may be supposed to be extended physical objects to which the idea of motion cannot be applied. They may not be thought of as consisting of particles which allow themselves to be separately tracked through time. In Minkowski's idiom this is expressed as follows:- Not every extended conformation in the four-dimensional world can be regarded as composed of world-threads. The special theory of relativity forbids us to assume the ether to consist of particles observable through time, but the hypothesis of ether in itself is not in conflict with the special theory of relativity. Only we must be on our guard against ascribing a state of motion to the ether.
Certainly, from the standpoint of the special theory of relativity, the ether hypothesis appears at first to be an empty hypothesis. In the equations of the electromagnetic field there occur, in addition to the densities of the electric charge, only the intensities of the field. The career of electromagnetic processes in vacuo appears to be completely determined by these equations, uninfluenced by other physical quantities. The electromagnetic fields appear as ultimate, irreducible realities, and at first it seems superfluous to postulate a homogeneous, isotropic ether-medium, and to envisage electromagnetic fields as states of this medium.
But on the other hand there is a weighty argument to be adduced in favour of the ether hypothesis. To deny the ether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever. The fundamental facts of mechanics do not harmonize with this view. For the mechanical behaviour of a corporeal system hovering freely in empty space depends not only on relative positions (distances) and relative velocities, but also on its state of rotation, which physically may be taken as a characteristic not appertaining to the system in itself. In order to be able to look upon the rotation of the system, at least formally, as something real, Newton objectivises space. Since he classes his absolute space together with real things, for him rotation relative to an absolute space is also something real. Newton might no less well have called his absolute space "Ether"; what is essential is merely that besides observable objects, another thing, which is not perceptible, must be looked upon as real, to enable acceleration or rotation to be looked upon as something real.
It is true that Mach tried to avoid having to accept as real something which is not observable by endeavouring to substitute in mechanics a mean acceleration with reference to the totality of the masses in the universe in place of an acceleration with reference to absolute space. But inertial resistance opposed to relative acceleration of distant masses presupposes action at a distance; and as the modern physicist does not believe that he may accept this action at a distance, he comes back once more, if he follows Mach, to the ether, which has to serve as medium for the effects of inertia. But this conception of the ether to which we are led by Mach's way of thinking differs essentially from the ether as conceived by Newton, by Fresnel, and by Lorentz. Mach's ether not only conditions the behaviour of inert masses, but is also conditioned in its state by them.
Mach's idea finds its full development in the ether of the general theory of relativity. According to this theory the metrical qualities of the continuum of space-time differ in the environment of different points of space-time, and are partly conditioned by the matter existing outside of the territory under consideration. This space-time variability of the reciprocal relations of the standards of space and time, or, perhaps, the recognition of the fact that "empty space" in its physical relation is neither homogeneous nor isotropic, compelling us to describe its state by ten functions (the gravitation potentials gmn), has, I think, finally disposed of the view that space is physically empty. But therewith the conception of the ether has again acquired an intelligible content although this content differs widely from that of the ether of the mechanical undulatory theory of light. The ether of the general theory of relativity is a medium which is itself devoid of all mechanical and kinematical qualities, but helps to determine mechanical (and electromagnetic) events.
What is fundamentally new in the ether of the general theory of relativity as opposed to the ether of Lorentz consists in this, that the state of the former is at every place determined by connections with the matter and the state of the ether in neighbouring places, which are amenable to law in the form of differential equations; whereas the state of the Lorentzian ether in the absence of electromagnetic fields is conditioned by nothing outside itself, and is everywhere the same. The ether of the general theory of relativity is transmuted conceptually into the ether of Lorentz if we substitute constants for the functions of space which describe the former, disregarding the causes which condition its state. Thus we may also say, I think, that the ether of the general theory of relativity is the outcome of the Lorentzian ether, through relativation.
As to the part which the new ether is to play in the physics of the future we are not yet clear. We know that it determines the metrical relations in the space-time continuum, e.g. the configurative possibilities of solid bodies as well as the gravitational fields; but we do not know whether it has an essential share in the structure of the electrical elementary particles constituting matter. Nor do we know whether it is only in the proximity of ponderable masses that its structure differs essentially from that of the Lorentzian ether; whether the geometry of spaces of cosmic extent is approximately Euclidean. But we can assert by reason of the relativistic equations of gravitation that there must be a departure from Euclidean relations, with spaces of cosmic order of magnitude, if there exists a positive mean density, no matter how small, of the matter in the universe.
In this case the universe must of necessity be spatially unbounded and of finite magnitude, its magnitude being determined by the value of that mean density.
If we consider the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field from the standpoint of the ether hypothesis, we find a remarkable difference between the two. There can be no space nor any part of space without gravitational potentials; for these confer upon space its metrical qualities, without which it cannot be imagined at all. The existence of the gravitational field is inseparably bound up with the existence of space. On the other hand a part of space may very well be imagined without an electromagnetic field; thus in contrast with the gravitational field, the electromagnetic field seems to be only secondarily linked to the ether, the formal nature of the electromagnetic field being as yet in no way determined by that of gravitational ether. From the present state of theory it looks as if the electromagnetic field, as opposed to the gravitational field, rests upon an entirely new formal motif, as though nature might just as well have endowed the gravitational ether with fields of quite another type, for example, with fields of a scalar potential, instead of fields of the electromagnetic type.
Since according to our present conceptions the elementary particles of matter are also, in their essence, nothing else than condensations of the electromagnetic field, our present view of the universe presents two realities which are completely separated from each other conceptually, although connected causally, namely, gravitational ether and electromagnetic field, or - as they might also be called - space and matter.
Of course it would be a great advance if we could succeed in comprehending the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field together as one unified conformation. Then for the first time the epoch of theoretical physics founded by Faraday and Maxwell would reach a satisfactory conclusion. The contrast between ether and matter would fade away, and, through the general theory of relativity, the whole of physics would become a complete system of thought, like geometry, kinematics, and the theory of gravitation. An exceedingly ingenious attempt in this direction has been made by the mathematician H Weyl; but I do not believe that his theory will hold its ground in relation to reality. Further, in contemplating the immediate future of theoretical physics we ought not unconditionally to reject the possibility that the facts comprised in the quantum theory may set bounds to the field theory beyond which it cannot pass.
Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.
The URL of this page is:
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2013-06-19T12:48:33Z
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AIRPORTS Modernize With Huge Clocks (Mar, 1933)
AIRPORTS Modernize With Huge Clocks
FROM the dusty tarmacs of yesteryear, where gophers dodged and the meadow-lark sprang affrighted from the thunder of old Jennies, down to the tiled airfields of today is a far cry. And a big advance to be made in so few years.
Here is a photo which graphically and dramatically depicts what a huge change has come about in aviation. Heston airport, the municipal airport of the City of London, where all the cross channel European planes check in and out, has installed a huge clock so that incoming or passing planes may see immediately their time of arrival.
The clock is built at the confluence of the tarmac and the hangar apron, and is 20 feet in diameter. It can be seen from 1500 feet. Note the tiled apron hangar. The clock is driven by an electric motor, synchronized in same way as a household electric clock.
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2013-05-21T17:37:20Z
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Letter Sound Accuracy
|Activity Type: Build Accuracy|
|Activity Form: Standard|
|Group Size: Small Group, Whole Class|
|Length: 10 minutes|
|Goal: Given printed letters, the student can discriminate between them and say the sound of each ( a -> /a/ )|
|Items: All letter sounds learned so far|
What to do
- Put a mix of letter cards in a hat or bag that students will pass around the classroom; draw a card from it, and say the sound. The cards should be a mix of all letters learned so far, weighted towards the most recently learned letters. You will need at least one bag for every eight or so students in the group, else students will quickly become distracted.
- (You can also do this activity with half the cards showing the single most recently learned letter, say m, and the other half showing letters the students have not yet learned, such as x. In that version of the activity, you ask students to say /m/ or not /m/, depending on what letter they draw.)
- Now let’s play a game. We’re going to take turns to pull a card from this bag and say the sound of the letter. My turn first.
- Draw a card; pause; show the letter to the students and say its sound.
- Then, I put the card back in the bag and pass it to my neighbor. Pass the bag to a student who is likely to get the answer correctly. Make sure they show the card to the other students. Remind them to put the card back and shake the bag; then, pass it to the next student.
- As soon as it's clear that students get the idea, you can introduce the other bags to speed things up. Each time, draw the first card yourself. Circulate around the group making sure everyone is performing the activity correctly.
- If a student doesn’t know a card, say it for him and ask him to say it. Then, have him draw another card and try again. If he continues to have trouble, make a note in an Activity Log and move on. Try to make sure the last letter he draws before passing the bag on is one he names correctly and praise him strongly.
- Keep going until everyone has had at least one turn.
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First of all, tell me what is KERS?
KERS stands for ‘Kinetic Energy Recovery System’ and in short its main aim is to harness the kinetic energy of the vehicle (which is lost in form of heat under braking) , stores it in some other form energies(like electrical or rotational ) that can boost acceleration by pressing a button on the steering wheel under acceleration. Now a days this system is not very common in road-cars but it is extensively used in racecars. Actually the whole idea of harnessing the kinetic energy was invented way back in 50s when physicist Richard Feynman proposed an idea of storing vehicles kinetic energy by the use of flywheel but no serious attempts were made in field of energy recovery until 2006 when the FIA, F1’s governing body, elected to allow teams to integrate Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) into their vehicles starting in the 2009 racing season. And this rule forced the engineers to brainstorm and come up with an efficient yet lite weight KERS system.
Okay, what are the different type of energy harnessing techniques ?
Well, working of KERS mainly depends upon the type of energy harnessing method they use. There are several different approaches for harnessing energy which are mentioned below-
- Mechanical Recovery ( By the use of flywheel which stores kinetic energy of the vehicle in form of rotational energy)
- Electrical Recovery (By the use of batteries or ultra-capacitors to store K.E. in form of electrical energy)
- Electromechanical Recovery( By the use of both flywheel and electric motor)
- Hydraulic recovery (By conducting pressurized hydraulic fluid into an accumulator during deceleration, then conducting it back into the drive system during acceleration)
Right then..could you explain to me in detail about each energy recovery system…?
Sure. Well, the anatomy and working of the KERS system depends upon its approach of recovery. So here we go..
Flywheel hybrid systems (KERS):
One of the first companies to put up their finance and faith in field of energy recovery and specially Mechanical energy recovery was Flybrid systems. And the story of formation of this company is as interesting as its name. The flybrid systems was co- founded by Hilton who was drivetrain engineer at Renault F1 and with his colleague Doug Cross who was design manager in the same team.
‘We sat down in the pub and said this is how big a job it is,’ Hilton recalls. ‘We worked out how much we thought it would cost to get to the point of a running demonstrator on an engine dyno – we thought we would have to get that far to sell it to anybody – and we discussed whether we had enough finance between us, and agreed we did.’ And so Flybrid Systems was born. And the name was derived from formula given below:
Flywheel + Hybrid= Flybrid
Now let’s see the working of flywheel based energy recovery system. The system comprises a flywheel connected by a continuously variable transmission [CVT] to the drivetrain. If you move the CVT toward a gear ratio that would speed the flywheel up it stores energy. Conversely, if you move toward a ratio that would slow it down then it releases energy. Finally, a clutch separates the drive if the revs move beyond the limits of the system. But Flybrid’s innovations also address the need to create sufficient power storage density in a unit small enough and light enough for use in F1. To achieve this they upped the speed of the flywheel massively to 64,500rpm, which allows a smaller, lighter flywheel but also means it has to be contained in a very robust structure in case of failure. And to avoid the heat produce due to air friction at such a high speed they decided to put the flywheel in vacuum casing.
But at this point of time you might think, how can we get the same amount of energy by decreasing the mass and increasing the rotation of the flywheel?
Well, as we know that rotational energy of the spinning wheel is given by-
- I is the moment of inertia of of the flywheel and
- is the Angular velocity
so what what we conclude from the above formulas is that rotational energy is directly proportional to mass and squared times the angular velocity. So if we decrease the mass to half the rotational energy becomes half meanwhile if we double the angular velocity, rotational energy becomes four times so over all if decrease the mass to half and double the , we get twice the energy as we are getting previously.
So that’s why they prefer a lite flywheel weighing of around 5 kg but such a high rotational speed. Still finding it difficult to understand?
Have a look at this video…
And that’s all we have on mechanical recovery and if you still feel their is still something I left out, or unexplained, feel free to kick my butt ( let me know! ) . Now lets see the fundamentals of electrical recovery, shall we
Electrical Hybrid (KERS):
Most of the F1 teams use this KERS to recover energy as the mechanical recovery have some packaging issues. In essence a electrical KERS systems is simple, you need a component for generating the power, one for storing it and another to control it all. Thus electrical KERS systems have three main components: The MGU, the PCU and the batteries. All component are labeled in the figure given below:
A. MGU (Motor Generator unit)
Mounted to the front of the engine, this is driven off a gear at the front of the crankshaft. Working in two modes, the MGU both creates the power for the batteries when the car is braking, then return the power from the batteries to add power directly to the engine, when the KERS button is deployed.
B.PCU (Power Control Unit)
Typically mounted in the sidepod this black box of electronics served two purposes, firstly to invert & control the switching of current from the batteries to the MGU and secondly to monitor the status of the individual cells with the battery.
The batteries are the arrays of lithium-ion cells and approximately same as your cell phone batteries. Made up of around 40 individual cells, these batteries would last two races before being recycled. Being charged and discharged repeatedly during a lap, the batteries would run very hot and needed cooling, this mainly took the form of oil or water cooling, and again McLarens example had them pack water cooled with its own pump and radiator.
So this was all about setup of Electrical hybrid KERS, now lets see how it works?
When driver applies the break, some part its K.E. is converted into electrical energy by the help MGU, as the MGU unit act as a generator. This electrical energy is stored into the batteries via PCU which monitors the amount of energy harnessed by KERS system as FIA has restricted on the amount of energy that could be re-used, only 400kJ could be stored, which when used for 6.7s per lap, the car gained some 80hp. So when driver presses the button electrical energy which is stored in the batteries is again converted into mechanical energy by the help of MGU which act as a electrical motor this time. As of 2014(F1), the power capacity of the KERS units will increase from 60 kilowatts (80 bhp) to 120 kilowatts (160 bhp). This will be to balance the sport’s move from 2.4 litre V8 engines to 1.6 litre V6 engines. You can better understand the working of the Electrical KERS by watching this video:
This type of KERS came into discussion when Williams (F1 team) suggested a recovery system based on both fly wheel and electrical motor or say MGU (Motor Generator Unit). In this system, when driver applies the break, some part of vehicles K.E. is converted into electrical energy by the help of MGU now this electrical energy is passed to another MGU which act as a motor at that time and speeds up the flywheel attach to it to a very high 70,000 RPM. Now when driver presses the button on his steering, the rotational energy of the fly wheel is converted back into electrical energy by the help of MGU and that electrical energy is used by another MGU(acting as a motor) which speeds up the crankshaft and hence the whole car. The above system is explained in the following video…
So that was all about the electrical, mechanical and electromechanical KERS, now lets move onto the last type of KERS i.e. Hydraulic.
A hydraulic KERS uses a pump in place of the MGU and an accumulator in place of the batteries. So when driver applies the brake the the rotational energy is harnessed by the pump as it pumps the fluid into the high pressure accumulator from the fluid reservoir. Now when driver pushes the KERS button the high pressure fluid flows from high pressure accumulator to the pump(which now act as a hydraulic motor) and speeds up the vehicle. Hydraulic accumulators are already used in heavy industry to provide back up in the event of failure to conventional pumped systems. Using filament wound carbon fibre casing, an accumulator of sufficient capacity could be made light enough to fit into the car. McLaren(F1) had prepared just such an energy recovery system back on the late 90s, but it was banned before it could race (low FIA cap on energy storage). The video attached below, shows you the working of Hydraulic hybrid vehicle(HHV) who’s working is very close to the working of Hydraulic KERS used for racing purpose like F1…
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- Physics Behind Race Car Drafting - December 28, 2012
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Human Genome Project
The completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP) in April 2003 yielded a permanent foundation for biological research, and launched a new era in biomedicine. Elucidation and interpretation of the human genome is a work in progress at laboratories worldwide. Scientists in the Broad community are working to understand its organization and variation, and the roles these play in health and disease.
The goal of the HGP was to create a reference human genome sequence covering nearly the entire euchromatic genome and an error rate of ~1 in 10,000 bases. In fact, the final sequence covers 99% of the euchromatic genome with fewer than 350 gaps and has an error rate of ~1 in 100,000 bases. Work continues in various labs to close remaining gaps.
|Draft Genome Sequence||Released June 2000|
|Finished Genome Sequence||2.85 Gb, released April 2003|
|Coverage||~99% of the euchromatic genome|
|Accuracy||1 error event per 100,000 bases|
|SNP collection||Mapped on Hg17, 10,054,521 SNPs|
|Haplotype Map||Current release 16c contains 1.1 M genotyped SNPs|
For more information on this project, please contact us at email@example.com.
Return to the Vertebrate Biology Group homepage.
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<urn:uuid:c0df7884-2921-4577-9a78-7c0452de5ce9>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.broadinstitute.org/scientific-community/science/projects/mammals-models/human/human-genome-project
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2013-05-26T09:34:26Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.888911
| 302
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The right to a nationality set forth in article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is primarily a right to have rights. The legal benefits of nationality have tremendous importance in the daily lives of individuals in every State. They include, among others, the rights to vote, to hold public office, to public education, to permanent residency, to own land, to travel, and eligibility for employment. Nationality is as such a prerequisite for exercising other rights.
Laws concerning the acquisition, retention or loss of nationality have long been considered a sovereign prerogative of the State under international law. However the development of international human rights law since the second World War has eroded the scope of the States’ competence in these matters. With the development of the customary international law and the adoption of multilateral human rights treaties, the right to a nationality has been gradually recognized as a human right and not merely the positive formulation of the duty of States to avoid statelessness.
International coverage of the law of nationality has mainly focused on three aspects, statelessness, dual or multiple nationality and state succession, as such situations may involve changes of nationality on a large scale. The primary concern was to reconcile nationality laws and thereby reduce cases of double nationality and statelessness.
The problems that emerged as a result of the democratic changes in Europe since 1989 have stressed the need to provide States with guidelines for standardizsing their internal rules and ensuring greater legal certainty. Diverging treaty regimes, the lack of clarity of relevant customary law, the limited jurisprudence in the subject and the variety of applicable laws have pledged for a comprehensive instrument reconciling all rules and principles on the subject.
A major contribution in this regard is the European Convention on Nationality adopted in 1997 by the Council of Europe. This Convention can be considered as a "European code on nationality", which deals with all major aspects related to nationality : principles, acquisition, retention, loss, recovery, procedural rights, multiple nationality, nationality in the context of State succession, military obligations in cases of multiple nationality an co-operation between States parties. Only questions relating to conflict of laws have not been included.
Opinion on the Proposed Exclusion of the Heading Regarding Ethnic Identity from Civil Status Documents in MoldovaDate : 30 July 2010 English [0.13 MB]
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<urn:uuid:37307807-04a1-4dba-8468-791b6c68545a>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.legislationline.org/topics/topic/2
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2013-05-22T21:44:18Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.939448
| 467
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The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) recently confirmed that in June, 2012 an established bed of Pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis) was found to be infected by Boxwood Blight (Cylindrocladium pseudonaviculatum
). The infected Pachysandra leaves exhibited “diffuse yellow haloes” but no stems lesions or dieback was observed. The Pachysandra bed was adjacent to newly planted Boxwood (Buxus
) plants that were found to be infected with the disease and were likely the initial source of the inoculum.
Several months ago, researchers at CAES were able to show, experimentally, that Pachysandra terminalis
was a potential host of Boxwood Blight under the optimal conditions created to perform the study. However, this is the first confirmation of Pachysandra being infected in the landscape under natural conditions. Pachysandra and Boxwood are members of the plant family Buxaceae, as is Sarcococca which has also been shown to be a potential host of the disease under experimental conditions.
For more information and to read the actual report from CAES click here
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<urn:uuid:32785aa3-21ec-41d3-9c09-e3625d395726>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://anla.org/knowledgecenter/ticker/index.cfm?view=detail&colid=123&cid=319&mid=5416&CFID=3846872&CFTOKEN=63901826
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2013-06-19T12:53:46Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.966264
| 244
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- A sophisticated underground animal world existed 240 million years ago in Morocco.
- Tunnels, chambers and other structures related to the early burrows suggest they provided escape from predators and weather extremes.
- Stout, four-legged clawed animals likely built the Middle Triassic Era burrows, which pre-date dinosaurs.
Long before dinosaurs, something was digging intricate homes and roads underground.
While life on Earth 240 million years ago flourished in the seas and on land, the underground worlds discovered in Morocco are the oldest examples of such communal subterranean structures from a low-latitude area.
The burrows, described in the latest issue of the journal Palaios, are the world's second-oldest known communal burrows. The oldest, from South Africa, predate these by only 5 million years.
It's possible that a similar animal created both structures.
"You should imagine the tracemaker as a stout, short-bodied, four-legged animal with a short tail and short neck," lead author Sebastian Voigt told Discovery News. "The trunk was about 20-25 centimeters (8-10 inches) in length. We have to assume that it had five sturdy digits with claws suitable for digging into moderately soft sediment."
Funded by the German Research Foundation, ichnologist Voigt from the Institute of Geology at TU Bergakademie Freiberg and his colleagues studied the burrows, located in red beds of the Argana Basin in central Morocco. The architecture consists of numerous openings, exists, tunnels and chambers.
"The Argana burrows do not have any equivalent in the fossil record or among extant burrowing vertebrates," Voigt said. "Their chambers are exceptionally complex structures and two-fold winded tunnels have never been observed anywhere else."
Based on this arrangement and what can be inferred about the burrow makers, the scientists think the underground world served as a retreat, permitting escape from predators. Although dinosaurs were not yet around, huge, fast-running crocodiles with long legs were in the area, as evidenced by fossil finds. Close relatives of today's lizards, snakes and tuataras were also around, along with relatives of birds and dinosaurs.
The site's geology, as well as the burrow's design, also suggests the animals headed underground to tolerate weather extremes.
"During the Triassic, the region probably was a semi-arid large inland basin," Voigt explained. "Rivers were slowly flowing after episodic rain fall. Streambeds were flat and completely dry for lengthy periods. Loose vegetation covered the banks of the streams. It was hot during the day and cold in the night."
The smooth floor of the tunnels reveals they were well used, with the animals probably gathering food, such as plants, roots and insects, at the surface during nighttime.
Burrows made by individual animals, such as fish, date to early Paleozoic periods, indicating this behavior was very important since practically the beginning of complex animal life on the planet. Voigt suspects it first evolved to permit escape from environmental extremes, particularly drought.
It seems that whenever animals could dig to escape, they did. Some dinosaurs dug burrows. One of the limitations is having the right substrate. In the case of the Moroccan animals, the conditions were perfect for digging. The burrows there were constructed in riverbank sandy substrates intermixed with moist overbank mud.
Molly Miller, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University, told Discovery News, "This is an exciting discovery. The careful description and analysis make a convincing case that the burrows provided shelter to numerous animals."
She added, "It demonstrates that the development of complex tetrapod behavior in response to challenging environmental conditions goes back over 200 million years. It has a very long history!"
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<urn:uuid:744c28dd-1faa-4eee-9765-377f3a0b8caf>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://news.discovery.com/animals/dinosaurs/pre-dinosaur-burrows-110913.htm
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2013-05-22T00:08:32Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.966037
| 793
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The Mijikenda Kaya Forests consist of 11 separate forest sites spread over some 200 km along the coast containing the remains of numerous fortified villages, known as kayas, of the Mijikenda people. The kayas, created as of the 16th century but abandoned by the 1940s, are now regarded as the abodes of ancestors and are revered as sacred sites and, as such, are maintained as by councils of elders. The site is inscribed as bearing unique testimony to a cultural tradition and for its direct link to a living tradition.
Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests
Outstanding Universal Value
Spread out along around 200km of the coast province of Kenya are ten separate forested sites, mostly on low hills, ranging in size from 30 to around 300 ha, in which are the remains of fortified villages, Kayas, of the Mijikenda people. They represent more than thirty surviving Kayas.
The Kayas began to fall out of use in the early 20th century and are now revered as the repositories of spiritual beliefs of the Mijikenda people and are seen as the sacred abode of their ancestors.
The forest around the Kayas have been nurtured by the Mijikenda community to protect the sacred graves and groves and are now almost the only remains of the once extensive coastal lowland forest.
Criterion (iii): The Kayas provide focal points for Mijikenda religious beliefs and practices, are regarded as the ancestral homes of the different Mijikenda peoples, and are held to be sacred places. As such they have metonymic significance to Mijikenda and are a fundamental source of Mijikenda’s sense of ‘being-in-the-world’ and of place within the cultural landscape of contemporary Kenya. They are seen as a defining characteristic of Mijikenda identity.
Criterion (v): Since their abandonment as preferred places of settlement, Kayas have been transferred from the domestic aspect of the Mijikenda landscape to its spiritual sphere. As part of this process, certain restrictions were placed on access and the utilisation of natural forest resources. As a direct consequence of this, the biodiversity of the Kayas and forests surrounding them has been sustained. The Kayas are under threat both externally and from within Mijikenda society through the decline of traditional knowledge and respect for practices.
Criterion (vi): The Kayas are now the repositories of spiritual beliefs of the Mijikenda and are seen as the sacred abode of their ancestors. As a collection of sites spread over a large area, they are associated with beliefs of local and national significance, and possibly regional significance as the sites extend beyond the boundaries of Kenya.
The Kayas demonstrate authenticity but aspects associated with traditional practices are highly vulnerable. The integrity of the Kayas relates to the intactness of their forest surroundings which has been compromised for Kaya Kinondo.
Management needs to respect the needs of individual Kayas and to integrate the conservation of natural and cultural resources and traditional and non-traditional management practices; the authority of the Kaya elders should be established.
Oral tradition relates that the Mijikenda migrated south from a homeland known as Singwaya, said to be north of Tana in present day Somalia, sometime in the 16th century. Their migration was prompted by the expansion of pastoralists particularly the Akwavi Maasai, Galla or Orma. Tradition further relates that the original settlers founded six individual fortified villages known as makaya on the ridge running parallel to the Kenyan Coast. Three more kayas were added at some time later.
The A-Digo clan are said to be the first group to leave the Singwaya ancestral homelands, followed by the A-Ribe, A-Giriama, A-Jibana, A-Chony, and A-Kambe. There are several oral traditions related to their migration, but all report that they settled in places on the way and in time split into two groups, founding Kaya Kinondo and Kaya Kwale. At the beginning of the 17th century further dispersal took place from the two main centres and secondary kayas were established. From Singwaya, each of the groups brought their own ritual talisman known as fingo, which were buried in the new settlements. The Rabai, Kauma and Digo people formed later along the coast of what is now Kenya, assimilated Mijikenda identity and built their own kayas. From details in the legends, the date of establishment of the first kayas is suggested to be around 1560 and the last 1870. For centuries the legends purport, the early kayas thrived with their inhabitants developing distinctive languages and customs. Eventually dispersal away from the fortified villages began due to population pressure and internal conflicts.
The legends are said to be corroborated by 19th century written histories of the Swahili coastal trading towns which flourished from the 12th to the 14th centuries with the traders from the coast intermixing with people inland. These suggest an influx of Mijikenda people around the 17th century. Support is also found in Portuguese 17th century documentation which implies the Mijikenda were settled along the coast by the early 17th century.
It has also been suggested that studies of coastal languages can also offer support for the legends. The nine separate dialects which the nine clans of Mijikenda speak are closely related and linked to other languages along the coast of Kenya and Tanzania. Studies of these languages suggest that a proto ‘Sabaki' language in Somalia split into Mijikenda, Pokomo and Swahili during the 16th and 17th centuries.
In recent years the idea of the legends as historical narratives has been challenged by those who see them as an Arab-Swahili political construct to reinforce the unity of the Mijikenda and at the same time their separateness from the Arabs and Swahili along the coast. Recent archaeological survey and excavation of some of the kayas has further stimulated a review of the legends. What is now emerging is the idea that the legends are a view of how societies see themselves, emphasising the separateness and isolation of the individual kayas and simplifying and condensing into a short time frame complex movements of people over many centuries.
It is now becoming clear that the kayas were well established by the early 17th century and were not centralised monolithic settlements but related to the agricultural hinterland and centres for widely dispersed villages. The Mijikenda were mainly subsistence farmers who worked iron and copper and imported cloth, fish and pottery from the coastal towns. Their system of worship recognised a creator Mulungu who was omnipresent and lesser spirits in closer proximity to daily life. Their system of governance involved age-sets that cut across clan groupings. The most senior age-set formed the tribal council which governed by consensus and organised annual ceremonies.
Throughout the 19th century the use of the fortified villages begun to decline as people started to move away to the surrounding farms or to the coastal towns. The exodus culminated in the early years of the 20th century. By the 1940s, almost all the kayas were uninhabited. The trigger for the exodus is still debated, but the potential for involvement in the developing trade between the coastal towns, Zanzibar island, Arabia and India seems to be been a primary stimulus. Other factors were probably famine and disease.
The immediate impact of the dispersal of people from the kayas to their hinterland was the start of gradual deforestation of the landscape around the kayas. This combined with the deliberate preservation of the forest immediately around the kayas, heightened the distinction between kayas and their setting.
In recent times, an increasing disregard for traditional values and a rising demand for land, fuel wood, iron ore, and construction and carving wood materials have put severe pressure on many of the kaya forests. Over the last 50 years, many of the kayas have been drastically reduced in size, and land that was communal property has been registered under individual title and sold to nationals or foreign speculators. The nominated kayas, part from Kaya Kinondo, appear to be the ones that have been least affected.
In the last ten years efforts to protect the kayas have stemmed largely from initiatives to protect the biodiversity of the forest remains through the use of traditional practices.
Source: Advisory Body Evaluation
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<urn:uuid:02cd3d12-981c-41ef-aaa5-4d08b361aaa9>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1231/?unique_number=1589&multiple=1
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2013-05-22T22:40:34Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702452567/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.969705
| 1,742
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As shown in the previous section, the table expression in the SELECT command constructs an intermediate virtual table by possibly combining tables, views, eliminating rows, grouping, etc. This table is finally passed on to processing by the select list. The select list determines which columns of the intermediate table are actually output.
The simplest kind of select list is * which emits all columns that the table expression produces. Otherwise, a select list is a comma-separated list of value expressions (as defined in Section 4.2). For instance, it could be a list of column names:
SELECT a, b, c FROM ...
The columns names a, b, and c are either the actual names of the columns of tables referenced in the FROM clause, or the aliases given to them as explained in Section 188.8.131.52. The name space available in the select list is the same as in the WHERE clause, unless grouping is used, in which case it is the same as in the HAVING clause.
If more than one table has a column of the same name, the table name must also be given, as in:
SELECT tbl1.a, tbl2.a, tbl1.b FROM ...
When working with multiple tables, it can also be useful to ask for all the columns of a particular table:
SELECT tbl1.*, tbl2.a FROM ...
(See also Section 7.2.2.)
If an arbitrary value expression is used in the select list, it conceptually adds a new virtual column to the returned table. The value expression is evaluated once for each result row, with the row's values substituted for any column references. But the expressions in the select list do not have to reference any columns in the table expression of the FROM clause; they can be constant arithmetic expressions, for instance.
The entries in the select list can be assigned names for subsequent processing, such as for use in an ORDER BY clause or for display by the client application. For example:
SELECT a AS value, b + c AS sum FROM ...
If no output column name is specified using AS, the system assigns a default column name. For simple column references, this is the name of the referenced column. For function calls, this is the name of the function. For complex expressions, the system will generate a generic name.
The AS keyword is optional, but only if the new column name does not match any PostgreSQL keyword (see Appendix C). To avoid an accidental match to a keyword, you can double-quote the column name. For example, VALUE is a keyword, so this does not work:
SELECT a value, b + c AS sum FROM ...
but this does:
SELECT a "value", b + c AS sum FROM ...
For protection against possible future keyword additions, it is recommended that you always either write AS or double-quote the output column name.
Note: The naming of output columns here is different from that done in the FROM clause (see Section 184.108.40.206). It is possible to rename the same column twice, but the name assigned in the select list is the one that will be passed on.
After the select list has been processed, the result table can optionally be subject to the elimination of duplicate rows. The DISTINCT key word is written directly after SELECT to specify this:
SELECT DISTINCT select_list ...
(Instead of DISTINCT the key word ALL can be used to specify the default behavior of retaining all rows.)
Obviously, two rows are considered distinct if they differ in at least one column value. Null values are considered equal in this comparison.
Alternatively, an arbitrary expression can determine what rows are to be considered distinct:
SELECT DISTINCT ON (expression [, expression ...]) select_list ...
Here expression is an arbitrary value expression that is evaluated for all rows. A set of rows for which all the expressions are equal are considered duplicates, and only the first row of the set is kept in the output. Note that the "first row" of a set is unpredictable unless the query is sorted on enough columns to guarantee a unique ordering of the rows arriving at the DISTINCT filter. (DISTINCT ON processing occurs after ORDER BY sorting.)
The DISTINCT ON clause is not part of the SQL standard and is sometimes considered bad style because of the potentially indeterminate nature of its results. With judicious use of GROUP BY and subqueries in FROM, this construct can be avoided, but it is often the most convenient alternative.
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<urn:uuid:078dec7b-148d-4b86-815d-78f899ab58e9>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://idlebox.net/2010/apidocs/PostgreSQL-9.0.0.zip/queries-select-lists.html
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2013-05-24T15:42:34Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.838699
| 949
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(Los Alamitos, 2010) If you thought immunizations were just for children, think again. Adults also may need several different vaccinations as they get older, including influenza, pneumonia, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, meningitis, chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella, human papillomavirus, hepatitis A and B, and herpes zoster (shingles). So talk with your doctor about any necessary vaccines and get ready to roll up your shirtsleeve. But don’t worry, this will only hurt a little bit.
People over the age of 50, as well as those with a chronic illness, such as diabetes, heart disease or asthma should have the flu vaccine . This vaccination also may be recommended if you have a weakened immune system, work in a health care setting, or live in a long-term care facility. Flu vaccinations are given once a year, usually in October or November. Los Alamitos Medical Center provides free flu shots to the community.*
If you are over 65 or have had your spleen removed your doctor may recommend that you have a pneumonia vaccine to protect you against infections of the lungs, blood and brain. This vaccine also may be appropriate if you have a chronic illness, weakened immune system, or live in a nursing home and have not previously received this vaccine.
The tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (Tdap) vaccine is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for adults 19 to 64 years of age if it has been more than 10 years since their last tetanus vaccine. Pregnant women who have not already received Tdap also should have the vaccine after delivery if it has been more than two years since their last tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis shot. Tdap protects against lockjaw, whooping cough and pertussis, which is a severe infection of the nose, throat or airway.
Additional vaccines also may be recommended:
Those most likely to benefit from the meningitis vaccine are those who have a non-functioning or missing spleen, college freshmen living in dormitories, military recruits, and certain international travelers.
You should have the chickenpox vaccine if you have never had the disease or if you cannot remember if you have had it or not.
The measles, mumps, rubella vaccine should be given to people who were born during or after 1957 and never received the vaccination, as well as health care workers, college students, and international travelers.
The human papillomavirus vaccine is recommended for women up to age 26 to protect them against infections that could cause cervical cancer.
Hepatitis A and B vaccines may benefit people who are at risk of contracting infection due to lifestyle or occupational exposure.
The Zoster vaccine to prevent shingles, a painful skin rash, may be given to adults age 60 or over.
For more information about adult immunizations, talk with your doctor or visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at www.cdc.gov for a complete schedule of recommended vaccinations.
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<urn:uuid:a70d13af-b67a-4b09-b8ef-f545e9a14683>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.losalamitosmedctr.com/en-us/aboutus/hospitalnews/pressreleases/pages/immunizforadults.aspx
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2013-05-24T22:30:17Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.959563
| 641
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Scientists have identified a new mechanism of bacterial pathogenesis. The results of the research project, partly funded by the Academy of Finland, have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Bacteria that cause chronic infections have an amazing but yet poorly known ability to subvert immune response, live and produce offspring, enter and wake up from a dormant phase to cause, in some instances, deadly complications.
Bartonella bacteria cause chronic infections in mammals (incl. humans), and are typically transmitted to new hosts mainly by arthropod vectors such as fleas, lice and ticks, but also via direct tissue trauma (e.g. cat scratches).
One very notable feature of these bacteria is their ability to cause vasoproliferative tumours that resemble Kaposi's sarcoma in patients suffering from immunodeficiency (e.g. AIDS, aggressive cancer treatments, organ transplantation). If left untreated, these foci of inflammation maintain a chronic infection and contribute to transmitting bacteria to new hosts.
In his research, biologist Arto Pulliainen (University of Turku) has demonstrated that Bartonella henselae injects a protein called BepA into vascular endothelial cells and that this protein manipulates cAMP-mediated cell signalling using a previously unknown mechanism.
BepA directly binds the host cell adenylyl cyclase, which is an enzyme responsible for the production of cAMP. However, the binding of BepA to the adenylyl cyclase does not activate cAMP production per se, but the adenylyl cyclase rather becomes more sensitive to its natural activator, stimulatory G-protein (Gαs). The cellular concentration of cAMP increases and prevents the death of the host cell. BepA significantly prolongs the lifespan of the host cell and partly contributes to the formation of vasoproliferative tumours.
Several bacterial species are known to manipulate host cell functions via cAMP-mediated cell signalling. The symptoms are typically very strong and may even be deadly. The best-known example is Vibrio cholerae and its cholera toxin, which modifies Gαs into a permanently adenylyl cyclase-stimulating form. BepA, in turn, manipulates host cell signalling in a subtle sophisticated manner, which is ideal for chronic persistence of Bartonella henselae in the infected vascular endothelium.
The research has been carried out at the Universities of Basel and Turku.
Explore further: X-ray tomography on a living frog embryo
More information: Pulliainen, A.T., Pieles, K., Brand, C.S., Hauert, B., Böhm, A., Quebatte, M., Webf, A., Gstaiger, M., Aebersold, R., Dessauer, C.W. and Dehio, C. (2012). "Bacterial effector binds host cell adenylyl cyclase to potentiate Gαs-dependent cAMP production". PNAS 109:9581-9586.
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<urn:uuid:67d2bcb8-99e2-4109-b197-c48498ce1f3d>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://phys.org/news/2012-06-mechanism-bacterial-pathogenesis.html
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2013-05-20T11:53:35Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.897666
| 649
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How to crack the cancer code
In 2003, 13 years and $2.6 billion after it started, the Human Genome Project completed the sequence of nearly all of the 2.9 billion letters of genetic code that make up the human being.
Now researchers are tackling what may be an even more ambitious challenge – developing an “atlas” that describes the genetic characteristics of the more than 200 different types of cancer.
In 2006 the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute announced that lung, brain (glioblastoma) and ovarian cancers will be studied during a three-year pilot to determine the feasibility of a full-scale Cancer Genome Atlas project.
Patients will be asked to donate a small portion of tumor tissue that has been removed as part of their treatment. The biospecimens will be processed at a central facility, and distributed to cancer genome characterization centers, which will determine which genes are selectively turned on or off in the tumors.
Genome sequencing centers will conduct further investigations, looking for changes in the DNA sequence that may be associated with specific cancer types. This information will be entered into public databases so that researchers ultimately can use it to improve cancer diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
The attempt to redefine cancer by its genetic code has been made possible by phenomenal technological advances during the past two decades.
In the mid-1980s, a scientist could spend a day determining the sequence of 50 to 100 nucleotide bases, the four “letters” (adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine) that make up the DNA code, at a cost of $10 per base.
The current generation of sequencing machines can sequence one million bases a day for about 50 cents a base. A new generation of machines – now being tested – may increase the output to 500 million bases a day at a cost that is 100 times lower.
The machines are not cheap, however. Both the current and new machines cost about $300,000 each.
To succeed, The Cancer Genome Atlas project must push the technology even further so that researchers can decipher the complex genetic and molecular interactions that underlie malignant growth, and at a reasonable cost.
For more information, go to http://cancergenome.nih.gov.
View Related Article:
Eric Lander: The great amplifier: Audacious thinking may help crack the code of cancer
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<urn:uuid:f52e600a-ccba-4439-a669-f9c1df8d431a>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/lens/article/?id=168
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2013-05-19T19:38:24Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.921908
| 492
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The Independent Investigation of Truth
Baha'u'llah emphasizes the fundamental obligation of human beings to acquire knowledge with their "own eyes and not through the eyes of others." One of the main sources of conflict in the world today is the fact that many people blindly and uncritically follow various traditions, movements, and opinions. God has given each human being a mind and the capacity to differentiate truth from falsehood. If individuals fail to use their reasoning capacities and choose instead to accept without question certain opinions and ideas, either out of admiration for or fear of those who hold them, then they are neglecting their basic moral responsibility as human beings. Moreover, when people act in this way, they often become attached to some particular opinion or tradition and thus intolerant of those who do not share it. Such attachments can, in turn, lead to conflict. History has witnessed conflict and even bloodshed over slight alterations in religious practice, or a minor change in the interpretation of doctrine. Personal search for truth enables the individual to know why he or she adheres to a given ideology or doctrine.
Bahá'ís believe that, as there is only one reality, all people will gradually discover its different facets and will ultimately come to common understanding and unity, provided they sincerely seek after truth. In this connection, 'Abdu'l-Bahá said:
Being one, truth cannot be divided, and the differences that appear to exist among the many nations only result from their attachment to prejudice. If only men would search out truth, they would find themselves united.1
The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity is necessary if we would reach truth, for truth is one.2
- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Paris Talks (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1969), p. 129.
- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Paris Talks (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1912. 11th ed. 1969), p. 136.
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2013-05-25T13:36:09Z
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In contrast to recent findings, two of the most common medications used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do not appear to cause genetic damage in children who take them as prescribed, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Duke University Medical Center.
The study published online this month in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) provides new evidence that therapeutic doses of stimulant medications, such as methylphenidate and amphetamine, do not cause cytogenetic (chromosomal) damage in humans. The researchers looked at three measures of cytogenetic damage in white blood cells of each child participating in the study and found no evidence of any changes after three months of continuous treatment.
"This is good news for parents," said Kristine L. Witt, M.Sc., a genetic toxicologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and co-author on the study, which was funded through the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act by NIEHS and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), both parts of NIH. "Our results indicate that methylphenidate- and amphetamine-based products do not induce cytogenetic damage in children."
The researchers involved emphasize that the findings should not be interpreted as final proof of the long-term safety of stimulant drugs for the treatment of ADHD. "More research and close monitoring of children taking these medications for extended periods of time is needed to fully evaluate the physical and behavioral effects of prolonged treatment with stimulants," noted Scott H. Kollins, Ph.D., director of the Duke ADHD Program, where the study was conducted and a co-author of the paper.
ADHD is a disorder characterized by attention problems, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. About 3 to 5 percent of children in the United States have been diagnosed with the disorder, although several studies suggest 7 to 12 percent of children may be affected.
The current study included 63 children, ranging from 6-12 years of age, who met full criteria for ADHD but who had not previously been treated with stimulant medications. Children in the study were divided into two groups and treated by a board-certified child psychiatrist with either methylphenidate (commercially available as Ritalin LA and Concerta) or with mixed amphetamine salts (Adderall and Adderall XR). Blood samples were taken before the medication was started to establish baseline values for the cytogenetic measures that were analyzed in the study, and a second sample was collected after three months of continuous treatment. Forty-seven children completed the full three-month treatment schedule.
The researchers found no significant differences between the two groups of children with regard to age, gender, race, body weight, height, or ADHD subtype. The groups also showed very similar ADHD symptom levels at initial screening and children in both groups responded equally well to the medication.
The researchers looked at three standard indicators of chromosomal damage: structural chromosomal aberrations (breaks in chromosomes), micronuclei (small nuclei consisting of chromosome fragments produced by breakage or whole chromosomes lost from the main nucleus after the cell divides), and sister chromatid exchanges (exchanges of genetic material between a pair of identical chromosomes). "We did not see any significant treatment-related increases in any of these three endpoints," said Donald R. Mattison, M.D., senior advisor to the director at NICHD. "These results add to a growing body of evidence that therapeutic levels of these medications do not damage chromosomes," he said.
The study was designed to determine the reproducibility of findings from a previously published paper that reported methylphenidate-induced chromosomal changes in children with ADHD. That paper raised concern for the medical community and parents, given that some of the changes have been associated with an increased risk of cancer. The current study was not able to replicate the findings from the previous study. The new JAACAP paper extends the literature by using a larger sample size than previous studies, investigating more than one commonly prescribed medication, and providing well-characterized results that can be generalized to other ADHD populations.
"One way scientists evaluate each other's work is by attempting to reproduce the original experiment or study," said Witt. "We designed a study with specific modifications to address issues raised with the original study. Thus, our results are based on a significantly larger number of children who were carefully evaluated using rigorous, accepted standards, which allowed us to produce high-confidence data at the end of our study."
Source: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Explore further: Merck ends development of Parkinson's disease drug
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http://phys.org/news146314228.html
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2013-05-24T15:42:50Z
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Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed
Celebrating the 42nd anniversary of the first human landing on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11.
Led by commander Neil Armstrong, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins, Apollo 11 blasted off from Earth on July 16, 1969. Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, while Collins circled above in lunar orbit. On the following day, July 21, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. Buzz Aldrin followed shortly becoming the 2nd human to walk on the moon.
photo credit: via flickr
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http://blog.holidays.net/index.php/2011/07/20/july-20-today-were-celebrating-moon-day-5/
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2013-05-18T06:28:48Z
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Guest post by Sara Hommel
Sara Hommel prepared this blog last week as she concluded her tenure as associate director of the Wolfensohn Center for Development at The Brookings Institution, where she led the center’s work on early child development.
The first five years of life set the physical and mental pathways of the child, leading to positive or negative development for a lifetime. For children to positively develop in the early years, they must receive quality nutrition, healthcare, protection and cognitive stimulation. Children living in poverty often lack access to quality services to meet those basic needs. Organizations such as ChildFund seek to fill the gap for impoverished children, providing them with quality early care and education, nutrition and access to healthcare.
Early Child Development (ECD) is the foundation of human development, setting the basis for later success in education and adult employment. Everything that is necessary for children to physically and mentally develop — to be able to start school and perform well in school (and stay in school longer) — falls under the ECD umbrella. The final outcome of effective ECD, in terms of long-term human development, is educational attainment that allows for positive transition into the workforce, and the ability to function in the workforce to financially support oneself and one’s family. In this regard, the end result of effective ECD is the prevention of, or the ending of, poverty.
The human development cycle, with a foundation in early childhood, can be illustrated with a simple equation:
By providing impoverished children with the tools necessary for positive physical and mental development, early childhood programs help children get the right start in life, preparing them to start school with the ability to perform well and stay in school longer. Children who participate in ECD programs do better in school, attain higher levels of education, are less likely to become involved in crime and are more likely to be employed as adults.
Quality services in early childhood that are followed by quality education and health opportunities in the primary and secondary school years, prepare children for a lifetime of positive development and help stop the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
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From Ohio History Central
Ohio governor John M. Pattison was born near Owensville, Ohio, on June 13, 1847. His parents were William Pattison, proprietor of a country store, and Mary Duckwall Pattison. As a child, Pattison worked in his father's store as well as neighboring farms. Pattison was only sixteen years old when he joined the 153d Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War. When the war ended, Pattison enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan University, ultimately graduating in 1869. Pattison had to work to pay his way through college. He taught school and hired himself out as an agricultural laborer in order to pay his tuition.
After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan, Pattison obtained a job in Bloomington, Illinois, where he worked for the Union Central Life Insurance Company. He was not happy in this position and moved to Cincinnati to read the law with lawyer Alfred Yaple. Pattison gained admittance to the Ohio bar in 1872, and he began to provide legal counsel to the Cincinnati and Marietta Railroad.
Pattison first entered politics in 1873, when the residents of Hamilton County elected him to the state legislature. After one term, Pattison decided to return to his law practice. He spent the next ten years as a partner in the law firm of Yaple, Moos, and Pattison. He became the Union Central Life Insurance Company's vice president in 1881 and its president in 1891. Under his management, the company prospered.
Pattison reluctantly reentered the political arena in 1890, when he was appointed to fulfill a vacant seat in the state senate. In 1891, Pattison was elected to the United States House of Representatives, but he was unsuccessful in obtaining reelection. Once his term was over, Pattison returned to Cincinnati, where he concentrated on his business interests.
In 1905, Ohio Democrats chose Pattison as their candidate for governor. He successfully defeated Republican governor Myron T. Herrick's attempts to gain reelection. Pattison was a strong supporter of Prohibition, a stance that garnered him staunch supporters in the campaign. He also spoke out against city bosses during the campaign and argued for municipal ownership of public utilities. During Pattison's short time as governor, the state legislature raised taxes on saloons, and some railroad reforms were instituted. Unfortunately, by the time that Pattison was inaugurated, his health had deteriorated. He was hospitalized in Cincinnati for a brief time before dying at his home in Milford, Ohio, on June 18, 1906. Lieutenant Governor Andrew L. Harris completed the rest of Pattison's term.
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Holly loved nothing more than riding her bike. But one day, she missed a curb and hit the pavement — splat! Now her knee was scraped and her elbow was cut. Her brother Darren helped Holly up and used his T-shirt to dab at the blood on her elbow. "Wow," he said, "You're probably going to have a huge scar."
What Exactly Is a Scar?
A scar is the pale pink, brown, or silvery patch of skin that grows in the place where you once had a cut, scrape, or sore. A scar is your skin's way of repairing itself from injury.
Look at your skin. You probably have one or two scars already. Most people do. Why? Because a lot of things leave behind scars — from falls, like the one Holly had, to surgeries.
Scars are part of life and they show what you've been through. For some people, scars are special. A kid in your class might have a scar on his chest because he had heart surgery as a baby. Or you might have a scar from chickenpox.
Centuries ago, warriors showed off their scars as symbols of their bravery and to impress their friends with the exciting tales about how each one happened. Do any of your scars have a story?
How Do I Get a Scar?
No matter what caused your scar, here's how your skin repaired the open wound. The skin made a bunch of collagen (say: ka-leh-jen) — tough, white protein fibers that act like bridges — to reconnect the broken tissue. As the body did its healing work, a dry, temporary crust formed over the wound. This crust is called a scab.
The scab's job is to protect the wound as the damaged skin heals underneath. Eventually, a scab dries up and falls off on its own, leaving behind the repaired skin and, often, a scar. A scar isn't always a sure thing, though.
How Do I Prevent a Scar?
Of course, the best way to prevent scars is to prevent wounds! You can reduce your chances of getting hurt by wearing kneepads, helmets, and other protective gear when you play sports, ride your bike, or go in-line skating.
But even with protective gear, a person can still get hurt once in a while. If this happens, you can take steps to prevent or reduce scarring. You can help your skin heal itself by treating it well during the healing process.
How do you do that? Keep the wound covered as it heals so you can keep out bacteria and germs. Avoid picking at the scab because it tears at the collagen and could introduce germs into the wound. Some doctors say vitamin C (found in oranges and other citrus fruits) helps by speeding up the creation of new skin cells and the shedding of old ones.
Also, some people believe rubbing vitamin E on the wound after the scab begins forming can aid the healing process. Your parent can talk to your doctor about whether you should try this.
So Long, Scars!
Some scars fade over time. If yours doesn't and it bothers you, there are treatments that can make a scar less noticeable, such as skin-smoothing medicated creams, waterproof makeup, or even minor surgery. Talk to your parent and doctor to find out if any of these treatments would be right for you.
Sometimes the best medicine might just be to talk. Tell your parent or doctor what's bothering you about your scar and how you feel on the inside. Because when the inside feels good, the outside always seems to look better!
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2013-05-19T18:29:26Z
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Today, Catholics and many other Christians celebrate the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This significant feast day recalls the spiritual and physical departure of the mother of Jesus Christ from the earth, when both her soul and her body were taken into the presence of God.
Venerable Pope Pius XII confirmed this belief about the Virgin Mary as the perennial teaching of the Church when he defined it formally as a dogma of Catholic faith in 1950, invoking papal infallibility to proclaim, “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
His Apostolic Constitution “Munificentissimus Deus” (Most Bountiful God), which defined the dogma,
contained the Pontiff's accounts of many longstanding traditions by which the Church has celebrated the Assumption throughout its history.
The constitution also cited testimonies from the early Church fathers on the subject, and described the history of theological reflection on many Biblical passages which are seen as indicating that Mary was assumed into heaven following her death.
Although the bodily assumption of Mary is not explicitly recorded in Scripture, Catholic tradition identifies her with the “woman clothed with the sun” who is described in the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation.
The passage calls that woman's appearance “a great sign” which “appeared in heaven,” indicating that she is the mother of the Jewish Messiah and has “the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Accordingly, Catholic iconography of the Western tradition often depicts the Virgin Mary's assumption into heaven in this manner.
Eastern Christians have also traditionally held Mary's assumption into heaven as an essential component of their faith. Pius XII cited several early Byzantine liturgical texts, as well as the eighth-century Arab Christian theologian St. John of Damascus, in his own authoritative definition of her assumption.
“It was fitting,” St. John of Damascus wrote in a sermon on the assumption, “that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death,” and “that she, who had carried the creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles.”
In Eastern Christian tradition, the same feast is celebrated on the same calendar date, although typically known as the Dormition (falling asleep) of Mary. Eastern Catholic celebration of the Dormition is preceded by a two-week period of fasting which is similar to Lent. Pius XII, in “Munificentissimus Deus,” mentioned this same fasting period as belonging to the traditional patrimony of Western Christians as well.The feast of the Assumption is always a Holy Day of Obligation for both Roman and Eastern-rite Catholics, on which they are obliged to attend Mass or Divine Liturgy.
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Group creates optical fiber with solar-cell capabilities: Solar-power clothes next?
New technology can be woven together, could lead to solar fabrics
In what looks like a major breakthrough for solar technology, researchers have created a fully-flexible, silicon-based, optical fiber with solar-cell capabilities that can be scaled to several feet in length.
Coiled strand of a three-feet-long solar-cell junction fiber, thinner than the width of a human hair.
The findings come from an international group of chemists, physicists, and engineers, led by John Badding, a professor of chemistry at Penn State University. Their work was published in the journal Advanced Materials.
Building upon a previous breakthrough
The new fiber was built using a process the group developed earlier that addressed the issue of merging optical fibers with electronic chips. What they decided to do was, rather than try to merge a flat chip with a round optical fiber, they built an optical fiber with its own integrated electronic component. Using high-pressure chemistry techniques, the team deposited semiconducting materials directly into tiny holes in optical fibers, layer by excruciatingly tiny layer. Doing this, they discovered, allowed them to completely bypass the need to integrate fiber-optics with chips.
With this new technique in place, the team then moved on to build a fiber out of crystalline silicon semiconductor materials that function as a solar cell.
Cross-sectional image of the new silicon-based optical fiber with solar-cell capabilities. Shown are the layers - labeled n+, i, and p+ - that have been deposited inside the pore of the fiber.
“Our goal is to extend high-performance electronic and solar-cell function to longer lengths and to more flexible forms. We already have made meters-long fibers but, in principle, our team’s new method could be used to create bendable silicon solar-cell fibers of over 10 meters in length,” Badding said.& #8220;Long, fiber-based solar cells give us the potential to do something we couldn’t really do before: We can take the silicon fibers and weave them together into a fabric with a wide range of applications such as power generation, battery charging, chemical sensing, and biomedical devices.”
Longer battery life
As Badding explained, one of the major limitations of portable electronics like smartphones and tablets is short battery life. A solar-boosted battery based off technology that uses the technique described above could prove quite valuable to these markets.
“A solar cell is usually made from a glass or plastic substrate onto which hydrogenated amorphous silicon has been grown,” he said in the University’s press release. “Such a solar cell is created using an expensive piece of equipment called a PECVD reactor and the end result is something flat with little flexibility. But woven, fiber-based solar cells would be lightweight, flexible configurations that are portable, foldable, and even wearable.”
At this point, the material could be connected to electronics devices to both power them and charge the batteries. Badding adds, “The military especially is interested in designing wearable power sources for soldiers in the field.”
The team points out that another advantage of this technology is that its flexibility allows the solar-cell materials to collect light energy at different angles.
“A typical solar cell has only one flat surface,” Badding explains. “But a flexible, curved solar-cell fabric would not be as dependent upon where the light is coming from or where the sun is in the horizon and the time of day.”
They’re also fairly small, and quite fast. Team leader Pier J. A. Sazio of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, adds, “Another intriguing property of these silicon-fiber devices is that as they are so compact, they can have a very fast response to visible laser light. In fact, we fabricated fiber-based photodetectors with a bandwidth of over 1.8 GHz.”
Register to download “ Silicon p-i-n Junction Fibers ”.
Story via: psu.edu
■Learn more about Jeff Bausch.
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Not So Sleepy Hedgehog Storytelling
By the end of this storytelling, children should be able to:
- Identify different light sources
- Discover how shadows are made
- Observe how we can use light sources in everyday situations
- Have fun learning about light, and feel confident about exploring other light sources in the Museum, at home and school to further learning
- Realise that the dark isn’t scary!
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http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/educators/plan_and_book_a_visit/things_to_do/events_for_schools/not_so_sleepy_hedgehog/learning_outcomes.aspx
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2013-05-22T15:15:20Z
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The temperance movement of the nineteenth century lost ground, literally and metaphorically, in the twentieth. However, at its height this was a significant national and international movement, taken up at all levels of society, which made its mark upon our townscapes as much as upon those who had 'taken the pledge'.
The movement did not only seek to limit the use of intoxicating liquor; it also set out to provide alternatives. These were not limited to the stereotypical cup of tea and hymns around the piano in the church hall. Coffee houses, institutes and hotels proliferated, while London had a number of temperance billiard halls. The rather nice example here is on Battersea Rise. These establishments were popular because they offered a cheap way to enjoy a game hitherto only available in pubs.
It is a rather bitter irony, then, that so many of these premises have since been converted to the selling of alcohol. The Battersea billiard hall is no exception: it's now a bar.
Further reading: Andrew Davison's article on the built heritage of the temperance movement [PDF]
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Question: What is the history of the use of molasses in beer? Do you know around what time and why breweries stopped using molasses and switched to sugar? We are doing a story on the Molasses Flood of 1919, and want to know what the use of molasses was in beer at that time. M.J., Pasadena, California, USA
Answer: Sugar Cane was brought to the West Indies at the end of the 15th Century; however, evidence of its usage in making alcohol did not surface until approximately 1640. It was used primarily for the making of rum.
During the 18th Century, colonists in the New World used molasses in the sweetening of foods and beverages, in the making of rum, and in the brewing of beer. It was difficult for the colonists to get hops, and the bitterness yielded by cooked molasses would serve to balance out the malt/corn sweetness in beer. Many believe that the Revolutionary War was precipitated by the Molasses Act of 1733, which imposed a heavy tax on sugar and molasses coming from anywhere except the British islands in the Caribbean. This tax was lowered in 1764.
The popular use of molasses fluctuated with the price. In the 19th century, molasses was the most common sweetener in the USA. Due to its accessibility, it would have been a popular ingredient in the brewing of beer during this period. At the end of the 19th Century, sugar rates dropped, and molasses began to lose its popularity. It played a cat and mouse race with sugar and maple syrup in the early 1900's, but lost popularity after World War I (1918) when sugar prices again fell.
At the same time, those fighting for the cause of Prohibition were anxiously lobbying for the ratification of the 18th Amendment. On January 16, 1919, Nebraska added their vote in favor of the 18th Amendment, and prohibition was put into effect. This was one day after the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. During the tragic clean-up, church bells rang out across Boston, in jubilant celebration of Prohibition.
Of course, after the Molasses Disaster in Boston, its association with tragedy was so intense in the Northeastern US, that the use of molasses declined rapidly.
Molasses is still used in some beer - most notably, in Theakston Old Peculier Old Ale. T & R Theakston Ltd., North Yorkshire, U.K.
Many home brewers use molasses for brewing Old Ale or Porter. It is also an ingredient in Poor Richard's Ale, the Commemorative Beer for the Ben Franklin Tercentenary, this year, 2006.
Molasses is known as treacle in the UK.
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2013-05-26T02:54:37Z
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| 0.976293
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Search for native plants by scientific name, common name or family. If you are not sure what you are looking for, try the Combination Search or our Recommended Species lists.
Search native plant database:
Podophyllum peltatum L.
Mayapple, Indian apple, Wild mandrake, Pomme de mai, Podophylle pelt
USDA Symbol: pope
USDA Native Status: Native to U.S.
Mayapple is unique in that It has only 2 leaves and 1 flower, which grows in the axil of the leaves. The large, twin, umbrella-like leaves of mayapple are showy and conspicuous. They remain closed as the stem lengthens, unfolding 6–8 inches across when the plant has reached its 1-1 1/2 ft. height. The solitary, nodding, white to rose-colored flower grows in the axil of the leaves and has 6–9 waxy white petals, with many stamens. The nodding fruit is a large, fleshy, lemon-shaped berry.
Mayapple colonizes by rhizomes, forming dense mats in damp, open woods. The common name refers to the May blooming of its apple-blossom-like flower. Although the leaves, roots, and seeds are poisonous if ingested in large quantities, the roots were used as a cathartic by Native Americans. The edible, ripe, golden-yellow fruits can be used in jellies. The alternate popular name Mandrake rightly belongs to an unrelated Old World plant with a similar root.
Plant CharacteristicsDuration: Perennial Habit: Herb Leaf Complexity: Simple Leaf Venation: Palmate Leaf Pubescence: Glabrous Breeding System:
Flowers Bisexual Size Notes:
Height: 12-18 inches Leaf:
Flowers 2 inches
Yellow, sometimes tinged with pink, rose, or purple 2 inches long Size Class:
Bloom InformationBloom Color: White , Pink
Bloom Time: Mar , Apr , May
Bloom Notes: Flowers usually white, but some populations display pinkish, rosy, or purplish flowers. Pink/rose/purple-flowered plants are sometimes referred to as a separate form of this species: Deamii.
AL , AR , CT , DC , DE , FL , GA , IA , IL , IN , KS , KY , LA , MA , MD , ME , MI , MN , MO , MS , NC , NE , NH , NJ , NY , OH , OK , PA , RI , SC , TN , TX , VA , VT , WI , WV Canada: NS
, QC Native Distribution:
Que. & s. Ont. to FL, w. to MN, e. NE, e. KS & e. TX Native Habitat:
forest, shaded fields, shaded moist road banks, shaded riverbanks. USDA Native Status: L48(N), CAN(N)
Growing ConditionsWater Use:
Medium Light Requirement:
Part Shade , Shade Soil Moisture:
Moist Soil pH:
Acidic (pH<6.8) Soil Description:
Moist, humus-rich soils. Acid-based, Sandy, Sandy Loam, Medium Loam Conditions Comments:
Drought-tolerant within its eastern forest range, but should not be tried anywhere else. Grows under deciduous
hardwoods, not under pines. Do not mix with other plants, as it does not like competition.
Sometimes cultivated in woodland gardens. Use Food:
Ripe (yellow and soft) fruit
is edible raw, but in limited quantity. Collect in August or September The fruit
has a lemon-like flavor and can be used to make jams, jellies and marmalade. Use Medicinal: Native
Americans used Podophyllum
for a wide variety of medicinal purposes and as an insecticide (D. E. Moerman 1986). Warning:
POISONOUS PARTS: Unripe fruit,
leaves, roots. Highly Toxic, May be Fatal if Eaten! Symptoms include salivation, vomiting, diarrhea, excitement, headache, fever, coma. Toxic Principle: Podophyllin. Conspicuous Flowers:
PropagationPropagation Material: Root Division , Seeds
Description: Seeds should be planted immediately or they will need to be treated. Plant thickly. Seedlings take several years to mature. The easiest way to propagate is by root division while the plant is dormant. Divide the rhizomes in fall with at least one bud.
Seed Treatment: Cold-moist stratification for three months.
Commercially Avail: yes
Maintenance: Do not mow, as mowing will kill them.
Recommended Species Lists
Find native plant species by state. Each list contains commercially available species suitable for gardens and planned landscapes. Once you have selected a collection, you can browse the collection or search within it using the combination search.
View Recommended Species page
Record Modified: 2012-10-03
Research By: DEW
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Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
New Zealand general election 1931
The 1931 New Zealand general election was a nationwide vote to determine the shape of the New Zealand Parliament's 24th term . It resulted in the newly-formed coalition between the United Party and the Reform Party remaining in office, although the opposition Labour Party made some minor gains.
In the 1928 elections , the United Party and the Reform Party had both won twenty-seven seats. The United Party managed to form a government with the support of the Labour Party, with governing Reform Party going into the opposition. In 1931, however, the agreement between United and Labour collapsed due to differing opinions on how to counter the Great Depression. The Reform Party, fearing that the Depression would give Labour a substantial boost, reluctantly agreed to form a coalition with United to avert elections. By forming a coalition, United and Reform were able to blunt Labour's advantage, ending the possibility of the anti-Labour vote being split.
The date for the main 1931 elections was 2 December, a Wednesday. Elections to the four Maori seats were held the day before. 874,787 people were registered to vote, and there was a turnout of 83.3%. This turnout was below average for the time period. The number of seats being contested was 80, a number which had been fixed since 1902.
The 1931 election saw the governing coalition retain office, winning fifty-one seats. This was a drop of three seats from what the two parties had won in the previous elections, but was still considerably better than many had expected given the economic situation. The Labour Party won twenty-four seats, a gain of five. In the popular vote, the coalition won 55.4% of the vote, down from the 64.6% that the two parties had won previously. Labour won 34.3%. The only other party to gain a place in Parliament was the Country Party, which won a single seat. Four independents were elected.
|Party||Candidates||Total votes||Percentage||Seats won|
|United Party / Reform Party||?||?||55.4%||51|
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details
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PatersonArticle Free Pass
Paterson, city, seat (1837) of Passaic county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., situated on the Passaic River, 11 miles (18 km) northwest of New York City. It was founded after the American Revolution by advocates of American industrial independence from Europe (including the statesman Alexander Hamilton) who saw the Great Falls of the Passaic, which drop 70 feet (21 metres), as the best potential industrial site on the Atlantic Seaboard. Paterson was one of the first planned industrial cities in the United States. The enterprise was chartered by the New Jersey legislature in 1791 as the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (SUM); the city was named for Governor William Paterson, one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
A successful enterprise, SUM ultimately sold waterpower and building space to private manufacturers. The earliest industries were cotton mills (1794), and in 1828 Paterson mechanics joined mill workers in the first recorded sympathy strike in the United States. Samuel Colt produced his first revolvers at the Old Gun Mill (preserved) in 1836. By 1837, when the locomotive industry was established, machine manufacturing had become important. Paterson was producing four-fifths of all locomotives made in the United States by the early 1880s. The silk industry was introduced in 1838, which led to it being named “silk city”; linen thread manufacture began in 1864. By the 1880s Paterson was home to more than one-third of all silk factories in the United States. The city was the scene of many labour disputes, but by the mid-20th century it had become a centre of widely diversified industrial activity. Modern manufactures include textiles, machinery, machine tools, plastics, leather goods, cosmetics, packaging, and chemicals.
The William Paterson College of New Jersey—which was established in 1855 as a normal (teacher-training) school—is located at nearby Wayne. Paterson Museum is known for its collection of New Jersey rocks and Native American relics. Two of the first successful submarines, the Holland I and the Holland II, or Fenian Ram, which were built by John P. Holland and sunk in the Passaic in 1878 and 1881, respectively, were later recovered; they are now on exhibit at the Paterson Museum. Lambert Castle (1891) in the Garret Mountain Reservation houses the Passaic County Historical Society Museum. In 1970 the Great Falls area was designated a national historic site. William Carlos Williams wrote a five-volume poem (1946–58) called Paterson; it focuses on the city and on the Passaic River. Inc. 1851. Pop. (2000) 149,222; (2010) 146,199.
What made you want to look up "Paterson"? Please share what surprised you most...
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Russell Ranch: a place to study the impacts of farming systems and inputs on agricultural sustainability. Watch this video about the research conducted at Russell Ranch!
The Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility is a unique 300-acre facility near the UC Davis campus dedicated to investigating irrigated and dry-land agriculture in a Mediterranean climate. It’s also a unit of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI).
Among Russell Ranch’s ongoing experiments is a 100-year study referred to as Long Term Research in Agricultural Sustainability (LTRAS), which is comprised of 72 one-acre plots. LTRAS is an exploration of the long-term impacts of crop rotation, farming systems (conventional, organic and mixed) and inputs of water, nitrogen, carbon and other elements on agricultural sustainability. Sustainability is indicated by long-term trends in yield, profitability, resource-use efficiency (such as water or energy) and environmental impacts.
LTRAS has monitored changes in crop and soil properties, greenhouse gas emissions, weed ecology and economic indicators since 1993. The Sustainable Agriculture Farming Systems (SAFS) project joined with LTRAS in 2003. Russell Ranch is primarily a research facility and also supports UC Davis' extension and teaching missions by hosting field days, class field trips, undergraduate interns and graduate student research.
- Subscribe to the ASI Blog Recent Publications
- Jun 25 Russell Ranch Research Findings 1994-2011
- Jan 20 UC ANR: Strip-Tillage in California's Central Valley
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Boniface (bŏnˈəfās) [key], d. 432, Roman general. He defended (413) Marseilles against the Visigoths under Ataulf. Having supported Galla Placidia in her struggle with her brother, Emperor Honorius, Boniface fled to Africa in 422. There, as semi-independent governor, he supported (424) Valentinian III against the usurper John and was rewarded with the title count of Africa. Recalled in 427, he rebelled; a civil war between Africa and the imperial government began. This struggle prepared the way for the invasion (429) of Africa by the Vandals under Gaiseric. A truce was arranged between Africa and Rome, and Boniface attacked the Vandals. He was defeated and besieged (430) at Hippo; during the siege his good friend St. Augustine died. Beaten again in 431, Boniface was recalled to Italy by Placidia to assist her against the general Aetius. He defeated (432) Aetius but died of a wound received in the battle. The historian Procopius, without convincing evidence, held Boniface responsible for inviting the Vandals into Africa.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on Boniface from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Ancient History, Late Roman and Byzantine: Biographies
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A study of four European regions found that the incidence and prevalence of basal cell carcinoma is underreported compared with that of malignant skin cancer.
The incidence of basal cell carcinoma (BCC), the most common cancer among the white population, continues to rise worldwide. Researchers analyzed the cancer registry database practices of Finland, Malta, southeast Netherlands, and Scotland. They examined the records of first and multiple BCC registrations.
Data from 2009 were examined for Finland, Malta, and southeast Netherlands; 2006 data were analyzed in the Scottish database. For greater accuracy, investigators also checked hospital and pathology databases for possible omissions from the cancer registries.
Investigators acknowledged the difficulty of logging all BCCs, given that many are undocumented because they are not histologically verified, and they are excised without biopsy. Compounding this, researchers wrote, is that registry clerks have difficulty discerning between BCC rebiopsies, re-excisions, recurrences, and new tumors that grow in the same location.
Study results indicated that first primary BCC occurrence was underreported. Researchers found 30% more patients presented with a BCC, and there were 40% to 100% more BCC tumors diagnosed than were routinely registered.
“Currently, routinely reported first BCC incidence rates [for the four regions studied] should be multiplied by a factor of 1.3 for [a more accurate] estimate of the total number of patients diagnosed as having a BCC in a given year,” researchers concluded.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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The Democracy Project's Sticker Race activity and online community offers many opportunities for you and your students to examine election-related topics such as issues, persuasion, and map-reading.
Related Lesson Plans:
Honk If You Agree: Part 1 (C, Wm, La)
Students will learn that there are factors involved in helping an individual detect issues and then come to oppose or support those issues. It is important for children to identify issues of importance, form their opinions, and support those opinions with evidence and reason. They will also learn how to state their feelings in a persuasive manner.
Honk If You Agree: Part 2 (C)
Using “Honk If You Agree! Part 1”, the students will prioritize their opinions by a hierarchy of value, and then be able to communicate those opinions in an effective and persuasive manner.
Sticker Race: A Guide for Parents
The Democracy Project’s Sticker Race activity and online community offers many opportunities for you and your child to examine election-related topics such as issues, persuasion, and map-reading.
- Participate in the Sticker Race. Work together to come up with one or more stickers to submit for voting. You can also print out your child’s sticker(s) or send the link to family and friends.
- Revisit the Sticker Race to see how your child’s sticker is collecting votes.
Topics To Talk About:
Discuss with your child why he or she chose particular issue(s) for which to create stickers with questions such as:
- Why is this issue important to you personally?
- How do you think this issue affects us a family?
- How is this issue important in our community?
Bring up the possibility that if you visit the site regularly over the course of several months, some of the less popular issues might become more important. What might occur to make that change?
The Power of Persuasion
Discuss with your child how, when creating a sticker, he or she selected words, symbols and colors to emphasize a personal stand on the issues to persuade others to feel the same way. Possible questions might include:
- Why did you choose the words and images you did when creating your sticker?
- Do you think it’s a powerful thing to do to capture someone’s attention and persuade them?
- What are some other examples of this from television, books, movies, songs, organizations, heroes, and maybe even family, community members, or friends?
- Is there a responsibility that comes with using persuasion? Could persuasion be either good or bad?
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Comprehensive DescriptionRead full entry
BiologyOccur on silty and muddy substrates in the deeper water of bays, but also frequenting the mouths of rivers, estuaries, and mangrove creeks. Juveniles abound in estuaries and shallow water during summer, moving deeper as they mature. Diet of juveniles consist largely of small crustaceans and that of the adult fish consist mainly of polychaete worms and bivalve mollusks. Oviparous (Ref. 205). Spawn throughout the year with peaks in Dec.-Feb. (Ref. 6390). Marketed fresh (Ref. 9987) and chilled (Ref. 6390).
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Global Agenda Council on Space Security 2012-2013
Societies rely on the creation and transmission of information and space-based platforms can collect and broadcast large amounts of information, almost instantly, worldwide. They are a critical and irreplaceable part of communication, imaging, positioning and navigation services. Satellites gather a wide range of data on our planet and its components over long periods of time, providing comparisons and construction models of complex issues like climate change. They also allow the global community to address challenges in resource management, access to energy resources, food security, and disaster prediction and management.
Moreover, space capabilities can help build confidence between states and contribute to international peace and security. Observations from space can uncover acts of genocide involving civilian populations.
Space assets are indispensable to the functioning of national and global economies and societies, making their continuous development a necessity to avoid disruption or decline. A typical example is the reliance of societies on the global positioning system (GPS) network of satellites. Beyond guiding cars, aircraft and ships, the GPS timing signal synchronizes digitized transmissions within and between networks, including power grids, financial and trade transactions, transport and manufacturing. Satellites also provide critical links and services to remote communities in areas where ground-based infrastructure is impractical. Even temporary outages may cause substantial problems for such communities.
In the long term, space can help solve many global challenges faced by society and the planet, such as shortages of energy, water and resources. Space-based services monitor natural resources like fresh water and crops, and enable their more efficient management. In the energy sector, space can be a source of technological innovation for energy creation and storage, helping maximize the output of renewable energy sources by providing information on the most efficient location and deployment of wind and solar installations.
- Currently 1,016 operating satellites orbit the earth; 443 of them are from the United States.
- 59% of satellite use is for communication, 8% for navigation and 7% for military surveillance.
- Approximately 21,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimetres, and 500,000 pieces down to about 1 centimetre, that could significantly damage or destroy a satellite, are orbiting at speeds of up to 25,000 kilometres/hour.
“Despite early recognition of the problem, these efforts to regulate space debris as an environmental pollutant have not gained significant traction and are currently absent from any of the serious national or international policy discussions. At the core of this failure are two root causes: the true nature of the most commonly used regions of outer space and the lack of private actors using these regions that would be responsive to market incentives.”
Brian Weeden, Technical Adviser, Secure World Foundation
“Satellites bring a universal solution to allow for the equality of territories by fighting the digital divide and the dictatorship of distance. We should not forget that a great proportion of the population does not have access to high-speed connectivity.”
Michel de Rosen, Chief Executive Officer, Eutelsat
“Over the 40 years of the space era, space has already transformed daily life, thanks to the quality and efficiency of such space-based services as telecommunications, broadcasting, weather forecasting and navigation. Space has also enabled quantum leaps to be made in our knowledge of our planet and of the universe, fulfilling scientists’ wildest aspirations. Indeed, space data have modified our view of Earth and have led to a new understanding of our planet and the complex interactions of its oceans; space market requires forward-looking policies and investments that go beyond short-term commercial concerns.”
Geraldine Naja, Head, Strategic Studies, European Space Agency (ESA)
National Regulation of Space Activities (Space Regulations Library), Ram S. Jakhu
"International Safeguards and Satellite Imagery", B. Jasani, I. Niemeyer, S. Nussbaum, B. Richter and G. Stein
"Globalization to Kokumin Kokka (Globalization and Nation States)", Kazuto Suzuki with Fukuji Taguchi
Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Satellite Communications and the Cloud
22 November 2012
London, United Kingdom
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Technology Days
28-30 November 2012
Cleveland, OH, USA
51st American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition
7-10 January 2013
Dallas-Fort Worth Region, TX, USA
International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2013
23-27 September 2013
Beijing, People’s Republic of China
During the 2012-14 term, the Global Agenda Council on Space Security will focus its work on better defining the contribution of space industries and technologies to the global economy, and the improvement of the state of the world through the promotion of resilient dynamism. The Council will partner with experts and institutions from within the Network of Global Agenda Councils to advance projects that:
- Promote work that quantifies the contribution of space to the global economy
- Demonstrate the power and potential of space-based capabilities and satellite applications, to address the most pressing environmental and societal challenges of humanity
- Develop complementary efforts to existing space sustainability initiatives
Research Analyst: Rigas Hadzilacos, Global Agenda Councils, email@example.com
Council Manager: David Gleicher, Manager, Qualitative Research, Risk Response Network, firstname.lastname@example.org
Forum Lead: Martina Gmür, Senior Director, Head of the Network of Global Agenda Councils, email@example.com
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For the South, the Gap was a way both to block the Union from making inroads into the heart of the Confederacy and an opening into the border state of Kentucky, a state with many Confederate sympathizers that might be persuaded to join the cause.
For the Union, the Gap was literally a “Gateway” into eastern Tennessee, and a way to divide the Confederacy right down the middle. And both sides were well aware of the importance of controlling the railroad from Virginia to Tennessee.
Initially held by the Kentucky home guard of the Yellow Creek Valley, it wasn’t long before Confederate General Felix K. Zollicoffer brushed them aside and took up residence in the Gap in September of 1861.
In June of 1862, Union General George Morgan was able to retake the Gap, sending troops through mountain passes to the east in order to surround the Confederates and force them out.
Just three months later, however, Confederate General Kirby Smith used this same flanking maneuver to drive out Morgan and his men, who left destruction behind utter desolation in the form of exploded ammunition stores and spiked cannons.
One year later Union Colonel John Fitzroy de Courcy bluffed Confederate General John W. Frazer into believing he had a far superior force than he actually had, leading Frazer to surrender the Gap, which then remained in Union hands until the end of the war.
In the end, the American Gibraltar proved all too easy to take, and was even discounted as a suitable supply route for Union troops when General Ulysses S. Grant visited in January of 1864 because of the deplorable state of the Wilderness Road through the Gap and the desolation of the surrounding countryside. It is said that no soldier died during battle here, although many hundreds lost their lives to disease and illness.
Signs of Civil War action and occupation can still be found throughout the park. Earthworks, rifle pits, and traces of military roads can be visited and walked by visitors, and the vast hole left when Morgan ordered the commissary destroyed is still visible. Gap Cave preserves the stories of the men stationed there through their signatures and drawings. Near the Pinnacle can be found more soldiers’ signatures, scratched in the rock during their slow and demoralizing days at Cumberland Gap.
Musicians Sparky and Rhonda Rucker will help bring to life the story of the Civil War in their Saturday, June 4, “Blue and Gray in Black and White” being presented at the Wilderness Road Campground amphitheater in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park at 8 p.m.
The duo’s passion for this defining moment in America’s history inspired this special historical program which focuses on the war’s impact on the different regions of our country. The music and stories, some sad and some humorous, reflect personal insights from the various personalities who participated in the war.
James "Sparky" Rucker was once a teacher in Chattanooga near his hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., and he has been performing for over 40 years. He has over 12 recordings, including one for children. His educational performances have included teacher workshops at the Kennedy Center, the D.C. Teacher Center, the 18th Annual International Children's Festival, and the Southeast Institute for Education in Music.
Wife Rhonda accompanies him with harmonica, banjo, rhythmic bones, and back-up vocals, and is featured on Sparky's last six recordings.
Sparky and Rhonda have performed for the Old Music for New Earseducational series for Kentucky Educational Television and for Storytelling in North America, a National Geographic Society educational media project.
The Wilderness Road Campground is located in Virginia, two miles east of the Hwy. 25E and Hwy. 58 intersection. Visitors should proceed to the amphitheater, located at the end of loop C where parking is available. In case of rain, the program will be held at the national park visitor center, located on Hwy. 25E, just south of Middlesboro. This program is being co-sponsored by the Friends of Cumberland Gap.
For information on the concert and other park programs, please call 606-248-2817, extension 1075 or visit www.nps.gov/cuga.
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On This Day - 6 April 1915
Theatre definitions: Western Front comprises the Franco-German-Belgian front and any military action in Great Britain, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Holland. Eastern Front comprises the German-Russian, Austro-Russian and Austro-Romanian fronts. Southern Front comprises the Austro-Italian and Balkan (including Bulgaro-Romanian) fronts, and Dardanelles. Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres comprises Egypt, Tripoli, the Sudan, Asia Minor (including Transcaucasia), Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, India, etc. Naval and Overseas Operations comprises operations on the seas (except where carried out in combination with troops on land) and in Colonial and Overseas theatres, America, etc. Political, etc. comprises political and internal events in all countries, including Notes, speeches, diplomatic, financial, economic and domestic matters. Source: Chronology of the War (1914-18, London; copyright expired)
French make progress east of Verdun and in Alsace.
Indecisive fighting on the Meuse front.
Russian advance in the Niemen district.
Serbian artillery silence bombardment of Belgrade.
Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres
Russians enter Artvin (Armenia).
Naval and Overseas Operations
Battleships and aeroplanes bombard Smyrna.
Germans defeated at Karunga (German East Africa).
Greek Note to Bulgaria and Bulgarian Note to Serbia on the Komitadjt outrages.
British Government appoint a committee on munitions of war.
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Write Oulipo N+7
Not all poetry rhymes, in fact some of it is made with math! Yes, math. N Plus 7 is an inventive exercise where you replace a noun with the seventh noun that follows it in a given dictionary.
Oulipo, (pronounced oo-lee-po), uses math and patterns in writing. These constraints can create silly, even provocative creative works! Meant to be fun and inspiring "Oulipo" is an abbreviation for a French term meaning "Workshop of Potential Literature," founded by writers, scientists and mathematicians. This is a great way to tap into creativity, focus on parts of the sentence and enrich vocab. It can also help untangle the meanings of difficult book passages by challenging your child to look at individual words.
For example, this famous Shakespearean quote from Romeo & Juliet:
can become after N+7:
The results can be silly but the process is seriously good for critical thinking!
What You Need:
- Magazine, quote, story or poem
- Pen or pencil
- Photocopy of the page of writing
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copyright, 1992, 1996, 2001
The specific complementary association due to hydrogen bonding of single-stranded nucleic acids is referred to as "annealing": two complementary sequences will form hydrogen bonds between their complementary bases (G to C, and A to T or U) and form a stable double-stranded, anti-parallel "hybrid" molecule. One may make nucleic acid (NA) single-stranded for the purpose of annealing - if it is not single-stranded already, like most RNA viruses - by heating it to a point above the "melting temperature" of the double- or partially-double-stranded form, and then flash-cooling it: this ensures the "denatured" or separated strands do not re-anneal. Additionally, if the NA is heated in buffers of ionic strength lower than 150mM NaCl, the melting temperature is generally less than 100oC - which is why PCR works with denaturing temperatures of 91-97oC.
A more detailed treatment of annealing / hybridisation is given in an accompanying page, together with explanations of calculations of complexity, conditions for annealing / hybridisation, etc.
Taq polymerase is given as having a half-life of 30 min at 95oC, which is partly why one should not do more than about 30 amplification cycles: however, it is possible to reduce the denaturation temperature after about 10 rounds of amplification, as the mean length of target DNA is decreased: for templates of 300bp or less, denaturation temperature may be reduced to as low as 88oC for 50% (G+C) templates (Yap and McGee, 1991), which means one may do as many as 40 cycles without much decrease in enzyme efficiency.
"Time at temperature" is the main reason for denaturation / loss of activity of Taq: thus, if one reduces this, one will increase the number of cycles that are possible, whether the temperature is reduced or not. Normally the denaturation time is 1 min at 94oC: it is possible, for short template sequences, to reduce this to 30 sec or less. Increase in denaturation temperature and decrease in time may also work: Innis and Gelfand (1990) recommend 96oC for 15 sec.
Primer length and sequence are of critical importance in designing the parameters of a successful amplification: the melting temperature of a NA duplex increases both with its length, and with increasing (G+C) content: a simple formula for calculation of the Tm is
Thus, the annealing temperature chosen for a PCR depends directly on length and composition of the primer(s). One should aim at using an annealing temperature (Ta) about 5oC below the lowest Tm of ther pair of primers to be used (Innis and Gelfand, 1990). A more rigorous treatment of Ta is given by Rychlik et al. (1990): they maintain that if the Ta is increased by 1oC every other cycle, specificity of amplification and yield of products <1kb in length are both increased. One consequence of having too low a Ta is that one or both primers will anneal to sequences other than the true target, as internal single-base mismatches or partial annealing may be tolerated: this is fine if one wishes to amplify similar or related targets; however, it can lead to "non-specific" amplification and consequent reduction in yield of the desired product, if the 3'-most base is paired with a target.
A consequence of too high a Ta is that too little product will be made, as the likelihood of primer annealing is reduced; another and important consideration is that a pair of primers with very different Tas may never give appreciable yields of a unique product, and may also result in inadvertent "asymmetric" or single-strand amplification of the most efficiently primed product strand.
Annealing does not take long: most primers will anneal efficiently in 30 sec or less, unless the Ta is too close to the Tm, or unless they are unusually long.
An illustration of the effect of annealing temperature on the specificity and on the yield of amplification of Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) is given below (Williamson and Rybicki, 1991: J Med Virol 33: 165-171).
Plasmid and biopsy sample DNA templates were amplified at different annealing temperatures as shown: note that while plasmid is amplified from 37 to 55oC, HPV DNA is only specifically amplified at 50oC.
The optimum length of a primer depends upon its (A+T) content, and the Tm of its partner if one runs the risk of having problems such as described above. Apart from the Tm, a prime consideration is that the primers should be complex enough so that the likelihood of annealing to sequences other than the chosen target is very low. (See hybridn.doc).
For example, there is a ¼ chance (4-1) of finding an A, G, C or T in any given DNA sequence; there is a 1/16 chance (4-2) of finding any dinucleotide sequence (eg. AG); a 1/256 chance of finding a given 4-base sequence. Thus, a sixteen base sequence will statistically be present only once in every 416 bases (=4 294 967 296, or 4 billion): this is about the size of the human or maize genome, and 1000x greater than the genome size of E. coli. Thus, the association of a greater-than-17-base oligonucleotide with its target sequence is an extremely sequence-specific process, far more so than the specificity of monoclonal antibodies in binding to specific antigenic determinants. Consequently, 17-mer or longer primers are routinely used for amplification from genomic DNA of animals and plants. Too long a primer length may mean that even high annealing temperatures are not enough to prevent mismatch pairing and non-specific priming.
For amplification of cognate sequences from different organisms, or for "evolutionary PCR", one may increase the chances of getting product by designing "degenerate" primers: these would in fact be a set of primers which have a number of options at several positions in the sequence so as to allow annealing to and amplification of a variety of related sequences. For example, Compton (1990) describes using 14-mer primer sets with 4 and 5 degeneracies as forward and reverse primers, respectively, for the amplification of glycoprotein B (gB) from related herpesviruses. The reverse primer sequence was as follows:
where Y = T + C, and N = A + G + C + T, and the 8-base 5'-terminal extension comprises a EcoRI site (underlined) and flanking spacer to ensure the restriction enzyme can cut the product (the New England Biolabs catalogue gives a good list of which enzymes require how long a flanking sequence in order to cut stub ends). Degeneracies obviously reduce the specificity of the primer(s), meaning mismatch opportunities are greater, and background noise increases; also, increased degeneracy means concentration of the individual primers decreases; thus, greater than 512-fold degeneracy should be avoided. However, I have used primers with as high as 256- and 1024-fold degeneracy for the successful amplification and subsequent direct sequencing of a wide range of Mastreviruses against a background of maize genomic DNA (Rybicki and Hughes, 1990).
Primer sequences were derived from multiple sequence alignments; the mismatch positions were used as 4-base degeneracies for the primers (shown as stars; 5 in F and 4 in R), as shown above. Despite their degeneracy, the primers could be used to amplify a 250 bp sequence from viruses differing in sequence by as much as 50% over the target sequence, and 60% overall. They could also be used to very sensitively detect the presence of Maize streak virus DNA against a background of maize genomic DNA, at dilutions as low as 1/109 infected sap / healthy sap (see below).
Some groups use deoxyinosine (dI) at degenerate positions rather than use mixed oligos: this base-pairs with any other base, effectively giving a four-fold degeneracy at any postion in the oligo where it is present. This lessens problems to do with depletion of specific single oligos in a highly degenerate mixture, but may result in too high a degeneracy where there are 4 or more dIs in an oligo.
This is normally 70 - 72oC, for 0.5 - 3 min. Taq actually has a specific activity at 37oC which is very close to that of the Klenow fragment of E coli DNA polymerase I, which accounts for the apparent paradox which results when one tries to understand how primers which anneal at an optimum temperature can then be elongated at a considerably higher temperature - the answer is that elongation occurs from the moment of annealing, even if this is transient, which results in considerably greater stability. At around 70oC the activity is optimal, and primer extension occurs at up to 100 bases/sec. About 1 min is sufficient for reliable amplification of 2kb sequences (Innis and Gelfand, 1990). Longer products require longer times: 3 min is a good bet for 3kb and longer products. Longer times may also be helpful in later cycles when product concentration exceeds enzyme concentration (>1nM), and when dNTP and / or primer depletion may become limiting.
Recommended buffers generally contain :
(Innis and Gelfand, 1990). Modern formulations may differ considerably, however - they are also generally proprietary.
PCR is supposed to work well in reverse transcriptase buffer, and vice-versa, meaning 1-tube protocols (with cDNA synthesis and subsequent PCR) are possible (Krawetz et al., 19xx; Fuqua et al., 1990).
Higher than 50mM KCl or NaCl inhibits Taq, but some is necessary to facilitate primer annealing.
[Mg2+] affects primer annealing; Tm of template, product and primer-template associations; product specificity; enzyme activity and fidelity. Taq requires free Mg2+, so allowances should be made for dNTPs, primers and template, all of which chelate and sequester the cation; of these, dNTPs are the most concentrated, so [Mg2+] should be 0.5 - 2.5mM greater than [dNTP]. A titration should be performed with varying [Mg2+] with all new template-primer combinations, as these can differ markedly in their requirements, even under the same conditions of concentrations and cycling times/temperatures.
Some enzymes do not need added protein, others are dependent on it. Some enzymes work markedly better in the presence of detergent, probably because it prevents the natural tendency of the enzyme to aggregate.
Primer concentrations should not go above 1uM unless there is a high degree of degeneracy; 0.2uM is sufficient for homologous primers.
Nucleotide concentration need not be above 50uM each: long products may require more, however.
The number of amplification cycles necessary to produce a band visible on a gel depends largely on the starting concentration of the target DNA: Innis and Gelfand (1990) recommend from 40 - 45 cycles to amplify 50 target molecules, and 25 - 30 to amplify 3x105 molecules to the same concentration. This non-proportionality is due to a so-called plateau effect, which is the attenuation in the exponential rate of product accumulation in late stages of a PCR, when product reaches 0.3 - 1.0 nM. This may be caused by degradation of reactants (dNTPs, enzyme); reactant depletion (primers, dNTPs - former a problem with short products, latter for long products); end-product inhibition (pyrophosphate formation); competition for reactants by non-specific products; competition for primer binding by re-annealing of concentrated (10nM) product (Innis and Gelfand, 1990).
If desired product is not made in 30 cycles, take a small sample (1ul) of the amplified mix and re-amplify 20-30x in a new reaction mix rather than extending the run to more cycles: in some cases where template concentration is limiting, this can give good product where extension of cycling to 40x or more does not.
A variant of this is nested primer PCR: PCR amplification is performed with one set of primers, then some product is taken - with or without removal of reagents - for re-amplification with an internally-situated, "nested" set of primers. This process adds another level of specificity, meaning that all products non-specifically amplified in the first round will not be amplified in the second. This is illustrated below:
This gel photo shows the effect of nested PCR amplification on the detectability of Chicken anaemia virus (CAV) DNA in a dilution series: the PCR1 just detects 1000 template molecules; PCR2 amplifies 1 template molecule (Soiné C, Watson SK, Rybicki EP, Lucio B, Nordgren RM, Parrish CR, Schat KA (1993) Avian Dis 37: 467-476).
(DIG; Roche) need be done only in 50uM each dNTP, with the dTTP substituted to 35% with DIG-11-dUTP. NOTE: that the product will have a higher MW than the native product! This results in a very well labelled probe which can be extensively re-used, for periods up to 3 years. See also here.
With NAs of high (G+C) content, it may be necessary to use harsher denaturation conditions. For example, one may incorporate up to 10% (w or v/v) :
in the reaction mix: these additives are presumed to lower the Tm of the target NA, although DMSO at 10% and higher is known to decrease the activity of Taq by up to 50% (Innis and Gelfand, 1990; Gelfand and White, 1990).
Additives may also be necessary in the amplification of long target sequences: DMSO often helps in amplifying products of >1kb. Formamide can apparently dramatically improve the specificity of PCR (Sarkar et al., 1990), while glycerol improves the amplification of high (G+C) templates (Smith et al., 1990).
Polyethylene glycol (PEG) may be a useful additive when DNA template concentration is very low: it promotes macromolecular association by solvent exclusion, meaning the pol can find the DNA.
A very useful primer for cDNA synthesis and cDNA PCR comes from a sequencing strategy described by Thweatt et al. (1990): this utilised a mixture of three 21-mer primers consisting of 20 T residues with 3'-terminal A, G or C, respectively, to sequence inside the poly(A) region of cDNA clones of mRNA from eukaryotic origin. I have used it to amplify discrete bands from a variety of poly(A)+ virus RNAs, with only a single specific degenerate primer upstream: the T-primer may anneal anywhere in the poly(A) region, but only molecules which anneal at the beginning of the poly(A) tail, and whose 3'-most base is complementary to the base next to the beginning of the tail, will be extended.
works for amplification of Potyvirus RNA, and eukaryotic mRNA
primers should be 17-28 bases in length;
base composition should be 50-60% (G+C);
primers should end (3') in a G or C, or CG or GC: this prevents "breathing" of ends and increases efficiency of priming;
Tms between 55-80oC are preferred;
runs of three or more Cs or Gs at the 3'-ends of primers may promote mispriming at G or C-rich sequences (because of stability of annealing), and should be avoided;
3'-ends of primers should not be complementary (ie. base pair), as otherwise primer dimers will be synthesised preferentially to any other product;
primer self-complementarity (ability to form 2o structures such as hairpins) should be avoided.
Examples of inter- and intra-primer complementarity which would result in problems:
Screen shots taken from analyses done using DNAMAN (Lynnon Biosoft, Quebec, Canada).
Compton T (1990). Degenerate primers for DNA amplification. pp. 39-45 in: PCR Protocols (Innis, Gelfand, Sninsky and White, eds.); Academic Press, New York.
Fuqua SAW, Fitzgerald SD and McGuire WL (1990). A simple polymerase chain reaction method for detection and cloning of low-abundance transcripts. BioTechniques 9 (2):206-211.
Gelfand DH and White TJ (1990). Thermostable DNA polymerases. pp. 129-141 in: PCR Protocols (Innis, Gelfand, Sninsky and White, eds.); Academic Press, New York.
Innis MA and Gelfand DH (1990). Optimization of PCRs. pp. 3-12 in: PCR Protocols (Innis, Gelfand, Sninsky and White, eds.); Academic Press, New York.
Krawetz SA, Pon RT and Dixon GH (1989). Increased efficiency of the Taq polymerase catalysed polymerase chain reaction. Nucleic Acids Research 17 (2):819.
Rybicki EP and Hughes FL (1990). Detection and typing of maize streak virus and other distantly related geminiviruses of grasses by polymerase chain reaction amplification of a conserved viral sequence. Journal of General Virology 71:2519-2526.
Rychlik W, Spencer WJ and Rhoads RE (1990). Optimization of the annealing temperature for DNA amplification in vitro. Nucleic Acids Research 18 (21):6409-6412.
Sarkar G, Kapeiner S and Sommer SS (1990). Formaqmide can drrastically increase the specificity of PCR. Nucleic Acids Research 18 (24):7465.
Smith KT, Long CM, Bowman B and Manos MM (1990). Using cosolvents to enhance PCR amplification. Amplifications 9/90 (5):16-17.
Thweatt R, Goldstein S and Reis RJS (1990). A universal primer mixture for sequence determination at the 3' ends of cDNAs. Analytical Biochemistry 190:314-316.
Wu DY, Ugozzoli L, Pal BK, Qian J, Wallace RB (1991). The effect of temperature and oligonucleotide primer length on the specificity and efficiency of amplification by the polymerase chain reaction. DNA and Cell Biology 10 (3):233-238.
Yap EPH and McGee JO'D (1991). Short PCR product yields improved by lower denaturation temperatures. Nucleic Acids Research 19 (7):1713.
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- Non-native privet is a semi-evergreen shrub or small tree that grows to 20 ft. (6.1 m) in height. Trunks usually occur as multiple stems with many long, leafy branches.
- Leaves are opposite, lanceolate, 1-2.4 in. (2.5-6 cm) long and 0.2-0.6 in. (0.5-1.5 cm) wide.
- Flowering occurs from April to June, when panicles of white to cream flowers develop in terminal and upper axillary clusters. Pollen can cause an allergic reaction in some people.
- The abundant fruits are spherical, 0.3–0.05 in. (1-1.3 cm) long. Fruit begins green and ripens to a dark purple to black color and persists into winter. Birds and wildlife eat the fruit and disperse the seeds. Seed soil viability is about one year. It also colonizes by root sprouts.
- Ecological Threat
- Ligustrums can tolerate a wide range of conditions. They form dense thickets invading fields, fencerows, roadsides, forest understories, and riparian sites. They can shade out and exclude native understory species, perhaps even reduce tree recruitment. Native to Europe and Asia, they are commonly used as ornamental shrubs and for hedgerows.
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Do you think you'd be able to identify the gestures of a secret society, such as the Masons, if you came in contact with their handshakes, signs or other signals? Today, Freemasonry represents one of the oldest (and most prosperous) of all fraternal organizations in American history. Many groups have modeled their societies after some of the beliefs, activities and identifiers of the Masons, and still use some of the secret gestures.
Freemasonry involves achieving different levels (or degrees) within the society. The foundational level of Freemasonry is called the 'Entered Apprentice Mason,' which jumpstarts the initiation process. It is a time of observance, participation, and the studying of ceremonial processes in an Entered Apprentice Lodge. An entered Apprentice is in the phase of learning with guides and teachers available for assistance. It's a time to absorb the lectures and teachings of the Masons. They are expected to become an active member – immersing themselves in the study of Masonry. It is a must to learn the rules and regulations of Freemasonry at this time.
Entered Apprentices position their hand in a certain way when taking their oath. Their left hand supports the Bible while their right hand in a resting position. The sign of the Entered Apprentice is made by drawing the right hand quickly across the neck, and then dropping the arm to their side. This is a sign that symbolizes the penalty of having the throat cut and the tongue ripped out if they should betray their fellow Masons. The grip or handshake of an Entered Apprentice is recognized by the pressing of the thumb against the top of the first knuckle-joint of another fellow Mason, who then also presses his thumb against his fellow Mason's knuckle.
A Fellow Craft Mason has made it through various ceremonies and has fulfilled their required responsibilities as a Mason. They can now sit in a Lodge of Entered Apprentices or of Fellow Crafts, but they are not admitted into a lodge set aside for Master Masons.
The Fellow Craft Mason has a sign that involves cupping their right hand over the left breast while quickly drawing it across their body. Their hand then drops to the side. The sign suggests that violating their obligation as a Fellow Craft Mason means that they would have their left breast torn open, their heart plucked out, and "given to the wild beasts of the field and the fowls of the air." When Fellow Craft Masons shake hands (known as the pass grip), they press the top of their thumb against the space between the between the first and second knuckle joints of the first two fingers of their fellow Mason.
When a Mason reaches the Sublime Degree of Master Mason, they have relentlessly studied for many years. They are well beyond knowing all of the architecture symbols and emblems associated with the society. As they pass into the Third Degree, they start to become knowledgeable in a deeper language.
When the Master Mason takes their oath, they place both hands on the Bible, square and compasses. The sign of the Master Mason is made by drawing the thumb quickly across the waist to the right hip, and then letting their hand drop to the side. The action is a reference to having their body cut in two and their "bowels removed and burned to ashes which are then to be scattered to the four winds of heaven" if they betray their obligations as a Master Mason. When shaking hands, they will place their thumb on the space located between the second and third knuckles of their fellow Mason's right hand, while the fellow Mason moves his thumb to the corresponding space.
The Crash Is Coming Soon! Are You
All Matter Was Created By
Every Person Has Their Own Frequency Signature.
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Fever, 1793 is a work of historical fiction, which means that it makes use of time and place in the distant past to unfold the plot, as well as to dramatize its basic themes and concerns. Anderson's novel is set in late eighteenth-century America, a time when men wore powdered wigs and George Washington was President. In other words, the good old days! (Yeah, sure, except for the pesky fever part.) For more, see our section on "Setting."
Young adult books are written for and marketed specifically to children and adolescents (though us adults here at Shmoop enjoy them too). The genre is known for many things, among them stories about coming of age, the search for identity, and learning how to be a grown-up. Fever, 1793 fits the bill on all these counts.
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Starhawk is best known for writing The Spiral Dance and co-founding the Reclaiming tradition of Witchcraft, but what don’t you know about Starhawk? Her ideas have changed over the decades and the focus of her work has shifted. Her contributions span the gamut from composing ritual chants that have come to be known as traditional to blending magical practice with anti-globalization activism to teaching the practical skills of permaculture. In this course we’ll sample Starhawk’s writing from the 1970s to the 21st century, asking what changes her work has wrought in herself and in Pagan communities.
Instructor: Sarah Whedon
Class meetings: none
Important Note: You must have access to the 20th anniversary edition of The Spiral Dance – earlier editions will not do for the purposes of this course.
Additional readings will be posted in the Moodle classroom.
Pay to register now
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http://www.cherryhillseminary.org/students/past-courses/pagan-elders-and-ancestors-starhawk/
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Lifestyle changes can play a big role in slowing kidney disease
The kidneys play a vital role in overall health. “The main functions are to filter the wastes that are produced by the body, help maintain the fluid balance and electrolytes, make hormones that help to control blood counts and control the health of your bones,” said Dr. Pierre Blemur, nephrologist at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans. The trouble with kidney disease is that most people are unaware of it until they have less than 15 percent of kidney function. “Unless you have blood or urine tests done before that point, most patients are completely asymptomatic,” said Blemur.
Once someone is down to less than 15 percent or 20 percent of function, they may suspect something is wrong. “The most common things people complain of are decreased appetite, food not tasting the same and increased fatigue,” said Blemur. Since these are general symptoms that are often non-specific, it can be tough to make the diagnosis. “Usually the primary care doctor checks blood and urine tests and once an abnormality is identified in either one of those, they get referred to nephrologists,” said Blemur. The urine test looks for protein and red blood cells, which help indicate if there is a problem in the kidney. “If any of those things are positive, patients would be referred to a nephrologist for further testing to see why they have that abnormality,” said Blemur.
A kidney function test is also done. “We take the creatinine number and plug it into an equation to come up with a number that we call the glomerular filtration rate and that gives us an idea of what percentage the kidney is working at,” said Blemur. The creatinine number depends on age, sex, race, body mass and other factors.
There are many types of kidney disease. “We most commonly deal with chronic kidney disease, where the many filtering units in the kidney one-by-one are destroyed by some systemic health problem,” said Blemur. The most common causes of chronic kidney disease are diabetes and high blood pressure. “There are other less common diseases of the kidneys related to different inflammatory or immune diseases, hereditary diseases or diseases due to medications that patients are taking.”
Doctors note that kidney disease affects all age groups. “It is possible for kidney disease to affect young and older people,” said Dr. Jill Lindberg at East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie. Still, mostly older adults are affected.
Says Blemur, “It seems to be a growing problem with the growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes.” As more young people become overweight, their risk for kidney troubles increases and doctors are taking notice. “Primary doctors have been more vigilant about screening for kidney disease and referring those patients to nephrologists because studies have shown that patients do better under a nephrologist’s care when they are referred early,” said Blemur. This is one way to prevent the progression of kidney disease to end stage renal disease, which leads to the need for dialysis.
Lifestyle choices can make a difference. This means being attentive to what you eat. Lindberg says, “Fish and chicken are fine but heavy, red meats are hard on the kidney and the more protein that is loaded on the kidney, the harder it has to filter and it cannot start with ease.” Portion control and eating in moderation are important. Patients should be open with their doctors about medications they are taking. “You should avoid over-the-counter medicines like Aleve, Motrin and the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs,” Lindberg said. The use of pain medications should also be restricted. Exercise can be helpful as long as you discuss your program with your doctor to be sure it’s well-tolerated.
You should also take care of any medical issues. “Good blood pressure and diabetic control prevent kidney failure,” said Lindberg.
Being aware of your health issues can also delay the progression of kidney disease. “Oftentimes we have patients who are overweight or obese, where weight loss would help a lot in terms of decreasing the risk for developing more severe kidney disease,” said Blemur. Doing your best to stay in good general health has an impact. “The kidneys are sensitive to what is going on in the rest of the body and whether you have any systemic disease,” Blemur said.
Help is out there for those who struggle with kidney problems. “Medications like ace inhibitors and angiotensive receptor blockers are the two main types of medications we can use in patients, but they have to be used under the care of a physician,” Blemur said.
If you suspect you may have a kidney issue, do not be afraid to approach the topic with your doctor. “It is important for the general population to talk to their primary doctors and ask specific questions about their kidneys in terms of whether they have been looked into, checked and if urine studies have been done along with blood tests,” Blemur said. “When patients first come to see nephrologists, they are scared because they assume that they will need dialysis and most of the time that is not the case and something can be done to prevent that.”
By being pro-active people can identify kidney issues early on and seek the best care. “The best treatment is prevention and the earlier we are able to get a hold of patients with chronic kidney disease, the better chance we have at managing and treating it to help prevent it from progressing to a more severe stage,” said Blemur. The good news is that most people do fine. “Most of the time, we are able to keep people’s kidney function nice and stable for a long period of time just with simple lifestyle modification,” Blemur said.
When it comes to kidney health, patient education is most important. “The more people know about it, the more comfortable they will be about seeking attention for kidney issues,” said Blemur. “Making people aware of kidney disease was not really done in the past, but now people are paying attention.”
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2013-05-21T11:16:16Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699899882/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102459-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.970369
| 1,335
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Strasbourg, 5 April 2011
EU framework for national Roma strategies: Frequently asked questions
Who are the Roma?
There are around 10-12 million Roma people in Europe. They have been part of Europe for centuries and are integral to its society and economy, but frequently face prejudice, intolerance, discrimination and exclusion.
Reliable data are hard to come by, but estimates by the Council of Europe (see annex) show that almost all EU countries have Roma communities of varying sizes. They form a significant proportion of the population in Bulgaria (around 10%), Slovakia (9%), Romania (8%), Hungary (7%), Greece, the Czech Republic and Spain (all 1.5-2.5%).
Around a third of these live in the countries of the western Balkans, such as Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and in Turkey.
How do EU policies support Roma integration?
Many of the most important areas for improving Roma integration – such as education, employment, health and housing – are national or regional responsibilities. But the EU has an important role to play in coordinating action by Member States. It can support this with powerful policy and financial tools: European legislation against discrimination, policy coordination, common integration goals and structural funding.
EU legislation (the Race Equality Directive) obliges Member States to give equal access to ethnic minorities, such as the Roma, in education, housing, health and employment. Nevertheless, these rules need to be well implemented and applied in practice in order to offer effective protection to individuals, and if need be, access to justice in cases of discrimination.
Several EU funds are available to Member States to support national Roma inclusion policies, namely the European Social Fund (ESF), European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). The EU already co-finances projects for the Roma in sectors like education, employment, microfinance and equal opportunities (in particular equality between men and women).
What is the role of Member States?
Member States have the primary responsibility for Roma integration, because the key areas which are the biggest challenge for Roma inclusion remain mostly national responsibilities. These include access to quality education, to the job market, housing and essential services, and healthcare.
Policies in these fields are often handled by regional and local authorities, depending on the country. This means different levels of government have a joint responsibility for Roma inclusion and need to cooperate closely to achieve results.
For example, the EU makes funds available to support inclusion and employment of Roma, among other things, but Member States and regions are responsible for allocating and implementing funding for specific integration projects.
What are the main areas where Roma face exclusion?
In education, Roma children have lower attainments and often face discrimination and segregation in schooling. Although the situation differs between EU countries, a survey by the Open Society Institute in six EU countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia) found that only 42% of Roma children complete primary school, compared to an average of 97.5% for the general population across the EU as a whole.
This has a knock-on effect in the labour market, where young Roma are less well-equipped and less qualified to find a job. The Europe 2020 strategy sets a headline target of 75% of people in the EU aged 20-64 to be in employment, compared to a current rate of 68.8%. For Roma, the employment rate is significantly lower, with a gap of around 26 percentage points according to World Bank research covering Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, and Serbia.
In health, Roma have a life expectancy of 10 years less than the average European and a child mortality rate that is significantly higher than the EU average of 4.3 per thousand births. United Nations Development Programme research in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic put Roma infant mortality rates there at 2-6 times higher than those for the general population, depending on the country. These outcomes reflect poorer living conditions, reduced access to quality healthcare and higher exposure to risks. There is also evidence that Roma communities are less well informed about health issues and can face discrimination in access to healthcare.
Roma also face significant gaps as compared to the average European in terms of access to housing and essential services. While between 72% and 100% of EU households are connected to a public water supply, the rate is much lower among Roma. Research by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency points to wider problems in accessing housing, both private and public. This in turn affects Roma health and broader integration prospects.
What are the benefits of better Roma integration?
Apart from better respect for the fundamental rights of a large number of EU citizens and greater social cohesion, better Roma integration holds out considerable economic benefits.
The Roma represent a growing share of the working age population, with an average age of 25 compared to the EU average of 40. Some 35.7% of Roma are under 15, compared to 15.7% of the EU population. Roma also form 1 in 5 new labour market entrants in Bulgaria and Romania.
According to a recent research by the World Bank1, full Roma integration in the labour market could bring economic benefits estimated to be around € 0.5 billion annually for some countries.
How will this strategy framework help the Roma?
The EU framework develops a targeted approach for a more effective response to Roma exclusion by setting EU-wide goals for integrating Roma, in education, employment, health and housing.
It will make a tangible difference to Roma people's lives over the next decade by focusing on Roma in national, regional and local integration policies in a clear and specific way, addressing them with explicit measures to prevent and compensate for the multiple disadvantages they face.
Member States will be asked to submit national Roma strategies to the Commission by the end of 2011, specifying how they will contribute to achieving the overall EU level integration goals, including setting national targets and allowing for sufficient funding (national, EU and other) to deliver them.
Finally, it proposes solutions for using EU funds more effectively and lays down foundations for a robust mechanism to monitor results.
What are the specific EU-level goals?
The goals address the four main areas for improving social and economic integration for Roma, all of which are primarily national policy areas:
Education: ensuring that all Roma children complete primary school;
Employment: cutting the employment gap between Roma and other citizens;
Health: reducing the gap in health status between the Roma and the general population;
Housing: closing the gap in access to housing and public utilities such as water and electricity.
How will the Commission check on progress?
The Commission will report annually to the European Parliament and to the Council on progress on the integration of the Roma population in Member States and on the achievement of the Roma integration goals.
It will base its monitoring notably on:
The results of the Roma household survey regularly carried out by the Fundamental Rights Agency, the United Nations Development Programme in cooperation with the World Bank.
National reform programmes in the frame of the EU 2020 Strategy, in particular for those countries with a high share of Roma population.
Ongoing work within the Open Method of Coordination in the field of social policies.
Member States contributions based on their own monitoring systems which national authorities are requested to include in their national Roma integration strategies.
It will also take into account the work of the European Platform for Roma Inclusion.
What about Roma outside the EU?
To improve the situation of the estimated 3.8 million Roma in the western Balkans and Turkey, the Commission intends to step up support for integration in the context of EU enlargement.
The enlargement process includes funding for social development projects, among other things. The Commission will support the national efforts to improve Roma inclusion by improving delivery of aid under the Instrument on Pre-Accession Assistance and encourage Roma involvement in formulating, implementing and monitoring policies. It is currently implementing or planning projects which could exclusively or partly benefit Roma worth €50 million.
The Commission will also closely monitor the economic and social situation of Roma in its enlargement progress reports for each country.
World Bank, Roma Inclusion: An Economic Opportunity for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Serbia, September 2010.
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http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-11-216_en.htm
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2013-05-26T02:55:35Z
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|
en
| 0.936261
| 1,685
|
Animal Species:Verreaux's Tree Frog
Verreaux's Tree Frog shows a great variety of colours and patterns across its range, but there are two main forms, the lowland and the highland.
The lowland form of Verreaux's Tree Frog is usually brown with black and yellow sides, and the mountain form is usually bright green with brown stripes.
Verreaux's Tree Frog is found in southern Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
Verreaux's Tree Frog is highly adaptable, living in a variety of habitats from mountain forests to coastal heath and open grasslands, often breeding in water-filled ditches.
The male Verreaux's Tree Frogs can be heard calling in the winter when other frogs are quiet. The call is a whirring, chirping 'weep...weep...weep...weep', increasing and then decreasing in volume.
Female Verreaux's Tree Frogs lay their eggs in ponds, sticking them in clumps to underwater vegetation.
Mating and reproduction
Verreaux's Tree Frog is unusual because breeding seems to occur all year round.
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http://australianmuseum.net.au/Verreauxs-Tree-Frog
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2013-05-20T02:24:21Z
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|
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| 0.888838
| 235
|
This project is due by January 3, 2006 and it cannot be hand written
Also include a personal prayer to the Saint in 2-3 sentences.
St. John the Baptist was born about six months before Jesus.
St. John Neumann, a native of Bohemia, was ordained in America. He was the first American man and first American bishop to be canonized.
Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem
sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.
He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ." They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"
He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" He answered, "No."
Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert,
`Make straight the way for the Lord.'"
|WebQuest Home||WebQuest Introduction||WebQuest Task||WebQuest Process||WebQuest Resources||WebQuest Evaluation|
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http://www.assumption-immaculate.org/K-8/Grade8/saint-webquest/task.html
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2013-05-25T13:42:34Z
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en
| 0.960737
| 245
|
Teams of scientists and investigators are desperately hunting for the cause of Germany's deadly E. coli outbreak as doctors struggle to treat a growing number of patients. But as the deadliest ever recorded outbreak of E. coli continues to spread in Germany and to other countries, one thing has become clear -- health authorities were not fully prepared. Experts say the country's alert system is rudimentary compared to those in other developed nations.
The pursuit of the dangerous pathogen's origin began on May 19 after findings from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) set off an E. coli alert at the country's disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). The next morning four RKI officials traveled from Berlin to Hamburg to question patients who were still conscious about what they had eaten, and where. What followed seemed like an incredible success. Many patients said they had eaten raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, and when Spanish cucumbers sold in Hamburg's central wholesale market tested positive for E. coli, health officials there proclaimed on May 26 that they had found at least one source of the outbreak. But the relief lasted just five days. Further tests revealed the bacteria was not the same serotype as the one isolated in patients.
Back where they started from, researchers then discovered that they were dealing with a very rare strain of the bacteria Enterohemmorhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC), never before seen by scientists in an outbreak before. The mutant strain of two separate E. coli bacteria was particularly aggressive, the World Health Organization said.
On Monday, hospitals all over northern Germany struggled to treat thousands of patients suffering from the effects of the bacteria. More than one-third of the people infected with E. coli have also come down with a life-threatening complication known as hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) which attacks the blood, kidneys and brain, and has left doctors racing to save lives. Ambulances have reportedly raced between cities to get desperately needed dialysis treatments for victims' failing kidneys as demand for machines became unmanageable. Meanwhile, clinics have cancelled routine operations in order to focus on emergency rooms filled with people infected by the bacteria, which causes watery or bloody diarrhea.
At least 21 people have already died from the E. coli outbreak in Germany, where some 2,200 infections have been registered, mainly centered in and around Hamburg. But other cases have spread throughout the nation and beyond, with another death and even more cases reported in other European countries, including Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and elsewhere. Most of those infected are believed to have visited Hamburg or other parts of northern Germany.
Over the weekend, fresh sprouts became the latest suspected culprit. On Sunday, Gert Lindemann, agriculture minister for the western state of Lower Saxony, said officials were conducting lab tests on samples from a farm in the Uelzen district near Hamburg. Indications were apparently so strong that sprouts were the cause of the outbreak that the state's Consumer Protection and Food Safety Ministry recommended consumers avoid eating them. By Monday afternoon, however, the ministry revealed that 23 of 40 samples taken from various locations on the sprout farm had tested negative for the bacteria. The remaining 17 samples must still be examined, the ministry said. On late Monday afternoon, ministry officials said suspicions remained that the sprouts may have caused the outbreak.
German Health Minister Ilse Aigner also recommended Monday that consumers not eat raw sprouts, "as long as the suspicion hasn't been eliminated entirely."
Mystery Remains Unresolved
Evidence does, however, indicate the outbreak is somehow linked to Hamburg's large wholesale produce market -- the same place where the contaminated Spanish cucumbers were found -- though officials remain uncertain whether the contamination occurred on the farm or during shipping, storage or packaging. "In recent days we've had long conference calls with other agencies and have determined that clues repeatedly point to Hamburg's wholesale market," an unnamed Bremen health ministry official told SPIEGEL. "It seems to play some kind of role or another."
Vendors at the huge market hall, which is as large as 30 football fields, have suffered immensely from a general fear of raw produce arising from the RKI's daily renewal of its recommendation for consumers to avoid tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce. Meanwhile, the initial warning about Spanish cucumbers has sparked diplomatic tensions with Spain, which is now demanding compensation for lost sales. Though many of the some 150 fruit and vegetable wholesalers at the Hamburg market have voluntarily handed over their produce for testing, all of it coming back E. coli-free, some report they are still unable to sell up to half of their products. Thousands of cartons go to waste each day, shipped off for compost or biogas plants. With the produce destroyed, it may be too late to ever discover the bacteria's origin, experts warn.
"As the first people took ill, the contaminated batch had probably long since been sold," said Lothar Wieler, director of the Institute of Microbiology and Epizootics at Berlin's Free University. As the first HUS cases emerged, the vegetables would have already been eaten or thrown out, ultimately leaving the source a mystery. But therein lies the fatal mistake of the German health authorities. Eighteen valuable days were lost between when the first patient came down with diarrhea around May 1, and when the RKI was finally alerted.
While part of this may be because those infected waited until their cases became severe to see a doctor, the delay also indicates how unprepared German doctors were to properly report and handle the outbreak. Many fail to consider the possibility of an E. coli infection at all, sending patients with diarrhea home with a prescription and failing to take stool samples. But the larger problem is that local German health authorities are given abundant time to relay news of E. coli infections in their area. Infections, evidence of E. coli sources and even resulting deaths must be reported to state authorities just once a week, at the latest on the third working day of the week following initial identification. State authorities then have another entire week before they must inform the RKI. "Why can't this just be directly sent electronically?" asked Wieler of the Institute of Microbiology and Epizootics in Berlin.
Time is Running Out
While news of a potentially deadly outbreak can take up to two weeks to reach top German health authorities, other developed nations such as the United States and Japan, have instituted early warning mechanisms. A swift reaction is crucial in such situations, said Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US. In 1993, officials there responded to an unprecedented E. coli outbreak by creating a registry system for every suspicious group of gastro-intestinal infections. Since 2001, every state and some large cities have had laboratories that analyze stool samples from potential outbreaks and catalogue different strains of the bacteria. The CDC checks it daily, Tauxe said, saying a similar system should already be in place not just for Germany, but all of Europe.
While such a system would be likely to curb another outbreak, fighting E. coli remains a daunting task. Although it was first identified in the early 1980s, relatively little is known about the bacteria. Until the latest outbreak, an average of 800 isolated cases were reported by doctors and clinics in Germany each year, but small outbreaks are also common. Some nine years ago in southern Germany experts determined that contaminated fresh apple juice from a farm stand had sickened 48 people. Three years ago in Lower Saxony, more than 30 elementary school students ingested the bacteria when they drank raw milk during a field trip to a local farm. These were small incidents compared to the worst E. coli outbreak on record, which happened in Japan in 1996, when contaminated radish sprouts at a school cafeteria caused about 10,000 infections and 12 deaths.
Part of the problem in identifying the source of an outbreak is sluggish testing. Though veterinarians, chemists, scientists and laboratory staff at the RKI are working "in accord," Silke Klotzhuber, an official with the Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, said, sample test results require some 36 hours. Final test results take a total of two to three days -- and even these aren't definitive. Only Germany's national reference lab can determine whether a sample truly matches the O104:H4 strain believed to be causing the outbreak, requiring even more precious time.
In the meantime, investigators are focusing on cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and, most recently, sprouts. They have monitored every domestic producer, following their channels of distribution, but without success. With so much time gone by, and another major failure on Monday, hope of finding the source appears to be running out.
With reporting by SPIEGEL staff.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2011
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/outbreak-in-germany-precious-time-lost-in-hunt-for-e-coli-a-766969-druck.html
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2013-05-23T19:13:16Z
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|
en
| 0.968008
| 1,849
|
Food Security Assessment, 2006
by Birgit Meade
, Stacey Rosen
, and Shahla Shapouri
Outlook No. (GFA-18) 49 pp, June 2007
Preliminary estimates inRdicate that the number of hungry people in 70 lower income countries rose between 2005 and 2006, from 804 million people to 849 million. The two main factors contributing to this increase were higher food prices and poor economic performance in several countries. By 2016, however, the number of hungry people is projected to decline in all regions, except Sub-Saharan Africa. The most significant improvement is expected in Asia, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean.
In Food Security Assessment, 2006, the Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates and projects the number of hungry people globally, regionally, and in each of the 70 lower income countries studied. Hungry people are those consuming less than the nutritional target of 2,100 calories a day. The report also measures the food distribution gap (the amount of food needed to raise consumption of each income group to the nutritional requirement) and examines the factors that shape food security. Food security is defined as access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life.
What Is the Issue?
Recent oil price hikes have raised concerns for low-income countries over the financial burden of the higher energy import bill and the constraints that might ensue in importing necessities like food and raw materials. If food imports become vulnerable, food security could become more of an issue for some of these countries.
Higher oil prices have sparked global energy concerns, which in turn, have spurred demand for ethanol and biodiesel in some food-exporting countries. The resulting increase in demand for grain, sugar, and vegetable oils (commodities used to produce biofuels and biodiesel) has resulted in higher food prices, which compound economic pressure for the low-income countries. These commodities constitute a large share of the diets in low-income countries, and therefore, rising prices and their subsequent inflationary effects are likely to further constrain consumers' budgets.
What Did the Project Find?
The average nutritional food gap was 13.5 million tons (grain equivalent) in 2006 and is projected to increase slightly to 14 million tons by 2016. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 85 percent of this gap, while the low-income countries of Asia account for only 14 percent and the low-income countries of Latin America and the Caribbean for the remaining 1 percent. The distribution gap, an indicator of food access (as it takes into account unequal purchasing power within countries), is estimated at about 27 million tons for 2006, decreasing slightly to 26 million tons by 2016.
ERS has estimated that there were 849 million undernourished people in 70 low-income developing countries in 2006. Asia was home to 47 percent of this number, and this share is projected to decline to 37 percent by 2016 due to improvements expected in India. Given the region's comparatively low import dependency (4 percent of total grain availability), the current increase in food prices does not immediately threaten these countries' ability to pay for commercial imports. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most food-insecure region. The region accounted for 44 percent of the total number of hungry people, but it accounted for only 24 percent of the population of the study countries. While Asia had a higher absolute number of hungry people, it is far less vulnerable than SSA. Asia accounted for 47 percent of the total number of hungry people, but it accounted for a far larger share of the total population-66 percent. Also, unlike Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa shows no signs of improvement-on average-in food security and poverty levels. In fact, by 2016, the region will have more hungry people, 460 million, than Asia, at 300 million, does. In 2016, more than half of the region's population is projected to consume below the nutritional requirement.
An estimated 44 percent of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean consumed below the nutritional requirement in 2006. This share is expected to drop to 26 percent by 2016 because per capita consumption in the region is projected to rise nearly 16 percent between 2006 and 2016.
How Was the Project Conducted?
All historical and projected data are updated relative to the 2005 Food Security Assessment report. Food production estimates for 2006 are preliminary, based on USDA data as of October 2006, with supplemental data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Program. Financial and macroeconomic data are based on the latest World Bank data. Projected macroeconomic variables are either extrapolated based on calculated growth rates for the 1990s and early 2000s or are World Bank projections/estimations. Projections/ estimates of food availability include food aid, with the assumption that each country will receive the 2003-05 average level of food aid throughout the next decade.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://transcoder.usablenet.com/tt/www.ers.usda.gov/publications/gfa-food-security-assessment-situation-and-outlook/gfa-18/report-summary.aspx
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2013-05-23T12:09:16Z
|
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|
en
| 0.946777
| 991
|
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A gull; any bird of the subfamily Larinæ, most of which fly over the sea as well as inland waters. Some of the larger terns (Sterninæ) receive the same name. See cut, under gull.
- n. Variant of seagull
“But one day, climbing after sea-gull eggs, he had a fall from the cliff.”
“A sea-gull with slow, deliberate flight and long, majestic curves circled round us, and as a reminder of home a little English sparrow perched impudently on the fo'castle head, and, cocking his head on one side, chirped merrily.”
“I was left to keep house, feeling like a caged sea-gull as I washed dishes and cooked in the basement kitchen where my prospect was limited to a succession of muddy boots.”
“The brittle air was filled with dog sound from sea-gull like keening to sharp barking to complaining that sounded like old wheezing women, but the dogs -- well, the dogs were excited.”
“They cut away, and the Rose, released from the strain, shook her feathers on the wave-crest like a freed sea-gull, while all men held their breaths.”
“It seemed first to be a sea-gull flying low, but ultimately proved to be a human figure, running with great rapidity.”
“We passed and gazed; but the only sound was the whistling of the tempest, and the only living sight a sea-gull, weary of his wings, and drowning.”
“In the mountains they collect at this season vast numbers of the eggs of a species of sea-gull, which is very common here.”
“We hoisted a sail on our small boat and ran quickly over the nine miles and saw on the shore a tame sea-gull, while a couple of boys, the sons of a coastguard, ran into the water in their clothes to pull us to land, as we had read of savage people doing.”
“A white-winged sea-gull rose suddenly from the crimson waters, and circled rapidly in the air above them.”
‘sea-gull’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
Looking for tweets for sea-gull.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.wordnik.com/words/sea-gull
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2013-05-22T22:08:13Z
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|
en
| 0.965889
| 521
|
Early Detection is Important
When skin cancer is found early, it is more likely to be treated successfully. Therefore, it is important to know how to recognize the signs of skin cancer in order to improve the chances of early diagnosis.
Most non-melanoma skin cancers (basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma) can be cured if found and treated early.
A change on the skin is the most common sign of skin cancer. This may be a new growth, a sore that doesn't heal, or a change in an old growth. Not all skin cancers look the same. Sometimes skin cancer is painful, but usually it is not.
Checking your skin for new growths or other changes is a good idea. Keep in mind that changes are not a sure sign of skin cancer. Still, you should report any changes to your health care provider right away. You may need to see a dermatologist, a doctor who has special training in the diagnosis and treatment of skin problems.
A Mole That is Bleeding
Also see a doctor if a mole is bleeding or if more moles appear around the first one. Most of the time, these signs are not cancer. Sometimes, it is not even a mole. Still, it is important to check with a doctor so that any problems can be diagnosed and treated as early as possible. Don't ignore your symptoms because you think they are not important or because you believe they are normal for your age.
Signs of Melanoma
Melanoma skin cancer is more difficult to treat, so it is important to check for signs and seek treatment as soon as possible. Use the following ABCD rule to remember the symptoms of melanoma. See a doctor if you have a mole, birthmark, or other pigmented area of skin with
A = asymmetry (one half of the mole looks different than the other half)
B = borders that are irregular
C = color changes or more than one color
D = diameter greater than the size of a pencil eraser.
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<urn:uuid:1c2067d6-f8ed-4d55-9f6a-2cb422f72075>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://nihseniorhealth.gov/skincancer/symptomsofskincancer/01.html
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2013-06-20T02:09:54Z
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|
en
| 0.951123
| 417
|
Diesel technology has been transformed in recent years. Lower sulfur fuels; cleaner, more efficient engines; and more effective emission control technologies have made diesel a clean and efficient way to power on and off-road vehicles and equipment. As a result, clean diesel technology can help contribute to the sustainability of businesses, communities and individuals by reducing the environmental and societal “cost” of their activities.
The first and most common definition of sustainability comes from the 1987 United Nations' Brundtland Commission Report, "Our Common Future" which defined it as the ability to "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "sustainable development marries two important themes: that environmental protection does not preclude economic development and that economic development must be ecologically viable now and in the long run."
Sustainability is a constant goal, however the path can change over time as our economy, environment, and society develop and the costs and benefits of certain technologies and policies become clearer. One day's solution might bring unforeseen future consequences, making it necessary to evaluate the cumulative effect of all decisions and accept that the highest degree of sustainability may, at times, appear only incremental.
The Role of Clean Diesel Technology
We believe clean diesel technology is better able than ever before to help users improve efficiency and minimize environmental impacts through cleaner and more efficient methods of transporting freight and people, mining resources, constructing buildings, growing crops and providing power. By incorporating clean diesel technology in their operations, supply chains or personal lives; businesses, governments and individuals can maintain or improve performance with reduced impact on the world around them.
For diesel power users, clean diesel technology can minimize environmental costs and enhance operational sustainability through fuel use, vehicle/equipment efficiency and the number of vehicle miles traveled. It can also contribute to sustainability by enhancing economic and social security as a reliable source of clean backup power.
Cleaner Diesel Fuels Can Help Reduce Emissions and Petroleum Consumption
Number of Vehicles/Equipment in Use
How Clean Diesel Contributes to Sustainability
Read more about Sustainably Powering Our Economy with Clean Diesel Technology.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.dieselforum.org/energy-and-environment/clean-diesel-technology-and-sustainability
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2013-05-18T08:59:28Z
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en
| 0.932097
| 445
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The English language is pretty common all over the world,
and it’s worked well for you so far when communicating in daily life. But did
you know that there are more people on Earth that speak Chinese dialects and
Spanish than English? And did you also know that by the end of the 21st
century, researchers expect 90 percent of the 7,000 languages currently heard
throughout the world to be gone or on their way to extinction? Might be time to
think about adding another language to that resume, then.
Being bilingual makes you smarter – really! Psychologists
found a few years ago that bilingual kids can solve more mental puzzles than
monolinguals. Because if you know two languages, you’re constantly translating
and analyzing situations in your head to figure out which language you should
be using, and that makes you better at things like problem solving and
concentrating for long periods of time. Another bonus is that you won’t get
Alzheimer’s or dementia when you’re older. If you’re constantly making your
brain work by using more than one language, it’ll keep it in tip-top shape.
Certain languages are gonna be more useful to you in the
long run, and others are gonna be easier to pick up. If you’re lookin’ for
something that’ll help you succeed in the future, go for Chinese, Hindu-Urdu,
Spanish, or Arabic. They’re gonna be the most common by the time the year 2050
rolls around (or at least, that’s what researchers have predicted). But the
easiest ones for an English-speaker to pick up are Dutch, French, Norwegian,
Spanish, and Italian. To get a general professional proficiency in one of those,
it should take you about 22 to 24 weeks, depending on how intense your study
is. Then the toughest tongues to get the hang of are Arabic, Chinese, Japanese,
and Korean. Each of those will probably cost you about 88 weeks of learning, so
you’ll need a li’l extra patience if you’ve got your heart set on one.
Ready, Set, Go!
Besides signing up for classes in a new language, there are
a few things you can do to work towards being bilingual. First, you can check
at your local library to see if they offer a free online language program, like
Rosetta Stone or Mango Complete, for their members. There are also websites,
that have free lessons on different languages. And once you start getting
comfortable with your new language, you can check out and mylanguagexchange.com,
which partners you with a native speaker so that you can learn their language
and they can learn yours.
To get more stats on
who speaks what in the world, check this out.
Have you ever thought about learning a new language? Which one? Blog about it,
BY CARRIE RUPPERT ON 11/21/2012 12:00:00 AM
POSTED IN school, studying secrets, In the News
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| 0.919847
| 664
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|BUILDING - RELATED C & D WASTE CHARACTERISTICS|
Local, state and federal governments classify construction and demolition (C&D) waste as "solid waste" that includes materials generated from construction and demolition activities for the transportation, building, and land clearing industries, as well as disaster debris. Building-related C&D waste includes building materials (asphalt shingles, insulation, concrete, wood, gypsum drywall, PVC, metals, etc.), packaging materials (cardboard, styrofoam, straps, pallets, etc.), tree stumps, and rubble resulting from construction, remodeling, repair, and demolition of homes, commercial buildings and other structures and pavements. "Hazardous waste" or potentially harmful materials may also be contained in building-related debris, although they are not generally included in the official definitions of C&D waste. These materials including lead, asbestos, mercury, liquid paints and stains, pressure treated lumber, etc. must be removed and disposed according to practices and regulations beyond those for C&D waste.
A study conducted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicates that building-related C&D waste totaled approximately 136 million tons in 1996. Of this amount, approximately 57% was non-residential and 43% was residential. New construction generated an estimated 11 million tons (8%), renovation 60 million tons (44%) and demolition another 65 million tons (48%).
Building-related C&D waste contributes significantly to the total waste stream flowing into the nation's landfills with estimates ranging from 10 - 30 percent of total waste. Construction waste disposal is regulated on the state and local level. Therefore, the guidelines for disposing of construction wastes vary from state to state. Construction wastes used to be burned in fires or buried on-site. However, these practices have been widely abandoned and in most states, made illegal.
As of 1996, EPA reported that most construction waste generated in the U.S. is thrown into dumpsters and hauled to either a permitted construction and demolition (C&D) waste landfill or a municipal solid waste facility. There were an estimated 1800 C&D landfills operating in the United States in 1995. The EPA estimates 20 - 30 percent was being recovered for reuse or recycling in 1996. Approximately 3,500 operating facilities processed this C&D for recovery.
The composition of building-related construction and demolition debris varies due to the nature of construction activity. Demolition sites generate more concrete, asphalt and metals while construction generates more corrugated containers, wood and gypsum wallboard. Demolition and remodeling activities are more prone to generate asbestos and lead-contaminated materials.
Results of waste generated at 15 residential construction projects compiled by the EPA demonstrates a large variation in waste generation amongst single-family home construction. Waste generated from these homes ranged from 2.41 to 11.30 pounds per square foot, with an average generation of 6.14 pounds per square foot. Home size does not appear to have been the determining factor for waste production, other factors including contractor, materials chosen or special circumstances may have more to do with waste generation than size of home.
A study conducted by the National Association of Home Builders Research Center, estimated that 8,000 lbs. of waste is thrown into the landfill during construction of a typical 2,000 square foot home. The makeup of this waste is estimated in the table below.
Although construction wastes vary from one site to another, other studies reflect similar trends in characteristics of waste materials with wood, drywall and cardboard contributing the largest percentages of material. Materials in the "other" category may include glass, ceramic, aggregate, rubble, paper and paperboard, plastic, electrical wire, carpet, rubber, insulation, and miscellaneous items and scraps.
Many of these materials can be reused/salvaged or recycled, especially the wood, cardboard, and drywall. Over 70% reduction in waste would be achieved if these three materials were reused or recycled, thus saving resources, money and landfill space. Reduction of waste through prevention methods may also reduce the financial and environmental impacts of construction waste.
Many states have programs, run by government or private organizations, that work to enhance Construction and Demolition recycling. Some programs recognize the economic benefits of developing this inherently local industry while others wish to capture the lost resources and reduce impact to landfills. Material exchanges are one product of these programs. "Green Building" programs provide contractors with support to reduce waste through product choices and techniques as well as recycling waste materials that are generated.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Characterization of Building- Related Construction and Demolition Debris In The United States, 1998 http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/sqg/c&d-rpt.pdf
NAHB Research Center, Residential Construction Waste: From Disposal to Managementhttp://www.toolbase.org/Best-Practices/Construction-Waste/residential-construction-waste
(Fact Sheet 1 of 10)
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| 0.920723
| 1,045
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Loyalties In Conflict:
Union and Confederate Sentiment
In Barbour County
By John W. Shaffer
West Virginia has often been called the "War Born State," as no other state began amid such turmoil or was so dependent for its survival upon the continued existence of the Union as a whole. Indeed, the creation of West Virginia during the Civil War is perhaps the central theme of the state's history, with more attention devoted to its origins than any other aspect. In attempting to explain West Virginia's formation, early writers, many direct participants in the events, viewed the state's creation as a culmination of a half century of struggle between two opposing societies: the slave-based plantation economy of the east dominated by aristocratic oligarchies, and a society of small, independent farmers, democratic and "free," in the west. They concluded the people of the western counties were overwhelmingly anti-secessionist and pro-Union at the outbreak of the Civil War.
This myth was long ago shattered by subsequent research which showed that in many sections of what eventually became West Virginia, the sympathies of vast numbers of people were decidedly pro-secessionist. One important revisionist interpretation of West Virginia's origins by Richard Orr Curry revealed that the majority of the population of the southwest, an area encompassing half the state's counties, supported the Confederacy. Even in the heavily populated northwest, the stronghold of Union sentiment, large numbers of people remained loyal to a seceded Virginia.2
However, Curry's attempt to explain the basis for these divisions largely echoed the emphasis of previous historians on the divergent backgrounds of the two sections of the Old Dominion. Chief among these was a long tradition of political struggle waged by the western counties for greater representation in the Virginia legislature, the extension of suffrage, a more equitable tax structure, and a greater share of state-financed internal improvements. Although this struggle forced two revisions of the state constitution, the traditional view holds that the aims of the west were never fully realized. Western political leaders, as a result, seized the opportunity afforded by Virginia's secession to achieve their goals by establishing a new state.
Curry recognized that this explanation by itself left several questions unanswered, the most important being the southwest's continued loyalty to Virginia. Like those before him, he cited several factors which distinguished the northwest from the rest of Virginia and contributed to the preservation of pro-Union sentiment. Foremost among these was an agrarian economy that precluded significant reliance on slave labor. Geared toward a mixture of cereal production and stockraising, investment in slaves simply was not feasible in the absence of labor- intensive crops, such as tobacco and cotton. Moreover, because of the region's river system, commercial ties were directed north and west, away from eastern Virginia, ties further strengthened by the industrial development of Wheeling and the Monongahela River basin.
The role of the Methodist-Episcopal Church has often been cited as having a decisive influence in limiting the extension of slavery in the northwest and contributing to pro-Unionist sympathies among its members. After the division of the church into northern and southern branches in 1844, an acrimonious struggle for influence and membership erupted between the two in western Virginia. This bitter contest intensified the controversy over slavery and crystallized abolitionist tendencies already inherent within the northern Methodist Church. When war finally came, large numbers of ministers and laymen, hardened by more than a decade of struggle, were unflinching in their support of the Union.3
The final factor almost universally cited by historians was the distinct ethnic origins of the people who settled the region. Unlike eastern Virginia, the northwest was said to have been populated, for the most part, by Scotch-Irish and Germans migrating from northern and border states. These pioneers brought with them a culture and ideology strongly nationalistic and opposed to slavery.4
Barbour County, with its population nearly evenly divided in their Union or Confederate sympathies, serves as a microcosm of the divisions which separated the population of West Virginia as a whole. Created in 1843, Barbour is typical of the counties of the north-central region of the state. Its economy was overwhelmingly agrarian, as fully 80 percent of the families listed in the 1860 census were farmers or tenants. Its commercial ties were predominantly with the East, particularly Baltimore. The county's primary exports were cattle and other livestock which were shipped to eastern markets. Virtually all manufactured goods sold within Barbour were imported from the East rather than the North. There is little evidence of significant commercial ties with the North. An iron foundry established in 1848 shipped pig iron to Pittsburgh, but by 1854 ceased operations. Although large coal deposits existed within the county, they remained virtually undeveloped for most of the century.5
Generally, wealth in Barbour County was evenly distributed, as evidenced by the figures in Table 1, based on the values of real and personal property reported in the 1860 census. The predominance of family-operated farms is readily apparent. Fully two-thirds of Barbour families were headed by landowners, over one-third of whom owned property valued between five hundred and twenty-five hundred dollars. The landless, tenant farmers for the most part, constituted one-third of the families living in the county. This figure is somewhat misleading, for it includes a number of merchants and professionals who, while not owning land, were nonetheless fairly well-to-do. This category also includes the married children of landowners, who would eventually inherit a portion of their parents' holdings.
|less than $499||141||531||672||41.8|
|Table compiled from U.S. Census Office. Eighth
Census of the United States, Barbour County, Virginia.
*No values were given for five households.
Every county had wealthy families and Barbour was no exception. Fifty-four families possessed property valued in excess of ten thousand dollars and controlled 30 percent of the total wealth reported for the county. Few of Barbour's middle-class families possessed sufficient wealth to dominate the economic life of the county. Only seven individuals owned property worth more than twenty-five thousand dollars. The wealthiest Barbour County resident John H. Woodford owned land and property valued at $77,800, almost twice that of the next wealthiest individual.
The possibility of war was looming by the time the census was nearing completion. Although not immediately apparent, early 1861 found Barbour County's population sharply divided. Because many of the county's leading citizens and virtually all county officials supported secession, Union sympathizers had little chance to influence political developments in the months preceding the outbreak of hostilities. When Spencer Dayton, a local attorney, attempted to speak out in favor of the Union at a mass meeting held at the courthouse in Philippi, he was removed at gunpoint. From then on, Union men kept a low profile. Those who did not flee the county entirely held their meetings in secret. By mid-May, secessionists organized three companies of volunteers which soon occupied the principal towns of the county. With such a show of force, it is not surprising that Barbour voted in favor of Virginia's secession by a majority of 231.6
Secessionist domination of Barbour County was briefly reinforced in June 1861 with the arrival of Virginia troops under Colonel George Porterfield. Ordered by Governor John Letcher to organize state forces in the northwest to repel an expected invasion from Ohio, Porterfield was unable to gather more than a few companies totaling less than one thousand men, most untrained, undisciplined, and mainly unarmed. Aware that a strong Federal force was descending upon him Porterfield retreated from Grafton to Philippi, intending to continue his retreat to better defensive positions in Randolph County. However, the Federals surprised him on the morning of June 3 by occupying the heights above the town. When the Federals opened fire, the Confederates fled in a confused mass into Randolph County. Miraculously, no one was killed in the brief skirmish, which West Virginians have labeled the first land battle of the Civil War.
Except for this footnote in history, Barbour's role in the war was insignificant. Although Confederate forces again occupied the county for a few days in 1863, Barbour remained under Federal control throughout the war; however, that control was never complete. Confederate raiders, many of them former residents, frequently infiltrated the county, ambushing wagon trains, robbing stores, harassing Union sympathizers, and, above all, gathering recruits. In fact, of 349 men from Barbour who joined the Confederate army, 137 enlisted after 1861, either by making their way to Rebel lines or being recruited within the county.7
In effect, Barbour's primary role in the war was as a recruiting ground for both sides. This fact makes it worthy of close examination, as neighbors who lived together in peace for decades suddenly found themselves enemies. Over four dozen families were divided in their sympathies, with brother literally fighting brother.8 For the people of Barbour, the conflict was in every sense of the term a civil war.
In order to determine the basis of Union and Confederate sentiment within Barbour, data was gathered on the social, economic, and religious backgrounds of individuals who directly participated in the war, either enlisting in the army or serving as public officials under the Pierpont or Boreman governments. Also included are those persons whose allegiance can be determined from public records, local histories, or biographies. Fortunately, a wealth of biographical information exists on individuals and families who lived in Barbour during the war. Beginning in the nineteenth century, local historians began compiling the histories of West Virginia families. The foremost, Hu Maxwell, Oren Morton, and Thomas Conduit Miller, either lived in Barbour or neighboring counties, so the bulk of their studies dealt with people of the immediate region. Their work constitutes an invaluable resource on the history of the county.9
Of the 995 individuals included in the study, all lived in Barbour County during the war. Among Union sympathizers were 465 men who enlisted in the armed forces, 72 who held public office, and 48 who demonstrated pro-Union sentiments. Confederate sympathizers included 349 men who enlisted in the army and 61 sympathetic to the Southern cause.10 Despite every effort to include as many persons as possible in the study, the individuals examined here obviously do not constitute the total number of Barbour's residents who counted themselves Union or Confederate sympathizers. The most glaring omission is that of women, only nine of whom were included in the study. Although legally barred from voting, there can be no doubt that women held very definite views on secession and the war. However, local histories, written entirely by men, virtually ignore the very important role they played in the struggle. Women were expected to carry on their traditional roles as homemakers, albeit in a decidedly untraditional context. Most of the women included in this study were those whose sympathies could be confirmed because their actions overstepped these bounds and could not be ignored by historians of the era.11
The same could be said with some justification of the men, who represent only 38 percent of the total male population of the county over the age of fifteen listed in the 1860 census. This group includes all whose devotion to the Union or Confederate cause compelled them to participate actively in the war. Enlistees for both sides risked their lives for the cause; at least 102 died for it.12 Public officials served at great risk to their lives and property, as Confederate commanders were specifically ordered to apprehend officials of the "bogus" Pierpont and Boreman governments. County Sheriff James Trayhern and Justice of the Peace William Price were captured by Confederate raiders.13 Those with pronounced secessionist views suffered equally for their loyalty to the Old Dominion. Dozens were arrested, many more had their property confiscated or homes burned, and three were killed.14 These men and women represented the hard core of Union and Confederate sentiment in Barbour County.
Given Barbour's social structure, it would be surprising if marked class distinctions existed between Union and Confederate sympathizers. Property values, compiled in Tables 2 and 3 from the 1860 census, establishes that the only significant difference between the two groups was that a higher percentage of Confederates were drawn from the wealthier families of the county. Of the ten richest families in Barbour, seven counted members who were either Confederate sympathizers or soldiers.
|less than $499||59||158||217||38.6|
|Table compiled from U.S. Census Office. Eighth Census of the United States, Barbour County, Virginia.|
|less than $499||17||121||138||34.8|
|Table compiled from U.S. Census Office. Eighth
Census of the United States, Barbour County, Virginia.
Note: The numbers examined here do not equal the total examined in the study as the census failed to give property values for several families while others moved to the county after the census was taken.
There is some evidence of class resentment by Unionists against well-to-do secessionists, many of whom resided in Philippi. After Porterfield's force was driven from the town, a number of these families fled with him to the obvious delight of some. "The people of Philippa were living like kings," one woman declared, "and might have been yet, if they had behaved themselves." Another wrote of his pleasure at hearing that, "the people of Philippa who have been lying on beds of down for so long, are now lying on beds of thorn." However, it would be a mistake to characterize the county's wealthy families as united in their support for Virginia's secession. Woodford's son Asa was wholeheartedly loyal to the Union cause, helping to raise an infantry regiment for the Pierpont government. Andrew Miller, the second wealthiest man in Barbour, also counted himself a loyal Union man and had one son in the Federal army. Overall, the distribution of property between Union and Confederate sympathizers was remarkably similar and tended to mirror property distribution for the county as a whole. In Barbour at least, both sides drew support from all segments of the county's population, from landless tenant to the richest proprietor, and in approximately equal proportions.15
The absence of any significant class distinctions between Union and Confederate sympathizers is explained by the fact that purely economic considerations played virtually no role in the issues which divided the county. The questions which split Barbour society were essentially political, the chief being secession. In all the debates, speeches, mass meetings, and resolutions passed in Barbour during the turbulent months leading up to the secession vote, the central theme was the issue of whether or not Virginia should join the seceding states of the South. The campaign statements of Thomas Bradford and Samuel Woods, the two candidates running for election to the Richmond Convention in January 1861, were devoted entirely to the question of secession. Both agreed that Virginia and any other state of the Union possessed this right. They only differed in that Bradford urged Virginia's immediate secession while Woods hoped to avoid so irrevocable a step. Woods was elected because his position combined elements satisfactory to both sides. Only when it became clear that Lincoln intended to use force to preserve the Union, did Woods switch to the secessionist camp and vote in favor of the ordinance of secession. From that moment on, he was viewed by Unionists in Barbour as having betrayed their trust and was singled out for retribution.16
The question of secession was so fundamental that the issue of slavery played a secondary role. Slavery was a factor in shaping public opinion in Barbour, but the secession question directly affected the lives of each person in the county. Slavery was an incidental element in Barbour's social fabric, touching the lives of only a handful of people. In 1860 there were thirty-eight slaveholders in the county owning eighty-eight slaves. Most slaveowners had only two or three slaves, primarily females used as domestics by wealthier families. Caroline Boner, with eleven slaves, was the largest slaveowner in Barbour and the only person who relied on slave labor to any significant degree.17
Secessionists used the slave issue as propaganda against Union supporters. Thompson Surghor, the editor of Barbour's only newspaper, repeatedly lashed out against "Union shriekers who are attempting to Abolitionize Virginia." Bradford's campaign statement castigated northern abolitionists who sent "their hired mercenaries among us for the express purpose of inciting our slaves to insurrection" and decried Lincoln as being "openly pledged to the miserable dogma that the negro is the equal of the white man."18 These statements inflamed fears that a Union victory would mean the immediate freedom of all slaves and propelled many into the Confederate ranks. After the defeat of the Confederate army at Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill in July 1861, John Beatty, an officer of Indiana volunteers, noted in his diary that Rebel prisoners, among them a number of men from Barbour, told him, "they were deceived and entered the service because they were led to believe that the Northern army would confiscate their property, liberate their slaves and play the devil generally."19
The opposition to slavery similarly compelled others in the county to oppose secession. Although abolitionist sentiment in Barbour was by no means widespread, it had adherents. The O'Neal family was to a man strongly opposed to the institution. James Proudfoot, one of the county's most prominent citizens, was so influenced by John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry that he freed his slaves outright. Captain of the local Home Guard unit Michael Haller became an ardent abolitionist as a result of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and was one of only a handful who voted for Lincoln in 1860. William P. Wilson and his sons, all of whom served in the Federal army or the West Virginia government, were directly engaged in the underground railroad, hiding runaway slaves in their cellar. Emmitt Pittman's support for the Union was shaped by his own experience of the realities of slavery. As a teenager just prior to the war, he saw a female slave beaten to death for claiming to be too ill to work. Pittman declared to an uncle that, "when I grow up, I will be a Lincoln man." Others equally opposed to slavery were just as adamant in their support of Virginia's secession. Samuel Woods' wife Isabella felt keenly that slavery was an evil, yet was steadfast in her allegiance to Virginia and the Confederacy. David Lang also opposed slavery and voted against the ordinance of secession. Nonetheless, he joined the Confederate army in 1862, rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and died fighting in the Valley Campaign in 1864.20
Perhaps the strongest evidence of the secondary role of the slavery issue in Barbour was the support for the Union cause among slaveholders. Although a majority of those who owned slaves were avowed secessionists, a number were not. Henson Hoff, a slaveowner in 1860, was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1864. One of his sons served in the government during the war while another was a Federal army officer. Solomon Leonard, another slaveowner, served in the West Virginia militia. Seven other slaveowners had sons who served in various West Virginia regiments.21
Even among non-slaveowning Unionists there is clear evidence that slavery had little to do with their support of the Federal cause. Nathan Taft, one of the most prominent Union men in the county and personally opposed to slavery, attempted to bring back slaves who fled to Ohio after the Federal occupation of the county. He was assisted by David Bryer, another Union man, who wrote to the governor of Ohio on Taft's behalf urging his help in seeking the return of runaway slaves. Bryer pointed out that this action would do much to convince the people of West Virginia that a Federal victory would not result in the eradication of the institution.22
If opposition to slavery was not a deciding factor in influencing sentiment in Barbour, then how influential was the Methodist-Episcopal Church's position on slavery in generating support for the Union? There is little doubt that Episcopal Methodism was widespread in Barbour County, dating back to the beginning of the century when itinerant preachers visited pioneer settlements in the region. Although no figures on church membership for this period exist, the 1860 census reveals its relative strength. Religious affiliation of some 355 families was noted by the census enumerator, with 201 identified as members of the Methodist-Episcopal Church.23
The church, like its individual members, was deeply divided over slavery and remained so until the eve of the Civil War. In 1844 the Methodist-Episcopal Church splintered into northern and southern branches over the question of slave ownership by church bishops. Individual members had been free to own slaves since 1808. The division of the church failed to resolve the issue, even within the northern branch. Agitation over slavery continued throughout the 1850s as abolitionist sentiment in the Northern and New England conferences exerted pressure to extend the ban on slaveownership to all members.24
The agitation had the direct effect of increasing membership within the Methodist-Episcopal Church, South throughout border areas like western Virginia. Fearful of further encroachments on membership, the leadership of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, North resisted any move to alter existing rules governing slaveownership. The culmination of the struggle came in 1861 when the General Conference adopted a new rule declaring slavery to be "inconsistent with the Golden Rule" and admonished "all preachers and people to keep themselves pure from this great evil." This was as far as the church ever came to an outright ban on slaveownership, but it was sufficient to cause massive desertions to the southern branch of the church.25
The growing abolitionist tendencies within the parent body and the increasing influence of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, South placed the West Virginia Conference between two inexorable pressures. The conference sought to preserve membership by treading a careful middle ground. Making no effort to alter the 1861 rule, the conference at the same time refused to concur with it. Thus, on the eve of Virginia's secession, a significant number of members were held to the fold only by the most tenuous of ties.26
The relation between the Methodist-Episcopal Church and Union sentiment in Barbour County can be determined by comparing the number of Union and Confederate sympathizers known to have been members of the church. Biographies, extant church records, and the 1860 census establish some 220 individuals as belonging to the church. Although a majority of 129 were Union sympathizers, 40 percent were Confederate sympathizers, among them one of the two Methodist ministers residing in the county at the outbreak of the war.27
While these figures reveal considerable support for the Union among Methodist-Episcopal Church members, the fact that a significant portion supported secession and fought for the South indicates the influence of the church was not decisive in shaping sentiment within the county. Indeed, the war effectively split the church in two. After 1861, control of local churches and meeting houses passed entirely into the hands of Unionists, who barred ministers with secessionist views from preaching and expelled southern sympathizers from the church. After the war, Confederate veterans established the first southern branch of the church in Barbour County.28
The Methodist-Episcopal Church was not the only church in the county grappling with the issue of slavery. The Baptist Church, the second largest denomination in Barbour, established the first church in the county in 1795. As with the Methodist-Episcopal Church, the 1840s were a period of intense agitation among Baptists as abolitionist sentiment grew in northern congregations. Unlike the Methodists, however, the Baptists had no national governing body and an outright schism was thus averted. Although the church's Foreign and Home Mission Societies divided into northern and southern branches, individual congregations were independent bodies and made their own decisions on slavery.29
Close to the Baptist Church in terms of numbers was the Methodist-Protestant Church. Breaking away from the parent Methodist-Episcopal Church in the late 1820s over the question of the authority wielded by bishops, Methodist-Protestant preachers found fertile ground for gaining adherents in western Virginia. George Nestor, often called the father of Methodist-Protestantism in West Virginia, was born and raised in Barbour County.30
The issue of slavery also created bitter antagonisms within the Methodist-Protestant Church. Despite attempts by the General Conference to avoid an outright division, the Northern and Western conferences severed ties with the Southern conferences in 1858, revised the church constitution to include clauses condemning slavery, and barred members from owning or trading in slaves. Although many leading members of the church in West Virginia were sympathetic to the position adopted by the Northern conferences, the West Virginia Conference as a whole refused all overtures to join, remaining instead with the Southern conferences.31
The only other significant denominations in antebellum Barbour County were the United Brethern and German Baptist, or Dunker, churches. From their inceptions, both had vigorously opposed the institution of slavery. Existing members were forbidden to own slaves and new members were expected to give up ownership of slaves as a condition of joining the church. Indeed, the leadership of the United Brethern Church in West Virginia was unalterably opposed to slavery and secession as well. The German Baptists, as one of the historically pacifist churches, took no official position on secession. Opposed to any kind of military service (they sought to limit involvement with government at all levels as much as possible), members were expected to remain neutral in the conflict.32
To determine the extent these various denominations influenced the political allegiance of individual members on the issue of slavery, the religious affiliations of 264 Union and 245 Confederate sympathizers were obtained from census lists, biographies, and church records. The results, displayed in Table 4, reveal a number of interesting trends. The sympathies of Baptists were almost the exact opposite of Methodists, with the majority supporting the Confederate cause and a sizable minority remaining loyal to the Union. Union sympathizers in Barbour perceived the Baptist Church to be a hotbed of secession and burned one of its churches to the ground.33
While membership in the Baptist and Methodist-Episcopal churches seems to have moderately influenced sympathies, membership in the Methodist-Protestant Church appears to have had no influence whatsoever. Despite its adherence to the Southern conferences, and by implication acceptance of a church constitution protecting slavery, the distribution of known members almost mirrored that of the Baptists. Again, although the majority sided with the South, some 40 percent are known either to have fought in the Federal army or supported the Union cause.34
Perhaps the most surprising fact revealed by these figures is the active participation in the war by members of the German Baptist Church, five of whose members enlisted in the Union army and seven in the Confederate. The leader of the congregation in Barbour, Henry Wilson, was an ardent secessionist murdered for his views. Three of Wilson's sons served in the Confederate army, and two of them died in Virginia. Certainly, the fundamental proscriptions against military service of German Baptist faith failed to overcome more secular demands generated by the war.35
The United Brethern Church in Barbour was the only denomination to significantly influence its members on slavery. Those who were members of the church overwhelmingly supported the Union, with only two known to have enlisted in the Confederate army, one of whom, Squire Crouser, later deserted and joined the Federal army. Otherwise, only slight evidence upholds the conclusion that church affiliation measurably influenced sentiment in Barbour. While most Methodists supported the Union and most Baptists the Confederacy, significant numbers within each church supported the opposite position. Apparently individual conscience superseded religious precepts on the burning political issue of slavery.36
Religion provided some followers with a moral underpinning for their views on slavery and secession. However, the pronounced opposition among leaders and ministers of the Methodist-Episcopal Church merely mirrored equally fervent support for slavery and the Confederacy among ministers of the southern Methodist Church.
In a society only a generation removed from pioneer conditions, church affiliation was far more fluid than is often realized. Most churches in Barbour County were established in the 1840s and 1850s, some only a year or two before the outbreak of the war. Settlers whose families were members of a particular church for generations found no ministers of their faith within miles of their new home. This was especially true for Lutherans who came to Barbour in the first decades of the century, and for the large number of Irish Catholics who settled in the county in the 1850s.37 Conversions to local churches among such groups may not have been strong and certainly open to speculation. The willingness of the twelve German Baptists to renounce pacifism clearly indicates that the precepts of their church paled in comparison to the wartime crisis.
Far more important than religion in shaping sentiment in Barbour County were secular influences; the most important was the degree to which people in the county felt bound by ties of loyalty to the state of Virginia. In the last analysis, Virginia's secession demanded that the people of the western counties decide whether their ultimate allegiance lay with their state or with the United States. Many of the most prominent Unionists in Barbour were men who had only recently settled in Virginia. Spencer Dayton, who represented Barbour County at the first and second Wheeling Conventions, was born and raised in Connecticut. Dayton's co-representative Nathan Taft was a native of New York who came to Barbour in 1848. Martin Myers, who with Dayton drew up the first resolutions in Barbour opposing secession, was born in Pennsylvania, as was David Bryer mentioned earlier. Michael Haller, one of the earliest supporters of Lincoln in the county, was a native of Maryland.38
While many of the leading Union men in Barbour were northerners who settled in Virginia, the same cannot be said of the rank- and-file Unionists of the county. Table 5, showing the birthplaces of Union and Confederate sympathizers, reveals that, while a number of Barbour's Union men were born in northern and border states, the Civil War in the county was a struggle fought mainly between native-born Virginians.
|TABLE 5: BIRTHPLACES OF CIVIL WAR VETERANS IN BARBOUR COUNTY|
|Table compiled from U.S. Census Office. Eighth
Census of the United States, Barbour County, Virginia.
*Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and the New England states.
+Maryland and Kentucky
Sectional differences between the two groups begin to emerge the closer one examines the family backgrounds of those born in Virginia. The birthplaces of the fathers of 488 of the 492 native Virginia Unionists could be firmly established. Of these, 129, over one quarter, were the sons of non-native Virginians. The fathers of 48 were born in either Maryland or New Jersey, another 54 in Pennsylvania, and 17 in New York, Ohio, Maine, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Ten others were sons of men who emigrated from Europe. In contrast, 366 of 401 Confederate soldiers and sympathizers born in Virginia, almost 90 percent, were also the sons of men born in Virginia. Only 29 had fathers born outside the state, 5 of them in Europe and the rest in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Kentucky. The birthplaces of 6 fathers could not be determined.
This divergence becomes even greater the farther back one traces the families of each group. From census records, biographies, and various other sources, it is possible to determine the birthplaces of the grandfathers of 553 Union and 379 Confederate sympathizers, over 90 percent of each group. In Table 6, these findings are arranged according to the number of generations each person's family lived in Virginia. The first category includes individuals from other parts of the country or from Europe who settled in Virginia, the second, those who were born in Virginia but whose fathers were non-native Virginians. Second-generation Virginians were defined as those born in the state whose fathers were also native Virginians, but whose grandfathers were born outside the state. Third- generation Virginians were those descended from grandfathers born in Virginia.39
|TABLE 6: FAMILY BACKGROUND OF CIVIL WAR VETERANS IN BARBOUR COUNTY (See note 9)|
|Not born in Virginia||14.6%||2.1%|
The differences between Unionists and Confederates in Barbour County are readily apparent. Over 70 percent of Confederates were descended from families who resided in Virginia for at least three generations, compared to only 34 percent for Unionists. Even these figures do not reveal the full extent of sectional differences between the two groups. Of the 91 first- and second-generation Virginia Confederates, 33, about one-third, were descended from European immigrants who settled directly in Virginia. Of the 281 Unionists of the same category, only 36, or 12 percent, were the sons or grandsons of European immigrants. The rest were descended from men who were born either in the North or in border states.
The defining characteristic of Confederates in Barbour County was thus a heritage that was almost exclusively Virginian. Their families had for the most part migrated from eastern Virginia and were Virginians for generations. Their primary allegiance was to the birth state of their fathers and grandfathers. As one Confederate explained when recalling why he enlisted in the Rebel army, "I was a Virginian as were my people, and when my state went to war, I saw no other course open but to follow the fortunes of the Old Dominion."40 John Beatty, the Indiana soldier quoted earlier, was struck by such attitudes. Near Buckhannon his men arrested a woman for concealing weapons intended for Rebel troops. "The woman of the house was very indignant, and spoke in disrespectful terms of the Union men of the neighborhood. . . . She said she had 'come from a higher sphere than they, and would not lay down with dogs.' She was an eastern Virginian . . . poor as a church mouse."41
So deep-rooted was this allegiance to Virginia that Confederates actually viewed their state as a nation unto itself. The diary of James Hall, a Confederate soldier from Barbour, is strewn with references to Virginia as "our country" and "our native land." David Lang, who fought and died for the Confederacy despite his opposition to slavery and Virginia's secession, wrote in similar terms in letters to his wife, telling her that if the war dragged on until their sons reached military age, she should "inspire such patriotism in each of them that they should shoulder their muskets in defense of their country."42
Loyalty to Virginia among those who were not born in the state was almost non-existent and in this context, Samuel Woods was a distinct exception. Born in Canada near the Maine border, Woods was raised in Pennsylvania before coming to Barbour County in 1849. His support for states' rights in general and Virginia's secession in particular were positions which Unionists in Barbour could neither understand nor forgive. When the war ended and he attempted to return home, he was met at the county line by a contingent of citizens who made it clear he was no longer welcome. Woods nonetheless returned home and was later elected to the West Virginia Senate. Otherwise, nearly all Northerners in Barbour remained loyal to the Union, their attitudes about Virginia perhaps best expressed by Dayton in a letter to Governor Francis Pierpont in which he declared "Virginia is the meanest State in (or out of) the Union. . . ."43
For those Union sympathizers who were native Virginians, the coming of the war posed a fundamental question of whether their allegiance lay with the state or the national government. The difficulty of this choice is apparent by the fact that a number of men from Barbour joined the Federal army after first serving in the Confederate army. Squire Crouser, William Lemon, Hezekiah Shaw, Felix Stewart, James Teter, and George Yeager all enlisted in the Barbour Lighthorse at the beginning of the war and were with Porterfield at Philippi. All later deserted and joined Federal and state units. William Kelly and Henry Lohr both joined the Barbour Greys in 1861. Within a year they had deserted and joined the 10th West Virginia Infantry, as did John Reed who only a few weeks earlier had enlisted in the 20th Virginia Cavalry. Granville Philips joined the 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry in August 1862, deserted three months later, and joined the Federal army in 1864.44
However, Virginia-born Unionists were distinguished from their secessionist neighbors by a heritage that was decidedly non-Virginian. They were primarily sons and grandsons of settlers who crossed the Mason-Dixon line into Virginia, pioneers who likely considered themselves Virginians in name only. Given the longstanding antebellum grievances over taxation, representation, and internal improvements, their allegiance to Virginia, what one Union veteran called "that fatal deity of the Virginians," could only have been lukewarm at best.45
In effect, the seeds of sectional conflict in Barbour County were sown decades before the outbreak of the war. For every family that crossed the Allegheny Mountains from eastern Virginia to settle in Barbour, there were equal numbers that pushed up the tributaries of the Monongahela River from Pennsylvania or followed wagon trails into West Virginia from Maryland or New Jersey. A large number came from as far away as New England, settling first on French Creek in Upshur County, their descendants spreading across the countryside and into Barbour. All shared a common bond in their search for cheap land. Yet they brought with them attitudes and traditions of the homes they had left behind which, when passed from father to son, served to shape political loyalties and allegiances.
The inescapable conclusion is that Unionists and Confederates in Barbour County were distinguished primarily by different heritages, the one Northern, the other Virginian. In the context of an essentially political struggle over secession, support for the Union among slaveowners was no more a contradiction than support for the Confederacy among those opposed to slavery. Those who fought for the Confederacy did so because they considered themselves, above all, Virginians, regardless of their personal views on the slave question. Opposition to secession was rooted less in any widespread anti-slavery sentiment than in a deep-seated conviction that the Union had to be preserved at all costs.
2. Richard Orr Curry, A House Divided: A Study in Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1964).
3. Charles Henry Ambler, West Virginia, The Mountain State (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940), 249-51.
4. Curry, A House Divided, 23-27; see also Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia from 1776 to 1861 (1910; reprint, New York: Russell & Russell, 1964) and West Virginia, The Mountain State; James C. McGregor, The Disruption of Virginia (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1922).
5. United States. Bureau of the Census. Eighth Census of the United States. Barbour County, Virginia. Of 1612 households enumerated, 991 (61.9%) were headed by farmers and 310 (19.4%) by tenants. Occupational distribution of the remaining families was: professional - 25; merchants - 24; craftsmen - 123; government officials - 8; miscellaneous (boarders, clerks, etc.) - 11. 67 families were headed by widows, most of them almost certainly farmers. No occupation was given for the heads of 33 families. George A. Shingleton, History of Mount Morris School, Church and Cove District (Parsons: McClain, 1976), 318-21, 331-35; Hu Maxwell, History of Barbour County, West Virginia (Morgantown: Acme Publishing Co., 1899), 318-19.
6. Maxwell, Barbour County, 237-46; Curry, A House Divided, 142. The original records of the vote in Barbour have been lost and there is some disagreement as to the actual results. The Wheeling Intelligencer reported Barbour as voting 350 against the ordinance. James Morton Callahan, History of West Virginia, Old and New, vol. 1 (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1923): 351. Maxwell, not citing any figures, reported the vote to have been in favor of secession, but only by a slim margin, Barbour County, 237-46.
7. National Archives. Record Group 109. War Department Collection of Confederate Records, hereafter RG 109. Dates of enlistment from payrolls for companies H and K, 31st Virginia Infantry; companies E and H, 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry; and company D, 20th Virginia Cavalry. In addition, a company of cavalry called the Barbour Lighthorse was recruited in May 1861 but disbanded the following June.
8. Men from Barbour fought on opposing sides at McDowell, Second Bull Run, Williamsport, Droop Mountain, Rocky Gap, Lynchburg, Early's raid to Washington, D. C., Berryville, Kernstown, Winchester, Fisher's Hill, Strasburg, Cedar Creek and the Siege of Richmond.
9. Identifying Barbour's Union and Confederate soldiers first required knowledge of which army units recruited in the county. For the Union army, these units included the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th West Virginia Cavalry regiments, the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 10th, 12th, 15th and 17th West Virginia Infantry, and the 1st West Virginia Artillery. Also included were those men serving in the Barbour Home Guard and officers of the 139th and 169th West Virginia militia. Confederate army units in which Barbour men served included the 14th, 18th, 19th and 29th Virginia Cavalry regiments, the 25th and 31st Virginia Infantry, and the 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry. Company rolls were obtained from Francis P. Pierpont, Annual Report of the Adjutant General, West Virginia, 1864 (Wheeling: John F. M'Dermot, 1865) and Annual Report of the Adjutant General, West Virginia, 1865 (Wheeling: John Frew, 1866); RG 109; Confederate Service Records published in: Robert J. Driver, Jr., 14th Virginia Cavalry (Lynchburg: H. E. Howard, Inc., 1988); Roger U. Delauter, Jr., 18th Virginia Cavalry (Lynchburg: H. E. Howard, Inc., 1985) and 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry (Lynchburg: H. E. Howard, Inc., 1988); Richard L. Armstrong, 25th Virginia Infantry and 9th Battalion Virginia Infantry (Lynchburg: H. E. Howard, 1990); and John M. Ashcraft, 31st Virginia Infantry (Lynchburg: H. E. Howard, 1988). These sources were supplemented by the 1890 Federal Census of Union Veterans. Maxwell's Barbour County provided invaluable information on Union and Confederate sympathizers as well as a complete list of county officials serving during the Pierpont and Boreman administrations.
Local histories provided a wealth of information on sympathizers and the genealogies of their families. In many instances, these sources also gave information on church affiliation as well. The amount of information available on West Virginia families is quite literally astounding. The principle works consulted for this study were: Maxwell, Barbour County; Shingleton, Mount Morris; Barbour County Historical Society, Barbour County, West Virginia, Another Look (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1979); and Mary Stemple Coffman and Ethel Park Stemple, Footsteps of Our Fathers: Early Settlers of Tacy (Barbour County) W. Va. (Baltimore, 1978).
General histories with considerable biographical information are: Hardesty's Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia (Chicago: H. H. Hardesty and Co., 1883); James Morton Callahan, West Virginia and Genealogical and Personal History of the Upper Monongahela Valley (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1912); and Miller and Maxwell, West Virginia.
County histories with information on Barbour families include: by Hu Maxwell, History of Randolph County, West Virginia (Morgantown: Acme Publishing Co., 1898), History of Tucker County, West Virginia (Kingwood: Preston Publishing Co., 1884), History of Highland County, Virginia (Monterey, VA: Highland Recorder, 1922) and History of Pendleton County, West Virginia (Franklin: the author, 1910); Albert S. Bosworth, A History of Randolph County, West Virginia (Elkins: no publisher, 1907); William B. Cutright, The History of Upshur County, West Virginia (Buckhannon: no publisher, 1907); Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Monongalia, Marion and Taylor Counties (Philadelphia: Rush, West, and Co., 1895); Samuel T. Wiley, History of Preston County, West Virginia (Kingwood: Journal Printing House, 1882) and History of Monongalia County, West Virginia (Kingwood: Preston Publishing Co., 1883); Minnie Kendall Lowther, History of Ritchie County (Wheeling: Wheeling News Litho. Co., 1911); E. L. Judy, History of Grant and Hardy Counties, West Virginia (Charleston: Charleston Publishing Co., 1951); William T. Price, Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County, West Virginia (Marlinton: Price Bros., 1901); Robert L. Pemberton, A History of Pleasants County, West Virginia (St. Marys: The Oracle Press, 1929); and John D. Sutton, History of Braxton County and Central West Virginia (Sutton: no publisher, 1914).
These local sources were supplemented with county marriage records for Barbour (1842-1865) obtained from the archives of the Church of Latter Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Also of use was Ross B. Johnston, West Virginia Estate Settlements, 1753-1850 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1977). Of particular value in tracing individuals who either settled in Barbour from other counties or moved from Barbour after the war were the 1850 census schedules published by William Guy Tetrick: Census Returns of Barbour and Taylor Counties (Clarksburg: no publisher, 1932); Census Returns of Lewis County (Clarksburg: no publisher, 1930); Census Returns of Harrison County (Clarksburg: no publisher, 1930); and Census Returns of Doddridge, Ritchie and Gilmer Counties for 1860 (Clarksburg: no publisher, 1933). Of considerable help were the census schedules for 1880 published by William B. Marsh, 1880 Census of West Virginia (Parsons, 1979-1990). This census is of particular importance in that it was the first to provide not only the birthplace of each person, but those of their parents as well.
10. See note 9 above.
11. An example is Matilda Humphreys. On the morning of the attack on Philippi, she tried to send her sons into town to warn Porterfield of the arrival of the Federal army. When he was stopped, she pulled a pistol and fired into the troops. It is related that the shot was mistakenly assumed by the Federal troops on the other side of town to have been the signal to commence the attack. As a result, the troops near the Humphreys home were not in position and Porterfield's men were able to escape. Maxwell, Barbour County, 256n.
12. Twenty-two Federal soldiers from Barbour were either killed in action or died of wounds; another 22 died of disease while in the service. Pierpont, Adjutant General Report, 1864 and 1865. The total number of deaths among Barbour's Confederate soldiers will never be known due to a lack of complete records. Available sources list a total of 32 killed in action; 17 died of disease. Three Confederate civilian sympathizers in Barbour were shot to death and another 2 died in prison.
13. Price was arrested during General William Jackson's abortive attack on Beverly in July 1863 and held in prison in Richmond until the following March. Hardesty's Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia, Calhoun County (H. H. Hardesty and Co., 1883), 28. Trayhern was kidnapped from his home by Imboden's men in January 1863 and remained in Richmond almost until the end of the war. Maxwell, Barbour County, 267n.
14. Michael Crim was killed by men of the 2nd Virginia Infantry in October 1861 for allegedly aiding local guerrillas who had ambushed the unit. Francis S. Reader, Second Virginia Infantry (New Brighton, PA: F. S. Reader, 1890), 51 and Ruth Woods Dayton, Samuel Woods and His Family (no publisher, 1939), 49. Henry Bowman and Henry Wilson were killed for having allegedly aided in the kidnapping of Trayhern. Maxwell, Barbour County, 267n.
15. Dayton, Samuel Woods, 41. Locals often referred to the county seat as "Phillippa," which was its original name. Maxwell, Barbour County, 504.
16. Ibid., 237-46.
17. Eighth Census, Barbour County.
18. Maxwell, Barbour County, 238-39, 242.
19. John Beatty, Memoirs of a Volunteer (New York: W. W. Norton, 1946), 33.
20. Callahan, West Virginia, 2: 557, 3: 124, 500; Barbour County Historical Society, Barbour County . . . Another Look, 122, 328; Dayton, Samuel Woods, 23; Winfield Lang, "The Career of Col. D. B. Lang," Confederate Veteran 13(1905): 129.
21. See note 9 above.
22. Dayton, Samuel Woods, 37.
23. Miller and Maxwell, West Virginia, 291.
24. John N. Norwood, The Schism in the Methodist-Episcopal Church, 1844 (New York: Alfred University, 1923), 291; William Warren Sweet, The Methodist-Episcopal Church and the Civil War (Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern Press, 1912), 34-36.
25. For data on the rapid increase in membership in the Methodist-Episcopal Church, South in West Virginia, see C. F. Deems, Annals of Southern Methodism (New York: J. A. Gray's Printing Office, 1856), 1:22, 7:95; Sweet, Methodist-Episcopal Church, 47.
26. Sweet, Methodist-Episcopal Church, 48.
27. Much of the information on church membership was obtained from published biographies listed in note 11. Additional sources included I. A. Barnes, The Methodist-Protestant Church in West Virginia (Baltimore: The Stockton Press, 1926); David Benedict, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America (New York: no publisher, 1848); and John J. Lafferty, Sketches of the Virginia Conference, Methodist-Episcopal Church, South (Richmond: no publisher, 1894). The preacher was Dr. Abraham Hershman, arrested on the order of Governor Pierpont to be held hostage until Sheriff Trayhern was returned by Confederate authorities.
28. Dayton, Samuel Woods, 69. Although the Southern Methodists had established circuits at Clarksburg and Rowlesburg prior to the war, the first churches organized in Barbour were established in the 1870s. Barbour County Historical Society, Barbour County . . . Another Look, 70; Hardesty, Barbour County, 214-21.
29. Mary Burnham Putnam, The Baptists and Slavery, 1840-1845 (Ann Arbor: G. Wahr, 1913), 21-23.
30. Ancel H. Bassett, A Concise History of the Methodist-Protestant Church, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Baltimore: W. J. C. Dulaney, 1882), 124-96; I. A. Barnes, Methodist-Protestant Church, 285-97.
32. Rev. A. P. Funkhouser, History of the Church of the United Brethern in Christ, Virginia Conference, comp. by Oren F. Morton (Dayton, VA: Ruebush-Kieffer Co., 1921), 285-97.
33. Maxwell, Barbour County, 231.
34. See note 9 above.
35. Spencer Dayton gave the most detailed account of Wilson's death and the events leading up to it in a letter to the Wheeling Intelligencer, 24 Jan 1863; see also Maxwell, Barbour County, 267n.
36. Crouser is listed in Maxwell as a member of the Barbour Lighthorse in May 1861, Barbour County, 248. In 1862 Crouser enlisted in Co. H, 10th West Virginia Infantry.
37. See note 9 above.
38. Eighth Census, Barbour County.
39. In addition to the works already cited: Johnston, West Virginians in the Revolution (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1977).
40. John Henry Cammack, Personal Recollections (Huntington: Paragon Printing & Publishing Co., 1920), 5.
41. Beatty, Memoirs, 22.
42. James E. Hall, The Diary of a Confederate Soldier, ed. by Ruth Woods Dayton (no publisher, 1961), 11, 31, 35, 47; Maxwell, Barbour County, 419.
43. Dayton, Samuel Woods, 16-17; Curry, A House Divided, 50.
44. Only one man from Barbour, Baylis Cade, is known to have deserted from the Union to the Confederate army. David Poe, Personal Reminiscences of the Civil War (Charleston: The News-Mail Publishing Co., 1908), 31.
45. Lang, Loyal West Virginia, 9.
West Virginia History Journal
West Virginia History Center
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OSU researcher develops method to pinpoint fecal pollution sources
December 19, 2006
CORVALLIS, Ore. – An Oregon State University microbiologist has developed a molecular test to determine the source of fecal contamination in water.
This type of detection, called “fecal source tracking,” is both faster and far more specific than traditional standard fecal coliform tests, according to Katharine G. Field, who developed the test. Results of a Tillamook Bay-based study using the new methodology were published in a recent issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/72/8/5537.
Field and her colleagues found a way to use gene amplification to determine the kind of fecal bacteria in polluted water and its source. Their new technique detects the presence of markers – unique gene sequences from specific strains of bacteria – found in host species such as humans or cows.
Until a few years ago, it was impossible to pinpoint specific causes of fecal contamination, which can come from any number of sources. Septic tanks percolating into the groundwater, overflow from wastewater treatment plants and runoff from a confined cattle feeding operation are usual suspects for fecal contamination of water. Deer and elk droppings and waste from water birds, dogs and cats have been blamed for water pollution problems, as well.
“Traditional testing tells you that you have contamination, but not where it comes from,” explained Field, a microbiologist with OSU’s Agricultural Experiment Station. “The standard tests, growing fecal indicator bacteria such as E. coli, can’t distinguish between human, elk, bird, cattle or pet-based fecal sources.
“And this is the kind of test that regulations are still based on,” she added. “The laws have nothing to do with the source of the contamination.”
Oregon’s Tillamook Bay typically suffers chronic “non-point” fecal contamination that periodically poses risks to human health and the area’s shellfish industry. Previously, no one could really pinpoint the source of the water pollution problem, beyond the association with coliform bacteria, found in all warm-blooded animal feces. Field chose this coastal region to try out her new techniques and help ease a local environmental health problem.
Results showed that in the majority of the Tillamook watershed, cows were the most important source of contamination, although human sewage was occasionally a problem, especially in the bay and near the towns, she said.
Now that the sources of contamination are confirmed, the Tillamook Bay community can clean it up and prevent a problem from happening again.
“Now managers on the North Coast can focus on fixing the big problems – mitigating runoff from cattle, fixing fences, and improving drainage problems,” said Field.
Field’s group has developed genetic markers for bacteria from a number of host species. They can now assay polluted water samples directly for the presence of the marker genes, revealing the source of the fecal contamination. Their technique has been able to detect the difference between fecal anaerobic bacteria from humans, cows (and other ruminants), dogs, pigs, horses and elk.
With a new patent, Field is now focusing on developing a simple kit that contains everything needed to perform the test. She also wants to expand the number of genetic markers, eventually to include all the animals likely to be a source of contamination, even marine mammals and wild birds.
Dogs, she noted, are a major issue for urban non-point source fecal pollution and cat litter has been implicated in a die-off of sea otters in northern California.
Field’s research was funded by a grant from Oregon Sea Grant.
Source: Kate Field
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Pub. date: 2008 | Online Pub. Date: November 27, 2007 | DOI: 10.4135/9781412953948 | Print ISBN: 9781412928168 | Online ISBN: 9781412953948| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this encyclopedia
Oral health conditions include a number of congenital or developmental anomalies, such as clefts and tumors. But the most common oral health problem is tooth decay, known medically as dental caries. Although dental caries is largely preventable, more than half of all adults above age 18 present early signs of this disease and, at some point in life, about three out of four adults will develop the disease. In older adults, tooth decay and periodontal disease are the leading causes of tooth loss. Tooth decay is also common among children as young as 5 years and remains the most common chronic disease of children aged 5 to 17 years. It is estimated that tooth decay is four times more prevalent than asthma in childhood. Poor oral health has been related to decreased school performance, poor social relationships, and less success later in life. It is estimated that about 51 million ...
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Scientists Explore How the Humble Leaf Could Power the Planet
Researchers at Imperial College London embark on 'artificial leaf' project to produce power by mimicking photosynthesis
It is one of evolution's crowning achievements - a mini green power station and organic factory combined and the source of almost all of the energy that fuels every living thing on the planet.
Now scientists developing the next generation of clean power sources are working out how to copy, and ultimately improve upon, the humble leaf. The intricate chemistry involved in photosynthesis, the process where plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugar, is the most effective solar energy conversion process on Earth. And researchers believe that mimicking parts of it could be the ticket to a limitless supply of clean power.
The untapped potential for using the sun's rays is huge. All human activity for a whole year could be powered by the energy contained in the sunlight hitting the Earth in just one hour. Harnessing even a small amount of this to make electricity or useful fuels could satisfy the world's increasing need for energy, predicted to double by 2050, without further endangering the climate.
Most solar power systems use silicon wafers to generate electricity directly. But although costs are coming down, these are still too expensive in many cases when compared with fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Scientists are keen to develop more efficient and cheaper alternatives sources of energy.
At Imperial College London, researchers have embarked on a £1m project to study, and eventually mimic, photosynthesis. Part of a project called the "artificial leaf", involves working out exactly how leaves use sunlight to make useful molecules. The team then plans to build artificial systems that can do the same to generate clean fuels such as hydrogen and methanol. These would then be used in fuel cells to make electricity or directly to power super-clean vehicles.
Similar projects are gathering pace around the world: the US is poised to approve a federal research budget of around $35m a year for ideas that could create fuels from sunlight and the Dutch government has allocated €40m for similar research.
According to James Barber, a biologist at Imperial College London and leader of the artificial leaf project, if artificial photosynthesis systems could use around 10% of the sunlight falling on them, they would only need to cover 0.16% of the Earth's surface to satisfy a global energy consumption rate of 20 terawatts, the amount it is predicted that the world will need in 2030. And unlike a biological leaf, the artificial equivalent could be placed in the arid desert areas of the world, where it would not compete for space agricultural land.
Ultimately, Barber hopes to improve on nature's own solar cell. "If the leaf can do it, we can do it but even better," he said. "[But] it doesn't mean that you try to build exactly what the leaf has. Leonardo da Vinci tried to design flying machines with feathers that flapped up and down. But in the end we built 747s and Airbus 380s, completely different to a bird and, in fact, even better than a bird."
Photosynthesis starts with a chemical reaction where sunlight is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere while the hydrogen is used to create sugars and other organic molecules for the plant. The aim of Barber's artificial leaf project is to find an efficient way of mimicking that water-splitting reaction to create a clean and limitless source hydrogen. Unlike normal leaves, the new devices would not suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Hydrogen is a clean, energy-rich fuel that could be used in fuel cells to make electricity or else combined with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (or from the exhaust of fossil-fuel power stations) to make methanol, a fuel that could be dropped into vehicles without the need for any engine modifications. "The challenge is to get hydrogen out of water using a ready supply of energy," said Barber.
For domestic purposes, Dan Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has calculated that using artificial leaf to split a few litres of water a day into hydrogen and oxygen would be enough to supply all a home's energy needs.
Scientists can already produce hydrogen by splitting water but current techniques are expensive, use harsh chemicals and need carefully controlled environments in which to operate. The critical part of the artificial leaf project is developing catalysts made from cheap materials that can be used to split water in everyday conditions.
John Loughhead, executive director of the UK Energy Research Centre, described the artificial leaf idea as very promising because "we know that plants have already evolved to do it and we know that, fundamentally, it's a workable process on a large scale."
He added: "Ultimately, the only sustainable form of energy we've got is the sun. From a strategic viewpoint, you have to think this looks really interesting because we know we're starting from a base of feasibility."
Barber's colleagues at Imperial, led by chemist James Durrant, have recently developed a catalyst from rust that carried out part of the water-splitting reaction. So far the process is not very efficient, so Durrant's team is looking at improving this by engineering the surface of the rust. "We're looking at adding small catalytic amounts of cobalt onto the surface of the iron oxide to make it more efficient."
Nocera is also working on a catalyst made from cobalt and phosphorus that can split water at room temperature. Speaking last year, when he published his preliminary results in the journal Science, he said efficient water-splitting technology would be useful as a way of storing solar energy,which is a major problem for anyone who wants to use large amounts of solar power. During the day, an artificial leaf could use sunlight to split water and, at night, the stored hydrogen would be used to make electricity as it was needed. Chemical fuels such as hydrogen can store far more energy per unit mass than even the most advanced batteries.
Both Durrant's and Nocera's catalysts are many years from becoming commercial products.
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Image of the solar corona in white light (outer circle, blue and white) and X-Rays (inner circle, red, yellow, and black) on April 22, 1994, courtesy of the High Altitude Observatory and the Yohkoh Science team. The dashed circle is the solar radius.
Click on image for full size
Image courtesy of the High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado, USA. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.The solar X-ray image is from the Yohkoh mission of ISAS, Japan.
The Solar Atmosphere
The visible solar atmosphere consists of three regions: the
the chromosphere, and the solar corona. Most of the visible (white) light
comes from the photosphere,
this is the part of the Sun we actually see.
The chromosphere and
corona also emit white light, and can
be seen when the light from the photosphere is blocked out, as occurs in
a solar eclipse.
The sun emits electromagnetic radiation at many other wavelengths as well.
Different types of radiation (such as radio, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma
rays) originate from different parts of the sun. Scientists use
to detect this radiation and study different parts of the solar atmosphere.
The solar atmosphere is so hot that the gas is primarily in a plasma state:
electrons are no longer bound to atomic nuclei, and the gas is made up
of charged particles (mostly protons and electrons). In this charged
state, the solar atmosphere is greatly influenced by the
strong solar magnetic fields that thread through it.
These magnetic fields, and the outer solar atmosphere (the corona) extend out into
interplanetary space as part of the solar wind.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!Cool It!
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You might also be interested in:
Most of the energy we receive from the Sun is the visible (white) light emitted from the photosphere. The photosphere is one of the coolest regions of the Sun (6000 K), so only a small fraction (0.1%)...more
Rising above the Sun's chromosphere , the temperature jumps sharply from a few tens of thousands of kelvins to as much as a few million kelvins in the Sun's outer atmosphere, the solar corona. Understanding...more
An eclipse of the Sun occurs when the Earth passes through the Moon's shadow. A total eclipse of the Sun takes place only during a new moon, when the Moon is directly between the Sun and the Earth. When...more
There is a giant magnetic "bubble" in space around the Sun. That "bubble" is called the heliosphere. In a sense, we Earthlings live within the outer atmosphere of our Sun. The solar...more
Space weather is a very complex scientific field. Scientists who study space weather use computer models a lot. Space weather is a bit like weather on Earth in this way because weather forecasters on our...more
Large impressive loop-like structures on the edge of the solar disk sometimes stand out brightly against the dark background of space. Though these structures, called "prominences", appear to be very bright...more
The Sun has a very large and very complex magnetic field. The magnetic field at an average place on the Sun is around 1 Gauss, about twice as strong as the average field on the surface of Earth (around...more
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The Geology of Missouri
Geologic Map of Missouri, 1990, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geology and Land Survey (now Geological
Survey and Resource Assessment Division).
The Missouri Geological Timeline-From Oldest to Youngest
- Proterozoic or Precambrian (1.5 billion to 544 million year old rocks)
- Cambrian Period (544 to 505 million year old rocks)
- Ordovician Period (505 to 441 million year old rocks)
- Silurian/Devonian Period (441 to 362 million year old rocks)
- Mississippian Period (362 to 320 million year old rocks)
- Pennsylvanian Period (320 to 286 million year old rocks)
- Cretaceous Period (144 to 66 million year old rocks)
- Tertiary/Quaternary Period (66 million years old to present aged rocks)
Timeline Synopsis of Missouri Geology
Many books have been written about Missouri Geology in the 300 years since the first European saw the glint of galena (lead sulfide) and mistook it for silver. One website can hardly claim to outdo literally thousands of pounds of paper which add up to our sum of knowledge on the subject.
Even so, the following pages can give you an idea of what it took to make our fair state. The timeline references the generalized map by rock ages and color key. Just remember that the oldest rocks are those tending toward the red and orange on the map; the youngest ones are towards the blues and greens, and yellow (mostly river deposits) is the youngest of all. Soils of very recent origin are not shown on this map.
First, A Word about Geological Time
Geologists believe the earth condensed about 4.6 billion years ago. For the first one or two hundred million years, the earth was too hot to form rocks which survived; the oldest rock known to man in 2002 is a zircon crystal 4.4 billion years old. For these first 600 million years (known as the Hadean Eon) the earth was in a semi-molten state. The planet cooled somewhat during the Archean Eon, (3.9 to 2.5 billion years ago) and developed an atmosphere and an ocean.
The earliest life forms, bacteria and extremophiles known as Archea developed in the oxygenless atmosphere of the late Archean.
In the Proterozoic Eon (2.5 billion to 544 million years ago), the earth as we know it began to take shape. Primitive plants and inorganic processes enabled the atmosphere to reach its current level of about 21% oxygen, and familiar life forms began to develop. The earth's crust cooled sufficiently for continents to form. By the Phanerozoic Eon (beginning 544 million years ago to present) the first shelled animals capable of leaving distinctive fossils evolved. And the rest, as they say, is history. The Phanerozoic is divided into the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras. Since more is known about Phanerozoic Eon rocks, these Eras are subdivided into the much smaller units known as Periods. Except for the Precambrian, the geological map of Missouri is based on Period names.
Assumptions to make when reading a Geological Map
The first assumption is that this map is very generalized. The smaller the mapped area, the more detailed one can be about what sort of rocks are there. Shrinking the state of Missouri to one 8.5 x11 inch page means that much detail is left out. Larger maps with greater detail, and even geological 7.5 minute quadrangle maps for some areas can be obtained for a modest fee from both the United States Geological Survey, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources GS-RAD, the latter of whom made the map at the top of the page.
Secondly, the map at the top of this page shows only the rocks at the surface across Missouri. All things being equal, (and in the Midwest, they mostly are) the oldest rocks are laid down first, and then successive layers are added, in a generally horizontal manner, just as you would construct a deli sandwich. Just as a sandwich can be deformed by bending, tearing, shaking, or a sideways push, so rocks too, can be deformed. In addition, the top layers of a "rock sandwich" can be removed by weathering and erosion, just as a mouse might eat from the top down of your hypothetical sandwich. Geologists know what rock layers lay below the surface by examining columns of rock brought up by drilling wells, or mining.
In order to recreate the sequence of what happened to form Missouri, therefore, we have to get to the bottom of things-- and this means starting with the oldest rocks, and reading the geological record from the bottom up.
If you are a geology student, you may notice that three geological periods are missing in this lineup from oldest to youngest--with a large gap after the Pennsylvanian, we are missing the Permian, the Triassic, and the Jurassic. Rocks of these ages are nonexistent in the state as far as we know. However, it was only relatively recently that Cretaceous age rocks were correctly identified, and the first dinosaur fossils found in the state, so we can never say never, but it seems rather unlikely for other reasons that a large quantity of rocks of these three missing ages will be discovered.
For further information on those periods we do know about, please continue with the links below. I've tried to use as few technical terms as possible, but a few are inevitable. For starters, transgression means the sea covered the land; regression means the sea retreated and the land became dry again. Most unfamiliar terms will be in a good college level general dictionary. If you are stumped, have questions or comments, I can be reached at:
More Missouri Geology
Missouri Geology Links Outside of Missouri World
Return to Missouri World
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A telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are not in the same vicinity of each other to be heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals suitable for transmission via cables or other transmission media over long distances, and replays such signals simultaneously in audible form to its user. The word telephone has been adapted into the vocabulary of many languages. It is derived from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, far and φωνή, phōnē, voice, together meaning distant voice.
First patented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell and further developed by many others, the telephone was the first device in history that enabled people to talk directly with each other across large distances. Telephones became rapidly indispensable to businesses, government, and households, and are today some of the most widely used small appliances.
The essential elements of a telephone are a microphone (transmitter) to speak into and an earphone (receiver) which reproduces the voice of the distant person. In addition, most telephones contain a ringer which produces a sound to announce an incoming telephone call, and a dial used to enter a telephone number when initiating a call to another telephone. Until approximately the 1970s most telephones used a rotary dial, which was superseded by the modern Touch-Tone push-button dial, first introduced by AT&T in 1963. The receiver and transmitter are usually built into a handset which is held up to the ear and mouth during conversation. The dial may be located either on the handset, or on a base unit to which the handset is connected by a cord containing wires.
The rotary dial is a device mounted on or in a telephone or switchboard that is designed to send electrical pulses, known as pulse dialing, corresponding to the number dialed. The early form of the rotary dial used lugs on a finger plate instead of holes. Almon Brown Strowger filed the first patent for a rotary dial, U.S. patent #486,909, on December 21, 1891, that was later issued to him on November 29, 1892.
The modern version of the rotary dial with holes was first introduced in 1904 but did not enter service in the Bell System until 1919. The rotary dial was gradually supplanted by Dual-tone multi-frequency pushbutton dialing, introduced at the 1962 World's Fair, which uses a keypad instead of a dial. Some telephone systems in the US no longer recognize pulse dialing by default, but will only support tone dialing which is usually used with push-button phones. (though rotary dial phones with tone dialing support do exist).
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Many countries are facing dangerous water shortages. As world demand for food has soared, millions of farmers have drilled too many irrigation wells in efforts to expand their harvests. As a result, water tables are falling and wells are going dry in some 20 countries containing half the world’s people. The overpumping of aquifers for irrigation temporarily inflates food production, creating a food production bubble that bursts when the aquifer is depleted.
The shrinkage of irrigation water supplies in the big three grain-producing countries — the United States, India, and China — is of particular concern. Thus far, these countries have managed to avoid falling harvests at the national level, but continued overexploitation of aquifers could soon catch up with them.
In most of the leading U.S. irrigation states, the irrigated area has peaked and begun to decline. In California, historically the irrigation leader, a combination of aquifer depletion and the diversion of irrigation water to fast-growing cities has reduced irrigated area from nearly 9 million acres in 1997 to an estimated 7.5 million acres in 2010. (One acre equals 0.4 hectares.) In Texas, the irrigated area peaked in 1978 at 7 million acres, falling to some 5 million acres as the Ogallala aquifer underlying much of the Texas panhandle was depleted.
Other states with shrinking irrigated area include Arizona, Colorado, and Florida. All three states are suffering from both aquifer depletion and the diversion of irrigation water to urban centers. And now that the states that were rapidly expanding their irrigated area, such as Nebraska and Arkansas, are starting to level off, the prospects for any national growth in irrigated area have faded. With water tables falling as aquifers are depleted under the Great Plains and California’s Central Valley, and with fast-growing cities in the Southwest taking more and more irrigation water, the U.S. irrigated area has likely peaked.
India is facing a much more difficult situation. A World Bank study reported in 2005 that the grain supply for 175 million Indians was produced by overpumping water. Water tables are falling in several states, including Punjab and Haryana, two surplus grain producers that supply most of the wheat and much of the rice used in India’s massive food distribution program for low-income consumers.
Up-to-date and reliable information is not always easy to get. But it is clear that overpumping is extensive, water tables are falling, wells are going dry, and farmers who can afford to are drilling ever deeper wells in what has been described as “a race to the bottom.” Based on studies by independent researchers, there is ample reason to think that decades of overpumping in key states are leading to aquifer depletion on a scale that is reducing the irrigation water supply. India’s water-based food bubble may be about to burst.
In China, the principal concern is the northern half of the country, where rainfall is low and water tables are falling everywhere. This includes the highly productive North China Plain, which stretches from just north of Shanghai to well north of Beijing and which produces half of the country’s wheat and a third of its corn. Overpumping there suggests that some 130 million Chinese are being fed with grain produced with the unsustainable use of water.
Furthermore, China’s water-short cities and rapidly growing industrial sector are taking an ever-greater share of the available surface and underground water resources. In many situations, growth in urban and industrial demand for water can be satisfied only by diverting water from farmers. Although new dams being built in the mountainous southwest may offset at least some of the losses elsewhere, it is possible that the irrigated area has peaked in China — and therefore in all three of the leading grain-producing countries.
Water shortages are most immediately affecting food security in the Middle East. In 2008, Saudi Arabia became the first country in the world to acknowledge its bursting food bubble when it announced that the aquifer supporting its wheat production was largely depleted. Saudi Arabia is now phasing out wheat production and could be totally dependent on foreign grain as soon as 2013. And in Yemen, water tables are falling by some 2 meters per year. The Yemeni grain harvest has shrunk by one third over the last 40 years, forcing the country to import more than 80 percent of its grain.
Both Syria and Iraq — the other two populous countries in the region — have water troubles. Some of these arise from the reduced flows of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, which both countries depend on for irrigation water. Turkey, which controls the headwaters of these rivers, is in the midst of a massive dam building program that is slowly reducing downstream flows. Although all three countries are party to water-sharing arrangements, Turkey’s ambitious plans to expand both hydropower and irrigation are being fulfilled partly at the expense of its two downstream neighbors.
Mindful of the future uncertainty of river water supplies, farmers in Syria and Iraq are drilling more wells for irrigation. This is leading to overpumping and an emerging water-based food bubble in both countries. Syria’s grain harvest has fallen by one fifth since peaking at roughly 7 million tons in 2001. In Iraq, the grain harvest has fallen by one fourth since peaking at 4.5 million tons in 2002.
Jordan is also on the ropes agriculturally. Forty or so years ago, it was producing over 300,000 tons of grain annually. Today it produces only 60,000 tons and thus must import over 90 percent of its grain. In Israel, which banned the irrigation of wheat in 2000 to save water, production of grain has been falling since 1983. Israel now imports 98 percent of the grain it consumes. To the east, water supplies are also tightening in Iran and Afghanistan. An estimated one fifth of Iran’s 75 million people are being fed with grain produced by overpumping, making its food bubble the largest in the region. Afghanistan, a landlocked country with a fast-growing population, is already importing a third of its grain from abroad.
Thus in the Middle East, where populations are growing fast, the world is seeing the first collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. Because of the failure of governments in the region to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them.
Thus far the countries where shrinking water resources are actually reducing grain harvests are all ones with smaller populations. But middle-sized countries such as Pakistan and Mexico are also overpumping their aquifers to feed growing populations.
Pakistan, struggling to remain self-sufficient in wheat, appears to be losing the battle. Its population of 185 million in 2010 is projected to reach 246 million by 2025, which means trying to feed 61 million more people in 15 years. But water levels in wells are already falling by a meter or more each year around the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They are also falling under the fertile Punjab plain, which Pakistan shares with India. A World Bank report, Pakistan’s Water Economy: Running Dry, sums up the situation: “the survival of a modern and growing Pakistan is threatened by water.”
In Mexico, home to 111 million people, the demand for wa
ter is outstripping supply. In the agricultural state of Guanajuato, the water table is falling by 6 feet or more a year. In the northwestern wheat-growing state of Sonora, farmers once pumped water from the Hermosillo aquifer at a depth of 40 feet. Today, they pump from over 400 feet. With 51 percent of all water extraction in Mexico from aquifers that are being overpumped, Mexico’s food bubble may burst soon.
If business as usual continues, the question for each country overpumping its aquifers is not whether its food bubble will burst, but when — and how the government will cope with it. For some countries, the bursting of the bubble may well be catastrophic. And the near-simultaneous bursting of several national food bubbles could create unmanageable food shortages, posing an imminent threat to global food security and political stability.
Adapted from World on the Edge by Lester R. Brown. Full book available online at www.earth-policy.org/books/wote.
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Until now, locating a reference that identifies and classifies fossils found around the world has been harder than uncovering the finds themselves. This book solves that problem by covering everything
you would want to know about fossils. It will help you quickly develop a familiarity with the broad fossil spectrum of both extinct and extant life forms. Newly discovered specimens and specimens rarely presented
outside scientific journals are included, complete with typical "index" fossils. This text is profusely illustrated with $Imore than 1300 photographs and line drawings$I. Numerous specimens have been
photographed from several perspectives for a multi-dimensional view. The illustrations in and of themselves are quite aesthetic, showing the beauty of nature's design. A comprehensive faunal listing for each fossil
phylum further helps classify and catalog fossils; figure captions provide even more details. The handy $IGuide$I spans everything from the lowest forms of life--the Protozoa--to the highest forms of mammals. This is
the most up-to-date and complete compendium of facts available about each of the varied fossil flora and fauna within the rock strata of our planet. If you are a researcher, teacher, experienced amateur, weekend fossil
collector, or student, this book will excite and entertain you while helping you better focus your glimpses into the past.
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The Story of Science Curriculum
Curriculum for The Story of Science was created by Maria Garriott and Cora Teter, who have written history, language arts, and science curricula for the Talent Development programs at The Johns Hopkins University since 1995 and 1999, respectively. Both earned master’s degrees in Professional Writing at Towson University. Garriott and Teter were part of a team that created curriculum to accompany Joy Hakim’s A History of US and the best-selling PBS video series Freedom: A History of US!
The Talent Development programs were developed at The Johns Hopkins University by researchers, educators, and experienced curriculum writers in collaboration with middle- and high-school practitioners. The Talent Development Middle Grades and Talent Development High School models offer research-based organizational, curricular, and instructional strategies and intensive professional development to create respectful, caring, and motivating learning environments that challenge all students to realize their highest academic and human potential. For more than a decade, Talent Development has helped boost student achievement in American schools.
Teacher’s Quest Guides include:
- Lesson overview (provides background information)
- Groundwork notes (activate prior knowledge)
- Directed reading (identifies the content to look for when reading to ensure comprehension)
- Class activities (classwide, cooperative, and individual activity options)
- Homework suggestions
- Curriculum links (extension and enrichment options) that focus on cross-disciplinary connections such as:
Download a sample of the Teacher’s Quest Guide: Aristotle.
Download a sample of the Teacher's Quest Guide: Newton.
Student’s Quest Guides contain:
- Student worksheets including vocabulary, terms, and names
- Quest worksheets
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If the print dialog box does not automatically appear, open the file menu and choose Print.
Article published March 2, 2013
Heed nature warnings
Theodore L. Kneupper, Ph.D.Slippery Rock Township
A recent scientific study found that the current rise of global temperatures of 1.5 degrees could release from the Siberian permafrost an additional trillion tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere as early as 2030. That addition would further accelerate climate change, particularly if we continue on the current level of using fossil fuels for energy, like petroleum, coal, fracked gas (which has been found to release large amounts of escaped methane), and tar sands oil that corporate leaders are so bent on extracting and profiting from. We already have been given the serious warnings by nature in terms of extensive droughts, storms and fires that have devastated many parts of the United States and other parts of the planet. I wonder whether the correct name for our species should be Homo sapiens (man being wise) or, simply, “Homo sap” (man fool). Science has made possible the current condition of the planet through the technology it led to. That same science is telling us that our current way is moving toward conditions that very likely will be catastrophic, even possibly leading to our own extinction. The irony is that such a scenario is not necessary. While some are preaching that we are heading to the “end times,” science is warning only that this need not be if we reflect on the consequences of our behavior as individuals, as a nation, and as a species, and act with intelligence that understands how to avoid widespread suffering and possibly even our collective death. By our choices and actions, we will merit either the name “Homo sapiens” or “Homo sap.”
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There’s a new Santa Cruz, CA website dedicated to Otter-ly information. Check out seaotters.com based in Santa Cruz, CA.
To get off the Endangered Species List, sea otters must grow from 2,700 to 3,090. Their numbers have stayed steady instead of growing in recent years. Scientists wonder why. Various pollutants may contribute.
“Southern sea otters have been listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1977. While California sea otters have made a substantial recovery, decades of protection haven’t helped their population bounce back as dramatically as hoped. Annual surveys currently peg the California sea otter population at about 2,700 individuals, short of the minimum of 3,090 for 3 years running needed for delisting from the Endangered Species Act. Their numbers have hovered at 2,800 otters in recent years, and the current estimate represents a population dip instead of growth.
“What is behind this population plateau? Scientists have pinned the cause on too many deaths of mature adults, especially females who should be producing pups. However, understanding why otters are dying is far from straightforward. No single factor jumps out as the most important cause of California sea otter deaths. Rather, scientists have discovered that otters encounter a complex and deadly cocktail in contaminated waters, and many are dying from the combined onslaught of diseases, parasites, and toxic compounds.
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Language is constantly evolving, so it’s quite natural that certain words will be replaced and updated. When you read Shakespeare, for example, there is often an index of words to refer to since they are no longer in use today. A new survey has found that text speak is diminishing the usage of such traditional British words. The study of 2000 adults was carried out to mark the launch of Planet Word, the book which accompanies the series of the same name.
J.P. Davidson, the author of Planet Word said: ”This could be viewed as regrettable, as there are some great descriptive words that are being lost and these words would make our everyday language much more colourful and fun if we were to use them. But it’s only natural that with people trying to fit as much information in 140 characters that words are getting shortened and are even becoming redundant as a result.”
The book lists a top 20 of the unused words.
1. Bally: A word from 1885 – a euphemism for bloody
2. Laggard: An 18th Century word to describe someone who lags behind or responds slowly
3. Felicitations: To express congratulations
4. Rambunctious: Boisterous or unruly
5. Verily: From Middle English, simply means true or in truth
6. Salutations: A welcome greeting
7. Betwixt: Originated before 950, and means neither one nor the other
8. Lauded: From the Latin laudāre, to praise
9. Arcane: Known or understood by very few
10. Raconteur: A person skilled in telling stories, originated in the 19th Century, from the French verb, raconter, to tell. Most known now from Jack White’s band, The Racounteurs
11. Cad: An ill-bred man, originates from 19th Century, derived from the word Caddie
12. Betrothed: The person to whom one is engaged
13. Cripes: An expression of surprise
14. Malaise: A vague or unfocused feeling of mental uneasiness
15. Quash: To put down or suppress completely; quell
16. Swell: Originates before 900 from the Middle English verb swellen, meanings include the verb to inflate and an adjective which describes if something is excellent
17. Balderdash: From the 1590s, it was originally a jumbled mix of liquors (milk and beer, beer and wine, etc.), before being transferred in 1670s to ‘senseless jumble of words’
18. Smite: To strike, deal a blow
19. Spiffing: From the word spiff, meaning well-dressed, means superb
20. Tomfoolery: Foolish behaviour
Are there any words you’d like to see banished to history?
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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States. It is intended to be applicable in a wide array of contexts and used by clinicians and researchers of many different orientations (e.g., biological, psychodynamic, cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, family/systems). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) has been designed for use across clinical settings (inpatient, outpatient, partial hospital, consultation-liaison, clinic, private practice, and primary care), with community populations. It can be used by a wide range of health and mental health professionals, including psychiatrists and other physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses, occupational and rehabilitation therapists, and counselors. It is also a necessary tool for collecting and communicating accurate public health statistics.
The DSM consists of three major components: the diagnostic classification, the diagnostic criteria sets, and the descriptive text.
The diagnostic classification is the list of the mental disorders that are officially part of the DSM system. “Making a DSM diagnosis” consists of selecting those disorders from the classification that best reflect the signs and symptoms that are exhibited by the individual being evaluated. Associated with each diagnostic label is a diagnostic code, which is typically used by institutions and agencies for data collection and billing purposes. These diagnostic codes are derived from the coding system used by all health care professionals in the United States, known as the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Edition, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM).
Diagnostic Criteria Sets
For each disorder included in DSM, a set of diagnostic criteria indicate what symptoms must be present (and for how long) as well as symptoms, disorders, and conditions that must not be present in order to qualify for a particular diagnosis. Many users of DSM find these diagnostic criteria particularly useful because they provide a concise description of each disorder. Furthermore, use of diagnostic criteria has been shown to increase diagnostic reliability (i.e., likelihood that different users will assign the same diagnosis to an individual). However, it is important to remember that these criteria are meant to be used as guidelines informed by clinical judgment and are not meant to be used in a cookbook fashion.
Finally, the third component of DSM is the descriptive text that accompanies each disorder. The text of DSM-IV systematically describes each disorder under the following headings: "Diagnostic Features"; "Subtypes and/or Specifiers"; "Recording Procedures"; "Associated Features and Disorders"; "Specific Culture, Age, and Gender Features"; "Prevalence"; "Course"; "Familial Pattern"; and "Differential Diagnosis."
For a brief history of the manual, please click here.
To make a suggestion about DSM, please click here.
This section provides a range of information on the fourth edition of Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, Text Revision, including content on:
Please click here to learn more about DSM-IV-TR.
For information about the development and status of the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, please visit the DSM-5 Web site by clicking below. The DSM-5 Web site contains a detailed summary of the events and individuals involved in the revision process, as well as all currently proposed draft diagnostic criteria and changes. DSM-5 is scheduled for release at the 2013 APA Annual Meeting (May 18-22) in San Francisco, California.
Please click here to learn more about DSM-5.
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| 0.915307
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|http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/ A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine®|
The official name of this gene is “transforming growth factor, beta-induced, 68kDa.”
TGFBI is the gene's official symbol. The TGFBI gene is also known by other names, listed below.
The TGFBI gene provides instructions for making a protein called transforming growth factor beta-induced (TGFBI). This protein is released (secreted) from cells and becomes part of the extracellular matrix, which is an intricate network that forms in the spaces between cells and provides structural support to tissues. The TGFBI protein is thought to play a role in the attachment of cells to one another (cell adhesion) and cell movement (migration). This protein is found in many tissues in the body, including the the clear, outer covering of the eye (the cornea).
At least 26 mutations in the TGFBI gene can cause lattice corneal dystrophy type I. This inherited eye condition is characterized by a lattice-like accumulation of proteins (called amyloid deposits) that form in the cornea. These deposits cloud the cornea and lead to vision impairment in affected individuals. The cornea is made up of several layers of tissue. In lattice corneal dystrophy type I, the deposits occur in the stromal layer of the cornea and contain altered TGFBI proteins.
The TGFBI gene mutations involved in lattice corneal dystrophy type I change single protein building blocks (amino acids) in the TGFBI protein. The most common mutation replaces the amino acid arginine with the amino acid cysteine at position 124 (written as Arg124Cys or R124C). When the condition is caused by this mutation, it is often called classic lattice corneal dystrophy type I. Altered TGFBI proteins abnormally clump together and form amyloid deposits. However, it is unclear how the changes caused by the gene mutations induce the protein to form these deposits.
TGFBI gene mutations are involved in a number of other types of corneal dystrophy, including Groenouw corneal dystrophy, Avellino corneal dystrophy, lattice corneal dystrophy type IIIA, Reis-Bucklers corneal dystrophy, Thiel-Behnke corneal dystrophy, and epithelial basement membrane corneal dystrophy. Corneal dystrophies are all characterized by the accumulation of protein deposits in the cornea, which leads to vision impairment. These deposits form in various shapes and patterns and occur in different layers of the cornea, which help define the different types of corneal dystrophies.
The TGFBI gene mutations that cause these conditions change single amino acids in the TGFBI protein. Most mutations alter the amino acids found at positions 124 and 555 of the protein, although other amino acid changes can also occur. Certain mutations are strongly associated with particular corneal dystrophies. For instance, the mutation that replaces the amino acid arginine at position 124 with the amino acid histidine (written as Arg124His) most often causes Avellino corneal dystrophy. The mutation that replaces the amino acid arginine at position 124 with the amino acid lysine (written as Arg124Lys) most often causes Reis-Bucklers corneal dystrophy. The mutation that replaces the amino acid arginine at position 555 with the amino acid glutamine (written as Arg555Gln) most often causes Thiel-Behnke corneal dystrophy. And, the mutation that replaces the amino acid arginine at position 555 with the amino acid tryptophan (written as Arg555Trp) most often causes Groenouw corneal dystrophy.
Cytogenetic Location: 5q31
Molecular Location on chromosome 5: base pairs 135,364,583 to 135,399,506
The TGFBI gene is located on the long (q) arm of chromosome 5 at position 31.
More precisely, the TGFBI gene is located from base pair 135,364,583 to base pair 135,399,506 on chromosome 5.
See How do geneticists indicate the location of a gene? (http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/howgeneswork/genelocation) in the Handbook.
You and your healthcare professional may find the following resources about TGFBI helpful.
You may also be interested in these resources, which are designed for genetics professionals and researchers.
See How are genetic conditions and genes named? (http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/mutationsanddisorders/naming) in the Handbook.
acids ; amino acid ; amyloid ; cell ; cell adhesion ; collagen ; cornea ; epithelial ; extracellular ; extracellular matrix ; gene ; growth factor ; mutation ; protein ; tissue
You may find definitions for these and many other terms in the Genetics Home Reference Glossary (http://www.ghr.nlm.nih.gov/glossary).
The resources on this site should not be used as a substitute for professional medical care or advice. Users seeking information about a personal genetic disease, syndrome, or condition should consult with a qualified healthcare professional. See How can I find a genetics professional in my area? (http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/consult/findingprofessional) in the Handbook.
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http://www.ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/TGFBI/show/print
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2013-05-19T03:13:58Z
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The winter here on the Monongahela in recent weeks has been uncommonly hard, with temperatures remaining in the teens and even the single digits day after day, and the snow accumulating without melting. Compared with more northern regions, we have had it fairly easy, but around here it has been colder than what we have been accustomed to in recent years.
Looking at the fort covered in snow, I am led to wonder how severe the winters may have been here in the 1770s and 80s when the original fort was active. Just how difficult was life in winter west of the Alleghenies during the Revolutionary era?
For the next few posts I would like to explore this question, and in preparation I have been reading original sources — diaries and memoirs and early histories — and having some conversations with Greg Bray, whose knowledge of those times is extensive.
According to Greg, and my research, the winters on the Virginia frontier during the forting period were considerably more severe than they are at present. Joseph Doddridge, for one, believed the winters on the trans-Allegheny frontier during the eighteenth century were consistently more severe than they were even forty or fifty years later.
Doddridge was brought to the Virginia frontier as an infant, just a year or two before the original Pricketts Fort was built, and he grew up about sixty miles north of here, just over the border in Pennsylvania, during the years that Pricketts Fort was active.
Writing some decades afterwards, around 1820, Doddridge had observed a permanent shift in the climate. Winters on the frontier in his boyhood, he remembered, were more severe than they were at the time he was writing (about 1820). One might attribute this difference to an older man’s natural tendency to exaggerate the hardships of a frontier childhood, but Doddridge is speaking as an historian, and his memory is supported by specific details. Even during the summer months, Doddridge remembers, the nights were almost always cool, and the coolness would persist to midday. As for the winters, they began early, and it was not uncommon for frost to occur in September. One year Doddridge witnessed saw an entire field of corn ruined by a hard freeze on September 22. “Hunting” snows generally arrived by mid-October, and severe winter conditions tended to settle in during November, sometimes early in the month.
Doddridge writes that the snows were consistently deeper and longer-lasting in his boyhood than they would be later, being anywhere from a foot to three feet deep and persisting from November into March or April. The deep snows made every chore an ordeal, with trails needing to be opened and frequently re-shoveled from the cabin to outbuildings and to the spring. Doddridge remembers watching a large dead tree felled for firewood in the forest. When it hit the ground the snow was so deep that it was immediately buried. When the settler reached down to yoke a chain around the base of its trunk so that it could be hauled by horse back to the cabin, his arms were buried in snow up to his shoulders.
Doddridge mentions one characteristic of the snow which would have greatly hindered anyone attempting to travel through it: namely that it frequently had a hard crust. This crust would not usually have been strong enough to support the weight of a man or large animal, but it would have been thick and hard enough that trying to plow through it, especially over distance, would have been extremely difficult and exhausting. Doddridge noted that when the snow was heavily crusted, deer could scarcely move through it at all. If there was any benefit to deep crusted snow persisting throughout the winter in the wilderness, it was that the Shawnee and other native tribes gave up attacking settlements until Spring or early Summer. It must have been a comfort to know that while you were slowly starving or freezing to death, you were at least spared the indignity of losing your hair into the bargain. The perils of frontier life may have been too terrible and numerous to be counted, but in many cases they were seasonal.
If it can be established that winters on the Virginia frontier were long and relatively severe (and I will be attempting to collaborate this with further sources), the next obvious question is, how well were the first European settlers equipped to survive their first winter in the wilderness? How well were they able to shelter, clothe and feed themselves? In my next post I will be looking especially at the question of shelter. We are accustomed to Hollywood images of hardy pioneers passing winter nights in snug, sturdy log cabins, warming themselves before a blazing log in a stone fireplace. How true was this image in fact? I’ll dig into some of those old memoirs and journals and see what they have to say.
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| 0.987906
| 990
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Computer Architecture and Organization
A top-down approach to computer design. Computer architecture: introduction to
assembly language programming and machine language set design. Computer organization:
logical modules; CPU, memory and I/O units. Instruction cycles, the data-path and
control unit. Hardwiring and microprogramming. The memory subsystem and timing.
I/O interface, interrupts, programmed I/O and DMA. Introduction to pipelining and
memory hierarchies. Fundamentals of computer networks.
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Forum—A National Formosan Subterranean Termite
Termites are among the most economically important insects in the world.
While also ecologically important in nutrient recycling, they're best known as
structural and plant pests that compete with people for shelter and food.
The Formosan subterranean termite is a species from Asia that now infests
over a dozen U.S. states, costing its human competitors about $1 billion
annually in control measures and damage repair.
In this issue, you'll read about "Operation Full Stop," a national
termite-fighting campaign led by USDA's Agricultural Research Service. Along with
its collaborators, ARS is launching a coordinated attack using environmentally
sound management practices aimed at suppressing termite populations and
eliminating the damage they cause. This attack will take three concurrent
· Integrating the best available control technologies into large-area
pilot tests to suppress termite populations and keep them from regaining
· Conducting site-specific trials to evaluate individual control
products and technologies.
· Developing new and improved termite-fighting weapons through
fundamental research and scientific discovery.
This aggressive new campaign arrives at a time when the conventional
approach of excluding termites, structure-by-structure, is failing. Defending a
building using chemical repellents around its perimeter does not decrease
termite populations or activity in the surrounding area.
Moreover, chemicals available today do not provide the same long-term
control as did organochlorine compounds. Chlordane, the last effective
organochlorine used as a termiticide, was banned in 1988.
Unlike defensive measures used in the past, Operation Full Stop is
strategically offensive--aimed toward reducing termite populations by
attacking and killing the pests throughout an area or community.
This offensive approach to eliminating pests areawide or throughout an
entire community not only prevents damage, it also offers built-in
sustainability--key in reducing chemical usage over time.
ARS' community-based approach to Formosan termite control emphasizes use of
toxic baits but will employ many tactics. Where appropriate, this holistic
approach will call on chemical soil treatments, use of preserved wood, and
sanitation--that is, removing wood trash and eliminating moisture sources that
termites need to thrive. Physical barriers will also play a role.
All these tactics are critical to maintaining an environment inhospitable to
termites. Still, research to improve baits by increasing their attractiveness
and killing potential remains a high priority.
Another priority is development and use of sensitive monitoring devices that
use acoustics and infrared technology to detect the termites' activity early so
that remedial action can be taken before they do extensive damage. And better
understanding of termites' food tastes and foraging behavior will lead to more
precise placement of monitoring stations and baits. Besides minimizing damage,
this approach lowers the program's operating costs and reduces the amount of
toxicant needed to do the job.
The Formosan termite is an exotic pest that escaped its co-evolved natural
enemies--one possible reason why it has spread unchecked across the South.
Importation and establishment of one or more of this termite's natural enemies
could permanently reduce its populations. With such prospects in mind, ARS
scientists are preparing expeditions to the pest's native home in East Asia to
seek out these as yet unidentified beneficial organisms.
On the home front, ARS is assembling a crack team of scientists to staff its
new Formosan Subterranean Termite Research Unit at the agency's Southern
Regional Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Scientists in the unit will conduct studies on biological control, insect
nutrition, population ecology, biochemistry, toxicology, and structural
engineering. They'll also investigate colony growth, development, and foraging
behavior for clues to the termites' Achilles' heel.
But this team isn't doing the work alone. Members are in fact working
closely with a cadre of experts from other collaborating agencies, research
organizations, private industry, and academia. You'll read about many of them
in the following pages.
Even with such talent, it's unlikely we can eradicate the Formosan termite.
Instead, our goal is to reduce the pest's numbers, eliminate the damage it
causes to our communities, and determine the best tactics for reducing and
eliminating subterranean termite populations.
This effort should bring much-needed peace of mind to home and
property owners across the South and throughout the nation.
Edgar G. King
South Area Director
published in the October 1998 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
to see this issue's table of contents.
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http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/oct98/form1098.htm
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2013-05-19T02:09:21Z
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Congenital hip dislocation (CHD), also called developmental dysplasia of the hip, occurs when a child is born with an unstable hip due to abnormal formation of the hip joint during early stages of fetal development. This instability worsens as the child grows. In some cases, the ball-and-socket hip joint may dislocate periodically, with the ball slipping out of the socket with movement. Sometimes, the joint may be completely dislocated. According to a 2006 article published in American Family Physician, one out of every 1,000 infants is born with a dislocated hip. (Storer and Skaggs, 2006)
In many cases, the cause of CHD is unknown. Contributing factors include low levels of amniotic fluid in the womb, breech presentation (when a baby is born with its hips instead of its head first), and family history of the condition. Confinement in the uterus may also cause or contribute to CHD. This is why the condition is more common in first-time pregnancies where the uterus has not been previously stretched.
CHD is more common in girls. However, any infant can be born with the condition. This is why hospital physicians routinely check all newborns for signs of hip dislocation, and pediatricians continue to examine the hips at well-baby checkups throughout the first year of life.
There may be no symptoms of CHD. This is why physicians and nurses routinely test for the condition. If symptoms are present, they may include:
- legs that turn outward or appear to differ in length
- limited range of motion
- folds on legs and buttocks are uneven when legs are extended and examined side by side
- delayed gross motor development (sitting, crawling, and walking)
Screening for CHD is done at birth and throughout the first year of life. The most common screening method is a physical exam. A doctor will gently maneuver your child’s hip and legs while listening for clicking or clunking sounds that may indicate dislocation. This exam consists of two tests: The Ortalani test involves upward force while the hip is abducted (moved away from the body). The Barlow test involves downward force while the hip is adducted (drawn across the body). These tests are only accurate prior to 3 months of age. In older infants and children, exam indicators include difference in leg lengths (only if a single hip is affected), limping, and limited abduction.
Infants diagnosed prior to 6 months of age will usually be fitted for a Pavlik harness. This harness presses the hip joints into the sockets. The hip is abducted by securing the legs in the harness in a froglike position. Infants may wear the harness for six to 12 weeks, depending on the age of the child and the severity of the condition. Your child may be instructed to wear the harness full-time or part-time.
If treatment with a Pavlik harness is unsuccessful or the diagnosis is made after your child is too big for the harness, surgery may be required. Surgery is conducted under general anesthesia and may include maneuvering the hip into the socket (closed reduction) or lengthening tendons and removing other obstacles before positioning the hip (open reduction). After the hip is positioned, the hips and legs will be in casts for at least 12 weeks.
If a child is 18 months or older or has not responded well to treatment, femoral or pelvic osteotomies may be required to reconstruct the hip. This means a surgeon will divide or reshape the head of the femur (the ball of the hip joint) or the acetabulum of the pelvis (the socket).
Complicated or invasive treatment is less likely to be necessary when CHD is identified early and can be treated with a Pavlik harness. Between 80 and 95 percent of cases identified early are resolved in this manner, depending on the severity of the condition. (Storer and Skaggs, 2006)
Surgical treatments vary in their success rates, with some cases being resolved after one procedure and others requiring many surgeries and years of monitoring. CHD that is not successfully treated in early childhood can result in early arthritis and severe pain later in life.
If your child has been successfully treated for CHD, he or she will likely continue to regularly visit an orthopedic specialist to make sure the condition does not re-emerge with growth.
CHD can’t be prevented. It is important to regularly bring your child to well-baby checkups so the condition can be identified and treated as soon as possible. You may want to verify that your newborn has been examined for signs of hip dislocation before leaving the hospital following his or her birth.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.healthline.com/health/developmental-dysplasia-of-the-hip
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2013-05-24T15:52:04Z
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en
| 0.963872
| 964
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(Right Heart Cath; Pulmonary Artery Catheterization; Catheterization, Right Heart; Swan-Ganz "Swan" Catheterization)
A right heart catheterization is performed to determine how well the heart is pumping and to measure the pressures in the heart and lungs.
In a right heart cath, the doctor guides a special catheter (a small, hollow tube) called a pulmonary artery (PA) catheter to the right side of the heart and passes it into the pulmonary artery, the main artery carrying blood to the lungs. The doctor observes blood flow through the heart and measures the pressures inside the heart and in the lungs.
As the catheter is advanced toward the pulmonary artery, the doctor measures pressures along the way, inside the chambers on the right side of the heart—the right atrium and right ventricle. Indirect measurements of pressures on the left side of the heart are made, as well, by inflating a tiny balloon at the tip of the catheter once the catheter reaches the pulmonary artery. This pressure measurement is called the pulmonary artery occlusion pressure (PAOP), or pulmonary capillary "wedge" pressure (PCWP). The cardiac output—the amount of blood pumped by the heart per minute—is also determined during a right heart catheterization.
In some cases, IV heart medications are given during the right heart cath to see how the heart responds. For example, if the pressure is high in the pulmonary artery, the doctor will give medications to dilate, or relax, the blood vessels in the lungs and lower the pressures. Several pressure measurements will be done during the procedure to assess your body's response to the medications.
If output from the heart is low and/or the pressures in the heart and lungs are too high, the PA catheter may be left in place to monitor the effects of different IV medications. You will most likely be monitored in the intensive care unit (ICU) if this is the case. This allows your doctors to determine the best medication plan needed to improve your heart's function.
A right heart cath may be performed to assist in the diagnosis and/or management of the following conditions:
Heart failure. A condition in which the heart muscle has become weakened to an extent that blood cannot be pumped efficiently, causing fluid buildup (congestion) in the blood vessels and lungs, and or edema (swelling) in the feet, ankles, and other parts of the body.
Shock. A syndrome that causes reduced flow of blood and oxygen to the tissues of the body. Shock can be caused by a sudden onset of heart failure (cardiogenic), severe bacterial infection of the blood stream (sepsis), or severe blood loss (hemorrhagic).
Congenital heart disease. Defects in one or more heart structures that develop before birth, such as a ventricular septal defect (VSD)—a hole in the wall between the two lower chambers of the heart.
Valvular heart disease. Malfunction of one or more of the heart valves that may interfere with normal blood flow within the heart.
Cardiomyopathy. An enlargement of the heart because of thickening or weakening of the heart muscle; this can eventually lead to heart failure.
Pulmonary hypertension. Increased pressures within the blood vessels in the lungs that can lead to difficulty breathing and right-sided heart failure.
A right heart cath with biopsy may also be performed as part of the evaluation before a heart transplant. Pressures in the pulmonary (lung) circulation need to be as low as possible in order for a donor heart to work as well as possible. Excessive pressures will make it difficult for the new (donor) heart to pump effectively. A right heart cath will help to see if pulmonary pressures can be decreased with special medications (vasodilators) to ensure successful transplantation.
Your doctor may have other reasons to recommend a right heart cath with biopsy, particularly if you've already undergone a heart transplant in the past.
Possible risks associated with a right heart catheterization include:
Bruising of the skin at the site where the catheter is inserted
Excessive bleeding because of puncture of the vein during catheter insertion
Pneumothorax (partial collapse of the lung) if the neck or chest veins are used to insert the catheter
Other, rare complications may include:
Abnormal heart rhythms, such as ventricular tachycardia (fast heart rate in the lower heart chambers)
Cardiac tamponade (fluid buildup around the heart that affects the heart's ability to pump blood effectively)
Low blood pressure
Air embolism (air leaking into the heart or chest area)
Blood clots at the tip of the catheter that can block blood flow
Pulmonary artery rupture (damage to the main artery in the lung, which can result in serious bleeding, making it difficult to breathe)
For some patients, having to lie still on the cardiac catheterization table for the length of the procedure may cause some discomfort or back pain.
There may be other risks, depending on your specific medical condition. Be sure to discuss any concerns with your doctor before the procedure.
Your doctor will explain the procedure to you and offer you the opportunity to ask any questions that you might have about the procedure.
You will be asked to sign a consent form that gives your permission to do the test. Read the form carefully and ask questions if something is not clear.
Notify your doctor if you are sensitive to or are allergic to any medications, latex, tape, or anesthetic agents (local and general).
If you are pregnant or suspect you may be pregnant, you should notify your doctor.
Notify your doctor of all medications (prescription and over-the-counter) and herbal supplements that you are taking.
Notify your doctor if you have a history of bleeding disorders or if you are taking any anticoagulant (blood-thinning) medications such as warfarin, aspirin, or other medications that affect blood clotting. It may be necessary for you to stop some of these medications prior to the procedure.
Notify your doctor if you have a pacemaker or an implantable defibrillator (ICD).
If you have an artificial heart valve, your doctor will decide if you should stop taking warfarin before the procedure.
You may be asked not to eat or drink anything after midnight or within eight hours before the procedure.
The area around the catheter insertion site may be shaved if the groin site is used.
Based upon your medical condition, your doctor may request other specific preparation.
The right heart cath will be done in the cardiac catheterization lab or in a special department. In critically ill patients, the test may be done in the ICU. A right heart cath may be performed on an outpatient basis or as part of your hospital stay. The procedure may vary depending on your condition and your doctor's practices.
You will be asked to remove any jewelry or other objects that may interfere with the procedure. You may wear your dentures or hearing aids if you use either of these.
You will be asked to remove your clothing and will be given a gown to wear.
You will be asked to empty your bladder before the procedure.
An IV line will be started in your hand or arm before the procedure for injection of medication and to administer IV fluids, if needed.
You will lie on your back on the procedure table.
You will be connected to an ECG monitor that records the electrical activity of the heart during the procedure using small, adhesive electrodes. Your vital signs (heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and oxygenation level) will be monitored closely during the procedure, as well.
You may be given a mild sedative to help you relax, but you will not be put to sleep.
Sterile towels will be placed over your chest and neck if your neck vein is used.
If your groin is used, sterile towels will be place over the groin area.
The skin over the neck or groin is cleaned and numbed with a local anesthetic. A small needle will be used to find the vein and then a thin tube called a catheter will eventually be inserted into the vein. You may feel some burning or stinging when the numbing medication is given and some pressure as the needle is used to puncture the vein.
An introducer sheath (a slightly larger, hollow tube) will be placed into the vein first and then the PA catheter will be inserted through the introducer. You may feel some pressure as the introducer is placed. Once the PA catheter is in place, heart pressures will be measured.
Intravenous heart medications may also be given to evaluate the heart's response. It may take about 30 minutes to monitor the heart's response to the medications.
Once all the necessary information has been obtained, the catheter and introducer will be removed, unless your doctors decide you need additional monitoring in the ICU.
Medical staff will put pressure over the insertion site for a minute or two to make sure that you are not bleeding. If the catheter was placed in your groin vein, pressure will be placed over the insertion site for a few minutes longer.
If the neck vein is used (most commonly), you will be allowed to sit up comfortably. If the groin is used for the procedure, you will have to lie flat in bed for a few hours so the puncture site can heal properly.
You can eat and drink normally after the procedure. The nurse will monitor the insertion site for bleeding and check your blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing while you recover. Let the nurse know if you have any chest pain or difficulty breathing.
The doctor will discuss the findings of the right heart cath and plans for treatment, if needed. Most of the time, you will be able to go home a few hours after the procedure.
Once at home, you should monitor the insertion site for bleeding, unusual pain, swelling, and abnormal discoloration or temperature change at or near the insertion site. A small bruise is normal. If you notice a constant or large amount of blood at the site that cannot be contained with a small bandage, or dressing, notify your doctor.
It will be important to keep the insertion site clean and dry. Your doctor will give you specific bathing instructions.
You may be advised not to participate in any strenuous activities. Your doctor will instruct you about when you can return to work and resume normal activities.
Notify your doctor to report any of the following:
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
Fever and/or chills
Increased pain, redness, swelling, or bleeding or other drainage from the insertion site
Coolness, numbness and/or tingling, or other changes in the affected extremity
Chest pain/pressure, nausea and/or vomiting, profuse sweating, dizziness, and/or fainting
Your doctor may give you additional or alternate instructions after the procedure, depending on your particular situation.
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|Resources for Teachers|
As a Teacher, you have the ability to make a tremendous impact on waste reduction in the Salinas Valley. You can contribute to your community's efforts to reduce waste by educating your students about the 3RS (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) and by modeling these practices in your classroom.
On this website, you can find information about bringing the highly interactive and informative school assembly program RecycleRama to your school. The Kids Section has lots of great information for your students and plenty of links to curriculum resources for you.
The SVSWA can provide resources to help you start recycling or to improve your current program. We also provide free waste assessments to schools that are interested in saving money and modeling environmentally responsible behavior for their students. Contact us today!
RecycleRama is an exciting show brought to you by the Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority. This 25-minute, highly interactive and informative school assembly program engages the audience, uses multimedia, and incorporates easily accessible learning tools. Recycling starts with our youth...and this inspirational event is perfect way to motivate students to learn about Recycling.
About The Show
"Recyclerama - The Recycling Game Show" is for audiences of all ages, but is specifically geared towards elementary and middle school students.
The show uses visual and oral recognition practices to easily get the message out. Much like call and response, the students are encouraged to answer questions directly related to facts they learned earlier in the show. In the Activity Round, students are asked to correctly identify the recyclable product and match it with its recycled counterpart. This use of tactile props further instills the association and direct correlation between the reusable/reused products.
The show itself is built around a gameshow theme, much like the events one sees on Nickelodeon. High energy and audience participation play integral parts in its success. This is not your ordinary assembly. It is bells, whistles, music and laughter provide education through entertainment; otherwise known as "Edu-tainment".
US EPA Resources for Teachers
These resources will assist you in teaching your students about the waste we generate in our schools, homes, and communities—and what we can all do to make a difference! From classroom activities, to starting a school electronics recycling program, these materials will help you and your students learn what we can do to reduce and better manage waste in the world around us. Many of these resources are provided in both English and Spanish.Â
The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
Provides lesson plans for integrating art and science into the classroom. The link above takes you to a fun project that creates birds from found objects.Â
There's no machinery at The Imagination Factory, and smokestacks don't pollute the air. Instead, we teach children and their caregivers creative ways to recycle by making art. Visitors learn dozens of inexpensive ways to create art and crafts as they help save the environment. The lessons and activities include drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, papier-mache, marbling, crafts, and a special section for holiday art and crafts is featured.Â
Go Fish! Recycled arts lesson plan.
The Green Guide to Recycling Appliances and Electronics
Provides information on recycling appliances and electronics. Source was found by a student who is enthusiastic about recycling. Thank you Marcus!
A Kid's Guide to Recycling
A Kid's Guide to Recycling helps kid's learn why and how to recycle.
Living Green: A Guide to Recycling
Learn how to recycle electronic items.
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Even if the Palmarin Tree Project planted a million trees next year, it wouldn't mean much if we couldn't protect them. To make real gains in reforestation has to be well thought out from what species to are to be planted, where and then most importantly how are we going to make sure they will survive. Today that is a big challenge, especially in the Reserve de Palmarin. Although its a reserve it is still used for traditional economic activities including herding.
If we are going to make real headway on habitat reconstruction we first need a protected area to work with. Working with local government officials and those who have traditional rights to the land the Palmarin Tree Project is looking to create protected areas where real conservation can occur. This project is in its infancy but has the potential to be our greatest achievement in environmental protection.
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2013-05-27T02:55:30Z
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The theory of computation studies a class of problems called ‘NP Complete.’ These are problems that are considered computationally hard in the sense that all known algorithms to solve them require a non-deterministic Turing machine polynomial orders of time. The traveling salesman problem is a classic example of this set. They all share one characteristic – indeed it is the test of membership in the class – that they are all isomorphic. An algorithm that solves any of the problems would therefore solve all of NP Complete problems.
The problems that humanity faces collectively at the global level, constitute a similar set and there are some interesting parallels and differences between the two sets. The set of global problems includes at the very least the problem of environmental degradation, the economic system and the population problem. All of these basic problems are in a sense isomorphic and any solution advanced to solve any one would also automatically address the others. However, the difference between the computational problem set and the global problem set is that whereas you can address the traveling salesman problem in isolation without regard to the assignment problem, you really cannot attempt to solve any of the basic global problems in isolation.
The reason for this is the basic fact that all global systems are interconnected in the present age. The economic system is part of the socio-political system which is tied to the population which exists in the ecological system and so on. No man, nation, system, organization or institution, is an island. The consequences of this fact are sobering. Firstly, it is futile to attempt to try to solve just one of them while disregarding the others — there is considerable evidence to attest to that. Secondly, any solution advanced has to meet the requirement that it must not leave any losers in the deal; the solution has to create a win-win situation. To borrow from a biology lesson, every evolutionary stable strategy is win-win: the win-lose strategy is not sustainable – both predator and prey disappear for good.
To go back to the computational analogy for a bit. To solve computational problems for any real-world situation where the size of the input would rule out computing exact solutions due to the fact that such a solution would require more time than the age of the universe, heuristics are used which provide approximate solutions which can be arrived at in a reasonable time. In a similar sense, to address the seemingly intractable global problems, we need to apply heuristic methods which limit the search for a solution.
A BASIC SET OF AXIOMS
Consequently, there must be a set of axioms that can be used as boundaries to limit the search for sustainable solutions to the global problems. In my opinion, as a first cut, I present the following:
0. It is all interconnected.
1. Nothing inequitable is sustainable.
2. The solution must be win-win for all concerned parties.
3. The solution cannot incorporate a growth in the physical throughput of the system.
4. Competition for scarce resources must be replaced by cooperative use of the resources.
5. There are real limits to basic resources – land, energy and water – currently available to humanity.
6. Growth centered development is inherently unsustainable.
7. The attempted solution must be appropriate to the nature of the problem.
The 6th axiom is to make explicit that there is a distinction between growth and development. Growth is natural and healthy at specific stages of a system and has to stop when the system reaches an optimal size. Development of a system, however, need not stop if it is defined as the expansion of the potential of the system and does not necessarily imply growth.
The last heuristic is meant to guard against the common folly implicit in the dictum that to a man with a hammer, everything appears to be a nail. No point in trying to attempt an administrative fix to a sociological problem. Or a technological fix to a ethical problem. Or a political fix to a technical problem.
The global interacting system can be understood broadly as the environment, the economy, and the population. Every global problem has a component which affects and is in turn affected by each of these three subsystems. Take, for example, the fact that economic factors have shaped environmental trends and in turn affected populations. Demand for resources has escalated pushed by the engine of population growth and led to the unsustainable exploitation of resources. Deforestation is a direct consequence of population pressures which is partly responsible for the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year. The earth’s carrying capacity has been sorely tested and it is evident that the ecological space that humanity has in a sustainable ecosystem is nearly, if not already, full.
However, there are economists like Julian Simon who would argue that global resource scarcity is not a serious problem on the grounds that prices of resources relative to wages would tend to decline over time. This view cannot be maintained if one posits the finiteness of resources available at any given time. It becomes even more untenable if one were to consider the loss of resources which are non -substitutable like biological diversity. No amount of money can replace the value lost in the extinction of species.
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2013-05-19T10:59:27Z
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The idea of the hypernova was first proposed by Dr. Bohdan Paczynski of Princeton University
. He wanted to explain the gamma ray burst
s that typically last a few second
s at a time, come from seemingly random
directions in space, and have the potential to produce more energy than anything else in the rest of the universe
for a few seconds. The first remnants of such an explosion were identified by Q. Daniel Wang of Northwestern University
, using work done by Dr. You-Hua Chu of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigne
as a base. The two remnants he identified reside in the galaxy M101
in the Ursa Major Constellation
. They have been given the easily memorable names NGC5471B
. The former is a nebula
that is expanding at at least a hundred miles a second while the latter is one of the largest pieces of supernova
wreckage known at 850 light year
s across. Both are about ten times brighter than any known supernova remnants in our galaxy
Little is known for sure about these powerful explosions, although it is suspected that they are the product of the collapse of extremely massive stars or their collisions with superdense objects such as neutron stars. Both relationships also imply that hypernovae probably have something to do with the formation of black holes. Aside from the physics that I'm not going to butcher by trying to explain, these relationships have been deduced primarily from the locations of gamma ray bursts' points of origin as well as the locations of various remnants of hypernovae, which both tend to be in areas of intensive star formation. Said areas are also hotspots for the formation of neutron stars, black holes, and other associated objects.
Another hypernova that may come to play an important role in our lives in the near future is Eta Carainae. While it is not yet a hypernova, it is suspected that it will probably become one relatively soon due to its unstable patterns of brightness and dimness over the past 150 years that has culminated recently in an intensive brightening spell. It now radiates around 400 million times as much light and energy as the sun and is brightening in a way that astronomers do not understand. On the bright side, though, if it does explode again, it will probably be too far away (7500 light years) to hurt those of us who are protected from gamma ray bursts by an atmosphere. If, however, you are an orbital satellite or have any friends who are orbital satellites, I'd be very frightened indeed.
A really cool picture of Eta Carainae can be found at http://earthfiles.com/earth040.html, where I also got much of the information on it. Most of the rest of the information in this writeup comes from http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/astrobizarre_000928.html.
It should also be noted that I am the layest of lay persons when it comes to this stuff, so if I've gotten anything wrong, please /msg sludgeel so that I can correct it.
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2013-05-23T04:43:26Z
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A veteran NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars has gone into safe mode after a glitch was detected in one of its reaction wheels.
The Mars Odyssey orbiter officially put itself into the protective standby mode early Friday, when the spacecraft detected unusual readings from one of its three reaction wheels, which are used to control the orbiter's orientation in space.
"The spacecraft is safe, and information we've received from it indicates the problem is limited to a single reaction wheel," the orbiter's mission manager Chris Potts of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "The path forward is evaluating the health of the reaction wheel and our options for proceeding."
The orbiter carries a spare reaction wheel onboard, in case one of the three in use fails.
For now, the flight control team on the ground is in communication with the spacecraft while they decide what steps to take next and develop a recovery timeline.
Space news from NBCNews.com
Mars Odyssey has been studying the Red Planet for over a decade. It launched in April 2001 and arrived at Mars six months later. It used a technique called aerobraking to slow itself down into the correct orbit by dipping down into Mars' atmosphere.
The spacecraft began science operations in February 2002, and has now worked at Mars longer than any mission in history. It has created the first global maps of chemical and mineral distribution on the surface of Mars, and led to the discovery of vast amounts of water ice buried under the planet's surface.
Mars Odyssey has also served as a communications relay station for landers NASA has sent down to the surface of Mars, and will relay messages from the next Mars rover, Curiosity, when it lands this August.
- The Best (And Worst) Mars Landings in History
- Photos From NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
- Mars Explored: Landers and Rovers Since 1971 (Infographic)
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Self-destruction is one of the seven basic character flaws or negative personality traits. We all have the potential for self-destructive tendencies, but when they dominate the personality one is said to have a “chief feature of self-destruction”.
What Is Self-Destruction?
Self destruction is usually defined as:
The voluntary destruction of something by itself.
In human personality terms, we are really talking about self-destructive behaviour patterns which can cause oneself irreparable harm or damage, either deliberately or inadvertently.
As with the opposite trait of greed, self-destruction represents a dysfunction in a person’s relationship with self.
With greed, the person feels that there is something missing from the self that must be constantly obtained from outside. With self-destruction, however, the person feels that there is something fundamentally bad within the self and that this part of the self needs to be kept under strict control.
It is a part of the self that may have suffered unbearable damage, perhaps way back in childhood. To remember this part of the self is just too painful.
Moreover, this part of the self (a young person imagines) may well have “attrracted” or “deserved” such treatment—for why else would it have happened? To allow this part of the self to the surface once more could simply cause the same traumatic experiences to happen again.
For example, if my physical body is what attracts harm, then maybe I should make it disappear by not eating.
Another good name for self-destruction could be self-denial. There is a splitting of the personality in which any expression or exposure of this “thing in me” is to be suppressed by any means possible. The person feels that this part must be kept under strict control, hidden from everyday life at all costs.
Varieties of Self-Destruction
The most widespread forms of self-destructive behaviour are eating disorders, alcohol abuse, drug abuse and gambling addiction. The most direct form of self-destruction is deliberate physical self-injury or self-harm, the ultimate manifestation of which is deliberate suicide.
Deliberate self-injury is common in young people worldwide. It is also linked with borderline personality disorder in adulthood, a chronic and difficult to treat condition characterized by impulsive behaviours, mood instability and high rates of suicide. In fact, self-injurers are about 75 times more likely to kill themselves.
Researchers have discovered a common pattern in such behaviour (see the diagram Precursors to Self Injury, below). The trigger (or “final straw”) is often a threat of separation, rejection or disappointment in life. This adds to feelings of overwhelming tension, isolation, self-hatred, and apprehension about being unable to control one’s own emotions. The increasing anxiety culminates in a frightening sense of unreality and emptiness that ultimately produces an emotional numbness or depersonalization. Self-injury is a primitive means for combating the emotional numbness.
It is as if, by replacing their emotional pain with a physical one, life becomes more bearable. It is also easier for them to demonstrate that they are in pain when the injury is visible and physical rather than “just psychological”.
Fiona Apple (b. 1977) is a Grammy-winning American singer-songwriter. At the age of twelve, Fiona was raped on her way home from school.
For years after her rape she would check her closets to make sure no one was hiding in the house and would be nervous around older men. And she still continues to have bad, violent dreams.
During her teens and the months she spent making her album, Tidal, she suffered with an eating disorder. Frustrated at the misunderstanding by the media of her eating disorder she attempted to explain it in a 1998 Rolling Stone interview,
I definitely had an eating disorder. What was really frustrating for me was that everyone thought I was anorexic, and I wasn’t. I was really depressed and self-loathing. For me, it wasn’t about being thin, it was about getting rid of the bait attached to my body. A lot of it came from the self-loathing that came from being raped at the point of developing my voluptuousness. I just thought that if you had a body and if you had anything on you that would be grabbed, it would be grabbed. So I did purposely get rid of it.
Other famous cases include:
- Vincent Van Gogh
- Sid Vicious
- Kurt Cobain
- Diana, Princess of Wales
- Michael Jackson
- Marilyn Manson
- Christina Ricci
- Amy Winehouse
- Lindsay Lohan
Note that there is an added complication for self-destructive celebrities. The more they self-harm or take unhealthy risks with their lives, the more attention and publicity they generate and, hence, the more successful they become. This merely adds to the vicious circle of self-destruction.
Development of Self-Destruction
Like all negative personality traits, self-destruction is a dysfunctional defensive pattern which develops through the following sequence:
- Early negative experiences
- Misconceptions about the nature of self, life or others
- A constant fear and sense of insecurity
- A maladaptive strategy to protect the self
- A persona to hide all of the above in adulthood
Early Negative Experiences
In the case of self-destruction, the early negative experiences typically consist of a childhood abuse or trauma over which the child had no control. This kicks off the self-destructive behaviour, while lack of secure parental attachment helps maintain it.
Perhaps the father was a drunk who came home every night in a violent rage. Perhaps the pmother was mentally unstable and would attack her children for no apparent reason. Or perhaps school teachers imposed a severe regime involving random punishments. The key factor leading to a self-destructive pattern is the child’s inability to control the onslaught of harm.
In addition, one or both parents may have been unable or unwilling to give the love, care and attention that were naturally craved by the child. So the child would have felt fundamentally alone in this terror, as well as feeling helpless to do anything about it.
From such experiences of life as harsh, unpredictable and beyond control, the child comes to perceive ‘self’ as a magnet for pain. Hence:
If life is so cruel then it is not worth living.
I wish I had never been born.
Being hurt so much means that I must be bad. Perhaps I don’t deserve to live.
Based on such misconceptions, the child becomes gripped by a complex fear — the fear of losing control. There are all sorts of ways in which this fear manifests —
- losing control of one’s boundaries in intimate relationships;
- losing control of the memory of trauma;
- losing control of whichever part of oneself “attracts” trauma;
- losing control of the urge to destroy that part of oneself once and for all.
In other words, the child is terrified of —
- repeating an earlier trauma,
- expressing whatever part of himself might attract such trauma, and
- unleashing his own desire to punish or eliminate that part of himself.
Those caught in self-destruction are thus embroiled in inner conflict.
There are various strategies for coping with this complex issue, but the key is to maintain control of something.
My survival depends upon me taking back control of my life.
Because they need to feel in control of the risks to themselves, some self-destructive types will keep testing and pushing their degree of control—How much alcohol can I drink at once? Can I drink even more than the last time? How many drugs can I take and not die? How fast can I drive a motorbike and get away with it?
Every time they survive such an experience, it merely bolsters their belief that control in the face of danger is a necessary strategy. It’s like a superstition — So long as I’m wearing a yellow hat, no bears will eat me. But this false sense of control merely begs the question, prompted by the same fear: Is that the limit of my control? Or can I take an even bigger risk?
The constant need to push the edge of control, plus the fear of losing control and thereby experiencing both powerlessness and pain inside oneself, creates inner conflict and a rising tension which demands to be relieved. Being successful in life in whatever way will only serve to increase the tension, since there is even more need to keep everything bottled up and under control.
The self-destructive person may be therefore caught in a cycle between periods of grim self-control and explosive episodes in which a valve blows and some component of the conflict is set free.
The person is also likely to become addicted to these brief moments of relief, however destructive they may be in the long run.
For example, relief may be found in episodes of binge drinking. A massive dose of alcohol serves as an anaesthetic, eliminating the state of conflict, tension and terror for a while. It does nothing to resolve the basic underlying conflict or pain, however. In fact, the awful consequences of binge drinking merely serve to reinforce the fear of losing control at another level. And yet the brief relief it provides is irresistible to the point of becoming addictive.
All people are capable of this kind of behaviour. When it dominates the personality, however, one is said to have a chief feature of self-destruction.
Emerging into adulthood, a self-destructive young person probably does not want go around being overtly fearful, conflicted and self-destructive. Hence, the chief feature puts on a public mask which says to the world something like, “Everything’s under control. I only act this way because I want to.” “It’s just a bit of fun.” “I am naturally wild and reckless.” “I’m such a fearless rebel.” In other words, he or she tries to make the behaviour seem positive or cool, rather than a reaction to inner terror.
I think that self-destructiveness can also mean self-reflection, can mean poetic sensibility, it can mean empathy, it can mean a hedonism and a libertarianism and a lack of judgement.
- Courtney Love
Like all chief features of false personality, self-destruction is a vicious circle—only in this case, the end result tends to be fatal. Early intervention is therefore crucial. The real danger is when the person with self-destruction starts to believe their own lie. At that point, the chief feature has won and the most likely outcome is an early death.
Positive and Negative Poles
In the case of self-destruction, the positive pole is termed SACRIFICE and the negative pole is termed IMMOLATION or SUICIDE.
Sacrifice brings the habit of self-destruction under conscious control. It is a willingness to deliberately give up or lose something for a good reason, or for a good cause, rather than out of pure fear.
Sacrifice literally means “make sacred”, in the sense of making an offering to the gods. For example, virtually every primitive society in history has included animal sacrifice as part of its religion. A sacrificial offering can be as cheap and as simple as a flower or a stick of incense. Or it can be as valuable as one’s own life. The more valuable the offering, the greater the sacrifice and the more highly it is regarded.
Today we use sacrifice more generically to describe giving something up, doing without, accepting a minor loss as a way to avoid a greater loss, or in anticipation of later gain. For example, when playing chess we might sacrifice a pawn as a way to avoid losing the game.
A person with a chief feature of self-destruction can at least feel good every now and then about giving something up for the best. For example, instead of automatically sabotaging a new relationship, as is their habit, they can be open about it and offer to drop the relationship from the start, and thereby spare the other person later misery. An honest offering to another is more powerful than insidious self-sabotage.
Immolation also means sacrifice, especially ritual sacrifice by fire, but in this context we are talking about self-sacrifice or suicide.
In the early 1960s, many Vietnamese Buddhist monks set fire to themselves in protest at the then ruling regime. Western news media referred to these suicides as acts of “self-immolation”. In these cases, however, the manner of death is closer to martyrdom (suicide as a protest) than self-destruction (suicide as a relief).
In terms of the chief feature of self-destruction, immolation implies physical loss of life, either slowly or quickly, as a way to eliminate the conflict. For example, one person might drink himself to death over the course of a decade, while another might simply slash his wrists.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, in the year 2000, approximately one million people died from suicide, and 10 to 20 times more people attempted suicide worldwide. This represents one death every 40 seconds and one attempt every 3 seconds, on average. Suicide is now one of the three leading causes of death among young people. More people around the world are now dying from suicide than from armed conflict.
The majority of suicides occur in a context of psychological upheaval or crisis. In 90% of cases of actual suicide, a mental disorder prior to the event such as major depression can be identified. Studies of children and adolescents who commit suicide have found not only show a strong prevalence of stressful life events combined with mental disorder (depression, bipolar) but also a level of antisocial behaviour (unwillingness to comply with normal rules) and often an excessive consumption of alcohol or other drugs. In other words, suicide is more likely when a self-destructive tendency is reinforced or enabled through intoxication.
As with every negative character feature, the key to handling self-destruction is becoming conscious of how it operates in oneself. Begin with the mask or persona:
- Do I try to get others to perceive me as carefree, wild, crazy?
- Do I tend to take risks and act recklessly more than others?
Try to catch yourself in the act of putting on your “devil-may-care” mask or whatever it is for you.
Then dig deeper:
- Underneath that outer facade, am I really trying to keep everything under control?
- It’s like I constantly need to prove that I am in total control. Why do I do this? What am I afraid of?
- Why do I sometimes feel like I’d be better off dead? Is there some part of me that is unbeable or unacceptable?
- What do I fear would happen if I opened up to this “other” me?
- Do I just wish others could see, understand and accept the pain I am in?
Approaching the deepest level you may need outside help in the form of a counsellor, therapist or at least a close friend, perhaps even a psychiatrist, especially if you are tackling memories of abuse:
- Where does this fear come from?
- How was I hurt?
Just as you can become more aware of self-destructiveness through personal observation and self-enquiry, so too you can gain more control over it through that awareness and by exercising choice in the moment.
- Whenever I am tempted to harm myself, I can ask myself what message I am trying to send to others. Then I can look for ways to convey that message more explicitly and skilfully.
Another way to handle a dominant negative trait (chief feature) is to “slide” to the positive pole of its opposite. When caught in the grip of immolation or suicide, the negative pole of self-destruction, balance can be found in the positive pole of greed, namely egoism, desire or appetite. In other words, you give attention to what you actually need or want, and communicate that to others.
A useful online information resource on self-destructive and self-harming behaviour is the Suicide and Mental Health Association International (suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org). It also includes a list of international hotlines.
There are also various online support groups for those affected by self-harm, self-injury, suicide or suicidal thoughts. An excellent starting point would be selfharm.org.
An informative article is Some kids like to hurt themselves at CNN Opinion by psychlogy professor Theodore Beauchaine.
A recent (Sept 2010) article at MSN.com: The kids aren’t all right. Self-harming on the rise? Reports indicate non-suicidal self-injury becoming more prevalent.
For a TV item on the (pop) psychology of self-destructive celebrities, see:
For an excellent book abut the chief features and how to handle them, see Transforming Your Dragons by José Stevens.
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http://personalityspirituality.net/articles/the-michael-teachings/chief-features/self-destruction/
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2013-06-18T23:38:07Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707436332/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123036-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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The following appears here
A 221-Year Temperature History of the Southwest Coast of Greenland
Vinther, B.M., Andersen, K.K., Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R. and Cappelen, J. 2006. Extending Greenland temperature records into the late eighteenth century. Journal of Geophysical Research 111: 10.1029/2005JD006810.
What was done
Combining early observational records from 13 locations along the southern and western coasts of Greenland, the authors extended the overall temperature history of the region – which stretches from approximately 60 to 73°N latitude – all the way back to AD 1784, adding temperatures for 74 complete winters and 52 complete summers to what was previously available to the public.
What was learned
In the words of the authors, “two distinct cold periods, following the 1809 ‘unidentified’ volcanic eruption and the eruption of Tambora in 1815, [made] the 1810s the coldest decade on record.” The warmest period, however, was not the last quarter century, when climate alarmists claim the earth experienced a warming that was unprecedented over the past two millennia. Rather, as Vinther et al. report, “the warmest year in the extended Greenland temperature record [was] 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s [were] the warmest decades.” In fact, their newly-lengthened record reveals there has been no net warming of the region over the last 75 years!
What it means
With approximately half the study region located above the Arctic Circle (where CO2-induced global warming is suggested by climate models to be most evident and earliest expressed), one would expect to see southwestern coastal Greenland’s air temperature responding vigorously to the 75-ppm increase in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration that has occurred since 1930, even if the models were only half-way correct. However, there has been no net change in air temperature there in response to the 25% increase in the air’s CO2 content experienced over that period. And this is the region the world’s climate alarmists refer to as a climatological canary in a coal mine? If it is, real-world data suggest that the greenhouse effect of CO2 has been hugely overestimated.
Reviewed 28 June 2006
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<urn:uuid:58f45beb-48f3-4dcc-9350-931d4a15b4ad>
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http://archive.mises.org/5235/from-co2-science-a-221-year-temperature-history-of-the-southwest-coast-of-greenland/
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2013-05-21T17:51:25Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700380063/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103300-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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Overview of energetic particle hazards during prospective manned missions to Mars
McKenna-Lawlor, Susan and Gonçalves, P. and Keating, A. and Reitz, G. and Matthiä, D. (2011) Overview of energetic particle hazards during prospective manned missions to Mars. Planetary and Space Science, 63-64, pp. 123-132. Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/j.pss.2011.06.017.
Full text not available from this repository.
A scenario for an initial manned mission to Mars involves transits through the Van Allen Radiation Belts, a 30 day ‘short surface stay’ and a 400 day Cruise Phase (to/from the planet). The contribution to the total dose incurred through transiting the belts is relatively small and manageable. Estimates of the particle radiation hazard incurred during a 30 day stay on the surface (using ESA's Mars Energetic Radiation Environment Models dMEREM and e MEREM) indicate that the dose is not expected to be particularly challenging health-wise due to the shielding effect provided by the Martian atmosphere and the body of the planet. This is in accord with estimations obtained using the Langley HZETRN code. Estimates of GCR exposure in free space during the minimum phase of Solar Cycle 23 determined using the CREME2009 model are in reasonable agreement with published results obtained using HZETRN (which they exceed by about 10%). The Cruise Phase poses a significant radiation problem due to the cumulative effects of isotropic Galactic Cosmic Radiation over 400 days. The occurrence during this period of a large Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) event, especially if it has a hard energy spectrum, could be catastrophic health wise to the crew. Such particle events are rare but they are not currently predictable. An overview of mitigating strategies currently under development to meet the radiation challenge is provided and it is shown that the health problem posed by energetic particle radiation is presently unresolved.
|Title:||Overview of energetic particle hazards during prospective manned missions to Mars|
|Journal or Publication Title:||Planetary and Space Science|
|In Open Access:||No|
|In ISI Web of Science:||Yes|
|Page Range:||pp. 123-132|
|Keywords:||Mars, Galactic cosmic radiation, Solar energetic particles, Manned missions|
|HGF - Research field:||Aeronautics, Space and Transport|
|HGF - Program:||Raumfahrt|
|HGF - Program Themes:||R FR - Forschung unter Weltraumbedingungen|
|DLR - Research area:||Raumfahrt|
|DLR - Program:||R FR - Forschung unter Weltraumbedingungen|
|DLR - Research theme (Project):||R - Vorhaben Strahlenbiologie|
|Institutes and Institutions:||Institute of Aerospace Medicine > Radiation Biology|
|Deposited By:||Kerstin Kopp|
|Deposited On:||06 Dec 2011 12:40|
|Last Modified:||26 Mar 2013 13:33|
Repository Staff Only: item control page
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<urn:uuid:0a877dc3-b90c-418c-9954-e24b1f183af1>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://elib.dlr.de/71885/
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2013-05-19T02:08:43Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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skin effectArticle Free Pass
skin effect, in electricity, the tendency of alternating high-frequency currents to crowd toward the surface of a conducting material. This phenomenon restricts the current to a small part of the total cross-sectional area and so has the effect of increasing the resistance of the conductor. Because of the skin effect, induction heating can be localized at the surface and the heated area controlled by a suitable choice of the inductor coil (see induction heating). The skin effect becomes more pronounced as the frequency is increased.
What made you want to look up "skin effect"? Please share what surprised you most...
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<urn:uuid:ab2142ef-ddf0-42f0-aad9-181a1398bbaa>
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http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/547639/skin-effect
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2013-05-20T03:02:45Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698222543/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095702-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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Using a combination of satellite observations and computer modelling, researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry have studied nitrogen oxides pollution over the Indian Ocean. They showed that the central Indian Ocean in the southern hemisphere is not always as pristine as found earlier during the winter monsoon period, but is polluted during the monsoon transition periods by pollution plumes from Africa and Southeast Asia. Generally, the most polluted region is the Bay of Bengal, which is influenced by Indian and south-east Asian outflow during most of the year and China during part of the year (Geophysical Research Letters, 30 April 2004 and 11 August 2004). Current knowledge of atmospheric chemistry over the Indian Ocean is still limited due to the scarcity of long-term observations covering all seasons. The region is dynamically and chemically active because of the strong tropical sunlight, high humidity and the increasing anthropogenic emissions. The Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) was an international field campaign during the winter monsoon period in 1999 to study how air pollution affects climate processes over the tropical Indian Ocean. Satellite pictures showed a thick haze - one of the now well-known "Atmospheric Brown Clouds" - which spreads thousands of kilometers south of India during this period. The results contrasted the highly polluted northern hemisphere with the more pristine air of the southern hemisphere (Fig. 1a).
Research on southern Asian pollution at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry since then has focused on other periods of the year. The field campaign MINOS (Mediterranean Intensive Oxidants Study), led by the institute during the summer of 2001, showed that the same monsoon storms which produce the torrential rains also lift insoluble gases like carbon monoxide into the upper troposp
Contact: Dr. Mark Lawrence
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<urn:uuid:5c5065ee-4db4-417f-914b-4a09bc5f57a3>
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http://news.bio-medicine.org/biology-news-2/What-actually-influences-air-pollution-over-the-Indian-Ocean-3F-413-1/
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2013-05-19T18:26:25Z
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Failures of United Nations (part 1 – Security Council)
January 1, 1942. WW2 is raging. There is misery, chaos and destruction. Representatives of 26 countries, including America, are gathered and pledge in “Declaration by United Nations” – Franklin D. Roosevelt coins the term “United Nations” – to continue fighting the evil of Axis powers.
1945. War is over, but the term coined by FDR lives on as representatives of 50 countries meet in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter, which has the following pre-amble.
- To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
- To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
- To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
- To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom
What about results it has achieved in its 60 years of history? According to one groundbreaking report UNICEF conducted in 1996:
- Increasingly, wars are fought in precisely those countries that can least afford them. Of more than 150 major conflicts since the Second World War, 130 have been fought in the developing world. The per capita gross national product (GNP) of war-torn countries in 1994 included: Afghanistan (US$280), Angola ($700), Cambodia ($200), Georgia ($580), Liberia ($450), Mozambique ($80), Somalia ($120), Sri Lanka ($640), the Sudan ($480).
- Since the 1950s, more wars have started than have stopped. By the end of 1995, wars had been running in Afghanistan for 17 years, Angola, 30; Liberia, 6; Somalia, 7; Sri Lanka, 11; Sudan, 12.
- The global case-load of refugees and displaced persons is growing at alarming speed. The number of refugees from armed conflicts worldwide increased from 2.4 million in 1974 to more than 27.4 million today, the report notes, with another 30 million people displaced within their own countries. Children and women make up an estimated 80 per cent of displaced populations.
- In 6 out of 12 country studies prepared for a research report … the arrival of peace-keeping troops has been associated with a rapid rise in child prostitution.
The UN’s elephant in the room that no one pretends to heed is the infamous UN Security Council (SC), which issues resolutions, which – the SC is the only UN agency with such power – are binding by law for all UN members. Not only the balance of power is tilted towards the UK, France, the US, China and Russia – the veto-wielding powers that can block any decision even if remaining ten non-veto members vote yes – but this tilt itself is archaic, driven by the then political and economic realities, and not representing 21st century power distribution.
It is not only this but the fact – and this is the most important factor in deciding the “usefulness” of the SC – that scrambling over each other at times and staying mum at other times and closing their eyes and ears at yet others is a typical mode of functioning of this UN body. Furthermore, if it were only numerous debates with foregone decisions, meticulously planned and executed-to-perfection speeches containing no sense or petty, nitpicking droolings over a single word resonating in the halls and assemblies around the world, that would still be bearable. Reality is different. The result is a list of failures, lack of actions sanctioned by and plain inactivy on the part of the SC, notably:
- UN voice re Hungary and Czechoslovakia was ignored by the Soviet Union in 1950s.
- No emphatic role/inefficiency/late action in crisis of worst kinds such as Sierra Leone, Cuban Missile Crisis, Korean War, Vietnam War, Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan, the US-sponsored Islamic Jehad via Pakistan on Afghanistan against the Soviets, the three Gulf Wars and the wars leading to the break up of Yugoslavia.
- Number of nuclear powers (and their nuclear activities) has been increasing despite UN’s and its nuclear watchdog IAEA’s best efforts. Notably, China’s assistance in development of nuclear weapons and its supply of nuclear capable missiles and missile technology to Pakistan, assistance in building up of DPRK’s long-range and nuclear capable missiles, and finally, Pakistan’s supply of nuclear weapons technology to DPRK.
- Iraq (American intervention was bereft of a UN SC mandate) and Afghanistan have large contingents of UN peacekeepers – yet the situation has become worse despite – or perhaps because of – their arrival and inefficient operations.
- Inability to resolve/mediate in politically unstable or conflicting situations diplomatically.
- Inability to define, grasp the scope of and resolve the war on terrorism.
According to the UN entry on Wikipedia the main issue is the UN’s intergovernmental – and that’s 192 governments with different agendas – nature, which defies its consensus-based logic. The UN itself published and acknowledged its two biggest blunders: Rwanda (1994) and Srebrenica (1995). UN peacekeepers in Rwanda stood by as Hutu slaughtered some 800,000 Tutsi. In Bosnia, the UN declared safe areas for Muslims but did nothing to secure them, letting the Serbs slaughter thousands in Srebrenica.
Additionally, petty disagreements, procrastination and narrow-minded bureaucracy of the SC delegates failed to provide humanitarian aid in the Second Congo War, failed to relief starving Somalia and Uganda, failed to intervene and save countless lives in Sudan, failed to resolve the Israel-Palestine issue.
The UN was the very reason, back in last months of 1947, reluctant to decide upon partitioning of Jews, the minority, and Palestinians when the UK handed it the sovereignty mandate that caused Jews to take on all strategic administrative posts – they were better educated thus more fit – the subsequent outcry of Arabs who were a majority to take to streets with weapons, ushering in a full-fledged civil war, which in May 1948 turned into a war between Israel and neighboring Arab countries.
The much touted and hope-inspiring UN peacekeepers have been marred with problems of their own. They were accused of child rape and sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in Congo, Haiti, Liberia, etc. Around 100,000 UN peacekeepers make up UN peacekeeping operations – currently, Pakistan, Bangladesh being the biggest contributors – are sent by a number of contributing governments in exchange for a monthly stipend of about US$1,400 per soldier - a significant amount for main contributing countries. Trying to coordinate all the disparate, differently-trained and equipped, multi-lingual units is quite a challenging, if not impossible, task.
The only interventions that achieved anything worthwhile in the 1990s were conducted outside the standard UN “jurisdiction.” They were achieved through great-power action and traditional balance-of-power calculations – both anathema to orthodox UN mentality. In Bosnia, a Croat onslaught and NATO bombing and artillery bombardment combined to roll back Serb forces and to push Slobodan Milosevic to cut a deal. In Kosovo, a rebel ground offensive, NATO air power, and the threat of a NATO invasion again bludgeoned Belgrade into submission. The UN’s role was negligible in both cases.
NATO won a victory in Kosovo and unwisely turned over its management to the UN and its chief Bernard Kouchner, who faced the challenge of running Kosovo but inability to prevent its eventual return to Serbia, resulting in delayed schedules, lags in reconstruction and suffering/dispossessed population.
Thus the SC is clearly problematic and not in some aesthetic or theoretical, but in a manner that caused and causes suffering, death and abuse in many corners of the world, the very opposite of their claimed objectives.
But what other alternatives are there, at least as far as global peace and security are concerned? “Might Is Right” cause is as arcane as one country being the leader of world peace. What government would accept that? Also, we can safely assume that no country has the moral high ground or a universally accorded carte-blanche or even a sheer logistical capacity to become the world police, peacemaker/keeper/sustainer.
There are proposed alternatives (a bit paraphrased and complemented by links).
David Rieff has argued for the US and its allies to undertake “liberal imperialism,” while William Kristol and Robert Kagan have called for the US to assume a “benevolent global hegemony” – which will imply fighting wars in places like Kosovo. Contrary to received wisdom, this would not be a new role for the US, for it had been involved in other countries’ internal affairs since at least 1805, when, during the Tripolitan War, the US tried to topple the pasha of Tripoli and replace him with his pro-American brother. US Marines landed abroad 180 times in the period of 1800-1934. In the 19th century, they stayed only a few days but still helped open up the world to Western trade and influence, their most spectacular successes being Commodore Perry’s mission to Japan and the defeat of the Barbary pirates. After 1898, US forces stayed longer in order to run countries such as the Philippines, Haiti, and Cuba. The US rule was not democratic, but it gave those countries the most honest and efficient governments they have ever enjoyed.
Another way that the UN shows its archaic nature is its inability to cope with the new and increainslgy popular networked terrorism. The UN does not formally recognize any country as a terrorist state, nor has its own definition of terrorism, vowing for “operational definition” of a specific terrorism act.
“Is it worth (read: pros/cons analysis) having a Security Council at all, given all its past and present fails?” is the question we need to really think about.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://fail92fail.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/failures-of-united-nations-part-1-security-council/
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2013-05-19T09:54:37Z
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Let's return to the statistics question we considered in Part A: Can a person develop skill at playing a game of chance like Push Penny? Note 9
Let's say that a very determined person played 100 rounds of Push Penny with the following results (the number of hits out of four pushes per round):
Note: This is an ordered list (i.e., the first round was three hits out of four pushes, the second was two out of four, and so on).
Do these results suggest that our player has developed skill in playing the game? How might we analyze these data to answer this question? One approach would be to compare these 100 scores to the scores for a player who has no skill -- in other words, a player who is just making "random" pushes.
In order to do this, you must have a description of a random player -- specifically, you need to know the probability that a random push will hit a line.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://learner.org/courses/learningmath/data/session8/part_d/index.html
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2013-05-18T05:32:24Z
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Less than 10 percent of the remaining habitat of the great apes of Africa will be left relatively undisturbed by 2030 if road building, mining camps, and other infrastructure developments continue at current levels, a new report suggests.
The future is even more bleak for the orangutans of Southeast Asia The report indicates that within 30 years there will be almost no habitat left that can be considered "relatively undisturbed."
The findingsannounced today at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburghave come from a study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which is coordinating the Great Apes Survival Project partnership (GRASP), and scientists from Norway and the United States.
GRASP is a partnership of UN agencies, ape range and donor states, convention secretariats and conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) committed to halting the rapid decline of all the great ape species. Primatologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Jane Goodall is a "special ape envoy" to GRASP.
The study looked in detail at each of the four great ape specieschimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and orangutanto assess the current, remaining, habitat deemed relatively undisturbed and thus able to support viable populations of apes. Experts then mapped the likely impact and area of healthy habitat left in 2030 at current levels of infrastructure growth.
The findings are based on a new method of evaluating the wider impacts of infrastructure development on key species. While most studies focus on the actual area of land taken by a new road, mining camp, or infrastructure development, the GLOBIO method (Global Methodology for Mapping Human Impacts on the Biosphere) also factors in the wider impacts such as habitat fragmentation and noise disturbance.
"This report suggests the possible fate of the great apes and their habitats," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of UNEP. "Roads are being built in the few remaining pristine forests of Africa and Southeast Asia to extract timber, minerals, and oil. Uncontrolled road construction in these areas is fragmenting and destroying the great apes' last homes and making it easier for poachers to slaughter them for meat and their young more vulnerable to capture for the illegal pet trade."
Not Too Late to Save the Apes?
It is not too late to stop uncontrolled exploitation of these forests, Toepfer said. "By doing so, we may save not only the great apes, but thousands of other species.
"Saving the great apes is also about saving people. By conserving the great apes, we will also protect the livelihoods of the many people that rely on forests for food, medicine and clean water. Indeed the fate of the great apes has great symbolic implications for humankind's ability to develop a more sustainable future.
"I call on all nations here, on all sectors of society, to join our Great Apes Survival Project partnership. Without concerted action, without political will, we are all the poorer," he said.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0903_020903_apes.html
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2013-05-22T14:54:49Z
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| 0.924947
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Aspect is a piece of information about a topic, usually on look and appearance.Aspect can refer to:
Aspect is a feature that is linked to many parts of a program, but which is not necessarily the primary function of the program.
Aspect Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game company.
Grammatical aspect is a component of the conjugation of a verb having to do with the internal temporal flow of an event.
Lexical aspect is a distinction among different kinds of verb according to their relation to time.
Astrological aspect is the relative angle between two heavenly bodies.
Aspect refers to the direction to which a mountain slope faces.
Aspect refers to the direction the property is facing (e.g. a north-east aspect).
Aspect Software, a software corporation specialized in software solutions for call centers.
Warner Aspect, an imprint of the publishing company Warner Books focusing on works of science fiction.
Aspect musical group refers to the Dance Music group from Dublin, Ireland.
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<urn:uuid:229104a0-623e-49d6-b03f-58bb044fdb71>
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http://www.sonorika.co.uk/aspect
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2013-06-19T12:46:20Z
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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| 0.946894
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is some form of property
deposited or pledged to a court
in order to persuade it to release a suspect from jail
, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial
or forfeit the bail (and be guilty of the crime
of failure to appear
). In most cases bail money will be returned at the end of the trial, if all court appearances are made, no matter whether the person is found guilty or not guilty of the crime accused. In some countries granting bail is common. Even in such countries, however, bail may not be offered by some courts under some circumstances; for instance, if the accused is considered likely not to appear for trial regardless of bail. Countries without bail imprison the suspect before the trial only if deemed necessary.
Legislatures may also set out certain crimes to be unbailable, such as capital crimes.
Under the current law of England and Wales, bail simply refers to the release of the accused before trial.
Forms of bail
The form of bail varies from jurisdiction, but the common forms of bail include:
- Recognizance — a promise made by the accused to the court that he/she will attend all required judicial proceedings and will not engage in illegal activity or other prohibited conduct as set by the court. Typically a monetary amount is set by the court, but is not paid by the defendant unless the court orders it forfeited; this is denominated an unsecured appearance bond or release on one's own recognizance.
- Surety — when a third party agrees to be responsible for the debt or obligation of the defendant. In many jurisdictions this service is provided commercially by a bail bondsman, where the agent will receive 10% of the bail amount up front and will keep that amount regardless of whether the defendant appears in court. The court in many jurisdictions, especially jurisdictions that prohibit bail bondsmen, may demand a certain amount of the total bail (typically 10%) be given to the court, which, unlike with bail bondsmen, is returned if the defendant does not violate the conditions of bail. This also known as surety on the bond.
- Conditions of release - many varied non-monetary conditions and restrictions on liberty can be imposed by a court to ensure that a person released into the community will appear in court and not commit any more crimes. Common examples include: mandatory calls to the police, surrendering passports, home detention, electronic monitoring, drug testing, alcohol counseling, surrendering firearms.
- Protective order also called an Order of protection- one very common feature of any conditional release, whether on bail, bond or condition, is a court order requiring the defendant to refrain from criminal activity against the alleged crime victim, or stay away from and have no contact with the alleged crime victim. The former is a limited order, the latter a full order. Violation of the order can subject the defendant to automatic forfeiture of bail and further fine or imprisonment.
- Cash — typically "cash-only," where the only form of bail that the Court will accept is cash.
- Combinations - courts often allow defendants to post cash bail or bond, and then impose further conditions, as mentioned above, in order to protect the community or ensure attendance.
Bail may be forfeited, and the defendant remanded to jail, for failure to appear when required.
Bail law in England and Wales
In mediæval England
, the sheriffs
originally possessed sovereign authority
to release or hold suspected criminals
. Some sheriffs would exploit the bail for their own gain. The Statute of Westminster
(1275) limited the discretion of sheriffs with respect to the bail. Although sheriffs still had the authority to fix the amount of bail required, the statute stipulates which crimes are bailable and which ones are not.
In the early 17th century, King Charles I ordered noblemen to issue him loans. Those who refused were imprisoned. Five of the prisoners filed a habeas corpus petition arguing that they should not be held indefinitely without trial or bail. In the Petition of Right (1628) the Parliament argued that the King had flouted Magna Carta by imprisoning people without just cause.
The Habeas Corpus Act 1679 states, "A Magistrate shall discharge prisoners from their Imprisonment taking their Recognizance, with one or more Surety or Sureties, in any Sum according to the Magistrate's discretion, unless it shall appear that the Party is committed for such Matter or offenses for which by law the Prisoner is not bailable."
The English Bill of Rights (1689) states that "excessive bail hath been required of persons committed in criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the subjects. Excessive bail ought not to be required." This was a precursor of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Forms of Bail
In the UK there are three types of bail:
- Police Bail where a suspect is released without being charged but must return to the police station at a given time.
- Police to Court where having been charged a suspect is given bail but must attend his first court hearing at the time and Court given
- Court bail where having already been in court a suspect is granted bail pending further investigation or while the case continues
Police bail before charge
Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
, the police have power to release a person, who has not been charged, on bail. This is deemed to be a release on bail in accordance with sections 3, 3A, 5 and 5A of the Bail Act 1976.
Police bail after charge
After a person has been charged, he must ordinarily be released, on bail or without bail. Unless the accused has a previous conviction (or equivalents in cases of insanity) for certain specified homicide or sexual offences, the accused must be released either on bail or without bail unless:
(a) If the person arrested is not an arrested juvenile—cha
- (i) his name or address cannot be ascertained or the custody officer has reasonable grounds for doubting whether a name or address furnished by him as his name or address is his real name or address;
- (ii) the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the person arrested will fail to appear in court to answer to bail;
- (iii) in the case of a person arrested for an imprisonable offence, the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary to prevent him from committing an offence;
- (iiia) in the case of a person who has attained the age of 18, the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person is necessary to enable a sample to be taken from him under section 63B below]
- (iv) in the case of a person arrested for an offence which is not an imprisonable offence, the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary to prevent him from causing physical injury to any other person or from causing loss of or damage to property;
- (v) the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary to prevent him from interfering with the administration of justice or with the investigation of offences or of a particular offence; or
- (vi) the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary for his own protection;
(b) if he is an arrested juvenile—
- (i) any of the requirements of paragraph (a) above is satisfied; or
- (ii) the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that he ought to be detained in his own interests.
If he is granted bail it will be bail to appear at a Magistrates' Court at the next available sitting.
Bail by a court
Right to bail
Under current law, a defendant has an absolute right to bail if the custody
time limits have expired and otherwise ordinarily a right to bail unless there is sufficient reason not to grant it,
The main reasons for refusing bail are that the defendant is accused of an imprisonable offence and there are substantial grounds for believing that the defendant:
- will abscond;
- will commit further offences whilst on bail; or
- will interfere with witnesses.
The court should take into account:
- the nature and seriousness of the offence or default (and the probable method of dealing with the defendant for it),
- the character, antecedents, associations and community ties of the defendant,
- the defendant’s bail record, and
- the strength of the evidence.
The court may also refuse bail:
- for the defendant's own protection;
- where the defendant is already serving a custodial sentence for another offence;
- where the court is satisfied that it has not been practicable to obtain sufficient information;
- where the defendant has already absconded in the present proceedings;
- where the defendant has been convicted but the court is awaiting a pre-sentence report, other report or inquiry and it would be impracticable to complete the inquiries or make the report without keeping the defendant in custody;
- where the defendant is charged with a non-imprisonable offence, has already been released on bail for the offence with which he is now accused, and has been arrested for absconding or breaching bail.
Where the accused has previous convictions for certain homicide or sexual offences, the burden of proof is on the defendant to rebut a presumption against bail.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 amended the Bail Act 1976 restricting the right to bail for adults who tested positive for a Class A drug and refused to be assessed or refused to participate in recommended treatment
Conditions may be applied to the grant of bail, such as living at a particular address or having someone act as surety
, if the court considers that this is necessary
- to prevent the defendant absconding;
- to prevent the defendant committing further offences whilst on bail;
- to prevent the defendant interfering with witnesses; or
- for the defendant's own protection (or if he is a child or young person, for his own welfare or in his own interests).
Failure to comply with bail
Failing to attend court on time as required is an offence, for which the maximum sentence in a magistrates’ court is three years and twelve months' imprisonment in the Crown Court
. (Sentences are usually much shorter than the maximum, but are often custody.) In addition to imposing punishment for this offence, courts will often revoke bail as they may not trust the defendant again. The amended Consolidated Criminal Practice Direction states (at paragraph 1.13.5) that "the sentence for the breach of bail should usually be custodial and consecutive to any other custodial sentence".
Failing to comply with bail conditions is not an offence, but may lead to the defendant being arrested and brought back to court, where they will be remanded into custody unless the court is satisfied that they will comply with their conditions in future.
Bail law in the United States
In pre-independence America
, bail law
was based on English law. Some of the colonies
simply guaranteed their subjects the protections of British law. In 1776, after the Declaration of Independence
, those which had not already done so enacted their own versions of bail law.
Section 9 of Virginia's 1776 Constitution states "excessive bail ought not to be required..." In 1785, the following was added, "Those shall be let to bail who are apprehended for any crime not punishable in life or limb...But if a crime be punishable by life or limb, or if it be manslaughter and there be good cause to believe the party guilty thereof, he shall not be admitted to bail."
Section 29 of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 states that "Excessive bail shall not be exacted for bailable oflences: And all fines shall be moderate."
The Eighth Amendment in the US Federal Bill of Rights is derived from the Virginia Constitution, "Excessive bail shall not be required...", in regard to which Samuel Livermore commented, "The clause seems to have no meaning to it, I do not think it necessary. What is meant by the term excessive bail...?" The Supreme Court has never decided whether the constitutional prohibition on excessive bail applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Sixth Amendment, to the Constitution, like the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1678, requires that a suspect must "be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" and thus enabling a suspect to demand bail if accused of a bailable offense.
The Judiciary Act of 1789
In 1789, the same year that the United States Bill of Rights
was introduced, Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789
. This specified which types of crimes were bailable and set bounds on a judge
's discretion in setting bail. The Act states that all non-capital crimes are bailable and that in capital cases the decision to detain a suspect, prior to trial, was to be left to the judge.
The Judiciary Act states, "Upon all arrests in criminal cases, bail shall be admitted, except where punishment may be by death, in which cases it shall not be admitted but by the supreme or a circuit court, or by a justice of the supreme court, or a judge of a district court, who shall exercise their discretion therein."
The Bail Reform Act of 1966
In 1966, Congress
enacted the Bail Reform Act of 1966
which states that a non-capital defendant is to be released, pending trial, on his personal recognizance or on personal bond, unless the judicial officer determines that such incentives will not adequately assure his appearance at trial. In that case, the judge must select an alternative from a list of conditions, such as restrictions on travel. Individuals charged with a capital crime, or who have been convicted and are awaiting sentencing or appeal, are to be released unless the judicial officer has reason to believe that no conditions will reasonably assure that the person will not flee or pose a danger. In non-capital cases, the Act does not permit a judge to consider a suspect's danger to the community, only in capital cases or after conviction is the judge authorized to do so.
The 1966 Act was particularly criticized within the District of Columbia, where all crimes formerly fell under Federal bail law. In a number of instances, persons accused of violent crimes committed additional crimes when released on their personal recognizance. These individuals were often released yet again.
The Judicial Council committee recommended that, even in non-capital cases, a person's dangerousness should be considered in determining conditions for release. The District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970 allowed judges to consider dangerousness and risk of flight when setting bail in noncapital cases.
Current U.S. bail law
In 1984 Congress replaced the Bail Reform Act of 1966 with new bail law, codified at United States Code, Title 18, Sections 3141-3150
The main innovation of the new law is that it allows
pre-trial detention of individuals based upon their danger to the community; under prior law and traditional bail statutes in the U.S., pre-trial detention was to be based solely upon the risk of flight.
18 USC 3142(f) provides that only persons who fit into certain categories are subject to detention without bail: persons charged with a crime of violence, an offense for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment or death, certain drug offenses for which the maximum offense is greater than 10 years, repeat felony offenders, or if the defendant poses a serious risk of flight, obstruction of justice, or witness tampering. There is a special hearing held to determine whether the defendant fits within these categories; anyone not within them must be admitted to bail.
State bail laws
Bail laws vary somewhat from state to state, as is typical of U.S. jurisprudence. Generally, a person charged with a non-capital crime is presumptively entitled to be granted bail. Recently, some states have enacted statutes modelled on federal law which permit pretrial detention
of persons charged with serious violent offenses, if it can be demonstrated that the defendant is a flight risk or a danger to the community.
Some states have very strict guidelines for judges to follow, with a published bail schedule. Some states go so far as to require certain forfeitures, bail, and fines for certain crimes.
External links and References
Frequently Asked Bail Questions
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| 0.952809
| 3,403
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Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2005 July 14
Credit & Copyright: Peter Wienerroither (U. Wien)
Explanation: As the Earth spins on its axis, the sky seems to rotate around us. This motion, called diurnal motion, produces the beautiful concentric trails traced by stars during time exposures. In the middle of the picture is the North Celestial Pole (NCP), easily identified as the point in the sky at the center of all the star trail arcs. The star Polaris, commonly known as the North Star, made the very short bright circle near the NCP. Full circle star trails are pictured over Vienna, Austria. This image, a relatively short exposure followed by a digital trick, could not have been taken during a single night because 24-hours are needed for one full rotation, and the Sun is sure to dominate the frame at some time.
Authors & editors:
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: EUD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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| 0.927556
| 252
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What is the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)?
The Act provides federal money to protect women and children in abusive situations. That protection varies from support for kids in abusive homes, to help for women seeking restraining orders or divorces, to education for law enforcement. It was first passed in 1994 and has been re-authorized twice, with more or less bipartisan support.
Since it was passed into law in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act has provided life-saving assistance to millions of women and families across the nation. For battered women, the law has provided critical law enforcement protections and often a way out from a life of abuse.
Shortly after the holidays the House leadership decided to keep this bill from the floor. In its re-authorized form the bill would have extended domestic violence protections to 30 million LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants and Native American women.
As stated in the above excerpt, this law was initially passed in 1994. Since then it has been re-authorized two times, typically with bipartisan support.
Before the House leaders shot down this bill the Senate had passed it with bipartisan support, 68-31 being the vote. This vote was conducted in April of 2012.
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| 0.973077
| 239
|
- holy (adj.)
- Old English halig "holy, consecrated, sacred, godly," from Proto-Germanic *hailaga- (cf. Old Norse heilagr, Old Frisian helich "holy," Old Saxon helag, Middle Dutch helich, Old High German heilag, German heilig, Gothic hailags "holy"). Adopted at conversion for Latin sanctus.
Primary (pre-Christian) meaning is not possible to determine, but probably it was "that must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be transgressed or violated," and connected with Old English hal (see health) and Old High German heil "health, happiness, good luck" (source of the German salutation Heil). Holy water was in Old English. Holy has been used as an intensifying word from 1837; used in expletives since 1880s (e.g. holy smoke, 1883, holy mackerel, 1876, holy cow, 1914, holy moly etc.), most of them euphemisms for holy Christ or holy Moses.
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| 0.941062
| 228
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Risks in International Trade are the major barriers for the growth to the same. International trade has been a much debated topic. Economists have differed on the real benefits of international trade. The increase in the export market is highly beneficial to an economy, but on the other hand the increase in imports can be a threat to the economy of that country. It has been the worry of the policy makers to strike the right balance between free trade and restrictions.
International trade can develop an economy, but at the same time certain domestic players can be outperformed by financially stronger multi nationals and forced to close down or get merged. Sometimes these multinational companies become so powerful, especially in smaller countries, that they can dictate political terms to the government for their benefit.
International trade is characteristically costlier in terms of domestic trade. There are a number of reasons such as, tariffs, cost of delay, cost related to differences in legal system, etc. The factors of production like labor and capital are more mobile within the territories of the country than across other countries. International trade is restricted to the exchange of goods and services. It does not encourage the exchange of production factors, which may be more beneficial in certain cases. The assessment of risks in the international trade plays an important role in deciding the modes of payment to be used for the settlement between buyer and seller.
Risks in international trade can be divided under several types, such as,
- Risk of concession in economic control
- Risk of insolvency of the buyer
- Risk of non-acceptance
- Risk of protracted default i.e. the failure of the buyer to pay off the due amount after six months of the due date
- Risk of Exchange rate
- Risk of non- renewal of import and exports licenses
- Risks due to war
- Risk of the imposition of an import ban after the delivery of the goods
- Surrendering of political sovereignty
Buyer Country risks
- Changes in the policies of the government
- Exchange control regulations
- Lack of foreign currency
- Trade embargoes
- A bank's lack of ability to honor its responsibilities
- A buyer's failure pertaining to payment due to financial limitations
- A seller's inability to provide the required quantity or quality of goods
- Cultural differences e.g., some cultures consider the payment of an incentive to help trading is absolutely lawful
- Lack of knowledge of overseas markets
- Language barriers
- Inclination to corrupt business associates
- Legal protection for breach of contract or non-payment is low
- Effects of unpredictable business environment and fluctuating exchange rates
- Sovereign risk - the ability of the government of a country to pay off its debts
- Natural risk – due to the various kinds natural catastrophes, which cannot be controlled
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| 0.940253
| 661
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Special Education Specialization
What is Special Education?
Special Education is a broad term that describes the programs that are specifically designed to meet the needs of students with varying exceptionalities. The Special Education specialization will prepare you to teach and work with students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), intellectual and developmental disabilities (InD), and emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) in diverse instructional settings, including the general education classroom.
Who will I teach?
This specialization certifies you to teach students with mild exceptionalities in grades K-12.
What will I learn?
- Learn evaluation techniques and procedures for children with exceptionalities
- Design classroom tests and examine test data to facilitate decision making
- Learn about classroom organization, behavior management, and communication skills appropriate for managing the spectrum of behaviors found in exceptional students, including students with emotional and behavioral disorders
- Develop and implement culturally responsive teaching practices
- Use appropriate evidence-based strategies to differentiate instruction for students with diverse learning needs
Using content-area knowledge, you will graduate knowing how to design, implement, and evaluate curriculum that promotes comprehensive developmental and learning outcomes for students across all grade levels. Our graduates are prepared to enter the field of Special Education as professionals who are knowledgeable, reflective, and informed advocates for students with mild exceptionalities.
Where can I teach?
Earlier and more accurate identification of students with special needs has led to an increase in the amount and type of instructional services that are needed and appropriate for these students. The demand for highly trained and qualified special education teachers is critical throughout the state of Florida. As a Barry graduate, you will be equipped with the skills needed to effectively plan and prepare appropriate instruction for all your students.
You may consider becoming a:
- Special education resource and/or inclusion teacher (grades K-12)
- Lead teacher/specialist of students with high-incidence disabilities
- Community-based specialist to assist young adults with disabilities learn vocational and post-secondary skills
- Special education mentor and/or tutor in various private organizations or instructional centers
Did you know...
With one additional year, you are able to complete your Master of Science? This will build on your undergraduate coursework. Check it out!
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| 0.938747
| 452
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NOT gate [change]
The NOT operator is written with a bar over numbers or letters like this:
It means the output is not the input.
AND gate [change]
The AND operator is written as like this:
The output is true only if one and the other input is true.
OR gate [change]
The OR operator is written as like this:
One or the other input can be true for the output to be true.
XOR gate [change]
One or the other input can be true to make the output true, but NOT both.
The XOR operator is written as like this:
Different gates can be put together in different orders:
- is the same as an AND then a NOT. This is called a NAND gate.
It is not the same as a NOT then an AND like this:
which is called XOR identity table
, if .[source?]
Augustus De Morgan found out that it is possible to change a sign to a sign and make or break a bar. See the 2 examples below:
"Make/break the bar and change the sign."
Other pages [change]
- "Boolean algebra | Define Boolean algebra at Dictionary.com". Dictionary.reference.com. 1997-02-27. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Boolean+algebra. Retrieved 2010-08-12.
- "Logic Gates". Kpsec.freeuk.com. http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/gates.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-12.
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| 0.733226
| 335
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No. 130: Traités, deuxième partie
Ce texte a été publié en anglais et n'est pas disponible en français.
The treaty-making process with the Aboriginal people of Western Canada began in 1871.
The government of Canada was intent on legally paving the way for settlers to move into the west. And, as historian Michael Payne explains, negotiations were important to both parties.
But its also important to recognize that in the treaties, the people who signed the treaties were promised significant benefits, and these might well have been critical for the people who, at the time, were struggling to find a place in the new economy, at a time when traditional resources were in decline.
The terms of the treaties were intended to help native people make the transition from a migratory, hunting and gathering culture, to that of a more settled, agricultural one.
The first treaties, such as Treaty Number 1 in southern Manitoba, offered Aboriginal people land in the amount of 160 acres per family of five. They were promised farm animals and equipment, training in farming to help them make the change to this new way of life that was coming in. They were promised education for their children, in some cases, clothing, and a one-time gratuity on signing, followed by annuity payments, amongst other kinds of benefits.
While Treaty Number 1 formed the basis of all the other numbered treaties, the actual terms were modified as both parties gained a better understanding of what it was they were getting themselves into. Treaty Number 3 was signed in Ontario in 1872.
Treaty Number 3 actually significantly revised the terms of Treaties 1 and 2. It gave the First Nations of this area in Northern Ontario an annual payment of five dollars per person, and then, also, larger payments of $15 and $20 for headmen and chiefs of bands.
The people were also promised 640 acres instead of 160 acres per family, and they also got better terms on farm animals, implements, tools and a slightly larger gratuity payment as well on signing of the treaty.
This set the stage for the first treaty that would affect native people in what would later become the province of Alberta.
That was Treaty Number 4, and it was signed in 1874.
On the Heritage Trail,
I'm Cheryl Croucher.
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Oil spills are a major environmental problem because they often occur at sea and in remote, ecologically-sensitive areas where their impact on birds, sea mammals and subsurface life may last for years.
The best way to mitigate this damage is to clean up spills immediately, and typically this starts with skimming off as much oil as possible. Such cleanups may leave large areas covered with a thin slick of spilled oil, which is often dispersed by spraying the spill area with chemical "surfactants" that break the film into small oil droplets that are consumed by bacteria, dissolved, evaporated, or attached to small solid particles and sink to the bottom of the ocean.
When dispersants are spayed over a spill in the open sea, the turbulent mixing forced by ocean currents and the wind actually helps in the cleanup process, but how much such turbulence contributes is not completely understood scientifically. Up to now, the breakup of oil mixed with dispersants has not been thoroughly studied in the laboratory, and there is little information on how wind, weather, and other local conditions contribute to the effectiveness of a cleanup process.
Now Johns Hopkins graduate student Balaji Gopalan and his mentor Professor Joseph Katz have imaged the dispersion of tens of thousands of oil droplets in carefully controlled laboratory settings and observed the effect of local turbulence on this process. Pre-Mixing the oil with the commercial dispersant COREXIT 9527, they observed how it breaks into numerous tiny droplets smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. Following each droplet in three-dimensions, they observed how tails/thread like structure grew from its surface, the thickness of the tails being less than 17 micron in size, and the breakup of which could produce extremely small droplets.
This better understanding of the basic physics of the dispersion process should allow environmental engineers to better predict how well dispersants will work in the field, says Gopalan, which should help inform decision makers during major oil spills. The work is part of a large collaboration between biologists, ecologists, physical oceanographers, computer modelers, and engineers, primarily associated with the Coastal Response Research Centre, that aims to model and predict the fate of oil after it spills, taking into account the properties of the oil, dispersant, weather conditions, and ecological data. In the future, an improved "response model" based on this larger collaboration may suggest the optimal approach to cleaning up any specific oil spill.
Gopalan's talk, "Formation of Long Tails during Breakup of Oil Droplets Mixed with Dispersants in Locally Isotropic Turbulence" will be held on Tuesday, November 25, 2008, at the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society
Provided by American Institute of Physics
Explore further: Novel features of helium-3 superfluidity discovered with new SQUID detector chip
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Have you ever wondered – what exactly are probiotics and what are they used for? The word ‘probiotics’ means ‘for life.’ Essentially, they are live microorganisms – often referred to as ‘good bacteria’ which already live in our bodies (intestines) or may be beneficial to health.
Mechanisms for action
You may find the idea of bacteria in your body as a reason to rush out and take antibiotics, but believe it or not, we need bacteria throughout our small and large intestine to help digest food and keep our immune system functioning properly.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the effects of probiotics on health include reducing harmful organisms in the intestine, producing antimicrobial substances that destroy or suppress the growth of microorganisms, and stimulating the body’s immune response. Basically, the research is still out about all of the health benefits and efficacy due to the lack of randomized controlled, double-blind studies that have been conducted with probiotics.
Healthy digestive tract = Healthy immune system
Probiotics were identified around the turn of the century. Researchers were looking at correlations between longevity and milk fermented with lactic acid bacteria in European and Russian communities. Remember those Dannon commericials with the dancing 100 year-old Russians? In addition to breathing in pathogens, eating food and drinking beverages is another way of bringing germs into the body, so a healthy gastrointestinal tract is a good first line of defense.
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Polar Bears Evolutionarily Five Times Older and Genetically More Distinct: Ancestry Traced Back 600,000 Years
|3:07:20 AM, Friday, April 27, 2012|
“ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2012) — A study appearing in the current issue of the journal Science reveals that polar bears evolved as early as some 600,000 years ago. An international team led by researchers from the German Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) shows the largest arctic carnivore to be five times older than previously recognized. The new findings on the evolutionary history of polar bears are the result of an analysis of information from the nuclear genome of polar and brown bears, and shed new light on conservation issues regarding this endangered arctic specialist.
Polar bears are uniquely specialized for life in the arctic. This fact is undisputed, and supported by a range of morphological, physiological and behavioural evidence. However, conducting research on the evolutionary history of polar bears is difficult. The arctic giant spends most of its life on sea ice, and typically also dies there. Its remains sink to the sea floor, where they get ground up by glaciers, or remain undiscovered. Fossil remains of polar bears are therefore scarce. Because the genetic information contained in each organism carries a lot of information about the past, researchers can study the history of the species by looking at the genes of today's polar bears.
Analysis of the genetic information in the cell nucleus
Recent studies had suggested that the ancestor of polar bears was a brown bear that lived some 150,000 years ago, in the late Pleistocene. That research was based on DNA from the mitochondria - organelles often called the 'powerhouses of the cell'. Researchers from the German Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), together with scientists from Spain, Sweden and the USA, now took an in-depth look at the genetic information contained in the cell nucleus. Frank Hailer, BiK-F, lead author of the study explains: "Instead of the traditional approach of looking at mitochondrial DNA we studied many pieces of nuclear DNA that are each independently inherited. We characterized those pieces, or genetic markers, in multiple polar and brown bear individuals."
Polar bears had much more time for adaptation and speciation than previously assumed
This genetic survey was well worth the effort - the information obtained from nuclear DNA indicates that polar bears actually evolved in the mid Pleistocene, some 600,000 years ago. This provides much more time for the polar bear ancestors to colonize and adapt to the harsh conditions of the arctic. Based on studies of mitochondrial DNA, polar bears had earlier been considered an example of surprisingly rapid adaptation of a mammal to colder climates. The polar bear's specific adaptations, including its black skin, white fur, and fur-covered feet now seem less surprising. "In fact, the polar bear genome harbours a lot of distinct genetic information," says Hailer, "which makes a lot of sense, given all the unique adaptations in polar bears."
Maternally inherited (mitochondrial) DNA was showing a biased picture
Previous studies of mitochondrial DNA had indicated that polar bears are much younger as a species. The authors of the new paper in "Science" explain this apparent discrepancy with past events of hybridization between polar and brown bears - a process recently observed in the Canadian arctic. After their initial speciation, polar bears and brown bears came into contact again, maybe due to past climatic fluctuations. The mitochondrial DNA found in polar bears today was probably inherited from a brown bear female that hybridized with polar bears at some point in the late Pleistocene. It appears that much of the nuclear genome remained unaffected by hybridization, so polar bears retained their genetic distinctiveness…”
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Dictionary of the Scots Language
Skretkowicz, Victor. “Dictionary of the Scots Language.” Scottish Language Dictionaries, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/index.html.
This site comprises electronic editions of the two major historical dictionaries of the Scots language: the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and the Scottish National Dictionary. The first contains information about Scots words in use from the twelfth to the end of the seventeenth centuries (Older Scots); and the second contains information about Scots words in use from the eighteenth century to the present day (modern Scots).
Don’t confuse Scots with Gaelic. Scots is a dialect of English and in the Germanic family of languages. It is widely spoken throughout Scotland. Gaelic is a Celtic language, quite distinct from English, now largely restricted to the remote, highland regions of Scotland.
Copyright 1997-2013, by David Wilton
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Image courtesy NASA Earth Observatory
January 27, 2010
While most of the world has warmed, parts of the southern hemisphere have remained stubbornly cold—oddly enough because of a gaping hole in the ozone layer. Now new research shows that all the efforts made by scientists and environmental advocates to close the hole may actually increase warming throughout the entire southern hemisphere.
That's because, for decades, brighter summertime clouds, created by the hole, have reflected more of the sun's rays, acting as a shield against global warming.
As the ozone layer heals and the clouds dissipate, this “will lead to a rise in temperature [in parts of the southern hemisphere] faster than currently predicted by models," said study leader Ken Carslaw of the U.K.'s University of Leeds.
In 1985 scientists from the British Antarctic Survey discovered a giant hole in the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere over Antarctica. Ozone in the upper atmosphere absorbs harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun.
The subsequent global agreement to ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—the chemicals largely responsible for the thinning of the ozone layer—reversed the growth of the ozone hole and was deemed one of the biggest environmental success stories of the 20th century.
But the healing process is slow: Since the early 1980s changes in the upper atmosphere caused by ozone depletion have intensified circumpolar winds that whistle around Antarctica.
Using a computer model and two decades worth of meteorological data, Carslaw and colleagues discovered that the fiercer winds whip up more sea spray. This throws more salt particles into the air and encourages the formation of brighter clouds, which reflect sunlight back into space and have a cooling effect.
The summertime cooling caused by the ozone hole since 1980 has approximately cancelled out the warming caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions, Carslaw said.
Findings published online January 27 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The Ring Nebula shines, a volcano erupts, and Germans see the bat signal in this week's best new space pictures.
As extreme weather seems to accelerate globally, scientists believe events Down Under can help explain what to look for-and guard against.
Cicadas bugging you? See our recipe ideas for the low-fat critters, including the new candied cicada cocktail.
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Sleep is an essential part of a human’s body. It is very important to improve the functions of the body and to restore the energy after a tiring day. Some studies require people to have 7-8 consecutive hours of good sleep to refresh the mind and the body. A good sleep can make you feel energetic and enthusiastic in doing your daily tasks.
Here are some tips to a better sleep that provide a lot of benefits to human health.
The most important thing to remember is making your bedroom a room for sleeping only. It is not recommended to do other activities in your bedroom. This will provide a comfortable bedroom environment.
A regular exercise is a good activity to get a good sleep. Exercise with proper nutrition will improve sleeping. Keep the room calm, silent and dark. Avoid noises and bright lights when sleeping. These are some distractions to your sleep. A quiet and dark room can help you sleep better. Keep your room well-ventilated as well. Practices before going to sleep can also help us feel sleepy. Reading a book, exercising, meditating, stretching and relaxing are some of the habits that induce sleep. Deep breathing could also be necessary. These habits can make people sleepy. Make sure that you ended your day well. Leave worries and unfinished tasks behind. Leave all troubles for tomorrow. Finish papers and reports that are due. Write down pending tasks and activities. Solve relationship issues before going to sleep. A worried mind cannot focus on sleeping well. Always wear comfortable sleeping clothes. Use light clothes on a hot weather. Avoid eating a lot of food 3-4 hours before sleeping. As much as possible do not take in alcohol, caffeine, sweet and spicy foods before going to sleep. Do not eat meals any time you want. Do not go to be hungry as well. Smoking cigarettes can be avoided 3-4 hours before sleeping. Warm milk is a good snack before bedtime. Taking a bath, especially an aromatic herbal bath, can make people feel refreshed and sleepy. Listening to slow music is a great way to relax the body.
Sleep discomfort is brought by anxiety, unhealthy eating habits, not doing exercises, and stressed environment. If a person continues to do these bad habits then it is very difficult to get a better sleep.
Having enough sleep has a lot of benefits. A good sleep can make the brain perform better. Sleeping can let you forget all the problems and worries. It also strengthens the body’s immune system. People who do not have enough sleep are prone to viruses that can lead to sickness. And sickness results to bad mood, less productive and laziness. If a person is deprived of sleep, he or she may feel stress, tiredness, body aches and fatigue. And most of the time people who lack sleep always feel drowsy all day.
More than just some cute stuffed creature, Dream Lites actually contain built in night lights which shine a pattern onto the ceiling or whatever surface your child wants to illuminate. For your Dream Lites Pillow Pets, visit us today at: https://www.shopatasseenontv.com
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