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On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, pockets of wildfires developed across parts of San Diego County in Southern California. The fires appeared quickly in the afternoon hours and forced thousands of people to evacuate from homes and businesses. The mixture of drought conditions, dry weather, and very hot temperatures contributed to the spread of the fires across several acres of land. The fires were primarily located north of downtown San Diego. Nine separate wildfires have been accounted for and has burned over 9,100 acres in San Diego County this week. For now, it is unknown as to how the fires were started. Thousands of homes, schools, and businesses were forced to evacuate as fires grew across parts of San Diego County. Fires pushed into homes, burned buildings and destroyed vehicles. Some of the worst fires were located in Carlsbad, California. According to Fox 5 in San Diego, there are nearly a dozen spots all across the county experiencing wildfires. A combination of low humidity, record breaking hot temperatures, and gusty winds are really hurting the recovery efforts across Southern California. The Poinsettia Fire in Carlsbad is 50% contained as of Thursday morning (May 15, 2014). Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency for San Diego County. Temperatures are nearly 20 to 30 degrees above average across portions of Southern California. Many areas broke record high temperatures over the past week. Temperatures have climbed into the 90s and are approaching the century mark. Average high temperatures for this time of the year is typically in the upper 60s to low 70s. Extremely hot temperatures and windy conditions are making it difficult for fire fighters to contain the fires in parts of Southern California. According to Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, for the second consecutive day, the Los Angeles Airport set a record for the hottest May temperature since record keeping began in 1944. A hundred percent of the state of California is now under a severe drought or worse. Over 76% of the state is currently under extreme drought. The rainy months of January, February, and March did not provide any relief across the region. With drier days expected as we progress into the summer months, drought conditions will likely continue to worsen. The only hope for rain will be the developing El Niño that is likely to form this summer/fall. In an El Niño pattern, the West Coast typically sees a surge of wet weather, especially during the winter months. The fires are so large that Doppler radar indicated the plume of smoke spreading over several miles around San Marcos. Bottom line: Dry, hot, and windy weather conditions are fueling wildfires as they spread across parts of Southern California. Thousands of residents were forced out of their homes to escape the flames. Around 9,100 acres have been burning, and the weather conditions will continue to be unfavorable to fight off the flames. It is uncertain as to how the fires formed. For now, arson can not be ruled out.

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Along with hydropower, geothermal power is an old form of renewable energy. The first geothermal power plant developed to generate electricity dates back to 1904, in Italy — though geothermal energy more broadly has been utilized in one way or another even longer. Though firmly established geothermal power doesn’t get the press, nor public mention, nor investment, as newer, flashier forms of renewable energy, such as solar power, wind power, or biofuels. Nevertheless, geothermal power can, in the right places, be a very important part of a future low-carbon energy mix. Let’s take a look at how geothermal power is tapped to produce electricity, how much is being generated, and how much possibly could be generated with changes in technology currently being explored. Some history and terminology When people talk about geothermal power they may be talking about using the heat of the earth more or less directly for heat or cooling — as with a geothermal heat pump or, as is the case in Iceland, where the vast majority of buildings get their hot water supply from water heated by the Earth itself — or they may be talking about tapping into the heat generated inside the planet to generate electricity. Right now, we’ll be discussing geothermal electricity specifically, though the term geothermal power will be used most often. As was said, the first commercial geothermal power plant was developed over a hundred years ago in Italy. Experimental power plants were developed in several countries over the next decade, but Italy remained the only nation generating electricity directly from the heat of the Earth until 1958, when New Zealand developed one, using a slightly different technology. Two years later, the first geothermal power plant was built in the United States, which is now has the world’s largest geothermal power capacity. How does it work? There are three types of geothermal power plants, defined at the most critical level by the temperature of geothermal resource they can use, all of which basically take water that has been heated deep within the Earth, that emerges as steam, and use it to turn a turbine and produce electricity. Dry steam plants, the oldest design, takes the steam directly from a drilled well, turns the turbine, gets cooled in a compressor back into water, and then sends the cooled water back into the Earth via another well. These need temperatures of at least 150°C. Flash steam plants, the most common type, need temperatures of 180°C or higher. In these highly pressurized hot water is extracted and fed into lower pressure tanks before being sent to turn the turbine. Binary cycle plants can run at temperatures of just 57°C. Here the hot water, which is obviously well below the boiling point, is passed by a liquid that has a lower boiling point than water. This second liquid is the one that turns to steam, turning the turbine. Most new geothermal plants today use this technology. Under development is a fourth geothermal power plant type, called in the US enhanced geothermal systems, that has the potential to radically expand how much electricity can be generated from geothermal energy, but that will get its own section farther along. Regardless of the specific set-up, geothermal power has the decided advantage, compared to other renewable energy sources, that the power source is always on — the Earth is always heating. And though local depletion of the resource has to be managed, the amount of heat generated by the planet far exceeds the ability to extract it. Though not a truly zero-carbon power source — there are some greenhouse gases that are generated in the process, as well as other environmental impacts to be managed — the average CO2 emissions from a geothermal power plant are just one-eighth those of a coal-fired power plant. How much is being generated today? There’s a bit over 10.7 gigawatts of geothermal electricity capacity in the world today, with roughly one third of that installed in the United States. In total, 24 countries have at least one geothermal power plant. Geothermal provides over one-quarter of the electricity in the Philippines (which has the second-highest total amount of installed capacity), in El Salvador, and in Iceland (where 27% of the electricity comes from geothermal). Nations where there’s over 100 megawatts of geothermal capacity, not already mentioned, include Indonesia (the third-highest amount at 1197 MW and vast potential, though under 5% of electricity used), Mexico, Italy, New Zealand, Japan, Kenya, and Costa Rica.

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The Method of the Divine Government Physical and Moral By James McCosh Publisher: Cambridge University Press Print Publication Year: 2009 Online Publication Date:August 2010 Original Publication Year:1850 Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511693892.003 Subjects: History of ideas and intellectual history SECT. I.—SOURCES OF OUR IDEA OF GOD. Suppose that the sun, rising and setting as at present, had been perpetually hid from the eye by an intervening cloud or shade which concealed his body without obstructing his beams, there might still have been an universal impression that a great luminary existed as the cause of the light which daily illuminated our globe. Different persons might have fixed on different objects as reflecting the light of heaven most impressively; some on the fleecy or gilded clouds; others on the lively verdure of the grass and forests, or on the cerulean ocean, or on the rich grain of autumn glistening in the yellow beams; but all would have rejoiced to conclude, that there was a sun behind the veil. Though God is invisible to the bodily eye—though he is, as it were, behind a veil—yet the idea of his existence is pressed on the mind from a variety of quarters. Were it not so, the apprehension of, and belief in, a supernatural power or being would not be so universally entertained. The mind which refuses the light that comes from one region, is obliged to receive the light that comes from another quarter of the heavens or earth. It may be interesting to trace to its sources the most important conception which the human mind can form. BOOK FIRST - GENERAL VIEW OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT AS FITTED TO THROW LIGHT ON THE CHARACTER OF GOD BOOK FOURTH - RESULTS—THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN No references available.

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Infectious diseases : a global challenge Diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other parasites are major causes of death, disability, and social and economic instability for millions of people. Infectious diseases cause almost half of all deaths in the developing world. Efforts to reduce our global vulnerability to infection are hampered not only by the emergence of new pathogens, but by the re-emergence of old ones that have become resistant to widely-used antimicrobial treatments. There is thus a pressing need for new vaccines and drugs to prevent and treat infection. An understanding of the biology of pathogens, their host organisms, and the interactions between them is critical to fulfilling this need. Gaining this understanding and using it to develop new antimicrobial strategies are core missions of our department. The immune system : friend and foe Host immune systems, products of the long coevolutionary relationship between hosts and pathogens, distinguish between foreign and self and eliminate pathogenic microbes. The immune response to several classes of pathogens is under study in our department, and the resulting knowledge is being used to design new preventive and therapeutic vaccines. Complementary efforts are aimed at understanding the immune system gone awry, in which an immune response develops to self tissues, leading to autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and type 1 diabetes. A better understanding of both protective and harmful immune responses will aid in the design of reagents to enhance the beneficial immune response to pathogens and dampen the harmful response to self. The Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a big tent dedicated to excellence in research with the ultimate goals of improving human health and training the next generation of biomedical research scientists. The faculty comprises a unique combination of basic researchers, and physician-scientists who have additional appointments in clinical divisions such as Infectious Diseases, Rheumatology, and Allergy and Immunology. Faculty interests include the genetics and molecular biology of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms, the cellular and immunological mechanisms involved in pathogenesis and host defense, and the interactions of a wide variety of microbes with their hosts. Department laboratories are located in the Forchheimer, Chanin, Golding, and Ullmann Buildings, and in the new Michael F. Price Center for Genetic and Translational Medicine. Interested in joining one of the top-rated Microbiology and Immunology departments in the world? We welcome you to explore these pages and learn more about our faculty and their research, our training programs, and upcoming departmental events. Also check out our newsletter.

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February 12, 2013 In North Carolina, endangered Virginia big-eared bats are known from only two caves at Grandfather Mountain, where they hibernate. What has puzzled biologists for years is where these bats go in the summer to give birth. This spring a massive effort aims to answer that question. About 12,000 Virginia big-eared bats are known to exist in four states and 400 of those hibernate in the Grandfather Mountain caves. This species typically hibernates in one place, and with warmer weather the two sexes each migrate to different locations for the summer, with the females departing to give birth and rear their young in a maternity colony. This migration is limited, with bats usually moving less than 20 miles from their hibernation site. It’s known that some males summer on a viaduct at Grandfather Mountain, and the females are expected to be somewhere in the rugged, remote, and sparsely populated areas surrounding Grandfather Mountain, though no one knows where. “Finding those bats will not only solve a mystery, but will also get us a few steps closer to removing these bats from the endangered species list,” said Joy O’Keefe, an assistant professor at Indiana State University who is heading the search. Knowing where the endangered bats maintain their maternity colony would allow biologists to help conserve the sites. “This will give people and organizations that are planning construction projects, like the North Carolina Department of Transportation, a clearer idea of special areas to keep in mind during project planning,” said Sue Cameron, a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “At the same time, it’ll tell wildlife biologists where to focus conservation efforts.” The proposed widening of North Carolina Highway 105 spurred the project, and led the N.C. Department of Transportation to fund the three-year effort. Knowing where the maternity colonies are will enable the NCDOT to avoid impacting the bats as they widen the highway and develop new transportation projects in the area. The effort will also provide additional information on routes the bats take between winter and summer sites, and help identify areas where the they forage for food. In early spring, as the bats begin to emerge from hibernation, biologists will attach tiny transmitters to their backs. The challenge for the biologists is to keep track of the radio signal coming from the bats as they cross the area’s rugged terrain. The signals can be blocked by rock, easily being lost should a bat duck into an unknown cave. In recounting a previous effort to find the bats, O’Keefe remarked, “They never found a maternity roost. Bats seemed to just disappear on the landscape.” Tracking the signal this time will be a three-pronged effort. First, four temporary towers, each about 30 feet tall, will be strategically placed on high mountain peaks. The towers will be equipped with data loggers that will record information every time it picks up a transmission. Secondly, there will be teams of biologists on the ground with receivers, driving the area to pick up signals. The effort’s third prong should really boost the chances of success – an airplane will fly the area picking up the transmitter signals from above, where they won’t be hampered by signal blockages from rock outcrops or ridgelines. Signals picked up from the air will also help guide the ground crews. The plane is provided by Copperhead Environmental Consulting, a Kentucky-based company starting to establish a reputation for tracking bats from the air. Last year they tracked a pair of endangered Indiana bats from Tennessee; one into Alabama, and one into Georgia, marking the first known occurrence of that species in Georgia in over 50 years. This activity will be packed into a two-month period, after which the transmitters’ batteries will go dead and the airwaves will go silent. Eventually the bats will shed the transmitters. Biologists plan to duplicate the effort in the spring of 2014, then use the collected data to deduce the locations of the maternity colonies. Another Virginia big-eared bat study is underway in Kentucky, and it’s hoped information from both studies can be combined to provide a broader understanding of the ecology of the species. The effort brings together biologists from Indiana State University, N.C. Department of Transportation, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, N.C. State Parks, Grandfather Mountain, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, and Copperhead Consulting.

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The kinds of surfaces suitable for colored pencil are nearly endless. If a surface will accept dry media of any kind, it will work for colored pencil, often with a minimum of preparation. Today’s demonstration was created on UART premium pastel paper. According to the UART website, their paper is pH neutral and acid free, both of which make it an ideal support for artwork. It is available in grades ranging from 240 grit (coarse) to 800 grit (fine). It is suitable for soft or hard pastels, watercolor and oil, and—in the finer grades—colored pencil. For today’s project with colored pencils, I chose the finest tooth available: 800 grit. I conduct most experiments on a small scale. In this case, the painting is an ACEO (also known as Art Trading Cards). An ACEO is large enough to allow a good amount of detail work and small enough to be completed in a single sitting if need be. The first thing I found in working with sandpaper is that it’s not imperative to keep pencils needle-sharp. The coarse texture of the surface grinds down points very quickly, which can easily cause too-fine of points to break. While the resulting jagged pencil tip is unlikely to damage UART pastel paper, breakage is a nuisance, so instead of sharpening often, I used my colored pencils almost like pastels: blunt, with medium to heavy pressure and firm strokes. The first layers were applied at 5 to 7 on the pressure scale. Each layer was applied more heavily than the one before. The good news was that the paper took a lot of color from start to finish. I also didn’t have to worry about using a little brute force in the process. It would be difficult to accidentally damage this paper. I found that a detailed drawing is unnecessary with this paper because of the difficulty of transferring an image by traditional means. So I sketched a basic landscape and then began shading the shapes, working throughout the composition to build color. The sandpaper surface worked very well for the trees and grass, but I wasn’t impressed with it when I tried to put down thin, even layers of color. After working on it for over half an hour, I did some burnishing in the sky and that worked fairly well, but wasn’t satisfactory. I tried blending my colors with rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab to see how well the colors could be manipulated. The grit tore up the cotton swab pretty badly and was only moderately successful as far as blending color (in fact, the cotton seemed to pick up more color than it blended). Those problems aside, the longer I worked on the painting the more advantages I found to this fine-grit sanded paper. I never filled up the tooth, and it took color as readily at the end of the process as it did at the beginning. In fact, the more layers I added, the better I liked the results. When I thought the painting was finished, I sprayed it with workable fixative and let it air in an area with good ventilation. My final work was completed with applications of Yellow Chartreuse, Jasmine, Limepeel, Olive Green, Dark Green and Indigo Blue. I applied the heaviest pressure (8 to 10) to the tree, its cast shadow and the sunlit areas around the shadow. This helped create the look of bright sunlight. I also used a glaze of Dark Brown to tone down some of the areas, and “tapped” White into the sunlit portions of the tree to finish it off. The end result was satisfactory, in my opinion. The sandpaper surface allowed me to create a very painterly look, with a lot of color. Given the fact that the paper I used is the finest grit available, it’s unlikely I’d use this paper (in any coarseness) for work that required a high degree of detail. However, I do think it’s an excellent surface for landscapes and for those who paint in a looser style.

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Hiroshima Essay, Research Paper Thesis: Nuclear proliferation should be banned in order to prevent other countries from death and destruction like that of Hiroshima. I. Mankind argues for and against Hershey?s message to ban the bomb. (QUOTE) A. History leading to Hiroshima 1. Why was book written 2. When was book written B. Author and name of book 1. Hershey?s message 2. Other information II. By giving governments the power to use bombs, many innocent civilians are killed. A. Proponents of nuclear armament argued that one massive show of force would result in fewer casualties of civilians compared to ground war, but use of the bomb is still inhumane. B. Number of persons killed, injured, and missing due to bomb C. Radiation over widespread area 1. 20% died from direct exposure to radiation 2. 50% died from other injuries, 25% died from direct burns D. Although bombs set an example for rest of world…… 1. Opposing evidence 2. Opposing evidence III. Governments have a right to protect their citizens. However, survivors of bombs are permanently affected. A. Affects physical health and emotions B. Affects housing C. Affects food and water supplies IV. Although nuclear proliferation helps restore peace, it also causes destruction of many regional economies. A. People unable to afford medical care B. Businesses destroyed 1. Japanese building regulations 2. Statistics on destroyed buildings C. Employers wouldn?t hire bomb victims 1. Quote from novel 2. Constant physical problems V. In the novel Hiroshima, author John Hershey presents a clear message. A. Nuclear proliferation should be stopped B. Bomb does more harm than good 1. Kills innocent civilians 2. Survivors permanently affected a. mentally/ emotionally 3. Economic destruction C. Bartlett?s quote D. Sentence comparing quote to nuclear weapons today ?As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil they set out to destroy.? In the novel Hiroshima, author John Hershey presents a clear message to ban the use of nuclear proliferation. This true account was written in 1946 and portrays the lives of six survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Hershey?s intentions were to show everyone what kind of destruction can be caused by the atomic bomb. The bombing of Hiroshima by the United States was retaliation to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The U.S. wanted to make an example of Japan, so they dropped the most powerful bomb they had, not fully knowing what kind of devastation it would cause. Many people lost their lives and an entire city was economically devastated. Nuclear proliferation should be banned in order to prevent other countries from suffering the death and destruction like that of Hiroshima. Governments around the world have the power to regulate what kind of warfare is used during battle. However, by permitting the use of the atomic bomb, many innocent civilians are killed. Proponents of nuclear armament argue that one massive show of force results in fewer casualties overall compared to prolonged ground war, but the use of the bomb is still inhumane. In the case of Hiroshima, staticians said that ?at least 100,000 thousand people had lost their lives? and 37,245 had been injured(81). The bombing of Hiroshima also produced radiation over a widespread area. Twenty percent of the victims killed died from radiation exposure. It was reported that 25% died from direct burns caused by the bomb and 50% died from other bomb related injuries. Although the use of nuclear proliferation is often used to set an example for the rest of the world, it causes intense suffering and death to many innocent civilians. Although many governments use atomic warheads to protect their own citizens from harm, the survivors of these atomic bombs are permanently affected. The effects of the bomb cause damage to physical health as well as emotions. Thousands of people suffered from severe burns which left terrible koloid scars, others had broken bones, and many thousands more suffered from nausea and fatigue due to extreme radiation exposure. Many became very bitter as a result of seeing such death and destruction(72). In addition, thousands of homes located near the hypocenter were destroyed. Many citizens of Hiroshima were left homeless or living in shelters due to the bomb. Food and water supplies were also greatly affected. Most people lost everything they owned and were unable to afford food. The water was also affected by the radiation and, therefore, was undrinkable. The use of nuclear proliferation most often cause serious permanent pain and suffering. Despite the fact that nuclear proliferation helps restore peace, it also causes destruction of many regional economies. Because many of the victims were unable to work, medical care could not be afforded. Burns and broken bones were left to be healed by nature. Despite the strict Japanese building regulations, many businesses were destroyed. Statistics showed that 62,000 out of 90,000 buildings were destroyed and 6,000 were damaged beyond repair. Because of the atomic bomb, businesses were destroyed putting people out of jobs and making them unable to afford everyday necessities. After businesses were reestablished, employers would not hire bomb victims because of their physical ailments. In the novel, Hershey states that ?employers developed a prejudice against the survivors as word got around that they were prone to all sorts of ailments….? (93). Without money, survivors were unable to obtain medical attention as well as food, water, and a place to live. In the novel Hiroshima, author John Hershey presents a clear message. Nuclear proliferation causes more harm than good and should be stopped. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed by the inhumane use of the atomic bomb in both Hiroshima and later in Nagasaki. Survivors are not only affected mentally and emotionally, but physically as well. Homes and businesses are destroyed and people are unable to afford proper medical care. This causes economic destruction for the entire region. Although use of the atomic bomb results in overall world peace, it causes excessive chaos and destruction within a country. Five-star U.S. general Omar Bradley said that ?The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. This is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.? In this world today, too much focus is put on the production of nuclear weapons and not enough on bringing world peace without death and destruction. Therefore, governments around the world should join together in banning the atomic bomb. Bartlett, John. Bartlett?s Familiar Quotations. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, Bradley, Omar. ?Address on Armistice Day.? Bartlett 825:2. Dawson, Christopher. ?The Judgement of the Nations.? Bartlett 812:11. Hershey, John. Hiroshima. New York: Random House, Inc., 1985.

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Carl Sofus Lumholtz Carl Sofus Lumholtz (1851–1922) was a Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, best known for his meticulous field research and ethnographic publications on indigenous cultures of Australia and Mesoamerican central Mexico. Lumholtz travelled to Australia in 1880, where he spent ten months from 1882-1883 amongst the indigenous inhabitants of the Herbert-Burdekin region in North Queensland. He wrote a book about his experience, Among Cannibals: An Account of Four Years' Travels in Australia and of Camp Life with the Aborigines of Queensland, first published in 1889, which is regarded as the finest ethnographic research of the period for the northern Queensland Aborigines. Other anthropologists like Edward Bonney disregarded him because of his lack of respect for the Australian native people. Whereas previous authors had commented only upon the aesthetic physical appearances and material culture of the region's indigenous people, Lumholtz added a level of academic research that was unique for the period. His work recorded for the first time the social relationships, attitudes and the role of women in the society. He also gave a series of two lectures on Among Australian Natives for the Lowell Institute for their 1889–90 season. He spent a total of four years in Queensland, his expeditions included visits to the Valley of Lagoons and the Herbert River area. He made collections of mammals while living with the local peoples, these specimens were used for the descriptions of four new species. One of these was named for the type locality, Pseudochirulus herbertensis (Herbert River Ringtail Possum), and another commemorates his name, Dendrolagus lumholtzii (Lumholtz's Tree Kangaroo). Lumholtz later travelled to Mexico with the Swedish botanist C. V. Hartman He stayed for many years, conducting several expeditions from 1890 through to 1910 which were paid for by the American Museum of Natural History. His work, Unknown Mexico, was a 1902 two-volume set describing many of the indigenous peoples of northwestern Mexico, including the Cora, Tepehuán, Pima Bajo, and especially the Tarahumara, among whom he lived for more than a year. Lumholtz was one of the first to describe artifacts from the ancient shaft tomb and the Tarascan cultures. He described archaeological sites, as well as the flora and fauna, of the northern Sierra Madre region called the gran Chichimeca. He gave a series of three lectures on "The Characteristics of Cave Dwellers of the Sierra Madre" for the Lowell Institute's 1893-94 season. In 1905 Lumholtz was a founding member of the Explorers Club, an organization to promote exploration and scientific investigation in the field. He went on a brief expedition to India from 1914–1915, then to Borneo from 1915 to 1917, which was his last expedition. In 1922 Lumholtz died of tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York, where he was seeking treatment at a sanatorium. He had published six books on his discoveries, as well as the autobiography My Life of Exploration (1921). Legacy and honors His greatest legacy was his books and his way of working, which strongly influenced the field of ethnography. - The Lumholtz National Park of North Queensland was named in his honor when created in 1994. However, the name was subsequently changed to Girringun National Park in 2003 to reflect its indigenous roots. - The Mexican conifer Pinus lumholtzii, Lumholtz's Pine, was named after him. - The marsupial species Lumholtz's Tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus lumholtzi) was named after him. An incomplete list of works: - Among Cannibals; an account of four years' travels in Australia and of camp life with the aborigines of Queensland (1889) - Unknown Mexico; a record of five years' exploration among the tribes of the western Sierra Madre; in the tierra caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and among the Tarascos of Michoacan (1902) - Through Central Borneo; an account of two years' travel in the land of the head-hunters between the years 1913 and 1917 (1920) - My life of exploration (1921) - Brayshaw (1990) - Harriet Knight Smith, The history of the Lowell Institute, Boston: Lamson, Wolffe and Co., 1898. - "Carl Sofus Lumholtz - biography". Biography. Australian National Herbarium. 17 December 2009. Retrieved 3 November 2010. "citing: J.W. Cribb, The Queensland Naturalist, Vol.44, Nos.1-3, 2006" - "About the Club: A Gathering Place". The Explorers Club: Promoting Exploration and Field Sciences Since 1904. Explorers Club. 2002. Archived from the original on 2008-07-19. Retrieved 2008-03-31. - Brayshaw, Helen (1990). Well Beaten Paths: Aborigines of the Herbert/Burdekin District, North Queensland; An Ethnographic and Archaeological Study. Studies in North Queensland history, no. 10. Townsville, Qld: Department of History, James Cook University of North Queensland. ISBN 0-86443-322-0. OCLC 23267008. - Cedano, Luis Romo (2002). "Carl Lumholtz y El México desconocido" (PDF online facsimile). In Manuel Ferrer Muñoz (ed.). La imagen del México decimonónico de los visitantes extranjeros: ¿un estado-nación o un mosaico plurinacional?. Serie Doctrina Jurídica, no. 56. México D.F.: Instituto de Investigaciones de Jurídica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. pp. 331–368. ISBN 968-36-9318-0. OCLC 50761138. (Spanish) - Works by or about Carl Lumholtz at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated) - Works by Carl Lumholtz at Project Gutenberg - Works by or about Carl Sofus Lumholtz in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

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A halberd (also called halbard, halbert or Swiss voulge) is a two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 14th and 15th centuries. The word halberd may come from the German words Halm (staff), and Barte (axe). In modern-day German, the weapon is called a Hellebarde. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It always has a hook or thorn on the back side of the axe blade for grappling mounted combatants. It is very similar to certain forms of the voulge in design and usage. The halberd was 1.5 to 1.8 metres (5 to 6 feet) long. The halberd was inexpensive to produce and very versatile in battle. As the halberd was eventually refined, its point was more fully developed to allow it to better deal with spears and pikes (also able to push back approaching horsemen), as was the hook opposite the axe head, which could be used to pull horsemen to the ground. Additionally, halberds were reinforced with metal rims over the shaft, thus making effective weapons for blocking other weapons such as swords. This capability increased its effectiveness in battle, and expert halberdiers were as deadly as any other weapon masters. A Swiss peasant used a halberd to kill Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy—decisively ending the Burgundian Wars, literally in a single stroke. Researchers suspect that a halberd or a bill sliced through the back of King Richard III's skull at the battle of Bosworth. The halberd was the primary weapon of the early Swiss armies in the 14th and early 15th centuries. Later, the Swiss added the pike to better repel knightly attacks and roll over enemy infantry formations, with the halberd, hand-and-a-half sword, or the dagger known as the Schweizerdolch used for closer combat. The German Landsknechte, who imitated Swiss warfare methods, also used the pike, supplemented by the halberd—but their side arm of choice was a short sword called the Katzbalger. As long as pikemen fought other pikemen, the halberd remained a useful supplemental weapon for push of pike, but when their position became more defensive, to protect the slow-loading arquebusiers and matchlock musketeers from sudden attacks by cavalry, the percentage of halberdiers in the pike units steadily decreased. The halberd all but disappeared as a rank-and-file weapon in these formations by the middle of the sixteenth century. The halberd has been used as a court bodyguard weapon for centuries, and is still the ceremonial weapon of the Swiss Guard in the Vatican. The halberd was one of the polearms sometimes carried by lower-ranking officers in European infantry units in the 16th through 18th centuries. In the British army, sergeants continued to carry halberds until 1793, when they were replaced by pikes with cross bars. The 18th century halberd had, however, become simply a symbol of rank with no sharpened edge and insufficient strength to use as a weapon. It did, however, ensure that infantrymen drawn up in ranks stood correctly aligned with each other. Different types of halberds - Hippe (Bill) - Ji (戟) Pole arms often mistaken for halberds - Bardiche, a type of two-handed battle axe known in the 16th and 17th centuries in Eastern Europe - Bill, similar to a halberd but with a hooked blade form - Bisento, a pole weapon with a large blade from feudal Japan - Dagger-axe, a Chinese weapon in use from the Shang Dynasty (est. 1500BC) that had a dagger-shaped blade mounted perpendicular to a spear - Fauchard, a curved blade atop a 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) pole that was used in Europe between the 11th and 14th centuries - Guisarme, a medieval bladed weapon on the end of a long pole; later designs implemented a small reverse spike on the back of the blade - Glaive, a large blade, up to 45 cm (18 in) long, on the end of a 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) pole - Guan dao, a Chinese polearm from the 3rd century AD that had a heavy blade with a spike at the back - Lochaber axe, a Scottish weapon that had a heavy blade attached to a pole in a similar fashion to a voulge - Naginata, a Japanese weapon that had a 30 cm (12 in) - 60 cm (24 in) long blade attached by a sword guard to a wooden shaft - Partisan, a large double-bladed spearhead mounted on a long shaft that had protrusions on either side for parrying sword thrusts - Pollaxe, an axe or hammer mounted on a long shaft—developed in the 14th century to breach the plate armour worn increasingly by European men-at-arms - Ranseur, a pole weapon consisting of a spear-tip affixed with a cross hilt at its base derived from the earlier spetum - Spontoon, a 17th-century weapon that consisted of a large blade with two side blades mounted on a long 2 m (6 ft 7 in) pole, considered a more elaborate pike - Voulge, a crude single-edged blade bound to a wooden shaft - War scythe, an improvised weapon that consisted of a blade from a Scythe attached vertically to a shaft Citizens of Zurich on 1 May 1351 are read the Federal Charter as they swear allegiance to representatives of Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Lucerne. The person on the right side is a scribe reading the text. One of the representatives carries a typical Swiss Halberd of the period depicted (as opposed to the time the image was made, 1515). Saint Wiborada is often (anachronistically) depicted with a halberd to indicate the means of her martyrdom. - John F. Guilmartin, Jr. "military technology - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2013-06-13. - "halberd - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2013-06-13. - "History of WARFARE - LAND". Historyworld.net. Retrieved 2013-06-13. - Klaus Schelle, Charles le Téméraire (Arthème Fayard, 1979), p. 316 - Gilbert, Adrian (2003) . "Medieval Warfare". The Encyclopedia of Warfare: From Earliest Times to the Present Day. Guildford, CT: The Lyons Press. p. 71. ISBN 1-59228-027-7. "At Nancy, it was a halberd that brought down Charles the Bold with a single blow that split his skull open." - Richard III dig: Grim clues to the death of a king By Greig Watson, BBC News, 4 February 2013 - Beam, Christopher (2007-06-06). "What does the Swiss Guard actually do?". Slate.com. Retrieved 2014-03-04. - David Fraser, page 33 "The Grenadier Guards", ISBN 0850452848 - Robin May, page 33 "Wolfe's Army", Osprey Publishing Ltd 1974 - O'Flaherty, Ronan; The Early Bronze Age halberd: a history of research and a brief guide to the sources, pp. 74–94, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol.128 (1998). - Brandtherm, Dirk & O'Flaherty, Ronan; Prodigal sons: two 'halberds' in the Hunt Museum, Limerick, from Cuenca, Spain and Beyrǔt, Syria, pp. 56–60, JRSAI Vol.131 (2001). . - R. E. Oakeshott, European weapons and armour: From the Renaissance to the industrial revolution (1980), 44-48. |Wikimedia Commons has media related to halberds.|

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International Astronomical Union |Membership||10,871 individual members 73 national members The International Astronomical Union (IAU; French: Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a collection of professional astronomers, at the Ph.D. level and beyond, active in professional research and education in astronomy. It acts as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies (stars, planets, asteroids, etc.) and any surface features on them. The IAU is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU). Its main objective is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. The IAU maintains friendly relations with organizations that include amateur astronomers in their membership. The IAU has its head office on the second floor of the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. Working groups include the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN), which maintains the astronomical naming conventions and planetary nomenclature for planetary bodies. The IAU is also responsible for the system of astronomical telegrams which are produced and distributed on its behalf by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. The Minor Planet Center (MPC), a clearinghouse for all non-planetary or non-moon bodies in the solar system, also operates under the IAU. The IAU was founded in 1919, as a merger of various international projects including the Carte du Ciel, the Solar Union and the International Time Bureau (Bureau International de l'Heure). The first appointed President was Benjamin Baillaud. Pieter Johannes van Rhijn served as president from 1932 to 1958. In the IAU Information Bulletin No. 100, twelve of the fourteen past General Secretaries since 1964, each one in office for the three years between General Assemblies, recall the IAU history with its difficulties, e.g. with Soviet bloc officials, with the Greek military junta, and the reasons behind the unpopular decision to hold an additional Extraordinary General Assembly in Poland on the occasion of Nicolaus Copernicus' 500th birthday in February 1973, shortly after the regular GA in Australia.[a] The IAU has 10,871 individual members, all of whom are professional astronomers and most of whom hold PhDs. There are also 73 national members who represent countries affiliated with the IAU. 86% of individual members are male, while 14% are female, among them the union's former president, astronomer Catherine J. Cesarsky. The sovereign body of the IAU is its General Assembly, which comprises all members. The Assembly determines IAU policy, approves the Statutes and By-Laws of the Union (and amendments proposed thereto) and elects various committees. The right to vote on matters brought before the Assembly varies according to the type of business under discussion. The Statutes consider such business to be divided into two categories: - issues of a "primarily scientific nature" (as determined by the Executive Committee), upon which voting is restricted to individual members, and - all other matters (such as Statute revision and procedural questions), upon which voting is restricted to the representatives of national members. On budget matters (which fall into the second category), votes are weighted according to the relative subscription levels of the national members. A second category vote requires a turnout of at least two-thirds of national members in order to be valid. An absolute majority is sufficient for approval in any vote, except for Statute revision which requires a two-thirds majority. An equality of votes is resolved by the vote of the President of the Union. Since 1922, the IAU General Assembly meets every three years, with the exception of the period between 1938 to 1948, due to World War II. After a Polish request in 1967, and by a controversial decision of the then President of the IAU, an Extraordinary IAU General Assembly was held in February 1973 in Warsaw, Poland, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus, soon after the regular 1973 GA had been held in Australia. |Ist IAU General Assembly (1st)||1922||Rome, Italy| |IInd IAU General Assembly (2nd)||1925||Cambridge, England, United Kingdom| |IIIrd IAU General Assembly (3rd)||1928||Leiden, Netherlands| |IVth IAU General Assembly (4th)||1932||Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States| |Vth IAU General Assembly (5th)||1935||Paris, France| |VIth IAU General Assembly (6th)||1938||Stockholm, Sweden| |VIIth IAU General Assembly (7th)||1948||Zürich, Switzerland| |VIIIth IAU General Assembly (8th)||1952||Rome, Italy| |IXth IAU General Assembly (9th)||1955||Dublin, Ireland| |Xth IAU General Assembly (10th)||1958||Moscow, Soviet Union| |XIth IAU General Assembly (11th)||1961||Berkeley, California, United States| |XIIth IAU General Assembly (12th)||1964||Hamburg, West Germany| |XIIIth IAU General Assembly (13th)||1967||Prague, Czechoslovakia| |XIVth IAU General Assembly (14th)||1970||Brighton, England, United Kingdom| |XVth IAU General Assembly (15th)||1973||Sydney, New South Wales, Australia| |XVIth IAU General Assembly (16th)||1976||Grenoble, France| |XVIIth IAU General Assembly (17th)||1979||Montreal, Quebec, Canada| |XVIIIth IAU General Assembly (18th)||1982||Patras, Greece| |XIXth IAU General Assembly (19th)||1985||New Delhi, India| |XXth IAU General Assembly (20th)||1988||Baltimore, Maryland, United States| |XXIst IAU General Assembly (21st)||1991||Buenos Aires, Argentina| |XXIInd IAU General Assembly (22nd)||1994||The Hague, Netherlands| |XXIIIrd IAU General Assembly (23rd)||1997||Kyoto, Japan| |XXIVth IAU General Assembly (24th)||2000||Manchester, England, United Kingdom| |XXVth IAU General Assembly (25th)||2003||Sydney, New South Wales, Australia| |XXVIth IAU General Assembly (26th)||2006||Prague, Czech Republic| |XXVIIth IAU General Assembly (27th)||2009||Rio de Janeiro, Brazil| |XXVIIIth IAU General Assembly (28th)||2012||Beijing, China| |XXIXth IAU General Assembly (29th)||2015||Honolulu, Hawaii, United States| |XXXth IAU General Assembly (30th)||2018||Vienna, Austria| The XXVIth General Assembly and the definition of a planet The XXVIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union was held from 14 to 25 August 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic. On 15 August the Assembly decided to restore to individual members the right to vote on scientific matters, which had been removed from them at the XXVth Assembly in 2003. Among the business before the Assembly was a proposal to adopt a formal definition of planet. During the General Assembly the text of the definition evolved from the initial proposal that would have created 12 known planets in the Solar System (retaining Pluto and adding Ceres, Pluto's largest moon Charon, and Eris) to the final definition of a planet resolution that was passed on 24 August by the Assembly, which classified Ceres, Eris and Pluto as dwarf planets, and reduced the number of planets in the Solar System to 8. The voting procedure followed IAU's Statutes and Working Rules. The General Assembly lasted 12 days and had 2412 participants, most of them for only part of the duration of the Assembly. 424 of the 9785 individual IAU members attended the Closing Ceremony on 24 August 2006. Following the Closing Ceremony, parts of the scientific community did not agree with this ruling, especially the specific wording of the resolution, and criticized IAU's authority to name celestial bodies. In the ensuing public debate, a number of laypersons expressed (at times strong) disagreement with the vote. Another, less vocal, fraction of the scientific community backs the resolution, including the discoverer of the dwarf planet Eris, Mike Brown. A final decision was made, announced 11 June 2008, for acceptance of the term plutoid and its official IAU definition: Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a semimajor axis greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. Satellites of plutoids are not plutoids themselves. The Commission 46: Education in astronomy Commission 46 is a Committee of the Executive Committee of the IAU. As a prestigious international scientific union, the IAU plays a special role in the discussion of astronomy development with governments and scientific academies and in interceding about such matters at the highest levels. The IAU is affiliated with the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), a non-governmental organization representing a global membership that includes both national scientific bodies and international scientific unions. When appropriate, the President and officers of the IAU are proactive in persuading the authorities of the importance of astronomy for development and education and in encouraging countries to become members of the IAU. A strategic plan for the period 2010-2020 has been published. The Commission seeks to further the development and improvement of astronomical education at all levels throughout the world, through various projects initiated, maintained, and to be developed by the Commission and by disseminating information concerning astronomy education at all levels. Part of Commission 46, the Teaching Astronomy for Development (TAD) program is intended to help enhance astronomy education significantly in countries where there is currently very little on offer. TAD operates on the basis of a proposal from a professional astronomy organization or a contract between the IAU and an academic institution, usually a university. The IAU has launched in 2009 the Galileo Teacher Training Program (GTTP), a Cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, among which Hands-On Universe is a major partner. Hands-On Universe is now officially included in the Astronomy for the Developing World Strategic Plan 2010-20 of IAU, under Section 3.4.2 Astronomy for Children and Schools. During the next decade the IAU will concentrate more resources on education activities for children and schools designed to advance sustainable global development. The GTTP is concerned with the effective use and transfer of astronomy education tools and resources into classroom science curricula. By training a worldwide network of "Galileo Ambassadors" who will train new "Galileo Teachers" the effect of the program will be multiplied. The GTTP is closely affiliated with the Global Hands-on Universe Program. Outreach to teachers will involve the provision of training courses, development and translation of materials and harnessing global technological resources in the service of primary and secondary education. A specific goal will be to provide expertise for at least one teacher training course in each region every year, to be organized together with the regional coordinators. Related programs (leader name): Hands-On Universe (Dr Roger Ferlet), and Universe Awareness (Dr Carolina Ödman). - Cornelis de Jager, 16th GS, 1970-1973: I had to organise in one year two General Assemblies, one in Sydney, Australia, and another one, a so-called Extraordinary General Assembly, a month or so later in Poland. I was strongly against the decision to have that latter meeting ... When, in 1967, I attended my first meeting of the Executive Board, with Otto Heckmann as President ... I learned that the 1973 GA would be held in Sydney ... A severe complication then arose. During the time of Heckmann’s presidency it so happened that we got a request from and a visit by the grand old lady of Polish astronomy, Ms. Wilhelmina Iwanowska. She brought to our memory that 1973 would be the year of the 500th birthday anniversary of Copernicus. She proposed that the IAU would in that year have a General Assembly in Poland ... At that time Ms. Iwanowska, who certainly was a clever politician, made a slip. She replied that in any case very few astronomers from eastern Europe – we used to call it the Soviet bloc – were planning to make that long and costly trip. It left us with an unanswered question: was that perhaps the main reason? I recall how difficult the situation was for Heckmann, our German President. He was a truly honest and sensitive man who – slightly more than twenty years after the war – very well realized what Germany had done to Poland. He found it difficult to refuse a request from Poland and that was the main reason for him to consent. I was strongly against, but the voice of an Assistant General Secretary is not as important as the President’s. So the decision was taken. Many astronomers disagreed. I learned during my term (1970-1973) how much opposition arose when the news spread around. Several astronomers, mainly from the US, angrily wrote to me that they would never, repeat: never again join a General Assembly, and that was what they actually did. - IAU Information Bulletin No. 100, July 2007, p. 9 - About the IAU - "IAU Secretariat." International Astronomical Union. Retrieved on 26 May 2011. "Address: IAU - UAI Secretariat 98-bis Blvd Arago F–75014 PARIS FRANCE" and "The IAU Secretariat is located in the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, 2nd floor, offices n°270, 271 and 283." - IAU Information Bulletin No. 100, July 2007 - As of March 9, 2013, iau.org - As of March 9, 2013, iau.org - IAU's Statutes - IAU's Working Rules - IAU General Assembly Welcome page - "Plutoid chosen as name for Solar System objects like Pluto". International Astronomical Union (News Release - IAU0804). 11 June 2008, Paris. Retrieved 11 June 2008. - Astronomy for the Developing World, Building from the IYA 2009, Strategic Plan 2010-20 - Statutes of the IAU, VII General Assembly (1948), ss. 13–15 |Wikimedia Commons has media related to International Astronomical Union.| - Official website - XXVIth General Assembly 2006 - XXVIIth General Assembly 2009 - XXVIIIth General Assembly 2012 - XXIXth General Assembly 2015

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- Not to be confused with the Bergmann MP34, an early variant of the MP35 submachine gun or with the Erma EMP, a variant of which was also called MP34. |This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2012)| |Maschinenpistole 34 (MP34)| |Place of origin||Austria| |In service||1930 - 1970s| |Used by|| Austria Republic of China |Wars||World War II Portuguese Colonial War |Produced||1929 - 1940| |Weight||Loaded 4.48 kg (9.9 lb) Unloaded 4.25 kg (9.4 lb) |Length||850 mm (33.5 in)| |Barrel length||200 mm (7.9 in)| |Cartridge||9x19mm Luger Parabellum; 9x23 Steyr; 9x25 Mauser Export| |Action||open bolt blowback| |Rate of fire||~500 round/min| |Muzzle velocity||~410 m/s (1,345 ft/s)| |Effective firing range||150 - 200 m (490-650 ft : 160-220 yds)| |Feed system||20 or 32-round detachable box magazine| |Sights||Hooded or open topped front, adjustable rear| The MP34 (Maschinenpistole 34, literally "Machine Pistol 34") is a submachine gun (SMG) that was manufactured by Waffenfabrik Steyr and used by the Austrian police and subsequently by units of the German army, including the Waffen SS, in World War II. An exceptionally well-made weapon, it was used by some forces well into the 1970s. The MP34 was based on a design for the MP18 by the Rheinmetall company based in Düsseldorf. The weapon is similar in design to the MP18 Bergmann, which itself saw service towards the end of World War I. Restrictions on the manufacture of certain armaments within the 1919 Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from manufacturing certain types of weapons, such as light automatic firearms (designated as SMGs with barrels in excess of four inches (102 mm) and magazines holding more than eight rounds). To circumvent the treaty, Rheinmetall acquired the Swiss company Waffenfabrik Solothurn in 1929 and began secret production of a prototype. What was to become the MP34 was originally designated ‘S1-100’ using the company’s standard naming convention. Due to the Solothurn company being unsuited for mass production, Rheinmetall took a controlling interest in Waffenfabrik Steyr, an established arms manufacturer in Austria. Weapons manufactured by Steyr were sold via the Zurich-based trade company Steyr-Solothurn Waffen AG to both the commercial and military markets. The MP34 was manufactured from the very best materials available and finished to the highest possible standard. It was so well manufactured that it has often been nicknamed the "Rolls Royce of submachine guns". However, its production costs were extremely high as a consequence. The MP34 was a selective-fire weapon (single shot or full auto), firing in blowback mode with an open bolt. The return spring was located in the wooden stock and was linked to the bolt via a long push rod, attached pivotally to the rear of the bolt. Easy access to the bolt and trigger assembly was via a hinged top cover which opened up and forward by depressing two release catches. This makes cleaning procedures very easy to perform. On the left-hand side of the stock was a sliding fire selector switch (marked by letters T and S). Initial production runs of the gun had a Schmeisser-style bolt-locking safety (similar to the MP40) in the form of hook-shaped cut which was used to engage the bolt handle when the bolt was cocked (which was notoriously unsafe). Later models included a manual safety on the top cover, just in front of the rear sight. This safety could lock the weapon in both a cocked or closed position. 32 or 20 round box magazines were fed in from the left side and the magazine housing was angled slightly forward to improve cartridge feeding to prevent jams. Additionally, the same magazine housing incorporated a magazine refilling feature. An empty magazine could be inserted from underneath and locked in place. From above stripper clips (of 8 rounds each) could be fed into the magazines. All MP34s were equipped with a wooden stock with a semi-pistol grip. The barrel was enclosed into a perforated cooling jacket, and had a bayonet-fixing lug on the right-hand side. Front (hooded) and rear rifle-type sights were fitted – the latter marked from 100 to 500 meters. The weapon could be fitted with a detachable bipod for stability. In 1930, the Austrian police accepted the S1-100 as the Steyr MP30, chambered for then standard Austrian 9 x 23 Steyr pistol rounds. The weapon was also exported to Chile, Bolivia, El Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela, and was sold in limited numbers to China, in 7.63x25 Mauser calibre. For the South American markets, Steyr produced a version of the S1-100 in .45 ACP calibre; this derivation can be identified by an additional pistol grip under the stock. The Austrian army adopted the Steyr-Solothurn S1-100 as the Steyr MP34, chambered for the powerful 9 x 25 Mauser ammunition. With the 1938 Anschluss between Germany and Austria, the German Army acquired most of available MP30s and MP34s. A number were then re-barrelled to chamber 9 x 19 ammunition and issued to German troops as the MP34(ö) - Maschinenpistole 34 österreichisch (literally "Machine-pistol 34, Austrian"). Production of the MP34 ceased in mid-1940, and manufacturing lines at Steyr moved over to the production of the MP40 – a much simpler designed weapon and far less expensive to produce than the MP34. As a substitute standard small arm, it had a relatively short combat service once quantities of the MP38 became available, though some MP34s were used by Waffen SS units in the early stages of the war in Poland and France. It was then allocated to line-of-communications and reserve units, including military police and feldgendarmerie detachments. Portugal bought in small quantities the .45 ACP version and was adopted as Pistola-metralhadora 11,43mm m/935. Portugal also purchased small quantities of the S1-100 in 7.65x21mm Luger calibre in 1938, and the weapon was adopted as the Pistola-metralhadora 7,65 mm m/938 Steyer submachine gun. In 1941 and 1942, larger numbers of 9mm MP34 guns were delivered to Portugal by Germany. In Portuguese service, the 9mm MP34 was known as the Pistola-metralhadora 9 mm m/942 Steyer. Many m/942 guns carry a Portuguese crest just forward of the safety mechanism in combination with Waffenamt (WaA) markings. The m/942 remained in service with Portuguese Army into the 1950s, and was used until the 1970s by paramilitary and security forces in Portugal's overseas African colonies during the Portuguese Colonial Wars. - As Armas da 1ª Guerra Mundial, 5 September 2007 http://quelegalbakana.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html - Abbott, Peter and Rodrigues, Manuel, Modern African Wars 2: Angola and Mozambique 1961-74, Osprey Publishing (1998), ISBN 0-85045-843-9, p. 17 - As Armas da 1ª Guerra Mundial http://quelegalbakana.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html - Gotz, Hans Dieter, German Military Rifles and Machine Pistols, 1871-1945, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1990. OCLC 24416255 - Günter Wollert; Reiner Lidschun; Wilfried Kopenhagen, Illustrierte Enzyklopädie der Schützenwaffen aus aller Welt : Schützenwaffen heute (1945-1985), Berlin : Militärverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1988. OCLC 19630248 - Edward Clinto Ezell, Small Arms Of The World, Eleventh Edition, Arms & Armour Press, London, 1977 - Moss, John L., "The 9 x 25 Mauser Export Cartridge," IAA Journal Issue 424, March/April 2002, pp. 6-20 - Schweizer Waffen Magazin - Internationales Waffen Magazine - German Small Arms (1971)

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|Part of a series on| Nationalization (British/Commonwealth spelling nationalisation) is the process of taking a private industry or private assets into public ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being transferred to be the state. The opposite of nationalization is usually privatization or de-nationalization, but may also be municipalization. Industries that are usually subject to nationalization include transport, communications, energy, banking and natural resources. Renationalization occurs when state-owned assets are privatized and later nationalized again, often when a different political party or faction is in power. A renationalization process may also be called reverse privatization. Nationalization has been used to refer to either direct state-ownership and management of an enterprise or to a government acquiring a large controlling share of a nominally private, publicly listed corporation. Nationalization was one of the major means advocated by reformist socialists for transitioning from capitalism to socialism. Socialist ideologies that favor nationalization are typically called state socialism. In this context, the goals of nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists and redirect the profits of industry to the public purse, as a precursor to the long-term goals of establishing worker-management and reorganizing production toward use. Nationalized industries, charged with operating in the public interest, may be under strong political and social pressures to give much more attention to externalities. They may be obliged to operate loss-making activities where social benefits are clearly greater than social costs — for example, rural postal and transport services. As an instance, the United States Postal Service is guaranteed its nationalized status by the Constitution. The government has recognized these social obligations and, in some cases, provides subsidies for such non-commercial operations. Since nationalized industries are state owned, the government is responsible for meeting any debts. The nationalized industries do not normally borrow from the domestic market other than for short-term borrowing. If they are profitable, the profit is often used to finance other state services, such as social programs and government research, which can help lower the tax burden. Nationalization may occur with or without compensation to the former owners. Nationalization is distinguished from property redistribution in that the government retains control of nationalized property. Some nationalizations take place when a government seizes property acquired illegally. For example, in 1945 the French government seized the car-makers Renault because its owners had collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of France. - 1 Compensation - 2 Political support - 3 Notable nationalizations by country - 3.1 Argentina - 3.2 Australia - 3.3 Bolivia - 3.4 Canada - 3.5 Channel Islands - 3.6 Chile - 3.7 Croatia - 3.8 Cuba - 3.9 Czechoslovakia - 3.10 Egypt - 3.11 France - 3.12 Germany - 3.13 Greece - 3.14 Iceland - 3.15 India - 3.16 Iran - 3.17 Ireland - 3.18 Israel - 3.19 Italy - 3.20 Japan - 3.21 Lithuania - 3.22 Latvia - 3.23 Malta - 3.24 Mexico - 3.25 The Netherlands - 3.26 New Zealand - 3.27 Pakistan - 3.28 Philippines - 3.29 Poland - 3.30 Portugal - 3.31 Romania - 3.32 Russia - 3.33 Saudi Arabia - 3.34 South Korea - 3.35 Soviet Union - 3.36 Spain - 3.37 Sri Lanka - 3.38 Sweden - 3.39 Tanzania - 3.40 Turkey - 3.41 United Kingdom - 3.42 United States - 3.43 Venezuela - 3.44 Vietnam - 3.45 Zimbabwe - 3.46 Other countries - 4 See also - 5 References - 6 Bibliography - 7 External links The traditional Western stance on compensation was expressed by United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull during the 1938 Mexican nationalization of the petroleum industry that compensation should be "prompt, effective and adequate." According to this view, the nationalizing state is obligated under international law to pay the deprived party the full value of the property taken. The opposing position has been taken mainly by developing countries, claiming that the question of compensation should be left entirely up to the sovereign state, in line with the Calvo Doctrine. Socialist states have held that no compensation is due, based on the view that the former owners acquired ownership through exploitation, or that private ownership over socialized assets is illegitimate and exploitative of employees. In 1962, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1803, "Permanent Sovereignty over National Resources", which states that in the event of nationalization, the owner "shall be paid appropriate compensation in accordance with international law." In doing so, the UN rejected the traditional Calvo-doctrinist view and the Communist view. The term "appropriate compensation" represents a compromise between the traditional views, taking into account the need of developing countries to pursue reform even without the ability to pay full compensation, and the Western concern for protection of private property. In the United States, the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation if private property is taken for public use. Notable nationalizations by country - 1918 University Revolution and university nationalization - 1946 Central Bank of Argentina - 1946 Natural gas (privatized in 1992) - 1947 Telephone network (privatized in 1990) - 1947 Radio networks (privatized between 1980 and 1993) - 1948 Railways (privatized between 1991 and 1999) - 1949 Petroleum (the state oil concern, YPF, had been established in 1922; mineral resources were nationalized with Article 40 of the 1949 Constitution; the latter was abrogated in 1956, but oil was renationalized in 1958 and private firms operated afterward via leases) - 1949 Port administration (privatized in 1992) - 1949 Merchant marine (privatized in 1991) - 1952 Buenos Aires Metro (operations privatized in 1994) - 1958 Electric utilities (privatized in 1992) - 1974 Television networks (privatized between 1982 and 1998) - 1980 Austral Líneas Aéreas (privatized in 1987, renationalized in 2008) - 2003 Postal service renationalized (state-owned between 1949 and 1997) - 2006 AySA, the water utility serving Buenos Aires (its state-owned precursor, OSN, was established in 1912 and privatized in 1993) - 2008 Aerolíneas Argentinas renationalized (state-owned between 1949 and 1990) - 2008 Pension funds (transferred to ANSES) - 2010 FAdeA renationalized (state-owned between 1927 and 1995) - 2012 YPF renationalized (state-owned between 1922 and 1993) - 2013 Metrogas renationalized (part of the Gas del Estado concern privatized in 1992) - 2013 Belgrano Cargas (privatized in 1999); Tren de la Costa; Belgrano Sur, Roca, San Martín, and Sarmiento commuter lines (privatized in 1994/95) - 1948 The government attempted to nationalize the banks, but the act was declared unconstitutional by the High Court of Australia in the case Bank of New South Wales v Commonwealth. Most utilities were nationally owned before being privatized in 1994. - 2006 On May 1, 2006, newly elected Bolivian president Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize the country's natural gas industry; foreign-based companies were given six months to renegotiate their existing contracts. - 2008 On May 1, 2008, the nationalization of Bolivia's leading telecommunications company Entel was completed, previously having been owned by Telecom Italia. - 2010 On May 1, 2010, the government nationalized the country's main hydroelectric plant, thereby assuming control over most of Bolivia's electrical generation and end-user sales. - 2012 On May 1, 2012, the Morales government nationalized power grid operator Transportadora de Electricidad (TDE), until then 99.94% owned by Red Eléctrica de España. TDE owns and runs 73% of the power lines in Bolivia. - 1918 Canadian National Railways, created from several systems nationwide following their bankruptcy during and after World War I, and since privatized in 1995. (Air Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Marine Atlantic and Via Rail (still government-owned) were all subsidiaries of the company at one time) - 1944 Hydro-Québec, first created through partial nationalization of electricity concerns around Montreal in Quebec by the Liberal government of Adélard Godbout. During the Quiet Revolution of the early 1960s, the remaining 11 privately owned electricity companies in Quebec were nationalized by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage. - 1975 Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, Province of Saskatchewan nationalized part of the potash industry. Many potash producers agreed to sell to the government instead of being nationalized. - 2003 Aurigny Air Services was bought by the States of Guernsey to keep precious routes from the island to London. On the break-up of Yugoslavia, The HDZ government nationalized private agricultural property and rezoned it under the guise of forest statesmanship, when their publicly professed agenda was to only complete the nationalization of the communists. Much of this land is in the process of being reinstated and the model rethought. The Castro government gradually expropriated all foreign-owned private companies after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Most of these companies were owned by U.S. corporations and individuals. Bonds at 4.5% interest over twenty years were offered to U.S. companies, but the offer was rejected by U.S. ambassador Philip Bonsal, who requested the compensation up front. Only a minor amount, $1.3 million, was paid to U.S. interests before deteriorating relations ended all cooperation between the two governments. The United States established a registry of claims against the Cuban government, ultimately developing files on 5,911 specific companies. The Cuban government has refused to discuss the effective and adequate compensation of U.S. claims. The United States government continues to insist on compensation for U.S. companies. In 1966-68, the Castro government nationalized all remaining privately owned business entities in Cuba, down to the level of street vendors. - 1945 Large manufacturing enterprises. - 1948 All manufacturing enterprises. Nationalization dates back to the 'regies' or state monopolies organized under the Ancien Régime, for example, the monopoly on tobacco sales. Communications companies France Telecom and La Poste are relics of the state postal and telecommunications monopolies. There was a major expansion of the nationalised sector following World War II. A second wave followed in 1982. - 1938 Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF) (originally a 51% State holding, increased to 100% in 1982) - 1945 Several nationalizations in France, including most important banks and Renault. The firm was seized for Louis Renault's alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany, although this condemnation was without judgement and after his death, making this case remarkable and rare. A later judgement (1949) admitted that Renault's plant never collaborated. Renault was successful but unprofitable whilst nationalised and remains successful today, after having been privatized in 1996. - 1946 Charbonnages de France, Electricite de France (EdF), Gaz de France (GdF) - 1982 A large part of the banking sector and industries of strategic importance to the state, especially in electronics and communications, were nationalized under the new president François Mitterrand and the PS-led government. Many of those companies were privatized again after 1986. The Paris regional transport operator, Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), can also be counted as a nationalised industry. The railways were nationalised after World War I. Partial privatisation of Deutsche Bahn is currently underway, as of 2008. Most enterprises in East Germany were nationalised following World War II. After reunification, an agency, Treuhand, was established to return them to private ownership. However, due to structural and economic problems inherent in the previous regime, many of these had to be liquidated. - 2008 Renationalization of the "Bundesdruckerei" (Federal Print Office), which had been privatized in 2001. - 1974 Nationalization of Olympic Airlines, main airline of Greece. Its founder, Aristotle Onassis, sold all his shares to the Greek state. - 2011 Proton Bank is effectively nationalized in the midst of the Greek financial crisis - 2008 Renationalization of Iceland's largest commercial banks: Kaupþing, Landsbanki, Glitnir and Icebank. - 2009 Nationalization of Straumur Investment Bank and the savings bank SPRON. - 1949 (1 January) Reserve Bank of India nationalised (Ref.- Reserve Bank of India chronology of events). The Reserve Bank of India was state-owned at the time of Indian independence. - 1953 Air India under the Air Corporations Act 1953. - 1955 Imperial Bank of India and its subsidiaries (State Bank of India and its subsidiaries) - 1969 Nationalization of 14 Indian banks. - 1972 Nationalisation of 106 insurance companies into four - 1973 Coal industry and Oil companies - 1980 Another six banks nationalized Railways were nationalised in the 1940s as Coras Iompair Eireann. - 2007 On August 3, 2007, the Irish government were offered a stake in Eircom's copper network infrastructure. Ireland's telephone networks were privatised in 1999. - 2009 On January 16, 2009, the Irish Government nationalised Anglo Irish Bank to secure the bank's viability. - 2010 State-owned Anglo Irish Bank is to take majority control of one of Ireland's largest companies QUINN group bringing it under Public ownership. - 1983 Nationalization of the major banks: Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Discount Bank, Mezrachi Bank due to the Bank stock crisis that struck in 1983. - 1905 The railways were nationalised as Ferrovie dello Stato. The regime of Benito Mussolini extended nationalisation, creating the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) as a State holding company for struggling firms, including the car maker Alfa Romeo. A parallel body, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (Eni) was set up to manage State oil and gas interests. - 1906 Railway Nationalization Act of nationalized 17 railway companies to form the nationwide railway network that was later called Japanese National Railways. In 2011 Snoras bank was nationalized. In 2008 Parex Bank was nationalized. - 1938 The Expropriation of the Petroleum Industry: President Lázaro Cárdenas issued a decree that the petroleum companies were in rebellion against the government and under the powers granted him under the Expropriation Act passed by the Congress of Mexico in late 1936 expropriated them. March 19, 1938, union personnel took control of the properties. - 1982 The nationalization of the Mexican banking system made by President José López Portillo in response to the debt crisis. Under the Carlos Salinas de Gortari presidency (1988–1994) the nationalized banks were privatized very rapidly between 1991 and 1992 to Mexican family groups privatized. - 2008 The state nationalizes the Dutch activities of Belgian-Dutch banking and insurance company Fortis, which had come in solvability problems due to the international financial crisis. - 2013 SNS Bank is nationalized. It had been in trouble for more than a year, not able to find a private investor. On Febuari 1st 2013, Jeroen Dijselbloem (Dutch minister of Finance) declares SNS nationalized. - 1945 The Bank of New Zealand was nationalised. It was later sold to the National Australia Bank in 1992. - 2001 Government purchased the Auckland railway network from Tranz Rail. - 2003 The Labour Government took an 80% stake in near-bankrupt national air carrier Air New Zealand in exchange for a large financial infusion. - 2004 The rest of the country's rail network is purchased from Toll New Zealand, formerly Tranz Rail. A new state owned enterprise, ONTRACK, was established to maintain the rail infrastructure. - 2008 The rolling stock and ferries of Toll New Zealand was purchased, bringing the rail system under state ownership, renamed KiwiRail. - 1972: On January 2, 1972, Prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, after East Pakistan broke away, announced the nationalisation of all major industries, including iron and steel, heavy engineering, heavy electricals, petrochemicals, cement and public utilities except textiles industry and lands. - 2011: On December 15, 2011, Prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani nationalized all privately held shares in PIA, Railways, and Steel Mills, in order to protect capital flight of the state-owned enterprises. Pakistan Railways as well as Pakistan International Airlines. The current nationalization programme remains intact to restructured and made profitable while remaining within government ownership. During the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, important companies such as Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), Philippine Airlines, Meralco and the Manila Hotel were nationalized. Other companies were sometimes absorbed into these government-owned corporations, as well as other companies, such as National Power Corporation (Napocor) and the Philippine National Railways, which in their own right are monopolies (exceptions are Meralco and the Manila Hotel). Today, these companies have been reprivatized and some, such as PLDT and Philippine Airlines, have been de-monopolized. Others, like government-owned and controlled corporation Napocor, are in the process of privatization. - 1946 Following World War II the government nationalized all enterprises with over 50 employees. - 1974 In the years following the Carnation Revolution, the Junta de Salvação Nacional and Provisional Governments nationalized all the banking, insurance, petrol and industrial companies. Among those companies were Companhia União Fabril (CUF), the assets of the Champalimaud family and SONAE. Along with the telecommunications companies, which were state-owned even before the Revolution, many of the nationalized companies were reprivatized in the 1980s and 1990s. In the agricultural sector, according to government estimates, about 900,000 hectares (2,200,000 acres) of agricultural land were occupied between April 1974 and December 1975 in the name of land reform; about 32% of the occupations were ruled illegal. In January 1976, the government pledged to restore the illegally occupied land to its owners, and in 1977, it promulgated the Land Reform Review Law. Restoration of illegally occupied land began in 1978. - 2008: BPN - Banco Português de Negócios bank nationalised to prevent its collapse. - 1948 With the Decree 119 of June 11, 1948, the new communist regime nationalised all private companies and their assets leading to the transformation of the economy from a market economy to a planned economy. - 1950 With the Decree 92 of April 19, 1950, a huge number of private houses and lands are confiscated. - 1998 The Yeltsin government began seizing Gazprom assets, claiming that the company owed back taxes. Privatization of Gazprom from the mid-1990s had been reduced to 38.37% with the intention of achieving full privatization. However, the stake of the Russian Government in Gazprom has since been increased to 50% with Vladimir Putin's plan to increase the stake to a controlling position. Gazprom is also buying up both Russian and other international utility companies. - 2013 The space industry is being renationalized. The government created a new corporation—United Rocket and Space Corporation—in August 2013 because of a string of recent rocket launch failures. According to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, "The failure-prone space sector is so troubled that it needs state supervision to overcome its problems." The October 2013 plan calls for re-nationalization of the space industry, with sweeping reforms including a new unified command structure and reducing redundant capabilities. - The government nationalized the oil producer company Aramco in 1980. - 1946 USAMGIK nationalized all railroad companies and made Department of Transportation. This now becomes Korail. - 1918 All manufacturing enterprises, many retailing enterprises, any private enterprises, the whole bank system, agrarian sector, others. Later the government of Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy that shifted the country somewhat towards market economics until the end of the revolutionary period and Stalin's acquisition of power. - 1941 Railways were nationalised, as RENFE, in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. - 1983 Nationalization without compensation of Rumasa. Separate business were later privatized. - 1958 The Government nationalised bus transport, creating the Ceylon Transport Board. Colombo Port was nationalised the same year. - 1961 The local subsidiaries of the foreign-owned petroleum companies Caltex, Esso and Shell had formed a cartel, to break which they were nationalised. The Insurance companies and the Bank of Ceylon were nationalised in the same year. - 1971 Graphite mines nationalised. - 1972 Locally owned Tea and Rubber plantations were nationalised under the Land Reform law. - 1975 Sterling plantation companies (owned by British plantation companies) were nationalised. - 2009 Seylan Bank nationalised to prevent its collapse. - 2011 The Expropriation Act was passed. The government will take over "underperforming or underutilized assets of 37 enterprises". - 1939-1948 Nationalisation of most of the private railway companies. - 1957 The mining company LKAB is nationalized. The state had owned 50% of the corporation's shares, with options to buy the remainder, since 1907. - 1992 A large part of the banking sector is nationalized. The Arusha Declaration was proclaimed in 1967 by President Julius Nyerere, which aimed to achieve self-reliance through nationalising key sectors of the economy such as banks, large industries and plantations were therefore nationalised. This failed, worsening Tanzania's economic problems until foreign aid and liberalisation took effect in the 1980s and 1990s. After the abolition of Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), foreign concessions were suppressed, rail transport, electric power generation and distribution, telephone network and other big industrial firms were nationalized by Turkish government between 1928 and 1940. - 1868 Nationalisation of inland telegraphs under the GPO - 1875 Suez Canal Company - The Egyptian share in the company was bought by the government. - 1912 Nationalisation of inland telephone services under the GPO, apart from Portsmouth, Hull, Guernsey, and Jersey. The Portsmouth telephone service was nationalised the following year. - 1916 Liquor Trade - The nationalisation of pubs and breweries in Carlisle, Gretna, Cromarty and Enfield under the State Management Scheme; mainly an attempt to restricting alcohol consumption by armaments factory workers. The scheme was privatised by asset transfer in 1973. - 1926 Central Electricity Board introduced under Electricity (Supply) Act 1926 established the National Grid and set up a national standard for electricity supply. - 1927 British Broadcasting Company (a privately owned company) became British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a public corporation operating under a Royal Charter. - 1933 London Transport - 1938 Nationalisation of UK Coal Royalties under the Coal Commission - 1939 British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), later British Airways (BA) - combining the private British Airways Ltd. and the state owned Imperial Airways - 1939 At the outset of World War II, much of British industry was subjected to State regulation or control, although not nationalised as such. - 1943 North of Scotland Hydro-Electricity Board - 1946 Coal industry under the National Coal Board (later British Coal); Bank of England - the latter had had private shareholders who were bought out by the state. - 1947 Central Electricity Generating Board and area electricity boards, Cable & Wireless Ltd - the latter had had private shareholders who were bought out by the state. - 1948 National rail, inland (not marine) water transport, some road haulage, some road passenger transport and Thomas Cook & Son under the British Transport Commission. Separate elements operated as British Railways, British Road Services, and British Waterways, also health services created (as England and Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland) taking over a mixture of previously local authority, private commercial and charitable organisations. - 1949 Local authority gas supply undertakings in England, Scotland and Wales - 1951 Iron and Steel Industry (denationalised by Churchill's following Conservative Government) - 1967 British Steel - 1969 National Bus Company, combining former interests of the British Transport Commission with others acquired from the British Electric Traction group. - 1969 Post Office Corporation created - 1971 Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd - The strategically important aero-engine part of the recently bankrupt Rolls Royce Limited. - 1973 Water Act 1973 nationalises local authority water supply undertakings in England and Wales - 1973 British Gas plc Corporation created, replacing regional gas boards. - 1974 British Petroleum - the combination of a 50% stake bought by Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty after World War I with around a 25% stake acquired by the Bank of England from Burmah Oil made the government directly or indirectly BP's majority shareholder, though commercial independence was maintained. The shares were all sold during the 1980s. - 1975 National Enterprise Board - a State holding company for full or partial ownership of industrial undertakings - 1976 British Leyland Motor Corporation - became British Leyland upon nationalization. Later became known simply as the holding company "BL Ltd", it was later reorganised into several standalone businesses - the best known being Austin Rover, Leyland Trucks, Freight Rover, Land Rover and Jaguar. - 1977 British Aerospace - combining the major aircraft companies British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley and others. British Shipbuilders - combining the major shipbuilding companies including Cammell Laird, Govan Shipbuilders, Swan Hunter, Yarrow Shipbuilders - 1981 British Telecom (later styled as BT) created, taking control of telecommunications services from the General Post Office (GPO) - 1984 Johnson Matthey - purchased for a nominal sum of £1 by the Thatcher government - 1997 Docklands Light Railway - John Prescott announced to the 1997 Labour Party Conference that he had nationalised this, although it was already in public hands anyway. - 2001 Railtrack - The owner and operator of the railway infrastructure, Railtrack, was not nationalised as such. However, its replacement Network Rail, whilst not a state-owned company, has no shareholders (company limited by guarantee) and is underwritten by the state. Prior to this the government began to make use of a residual shareholding of 0.2% (including voting rights) in Railtrack Group Plc left over from the original sale. - 2008 Northern Rock - announced by Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17 February 2008 as 'a temporary measure'. The bank will be run at 'arm's length' as a commercial business and sold to a private buyer in the future. - 2008 Bradford & Bingley (mortgage book only) - announced by Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer on 29 September 2008. The loans part of the company was nationalised, while the commercial bank was sold. - 2008 In October, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the newly merged HBOS-Lloyds TSB was partly nationalised. The Government took approximately 60% of RBS (later increased to 70%, then 80%) and 40% of HBOS-Lloyds TSB as part of the £500bn bank rescue package. The Lloyds Bank and TSB businesses were operationally demerged in 2013 in preparation for a full demerger and reprivatisation. - 2009 On 13 November, Directly Operated Railways, a government company, took over the East Coast Main Line railway franchise that National Express had bought in 2007 for £1.4 billion, a sum originally to be paid over seven years. The nationalised service operates as East Coast and includes services from London to York and Edinburgh. It has been stated by the government that their control is a temporary measure, initially to last two years. - 2013 In December it was acknowledged that Network Rail would be reclassified as a "public sector body" in 2014 with its financial liabilities now formally included as part of the national debt. Much debate continues however, whether this still constitutes "nationalisation" in a broader context. Nationalization was a key feature of the first post World War II Labour government, from 1945 to 1951 under Clement Attlee. The coal and steel industries were just two of many industries or services to be nationalised, while the formation of the National Health Service in 1948 entitled everyone to free healthcare. The subsequent Conservative governments led by Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath allowed practically all of the nationalized industries and services to remain in public ownership, as did subsequent Labour prime ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. However, the election victory of Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives in 1979 saw the vast majority of nationalized industries, services and utilities privatized within a decade. The Labour Party in opposition, led by Michael Foot and later Neil Kinnock, initially opposed privatization, but the party's commitment to nationalization had been abandoned by the time it swept back into government with a landslide in the 1997 election under Tony Blair. However, in February 2008, Blair's successor Gordon Brown nationalized the failing Northern Rock bank in the first stages of the credit crunch, which sparked a severe recession. The much larger Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland were part nationalized for the same reason in October of that year. After nearly four years in public ownership, Northern Rock was sold to Virgin Money and Royal Bank of Scotland agreed a branch sale to the Santander Group in November 2011. However, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds remain in public ownership five years later and in November 2012 the Public Accounts Committee warned that it could be many years before the banks are sold and the £66 billion so far invested in these banks may never be recovered. British assets nationalised by other countries - 1940s Argentine railways - 1953 British Petroleum's Iranian assets (actually a nationalisation of part of a part-nationalised company) - 1956 The Egyptian Government nationalised the Suez Canal, owned by the Suez Canal Company which was part owned by the British government. - 1962 The Sri Lanka Government nationalised the assets of the partly British-owned Royal Dutch Shell company. - 1975 The Sri Lanka Government nationalised the assets of the British-owned plantation companies. - 1917: All U.S. railroads were nationalized as the Railroad Administration during World War I as a wartime measure. The United States Railroad Administration was returned to private ownership in 1920. - 1939: Organization of the Tennessee Valley Authority entailed the nationalization of the Tennessee Electric Power Company. - 1971: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) is a government-owned corporation created in 1971 for the express purpose of relieving American railroads of their legal obligation to provide inter-city passenger rail service. The (primarily) freight railroads had petitioned to abandon passenger service repeatedly in the decades leading up to Amtrak's formation. - 1976: The Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) was created to take over the operations of six bankrupt rail lines operating primarily in the Northeast; Conrail was privatized in 1987. Initial plans for Conrail would have made it a truly nationalized system like that during World War I, but an alternate proposal by the Association of American Railroads won out. - 1980s: Resolution Trust Corporation seized control of hundreds of failed Savings & Loans. - 2001: In response to the September 11 attacks, the airport security industry was nationalized and put under the authority of the Transportation Security Administration. - 2008: Some economists consider the government's takeover of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and Federal National Mortgage Association to have been nationalization (or renationalization). The conservatorship model used with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is looser and more temporary than nationalization. - 2009: Some economists consider the government's actions through the Troubled Asset Relief Program with regards to Citigroup to have been a partial nationalization. Proposal was made that banks like Citigroup be brought under a conservatorship model similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that some of their "good assets" be dropped into newly created "good bank" subsidiaries (presumably under new management), and the remaining "bad assets" be left to be managed under the supervision of a conservatorship structure. The government's actions with regard to General Motors in replacing the CEO with a government-approved CEO is likewise being considered as nationalization. On June 1, 2009, General Motors filed for bankruptcy, with the government investing up to $50 billion and taking 60% ownership in the company. President Obama stated that the nationalization was temporary, saying, "We are acting as reluctant shareholders because that is the only way to help GM succeed" - 2007 On May 1, 2007, the government stripped the world's biggest oil companies of operational control over massive Orinoco Belt crude projects, a controversial component in President Hugo Chávez's nationalization drive. - 2008 On April 3, 2008, Chávez ordered the nationalization of the cement industry. - 2008 On April 9, 2008, Chávez ordered the nationalization of Venezuelan steel mill Sidor, in which Luxembourg-based Ternium currently holds a 60% stake. Sidor employees and the Government hold a 20% stake respectively. - 2008 On August 19, 2008, Chávez ordered the take-over of a cement plant owned and operated by Cemex, an international cement producer. While shares of Cemex fell on the New York Stock Exchange, the cement plant comprises only about 5% of the company's business, and is not expected to adversely affect the company's ability to produce in other markets. Chávez has been looking to nationalize the concrete and steel industries of his country to meet home building and infrastructure goals. - 2009 On February 28, 2009, Chávez ordered the army to take over all rice processing and packaging plants. - 2010 On January 20, 2010, Chávez signed an ordinance to nationalize six supermarkets under the system of retail stores of a French company because of increasing price and speculation hoarding illicit. - 2010 On June 24, 2010, Venezuela announced the intention to nationalize oil drilling rigs belonging to the U.S. company Helmerich & Payne. - 2010 On October 25, 2010, Chávez announced that the government was nationalizing two U.S.-owned Owens-Illinois glass-manufacturing plants. - 2010 On October 31, 2010, Chávez said his government will take over the Sidetur steel manufacturing plant. Sidetur is owned by Vivencia, which had two mineral plants appropriated by the government in 2008. - According to the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1980, land ownership of farmers disappeared, the State owned land across the country and people have the right to temporary use of land, as a slow result of the Land reform in North Vietnam from 1953 to 1956. - After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, the government nationalized nearly all the property of the "landlords" and "comprador" in South Vietnam, property of the church and of the government of South Vietnam. All private enterprise was nationalized without compensation down to the street vendors, however "shadow companies" continued to operate. - Zimbabwe has nationalized its food distribution infrastructure. - Nationalization of the oil industry in numerous countries, including Libya, Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. - Compulsory purchase - Constitutional economics - Eminent domain - Government agency - Government-owned corporation - Planned economy - Privatization - the reverse process - Public ownership - Railway nationalization - State capitalism - State sector - Socialization (economics) - the process of making cooperative in management or ownership - The Economics of Feasible Socialism Revisited, by Nove, Alexander. 1991. (P.176): "The original notion was that nationalization would achieve three objectives. One was to dispossess the big capitalists. The second was to divert the profits from private appropriation to the public purse. Thirdly, the nationalized sector would serve the public good rather than try to make private profits...To these objectives some (but not all) would add some sort of workers' control, the accountability of management to employees." - Chrisafis, Angelique (December 14, 2011). "Renault descendants demand payout for state confiscation". The Guardian (London). - The Constitutional Centre of Western Australia | The Role of The High Court - "Bolivia announces nationalization of electrical grid". The Washington Post. 1 May 2012. Retrieved 1 May 2012.[dead link] - Thomas, Hugh (March 1971). Cuba; the Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 224, p252. ISBN 0-06-014259-6. - Myers (1949) - PSU banks' policies saved India from financial blushes: Chidambaram - The importance of public banking - Eircom and State in broadband swap? - Government nationalises 'fragile' Anglo Irish Bank - Anglo Irish Bank's €700m Quinn plan - The Expropriation of the Petroleum Industry of Mexico in 1938 - Marois, Thomas (2008). "The 1982 Mexican Bank Statization and Unintended Consequences for the Emergence of Neoliberalism". Canadian Journal of Political Science 41 (1): 143–167. doi:10.1017/s0008423908080128. - US Country Studies. "Zulfikar Ali Bhutto" (PHP). Retrieved 2006-11-07. - Syed Fazl-e-Haider (May 3, 2012). "The state-owned Pakistan Steel Mills". Asia Times. Retrieved 31 May 2012. - Iftikhar Firdous (December 15, 2011). "Railways, Steel Mills taken off the chopping block". The Tribune Express, Iftikhar Firdous. Retrieved 31 May 2012. "In a major blow to the economic liberals in government, the federal cabinet decided against the privatisation of eight of the largest state-owned companies, including Pakistan Steel Mills" - "Portugal". Country Studies (U.S. Library of Congress). "In the mid-1980s, agricultural productivity was half that of the levels in Greece and Spain and a quarter of the EC average. The land tenure system was polarized between two extremes: small and fragmented family farms in the north and large collective farms in the south that proved incapable of modernizing. The decollectivization of agriculture, which began in modest form in the late 1970s and accelerated in the late 1980s, promised to increase the efficiency of human and land resources in the south during the 1990s." - "Portugal Agriculture". The Encyclopedia of the Nations - Messier, Doug (2013-08-30). "Rogozin: Russia to Consolidate Space Sector into Open Joint Stock Company". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 2013-08-31. - Messier, Doug (2013-10-09). "Rogozin Outlines Plans for Consolidating Russia’s Space Industry". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 2013-10-11. - Lanka risks losing image, investment - A Historic Journey Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag, April 2006 - Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way - "BBC: Tanzania profile". BBC. 17 October 2012. Retrieved 31 January 2013. - "Mustafa Kemal Atatürk". guide-martine.com. 17 October 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2014. - Schifferes, Steve (February 18, 2008). "The lessons of nationalisation". BBC News. Retrieved May 20, 2010. - SN 1825 -Nationalisation of the UK Coal Royalties, 1938 : Compensation Payments - Robert A. Brady (1950). Crisis in Britain. Plans and Achievements of the Labour Government. University of California Press., detailed coverage of nationalisation programs 1945-50 - "What was the last nationalisation?", BBC News, 18 February 2008 - House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 12 February 2002 (pt 16) - "Northern Rock to be nationalised". BBC News. February 17, 2008. Retrieved May 20, 2010. - "HIGHLIGHTS-Britain nationalises Bradford & Bingley". Reuters. September 29, 2008. - "Network Rail to become public sector body in 2014". Railnews. Retrieved 17 December 2013. - Schifferes, Steve (February 18, 2008). "The lessons of nationalisation". BBC News. - "Northern Rock to be nationalised". BBC News. February 17, 2008. - "MPs: Sale of RBS or Lloyds 'not for years'". BBC News. November 16, 2012. - US rescue of Fannie, Freddie poses taxpayer risks - Diamond and Kashyap on the Recent Financial Upheavals - Baxter, Lawrence; Brown, Bill; Cox, Jim (February 27, 2009). "Finally, A Bridge to Somewhere". Huffington Post. - Nature of Citi stake debatable - Am I the Last Capitalist? Obama Falters on Rick Wagoner, GM, and the Auto Industry - Mary Kate Cary (usnews.com) - "If, in fact, Wagoner resigned because somebody in government said, 'You have to resign,' then I think we have nationalized the auto industry, at least GM, and I think that's bad to have the government have a socialized car industry," -Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) - The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/01/AR2009060101480.html |url=missing title (help).[dead link] - Al Jazeera English - Americas - Chavez nationalises cement industry - "Venezuela to nationalize steelmaker Sidor: union". Reuters. April 9, 2008. - "Venezuela Seizes Cemex - Forbes.com".[dead link] - "Chavez sends army to rice plants". BBC News. March 1, 2009. Retrieved May 20, 2010. - Venezuela quốc hữu hóa 6 siêu thị ngoại quốc (Vietnamese) - Frank Jack Daniel (June 24, 2010). "Venezuela to nationalize U.S. firm's oil rigs". Reuters. - the CNN Wire Staff (November 2, 2010). "Venezuela nationalizes private steel plant". CNN.com. - Development of Propert Law in Cambodia, Vietnam and China - Ownership regimes in Vietnam On banks nationalization - Dougherty, Carter, Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way, The New York Times," September 23, 2008. - Hilferding, Rudolf (1981) Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), p. 234. ISBN 0-7100-0618-7, ISBN 978-0-7100-0618-9 - La Porta, Rafael, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, Andrei Shleifer, Government Ownership of Banks, The Journal of Finance, vol. 57, No. 1 (February 2002), 265-301. - La Botz, Dan (2008) The Financial Crisis: Will the U.S. Nationalize the Banks? Monthly Review 28 September 2008 - Maxfield, Sylvia, The International Political Economy of Bank Nationalization: Mexico in Comparative Perspective, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 27, No. 1 (1992), pp. 75–103. - Myers, Margaret G., The Nationalization of Banks in France, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2 (June 1949), pp. 189–210. - Political / Nationalization risk resources directory [www.ipoliticalrisk.com] |Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nationalism.| |Look up nationalization in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.| - The importance of public banking - article on Indian public sector banks - Time for Permanent Nationalization by economist Fred Moseley in Dollars & Sense magazine, January/February 2009 - The Corporate Governance of Banks - a concise discussion of concepts and evidence - Albert Emil Davies (1922). "Nationalization". Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.).

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The genus Pulsatilla contains about 33 species of herbaceous perennials native to meadows and prairies of North America, Europe, and Asia. Common names include pasque flower (or pasqueflower), wind flower, prairie crocus, Easter Flower, and meadow anemone. Several species are valued ornamentals because of their finely-dissected leaves, solitary bell-shaped flowers, and plumed seed heads. The showy part of the flower consists of sepals, not petals. Pulsatilla patens is the provincial flower of Manitoba, Canada and (as P. hirsutissima) is the state flower of South Dakota, United States. Pulsatilla vulgaris is the County flower for both Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire in England. Pulsatilla vernalis is the county flower of Oppland, Norway. Use and toxicity Pulsatilla is highly toxic, and produces cardiogenic toxins and oxytoxins which slow the heart in humans. Excess use can lead to diarrhoea, vomiting and convulsions, hypotension and coma. It has been used as a medicine by Native Americans for centuries. Blackfoot Indians used it to induce abortions and childbirth. Pulsatilla should not be taken during pregnancy nor during lactation. Extracts of Pulsatilla have been used to treat reproductive problems such as premenstrual syndrome and epididymitis. Additional applications of plant extracts include uses as a sedative and for treating coughs. It is also used as an initial ingredient in homeopathic remedies. There are about 33 species, including: |Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pulsatilla.| - Hoot, S. B., J. D. Palmer, and A. A. Reznicek. 1994. Phylogenetic relationships in Anemone based on morphology and chloroplast DNA variation. Systematic Botany 19: 169-200. - Government of Manitoba. "Symbols of Manitoba". Archived from the original on 2005-12-10. Retrieved 2011-04-10. - [http://www.sdsos.gov/adminservices/bluebookpdfs/2005bluebook/2005_blue_book_chapter_1.pdf Chapter 1 2005 South Dakota Legislative Manual The Mount Rushmore State - Plantlife website County Flowers page - Edible and Medicinal plants of the West, Gregory L. Tilford, ISBN 0-87842-359-1 - Yarnell, E. and Abascal, K. (2001) Botanical Treatments for Depression: Part 2 - Herbal Corrections for Mood Imbalances - Vaughan, John Griffith; Patricia Ann Judd; David Bellamy (2003). The Oxford Book of Health Foods. Oxford University Press. p. 127. ISBN 0-19-850459-4. - "Pulsatilla". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. - Anemone pulsatilla, Wildflowers index, Department of Horticultural Science of NC State University - Gregory L. Tilford 1997. Edible and Medicinal plants of the West, Mountain Press Publishing ISBN 0-87842-359-1 preview - - "Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) Local species action plan for Cambridgeshire, 1999" - Image of Pulsatilla cernua (Thunb.) Spreng.- Flavon's art gallery

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The Sea Dogs were English pirates at the time of Elizabeth I of England and were also known as Elizabethan Pirates. They were active from 1560 to 1605 and had permission by Queen Elizabeth I to deal in acts of piracy and to attack the Spanish, as they commonly did, despite at times when they were not at war with them. They were able to do this because of the permission and because of the official document named Letters of Marque In the 1560s, John Hawkins was an important figure in the Sea Dogs and mainly engaged in attacks on Spanish shipping in the Caribbean. The Sea Dogs would also engage in slave trade from Africa. Sir John Hawkins was known as the pioneer of the British Slave trade because he was the first to complete the triangular trade, making a profit at each end. He was not the first to bring slaves back to England from Africa. Sir Francis Drake was also a member of the Sea Dogs and engaged in the raiding of Spanish shipping as far as modern day San Francisco on the Pacific coast. On his most famous voyage he sailed into the Pacific Ocean to raid unguarded Spanish shipping on the Pacific coast. On his return to England completed the second circumnavigation of the globe. After 1604, when peace was made with Spain, many Sea Dogs continued their piratical activities by finding employment in the Barbary States, giving rise to Anglo-Turkish piracy, to the embarrassment of the English Crown. - English/British naval history to 1815: a guide to the literature Eugene L. Rasor p.247 - Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605 Angus Konstam, Angus McBride - United States history to 1877 Nelson Klose, Robert F. Jones p.17 - Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605 Angus Konstam, Angus McBride p.3 - Sick economies: drama, mercantilism, and disease in Shakespeare's England Jonathan Gil Harris p.152ff - Mimesis and Empire: The New World, Islam, and European Identities Barbara Fuchs p.121 |This article related to water transport is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.| |This article related to the history of England is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|

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Shorapani (Georgian: შორაპანი) is a small Georgian town, situated in the Zestafoni District, part of the region of Imereti. Founded in the 3rd century BC, it served as a residence of the eristavi (dukes) of Argveti (also known as the Duchy of Shorapani) in the Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Near the town are the ruins of a fortress, mentioned as Sarapana by Strabo and Sarapanis by Procopius as a strong position on the road that led from Colchis to Iberia. Detail from a map of Rigobert Bonne , published in Geneve in 1780. The detail shows Shorapani (Serapana), Georgia Shorapani (Sarapanis) is the toponymy, that is mentioned in old Greek mythology. That was Sarapanis that Jason and his Argonaut friends approached during their travel in old Colchis (Kolkhida). Coordinates: 42°06′N 43°07′E / 42.100°N 43.117°E

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|This article does not cite any references or sources. (January 2007)| A Thermo-Hygrograph is a chart recorder that measures and records both temperature and humidity (or dew point). Similar devices that record only one parameter are a thermograph for temperature and hygrograph for humidity. Uses a bi-metallic strip for temperature and one human hair bundle for humidity. Includes one red and blue felt–tipped pen to record the reading. A thermograph is usually configured with a pen that records temperature on a revolving cylinder. The pen is at the end of a lever that is controlled by a bi-metal strip of temperature-sensitive metal which bends as the temperature changes. |This climatology/meteorology–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|

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Traditional ecological knowledge Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) describes aboriginal, indigenous, or other forms of traditional knowledges regarding sustainability of local resources. TEK refers to "a cumulative body of knowledge, belief, and practice, evolving by accumulation of TEK and handed down through generations through traditional songs, stories and beliefs. [It concerns] the relationship of living beings (including human) with their traditional groups and with their environment." TEK is commonly used in natural resource management as a substitute for baseline environmental data to measure changes over time in remote regions that have little recorded scientific data. The use of TEK in management and science is controversial since methods of acquiring and accumulating TEK, although often including forms of empirical research and experimentation, differ from those used to create and validate Western scientific ecological knowledge (SEK). There is a debate whether holders of TEK (i.e., Indigenous populations) retain an intellectual property right over traditional knowledge and whether use of this knowledge requires prior permission and license. This is especially complicated because TEK is most frequently preserved as oral tradition and as such may lack objectively confirmed documentation. Ironically, those same methods that might resolve the issue of documentation compromise the very nature of traditional knowledge. TEK is often used to sustain local populations and maintain resources necessary for survival. However, it can be weakened or invalidated in the context of rapid climate change, environmental impact, or other situations in which significant alterations of ecosystems render TEK weak or obsolete. TEK can also be referred to as "traditional environmental knowledge" which emphasizes the different components and interactions of the environment. More specifically it contains the knowledge of species of both animals and plants, and biophysical characteristics of the environment through space and time. However Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Traditional Environmental Knowledge can be used interchangeably due to the nature of both terms being synonymous where both emphasize the cultural relations with the environment and non-human relations with animals. - 1 Faces of traditional ecological knowledge - 2 Ecosystem management theory - 3 Case study: Gwaii Haanas - 4 Kaitiakitanga - 5 See also - 6 References - 7 External links Faces of traditional ecological knowledge The faces of TEK provide different typologies in how it is utilized and understood. These typologies are good indicators in how TEK is used from different perspectives and how they are interconnected, providing more emphasis on "cooperative management to better identify areas of difference and convergence when attempting to bring two ways of thinking and knowing together." The first face of TEK incorporates the factual, specific observations generated by recognition, naming, and classification of discrete components of the environment. This aspect of TEK is about understanding the interrelationship with species and their surrounding environment. It is also a set of both empirical observations and information emphasizing the aspects of animals and their behavior, and habitat, and the physical characteristics of species, and animal abundance. Therefore this type of "empirical knowledge consists of a set of generalized observations conducted over a long period of time and reinforced by accounts of other TEK holders." The second face refers to the ethical and sustainable use of resources in regards to management systems. This is achieved through strategic planning to ensure resource conservation. More specifically this face involves dealing with pest management, resource conversion, multiple cropping patterns, and methods for estimating the state of resources. Past and current uses The third face refers to time dimension aspect of traditional ecological knowledge, focusing on the past and current uses of the environment transmitted through oral history. Oral history is also used to transmit cultural heritage through generation to generation to maintain the sense of family and community. Ethics and values The fourth face refers to value statements and connections between the belief system and the organization of facts. In regards to TEK it refers to environmental ethics that keeps exploitative abilities in check. This face also refers to the expression of values concerning the relationship with the habitats of species and their surrounding environment - the human-relationship environment. Culture and identity The fifth face refers to the role of language and images of the past giving life to culture. The relationship between Aboriginals (original inhabitants) and their environment are vital to sustaining the cultural components that define them. This face reflects the stories, values, and social relations that reside in places as contributing to the survival, reproduction, and evolution of aboriginal cultures, and identities. It also stresses "the restorative benefits of cultural landscapes as places for renewal" This last face of TEK is a culturally based cosmology that is the foundation of the other faces stated. The combination of these faces relates to the assumptions and beliefs about how things work, and explains the way in which things are connected, and gives principles that regulate human-animal relations and the role of humans in the world. From an anthropological perspective, cosmology attempts to understand the human-animal relationship and how these directly influence social relationships, obligations toward community members, and management practices. Ecosystem management theory Ecosystem management is a multifaceted and holistic approach to natural resource management. It incorporates both science and traditional ecological knowledge to collect data from long term measures that science cannot. This is achieved by scientists and researchers collaborating with Indigenous peoples through a consensus decision-making process while meeting the socioeconomic, political and cultural needs of current and future generations. Case study: Gwaii Haanas The case study on Gwaii Haanas serves as an excellent example of the use of TEK and science together to foster natural resource management. In agreement with the Haida Nation, the Canadian Government designated Gwaii Haanas as a National Park Reserve to govern its cultural heritage and ecological importance. This process is achieved through cooperative management that engage in solutions to implement strategies to managing the terrestrial and marine areas. This cooperative management tactic established the Archipelago Management Board (AMB) in which they will manage the uses and resources of Gwaii Haanas. The long-established Māori system of environmental management is holistic. It is a system that ensures harmony within the environment, providing a process of, as well as preventing intrusions that cause permanent imbalances and guards against environment damage. Kaitiakitanga is a concept that has "roots deeply embedded in the complex code of tikanga”. Kaitiakitanga is a broad notion which includes the following ideas: guardianship, care, wise management. However, while kaitiakitanga is a proactive and preventative approach to environmental management, this traditional management system has not always had an opportunity to address large scale environmental degradation. - Berkes, F. (2000). - Freeman, M.M.R. 1992. The nature and utility of traditional ecological knowledge. Northern Perspectives, 20(1):9-12 - McGregor, D. (2004). Coming full circle: indigenous knowledge, environment, and our future. American Indian Quarterly, 28(3 & 4), 385-410 - Becker, C. D., Ghimire, K. (2003). Synergy between traditional ecological knowledge and conservation science supports forest preservation in Ecuador. Conservation Ecology, 8(1): 1 - Simeone, T. (2004). Indigenous traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights. Library of Parliament: PRB 03-38E. Parliamentary Research Branch Political and Social Affairs Division. - AAAS - Science and Human Rights Program. 2008. 10 February 2009 <http://shr.aaas.org/tek/connection.htm>. - Houde, N. (2007) Ecology & Society. - Usher,P.J. 2000. Traditional Ecological Knowledge in environmental assessment and management - Berkes 1988, Gunn et all. 1988 - Usher 2000 - Houde 2007 - Lewis and Sheppard 2005 - Marsden, M., & Henare, T. A. (1992). Kaitiakitanga: A definitive introduction to the holistic world view of the Maori: Unpublished manuscript. - Hernández-Morcillo, Mónica, et al. (2014). "Traditional ecological knowledge in Europe: Status quo and insights for the environmental policy agenda," Environment 56 (1): 3-17. - Indigenous Peoples' Restoration Network (IPRN) - Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site - Table of the Six Faces of TEK

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Family: Drosophilidae, Pomace Flies view all from this family Description A slender fly. Adult males bright golden-yellow, covered with dense upright hair, orange-yellow hair on front legs. Females duller in color with shorter hair with pronounced green-brown tinges, and lack bright coloured fur on the fore legs. Long, hair-covered; eyes red; wings yellowish brown in front, clear behind. Dimensions Adult preys on flies and other adult insects. Larva feeds on other insect larvae in dung. Food Adult preys on flies and other adult insects. Larva feeds on other insect larvae in dung. Life Cycle Females lay their eggs on manure. The eggs hatch into predatory larvae and feed on other insect larvae within the dung. After 21 days or more of feeding, dependent on conditions, the larvae burrow into the soil around and beneath the dung and then develop into pupae, before developing into adult flies. Up to four or five generations per season. Habitat Locations with manure present such as Barnyards and pastures. Range Introduced. Found throughout the United States and southern Canada. Discussion One of the most familiar and abundant of flies in many parts of the northern hemisphere. It is a very variable in appearance, which research is hinting may be driven in part by climate variations. European colonists inadvertently brought the dungfly to the New World with their livestock.

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The mistake here is neither morphological nor neologistic; it is lexical. Morphology denotes the changes of form of which a word is grammar required to undergo in order to make it agree with a specific context. Me for I when the word is used as indirect object is a morphological change; if the translator had written Hand I the pincers the error would be morphological. Neologism is, literally, the process of building or inventing new words, but it is more often used to designate a word so invented. Sometimes the term is used in a neutral sense to describe the historic origin of a word: “Oxygen is a neologism created in 1777 by the French chemist Lavoisier from Greek oxys and French gène, itself derived from a Greek word." More often the term is used in a deprecating sense: “This term [electrocution], descriptive of the method of Inflicting the death penalty on convicted criminals in some of the states, is a vulgar neologism of hybrid origin, which should be discountenanced.” The translator has not invented a new word — both pincers and pliers have been around for a long time. What the translator has done, you tell us, is simply chosen the wrong word from the English vocabulary or lexicon.

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Some skilled equipment operators have a sixth sense that allows them to focus on the task at hand while maintaining awareness of the bustling, often unpredictable activity going on around them. Unfortunately, no operator has yet developed X-ray vision that allows a viewpoint through engine cowlings, cab framing and other obstructions. Such blind spots have contributed to hundreds of deaths at roadbuilding sites over the past 15 years, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Fatalities involving a ground worker being struck by a vehicle or equipment account for 73% of transportation-related work zone incidents, with half occurring when a construction vehicle was backing up. Technology and training are not the only solutions to this problem, experts say. Relying on the operator's attentiveness and back-up alarms is not sufficient to prevent these injuries. “With noise coming from all directions, workers may not know where the alarm is coming from—assuming they can hear it at all,” says Michael McCann, former director of safety research for the Center for Construction Research and Training. He adds that employing spotters to alert drivers of the dangers can improve safety, “but they become at risk of being hit by another machine.” Over the past decade, NIOSH has studied the problem and developed new diagrams that depict the area around a vehicle that an operator cannot see. These maps have been developed for more than 40 pieces of heavy equipment using an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) test method. “The unique component of what we did is the development of blind area diagrams at three different elevations,” says David Fosbroke, a statistician for NIOSH's Division of Safety Research in Morgantown, W.Va. Along with the ISO standard ground-level map, NIOSH added diagrams at 900 mm, the height of most construction barrels, and 1500 mm, which is the shoulder level of the 95th percentile female. The tallest level “represents the height at which enough of a person's head is visible to be recognized by an operator,” Fosbroke says. Though blind areas tend to increase in step with machine size, Fosbroke says some blind spots are machine-specific. Smaller machines, like skid-steer loaders, tend to have poor visibility. Larger shuttle buggies have an especially large blind area forward and opposite the operator seat. Other factors include the size and shape of vehicle components and attachments, the position of the operator's station and the focus of the operator's attention. As such, a blind area may vary depending on where the operator is positioned when running the machine. For example, compactors typically have very good visibility. However, when the operator is working an edge of the road below, “the entire area behind him or her becomes a functional blind area,” Fosbroke says.

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Pholas dactylus is a boring bivalve, approximately elliptical in outline with a beaked anterior end, up to 12 cm long. The shell is thin and brittle with a sculpture of concentric ridges and radiating lines. The shell is dull white or grey in colour, the periostracum yellowish and often discoloured. The siphons are joined and at least one to two times the length of the shell, white to light ivory in colour. Pholas dactylus has phosphorescent properties, the outlines of the animal glowing with a green-blue light in the dark. - The shell is often thicker in older individuals, up to 2 mm thick in 12 cm specimens (E. Pinn pers. comm.). - Although thin and brittle the shell of Pholas dactylus has a cross-lamellar design which efficiently deflects cracks away from the bulk of the shell which gives it the strength to burrow through soft rocks. No one has provided updates yet.

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These corals commonly have tentacles in multiples of three, which is characteristic of all corals belonging to the subclass Zoantharia, also known as Hexacorallia (Encarta 1997). At night, the tiny fingerlike tentacles of the corals emerge. They pump themselves up with water and pop out like tiny stars all over a coral reef (Sargent 1991). The staghorn coral, -Acropora cervicornis-, grows into "antler-like branches" so the polyps are raised above the sand (McGregor 1974). Staghorn corals have nematocysts, which are stinging cells that are located on their tentacles. These stinging cells are necessary for a coral to obtain food (Sisson 1973).

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The grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) occurs in temperate and subarctic waters on both sides of the North Atlantic ocean resulting in three distinct populations. The western Atlantic population is found in the Canadian maritime provinces located from Cape Chidley on the Labrador coast to Nova Scotia. Grey seals located on the southwestern coasts of Iceland, on the Faeroe Islands and the British Isles comprise the eastern Atlantic population. In addition, the eastern Atlantic population extends further onto the coasts of Norway, northwestern Russia, and even French, Dutch, Gernman and Portugal coasts. The third population is found in the Baltic Sea. Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native ); palearctic (Native ); atlantic ocean (Native ) No one has provided updates yet.

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Srinath, M and Pillai, V N and Vivekanandan, E and Kurup, K N (2003) Demersal Fish Assemblages of the Southwest Coast of India. Assessment, Management and Future Directions for Coastal Fisheries in Asian Countries (1705). pp. 163-186. Demersal surveys from the southwest coast of India were analyzed to determine the general pattern of distribution of demersal species assemblages in the area. Season¬ality is pronounced, indicating three major periods, pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon. Each of the periods is characterized by different oceanographic circulation patterns that mainly determine the pattern of distribution of species assemblages. Spatial analysis confirmed that the Wadge Bank has the highest po¬tential for producing good quality fish. Region-wise analysis of data indicated that maximum effort and highest landings are from the known grounds along the south¬west coast, although certain northern areas were also found to be fairly productive |Uncontrolled Keywords:||Demersal Fish Assemblage; Southwest Coast of India; Demersal Fish| |Divisions:||CMFRI-Cochin > Marine Capture > Demersal Fisheries| |Deposited By:||Arun Surendran| |Deposited On:||23 May 2011 13:55| |Last Modified:||23 May 2011 13:55| Repository Staff Only: item control page

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Devi, CD Surma and Nagaraj, M and Nath, G (1986) Axial heat conduction effects in natural convection along a vertical cylinder. In: International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 29 (4). pp. 654-656. http___www.sciencedirect.com_science__ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6V3H-4829K3Y-133-1&_cdi=5731&_user=512776&_orig=search&_coverDate=04_30_1986&_sk=999709995&view=c&wchp=dGLbVzW-zSkWA&md5=3540a5b3a5d354a.pdf - Published Version Restricted to Registered users only Download (265Kb) | Request a copy MANY TRANSPORprTo cesses occur in nature and in industrial applications in which the transfer of heat is governed by the process of natural convection. Natural convection arises in fluids when the temperature changes cause density variations leading to buoyancy forces. An excellent review of natural convection flows has been given by Ede [I]. Recently, Minkowycz and Sparrow [2, 31, Cebeci , and Aziz and Na [S] have studied the steady, laminar, incompressible, natural convection flow over a vertical cylinder using a local nonsimilarity method, a finite-difference scheme, and an improved perturbation method, respectively. However, they did not take into account the effect ofaxial heat conduction for small Prandtl number. It is known that the axial heat conductioneffect becomesimportant for low-Prandtl-number fluids such as a liquid metal. |Item Type:||Journal Article| |Additional Information:||Copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier Science.| |Department/Centre:||Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Mathematics| |Date Deposited:||11 Aug 2009 09:42| |Last Modified:||19 Sep 2010 05:40| Actions (login required)

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Structural and Financial Characteristics of U.S. Farms, 1993: 18th Annual Family Farm Report to Congress by Robert Hoppe , Robert Green, David Banker, Judith Kalbacher, and Susan E. Bentley Agriculture Information Bulletin No. (AIB-728) 112 pp, January 1997 In 1993, the 2.1 million farms in the contiguous United States operated an average of 436 acres and produced an average of $73,700 in agricultural products, as measured by gross sales. Characteristics of individual farms--including their level of production--varied widely, however. Most production occurred on relatively few commercial farms. Commercial farms (sales of $50,000 or more) were only 27 percent of U.S. farms, but accounted for about 90 percent of sales. Households with noncommercial farms (sales less than $50,000) relied on off-farm sources for virtually all of their income. U.S. farms are diverse, and variation within the industry is hidden by U.S. averages. Keywords: farm finances, farm structure, commercial farms, family farms In this publication... - Frontmatter (contents, summary), 15 kb - Introduction, 12 kb - Structural Characteristics of Farm Operations, 111 kb - Farmland Ownership and Use, 9 kb - Land Removed from Production, 14 kb - Farm Finances, 41 kb - Characteristics of Farm Operators, 35 kb - Farm Operator Household Dependence on Farming, 66 kb - Farm Operators and Their Communities, 31 kb - Discussions and Implications, 17 kb - References, 20 kb - Appendix A: Definitions of Terms, 23 kb - Appendix B: The Farm Costs and Returns Survey, 13 kb Need help with PDFs? Appendix Tables (HTML file of how to get these in WP format)

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Commission proposes strategy to protect Europe's soils European Commission - IP/06/1241 22/09/2006 Brussels, 22 September 2006 The European Commission today proposed a strategy to ensure that Europe’s soils remain healthy and capable of supporting human activities and ecosystems. Good quality soil is essential to our economic activities as it provides us with food, drinking water, biomass and raw materials – and all our human activities are somehow related to soil. But soil degradation is accelerating across the EU, with negative effects on human health, ecosystems and climate change – and on our economic prosperity and quality of life. To reverse this trend, the Commission’s strategy sets a common EU framework for action to preserve, protect and restore soil, but leaves Member States flexibility to implement it in a way which fits local situations best. Member States must take action to tackle threats such as landslides, contamination, soil erosion, the loss of soil organic matter, compaction, salinisation and sealing wherever they occur, or threaten to occur, on their national territories. The Soils Strategy is the last of the seven Thematic Strategies that the Commission is presenting, in accordance with the 6th Environmental Action Programme. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: “Soil is a prime example of the need to think global and act local. That is why we propose a common framework at EU level which will set a level playing field and aim at the same level of protection of soils throughout the EU, while leaving member states room to take into account national situations in their implementation. We want to ensure that citizens today and in the future benefit from soils that are able to perform a wide range of different functions, providing us with all the services that we need”. A non renewable resource Soil can be considered a non-renewable resource, as it takes hundreds of years to produce a few centimetres of soil. Yet soil is rapidly degrading in many places across the EU exacerbated by human activity, such as certain agricultural and forestry practices, industrial activities, tourism or urban development. An estimated 115 million hectares or 12% of Europe’s total land area are subject to water erosion, and a further 42 million hectares by wind erosion. Approximately 3.5 million sites within the EU could be contaminated. About 45% of European soils have low organic matter content, principally in southern Europe but also other Member States are concerned. Call for action at EU level Soil is a resource of common interest to the EU and failure to protect it at EU level will undermine sustainability and long term competitiveness in Europe. Different EU policies already contribute to soil protection but no coherent policy exists. Only nine Member States have specific legislation on soil protection, often covering a specific threat, in particular soil contamination. Soil degradation has strong impacts on other areas of common interest to the EU, such as water, human health, climate change, nature and biodiversity protection, and food safety. Soil protection is not only a national concern as soil contamination in one Member State can have transboundary effects and cause pollution and economic burdens on neighbouring states. Also, different ways of dealing with soil problems may distort competition for economic operators within the internal market. A Framework Directive Against this background, the Commission proposes a Soil Strategy for Europe. It is set out in a Communication, accompanied by a proposal for a Framework Directive and an Impact Assessment. The Framework Directive sets out common principles, objectives and actions. It requires Member States to adopt a systematic approach to identifying and combating soil degradation, tackling precautionary measures and integrating soils protection into other policies. But is allows for flexibility - it is for the Member States to decide the level of ambition, specific targets and the measures to reach those. This is because soil degradation offers a very scattered picture throughout Europe, where 320 major soil types have been identified. Member States are required to identify areas where there is a risk of erosion, organic matter decline, compaction, salinisation and landslides. They must set risk reduction targets for those areas and establish programmes of measures to achieve them. They will also have to prevent further contamination, establish an inventory of contaminated sites on their territory and draw up national remediation strategies .When a site is being sold, where a potentially contaminating activity has taken or is taking place, a soil status report has to be provided by the seller or the buyer to the administration and the other party in the transaction. Finally, the Member States are required to limit or mitigate the effects of sealing, for instance by rehabilitating brownfield sites. Full details of the Strategy are available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/soil/index.htm A video news release on the Strategy is available to television stations and networks; it can be viewed and ordered at http://www.tvlink.org See also Memo/06/341

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Odysseus, the man of many turns Odysseus, the man of many turns, as Homer calls him in line one of the Odyssey, has been a continual source of inspiration and adaptation for European artists and authors such as Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare and Joyce to name but a few. No other classical hero has been the subject of so much moralistic controversy. Throughout European literature and art, he has since been portrayed as a sixth century opportunist, a fifth century demagogue and a fourth century sophist. In the middle ages he has appeared as a bold baron, a learned clerk, an explorer; a prince and politician in the seventeenth century, in the nineteenth century a disillusioned aesthete and a Byronic wanderer as well as a proto-fascist or a humble citizen of a modern megalopolis in the twentieth century. Of all heroes in Homer and indeed the whole of Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus is by far the most complex in character and exploit. Odysseus vacillates between the two poles of intelligence - low and selfish cunning and exulted and altruistic wisdom. The grandson of Autolycus Odysseus appears in the Homeric epics with his formulaic adjectives without any introduction. He appears, therefore, to be a familiar figure already and this is backed up by the fact that there are twelve variations in the spelling of his name in Greek! Possibly there were two distinct people originally: Odysseus and Ulixes; however this would still suggest that the character is pre-Homer. Furthermore it is worthwhile observing that over two hundred and twenty versions of the Cyclops tale have been collected from sources extending from India to Ireland. If Odysseus is a character whose origins and explanation prove elusive, we must remember that he is such a resourceful and unconventional personality who, as many a classics teacher will proclaim, spent nine years of his life in fabulous regions "beyond the reach of map or spade". Odysseus' maternal grandfather, Autolycus, excelled all men in deceptions and fallacious oaths. Odysseus is therefore a strange mix: grandson of a nobleman and a trickster. If Odysseus has inherited more from his grandparents than his parents, as commonly happens, then it is not surprising he is endowed with a very complex personality. Wiliness is definitely in his blood, for example the night raid or "Doloneia" in The Iliad book 10, although his wiliness is not made overly manifest in Homer's other epic. The Odyssey, however, is a compendium of Odyssean and Autolycan cunning. It is therefore worth indicating that while his conduct differs in the two epics, there is an undoubted consistency in his reputation as in Iliad III., line 202, where Helen describes him as 'adept in all kinds of devices and toil'. At The Odyssey book III in line 121-2 Nestor says to Telemachus 'your father, the glorious Odysseus, used to be far outstanding in all kinds of devices'. The Greek word used for devices "doloi" is neutral and therefore does not indirectly rebuke Odysseus. We must ask ourselves why there is such a change in Odysseus' role in the two poems. In the Iliad, he lives openly amid friend and foe; however in the Odyssey he is generally alone and moves amongst monsters, magicians and usurpers. The latter provide a much wider scope for his Autolycan talents. It has also been argued that Odysseus is compelled to tailor his nature to the uneasy environment of Achaean aristocrats at Troy. Definite signs of his deliberate self-restraint can be perceived, for example: Odysseus passes all the credit for the success of the Doloneia on to Athene and Diomedes. Agamemnon in Iliad IV and Achilles in Iliad IX both do offer an oblique criticism of Odyssean wiliness, albeit at highly charged emotional moments: 'hateful as the gates of hell', 'adept in evil devices' and 'of the artfully greedy heart' are amongst their exchanges. This can be passed off as rash criticism in the heat of the moment; nonetheless, does it betray the potentially darker side to supreme cunning and wiliness - such as deceit or malicious subterfuge? Odysseus does not tell a deliberate or malevolent lie in the epics against a friend or colleague. His Autolycan tendencies do, however, make him very loathe to trust others. He who had deceived so many could not believe that after all that happened, others were not trying to deceive him. A perfect example of this is the bag of winds given to him by Aeolus; he did not trust his men enough to tell them what was inside. They assumed it was secret loot and to his credit he includes himself in the blame for the disaster that followed. He normally says 'my men's folly' but here he explicitly intimates 'our folly'. The latent perils of wiliness are controlled by divine intervention, or more accurately by his special relationship with the goddess Athene. Odysseus and Athene She chewed a hangnail. "I read some book about brains," she said. "My room-mate had it and she kept waving it around. It was like, how five thousand years ago the lobes of the brain fused and before that people thought when the right side of the brain said anything it was the voice of god telling them what to do. It's just brains." "I like my theory better," said Shadow "What's your theory?" "That back then people used to run into gods from time to time" - Neil Gaiman, American Gods In the Odyssey Athene intervenes openly and unambiguously in Odysseus' affairs except when she must guard against the anger of Poseidon. She intervenes in his affairs at the beginning, middle and end of both epics. The influence of Autolycus, his deceitful grandfather, is hinted at only towards the end of the Odyssey; Her influence is clearly the stronger of the two. It is interesting to note that in the Iliad Achilles and Diomedes are certainly the favoured heroes of Athene. Odysseus is certainly not portrayed as the foremost Achaean hero at Troy: Achilles, Ajax, Diomedes and Hector all surpass him in martial valour and athleticism. Athene's purpose in the Iliad is a military one: to bring about the destruction of Troy. Physical violence had to prove a failure first before Odysseus' wooden horse won victory for the Greeks. This leads us to ask the question: What factors make Odysseus very much Athene's favourite in the Odyssey? By the time The Odyssey begins Odysseus is the only Greek champion who has not yet reached home. Very early in the Odyssey, Odysseus has his character traits and future relationship with Athene subtly depicted, for example in book II he calms a mutiny with his "gentle words" and he is said to be 'equal to Zeus in counsel'. His quelling of the mutinous commoner Thersites is one of the most celebrated incidents in European literature. Indication of a special relationship with Athene was given before the Doloneia in Iliad X. Before setting out on the night raid he prayed: "... hear me, daughter of Zeus, who dost ever stand by me in all my toils - no movement of mine escapes thee - now show me thy special love, Athene, and grant that we may return again with glory and great success..." But this is the Iliad and, as is indicated above, Athene's main purpose is to promote the victory of the Greeks and Diomedes and Odysseus are employed as the best instruments for her partisan policy. It is possible to trace a consistent piety toward Athene on the part of Odysseus, for example during the funeral games; here, during the foot race with the Locrian Ajax, swiftest of all the Greeks, Athene makes Ajax trip up. Consider Ajax's anguished retort: "...confound it, the goddess who... stands by Odysseus and helps him like a mother" Odysseus progresses in the Iliad from being Athene's effective agent to her special protégé. Yet note that the last reference to him in the Iliad is an expression of odium at his success. Ajax's remark "like a mother" forms a pivotal role: Homer extends the relationship of the two into motives of personal sympathy and affection. The scene in Odyssey XIII, in which Odysseus eventually lands back in Ithaca contains the explanation of their special intimacy: "...and that is why I cannot desert you in your misfortunes: you are civilised, so intelligence, so self-possessed" This urbane civility does not alter his violent revenge on his wife's suitors. There is a strong contrast between his tender, loving scenes with Penelope and the barbarous hanging of the disloyal servants. There is no inconsistency here in Homeric epics. Gladstone was most impressed with Odysseus' handling of the insult from the Phaeacian prince who taunted him as resembling a merchant rather than an athlete. Gladstone commented that it demonstrated "...more than any composition... up to what point emotion, sarcasm and indignation can be carried without any loss of self-command". Compare for instance the exchanges between Achilles and Agamemnon in Iliad I where self interest, passion and indignation are in complete control. Odysseus refuses to celebrate his slaying of the suitors and abruptly checks Eurycleia from doing so. He makes a marked departure from the norm of the Homeric hero and sees himself as merely an instrument of destiny in punishing harshness, inhumanity and folly. Men reap what they sow and this fits with what Zeus pronounces at the beginning of the Odyssey. Stanford draws a possible moral conclusion: "Only by Odyssean self-control and moderation can men achieve victory in life. In contrast, the wrathful, vainglorious Achilles, the arrogant and grasping Agamemnon, the headstrong Ajax and the self-centred and unscrupulous Autolycus paid their penalties" Athene is interestingly not really the great moral goddess that some would believe her: she does, for example, cruelly deceive Hector in his duel with Achilles. She is primarily a very strong, powerful and partisan warrior goddess. She chooses to help Odysseus for two reasons: First, because he was the sharpest instrument for the overthrow of Troy; secondly because she liked his personal qualities and had a strong fellow feeling for his wiliness. Homer is possibly utilising this relationship to express Odysseus' more humane instincts, namely his desire for a less violent society, within the constraints of militaristic epic society. Intelligence and gentleness are Odysseus' great attributes. It is significant that the gentle or courteous figures - Odysseus, Menelaus and Nestor - are the only characters portrayed by Homer as having arrived home safely home from the war. Heroic poetry will always offer undeserving losers, such as Hector, as well as deserving winners such as Odysseus. Homer seems to accept this as an inevitable truth but with no comparison. The end of the Iliad, it may also be worthwhile to observe, engenders sad resignation and desolate hopelessness, for all its sombre magnificence; the end of the Odyssey, on the other hand, with its promise of peace and reconciliation, is reassuring and confident. Odysseus' relationships with other characters Odysseus is singularly amd obtrusively lonely in Homeric epics. Can his aloofness amongst his associates at Troy and his companions at sea be the natural consequence of a character dominated by consummate intelligence, supremacy, infallibility and deceit? In the Odyssey, his relationships are primarily with different women. Homer portrays relationships between husbands and wives as affectionate, honourable and equal. Odysseus' first appearance in the Odyssey in sitting on the beach of Calypso's island, weeping and gazing forlornly beyond the horizon. Each day he wastes away with homesickness. Calypso plays some very strong cards to keep Odysseus with her, especially the promise of eternal youth. But Homer has made it explicit from the outset that the dominant desire of Odysseus is to go home. He longs for the oikos and to see "the smoke rising from his own land". He is driven by love for home, Penelope and the life he had been so unwilling to leave behind before he departed for Troy. The movement of the Odyssey is essentially inwards - towards home and normality. There seems to be some creative license used in the portrayal of Odysseus in later poems by such poets as Dante, Pascoli and Tennyson where Odysseus' urge is centrifugal and ever seeking the exotic. There is a contrast between the harsh, rugged Ithaca and the flower-strewn, languorous life in an aromatic island such as Calypso's. However the life of idle hedonism would never satisfy an early Greek eager for action, society and renown. His liaisons with Circe and Calypso can be excused on the grounds of supernatural coercion. Nausicaa is a mere episode in Odysseus' journey home and is not allowed by Homer to become a major theme: the romantic overtones and potential marriage between the two are only envisaged on the part of Nausicaa. The pathos that is aroused when Odysseus is united with his father, Laertes, who works in the briars of an outlying farm in a dirty and patched tunic should also be noted. Some have argued that there was latent tension between father and son and this might explain why Laertes no longer lives at home and why he resigned his kingship in the first place before Odysseus went off to Troy. This, however, cannot detract from the poignancy and warmth of the relationship between Odysseus and his mother Anticleia. The scene in the underworld is also important because it highlights the resolution and concern of Odysseus for his comrades: he will not allow his mother's ghost, whom he did not know was dead, to drink the blood until he has first interviewed Teiresias. Anticleia, Homer says, pined away to a sad death "...yearning for him, her only son, for his thoughtfulness and for his kindly ways." Odysseus and the Homeric hero Odysseus is of course not the main figure in the Iliad: he is surpassed in most heroic respects by Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, Diomedes and the like. Perhaps it would be better to say that the two main themes of the Iliad - the wrath of Achilles and the death of Hector - do not allow Homer much room to express the full and complex character of Odysseus. He naturally dominates the Odyssey and becomes particularly obtrusive as he moves amongst 'foolish shipmates, ruthless monsters and greedy usurpers." There are traces, delicately painted by Homer, of a non-aristocrat and even non-Achaean hero, for example, his Autolycan ancestry, his short sturdy legs and his skills in archery. Much has been made of Odysseus' ostensibly ravenous hunger in the Homeric epics; does he care more about his stomach than is proper for a hero? One should always look carefully at the context of Odysseus' utterances on food; for example, many of them are provoked by days without food and tremendous physical hardship. It would be unfair to say that he worships food but rather that he freely acknowledges it as an inescapable elemental force in human life. He is undoubtedly an unconventional hero; however, charges of cowardice do not really stand up. He is often accused of running away or at least showing reluctance in the face of ensuing battle or physical conflict; but one need only recall the Cyclops incident, Scylla and Charybdis and the visit to the land of the dead to appreciate that Odysseus was displaying fortitude in the face of superhuman and horrific danger. He merely draws attention to himself displaying cunning stealth and deliberation in the face of those who know only physical violence. Furthermore, in a similar way, Odysseus's prudent resourcefulness distinctly sets him apart from the reckless and uncompromising passion of Achilles.

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An out of order processor is one that is able to execute code in an order that is different from program order . This is the simplest method to exploit Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP ) in code. Computer instructions rely on previously executed instructions. However, not all instructions rely on all other instructions. The following sequence, for instance, can be re-ordered somewhat with no effect on the result 1) A = A + 10 2) B = A * 5 3) C = A / 25 Lines 2 and 3 can be swapped , or even executed simultaneously , without affecting the end result of each variable The processor uses a typical pipeline (Fetch , for example) but once the instruction is decoded it is placed into a queue of instructions that haven't been executed yet (ROB ). Each queue entry also holds information about what it needs before its instruction can be executed. In this case both 2 and 3 require the results of 1 before they can continue. Once 1 is done, 2 and 3 could be executed in an arbitrary order, quite possibly in different execution units of the processor. If the division takes a long time then the processor might start that first. Perhaps more instructions are waiting for the result of 3 than 2 and so executing 3 first would yield better performance. There are a lot on issues that must taken into account with such a design, such as data hazard s, control hazard s, and structural hazard s. These are dealt with in algorithms such as Tomasulo 's I, II, and III designs for out of order processors.

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Just as we can define a topological vector space, we can define a "topological X" for any algebraic structure X: we demand that X also be a topological space (usually a Hausdorff space, for convenience), and that the algebraic operations on X be compatible with the topology on X by being continuous. For a field, we'll demand that addition, negation, multiplication and inversion all be continuous on their domains. For instance, R and Q are "topological fields", since all arithmetic operations are continuous. This is actually a useful characterization. But not all topological properties on a topological field turn out to be useful. An example which makes a nice exercise is compactness: Let F be a topological field which is a compact space. Then F is finite. On most structure s (e.g. group s), compactness extends finiteness: many things which are true for finite objects also hold for compact objects. The above says we cannot hope for this to hold for fields: the only compact objects are the finite ones! Interestingly, a proof using non-standard analysis is easier and more intuitive than a "standard" proof. But (unlike the case of Sierpinski's theorem, where the non-standard proof is much easier) there is a fairly direct translation of the proof to standard analysis.

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The Evolution Deceit Could a Thing Like This Ever Happen? As you know, dolphins and whales are called sea mammals. These creatures, although they live in the sea, reproduce in the same way as do mammals on land. Fish, on the other hand, reproduce by laying eggs. Then how did sea mammals develop? Obviously, Allah has created them as well. Evolutionists, however, don't want to believe this. They cannot explain how dolphins and whales formed as well. Charles Darwin (the person who brought up the theory of evolution) had said, in his first book about the theory of evolution, something like this: Bears that went into the water to hunt fish all the time changed into whales. Yes, you read it right! He claimed that the hairy bears we know so well changed into metres and metres long whales after swimming in the sea a great deal. Darwin said that bears, while swimming in water, had changed into whales. Even some evolutionists do not believe this tall tale. Do you think it is possible for a bear to change into a whale, just because it swims a lot? Then shouldn't people who swim a lot change into sea mammals? Isn't it so funny? Do You Believe a Swimming Bear

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Lupus (say: loop-us) is a disease of the immune system that can affect many parts of the body. Normally, antibodies produced by the immune system help protect the body against viruses, bacteria and other foreign substances. In people who have lupus, the immune system becomes overactive and attacks healthy cells and tissue by mistake. There are several kinds of lupus. Your symptoms may vary depending on which type of lupus you have. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the most common and most serious type of lupus. This kind of lupus can affect any of the systems of the body, including blood vessels, joints, kidneys, skin, the heart and lungs, and even the brain and nerves. Symptoms of SLE can be mild or severe. Discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) is sometimes called cutaneous lupus erythematosus. This kind of lupus only affects the skin. It does not affect other organs the way SLE does, but some people who have DLE may also develop SLE lupus. Usually a person who has DLE will notice a red rash or scaly patch, commonly on the face or scalp. The rash is often in the shape of a circle or disk. The rash may last a few days or sometimes years. It can go away for a while and then come back. Sometimes DLE can show up as sores in the mouth or nose. Drug-induced lupus is caused by a reaction to certain prescription medicines that usually have been taken for a long time. The symptoms of this type of lupus are similar to symptoms of SLE, including muscle and joint pain, a rash and fever. But drug-induced lupus does not cause problems with the kidneys, the heart, the brain or blood vessels. The symptoms are usually mild, and most of the time will go away after you stop taking the medicine. Men are more likely to get this kind of lupus. This is because some of the drugs with the highest risk of causing it are used to treat certain heart conditions that are more common in men. Neonatal lupus is a rare form of lupus that affects newborn babies. Babies who have neonatal lupus are born with a skin rash, and sometimes liver and heart problems. For most babies, the symptoms gradually go away over several months. In rare cases, neonatal lupus can cause a serious heart problem. Doctors think that neonatal lupus might be caused in part by certain proteins in the mother’s blood that are passed on to the baby at birth. If you are pregnant and know you have SLE, your doctor will probably want to monitor you closely during pregnancy for certain complications. However, most babies of mothers who have SLE are entirely healthy. Lupus can affect many parts of the body, including your joints, skin, kidneys, heart and lungs. If you have lupus, your symptoms can develop quickly or slowly. Symptoms can also come and go, and they can be mild or severe. Lupus can look like different diseases in different people. Not everyone who has lupus has the same symptoms. Common symptoms of lupus may include: Less common symptoms include: Children can have all the same symptoms of lupus that adults have, but they are more likely to have the following symptoms: Symptoms of lupus can come and go, and often disappear completely for a time. When symptoms appear or get worse, it’s called a “flare.” You may have swollen joints and muscle pain one week and then no symptoms at all the next week. Lupus can affect anyone, but it is more common in women between the ages of 15 and 44. African American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American women are more likely to have lupus than people of other races. Flares are often caused by triggers, such as the following: If you learn to recognize that a flare is coming, you can take steps to prevent it and better prepare yourself to cope with the symptoms. Lupus can be difficult to diagnose. It is different for every person who has it. Symptoms of lupus can come and go, and can affect different parts of the body. There is no one test to diagnose lupus. However, there are a number of symptoms that, grouped together, can help your doctor decide if you should have more medical tests. Your doctor may want to order blood and urine tests: Blood tests can also show how well your kidneys and liver are working, and if these organs have been affected by lupus. Your doctor may also recommend a chest x-ray because lupus can sometimes cause swelling in the lungs and heart. An electrocardiogram test (ECG) checks for an irregular heart beat or any damage to the heart that may have been caused by lupus. There is no cure for lupus, but treatments have improved in recent years. The kind of treatment you will need will depend on what symptoms you have and how severe your symptoms are. If you have joint pain, sore muscles, or skin problems such as a rash, your doctor may recommend that you take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen (some brand names: Advil, Motrin) or naproxen (one brand name: Aleve). Medicine that is used to treat malaria, such as hydroxychloroquine, can also be helpful in treating symptoms of lupus and preventing flares. Some people have side effects from this kind of medicine, including problems with vision and muscle strength. Corticosteroids are another kind of medicine sometimes recommended to help with inflammation, but these medicines can have more serious side effects. If you have signs or symptoms of lupus that cause problems in vital organs or the central nervous system (heart, brain and blood vessels), you will probably need stronger medicines. Stronger drugs also have the potential for more severe side-effects, and your doctor will want to monitor you closely. High-dose corticosteroids, such as prednisone, can be given by mouth or through a vein in your arm. Medicines that suppress the immune system (cyclophosphamide, azathioprine) are sometimes used to help manage severe symptoms of lupus. Both kinds of medicine can help control dangerous symptoms quickly and prevent more permanent damage. Sometimes they are used together so that the amount of each medicine is reduced. This may lessen the risk of side effects. Because of the risk of side effects from medicines, your doctor may want you to stop taking certain drugs if your lupus symptoms go away for a time (into remission). However, even if you don’t have signs or symptoms, your lupus can cause problems later, like kidney disease and kidney failure, or atherosclerosis (build-up in the arteries) which can lead to heart attack or stroke. This is why it is important to maintain good health (quit smoking, reduce high blood pressure or cholesterol) and see your doctor regularly for check-ups. Get plenty of rest but also get regular exercise. Fatigue is a common symptom of lupus, so try to maintain good sleep habits at night and, if possible, nap during the day, as needed. Even though you won’t always feel like it, regular exercise will help you sleep better, as well as improve your mood and help with heart health. Try to avoid outside activities when you are having a flare. Exposure to the sun can make your symptoms worse. Protect yourself from the sun. Wear clothing that covers as much of your skin as possible. Always use sunscreen, even if you are only going outside for a couple of minutes. Don’t use tanning beds. Also avoid fluorescent and halogen lighting wherever possible. The sun, tanning beds and fluorescent and halogen lights are all sources of ultraviolet light, which is known to trigger lupus symptoms. Quit smoking (or don’t start). Lupus can affect your heart and blood vessels. If you also smoke, you are at a much higher risk for cardiovascular disease. Eat a healthy diet. Although there are no foods that have been shown to cause flares, it’s best to avoid food that seems to make your symptoms worse. You may also need to make changes to your diet if lupus causes high blood pressure, stomach or kidney problems. Try to eat a balanced and nutritious diet, including fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Take your medicine the way your doctor tells you to. Your doctor will explain the benefits and risks of your medicines. Depending on your symptoms and flares, you may need to make adjustments to the type of medicine you take, when you take it, and the dosage. Be sure to follow your doctor’s instructions. Pay attention to your mental health. Paying attention to your emotional well-being will also help you cope and give you a sense of control. Living with lupus can mean learning to manage a number of different issues separate from the physical and medical problems the disease can cause. These might include the reactions of your family members or coworkers, children acting out (in fear or confusion), as well as your own feelings. Develop a support network. You can get help from family, friends, neighbors, your family doctor, community services, counselors and support groups. This support network can help you with your physical needs. For example, the nurse at your doctor’s office can help you to organize your medicines, or your children and spouse can allow you time for an afternoon nap. You can also get emotional support from friends and family. They can offer you a safe place to talk about your frustrations or worries. Stay mindful of your own level of pain and fatigue. This will help you keep realistic expectations about what you can and cannot do. It will also help you better communicate your needs to those around you. Your kidneys get rid of waste and other toxins from the body. Lupus can affect the kidneys and cause inflammation (swelling) of the structures that filter the blood. Without treatment, lupus can lead to permanent kidney damage. If lupus affects your kidneys you will probably need medicine to prevent serious damage. The most common symptom of kidney problems from lupus is swelling in the feet, legs, hands and eyelids. Lupus can cause inflammation of the sac around the heart, and you may experience chest pains. Not as commonly, but more seriously, lupus can cause hardening of the walls of the coronary arteries, which can lead to angina and an increased risk of coronary artery disease. Lupus may also cause inflammation of the heart itself, which can lead to scarring and possible heart failure. Problems in the lungs can also cause chest pains, which are often felt with deep breathing. The pain is caused by inflammation of the lining that covers the lungs. People who have lupus may also be more likely to get pneumonia. Most people who have lupus have joint pain or swelling from inflammation. The pain and swelling can come and go, and may affect several joints at once. However, there is usually no long-term damage. People who have lupus often get a butterfly-shaped, red rash across the nose and cheeks. This kind of rash is called a malar rash. Other parts of the skin may be affected by raised bumps or patchiness, often on areas that are exposed to the sun. You may get sores inside your mouth and nose. Hair loss (alopecia) is common during flares. You may also notice a blotchy purple color on the tips of your fingers, knuckles, the sides of the palms, around the fingernails and on your toes. This happens because blood does not flow well to the skin’s surface, causing it to change color Raynaud’s Disease. Central Nervous System Lupus may also affect the brain and the nerves in the spinal cord. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, mild confusion or memory problems, vision problems and changes in your mood. It can also lead to more serious problems, such as seizures or a stroke. Lupus can cause the number of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets to decrease. Fewer red blood cells can lead to anemia, which is common in people who have lupus. White blood cells help the body fight infection, but lupus rarely causes them to be low enough to cause infection. Platelets help your blood to clot. A low platelet count can lead to easy bruising, nosebleeds and other bleeding. Lupus can also cause your blood to clot too easily. Sometimes, in people who have lupus, blood clots form where they are not needed or where they shouldn’t. If the blood clot breaks away and travels through the bloodstream, it can block blood vessels and cause serious problems, such as a stroke, blood clots in the lungs (thrombosis) or repeated miscarriages. When you are first diagnosed with lupus, you may have feelings of relief, that you finally have an answer to what is causing your symptoms. As you learn about the disease, you may also have feelings of confusion, sadness, fear, frustration and anger. Some people who have lupus may have bouts of depression because of the challenges of living with this disease. Learning all you can about your illness can help you cope better with your symptoms, flares and any serious health problems lupus may cause. Written by familydoctor.org editorial staff. American Academy of Family Physicians

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Nitrogen as an input represents a significant portion of the crop production budget; so making that N available for crops in an efficient way has proven to be increasingly important to growers. That’s where enhanced efficiency products have come into the N management picture in agriculture in recent years. “In the agricultural marketplace, there are two dominant enhanced efficiency technologies,” says John Kruse, research agronomist, Koch Agronomic Services. “One is coated urea fertilizers, and the other is stabilized nitrogen.” Kruse says while these technologies have been around since the early 1990s, only recently have they become more widely used in agriculture as growers become more consolidated and start to look for ways to be more efficient. Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to Farm Industry News Now e-newsletter to get the latest news and more straight to your inbox twice weekly. Whether a grower uses a polymer-coated urea (controlled-release N) or N stabilizers, the goal of investing in either technology is to prevent N from being lost. The following breaks down both technologies to highlight how each works and in which situations each type of product is best utilized. The Agrotain line of nitrogen stabilizers from Koch Agronomic Services has been the primary product line available in the U.S. nitrogen stabilizer market. These stabilizer products protect against the three major processes in which N can be lost (see sidebar). “There’s an enzyme that’s called urease that breaks (urea-nitrogen) down. It converts it into ammonium, which is a plant-available form of N,” explains Kruse. What may also happen is urea can break down into ammonia, which is a gas that can leave the soil surface; a farmer has then lost the value of the nutrient. “So if you can protect urea by slowing that conversion process from urea to ammonium, then more of that N stays in the plant-available form,” says Kruse. “What Agrotain N stabilizer does is interfere with the urease enzyme, so the urea breakdown takes place over a slightly longer period of time — a few days.” Ammonium is then available for the plant when it needs it, Kruse explains. However, ammonium converts to nitrate throughout the growing season, and can be lost in a rain event. So Koch offers several products, such as Agrotain Plus and Super U fertilizer, that prolong the N in the ammonium form in order to protect against denitrification or leaching. “So that’s how you get more season-long uptake. It’s not that it’s slowly releasing the N in the soil,” says Kruse. “But it’s protecting the N in the soil from converting into the nitrate form which can be lost.” When to use a stabilizer Anytime a grower surface-applies urea and is unable to incorporate it or water it immediately, he can benefit from Agrotain stabilizer because it protects against volatilization. Kruse also says growers in both wet and dry climates can find value in using a stabilizer product. “Let’s say you’re on a shallow, gravelly soil like in Montana. It’s not very wet there, but the soils can be so shallow that it doesn’t take very much precipitation to move N deep into the soil profile beyond the root zone,” says Kruse. He also mentions that researchers at Montana State University have recently reported that even in cold climates, where growers might think N applied in the fall will stay there through the winter, substantial N loss can occur. Tillage is important to consider when choosing an enhanced efficiency product. Kruse says Agrotain shines in no-till. “When you’re in a no-till situation, you have a lot more enzyme activity breaking down the urea. You’re also prevented from tilling in the nitrogen. It’s sort of that perfect storm of N loss we’re protecting against,” says Kruse. Agrotain stabilizer is typically applied to urea at dealerships. The protected N can be blended with other nutrients. Kruse says in tests, they’ve seen between a 5- and 20-bushel-per-acre yield advantage by using Agrotain. For more information, visit agrotain.com. The dominant product in the controlled-release market in the U.S. is ESN, “Environmentally Smart Nitrogen,” a product made by Agrium Advanced Technologies. ESN urea granules are coated with a polymer, and the product is designed to release urea slowly throughout the growing season. “As moisture and temperature continue to increase, the water basically diffuses through the polyurethane, dissolving that (urea) granule inside the coating,” says Ben Cicora, ESN sales manager. “Then as the temperature heats up, it allows the release of the urea into the soil, and keeps it where and when the plant needs it throughout the growing season.” He also says growers with a variety of tillage practices could benefit from ESN as long as they’re conscious of timeliness. “If you’re doing a true tillage situation, make that (ESN) application post-tillage,” says Cicora. He says growers who do conventional tillage tend to do so in the fall and then come back to apply ESN in the spring. “You’ve just got to be conscious that you’re not over-tilling after the product’s been in. “In a no-till situation, (ESN) works as good or better just because you’re able to leave the product on the ground and let it diffuse and work down into the soil where the plant needs it at the root structure,” Cicora says. Which fields need ESN In terms of which types of fields benefit most from ESN technology, Cicora says sandier soils and irrigated crops really see a bump in yield benefit. Throughout the core Midwest, tests done by the company showed a yield advantage of up to 7 to 12 bushels per acre. But he says the product is flexible and can be used on just about any soil type. Areas that already have high organic matter still benefit from ESN. “Basically, what ESN is doing is allowing that corn plant to maximize its genetic potential by feeding the plant all season long and not just in a preplant or sidedress application,” says Cicora. ESN can also be blended with other products like phosphorus or potassium fertilizers, but the company recommends that when a blend is done, the ESN coating material should always be applied last. For more information, visit smartnitrogen.com.

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The Founding Fathers sought to build a government that was constrained both by law and by the Bill of Rights. Modern legislators and bureaucrats have completely forgotten the reasons coercive power must be confined in narrow boundaries to avoid becoming a public curse. Instead of the rule of law, we have one new government czar and petty dictator after another. Arbitrary power has become more fashionable as government itself has been exalted. It is symptomatic of the contemporary attitude towards government that the term “czar” now has a positive connotation. Political and popular demands for appointments of a czar routinely stem from fundamental defects or contradictions in underlying federal laws. The first modern-era American “czar” was Energy Czar John Love, appointed by President Nixon in 1973 during the gas crisis, followed by other energy czars appointed by presidents Ford and Carter. Yet, while the appointment of an energy czar consoled some people sitting in gas lines, the fundamental cause of the energy shortages — federal price controls and other restrictions — were kept in place until Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. When Congress enacted a law in 1982 that created a drug czar, President Reagan scorned the provision: “The creation of another layer of bureaucracy within the Executive Branch would produce friction, disrupt effective law enforcement, and could threaten the integrity of criminal investigations and prosecutions.… The so-called “drug Czar” provision was enacted hastily without thoughtful debate and without benefit of any hearings.” The drug czar remained a largely ceremonial post until President Bush appointed William Bennett; however, the chain-smoking, tough-talking Bennett did not find the magic words to make all Americans virtuous. President Clinton appointed a former general, Barry McCaffrey, as his second drug czar to prove that he was finally getting “tough” on drugs; the czar-general’s grandest moment was his threat to revoke the medical licenses of California and Arizona doctors who mentioned cannabis to patients after citizens of those states endorsed legalizing the medical use of marijuana. McCaffrey is also using federal law and subsidies to bribe television programs and Hollywood producers to covertly include anti-drug messages in the entertainment that Americans watch. In recent years, Americans have also been blessed with a “health-care czar” (Ira Magaziner in 1993), an “AIDS czar” (various political appointees since 1993), and endless local “zoning czars” and “land-use czars.” But no matter how many czars are appointed, it is never enough. A government advisory panel in 1998 called for the appointment of a “food czar” to “oversee the patchwork of food safety regulations.” And even where federal officials are not called “czars,” they have far more discretionary power than the Founding Fathers would have approved. Consider how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has twisted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to maximize its power to punish. EEOC officials have proclaimed private companies guilty of violating or impeding “equal opportunity” because of their failure to race-norm test scores (i.e., covertly increase the scores of “protected groups” to make them appear more qualified than other test-takers); failure to disregard employee theft; failure to disregard an employee’s assaults on co-workers; and failure by the Hooters restaurant chain — a “Playboy club for rednecks” — to hire men to serve beer to its customers. The EEOC capitalizes on the vagueness of the concept of equal opportunity to maximize its power to manipulate findings of guilt or innocence. Americans of earlier generations would be as shocked by the current adulatory use of the term “czar” as contemporary Americans would be shocked by the use of “fuehrer” as a compliment for a political leader. In an 1866 Supreme Court case involving the power of military governors in the conquered Southern states, one attorney declaimed to the court concerning his suffering plaintiffs: “So far as constitutional liberty is concerned, they might as well be living under a Czar or a Sultan, upon the banks of the Bosphorus or the Neva, as in this free country.” In an 1895 case, an attorney denounced a newly enacted income tax as conferring powers on the federal government “worthy of a Czar of Russia proposing to reign with undisputed and absolute power; but it cannot be done under this Constitution.” The more arbitrary power government employees possess, the more they are transformed into a master class. At some point, the sheer accumulation of penalties and threats in the statute book fundamentally changes the citizen’s relation to the government. Rather than a government of laws, it becomes a government of threats, intimidation, and browbeating. If Congress and the courts want to restore the credibility of the federal government, the federal statute book and the Code of Federal Regulations must be stripped of those edicts that hang like thousands of swrods of Damocles over the heads of peaceful Americans. The time is come to end the reign of the czars and to cease expecting salvation from arbitrary power.

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Tropical Weather Outlook and Summary Issued by NWS ABNT20 KNHC 201725 TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 200 PM EDT SUN JUL 20 2014 For the North Atlantic...Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico: A broad area of low pressure, associated with a tropical wave, is located over the eastern Atlantic Ocean about midway between the west coast of Africa and the Leeward Islands. Showers and thunderstorms are currently disorganized, and any development during the next day or two should be slow to occur. Beyond a couple of days, environmental conditions are expected to become unfavorable for development while the system moves westward at 15 to 20 mph. * Formation chance through 48 hours...low...10 percent. * Formation chance through 5 days...low...10 percent.

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U.S. Metric Program may be the loneliest office in Washington. Located about 30 minutes from the White House, its headquarters is in the much larger—and better funded—“measurement standards laboratory” at NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology). For years, Ken Butcher was the sole employee working for the Metric Program (there are now two employees). Charged with guiding the whole country through the gargantuan task of metric system conversion decades earlier, he admits progress can be measured in centimeters. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act into law. It made metric the “preferred” system, though using it was strictly voluntary. But if Russians could forgo the arshine (28 inches), surely Americans could learn to forget the gallon. Global trade demanded a standard and although late, the U.S. would not be left behind. The Rise and Immediate Fall of Metric Gas Stations As a young metric converter in the mid-1970s, Butcher was assigned to update West Virginia to the new system. He said almost as soon as the first metric gas station opened in West Virginia, his office—the one trying to help people swap gallons for liters—had to shut the station When a retailer charged 35 cents for a liter of gas versus $1.40 per gallon, cars lined up around the block, causing other store owners to “They were losing so much business. Then they realized the guy at the metric gas station wasn’t pricing his gas the same way they were”—consumers were paying more and not realizing it. “They complained and pressured the state government to stop the metric system,” he said. As the years went on, the Metric system wasn't only derided as confusing. It was a communist conspiracy! If the Americans converted under a multi-million dollar price tag, it was prime time for the Soviets to invade our weakened economy, according to the author of the 1981 book Metric Madness: Over 150 Reasons for NOT Converting to the Metric System. Government downsized under Reagan and cut the U.S. Metric Board in 1982. Butcher was the only person left. The Metric Movement Today To be clear, Butcher said, the Metric Program doesn’t promote the adoption of the metric system. Even if they wanted to, they don’t have the resources. Many people over the years have offered to promote the metric system for $20 to $30 million of government money. He laughs. Armed with a scant budget, Butcher said the extent of the government’s metric campaign is arranging workshops at Rotary Clubs and schools. Part of his job is educating skeptics that they do in fact use the metric system every day. He sometimes gets caught up in conversations where people learn where he works and then vow their loyalty to the inch-pound system. “Don’t need it, don’t want it,” a lady at Costco once said to him. But she was buying tires in metric sizes and didn’t realize it. “My point is, we’re going to use it—we’re going to be using more and more of it,” he said. So why make the switch? Safety, for one. Butcher said that there are an increasing number of truck drivers on the roads in the U.S. who grew up in Mexico, or Europeans who migrate to the UK. They are the ones who get stuck under bridges more often than others because they can’t convert 12’ 6” in their head before they hit the overpass. He said the biggest reason why people haven’t switched is not the millions of dollars it would cost. "If we were going to start a new country all with the metric system, it would be easy," he said. "But when you have to go in and change almost everything that touches people’s everyday life and their physical and mental experience, their education, and then you take that away from them—it can be scary."

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byte: n. 1. adjacent bits within an integer. (The specific number of bits can vary from point to point in the program; see the function byte.) 2. an integer in a specified range. (The specific range can vary from point to point in the program; see the functions open and write-byte.) byte specifier: n. An object of implementation-dependent nature that is returned by the function byte and that specifies the range of bits in an integer to be used as a byte by functions such as ldb.

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Vikings: Journey to New Worlds Description: They came from the North and soon the legend would say that they did not know fear. For hundreds of years, they were another name for "terror". They could sail icy oceans and narrow rivers, and strike far inland, without warning, without mercy. They became the Russians, the Normans. They were the valued mercenaries of Byzantine Emperors and a perpetual challenge to the authority of European monarchs: warriors, slavers, traders, explorers but also farmers, settlers, poets, loyal family members and skilled craftsmen. Bold, proud, ambitious and unbound. And today, across the boundaries of time, they defy North American history by telling us the saga of Leif Eriksson, the Lucky, coming to Vinland, the actual Newfoundland 100 years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. Movie summaries and listings powered by Cinema-Source Sign up for our free email newsletters and receive the latest advice and information on all things parenting. Enter your email address to sign up or manage your account.

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South Carolina occupies parts of three physical regions of the United States—the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Piedmont Plateau, and the Blue Ridge. Each crosses the state from northeast to southwest, roughly paralleling the Atlantic coast. South Carolinians call the coastal plain the Low Country; the Piedmont and Blue Ridge, which are part of the Appalachian Highlands, are known as the Up Country. Separating the two sections is the Fall Line, the zone along which waterfalls and rapids occur as rivers descend to lower elevations. The Atlantic Coastal Plain is a broad lowland that occupies about two-thirds of the state. Near the coast the land is generally flat and marked by extensive swamps and marshes. Numerous small islands, often called the Sea Islands, fringe the southern coast. Separating them from the mainland is a maze of narrow straits, sounds, and tidal rivers. On the inner parts of the coastal plain the terrain becomes gently rolling and gradually rises to elevations of about 500 feet (150 m) in the hills near the Fall Line. The Piedmont Plateau is an elevated region that slopes gently upward from the Fall Line to the foot of the Blue Ridge. The land consists chiefly of long rolling hills 500 to 1,000 feet (150 to 300 m) above sea level; in places it is deeply eroded by rivers. Occasional isolated hills, called monadnocks, stand as much as 500 feet (150 m) above the general level of the terrain. The Blue Ridge is a mountainous area in the extreme northwestern corner of South Carolina. Rounded, forested mountains, separated by deep valleys, rise rather abruptly from the Piedmont to heights of more than 3,000 feet (900 m). Sassafras Mountain, the state's highest point, reaches 3,560 feet (1,085 m) near the North Carolina border. South Carolina is drained by three major river systems, all flowing southeastward from the Appalachians to the Atlantic Ocean. The Santee River, with such head-streams and tributaries as the Wateree, Congaree, Saluda, and Broad rivers, is the largest in the state. It drains most of the Blue Ridge and the Piedmont. In the northeast the Pee Dee River flows from North Carolina across the coastal plain, where it is joined by the Little Pee Dee and the Lynches. The Savannah River and two of its headstreams—the Tugaloo and the Chattooga—form the border with Georgia. Many rivers have been dammed to provide hydroelectric power, flood control, and recreational areas. South Carolina's principal lakes are artificial reservoirs impounded by dams. The largest of these is Lake Marion on the Santee River. Others, wholly or partly within the state, include Hartwell, J. Strom Thurmond, Moultrie, Murray, Richard B. Russell, and Keowee. South Carolina has a humid subtropical climate, marked by hot summers, cool winters, and abundant precipitation. Throughout most of the state temperatures average around 80° F. (27° C.) in July and from 45° to 50° F. (7° to 10° C.) in January. The mountainous areas are slightly cooler the year round. Daytime highs of 90° F. (32° C.) or more occur frequently in summer. During brief winter cold spells temperatures drop to well below freezing at night. Precipitation is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year and varies from about 40 to 50 inches (1,020 to 1,270 mm) annually in most areas. Parts of the Blue Ridge receive 70 inches (1,780 mm) or more. Only a small amount of the total precipitation falls as snow, virtually all of it in the mountains. Tornadoes may occur at any time of the year but are most frequent in April and May. During spring and fall hurricanes occasionally move in from the Atlantic, causing wind damage and flooding, especially along the coast. Forests cover almost two-thirds of the state; almost all are second-growth stands, mostly of commercial quality. Softwoods are the most abundant and economically valuable trees; they consist mainly of species of yellow pine such as loblolly and longleaf pines. Principal hardwoods are black gum, sweet gum, yellow poplar, and oak. Bald cypress grows in swampy areas; palmettos, live oaks, and magnolias are found along the coast. A wide variety of flowering shrubs are native to South Carolina. Among the most colorful are rhododendron, azalea, and mountain laurel. Black bears and alligators, although rare, can still be found in South Carolina. Whitetailed deer, fox, mink, muskrats, opossums, otters, rabbits, skunks, and squirrels are numerous. Lizards and snakes are the chief reptiles. Songbirds are numerous and varied; waterfowl abound along the coast, especially during migration. A great variety of freshwater and saltwater fish are found in South Carolina's waters.South Carolina's state tree is the palmetto. |Interesting facts about South Carolina| |The first musical society in America, the St. Cecilia Society, was established in Charleston in 1762.| |The Fireproof Building, completed in Charleston in 1826, was the first building in the United States constructed to withstand fire. It was designed by Robert Mills, the architect of the Washington Monument. The building currently houses the Historical Society of South Carolina.| |"Heart of pine" houses, built in South Carolina in colonial times, still stand today. Timber was so plentiful during the state's early days that "sapwood" was thrown away, and only the hearts of pine trees were used. This wood is said to keep indefinitely.| |The first museum in the American Colonies was opened by the Charleston Library Society in 1773. The museum featured objects related to the natural history of South Carolina.| |The reformed branch of Judaism in America originated in Charleston in 1824 with the Reformed Society of Israelites.| |The first commercial tea farm in the United States was established at Summerville in 1890 by Charles Shepard.| |The first steam locomotive to be placed in regular passenger and freight service was the Best Friend of Charleston. This locomotive, built for the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, made its first run on Christmas Day in 1830.|

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News & Policies > For Immediate Release Office of the First Lady April 16, 2004 Fact Sheet: The White House Garden Tours The White House Gardens were first opened to the public in 1972 by Pat Nixon. The two-day event will showcase the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden (East Garden), the Rose Garden (West Garden), the Children's Garden and the White House South Lawn while military bands perform from a White House balcony. The grounds, groves and extensive plantings at the White House comprise the oldest continually maintained landscape in the United States. The current view from the South Portico was developed in 1935 by the Olmstead brothers at the request of President Roosevelt in anticipation of the building of the Jefferson Memorial. Numerous trees were removed from the end of the lawn to allow for a full vista to the memorial and landscape beyond. The annual White House Spring Garden Tours will be held on Saturday, April 17 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 18 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The National Park Service will distribute free, timed tickets at the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion located at 15th and E Streets on both tour days beginning at 7:30 a.m. 12,600 tickets will be distributed. The Rose Garden (West Garden) The Rose Garden is based on a traditional 18th century American garden. The current design of the garden dates to the Kennedy Administration. President and Mrs. Kennedy were interested in having horticultural features that followed the traditions of Presidents Washington and Jefferson. The West Garden has been called the Rose Garden since 1913 when Mrs. Ellen Wilson replaced the existing colonial garden with a formal rose garden. The Rose Garden features a rectangular grass panel surrounded by flower beds and crabapple trees. The garden is steps from the Oval Office and is the stage for numerous receptions, bill signings and media events annually. More than 30 different types of tulips and grape hyacinth are planted in the flower beds that are framed and crisscrossed with boxwood. Lavender cotton, planted in the shape of diamonds, surrounds the crabapple trees. The Jacqueline Kennedy Garden (East Garden) The Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, like the Rose Garden, is based on a traditional 18th century American garden. Mrs. Lady Bird Johnson continued the garden's restoration plans approved by President and Mrs. Kennedy and the National Park Service. The East Garden was dedicated by Mrs. Johnson as the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden on April 22, 1965. The garden has a large fescue grass panel in the center and is framed on the north and south sides by a holly hedge. The East Colonnade, located on the garden's north side, is lined by a row of linden trees. Planting beds, bordered by boxwoods, are filled with tulips, pansies and grape hyacinth. Rosemary, thyme and other herbs, planted under the eight American holly trees, are regularly used by the White House Chefs. The Children's Garden The Children's Garden was a gift from President and Mrs. Johnson to the White House. The garden provides a secluded place for children to play in a wooded park-like area. The garden is located on the South Grounds and features a goldfish pond and a stayman winesap apple tree (for children to use as a climbing tree). Tulips and grape hyacinth provide vibrant colors in the natural drifts of the garden. Footprints and handprints of Presidents' children and grandchildren are embedded in the garden's paved pathway. (Barbara and Jenna Bush's handprints were added during President George H.W. Bush's Administration.)Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page

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How do you fabricate solar panels at half the cost and 1/10th the thickness of conventional panels? With a custom-built particle accelerator ten times more powerful than conventional accelerators of course. As we reported yesterday, Twin Creeks Technologies is doing some pretty wild things with solar cells. They're only 20 microns thick and extremely flexible compared to the brittle 200-micron-thickness for traditional panels. Even more amazing is how the svelte panels are made. Traditional solar wafers are produced by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick slab from a slab of crystalline silicon, embedded with electrodes and mounted under protective glass. This method wastes nearly half the silicon in the cutting process (think: silicon sawdust) and results in a brittle wafer. Twin Creeks Technologies, located in Senatobia, Mississippi, uses a method known as Proton Induced Exfoliation (PIE) and gigantic Ion Cannon known as Hyperion, to bypass both these problems. First, three-millimeter-thick silicon wafers are placed around the outside edge of the machine's central wheel and will act as the source material for the wafers being produced. Hyperion then charges up its particle accelerator and embeds a layer of protons (basically hydrogen ions) 20 microns below the template's surface. Robotic arms then transport the templates to a furnace which heats them and expands the ions back into hydrogen gas. This causes a thin layer of wafer to cleanly shear from the template but otherwise remain identical to the source material. According to the Twin Creeks site, "The physical attributes of hydrogen, combined with the conditions created by Hyperion, permit the ions to penetrate the surface of the donor wafer without changing its inherent properties and characteristics." Essentially, the company is using the hydrogen ions as a molecular scalpel. After shearing, the thin wafer receives a metal backing to prevent cracking and improve the wafer's flexibility and can also be further processed into either solar cells or semiconductors. The template is returned to the Hyperion for another round of proton infusions. "The thickness of wafers today is based on wafer slicing capabilities and the handling requirements for device processing. In reality, only the very top layer of a substrate plays an active role in generating energy or transmitting signals — the rest is wasted," said Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO of Twin Creeks. "By eliminating excess material, we will help solar manufacturers produce modules that compete with grid power and open up new markets for chip makers." Sivaram says that this method reduces the amount of silicon needed by a whopping 90 percent and that by eliminating the need for wire band saws and the like, capital costs are also greatly reduced. Sivaram estimates that the Twin Creeks method can produce solar cells for about 40 cents per watt—half that of even the most cheaply produced cells coming out of China. At 40 cents a watt, solar could quickly become as profitable as conventional fossil fuels. A single Hyperion can process over 1.5 million thin wafers per year, enough for more than 6 megawatts worth of solar cells. But Twin Creeks isn't in the solar panel business, it's in the proton accelerator business. The company hopes to integrate the Hyperion into the existing production lines of solar panel manufacturers. "I expect that by this time next year, we'll have a half a dozen to a dozen of these tools in the field," Sivaram said. Image: Twin Creeks Technologies

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Scientists have managed to build an artificial jelly fish entirely from rat cells, which can pulse and swim when exposed to an electric field, just like its living counterpart. Taking cells from the heart of a rat, the team of scientists from Harvard University were able to grow a single layer of muscle on top of a patterned sheet of polydimethylsiloxane. The result mimics the bell of a juvenile moon jelly—a type of jelly of fish—which propels itself by sending electric signals through the structure to make it contract rapidly. When exposed to an electric field, the artificial creature—refereed to as medusoid—contracts rapidly, in the same way as the jellyfish does during its power stroke. The sheet of elastic silicone on which the muscle is built then pulls the medusoid back into shape ready for the next stroke. If you're unconvinced, watch the video above: this thing really does look just like a real jellyfish as it moves through the water. The research is published in Nature Biotechnology. Kit Parker, lead researcher on the project, explained to Nature: "Morphologically, we've built a jellyfish. Functionally, we've built a jellyfish. Genetically, this thing is a rat... We took a rat apart and rebuilt it as a jellyfish." When people usually talk about synthetic life, it's at the cellular level. This time round, the scientists have built an actual animal. While it's a pretty cool scientific party trick, the idea is in fact to use the little creatures for testing drugs in the future. And there's more to come, too, because Parker is already planning how to build a synthetic octopus in the same way. Welcome to the future. [Nature Biotechnology via Nature] Image by Harvard University/Caltech

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The three coloured jets aren't what they seem. They look like fluids dyed different colours mixing to make a clear liquid. But all the water is clear: the colour comes from red, green and blue lasers. This photo won Alexander Albrecht of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque first prize in the 2012 After Image photo contest run by Optics & Photonics News. The colours seem to be flowing through the jets because an effect called total internal reflection is confining the laser beams. Each laser is aimed along the centre of a jet. As the jet bends, the light hits the boundary between water and air at a glancing angle, so it is reflected back into the water and travels further along it. If the light is to travel all the way down the jet, the surface of the jet must be smooth and even to keep the light and the water from breaking up in turbulence. Some light passing through the water jet scatters out of it by bouncing off water molecules, an effect called Rayleigh scattering. Physicist Daniel Colladon first demonstrated light guiding along a water jet in 1841. Another physicist, John Tyndall, later repeated the demonstration in his popular lectures at the Royal Institution in London. The effect is credited with inspiring concepts from illuminated fountains to fibre optics. The red, green and blue laser beams mix together to make white light because they are the same intensity and match the human eye's three colour receptors. Combining different blends of these three primary colours can produce the whole range of colour visible to the human eye, including colours such as pink and brown which are not in the rainbow or solar spectrum. Video displays produce images in the same way, by modulating the brightness of tiny red, green and blue emitters across the whole screen. New Scientist reports, explores and interprets the results of human endeavour set in the context of society and culture, providing comprehensive coverage of science and technology news.

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Single Reponsibility Principle (SOLID part 1) Part of my SOLID programming principles series. What is the Single Responsibility Principle? The single responsibility principle is pretty self-explanatory. When designing objects, they should only serve a single purpose in a program. This also works in the inverse, in that each responsibility of your program should be handled, and completely encapsulated by a single class. There are several benefits to designing software this way. One is maintainability. Single responsibility classes are clearly defined, so when a fix needs to take place, it is easy to find where and how to make the fix, and that this change will have less impact on other parts of the system. Another is that this makes code more reusable, and less tangled together. Applying the Single Responsibility Principle to Objects Looking at MVC frameworks is a great way to see how this principle can be applied. You have three types of objects, each that only handle one thing in the system. Models handle data abstraction, controllers handle routing, and views handle the user interface. There are also separate models, views, and controllers for each of the objects in your program. This way, each part of the logic is kept separate, and it is easy to move, extend, and maintain. Applying the Single Responsibility Principle to Functions If your function takes a lot of arguments, or has a ton of if/elses, then maybe it needs to be broken up into multiple functions. A good rule of thumb I use is to make sure my functions can be named in a

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The 1979 Sandinista revolution that toppled one of history's most long lived and brutal dictatorships launched Nicaragua into international attention. Over two decades later, after the U.S.-backed Contra counter-revolutionary war, the Sandinistas are back in power. Since the politically tumultuous 1970s and 1980s, life has not been easy in Nicaragua. Due to the misguided neoliberal economic agreements signed with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a majority of Nicaraguans find themselves without work, health care, education and other basic social services that were once provided during the revolutionary period. Some regions of Nicaragua have also been devastated in recent years by natural disasters, famine and a severe recession in the global coffee industry that has hit Nicaraguan campesinos especially hard. Despite the hardships that they face, ordinary Nicaraguans have not given up hope and continue to struggle to improve their well-being. Understanding first-hand the dire consequences of adhering to the neoliberal economic model, Nicaraguans are currently resisting with their Central and South American neighbors against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) , Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) . Today, women maquiladora workers and trade unionists are fighting for equality in export-led factories and struggling to organize unions in the country capital Managua's harsh sweatshop zones. Nicaraguan campesinos, especially in the coffee industry, are on the forefront of the economically transformative Fair Trade movement, which enables them to make a living wage from their locally owned crops, which support their families, maintain their community and sovereign connection to the land.

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JANUARY 16, 2013 - Charging superconductors will get a lot more efficient and cost effective The Department of Energy recently funded Fermilab scientist Tengming Shen $2,500,000 to develop Bi2Sr2CaCu2Ox superconductors. He expects he could use this material to build magnets with a reach of up to 50 Tesla. Shen's magnets could potentially be cooled with a simpler refrigeration unit. The superconducting material that has magnetic field upper limits surpassing 100 Tesla at 4.2 K and can be fabricated into a multifilamentary round wire, to practical magnet conductors that can be used to generate fields above 20 Tesla for the next generation of accelerators. Studies suggest that reducing the present cost of the superconductor by a factor of two would bring the cost of 10-GW, 1200-mile-long, superconducting cables to within range of that of conventional overhead lines. Since underground dc cables also offer substantial environmental, siting, and aesthetic benefits over conventional overhead transmission lines, they may become an attractive alternative option in some situations. Superpower Inc, is on track to improving price performance of its superconducting wire by 4 times. The UK company Magnifye has developed ways to charge superconductors in a vastly more efficient system. Magnifye has developed a heat engine which converts thermal energy into currents of millions of amps. The thermal energy is used to create a series of magnetic waves which progressively magnetise the superconductor much in the same way a nail can be magnetised by stroking it over a magnet. Ferropnictide superconductors, i.e., superconductors that contain Fe and As, have superconducting transition temperatures (Tc) up to 56 K and high upper critical fields (Hc2) over 100 Telsa. The high Hc2 means these materials could be used in very high field magnets. Previous studies suggested that polycrystalline samples of these materials could not carry a large superconducting current because grain boundaries reduce the critical current density (Jc). Surprisingly, new results find that the opposite is true for wire made from (Ba0.6K0.4) Fe2As2. This material could enable superconducting magnets at 120 tesla.

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Thank you for using the timer! We noticed you are actually not timing your practice. Click the START button first next time you use the timer. There are many benefits to timing your practice, including: Whenever a major airplane accident occurs, there is a [#permalink] 13 Jun 2010, 06:45 100% (02:52) correct 0% (00:00) wrong based on 0 sessions Whenever a major airplane accident occurs, there is a dramatic increase in the number of airplane mishaps reported, a phenomenon that may last for as long as a few months after the accident. Airline officials assert that the publicity given the gruesomeness of major airplane accidents focuses media attention on the airline industry and the increase in the number of reported accidents is caused by an increase in the number of news sources covering airline accident, not by an increase in the number of accidents. Which of the following, if true, would seriously weaken the assertions of the airline officials? (A) The publicity surrounding airline accidents is largely limited to the country in which the crash occurred. (B) Airline accidents tend to occur far more often during certain peak travel months. (C) News organizations do not have any guidelines to help them decide how severe or how close an accident must be for it to receive coverage. (D) Airplane accidents receive coverage by news sources only when the news sources find it advantageous to do so. (E) Studies by government regulations show that the number of airplane flight miles remains relatively constant from month to month. The best answer given is B. Can anyone please explain how B is better than C? I think C is better as it states that news organizations can report any airline accident irrespective of when it occured or how severe accident is. Re: Query: Weaken the argument [#permalink] 13 Jun 2010, 07:48 Premise: Major airline accident --> Increase in airplane mishaps for next few months. Assertion: Number of accidents reported increases due to increased coverage not due to actual increase in the number of accidents. We have to weaken the assertion. The assertion assumes that the actual number of accidents doesn't increase. B. Airline accidents occur often during certain months - this indicates a NEW cause for the rise in reported mishaps, and weakens the assertion that the cause is increased coverage. C. This only tells us they don't have any guidelines. It also says it generally, and thus this would be true for whether or not the number of accidents has actually increased. Does it tell us that they are reporting more accidents than before, or give us a new cause for the increase? No.

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Mankind has been able to accomplish some pretty impressive things, but some of them were around long before we figured them out. Ants, for instance, hunt for food in a way that’s basically the same as the Internet’s Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), and they were doing it long before the Internet was around. It all has to do with how harvester ants gather their food. The same way that TCP will throttle data transmission if initial packets indicate little bandwidth, harvester ants will send less foragers out for food if the initial ones take too long to come back with grub. From Stanford News: [The] rate at which harvester ants – which forage for seeds as individuals – leave the nest to search for food corresponds to food availability. A forager won’t return to the nest until it finds food. If seeds are plentiful, foragers return faster, and more ants leave the nest to forage. If, however, ants begin returning empty handed, the search is slowed, and perhaps called off. And that’s not where the similarities end either. Ants also use TCP’s slow start technique, by sending out a wave of foragers (packets) to figure out the relative amount of food (bandwidth) before scaling their numbers up or down. Likewise, the same way a connection will time out if the source stops sending packets, the ants will stop sending out new foragers if none return for 20 minutes. Balaji Prabhakar, one of the researchers behind the discovery, says that if this behavior had been uncovered pre-Internet, it might have influenced its design. Even so, this foraging process has been seriously time-tested, and there still might be things we can learn from it. In the meantime, who knows what other algorithms might already be out there, quietly waiting to be discovered. [Stanford News] Companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple are currently competing for a new round of top-level domains—think new versions of .app. They think this will make the internet easier to use, but we think it’s a bit sketchier than they’d like to admit. Here’s why. What Is a Top-Level Domain? A top-level domain is the last part of a URL, often something like .org. It’s at the top of the domain hierarchy (hence the term “top-level”), and is the first thing your computer looks for when you type in a web address. When you type in lifehacker.com, for example, your browser asks your DNS server where it can find the .com nameserver. Your browser then contacts the .com nameserver for the lifehacker subdomain, where it finds this web site. You can see an example of this below, courtesy of Wikipedia. These domain names are all managed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), formerly a government organization but now a private, non-profit entity. ICANN not only manages which top-level domains exist, but also make sure everything is stable and runs smoothly. ICANN Is Handing Out New Top-Level Domains, Lottery-Style A few years ago, ICANN began expanding the number of top-level domains, so porn sites, for example, could use the .xxx domain. Recently, though, they opened this up so companies can create and apply for custom top-level domains. For example, Google wants to claim .blog, so all blogs created by their Blogger service would have an easy-to-remember .blog domain name. They also want .search for obvious reasons, while Amazon wants to claim .cloud. Allowed domains can range from brands (like .gmail) to generic words ( .fun) and geographic locations ( .paris). Not all top-level domains will be exclusive, but when a company applies for one, they can choose to make them exclusive to their own pages, like Google wants to do with .blog. Many of these companies have applied for hundreds of top-level domains (ready to pay millions of dollars for them), even ending up in battles over who gets what—both Google and Amazon are currently fighting over .cloud, for example, and you can bet everyone’s looking to get their hands on Why the Domain Lottery Is Sketchy As you can imagine, some people think this lottery is a little ridiculous, and we tend to agree. It might seem innocent enough to give Amazon ownership of the .kindle domain, since the Kindle is their product, but you can easily see how things get more complex when they’re asking for an exclusive claim to the .book domain, or Google the .search domain. Not only that, but it opens the door for a lot of unfair treatment. It wouldn’t be out of character for Google to float .blog sites to the top of search results, or the company who owns the .news domain could give preferential treatment to sites that share its political biases. It ends up being a huge, confusing, and sometimes misleading mess—and the only ones who benefit are the companies and ICANN, who despite being a nonprofit, stands to make a ton of money from this endeavor. Photo by MoneyBlogNewz. These controversial domain applications are still in review, but ICANN has yet to say or do anything that would lead us to believe they won’t accept them. All we can do now is wait and see. What do you think about the new generic top-level domains? Will they make the internet easier to use, or are they only going to benefit companies and confuse users? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below. And, if you’re interested in reading more, here are some other articles on the subject: - Generic Top-Level Domain [Wikipedia] - .blog, .lol, .foo: Google, Amazon Top List of Global TLD Applications [Ars Technica] - Amazon’s Domain Power Play: We Want to Control Them All [CNET] - New Internet Domain Names May Make for a More Tangled Web [Washington Post] - Should Gooogle and Amazon Be Allowed to Control Domains? [GigaOM] The internet is starting to realize something unsettling: our iPhones send information about the people we know to private servers, often without our permission. Some offending apps are fixing themselves. Some aren’t. But the underlying problem is much bigger. Apple allows any app to access your address book at any time—it’s built into the iPhone’s core software. The idea is to make using these apps more seamless and magical, in that you won’t have dialog boxes popping up in your face all the time, the way Apple zealously guards your location permissions at an OS level—because fewer clicks mean a more graceful experience, right? Maybe, but the consequence is privacy shivved and consent nullified. Your phone makes decisions about what’s okay to share with a company, whose motivation is, ultimately, making money, without consulting you first. Once you peel back that pretty skin of your phone and observe the software at work—we used a proxy application called Charles—watching the data that jumps between your phone and a remote server is plain. A little too plain. What can we see? As Paul Haddad, the developer behind the popular Twitter client TapBot pointed out to me, some of App Store’s shiniest celebrities are among those that beam away your contact list in order to make hooking up with other friends who use the app smoother. From Haddad’s own findings: Foursquare (Email, Phone Numbers no warning) Path (Pretty much everything after warning) Instagram (Email, Phone Numbers, First, Last warning) Facebook (Email, Phone Numbers, First, Last warning) Twitter for iOS (Email, Phone Numbers, warning) Voxer (Email, First, Last, Phone numbers, warning) Foursquare and Instagram have both recently updated to provide a much clearer warning of what you’re about to share. Which every single app should follow, providing clear warnings before they touch your contacts. But plenty of apps aren’t so generous. “A lot of other popular social networking apps send some data,” says Haddad, “mostly names, emails, phone numbers.” Instapaper, for example, transmits your address book’s email listings when you ask it to “search contacts” to connect with other friends using the app. The app never makes it clear that my data (shown up top) is leaving the phone—and once it’s out of your hands and in Instagram’s, all you can do is trust that it’ll be handled responsibly. You know, like not be stored permanently without your knowledge. Trust is all we’ve got, and that’s not good. “Once the data is out of your device there’s no way to tell what happens to it,” explains Haddad. Companies might do the decent thing and delete your data immediately. Like Foursquare, which says it doesn’t store your data at all after matching your friends, and never has. Twitter keeps your address book data for 18 months “to make it easy for you and your contacts to discover each other on Twitter after you’ve signed up,” but can delete the data at any time with a link at the bottom of this page. Or a company might do the Path thing, storing that information indefinitely until they’re publicly shamed into doing otherwise. Or worse. We need a solution, and goodwill on the part of app devs is going to cut it. All the ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? dialog boxes in the world won’t absolve Apple’s decision to hand out our address books on a pearly platter. iOS is the biggest threat to iOS—and nothing short of a major revision to the way Apple allows apps to run through your contacts should be acceptable. But is that even enough? Maybe not. Jay Freeman, developer behind the massively popular jailbroken-iPhone program Cydia, doesn’t think Apple’s hand is enough to definitively state who gets your address book, and when: “Neither Apple nor the application developer is in a good position to decide that ahead of time, and due to this neither Apple’s model of ‘any app can access the address book, no app can access your recent calls’, nor Google’s method of ‘developer claims they need X, take it or leave it’ is sufficient.” Freeman’s solution? Cydia’s “one-off modifications to the underlying operating system” that we deal in, nicely transfers this control back to the user.” In other words, we can’t trust Apple or the people that make apps—so let’s just trust ourselves to control how iOS works. Freeman left us with one, final, disquieting note. Shrewd devs and others with the knowhow have been able to dig through app traffic to find out of they’re shoveling around your address book. But there’s no easy way to do this—and if a dev really wants to sneak your data through the door, there’s technically nothing we can do to stop him: “There are tons of complex tricks that can be used to smuggle both information in network traffic and computation itself.” It’s a problem fundamental to computer science—once the data’s in a dev’s hands, he can conjure it away, too small to be noticed by App Store oversight in churning sea of other apps. Unless Apple keeps him from getting that information in the first place by letting us all make informed decisions with our phone and the private life poured into it. Your move, iOS. NEW YORK (AP) — Credit card rewards are the new social currency. Citibank customers can now use Facebook to pool their rewards points online. The bank on Tuesday launched a Facebook application that lets users team up to use their points, whether it’s for charity, a group gift or a personal goal. Citi says it’s the first bank to offer such a feature. The app builds on a service Citi introduced last year that lets customers transfer points to one another on the bank’s homepage. After getting feedback, executives decided to expand the rewards sharing capability and offer it through social media. “Now we’re delivering it to where customers are every day,” said Ralph Andretta, who heads Citi’s loyalty programs and co-branded cards. Andretta noted that customers will have far more flexibility with their points, whether it’s to help a friend fly home from college or team up for a big-ticket reward. The company is giving away 2,500 free rewards points to each of the first 4,000 customers to sign up. To get started, customers download the ThankYou Point Sharing App, which is linked on Citi’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/citibank. Customers can then start a rewards pool by naming a recipient and explaining its purpose. The recipient of the points maintains control of any contributions, so it’s best if you know and trust that person. Pool recipients must be individuals and cannot be an organization, even if the intended goal is a charitable donation. Users can promote their goals by sharing links on their Facebook pages or privately inviting other Citi customers to contribute. Donors can see the total number of points a cause has amassed. The app can collect personal information from Facebook profiles. But Citi says it does not share any customer account information with Facebook. The program isn’t only for credit card holders either. Citi checking account customers can also earn ThankYou points. Citi introduced its lineup of ThankYou credit cards last year. - FLASHBACK: Remember When Wall Street Christmas Parties Were Awesome? - The Funniest Part Of Michael Lewis’ New Column Is The Brutal Bank Of America Diss - PAST AND PRESENT: The 11 Most Influential Women In Wall Street History Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights. 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As difficult as it is to predict precisely how the planet will warm over the next century or so, it is even harder to refine predictions of how those changes will affect specific species. That’s because warmer temperatures alone are not the only driver of what happens to, say, four varieties of trout. But a group of scientists set out to do just that. In a study published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, they estimated not just what warmer rivers will mean for the life cycle of these western trout, but also how more winter rain or earlier snow melts — and the resulting higher flows — could affect eggs laid in the fall. It also describes how competitors, newly empowered by temperatures and stream flows that favor them, could muscle traditional species out of the way. The news is not good. As the authors, from the conservation group Trout Unlimited, the Forest Service, the University of Washington, Colorado State University and the United States Geological Survey write, “Our models forecast significant declines in trout habitat across the interior western United States in the 21st century.” They say that prediction applies to much of the rest of the temperate world because three of the species studied — rainbow, brown and brook trout — “are common on multiple continents.”

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The first State of the Environment Report of the Caspian Sea (SoE-Report) was prepared by GRID-Arendal and presented at the Third Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP3) in Aktau, Kazakhstan 10-12 August 2011. Available online as PDF: English | Russian (19 mb) The Caspian Sea, surrounded by the five coastal countries the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan), the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran), Republic of Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan), the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan, is the largest land-locked water body on Earth. The isolation of the Caspian Basin together with its climatic and salinity gradients has created a unique ecological system with some 400 species endemic to the Caspian waters.Today, many Caspian species are threatened by over-exploitation, habitat destruction, pollution and climate change. It reflects negatively on human well-being, social and economic sectors, and environmental services.

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Conclusion - God is the Ruler of All The word "coincidence" in explaining a journey thousands of kilometers long towards a specific destination, starting and ending perfectly, is a meaningless one. Natural processes devoid of conscious purpose cannot inform a bird about the duration and direction of a migratory journey and also equip it with the physiological features it requires. There is no scientific evidence or logical reason to make us think so. Defending the so-called evolution of migratory behavior is like asserting that a short-range glider can turn into a plane with Global Positioning System, electronic radar systems and other navigational technology as a result of a series of errors in its radio system. Giving a little thought to migratory behavior, it can easily be seen that All-Wise and Almighty God directs these living species. That a tiny creature sets out on such a dangerous journey, using the food in its habitat to give it the strength for this journey, employing navigational techniques such as using the Sun and the stars—and most important of all, that in every migratory period, millions of species set off in a programmed fashion—all goes to show that this plan is the work of a Creator. God has created all species and has inspired in each creature the way in which it should live. As is revealed in a verse of the Qur'an, "Don't they see the birds suspended in mid-air up in the sky? Nothing holds them there except God..." (Surat an-Nahl, 79) the superior skills in living creatures, and the conscious and intelligent behavior they exhibit, show us God's supremacy over animals. God also inspires their migration: Everyone in the heavens and Earth belongs to Him. All are submissive to Him. (Surat ar-Rum, 26) People who leave aside their prejudice and think with their conscience understand this truth, that all species come into being with the wish and creation of Almighty God, Lord of the universe. The example of the eel, which travels and knows how to journey thousands of kilometers to the Sargasso Sea to lay its eggs and die, is sufficient proof to inspire faith in the existence of God, because in this behavior, there is judgment, ability and a superior intelligence. It is illogical to think that an eel has such an intelligence that even many humans could not display. God inspires it in them, and those who seek a different explanation cannot find one. In a verse of the Qur'an, God reveals the following: Say: "Have you thought about your partner deities, those you call upon besides God? Show me what they have created of the earth; or do they have a partnership in the heavens?" Have We given them a Book whose clear signs they follow? No indeed! The wrongdoers promise each other nothing but delusion. (Surah Fatir, 40) In the Qur'an, God orders humanity to reflect on the creation on Earth and in the skies through the forms of existence He has created. Anyone thinking with his conscience can see evidence of God's existence everywhere. Those who persist in denying such evidence actually do so because of their self-importance. On the subject of such people, God reveals the following in the Qur'an: Certainly those who argue about the signs of God without any authority having come to them have nothing in their breasts except for pride which they will never be able to vindicate. Therefore seek refuge with God. He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing. (Surah Ghafir, 56) Everything that our Lord has created, from the Earth to the skies, is a wonderful manifestation of His infinite intelligence and incomparable art. What is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to Allah. We have instructed those given the Book before you and you yourselves, to have taqwa of Allah, but if you are kafir, what is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to Allah. Allah is Rich Beyond Need, Praiseworthy. (Surat an-Nisa, 131)

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- Quiet sleep An alternate term for non-REM sleep. In the quiet phase of sleep most physiological activities are very stable and regular, and many are reduced compared to wakefulness. - Rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep A resting state with little consciousness of the environment, high cortical activity, vivid dreams, and periods of rapid eye movements. Nearly all skeletal muscles are paralyzed during this state, which prevents an individual from acting out dreams. Also called paradoxical or dreaming sleep. - Restless legs syndrome (RLS) A condition characterized by achy or unpleasant feelings in the legs associated with a need to move. Most prominent at night, making it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep. - Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) Sadness and depression that is brought on by a lack of exposure to sunlight. SAD usually appears in the fall or winter and subsides in the spring. - Shift work A general term to describe a job that requires an individual to work other than the standard working hours of mid-morning to late afternoon, Monday through Friday. For instance, shift work may involve working from midnight until 7:00 a.m. - Shift work sleep disorder A chronic condition that is directly related to a shift work schedule. Two primary symptoms are insomnia during times when a person is trying to sleep and excessive sleepiness when a person needs to be awake and alert. A rest or short nap, usually after the midday meal. - Sleep apnea A cessation of breathing during sleep. In adults episodes last at least 10 seconds; in children they last at least the duration of two breath cycles. See also central sleep apnea and obstructive sleep apnea. - Sleep debt An individual’s accumulated sleep loss from insufficient sleep, regardless of cause. - Sleep drive See homeostatic sleep drive. - Sleep efficiency The proportion of sleep in the period available for sleep; that is, the ratio of total sleep time to time in bed. - Sleep inertia The grogginess that occurs immediately after awakening, which can adversely affect cognitive and psychomotor abilities. Overcoming sleep inertia can take minutes or even an hour or more. This depends on multiple factors, possibly including the stage of sleep from which a person awakes and the duration of prior sleep. - Sleep latency How long it takes a person to fall asleep from the onset of the potential sleep period; for instance, time measured from turning the lights out to the onset of sleep. - Sleep onset The transition from waking to sleep, normally into non-REM N1 sleep. - Sleep paralysis Brief episodes of immobility when falling asleep or upon awakening. The paralysis typically affects all muscles except those needed for breathing. This is probably the occurrence during wakefulness of the paralysis that normally occurs during REM sleep. - Sleep spindle Spindle-shaped burst waves on the EEG occurring at 12–14 Hz for over half a second. Sleep spindles are one of the identifying features of N2 sleep. - Sleep-wake homeostat - Slow-wave sleep (SWS) - Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) [also referred to as circadian clock, circadian pacemaker, or internal biological clock] The internal circadian pacemaker is a small group of nerve cells located in the hypothalamus that controls the circadian cycles and influences many physiological and behavioral rhythms occurring over a 24-hour period, including the sleep/wake cycle. - Sympathetic nervous system One of two subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system; it intensifies certain body activities and releases stress hormones in response to perceived or real dangers. These subdivisions usually work in opposition (like a brake and an accelerator in a car). Thus, for example, slowing the heart can be achieved by simultaneously decreasing sympathetic activity (reduced acceleration) and by increasing parasympathetic activity (increased braking).

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European Parliament to decide on the future of the open Internet The Internet has changed our society, enhanced our freedoms and our economy. One of the main reasons for this is the openness of the Internet – anyone has the potential to communicate with anyone, without permission and without discrimination. This is the essence of the neutral, open Internet. This is net neutrality. This openness is now under threat, as telecoms operators seek to restrict Internet access and thereby boost their short-term profits – replacing neutrality with restrictions, barriers and complexity. We have waited for years for concrete proposals to enshrine the net neutrality principle in European Union law. Since 2010, there has also been an increasing number of calls from the European Parliament to guarantee net neutrality. Finally, in September 2013, the European Commission has proposed a draft Regulation which aims at protecting the open internet in Europe. Vice President Neelie Kroes repeatedly stated that this proposal would include the "right to net neutrality". Unfortunately, the draft Regulation (pdf) proposed by Commissioner Kroes poses a serious threat to the internet as we know it. We have analysed the three most important loopholes, which we have listed below. The good news is that it only takes a few modifications to turn the Commission's proposal into a meaningful means of protecting net neutrality, thereby ensuring that the Internet remains a barrier-free single market and a unique platform for social and cultural activity and democratic discourse. - Our amendments can be downloaded here (pdf). - You can also check our booklet for more background info (pdf). We have also analysed the draft proposals made by the different Committees: - ITRE: You can read our comments on the draft Industry, Research and Energy report here (pdf) - IMCO: You can read our comments on the draft Internal Market and Consumer Protection opinion here (pdf) - CULT: You can read our comments on the draft Culture and Education Committee opinion here (pdf) 1. What is net neutrality?Net Neutrality is the principle that every point on the network can connect to any other point on the network, without discrimination on the basis of origin, destination or type of data. This principle is the central reason for the success of the Internet. Net Neutrality is crucial for innovation, competition and for the free flow of information. Most importantly, Net Neutrality gives the Internet its ability to generate new means of exercising civil rights such as the freedom of expression and the right to receive and impart information. 2. Specialised servicesInternet companies, quite reasonably, claim the right to provide specialised network services - such as high definition video at guaranteed speeds for precise industrial applications. As long as these services are run separately from the Internet and do not interfere with internet quality, this is clearly not a problem. Currently, the proposed Regulation does not give a clear definition of specialised services. It would allow for the possibility of a "specialised service" to be interpreted as meaning any kind of online service. This would lead to the creation of a two-tiered internet, where certain services would be prioritised and others would be pushed into the slow lane. As a consequence, this would restrict the freedom of communication and the possibilities and incentives for innovation. (Article 2.15) Example: Many mobile operators already offer unmetered access to Facebook, with everything else being subject to a payment based on the volume of downloaded data. If the definition of a “specialised service” allows this kind of offer, it will restrict the possible market available to potential competitors, restricting choice and innovation in the long run. What we need is a clarification to ensure that the "service" in question is not functionally identical to an online service and that it is run on a network that is entirely separate from the public internet. The Body of European Regulators (BEREC) definition states that such services have to be separate from the public best effort internet and shall be only provided within the European electronic communications provider's network. Not alone is the Commission's proposal less clear than this definition, but it adds qualifiers like “substantially”, “general” and "widely", which are not defined and can clearly only generate legal uncertainty. 3. The "freedom" of end-usersThe text proposed by the European Commission would give users the "freedom" to choose discriminatory services. This “freedom” will ultimately be negative for internet users and negative for the broader online innovative environment (Article 23). Example: It has been estimated that British consumers alone pay approximately 5 billion pounds a year too much, due to their "freedom" to choose between numerous confusing service options. What we need is to replace "shall be free" with "have the right" and to ensure that the text does not allow discriminatory services to be offered by internet access providers. 4. "Prevent or impede serious crime"There is no definition of "serious crime". It is also unclear what "measures to prevent" would entail. However, it is clear from the context that to "prevent or impede serious crime" means ad hoc interference with online communications by internet companies, without a legal basis or a court order. (Article 23.5). Example: In the UK, for example, voluntary measures are already being carried out by ISPs to prevent individuals leading to lawless blocking of a range of legal online services. In 2012, this led to the accidental blocking of the website of the French civil rights group, La Quadrature du Net. What we need is a deletion of the dangerous exception for arbitrary interferences in communications traffic flows of reasonable traffic management, as this provision is in obvious violation of Article 52 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Timeline in the European Parliament: |Draft report: 20/11||Draft report: 16/12||Draft report: 28/11||Draft report: 11/11||Draft report: 14/11| |Deadline for amendments: 04/12||Deadline for amendments: 18/12||Deadline for amendments: mid January||Deadline for amendments: 03/12||Deadline for amendments: 17/12| |Consideration of AMs:||Consideration of AMs:||Consideration of AMs:||Consideration of AMs: 09/01||Consideration of AMs:22-23/01| |Vote: 21/01||Vote:||Vote:||Vote: 22/01||Vote: 24/02|

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History Blazer, December 1996 In the summer of 1848 Samuel J. Hensley made a discovery that greatly affected Utah history: a route from Salt Lake City to the California Trail near the City of Rocks in Idaho that would be followed by thousands of argonauts on their way to California. These gold seekers passing through Utah interacted with the local residents, ending their isolation and bringing changes to the economic and social scene. This gold corridor, which passed through Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties was a major road for several years and became known as the Salt Lake Cutoff. Hensley had gone to California in 1843 but went east to testify at the court-martial of John C. Fremont. Returning to California in 1848, Hensley and the 10 men with him attempted to cross the Salt Lake Desert by way of the Hastings Cutoff. They became mired in mud caused by heavy rain and had to backtrack to Salt Lake City. After replenishing their supplies, Hensley headed north to intersect the California Trail. By so doing, he pioneered a new route that would allow travelers to reach California by going through Salt Lake City where they could reprovision, rest their animals, rest, spend the winter if necessary, and perhaps satisfy their curiosity about the Mormons. Other men also made important contributions to this route. After successfully reaching the California Trail, Hensley continued west. On August 27, 1848, on the Humboldt River in Nevada, the Hensley group met some Mormon Battalion veterans under Samuel Thompson who were making their way to Utah to join their families and church. The veterans had planned to go by way of Fort Hall, but from Hensley they learned of the shorter route north of the Great Salt Lake that would save several days of travel time. Because Thompson's group had wagons, they would become the ones responsible for changing Hensley's pack trail into a wagon road. Bidding Hensley farewell, Thompson's group moved eastward on the California Trail to the City of the Rocks, a major landmark on the trail. Following Hensley's directions, they found on September 15 the junction to the new road near the rock formation called the Twin Sisters. There the Salt Lake Cutoff diverged from the California Trail. The company traveled east, then southeast into northern Utah and across Deep Creek near Snowville and the Hansel Mountains (commonly thought to be a corruption of Hensley). Just as Hensley had told them, there was plenty of water and grass on the route. With difficulty they crossed the Malad River. The Bear River, the next major landmark, was much easier to ford. South from there they found luxuriant grass for the animals. With the Wasatch Mountains on the east and the Great Salt Lake to the west, the wagons and men passed out of Box Elder County. On September 25 they reached James Brown's tiny village of Ogden, formerly Miles Goodyear's fort, the northernmost settlement in Utah at the time. The few residents charged the veterans a high price for cheese. The practice of charging high prices for supplies to users of the cutoff would become a hallmark of the trail. Here the group split, some proceeding directly to Salt Lake City, the others staying another day to mend broken gear. The party next camped with Hector C. Haight who was herding cattle near present Farmington. The trail ended in Salt Lake City. The Thompson company had blazed a wagon road that would become extremely important during the next few years. A second group of Mormon Battalion veterans who followed the Salt Lake Cutoff arrived in Salt Lake City some three weeks later. This was the Ebenezer Brown party which included women and children and families from the ship Brooklyn that had carried Mormons to California in 1846. This second wagon train cut the trail more clearly into northern Utah's soil. By mid-June of 1849 the first gold rushers began to arrive in Salt Lake City. Eager as they were to reach the land of golden dreams as fast as possible, many needed to stop briefly in the city for supplies, for repairs, and to rest animals. The forty-niners brought money and goods to the impoverished valley residents. Utahns could charge and receive nearly any price they asked for supplies and services. Many who detoured from the California Trail to Salt Lake City for supplies used the Salt Lake Cutoff to rejoin the California Trail. Word had spread quickly that it was a good road with grass and water at desirable intervals. The bad reputation of the Hastings Cutoff across the Salt Desert kept most from taking that route. Gold seekers who arrived late in the season and did not want to risk the snow in the Sierra Nevada took the southern route through Provo and down the Spanish Trail, but a majority took the Salt Lake Cutoff. Some travelers employed local guides. For example, James C. Sly, who was with the Mormon Battalion group that followed Hensley's directions in the fall of 1848, led the William G. Johnston party on the Salt Lake Cutoff in 1849. Another group led by William Kelly was close on their heels. During the early 1850s, when gold fever was still virulent, the Salt Lake Cutoff saw heavy traffic as the major road west from Salt Lake City. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 California-bound immigrants a year passed through Salt Lake City in 1849 and 1850, and large numbers also journeyed through Utah in 1851-52. Most of them likely took the Salt Lake Cutoff to the California Trail. These thousands of travelers boosted Utah's economy enormously. As towns sprang up along the agriculturally desirable sections of the road, settlers and immigrants had many occasions for interaction while bartering for farm produce, animals, or repairs and at river crossings, especially where the settlers established ferries. Sometimes immigrants complained of the high prices in the territory, but at least the goods and services were available, making their trip more pleasant. The Salt Lake Cutoff was a boon to traveler and settler alike. Sources: J. Roderic Korns and Dale L. Morgan, West from Fort Bridger, revised and edited by Will Bagley and Harold Schindler (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1994); Will Bagley, S. J. Hensley's Salt Lake Cutoff (Salt Lake City: Oregon-California Trails Association, Utah Crossroads Chapter, 1992); Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1958). top of page

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What's the History Behind the Deficit? This piece was published by the staff of Vote iQ, the first major social networking site expressly designed for politics. Rick Shenkman, HNN editor-in-chief, is Vice President, Media & Partnerships at Vote iQ. In President Clinton's last full year in office (2000), the federal budget was roughly $1.8 trillion dollars. When President Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, his administration received the previous year's $236 billion dollar budgetary surplus. By fiscal year (FY) 2010, a mere decade later, the United States' budget had doubled to nearly $3.6 trillion, and incurred a $1.6 trillion budget deficit. A budget deficit is the difference between outlays (expenditures) and income for a single fiscal year. So how exactly did we get to this point, where our federal deficit is almost as large as our entire federal budget was just 10 short years ago? To answer that question we must explore the concept of deficits and our nation's financial history. When economists refer to "the deficit" they are talking about the annual fiscal difference between what the government spends (outlays) and receives (taxes). More formerly, this difference is referred to as the budget-deficit, as distinguished from the trade-deficit, or the net difference between imports and exports. While we will focus here primarily on the budget-deficit, it's important to note that historically the United States has covered its budget deficit with a trade surplus, or vice versa. More recently however (since the early 70's), we have developed an unhealthy pattern of simultaneously spending more than we receive from tax revenues, and importing more than we export. One way we compensate for going over budget is by selling United States government securities or bonds. Private investors, including foreign governments such as China's, can purchase these securities from the Department of the Treasury. We leverage the income from the sales of these securities against the annual deficit. The aggregation of outstanding bonds and securities-the aggregation of the deficits over a period of years-is referred to as the national debt. Our government, regardless of which political party is in office, tends to operate on the assumption that regardless of the size of our deficit, investors and foreign countries will always cover the difference by buying these securities. We offset a portion of the amount of bonds we need to sell by minting new currency. This raises the danger of inflation, according to many economists, though the extent of the danger is a matter of opinion. Why do we have deficits? But why do we have deficits in the first place? Many economists believe that deficits are the result of naturally recurring lifecycles of the economy. During periods of economic expansion, employment tends to be near capacity. As a result, taxable income peaks. The government's receipts come close to meeting (and in some years actually exceeding) expenditures. Conversely, however, during times of recession when unemployment is relatively high, taxable income decreases. At the same time, social welfare programs are stressed when more people are unemployed, so the government paradoxically ends up spending more at the same time that it's receiving less-a double edged sword. What's important to realize is that often deficits are the result of endogenous factors, the natural ebb of economic cycles. While economists such as Milton Friedman might argue that the term "cycle" is a misnomer-economic history tends to be asymmetric and sporadic-there is no denying the presence of a cyclical-nature at the very least. Sometimes, however, deficits are caused by systemic irritants or exogenous factors. Unforeseeable events such as wars, natural catastrophes, political unrest or poor financial planning (the selling of subprime mortgages, for example) means the government has to spend more than it has planned for, or more than the current economy can support. These deficits can be compounded by cyclical deficits-for example, we went to war with Iraq during a trough in the business cycle. When Deficits Occur Having established a perfunctory explanation of "why" deficits occur, it is now necessary to establish "when" they occur. Is economic history really asymmetric and sporadic or are there certain observable trends? Do certain economic variables have a high predictive validity regarding the future condition of the budget? In short, are we able to empirically-divine when periods of large deficit spending will occur? Historian Bernard Weisberger thinks so. In thisessay on the website of the History News Network, he argues that large budgetary surpluses are also the harbingers of massive future deficits. President Jefferson inherited an $80 million national debt (largely from the Revolutionary War) when he was inaugurated in 1801. However, tumult on the European continent allowed America's fledgling system of mercantilism to prosper from manufacturing and trade. During his tenure Jefferson was able to cut taxes, reduce the debt by half, and buy the Louisiana territory all while accumulating budgetary surpluses each year from 1801 to 1807. To accomplish this, Jefferson-always the proponent of a small federal government-cut military expenditures significantly. When James Madison succeeded Jefferson as President, America's foreign rivals took notice of our paltry defenses; Britain, in 1812, resolved to test the strength of our still pubescent nation. Responding to the threat of British usurpation, Madison borrowed heavily to rebuild the military-pushing the debt back toward the pre-Jeffersonian levels of $80 million. The debt wasn't repaid entirely until 1835 (the first and last time this has happened) under President Andrew Jackson. Public land sales in the western territories provided substantial revenue for the federal government. Free of debt, and with ostensibly limitless surpluses in the future, Jackson sought to "return" $37 million in surpluses to the states. The plan backfired and caused "widespread speculation in land," and a recession, resulting in $20 million in deficits over the next 2 years. Similarly, in the 1880's as the United States emerged from the Civil War with roughly $2 billion of debt, the economy rebounded. High tax rates and a rapidly expanding industrial economy led to a string of huge surpluses. As Weisberger notes, the question facing Grover Cleveland's administration was much like the one that had faced Jefferson and Jackson: How do we return surplus tax revenue to the people? Cleveland decided to subsidize the private sector, grant entitlements to veterans, and expand the military. In 1893 the stock market plummeted and the country again ran substantial deficits. The 19th century trend Weisberger notes is this: large surpluses tend to precede large deficits. But the trend didn't die with the century. The surpluses of the 1920's led to tax cuts, and subsequently, the Great Depresssion. The surpluses in the late 1990's led to President Bush's tax cuts, and subsequently, our most recent recession. Do surpluses cause deficits? It's likely not that simple, but the correlation is clear. It seems that large surpluses tend to trigger a sort of fiscal emetic reflex-politicians instinctively want to throw excess money back to the electorate. Often, they over compensate and tamper with the system that led to the surpluses in the first instance. While saving the money might be more prudent, it's not popular. . A History of Deficit Spending: The Great Depression and World War II Following a huge post-World War I expansion in the 1920's, the economy was destined for a cyclical downturn-much as the dotcom bubble was destined to "burst" circa the new millennium. The deficits in the early to mid 1930's naturally paralleled the record high unemployment rates that came to define the same era. As we noted above, high unemployment means less taxable income. This, coupled with FDR's New Deal legislation, meant government spending increased as government income decreased. Some economists argue that when the economy is under-producing, as happened during the Depression, excess deficit spending actually may prove beneficial in the long run as it serves as a catalyst to "speed-up" the economy, providing the foundation for long term future growth and resultantly, more taxable income. John Maynard Keynes, the famous British economist, was a proponent of this idea. Factually, we know this much: the deficit spending in the 30's coupled with high unemployment resulted in deficits equal to roughly 5% of GDP from 1932-1935. Compared with the deficits of the 30's, those of the 40's were enormous, equaling more than 22% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As a generation of young men dropped out of the workforce to fight overseas, the American economy was forced to reinvent itself. Many women entered the workforce, and big-industry geared up to buttress the war effort. Military spending ballooned-and the economy boomed. After the war soldiers returned home and became civilian auto-manufacturers, steel producers, and owners of businesses. Deficit spending, which had been feared, had helped build the platform for a larger economy in the future, indicating that deficit spending is not always the evil villain it is often caricaturized as. Still, the spending contributed to a massive public debt that, while it has been periodically reduced, has never been completely paid off and is currently in a period of growth. In fact, the last time the national debt was paid off in full was 1835, when Andrew Jackson was president. Our Current Streak of Deficits - Bush and Obama Every Fiscal Year (FY) since 2002 we have posted a budget deficit. During a brief stretch of four years which included President Clinton's second term and President Bush's first year (FY's 1998-2001) expenditures were less than outlays. But before that, we had twenty-nine consecutive years in the red. However, the deficits in the last few years in particular are unique because of their size-almost $500 billion in FY 2008, $1.4 trillion in FY 2009, and $1.6 trillion in 2010. (See CBO's Budget Report archives). The most recent deficit represents 10% of national GDP and as noted earlier, is roughly the same size as our entire federal budget was just 10 years earlier. Many factors, endogenous and exogenous, have contributed to our tumultuous finances. During the late 1990's, we experienced the expansion of the World Wide Web. The Internet fundamentally changed how companies did business, streamlining communication, sales and distribution in addition to revolutionizing advertising. The result was a huge expansion of investment capital in a very short amount of time. As in the past, speculative fever led to overly optimistic claims about the new dotcom economy's resiliency, leading to grossly overvalued stocks. The economy grew so much so quickly that it surpassed an invisible level of GDP that economists like to call "potential GDP," or the optimal size for an economy at any given point in time given the size of the work force, amount of liquid capital, and other economic variables. In simple terms, the economy was artificially inflated beyond its maximum sustainable level, which led inevitably to a period of shrinkage-the dotcom bubble "burst." The terror attacks on September 11, 2001 and our subsequent military involvement in the Middle East compounded these problems. The perception of global instability caused investors to lose confidence in the financial markets-at one point in late September the Dow Jones had dropped 3,000 points below its summer peak. And though the market recovered, growth was stifled. Capital gains were thereby low and failed to generate tax revenue. Coupled with the mobilization effort of the military, we saw the budget increase and income decrease. Some think that China's low currency rate - believed by many economists to be artificially low -compounds this problem. The Chinese government has adopted policies which allow it to control the value of the yuan (also known as the renminbi) in relationship to foreign currencies, such as the dollar. By synthetically deflating the value of its own currency, relative to the world, it keeps Chinese exports inexpensive for American consumers-so we buy more of their products-and simultaneously makes imports for their own consumers more expensive-so they buy less of our products. If you picture this in terms of a simple supply-demand graph for U.S. dollars in Chinese yuan, China's policies decrease demand for our currency abroad by setting an exchange rate above the equilibrium. Economists estimate this may cost the U.S. economy $200 billion/year in growth and as many as 1 million domestic jobs. Then came the Bush tax-cuts. Predicated on the assumption that government was suffocating investment-Bush inherited a $236 billion budgetary surplus from Clinton-the new administration sought to "return" these dollars to American investors. Strict free market proponents from argue that by reducing taxes, you stimulate entrepreneurship, which grows the economy, which in turn results in a larger GDP and more taxable income. The idea is that if you increase the size of the pie, you can feed the government a proportionally smaller piece, but in the end the government will still end up with more pie in absolute terms. The theory is that everybody wins; the government brings in more revenue, and investors earn more money. Did the Bush tax cuts increase the deficit? It is unclear exactly what effect these cuts had on the deficit, as the economy in the first decade of this millennium has been complex and convoluted in many ways. Paul Krugman, a self-professed liberal economist, argues vehemently that the tax-cuts did in fact play a crucial role in the subsequent deficits. Conversely, the conservative Heritage Foundation's top budget analyst, Brian Reidl, argues that uncontrolled spending, not tax-cuts, are to be blamed. Regardless there is a correlation between the Bush tax-cuts and an increase in the size of the deficit, which seems to contradict the notion that lower taxes lead to a smaller deficit. The same trend was observed during the era of the Reagan tax cuts-the deficit grew. However, correlation is not causation, and the GDP did increase significantly during both periods. The "pie" did get bigger. The coup de gras came in 2008 when the housing bubble "burst" much in the same way the dotcom bubble had. Home values plummeted and the banks which had financed the mortgages failed. Taxable income went down as unemployment went up. The auto-industry in Detroit faced its own problems and liquid capital was nearly non-existent. The economy basically stalled-out. In order to limit the damage to the average American, both the Bush administration (in its final days) and the new Obama administration resolved to bailout the same financial institutions that had caused the problems. Here is a brief list of where the "bailout" money went since 2008: - $30 billion to Bear Stearns, 2008 - $400 billion to Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, 2008 - $180 billion to A.I.G., 2008 - $630 billion congressional spending bill, September 2008 - $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), October 2008 - Includes $25 billion to Citigroup - $45 billion to Bank of America - $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 2009 The current budget deficits are the result of these massive spending efforts by the government. Some argue that the deficit spending saved the American economy from a second Great Depression. Opponents claim that we should have let the economic natural-selection prevail and allow failing institutions to fail. Regardless, we now face the largest budget deficits in our nation's history. comments powered by Disqus Steven A. Levine - 8/6/2010 I found the omission of Reagan puzzling. Reagan's supply side economic polices, massive tax cuts for the wealthy combined with increases in military spending, led to unprecedented budget deficits. I think we have to consider the tax policies of of Reagan and GW Bush as a plan to redistribute wealth upward and create deficits which will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the federal government to implement liberal economic and social policies. Nick Rivera - 8/5/2010 Interesting article. However, I find your statement that Cleveland "decided to subsidize the private sector, grant entitlements to veterans, and expand the military" to be quite puzzling. As you and your readers probably already know, Grover Cleveland was the de facto leader of the Bourbon Democrats, who OPPOSED high tariffs, free silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to business, farmers, and veterans. During his first term in office, Cleveland VETOED hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War Veterans. Despite enormous pressure from congress and the Grand Army of the Republic, he also vetoed a popular bill that granted pensions to veterans for disabilities not caused military service. In contrast to your assertion that Cleveland attempted to subsidize the private sector, Cleveland was actually an advocate of LOWERING tariffs upon American goods, which put him at odds with private businesses, who favored higher tariffs. Moreover, as a proponent of free trade and Constitutionally-limited government, Cleveland opposed the subsidization of private businesses. In fact, one of the things Cleveland is best known for was his veto of the Texas Seed Bill, which would have appropriated $10,000 dollars to purchase seed grain from Texas farmers. That's not to say that Cleveland was 100% consistent in his views and that he vetoed EVERY SINGLE veteran pension bill and business/farmer subsidy bill that came across his desk. However, I don't think your above assertions about sudsidies and pensions are representative or either Cleveland's views or actions while serving as president. Perhaps you have him confused with another Reconstruction/Post-Reconstruction Era President? Granting subsidies to businesses and pensions to veterans was more of a Republican position during that era. chen hong juan - 8/4/2010 The current budget deficits are the result of these massive spending efforts by the government. http://www.edhardytime.com/ Some argue that the deficit spending saved the American economy from a second Great Depression. Opponents claim that we should have let the economic natural-selection prevail and allow failing institutions to fail. Jon Martens - 8/3/2010 Yes, yes, yes; they're at fault, and they're at fault, and they're at fault. And this is exactly the kind of talk that's happening among the politicians, on both sides, we foolishly elect. Let's all point fingers instead of actually doing anything to try to fix the problem. It's much more satisfying to win an argument which makes your opponent look bad than to actually have to /work/ to solve anything. And maybe if we win, then no one will remember that we're about to be flushed down the global toilet. Matt Schoenbachler - 8/3/2010 Although I appreciate the author’s analysis of federal deficits in the larger context of American history, I take issue with the article’s depiction of more recent trends. The author writes: “Did the Bush tax cuts increase the deficit? It is unclear exactly what effect these cuts had on the deficit.” Where, outside of the confines of the far right echo chamber, is the connection between the deficits and Bush’s tax cuts doubted? Even an Ayn Rand acolyte like Alan Greenspan no longer believes that tax cuts pay for themselves. At the precise moment when the incomes of America’s hyper-rich were exploding, the Bush cuts slashed taxes on dividends and began phasing out the estate tax. Meanwhile, the national deficit doubled. The article then cites a Heritage Foundation ideologue who believes that “uncontrolled spending, not tax-cuts” is the cause of the deficit. In what world would anyone from the Heritage Foundation say anything else? And why is a Heritage Foundation hack described as a “top budget analyst,” while a Nobel-prize winning economist is construed as “vehement” and as a “self-professed liberal” (as if to be a liberal is akin to an unpleasant health condition)? If anyone is interested in evidence of correlation AND causation, see . . . http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/cuts0106.cfm -- for the distribution of the Bush tax cuts; http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=966 -- for Congressional Budget Office numbers that show that the deficits are easily the largest contributor to the deficit; and http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/08/cherry-picking_season.html -- for an answer to the right’s arguments that tax cuts didn’t lead to the deficit. - Chinese President Xi Jinping: Nobody can change history - Iraq’s Long-Lost Mythical Temple Has Been Found…and Is In Danger of Disappearing Again - CBS features in-depth coverage of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights law - Archive of WW II war crimes made public - They tried to kill Hitler. Now they’re heroes. - Curators at Victoria and Albert Museum are pushing the boundaries of collecting - Ukrainian Leaders Are Using David Barton's Theocratic Pseudo-History To Build Their Nation - John D’Emilio, renowned professor of gay studies, retires - Journalist Michael Wolraich says he wrote his new book about the Progressives to teach Americans how to do liberal politics - It’s Martin Kramer vs. Ari Shavit vs. Benny Morris

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Many of the ancient Greeks were extremely interested in the world of living things, from plants to animals. Aristotle was a keen observer, and wrote excellent descriptions of what he saw. Other Greeks, such as Pliny, wrote extensively on natural history. Aesop's fables are stories about animals with a moral attached. The early Christians and the medievals were mainly interested in the world of nature as the image of God, providing symbols of spiritual truths; thus the pelican, plucking her breast to give blood to her chicks, is a symbol of Christ shedding His blood for us. The pelican in her piety, as it is called, is still to be seen on the arms of my college, Corpus Christi. The natural world was thus invested with layers of meaning which we should try to discover in order to enhance our spiritual life. In the Renaissance this interest was continued, but now greatly extended by numerous references to the classical authors who were seen as the fount of all wisdom. In encyclopedias like Conrad Gesner's History of Animals, for example, animals were described together with the meanings of their names in every language, the proverbs associated with them, what they symbolise to pagans and to Christians, and all other conceivable connections with other aspects of the natural world and with human life. Initially they were just collected, but later writers like Aldrovandi wove these associations into detailed webs that were described in a series of huge volumes on birds, insects and animals. This emblematic world view, as it has been called, came to a rather sudden end around 1650. The new voyages of discovery brought back a whole range of previously unknown animals that had no emblematic meaning, so they could not be described in the old way. People became critical of the old stories about animal behaviour and began to ask whether they were true, not what was their spiritual meaning. Francis Bacon summed up the new empirical attitude to nature, and rejected the idea that it is a complex of signs revealing God's plan, or a web with hidden meanings. Thereafter the main concern was to describe the natural world as accurately as possible, to seek what is true (Ashworth, 1990). The sciences of biology and geology received great stimulus through the voyages of discovery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For the first time the continents were accurately mapped, and specimens of exotic plants and animals were brought back to Europe by the discoverers themselves and by those that followed them. Botanical gardens were established in university cities such as Oxford, Paris, Bologna, Padua and Valencia, and zoological gardens followed soon after. The great success of Newtonian physics deeply impressed scientists working in quite different areas such as biology and geology. With Newtonian science modern science had come of age, and it became the paradigm of science, in indeed of all intellectual endeavour. It was optimistically hoped that, by applying the methods of physics, all other sciences could be brought to the same level of achievement. Among the first fruits of the application of physics to biology and geology were the estimates of the age of the earth, and these differed very widely, as described in the next section. Faced with this wealth of new information, scientists like Linnaeus tried to reduce it to order by classifying all living things into species, families and genera, together with many more refined categories. It then became natural to ask how it all came about. Was each species separately created by God, or are they all somehow related to each other? This immediately raised theological questions concerned with the interpretation of Genesis that are still with us today. The idea that all living things are related received powerful support when Darwin put forward his theory of evolution in his book on The Origin of Species. Initially he accepted the general view that each species was separately created, but his experiences on his voyage on the Beagle gradually convinced him that this was untenable. The scientific debate on biological and geological questions soon became entangled with theological considerations and engaged the attention of many of the finest minds of the time. Many of the scientists, impressed by the success of Newtonian physics and Darwinian biology, came to believe that ultimately science could solve all problems, rendering religion superfluous. Men like Spencer and Huxley, and later on Bradlaugh and Wells, were very active in propagating such views, often described as scientism. Christians naturally fought back, and a confused and influential debate ensued, which continues today. The application of physics to geology made possible the first crude estimates of the age of the earth. By measuring the salinity of rivers and oceans, for example, one can estimate how long it would take to build up the concentration of salts in the ocean today. In a similar way one can estimate how long it would take for a river to carve out a valley. Such calculations gave times of the order of billions of years. This timescale was supported by estimates of the time it would take for species to evolve from primitive forms to the great diversity we see today. The age of the earth can also be estimated by purely physical methods, and these gave very much shorter times, of the order of a hundred million years. These were obtained, notably by Kelvin, by calculating the gravitational and thermal energy of the sun. The resulting times were far too short for the geologists and biologists. This conflict between the geologists and biologists on the one hand and physicists on the other was eventually solved by the discovery of radioactivity, which provided an additional source of heat that could prolong the life of the sun to times similar to those required by the geologists and biologists. Subsequently in 1935 Bethe identified the cycles of nuclear reactions that provide the energy of the sun by building up helium from its constituent nucleons. Additional problems were posed by the fossils found in many rocks. They seemed to be the remains of living creatures, and thus had to be assigned an age greater than that of the rocks where they were found. All this evidence required times much longer than indicated by a literal reading of the Bible. This raised the problem of the interpretation of the Bible, which is particularly acute for those who accept it as the sole rule of faith. They are inevitably faced with the unpalatable choice between rejecting science or finding a different way to interpret the Bible, which has no justification on their own principles. Those however who recognise that the Church has authority over the interpretation of the Bible, since it was the Church that gave us the Bible in the first place, have no such problems. The vast multiplicity of living things poses two problems, firstly can they have developed from non-living matter, and secondly can the more developed forms of life have evolved from the simpler forms. There are two extreme views on this, the first being that each different type of living form is directly created by God and the second that there is a continuous development from non-living matter to man without any Divine action whatsoever. In 1877 Haeckel declared that when the chemical components of the cell are suitably united, they 'produce the soul and body of the animated world, and suitably nursed, become man'. He concluded, 'With this single argument the mystery of the universe is explained, the Deity annulled and a new era of infinite knowledge ushered in.' Since he made no attempt to describe how this can come about, statements like this are just wishful thinking with no scientific basis whatsoever. The sheer complexity of living organisms, or even of some of the molecules essential for life, makes it difficult to see how they could be formed just by the blind operation of natural forces. Detailed calculations by Lecorute de Nuoy and others showed how extremely unlikely it was that this could have taken place as the result of random forces. Such arguments appealed to some Christians, as they seemed to offer a scientific proof of the need for the Deity. This is however a dangerous argument, invoking what is sometimes called the God of the Gaps to explain what is beyond current science. The danger is that the further advance of science may provide a perfectly natural explanation. The argument then collapses and God's activity is more and more restricted as science advances. If one encounters a difficulty in understanding some aspect of the natural world it should be tackled scientifically and not used as an argument for the Deity. God is necessary to explain the whole process, not just one aspect of it. Indeed considerable progress has been made towards understanding the origin of life. In 1952 Miller exposed a mixture of water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen to ultraviolet light produced by an electric discharge, and after a week found amino acids in the solution. It is also very likely that further steps in the process take place via substructures, and it is much more likely that these can be formed than that the whole cell comes together from its constituents in one step. Thus while the problem of the formation of simple living organisms has yet to be solved, considerable progress has been made, and it would certainly be unwise to say that it will not one day be fully understood. The situation is similar for the origin of species. Darwin postulated that the large variations we see are the result of very many small variations, some of which are preferentially selected because they improve the organism's chance of survival. This idea was very attractive, because it provided a possible way to understand the obvious similarities between individuals of neighbouring species. There are however serious difficulties. Firstly, very long times are needed, but this was eventually shown to be possible as described in the last section. Secondly, it was not clear how the differences arise in the first place. Thirdly, Darwin's explanation could possibly work for relatively small changes such as the celebrated evolution of the horse, but it was far from clear how it could explain, for example, the development of the first bird. In spite of these difficulties the theory of evolution is held by biologists, at least as a working hypothesis, because it provides a possible way to understanding, whereas the alternative of special creation is scientifically barren. As the years go by, substantial advances are indeed being made. Unknown to Darwin, the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel was already laying the foundations of genetics which immediately answered one of his greatest difficulties. More recently, the work on DNA has shown the chemical structure of the genes, and we can begin to glimpse how the process of evolution could have taken place. We need not follow the details here, as our main purpose is to study the relation of these developments to religious belief. To do this we first consider the key question of the interpretation of the Bible, in particular the first chapter of Genesis, and then recall the legendary encounter between Wilberforce and Huxley. The following section summarises the views on evolution of a leading churchman, Cardinal Newman, and the final section considers those of the Creationists. The first chapter of the book of Genesis is perhaps the most familiar text of the Bible, and also the most fundamental. It describes the creation of the world and all that is in it, including man. It is also the text that has given rise to the most controversy, and it is a perennial source of difficulty, if not scandal. It frequently happens that young people are brought up believing literally in the Biblical story of creation and then, when they read the scientific account, reject the Bible as naive and false. Thus Einstein in his autobiography recalled that he abandoned his early religious beliefs at about the age of twelve when he realised that many of the stories in the Bible cannot be true. Furthermore, the Abbe Michonneau, a worker priest, found that the apparent conflict between the six-day creation story was more effective in alienating the working classes from the Church than their social injustices. When interpreting the Bible it is necessary to recognise its vital spiritual message, but in a way that takes full account of scientific findings. It is thus important to recognise that there are obvious internal inconsistencies if the creation story is read as literal history. Thus the sun was created on the fourth day, whereas light appeared on the first day, and plants, that need the sun's light, on the third day. Indeed, the whole idea of creation taking place in a few days is simply ridiculous compared with the millions of years that we know from extensive scientific studies are necessary for the evolution of the universe from the primeval explosion to the present day. And yet, despite this, the Biblical account of creation has retained its power down the ages. We should analyse just what it is trying to say and how it is saying it. How authentic is it? To whom is it addressed? Is it really an historical and scientific account of what actually took place? These and related questions have to be answered before we can read Genesis with full understanding. The Bible was given to us by the Church, and its infallibility is guaranteed by the infallibility of the Church. It is indeed literally true, but this means that it is true, not in a superficial verbal sense, but in the sense that it is intended by God to be true. Superficially, it seems that Genesis describes creation as taking place in six days. If a day is taken the normal sense, it is clearly contrary to the scientific account of the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang about ten to fifteen billion years ago, followed by the formation of stars and galaxies and the solar system, and then the geological and biological evolution over hundreds of millions of years. Unless one is prepared to accept theological absurdities such as supposing that God created rocks complete with fossils, this implies that the word 'day' does not have its usual meaning; perhaps then it can mean some extended cosmological epoch. This possibility has inspired many efforts over the centuries to establish a concordance between Genesis and our scientific knowledge of the evolution of the universe. The initial command 'Let there be light' can be identified with the Big Bang and the following 'days' with the stages of cosmological evolution. Many prominent scientists have remarked on the close correspondence between Genesis and scientific findings. Thus Arno Penzias, one the discoverers of the cosmic background radiation that provided the strongest evidence for the Big Bang, has said that 'the best data that we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.' Victor Weisskopf declared that 'the Judeo-Christian tradition describes the beginning of the universe in a way that is surprisingly similar to the scientific model'. Such attempts to reconcile Genesis and science have a superficial appeal, but they are fundamentally misleading. Not only do they gloss over many inconsistencies, but more importantly they are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of Genesis, which is to teach us truths essential for our salvation, not to provide an historical or scientific account of the evolution of the universe. The Bible is addressed to people of all ages, with very different cultural background and very different levels of knowledge. To be understood, its meaning must be essentially simple and does not require sophisticated intelligence, let alone modern scientific knowledge, for its understanding. Genesis contains three inter-related themes, concerning God the Creator of all, God the worker and God the Creator of mankind, the summit and purpose of creation. These convey timeless spiritual truth that establish the foundations of our life on earth. God is the creator. At a particular instant, the beginning, He created the world, effortlessly, immediately and out of nothing. He is solely responsible for His creation. It is entirely distinct from Him, and is entirely dependent on Him, so that without His conserving power it would immediately lapse into nothingness. Because it is created by God, it is essentially good. God is a worker, so in describing creation Genesis provides a model for man, that he should work for six days and rest on the seventh. God did not tire or need to create in stages, or to rest, but we have to labour and then must rest. God is the creator of mankind. He did not need to create, but did so out of love. He created man in His image and likeness, with the power to love God or to reject Him. He gave man power over all creation,and commanded him to exercise this power responsibly, as a careful steward. These basic truths are conveyed rhetorically, not historically. To emphasise God's creative power, it is first of all stated that he created heaven and earth, that is everything, and then the main parts of creation are listed, to emphasise that God created everything. He began, like any worker, by creating the light, so that He can see what he is doing. Then he creates the roof of the world, nearer to the heavens, and afterwards the earth with the land and the sea. On the next two days He created the ornaments of the heavens, the sun and the stars, and then the ornaments of the earth, the birds and the fishes. On the sixth day He created man, and the animals that are subject to him, and on the seventh day He rested. This account emphasises the creative power of God and provides a model for man to follow. Although superficially it may appear to be an historical account, to interpret it in this way is to fail to recognise its literary genre. It is enough to recall the contradictions already mentioned to see that it is rhetorical and not historical. The 'days' are not our days, or even historical epochs. Still less is it a scientific account, in spite of ingenious attempts to correlate the Genesis account with the latest astronomical theories. Genesis was written to teach us truths necessary for salvation, not scientific knowledge that we can find out by ourselves. Furthermore, any such attempts are always liable to be undermined by further discoveries. The perspective of the Bible is higher than any scientific world view, however sophisticated, and this guarantees its perennial validity. The story of the debate between Samuel Wilberforce the Bishop of Oxford (Soapy Sam) and T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the British Association in Oxford on 30 June 1860 is very well-known. During this debate, Wilberforce tried to pour scorn on Darwin's "Origin of Species" and was vanquished by Huxley, whose scientific sincerity humbled the insolence and obscurantism of Soapy Sam. Thus the pretension of the Church to dictate to scientists what conclusions they could reach was decisively defeated and the autonomy of science affirmed. The encounter is described in the October 1898 issue of Macmillan's Magazine, in an article entitled "A Grandmother's Tales": 'I was happy enough to be present on the memorable occasion at Oxford when Mr. Huxley bearded Bishop Wilberforce. There were so many of us that were eager to hear that we had to adjourn to the great library of the Museum. I can still hear the American accents of Dr. Draper's opening address, when he asked 'Air we a fortuitous concourse of atoms?' and his discourse I seem to remember as somewhat dry. Then the bishop rose, and in a light scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us that there was nothing in the idea of evolution: rock pigeons were what rock pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey? On this Mr. Huxley slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure stern and pale, very quiet and very grave, he stood before us, and spoke those tremendous words -- words which no one seems sure of now, nor I think, could remember just after they had been spoken for their meaning took away our breath, though it left in no doubt as to what it was. He was not ashamed to have a monkey for an ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth. No one doubted his meaning and the effect was tremendous. One lady fainted and had to be carried out: I for one, jumped out of my seat; and when in the evening we met at Dr. Daubeney's, everyone was eager to congratulate the hero of the day.' Several other accounts tell much the same story, and some express regret that contemporary accounts are so few. However they do exist, and they tell rather a different story. There are two reports of journalists who were actually present, and neither reported the 'tremendous words' of Huxley. In a letter he wrote to Darwin the next day, Hooker made no mention of them. There was certainly a vigorous debate. Interest in Darwin's ideas was high, and the Bishop of Oxford had strongly opposed the idea that men may be descended from apes. He was supported by many of the most distinguished scientists including Professor Owen and Sir Benjamin Brodie. Darwin could not come because of illness, so it fell to Huxley to defend Darwin's views. Wilberforce had already written a review of Darwin's Origin of Species that was mainly devoted to a scientific assessment of the theory. He made clear that its truth should be judged objectively, and emphasised that he had 'no sympathy with those who object to any facts or alleged facts in nature, or an inference logically deduced from them, because they believe them to contradict what it appears to them is taught by Revelation. We think that all such objections savour of a timidity which is really inconsistent with a firm and well-trusted faith'. It is thus very difficult to cast Wilberforce and an authoritarian cleric trying to throw doubt on genuine scientific observations. According to the report in The Athenaeum, Wilberforce maintained that the facts are insufficient to justify the theory, so that 'Darwin's conclusions were an hypothesis, raised most unphilosophically to the dignity of a causal theory'. He noted that some of the greatest names in science were opposed to the theory. There was not one observed case of one species changing to another. Finally, he concluded 'by denouncing it as degrading to man, and as a theory founded on fancy, instead of upon facts.' He did not reject Darwin's theory because its implications for the nature of man were unacceptable; he showed its falsity and then, and only then, did he express some satisfaction. He claimed that the hypothesis of the survival of the fittest is false and failed to account for some well-known facts, such as the absence in the geological record of any case of one species developing into another, whereas the permanence of specific forms is an established fact. Darwin explained this as due to the extreme imperfection of the geological record, and this was later shown to be the case, but in 1860 it was quite reasonable to point out the gaps in the evidence, and to argue that Darwin's idea was a conjecture and not a well-supported theory. Darwin acknowledged the force of Wilberforce's criticisms, and set about meeting them, pointing out that they were unreasonably stringent in view of the inevitably doubtful nature of the evidence. Underlying the discussion were two view of scientific theories, the one saying that nothing must be accepted unless it is established beyond doubt and the other that we must use the best theory available, even if it is imperfect and apparently fails to account for some of the evidence. When one is in the dark, faint light is better than no light at all. At the time of the debate, Wilberforce could and did claim that the greatest names in science agreed with him, although at least two of them, Lubbock and Hooker, expressed their disagreement. Evolution could not be proved, but it was more than a hypothesis. As Huxley observed, no one objected to the wave theory of light because the undulations had never been observed. The great merit of the theory of evolution is that it was the best explanation of the origin of species available. It provided an explanatory scheme and a method of interpreting and unifying a vast range of data. Its great appeal was the way it enabled so many facts to be organised in a coherent and intelligible way. This was why it was soon adopted by the majority of scientists in the following years. It was then found that many of the factual objections were answered as new data were obtained, though some of the most serious difficulties still remain. It is then easy to see how the disagreement underlying the famous debate came about. Wilberforce was alarmed by the apparent theological implications of the theory, but criticised it on scientific grounds, as it would not have been acceptable to attack a scientific theory on theological grounds. It was not difficult to criticise it scientifically, and in doing so he was supported by most of the scientists of the time. Huxley, ironically enough, frequently emphasised the duty of scientists never to go beyond what is definitely proved by the evidence. On this occasion, however, he abandoned that unduly restrictive view, and supported evolution as the best available theory. This provides an example of the influence of our beliefs on our scientific thinking. Wilberforce the bishop was concerned by the apparent implications of evolution for the nature and dignity of man. Huxley disliked ecclesiastics and wanted to keep them, and indeed all he considered to be amateurs, out of the debate. There was thus a strong underlying tension and, as usual in such situations, both protagonists went rather too far. The real encounter was thus quite different from the dramatised version forming the legend (Lucas, 1979). It is instructive to contrast with high drama of the encounter between Wilberforce and Huxley with the views of Newman. In an entry in his Philosophical Notebooks, dated 9 December 1863 he reflects: "There is as much want of simplicity in the idea of the creation of distinct species as in that of the creation of trees in full growth, whose seed is in themselves, or of rocks with fossils in them. I mean that it is as strange that monkeys should be so like men with no historical connection between them, as the notion that there should be no course of history by which fossil bones got into rocks. I will either go the whole hog with Darwin, or, dispensing with time and history altogether, hold not only the theory of distinct species but also of the creation of fossil-bearing rocks. If a minute was once equivalent to a million years now relatively to the force of nature, there would be little difference between the two hypotheses." In this passage, Newman is not concerned to consider the detailed scientific arguments for and against the theory of evolution. He does not see it as his duty to argue for or against the theory. Instead, he simply remarks that in its overall sweep it is far more plausible than the belief in special creation a few thousand years ago, a view that is still vigorously propagated now. Such creationists, having rejected the authority of the Church as the Divine interpreter of Scripture, are trapped by the superficial meaning of the words, which inevitably leads them to a position that is antithetical both to theology and to science. Newman believed that the Creator lets His work develop through secondary causes, which have imparted "certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the course of these long ages, those effects which He from the first proposed". In a letter to Pusey, he addresses the same question: "If second causes are conceivable at all, an Almighty Agent being supposed, I don't see why the series should not last for millions of years as for thousands." Thus, "Mr Darwin's theory need not be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill." This is not of course to say that Newman concurred with all Darwin's views. By 1871 Darwin had been a rank materialist for over thirty years, although he concealed it to avoid controversy. In particular, Newman was clear about what should lie behind talk about chance as the causative agent in evolution. In a letter to Mivart he emphasised that chance is not a cause, because "what seems chance must be the result of existing laws as yet undiscovered". In another letter he expressed his view that "a theist did not necessarily have to hold that "the evolution of living beings is inconsistent with divine design", adding that "it is accidental to us, not to God." There are many Christians, particularly in the USA, who hold that the Bible is literally true in the direct verbal sense of the words. This led Archbishop Ussher to say that the world was created, essentially in its present form, about 6000 years ago. It was thus created in such a way that scientists would deduce from their observations that it had an immensely longer history. The fossils of fishes found in some rocks do not indicate that many millions of years ago fishes lived in primeval seas; rather the rocks with fossils inside them, were directly created by God created a few thousand years ago. Creationists who hold such views do indeed recognise the power of the Creator, but they do it in a way that is radically unscientific. Their secular opponents attack their belief in Creation, and the Creationists respond by attacking science. Both have grasped one aspect of the truth, but reject the other. It is vital to hold together both truths, namely the Creation of all by God, and the scientific discoveries that have shown us how the world has developed over the ages since the instant of Creation. W.B. Ashworth, Natural History and the Emblematic World View. Ch.7 in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution. Ed.D.C. Lindberg and R.S. Westman, Cambridge, 1990). J.H. Brooke, Science and Religion. Cambridge, 1991. L. Eiseley, Darwin's Century. Scientific Book Guild, 1959. C.S. Gillespie, Genesis and Geology. Harper, 1959. B. Hedley, Evolution and Faith. Sheed and Ward, 1931. G. Himmelfarb, Darwin and Darwin's Revolution. Chatto and Windus, 1959. S.L. Jaki. Chesterton, A Seer of Science. Illinois, 1986. S.L. Jaki, Miracles and Physics. Christendom Press, 1989. P. Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. Open University, 1983. J.R. Lucas, "Wilberforce and Huxley: A Legendary Encounter." The Historical Journal 22.2.3 13. 1979. J.H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance. Mentor, 1963. << ======= >>

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Hundreds of varieties of wild and domestic grapevines grow throughout North America in backyard gardens, along roadsides and in commercial vineyards. Various cultivars are best suited to certain environmental and climate conditions and each is better suited to a particular use like jam, jelly, juice, wine, baking or for eating fresh from the vine. While both domestic and wild grapevines are similar in appearance, they have a number of significant differences. Wild grapevines are a perennial high-climbing vine, growing to 100 feet and clinging to whatever is available as they grow. Commonly found growing up into the forest canopy, wild grapevines attach themselves to tall trees with thin tendrils, or narrow, curling branches that wind around tree branches for support. Domestic grapevines are a smaller-growing perennial vine, with the same tendril growth. Domestic vines develop along long, flexible stems and grow over supports, with some being more shrub-like in their growth habit. Many domestic vines, such as “Blue Lake” will grow enough in one season to cover an arbor, pergola or shade a walkway, but do require extensive pruning each year to produce fruit. Wild grapevines thrive in hot, humid conditions, and require minimal winter chill to produce fruit the following year. Domestic vines need cooler temperatures over the winter to produce healthy grapes. Wild grapevine leaves are heart-shaped, glossy and grow to 4 inches wide, with a smooth texture and serrated edges. The leaves of domestic vines grow 6 to 8 inches wide, have a course texture and a dull and matte appearance. The bark of wild vines is tight on the stem while domestic vines have a shedding, exfoliating habit. Flowers and Fruit Wild grapevines have either male or female flowers on each plant and require cross-pollination to produce grapes. Domestic vines have both male and female flowers on each plant and are self-fruiting. The fruit on wild vines develops in small, loose clusters with up to 40 grapes per grouping. The grapes are up to 1 inch in diameter with thick skin and hold up to five oval seeds. Domestic grapes develop into large, tight clusters with numerous thinner-skinned grapes on each cluster and have a sweeter taste when ripe than wild grapes. Some domestic varieties are seedless. When growing grapevines, select a variety that is suited to your climate and soil conditions. Consider how you want to use the grapes when you're choosing a plant. All grapevines need healthy, fertile, well-drained soil, full sun and support for the long, climbing vines. You need to prune them every year during the dormant season to keep new, healthy wood growing and produce abundant fruit. Water young plants regularly for the first four years in dry areas to help develop healthy roots. Once the plants are growing and established, you only need to water them occasionally. Harvest times vary with wild and domestic vines, with most ripening throughout the fall. Picked grapes keep well in the refrigerator. - NA/AbleStock.com/Getty Images

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You’ve been told your child has learning issues, and maybe have been given a specific diagnosis. Now you have so many questions. How common is your child’s problem? Is it serious? Or does it just mean that your child learns differently than many other children? What should you do? In The Mislabeled Child, the authors describe how understanding a child’s unique strengths can be used to help overcome obstacles to learning. The book gives much-needed guidance and reassurance to anyone who works or lives with children. “A valuable resource for parents and educators.” –Booklist If you would like to learn more, please enter your e-mail below to receive news alerts, event info or other promotions.

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Barratt's Scrub-warbler (Bradypterus barratti) - HBW 11, p. 601 French: Bouscarle des fourrés Spanish: Zarzalero de Barratt Other common names: African Scrub-warbler, Barratt’s Warbler Taxonomy: Bradypterus barratti Sharpe, 1876, Mac Mac Forest, Zweru, Lydenberg district, Mpumalanga, South Africa. Sometimes treated as conspecific with B. lopezi, but differs in habitat preference, song and tail morphology (rather broad rectrices). Regarded as forming a superspecies with B. cinnamomeus, probably also including B. bangwaensis. All four species make up a group of similar Afrotropical sylviids of forest and forest edge. Four subspecies recognized. Subspecies and Distribution: - priesti Benson, 1946 - E Zimbabwe and adjacent Mozambique. - barratti Sharpe, 1876 - NE South Africa (E & N Northern Province), W Swaziland, and Lebombo Mts (SW Mozambique-E Swaziland-N KwaZulu-Natal borders). - godfreyi (Roberts, 1922) - E South Africa (lowland KwaZulu-Natal S to coastal Eastern Cape). - cathkinensis Vincent, 1948 - highlands of E South Africa (from Mpumalanga S through interior KwaZulu-Natal to Griqualand West, in Eastern Cape) and Lesotho. - Least Concern Enlarge map - No videos available yet Very showy individual in full song just below the border post. Walk away views! Locality Sani Pass, KwaZulu Natal Province, South Africa (ssp B. b. cathkinensis) AdsBowley 17 October 2010 3 years ago 2.5 - No sound recordings available yet

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Emigration and Wages in Source Countries AbstractThis paper empirically examines the effect on wages in Mexico of Mexican emigration to the United States, using data from the Mexican and United States censuses from 1970-2000. The main result in the paper is that emigration has a strong and positive effect on Mexican wages. There is also evidence for increasing wage inequality in Mexico due to emigration. Simple welfare calculations based on a labor demand-supply framework suggest that the aggregate welfare loss to Mexico due to emigration is small. However, there is a significant distributional impact between labor and other factors. Download InfoIf you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large. Bibliographic InfoPaper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number 06/86. Date of creation: 01 Mar 2006 Date of revision: Contact details of provider: Postal: International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA Phone: (202) 623-7000 Fax: (202) 623-4661 Web page: http://www.imf.org/external/pubind.htm More information through EDIRC You can help add them by filling out this form. CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item. - Raymond Robertson, 2006. "Globalization and Mexican labor markets," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, pages 61-80. - Gordon H. Hanson & Craig McIntosh, 2007. "The Great Mexican Emigration," NBER Working Papers 13675, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. - Pryymachenko, Yana & Fregert, Klas & Andersson, Fredrik N. G., 2011. "The Effect of Emigration on Unemployment: Evidence from the Central and Eastern European EU Member States," 2011:32, Lund University, Department of Economics. - Yana Pryymachenko & Klas Fregert & Fredrik N. G. Andersson, 2013. "The effect of emigration on unemployment: Evidence from the Central and Eastern European EU member states," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2692-2697. - Bayangos, Veronica & Jansen, Karel, 2011. "Remittances and Competitiveness: The Case of the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 1834-1846. For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jim Beardow) or (Hassan Zaidi). If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

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Craig M. Divis is a high school Social Studies teacher and department chair of the Social Studies department at Bellows Falls Union High School in Bellows Falls, Vermont, USA. He has been teaching for nine years and has received several awards, including the 2010 Vermont Teacher of the Year award. As a 2011-2012 Distinguished Fulbright Teacher, he traveled to South Africa to study the diversity of the anti-apartheid movement and how it is taught in schools today. Craig’s capstone project was a teaching resource book on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Entitled “The Rainbow Revolution,” it consists of 10 chapters that look more in-depth at the most prominent forms of resistance that was used in South Africa and around the world to protest apartheid. The chapters include: boycotts, civil disobedience, sanctions and divestment, religious protest, the armed struggle, music, the arts, hunger strikes, labor strikes, and literature. Each chapter includes examples of each type of protest not just in South Africa, but also around the world used by the international anti-apartheid movement. Chapters also include a timeline of these forms of protest, detailed explanations of major examples of these forms of protest, visuals, and a section showing these tactics and strategies also being effectively used in other countries throughout the 20th century. It also includes a vocabulary section, a list of resources, and even activities and assignments for teachers to use with their students. The overall idea is to connect the anti-apartheid movement to the broader theme of creating change and the different ways that people have done this around the world and throughout history. This resource book provides teachers with a plethora of examples of various types of how people have resisted systems of oppression and injustice, and empowers students to see that they can contribute in numerous ways to creating change, even if they are in a different country. To gather the necessary information and research for this project, he conducted classroom observations, Craig spoke with teachers and students in numerous schools, sat in on undergraduate courses at his host university (the University of the Free State), traveled around the country to different historical sites and museums, spoke with historians and everyday citizens, and met regularly at his host university with his advisor and numerous professors in the History Department. Craig hopes the book will be a useful and informative resource for both teachers and students in South Africa and the United States. The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs sponsors the Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program in coordination with the Institute of International Education (IIE), U.S. Embassies and Consulates, Fulbright Commissions and other partners overseas.

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Posted by admin | Posted in Analyze, Anastasis Academy, Art, Classroom Management, Create, Evaluate, Geography, Government, History, Inquiry, Internet Safety, Knowledge (remember), Language Arts, Math, Middle/High School, Music, Phonics, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Social Studies, Teacher Resources, Understand (describe, explain), video, Video Tutorials, web tools, Web2.0, Websites | Posted on 06-02-2014 Tags: academy, analyze, assessment, close reading, create, edpuzzle, evaluate, flipped classroom, formative assessment, guided reading, inquiry, introduction, khan, learn zillion, learning, Math, National Geographic, numberphile, prompt, provocative set, reading, Science, TED, veritasium, video, video in the classroom, vihart, writing, youtube What it is: EDpuzzle is a neat new educational site to help you better utilize video in your classroom for learning. You can find and crop video to use only what you need, add audio notes within the video or do some voice over work for a video, and you can embed questions throughout the video to track student understanding. EDpuzzle collects data as students watch and interact with the video. You can see if and when a student watched the video, and see the progress of all students through the answers to embedded questions. How to use EDpuzzle in your classroom: What makes EDpuzzle great is the level of freedom given in cropping, sharing, and tracking video use in the classroom. EDpuzzle enhances the “flipped” classroom by allowing you to embed formative assessment directly into your videos. As students watch, you can check understanding and ensure active watching vs. passive watching. In a flipped scenario, this gives you the ability to completely tailor a lesson the next day based on the formative assessment results you get from homework. This is truly utilizing assessment to inform instruction (which is the point of assessment!). EDpuzzle can be used in conjunction with videos that you have made for your students, or with videos that you find. I like using video to introduce students to a brand new topic or idea. Well-created video has the ability to quickly and succinctly help students dive into new learning and formulate new questions and lines of inquiry. For example, when Anastasis Jr. High started our last inquiry block about “How the World Works” and explored the topic of food and farming, they started by watching the documentary Food, Inc. This was a great way to launch their thinking and lines of questioning about where our food comes from. Out of that video, students chose different lines of inquiry to explore and research. EDpuzzle would be a good way for students to help others see where their line of inquiry started from. Students could grab the clip of the documentary that intrigued them, and embed audio to show their thought process as they watched. Sort of a Saved-by-the-Bell Zack Morris “Time out” moment where they can describe their line of thinking. For primary teachers, EDpuzzle could be used as part of a guided reading center. YouTube has lots of great read-along videos. (You can also create your own based on class reading!) Use these videos along with EDpuzzle to check for comprehension. As the video plays, embed questions to check for understanding. Students can independently go through the guided reading (or Close reading) activity, while you work one-on-one with other reading groups. Rotate the reading groups throughout the week so that each student gets the opportunity to go through the EDpuzzle guided reading activity, and each group gets one-on-one time with you. This is a fantastic way to maximize your time and get valuable feedback from all student learning. EDpuzzle could also be used in this way as a science center (with a video pertaining to an experiment or new learning), a math center, etc. I love using center rotations because it ensures that I have time to work closely with each group. For secondary students, use EDpuzzle is a great way to check for understanding. It is also a wonderful way for students to create and demonstrate understanding. EDpuzzle would be ideal for sub days. I always dreaded being away from the classroom because it was essentially a lost day. Even if the substitute did EXACTLY what I asked, I missed the opportunity to see my students work and think. EDpuzzle would give you the ability to “teach” remotely and embed the same questions and promptings you would give if you were live in the classroom. While you won’t get to hear all of the discussion, you will have some feedback to better understand how your students were thinking. With documentary-type videos, EDpuzzle can be used to embed writing prompts. Record a prompt throughout the video so that students can pause and write out their reflections and thoughts. I find that good documentaries are often SO packed full of good things that by the end of the video, only the last 10 minutes get well-reflected on. The documentary Baraka would be an incredible video to do this with! Have you seen Vi Hart’s YouTube channel? I am obsessed! I love the way that she goes through math in a casual stream-of-conscious type approach. Embed related practice math problems based on the topics that Vi is sharing in her videos. As students get those light-bulb moments of, “oh, that is how that works!” capitalize on the new understanding by giving them a place to put it into practice and try it out. Do you record your students learning? EDpuzzle could be a fantastic way to record audio feedback to the videos that they upload. These can then be shared with parents and students for review. Tips: Don’t have access to YouTube at school? No worries! You can still use EDpuzzle with your students. EDpuzzle lets you search for video by topic, or pull video from Khan Academy, Learn Zillion, National Geographic, TED, Veritasium, and Numberphile as well. LOTS of incredible learning just waiting to happen!

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Every Good Muslim has to have a HAREM ! The reasons for harem existence can be seen from Ottoman cultural history. Ottoman tradition relied on slave concubines along with legal marriage for reproduction. Slave concubines was the taking of slave women for sexual reproduction that did not carry the risks of marriage, mainly that of the potential betrayal of a wife. Although they had no legitimate claim to power, as their favor grew with the Sultan, they acquired titles such as "Sultan Kadin" ... The Harem is the private apartments of the Sultan and his family, and up to 1000 The picture of a harem that most of us have in our minds is the harem of the Sultan in Constantinople during the height of the Ottoman Empire. Doreen Owens Malek's book The Panther and the Pearl gives a picture of life in a harem toward the end of that time that is quite accurate. The Sultan, who was an absolute ruler, had a harem of several hundred women along with eunuchs to guard them. Although all the harem women, from the mother of the Sultan to the lowest kitchen maid were technically slaves, they were not of equal rank, and rank was guarded jealously in the harem. The highest ranking woman was the Valide Sultana - the Mother of the Sultan. She had her own apartment and wielded power over the harem inhabitants and even over her son, since she could choose some of his concubines for him. The next highest rank belonged to women who had given birth to the Sultan's children. These women were called kadins and they had their own households with their own slaves. The highest ranking kadin was the mother of the Sultan's oldest son. But being the mother of the oldest son did not necessarily make one the Sultan's favorite. Jealousy among the kadins and concubines led to intrigue, attempted poisoning and downright assasinations. Small wonder that a food-taster was a necessary part of the harem. The vast majority of the women in the harem were called odalesques. Depending on their beauty and skills, they were concubines, entertainers, or general servants. Some odalesques were given by the Sultan as wives to territorial governors, a mark of favor on his part and an honor to the odalesque. The harem was under the supervision of the Kislar Aga - the Chief Black Eunuch. He was the third highest ranking man in the Empire after the Sultan and the Grand Vizir. The Kislar often became very wealthy (from bribes) and wielded much power. The Kislar was the official who executed a woman if she displeased the Sultan. He had a corps of eunuchs who served under him. These eunuchs waited upon and guarded the women of the harem, were all Black, and were chosen for their supposed ugliness. But beauty is always in the eye of the beholder and attachments between the women and the eunuchs were not unknown. The harem women seldom went outside its walls and when they did they were heavily veiled. Inside the harem they could play various games, smoke the turkish water pipe, eat (and the food was very good), dress up, or indulge in the favorite activity - spending hours in the bath. A bath in the harem was not just lathering up and then rinsing off. From descripion's I've encountered, a bath was akin to a day at a spa. The women were soaked, depilitated, massaged, steamed and hennaed until they glowed. For women who had lots of time and not a lot to do, a long period of being pampered in the bath was a relaxing way to pass the day. But one couldn't bathe all the time, and for most of the harem women, life was very dull and very boring. And forget any fantasies of non-stop sex. For most of the harem women, sex was a very rare thing. Since not very many of them ever slept with the Sultan, the women sometimes formed lesbian relationships with each other or developed sexual relationships with the eunuchs. How? Well, there were degrees of castration. A eunuch might have lost his testicles but still have his penis intact. He could have sexual relationships with women, and since that was the case, a eunuch of this type did not directly serve the harem women. Instead he would serve the Sultan or the male officials in the Sultan's household. Yet, even eunuchs who were totally castrated sometimes formed relationships with the harem women. There were many sex aids to be found at the marketplace. Sexual relationships with eunuchs were against all rules and a woman risked death if the relationship became known, but rules have never bound the human heart. If the Sultan took it into his fancy to sleep with one of the women, she was prepared by spending a long period of time in the bath. She entered the Sultan's bedchamber and crawled under the covers from the foot of the bed. The next day, she went through his pockets since custom dictated that all the money and jewels he brought into the bedchamber were hers. If she pleased the Sultan, she might become one of his regular concubines, and if she bore a son nine months later, she would achieve the title of kadin. For many of the women, that one time in the Sultan's bed might be the only time. Since the Sultan was the absolute ruler over his kingdom, he had the power of life and death over the harem. If a woman displeased him, the usual method of execution was to have the Kislar tie her in a sack and throw her in the ocean. The insane Sultan Ibrahim (1640-1648) drowned his entire harem when he heard that one had been having a relationship with a eunuch. One of the odalesques swam free and lived to tell the tale. The fate of the harem women when the old Sultan died and the new one came to the throne was a sad one. They were forced to leave the Grand Seraglio and move to smaller and much drabber quarters called The Palace of Tears, where they lived out their lives in isolation. The harem of the Sultan was abolished after the Ottoman empire fell, but it still lives on as a romantic fantasy in some people's eyes. Somehow I don't think the isolated and almost celibate life of the majority of the women who lived in the harem is all that romantic, but when has real life ever gotten in the way of a good story? Abolished ?? The harem lives on ! http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -4,00.html Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef's chief interests lay in his harem (40 concubines), his garage (60 cars), and his afternoon game of tennis. Yet, as Imam (Commander of the Faithful), he became the man around whom Moroccans in the new Istiqlal (Independence) Party centered their hopes. Sultan Abdul Aziz He has two immense urges: spending money and having sex. If any normal Saudi citizen is asked to name Sultan's trademarks, the answer would almost invariably be his generosity and his sexual appetite. To foster his beneficent image and to ensure public support, Sultan "borrows" from the government at will and gives away billions of dollars a year to constituents in a variety of ways (See Northrop Scandal), including: ... flying an elderly man to Europe on his private plane to get emergency medical treatment, caring for the scores of women he married on the spur of the moment and, just as quickly, divorced. Sultan pays for all this and more with money from the coffers of the Government of Saudi Arabia. Sultan is known to keep several harems throughout Saudi Arabia. His harems are perpetually supplied by women who come from all over the world. They are treated like queens, showered with gifts and a lifetime supply of cash. Because of Sultan's generosity, there have been almost no scandals related to his love nests. Just by joining a harem, a woman is provided with at least $100,000 in cash and an annual salary that she could only have dreamed of making. The women are pampered, treated well, and kept away from the eyes of the curious as well as from Sultan's personal friends. Because Sultan is pushing into his seventies, his sexual prowess, no matter how adequate, can never satisfy the number of women he keeps. The likelihood that any of these women sees Sultan more than once in six months is so dim that their stay at the harem is truly an extended paid, dream vacation. In these harems, a woman can flaunt her beauty anytime, but not her individuality . Sultan is known not to be patient of women who ask too much. He wishes them loyal, subservient, and sexual.

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Monday, March 22, 2010 In a recent discussion with several genealogists about why descendants of slave owners are reluctant to share their family slave era documents, the issue of reparations for slavery was mentioned. It was explained that some descendants are fearful that if they share this information, they themselves will be held liable for the atrocities of their ancestors. Although issues of guilt, shame and embarrassment were also mentioned, the issue of reparations is what stood out to me. I found this very interesting considering the fact that reparations are not paid by individuals but by companies and/or governments. In jurisprudence, reparations are replenishment of a previously inflicted loss by the criminal to the victim. Oxford Dictionary defines the word as the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. Now whether one’s ancestor owned slaves or not, the institution was only able to survive and flourish due to the laws established by the United States government. U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens understood this when in 1867 he introduced the first Reparation Bill for Slaves, H.R. 29, during the First Session of the Fortieth Congress. Although the bill did not pass in Congress, he continued to introduce several more reparation bills to no avail. A little less than a century later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his book "Why We Can’t Wait," would make an appeal for reparations. Dr. King argues “[f]ew people consider the fact, in addition to being enslaved for two centuries, the Negro was during all those years robbed of wages of his toil. No amount of gold could provide adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries…The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for the American Negroes.” Our passion for researching our family has nothing to do with reparations but a desire to learn about our unique family history here in the United States and beyond. Unlike other Americans, most African Americans interested in uncovering their family history must face the history of slavery. It is not an option for us, especially once we reach beyond 1865. At the point, our journey becomes the journey of the slave holding family. We must follow and trace every move they make through census, court, deed, marriage, military, probate, tax and other records - both public and private - in hopes of finding the name(s) of our ancestors. In fact, we must become expert of these families. By working together descendants of slave owners and slaves will be able to create a much richer history as we learn about our families’ collective experience. Sunday, March 21, 2010 At the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, Texas had nearly two hundred thousand slaves. For the next four years, the fate of the Peculiar Institute would be settled on the battlefield across the South. Of all the states in the Confederacy, Texas suffered the least from military invasion or destruction of property. Thus the institution of chattel slavery remained undisturbed. For this reason, the state was seen as a haven for safeguarding slavery through a system called “refugeeing.” Refugeeing was the movement of slave owners and their entire enslaved population to remote places in their state, other states and even other countries. Louisiana provided most of the owners who brought or sent their slaves to Texas, followed by Arkansas and Missouri. Some slaves came from as far away as Mississippi and Tennessee. Texas became a prime location because it was assumed that slavery would continue to exist in the event of a Confederate defeat. The victory of Ulysses S Grant’s at Shiloh in the spring of 1862 and the subsequent surrender of New Orleans, along with the ensuing movement of the Union forces up the Mississippi River, dramatically increased the number of refugees into Texas. Charles Gear and Randolph Campbell estimate that between 38,000-50,000 slaves were transported into the state during the Civil War. This phenomenon of refugeeing, like all movements of slaves, disrupted some families. It also carried additional burdens of servitude since chattel slavery would not be abolished in Texas until 19 June 1865. As a genealogist conducting slave era research in Texas, refugeeing pose unique challenges in trying to identify the last slave owner of my great great great grandfather Isaac Haynes. The common method of identifying the slave owner is to locate one’s ancestor(s) in the 1870 Federal Population Schedules and then try to locate all white landowners listed in close proximity to one's enslaved ancestor. The next step would be to locate the identified landowners in the 1860 Federal Population Schedules and Slave Schedules for the same county. However my ancestor arrived in Texas during the Civil War in 1862 as a part of refugeeing. In addition, I am unaware of which state he migrated from prior to arriving in Texas. Thus examining the 1860 Population and Slave Schedules will not be applicable yet. Instead research of Leon County records in particular tax and deed records will need to be conducted. Tax records will need to be examined to identify individuals who paid taxes on slaves and show up after 1862. This will help me to identify potential individuals. This list of identified individuals will then need to be located in the 1870 Federal Census Population Schedule for Leon County. Deed records will also need to be examine as a cross reference with the information I will gather from the tax rolls and 1870 census. Only after examining these records will I be able to identify a potential slave owner and prior residence for my great great great grandfather Isaac Haynes. Monday, March 15, 2010 My good friend at Reclaiming Kin, suggested that I participate in the first Carnival of African-American Genealogy (CoAAG) hosted by Luckie Daniels of Our Georgia Roots. The subject is Slave Records and Genealogy Research. Ms. Daniels has posed several questions to those participating. I have chosen the following question - As a descendant of slaves, have you been able to work with or even meet other researchers who are descendants of slave owners? After identifying Robert Franklin Whitaker of Red River County, Texas as the potential slave owner of my great great grandmother Julia Whitaker, I began to try to learn as much as I could about him and his family. I wanted to prove that he was in fact the slave owner of Julia. Unfortunately the only information I discovered about him was from census and county tax records. In addition, none of the records provided names of slaves or any information about Robert and his family. I then started searching various genealogical websites and posted queries on various genealogy message boards in hope of locating descendants. As a result, I was able to correspond with several descendants. The initial set of descendants, I contacted were very helpful until I mentioned slavery. After I mentioned the “s” word all communication stopped and records promised were never received. Although I was disappointed I figured this might happen. It would be many years later before I attempted to try and reach out to other descendants. In the meantime, I continued researching the Whitaker Family. I also started debating whether or not I should mention the “s” word or just pretend that I was descendant of another family who lived near the Whitakers when contacting descendants. After hitting a brick wall on this line, I started reaching out to Whitaker descendants from various message boards. After sending out several emails, I received a reply from Randall Whitaker who eventually provided me with a written history of the Whitaker Family. The history was written by the granddaughters of Robert F. Whitaker II. Randall was disappointed to learn that his ancestors were involved in slavery but was glad that he was able to help me in my research. Randall told other family members about my research that in turn provided me with additional information. The other family members and I shared a love for genealogy and began sharing our research. Unfortunately they had little information on the family enslaved property. However the information they did provide helped me to connect Robert F. Whitaker to the other Whitakers in Red River County, Texas. It also revealed that Robert’s father was named Robert F. Whitaker, his mother was Anna and his brother was James Washington Whitaker. With the new information, I was able to locate the Whitaker family in the 1820 to 1880 census reports. A search of the Red River County probate records found that in 1849 Anna Whiteaker wrote her last will and testament. In her will she wrote “I give and bequeaths to my son Robert F. Whiteaker a Negro girl Julia now about four years old.” The remainder of the property was divided between her sons, James and Robert. Anna died in the fall of 1853 and the inventory and appraisement of Anna’s estate listed the name of Julia's mother Jane. Very few individuals have been able to talk candidly about this dark chapter (slavery) in American history especially when their own ancestors have been active participants. Usually they shy away from it or discontinue all communication which was the case in the beginning. It said a lot about the character of those descendants who did and for that I am greatly appreciative. In 2000, the state of California passed legislation which required all insurance companies conducting business in the state to provide the slave insurance records of their predecessors. The deadline for submitting these records was set for October 2001. Although some companies stated that they could not find any records or that the records were destroyed, other companies were able to locate such records. By August 2000, the California legislature report that "[I]nsurance policies from the slavery era have been discovered in the archives of several insurance companies, documenting insurance coverage for slaveholders for damage to or death of their slaves, issued by a predecessor insurance firm." Information was found by the following companies ACE USA; Aetna Life Insurance Company; AIG (United States Life Insurance Company of New York); Manhattan Life; New York Life Insurance; Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company; Providence Washington Insurance Company; and Royal & Alliance. From the information gathered a Slave Era Insurance Registry was created. The registry included the name of slaves, location/residence of the slaves, name of slaveholders, location/residence of slaveholders), and companies submitting the information. New York Life Insurance Company’s reported that its predecessor the Nautilus (Mutual Life) Insurance Company of New York sold 485 slaveholders life insurance policies during a two-year period in the 1840s. There were three death claims with a total of $1,050.00 paid. They also reported that the policies were generally written for under $500.00 and were for one-year terms. A significant number of these policies were written for enslaved Africans working in the Clover Hill Pits and Mid Lothian Coal Mines located in Chesterfield County, Virginia. The enslaved were usually leased or hired out by their owners. Due to the danger involved in mining, slave owners sought out insurance companies to protect their valuable property from loss. Nancy C. Frantel states "These policies provided a risk-free opportunity for the owners to lease slaves; but it was far from risk-free for the slaves who were forced to work in the extremely hazardous conditions of the mines." Insurance companies even wrote policies on 12-year-old slaves who labored underground in the mines. In 1846, the heirs of Jameson Moody (1783-1842) would take out policies on their male slaves before hiring them out to work as miners in the Clover Hill Pits. They would take out policies for two consecutive years on Sam Jones (40), Harry Montague (25), Phill (50), Robert (20), Henry (16), and my great great great great grandfather Joe (35). After the two year period, the Moody family would moved to Fairfield, Freestone County, Texas after being encouraged to relocate by their brother William Moody (1828-1920) who migrated there in 1852. My ancestors would be a part of this migration west to the Lone Star State. The discovery of the insurance policies provided me with a broader perspective of the lives as well as the complexity of slave labor. There is an assumption that all enslaved Africans worked on the plantation in fields. Enslaved labor was used in factories, mines, railroad construction, waterways, and other areas. The original ledger detailing these policies was donated to the Schomburg Center for Black Research and Culture in New York. Tuesday, March 9, 2010 Vital records in Texas started in 1903 but did not become mandatory statewide until the 1930s. As a result birth certificates are very sporadic during this time period. Texas Scholastic Census, which is underutilized, is a great substitute for birth records. I discovered the value of these records during my first trip to the Cass County Clerk’s Office in Linden, Texas. While looking for birth records for my maternal grandmother and her siblings, I was unable to locate any records for my grand-aunt Agnes Stanley (1925-2002) who was born in 1925. After spending a couple of hours examining the birth registry, the clerk suggested that I look at the scholastic census. And to my surprise the census provided me with the names and birth dates of all the school-age children of my great grandparents as well as the name of the school district. The census was signed by my great grandfather (R. Matthew Stanley, 1878-1932) in 1931. This was the first time I saw his signature. As with most records the information collected on them varies from county to county and over time. For example, the census for 1936 Leon County, Texas collected information on nationality and length of stay within the county. The origin and development of the scholastic census was outlined in an article by W. E Marshall, Executive Secretary of the Texas State Department of Education. The article titled “Our Public Schools" was published in The Victoria Advocate on 13 June 1939. According to Mr. Marshall, it began in 1854 with an act to establish a system of schools and annual scholastic censuses, to be taken by each county assessor-collector. The law required that a list of the free white population between the age of six and eighteen years be made each year in every county. The age was lowered to six and sixteen in 1870. It was not until 1884, that the census would include all children in the county between the ages of eight and sixteen. In 1895, it was ordered that the scholastic census would be conducted between the first day of May and the first day of June for all children over eight and under seventeen on the first day of the following September. Once again in 1925 the age requirement was changed. This time the required age was between seven and eighteen. And finally in 1929, the law changed the age to six through eighteen, which remained in effect until 1975 when the scholastic census was abolished. These records are kept and maintained by the county clerk and sometimes the county judge. They can also be examined through inter-library loan. Also check the Texas State Library and Archives’ website to see if the scholastic census for your county has been microfilmed. Sunday, March 7, 2010 There is a current trend that I am seeing on many forums related to slave era research that by only examining vital records, U.S. census and slave schedules that one will be able to identify the slave holding family. Sites like ancestry, footnote, heritage quest, familysearch and others have greatly assisted researchers in having access to various federal and vital records. However, census and vital records can only provide an outline to the lives of our ancestors. Census records are secondary sources, so one must be cautious in taking them as proof regarding age, relationship, place of birth etc. And since the slave schedules only provide age/sex description it is an unreliable document to verify ownership or the identity of individuals. Dee Parmer-Woodtor suggested that the slave schedules may not be entirely accurate as they relate to the number of enslaved individuals a owner may have as well as to their description. Whereas other records - deeds, court, military service, church and other records can provide a much more in-depth view into the lives of our ancestors. These records should be examined in the post-slavery period first before conducting slave era research. Often they will provide clues to the last slave holding families. For example, a good friend of mine, Reclaiming Kin, discovered a court case in which her ancestors gave a disposition in 1870. The case involved the daughter and brother of the slave owner in which both parties were fighting over the estate. This case began in 1854. The court case included the will, inventory of the personal property (slaves), description of the plantation, etc. This provided my friend with an wealth of information about her enslaved ancestors during slavery and the first few years after slavery. County records can also provide clues to the surname of the last slave holding family. In 1873, my ggg grandfather Andrew (Andy) Perkins was charged with assault with the intent to murder in Leon County, Texas. Two individuals Joseph A. Evans and Alexander Reed, post a $350.00 surety bond on his behalf. These two individuals also accompanied his to the trial. After researching these two individuals to determine their relationship to Andy Perkins, I discovered that Joseph Evans was the son of Edward Evans, the last slave owner of Andy Perkins. Without examining this record and then doing research on the individuals, I would have never been able to discover the surname of the last slave owner. Vital records such as marriage records, sometime list witnesses. Usually these witnesses are either family members or friends of the family. And in some cases, they are members of the slave holding family. This was the case when Lucy Dashiell married William Logwood in San Antonio, Texas in 1867. The daughters of a prominent businessman and former slave owner Jeremiah Dashiell, were listed as witnesses on Lucy and William's marriage certificate. The above examples show that relationships between the former enslaved and the slave holding families continued after slavery. And by examining county records in the post slavery period clues were provided in assisting to identifying the last documented slave holding family. And once you have completed the post-slavery research and start slave era research, the vast majority of records you will consult will not be online or indexed. These records are usually housed at the county courthouses, state archives and libraries, national archives and other repositories including private collections. Some of the essential records are as followed: 1) Conveyance or deed records 2) Church affiliation records 3) Military service 4) Tax entries 5) Freedman Bureau Records 6) Land ownership (plat map and/or legal description) 7) Personal papers (account books, slave list, diaries, etc.) 8) Estate papers Some of these records (although very few) may be transcribed and placed online but how does one know if the transcription is correct? Or where the information was acquired? Relying solely on online sources for conducting slave era research will limit one's ability to truly identify and confirm the last slave holding family of one's ancestor. The internet must be used only as a tool to assist us toward locating and narrowing our search at the state and county levels. It should never be used as a primary vehicle for doing genealogy or slave era research. Thursday, March 4, 2010 When I was growing up I knew very little about my family outside of my maternal grandmother. And what little information I did know came from an old black and white picture in my mother photo album and the stories my mother told me about a family vacation to when she was ten years old. The photo was dated 1954 and was taken in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco when my great grandmother left Texas to visit her three children who migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area during World War II. The photograph showed my mother being held by my grand aunt, with my grandmother, great grandmother and others standing by her side. This photo would be the inspiration that would lead me on a journey of self-discovery to uncovering my family heritage. My journey began when I was a sophomore in college, after reading Margaret Walker's Jubilee for an African American's literature course. The professor informed the class that the novel was based on oral history. The professor went on to talk about conducting genealogy research and the unique location of the college since it was so close to various repositories - Sutro California State Library, National Archives and Records Administration, and a family history center. After the class ended, I ran to the college library and checked every book I could find on doing genealogy. After reading a few books, I felt I was ready to start researching. I figured I would learn everything I needed to know about my family by the end of summer. Little did I realize, the project I was attempting to do would require more than a couple of months. My summer adventure has turned into a life long journey full of documenting the challenges and successes of my ancestors and their descendants.

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View a selection of some of the world's stunning species that we are trying to save In 2010 - the International Year of Biodiversity - we are celebrating the variety of life on earth and boosting awareness of how important it is for our lives. Take a look at some examples of how diverse the world of nature can be. For more photos from IUCN, visit us on Flickr. A six-week research expedition above seamounts in the high seas of the Indian Ocean, led by IUCN, has brought a whole new understanding of seamount ecosystems, as well as a rich collection of data and specimens, including some strange-looking marine creatures, many of which have never been seen before. Kenya's wildlife in close-up While the science behind policies that will affect the natural world was being discussed at the meeting in Nairobi, we took a closer look at Kenya's amazing wildlife.

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In 1942, Nazi engineers devised a plan to build a 1,500-ton supertank. The P1000 Rat, or "Land Cruiser," was to be the largest and fiercest industrial-age ground weapon the world had ever seen. In 1943, the project was cancelled. So how did its massive gun turret wind up on a coastal hilltop in Norway? The Rat had been among the projects — almost supernatural in scope — with which Hitler would demonstrate Germany's industrial and military might. The shock-and-awe weapon would have served the dual roles of energizing the German populace and cowering state enemies with the sheer audacity of metal. Hitler called this "gigantism." In early 1943, Hitler's Chief Armaments minister, Albert Speer, decided a monster-sized tank would be far too costly in resources, and provided too big a target for Allied forces — which by then had demonstrated bombs capable of destroying the P1000's thick armor — and cancelled the project. But a turret for the P1000 had already been built. It was a variant on a naval heavy cruiser turret as used in Gneisenau-class battleships, fitted with a 280 mm SK C/34 naval gun. What would they do with gear (and firepower) of that size? This is what they did. Years before, during WWI, a massive naval battle — the Battle of Jutland — raged in Northern Europe as the Germans' attempted to break a British naval blockade. The Brits controlled the Skagerrak, a strait running between Norway and the southwest coast of Sweden, which was then the strategic gateway to the Baltic and North Atlantic. At the Western head of the Skagerrak, where the strait merged with the North Sea, sat Kristiansand, Norway. With WWII reviving the same old concerns about who would dominate the shipping lanes, the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway and mined the Skagerrak heavily. And so, when deciding where to place their erstwhile super-tank's gun turret, they chose occupied Norway - in a location near Kristiansand overlooking the Skagerak. The massive weapon would provide additional protection against the Allies' battleships in that strategically significant area. The cannon battery eventually became part of Hitler's "Atlantic Wall" of fortifications running along Europe's western coast, put in place to safeguard against an Allied invasion of the occupied mainland. And there it still sits. It's a gun so huge it fairly dominates the Norwegian coastal countryside — and is clearly the most visible man-made object found on a sweep of Norway on Google Earth. It's not the only one. Many other armaments along the Atlantic Wall were turrets taken from decommissioned ships. But none of the others came from a never-built tank. (The 3D rendering of the cannon in Google Earth was done by Dutch graphic artist Fingerz)

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Sumatran Villagers Sue Japan Over ODA Dam by Amanda Suutari Before Tanjung Pau village disappeared under the reservoir of Kotopanjang Dam, the ethnic Minangkabau who lived in that remote corner of central Sumatra, Indonesia, once held an elaborate ceremony for 2-month-old babies. "It was called Turun Mandi," villager Iswadi Abdulla Salim explains. "Everyone would come to see the family bathe the baby in the Mahat River. This was supposed to give protection and allowed the baby to be brought into public for the first time." Today the village -- and river ceremonies like this -- are gone, flooded six years ago by a dam project funded with Official Development Assistance from Japan. Now, though, the villagers are fighting back. Last September, in the first legal challenge to Japanese ODA, some 3,861 displaced residents filed a lawsuit with Tokyo District Court against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and Tokyo Electric Power Services Corporation (TEPSCO). Claiming that the $251 million project forcibly displaced about 20,000 people and devastated their subsistence economy, culture and environment, the plaintiffs -- who now number some 8,400 -- are demanding 5 million yen each in damages, the removal of the dam and restoration of the ecosystem. While the lawsuit itself is unprecedented, Japanese ODA has long been a target for criticism. With projects favoring costly infrastructure that yields contracts for Japanese companies, nongovernmental organizations monitoring Japanese activities abroad have blasted it as little more than a guise for Japanese businesses to enter emerging Asian markets -- particularly in the field of hydropower. Joan Carling of the NGO network Rivers Watch East and Southeast Asia, explains: "Since opposition to more dams in Japan is ever-increasing, dam-building companies must look for other markets outside Japan to sustain their operations and profitability." Kotopanjang Dam flooded a 120-sq.-km area of the Minangkabau's fields, forests and villages in the provinces of Riau and Western Sumatra. This indigenous group had lived for generations along the fertile basins of the Mahat and Kampar Kanan rivers, fishing and growing fruit and rice for subsistence and harvesting rubber. However, even though they were evicted from their villages to make way for the dam in the early 1990s, they claim that no one consulted them about the project, relocation or compensation. Asseem of Koto Tuo village charges that local government officials and the military harassed and intimidated villagers into accepting the plan. "We were having a meeting at my house when military and local government officials came and surrounded us," he says. "When I went outside and asked them what they were doing, the head of the military threatened to arrest me." The next day, Asseem says he was invited to the local government office, where he was offered 30 million rupiah (around $3,500) to abandon his opposition to the project. While the Indonesian government prepared new villages and cash settlements, villagers contend that the money they were offered was inadequate, and that living conditions dropped drastically in the new villages because of chronic water shortages, poor soil and rubber plantations that were not ready for harvest. "In the dry season now there is conflict among us over water," says Anis, of Koto Tuo village. "Before, we were self-sufficient," adds Romanila, another villager. "We could grow rice, chilis and coconuts, but now we are dependent on money -- and there aren't any jobs." As a result, some of the displaced villagers have begun selling off land to buy medicine or send their children to school, and many are illegally logging the nearby forests, insisting there is no other source of income. "Conditions have pushed people to do anything to survive, and this is why illegal logging is happening," says clan leader Abdullah Salim of Tanjung Pau. Also listed among the plaintiffs are the endangered Sumatran elephant and tiger, the Malay tapir, species of monkeys and other animals. Environmentalists fear that the reservoir, logging, and construction of new villages has cut into important remaining habitat and migration routes of already threatened species, some of which may now be on the verge of extinction. The court will decide next month whether or not to accept the claim of the non-human plaintiffs. For their part, the defendants aren't saying much. Spokespeople from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as JBIC, JICA and TEPSCO, are refusing to comment about the case while it is pending. In a written statement, however, MOFA insists the claim is illegitimate and should be taken up in Jakarta, since Japanese agencies had made recommendations to protect the villagers and environment. But Aviva Imhof of International Rivers Network, an NGO monitoring dams around the world, says, "It is simply unacceptable for JBIC to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in funding -- and then to walk away and deny responsibility for their impacts." Other ODA-funded projects like the San Roque Dam in the Philippines, the Lam Takong Pumped Storage Project in Thailand and the Balachung #2 hydropower plant in Myanmar, have faced opposition over issues of forced displacement, ecological destruction and widespread corruption. In response to voices urging a rethink, MOFA released a plan for ODA reforms in 2002 aimed at boosting transparency, improving operations and increasing NGO involvement. Correspondingly, JBIC has introduced environmental guidelines which will begin to go into effect this year. While Hatae Hozue of Friends of the Earth Japan cautiously welcomed this move, he also points out that the new JBIC requirements don't include projects like Kotopanjang or San Roque. If it is really serious, he says, JBIC should "[commit itself] sincerely to these past projects." Tokyo District Court is scheduled to deliver its judgment in January. However, according to Rony Iskandar of Taratak, an Indonesian NGO that has worked extensively with the plaintiffs, the case has already politicized a people once resigned to the repressive and corrupt policies of Suharto-era Indonesia. "Now they have the courage to demand their rights from the government in a way that would have been unthinkable a few years ago," he says. Even if the court rules in the plaintiffs' favor, though, compensation may never bring back the Minangkabau's communal lifestyle governed by reverence for their ancestral land, rivers and forests. Clan leader Abdullah Salim explains, "We have a saying, 'Allam takambang jadi guru' -- it means 'all of nature is our teacher.' " As the dam's fallout continues to erode the natural bounty of his homeland, it isn't clear what will remain to teach the next generation. [This article originally appeared in the Japan Times, August 14, 2004. For more information about the Kotopanjang lawsuit and schedule, see the Web site of the Supporting Committee of the Victims of Kotopanjang Dam. Amanda Suutari welcomes reader comments at email@example.com.]

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LOS ANGELES - Federal experts issued a tsunami advisory for possible dangerous currents in coastal areas of California and Oregon following a magnitude-8 earthquake in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said an advisory means that a tsunami capable of producing strong currents or waves dangerous to persons in or very near the water is imminent or expected. The center said widespread inundation is not expected. The hazardous period was to occur early this morning. Juneau Empire ©2014. All Rights Reserved.

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1. We’re running out of water. We see it in the headlines almost every day: Drought in Texas and China. Nevada’s Lake Mead in danger of going dry. The Colorado River and the Rio Grande no longer flowing to the sea. Water seems to be getting more and more scarce. But it’s not. The amount of water on Earth isn’t changing, and as a planet we’re in no danger of running out. One of the most misleading “facts” we learn about water, starting in the second grade or so, is that 97.5 percent of the water on Earth is unusable by humans, because it’s salty ocean water. Actually, the oceans are Olympian springs of fresh water — every day, the sun, the sea and evaporation combine to make 45,000 gallons of rainwater for each man, woman and child on Earth. Even in the United States, where we use water with profligacy, the oceans are making more fresh water for each of us in a month than we’ll use in a decade. And one of the most remarkable qualities of water, of course, is that we never really use it up. Water reemerges from everything we do with it, whether it’s making coffee or making steel, ready to use again. The problem is that we’ve built our communities, our farms and our reservoirs in places we expect water to be. The scarcity we’re seeing is a result, in part, of a shifting climate — it’s still raining, but it may not be raining in the watersheds of our reservoirs. Water scarcity is also a result of population growth; more people need more water. And it is often a hidden cost of economic development. As people get wealthier, they use more water for things such as bathing and running the dishwasher, and more energy, which requires huge volumes of water.

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The case is this: in order for students to succeed, we need to prepare them for the ever-changing world of work, which means not only college readiness, but career readiness—students with access to postsecondary education and skills attainment possibilities that will prepare them to achieve in the 21st century. We ask the question, “Why Career and Technical Education?” with honesty. Why, among the many competing education demands, student needs, and graduation requirements, does a program that has its foundations in the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act hold relevancy still? Between emphases on early learning to college preparation, where does Career and Technical Education (CTE) fit in and merit consideration? Why should students who barely have an opportunity to explore the arts, health and fitness, or social studies, be directed to courses in aerospace manufacturing, horticulture, financial math, sports medicine, or integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)? The answer to the above questions, we believe, is that CTE offers a unique opportunity to engage students in an enormous variety of subjects, incorporating academic, creative and technical skills, with the specific goal, nowhere else represented in education, of preparing students for all of life that comes after high school. CTE needs to be an integral part of every student’s education so that all students graduate from high school globally competitive for work, prepared for postsecondary education, and ready for life as positive, contributing members of society in the 21st century. With CTE, students succeed. To learn more, check out the "Why Career and Technical Education?" section of the Statewide Strategic Plan for Career and Technical Education (Final) (PDF), beginning on page 8. On the remainder of this page we provide information on how CTE can strengthen your education and help you prepare for your future: Career exploration and life skills planning form the foundation of Career and Technical Education programs across the state. If you are in the 7th, 8th or 9th grade you will benefit from learning about the world of work and planning for your education accordingly. The most efficient way to get organized is to develop a High School and Beyond Plan. The CTE program and its career counseling staff and tools can help you create a very strong and balanced plan. Career and academic guidance resources vary from school to school and district to district, so we encourage all 7th, 8th and 9th graders to seek advice from: - Your school advisor or your school career or guidance counselor - Your school career center or your district CTE office - Navigation 101 and other career exploration programs CTE classes are offered in many different fields, from construction, welding, firefighting, police work and cooking to environmental science, anatomy and physiology, nursing, veterinary science, computer software, graphic arts, mechanical engineering, architectural drafting, and business and marketing. These classes integrate academics with technical skill development to help prepare students for higher-level courses in college or prepare you for a paid internship. Some middle schools offer limited CTE classes and most high schools offer a wide range of CTE classes. A broad choice of jobs — some of them very well-paid — are available to those who further their education and training after high school. You don’t have to get a bachelor’s degree in order to find a career that you are passionate about and allow you to financially support a family. Washington post-high school offerings include: - Apprenticeships leading to certification and jobs - Internships (paid and unpaid) - Community and Technical Colleges (two-year degrees) - Four-year colleges and universities (bachelor’s degrees) Jobs for Washington’s Graduates (JWG) assists young people in staying in school through graduation, as well as reconnecting those students who have prematurely exited the education system by providing them an opportunity to attend a regional high school or skill center, work toward graduation and get a job. The Washington model fully implements the online curriculum provided by the Jobs for American Graduates (JAG) national program, to provide students with personal management skills and employability skills. It also connects students to career and technical education programs to give them technical skills leading to post-secondary education, apprenticeships and living wage careers. The beauty of the Washington model is that it provides the highest-risk students with positive mentors, a reason to stay in school resulting in increased academic achievement, and a bright and promising future with furthering their education or employment. Successful completion of the program results in attainment of academic competencies, leading to high school graduation or GED. Additional competencies gained in the program result in students successfully finding meaningful employment and post-secondary learning. Many CTE courses — including those taught at skill centers — offer credit that meets the academic credits required for graduation. Some CTE courses earn dual credit, meaning students earn college credit as well as high school credit, tuition free. CTE Advanced Placement courses such as environmental science and computer design are available in some schools. (Students who pass their AP exam following a CTE class also earn dual credit.) Other high school graduation requirements that can be met through CTE include the culminating (senior project) and testing alternatives. Each school’s offerings are different so ask your school career counselor or district CTE office for details. Learn more about dual credit options in the April 2009 Career and College Connections and more about CTE and graduation requirements on our Graduation Requirements page. Running Start for the Trades (RSTT) is expanding opportunities for 11th and 12th grade students to enter state and federal apprenticeship programs. Students take courses that prepare them for full-time apprenticeships following graduation, or for a two-year college program that leads directly to an apprenticeship. For more information, read the December 2010 report to the Legislature or visit the Apprenticeship and Training Council website. Skill centers are high schools that serve more than one school district and offer industry-defined Career and Technical Education classes in fields ranging from firefighting and police work to audiovisual communications and healthcare. Not all school districts have easy access to a skill center but more centers are being developed. Career and Technical Education student organizations help you grow and learn how to compete. These organizations are specifically designed to increase the confidence and leadership potential of members. Depending on your school’s Career and Technical Education courses, you might have some or all of Washington’s student leadership organizations available to you. Visit our Student Leadership Organizations page for more information. Tech Prep classes are open to students in grades 9 through 12 and offer tuition-free college credit as well as high school credit. All Tech Prep classes are CTE classes and all have established relationships with local community and technical colleges, meaning students taking a level one or two CTE Tech Prep class in high school can enter the level three or four class in the same discipline at the local two-year college after they graduate from high school. Some Tech Prep students finish their entire first year of college while still in high school, and save a lot of tuition money in the process. Not all dual credit CTE classes are in the Tech Prep family. For example, CTE Advanced Placement classes offer dual credit but are not Tech Prep classes. CTE students in many cases can pursue what is called a “work-based learning” opportunity or an internship involving a job outside of school. “Work-based learning” experiences are always paid and also earn high school credit. Internships are typically paid but do not earn academic credit. Individual schools and CTE teachers work with local employers to arrange these opportunities for their students, so your local CTE or career office is the best source of information for what your own school offers.

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At a Glance Why Get Tested? To determine if you have a leptin deficiency that is contributing to obesity; to identify increased leptin; on a research basis to help understand leptin's roles in the body and its ties to obesity When to Get Tested? When a child has severe obesity that may be due to a very rare inherited leptin deficiency; sometimes to help evaluate obesity; when participating in a research study A blood sample drawn from a vein in your arm Test Preparation Needed? The Test Sample What is being tested? Leptin is an adipokine, a hormone produced primarily by fat cells (adipocytes) and to a lesser degree by other tissues, including the placenta in pregnant women. This test measures the amount of leptin in the blood. Leptin is a hormone that helps regulate appetite by signaling hunger satisfaction (satiety) to receptors in the hypothalamus in the brain; when sufficient food has been consumed, it tells the body that it is no longer hungry. In a normal feedback response, a low level of leptin triggers hunger and an increase in food consumption. As the level of leptin rises from an increase in fat cells, hunger diminishes and food consumption drops off. Insufficient leptin can cause persistent hunger as the body attempts to protect itself from perceived underfeeding (starvation). Very rare inherited leptin deficiencies can cause severe obesity through constant hunger and constant eating that starts in early childhood. Leptin replacement therapy has been shown to be successful in treating some of those affected. Obesity is most commonly associated with elevated leptin levels. This is thought to be due to a resistance to leptin that is similar to the insulin resistance often seen with obesity. People who are affected are resistant to the action of leptin—they continue to experience hunger even after consuming sufficient food. The body continues to produce more leptin in an attempt to compensate and in response to the perceived hunger. However, about 10% of those who are obese are estimated to have some degree of leptin deficiency. There is significant interest in better understanding leptin's ties to obesity. Obesity is a major health concern in the U.S. because it increases the risk of many conditions, such as high blood pressure (hypertension), dyslipidemias (high cholesterol and/or high triglycerides), type 2 diabetes, joint problems, sleep apnea, coronary heart disease, stroke, and some cancers. The rate of obesity has increased steadily over the last 20 years in all age ranges and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of adults and 17% of children and teens in this country are currently classified as obese. Classification is based on body mass index or BMI. (See Common Questions #2). A recent study found that in some people a leptin level might be more accurate than the traditional body mass index in gauging how much excess fat a person is carrying. In general, the higher the level of leptin in the bloodstream, the more fat tissue a person has. In the study, this was especially true with older women and in those with large muscles or dense bones where the results of the BMI score could be misleading. Research is ongoing to evaluate leptin's roles in the body and the links between leptin and obesity, and between leptin and successful weight loss. There is also continued interest in determining whether a leptin-based treatment might be useful for those who are obese and leptin-deficient. How is the sample collected for testing? A blood sample is obtained by inserting a needle into a vein in the arm. NOTE: If undergoing medical tests makes you or someone you care for anxious, embarrassed, or even difficult to manage, you might consider reading one or more of the following articles: Coping with Test Pain, Discomfort, and Anxiety, Tips on Blood Testing, Tips to Help Children through Their Medical Tests, and Tips to Help the Elderly through Their Medical Tests. Another article, Follow That Sample, provides a glimpse at the collection and processing of a blood sample and throat culture. Is any test preparation needed to ensure the quality of the sample? No test preparation is needed. Ask a Laboratory Scientist Form temporarily unavailable Due to a dramatic increase in the number of questions submitted to the volunteer laboratory scientists who respond to our users, we have had to limit the number of questions that can be submitted each day. Unfortunately, we have reached that limit today and are unable to accept your inquiry now. We understand that your questions are vital to your health and peace of mind, and recommend instead that you speak with your doctor or another healthcare professional. We apologize for this inconvenience. This was not an easy step for us to take, as the volunteers on the response team are dedicated to the work they do and are often inspired by the help they can provide. We are actively seeking to expand our capability so that we can again accept and answer all user questions. We will accept and respond to the same limited number of questions tomorrow, but expect to resume the service, 24/7, as soon as possible. NOTE: This article is based on research that utilizes the sources cited here as well as the collective experience of the Lab Tests Online Editorial Review Board. This article is periodically reviewed by the Editorial Board and may be updated as a result of the review. Any new sources cited will be added to the list and distinguished from the original sources used. Hamdy, O. 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Pre- and post- prandial appetite hormone levels in normal weight and severely obese women. Nutrition & Metabolism v 6 (32) [On-line information]. Available online at http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/6/1/32 through http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com. Accessed February 2013. Farooqi, S. and O'Rahilly, S. (2006 December 1). Genetics of Obesity in Humans. Endocrine Reviews v 27 (7) 710-718. [On-line information]. Available online at http://edrv.endojournals.org/content/27/7/710.full through http://edrv.endojournals.org. Accessed February 2013. Franks, P. et. al. (2007 May). Physical activity energy expenditure may mediate the relationship between plasma leptin levels and worsening insulin resistance independently of adiposity. Journal of Applied Physiology c 102 (5) 1921-1926. [On-line information]. Available online at http://jap.physiology.org/content/102/5/1921.full through http://jap.physiology.org. Accessed February 2013. Stella L. Volpe, S. et. al. (2008 April). Effect of Diet and Exercise on Body Composition, Energy Intake and Leptin Levels in Overweight Women and Men. J Am Coll Nutr v 27 (2) 195-208 [On-line information]. Available online at http://www.jacn.org/content/27/2/195.full through http://www.jacn.org. Accessed February 2013. Chiesa, C. et. al. (2008) Ghrelin, Leptin, IGF-1, IGFBP-3, and Insulin Concentrations at Birth: Is There a Relationship with Fetal Growth and Neonatal Anthropometry? Clinical Chemistry v 54 (3) 550–558 [On-line information]. Available online at http://www.clinchem.org/content/54/3/550.full through http://www.clinchem.org. Accessed February 2013. Henson, M. and Castracane, V. (2006 February 1). Leptin in Pregnancy: An Update. Biology of Reproduction v 74 (2) 218-229 [On-line information]. Available online at http://www.biolreprod.org/content/74/2/218.full through http://www.biolreprod.org. Accessed February 2013. S17 Choquet, H. and Meyre, D. (2011 May) Genetics of Obesity: What have we Learned? Curr Genomics v 12(3): 169–179. [On-line information]. Available online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3137002/ through http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Accessed February 2013. Considine, R, et al. Serum Immunoreactive-Leptin Concentrations in Normal-Weight and Obese Humans. N Engl J Med 1996; 334:292-295. Available online at http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199602013340503#t=articleTop through http://www.nejm.org. Accessed February 2013. Nirav R. Shah, Eric R. Braverman. Measuring Adiposity in Patients: The Utility of Body Mass Index (BMI), Percent Body Fat, and Leptin. PLoS One. Published April 2, 2012. Available online at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0033308 through http://www.plosone.org. Accessed February 2013.

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What is adrenal insufficiency? Adrenal insufficiency and Addison disease are hormonal or endocrine disorders caused by the body not producing enough of the adrenal hormones cortisol and aldosterone. The body regulates hormones through a signaling and feedback system, so this hormone imbalance can happen in a number of ways, possibly causing severe illness. The feedbacks and signals that regulate hormone production involve signals sent between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland in the brain and the adrenal glands located on top of each kidney. The adrenal glands are multi-layered and different layers produce hormones that control water and salt balances in the body and thus blood pressure. For example, cortisol is produced and secreted by the adrenal cortex. Production of the hormone is regulated by the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. When the blood cortisol level falls, the hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which directs the pituitary gland to produce ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone). ACTH stimulates the adrenal glands to produce and release cortisol. In order for appropriate amounts of cortisol to be made, the hypothalamus and both the pituitary and adrenal glands must be functioning properly. Without enough cortisol or aldosterone, people become weak and dehydrated, unable to maintain an adequate blood pressure or to respond properly to stress. Among its many roles, cortisol affects the metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, affects glucose levels in the blood, acts as an anti-inflammatory agent, and helps the body react to stress. Aldosterone is produced by the adrenal cortex and manages the salt and potassium balance in the blood. There are two different types of adrenal insufficiency and they depend on whether pituitary gland or adrenal dysfunction underlies hormone deficiencies. - Underactive or damaged adrenal glands cause Addison disease, also known as primary adrenal insufficiency. They affect cortisol and aldosterone amounts. - Decrease in the production of the pituitary hormone ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) is at the root of secondary adrenal insufficiency. ACTH is a pituitary messenger; it tells the adrenal cortex to produce cortisol. If there is insufficient ACTH, due to pituitary damage, a pituitary tumor, or some other cause, then cortisol production is not stimulated. Secondary adrenal insufficiency can also arise when corticosteroid therapy (such as prednisone, which may be given to relieve inflammation in conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis) is abruptly halted. These treatments suppress natural cortisol production and it can take several weeks or months for normal production to resume. Addison disease affects about 1 to 4 people per 100,000 in the U.S. It is found in people of all ages and affects both males and females equally. Symptoms of insufficiency may not emerge until about 80% to 90% of the adrenal cortex has been destroyed. In the U.S., about 70% of primary adrenal insufficiency in adults is due to an autoimmune process. About 30% of the time, the adrenal damage is due to other causes, such as: tuberculosis, a common cause in areas of the world where tuberculosis is more prevalent; bacterial, viral, HIV, and fungal infections; adrenal hemorrhage; and the spread of cancer into the adrenal glands. Rarely, it may be due to a genetic abnormality of the adrenal glands. In children, about 70% of cases are caused by a congenital disease termed congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), while 30% of the time adrenal damage is due to autoimmune disease, the inherited disease adrenoleukodystrophy, or less common causes.

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There is no doubt that geometrical solutions have been a kind of “language” that has aided our complex social interaction from the very beginning. Although for each culture its origins, meanings, and evolutional usage would vary profoundly, its pervasive presence seems to suggest a deep and abiding function that mere words fail to provide. Thus we are people of “signs”—perhaps no better illustrated than by the current installation of textiles by the African Kuba people on view now. The Kuba Kingdom is situated in the middle of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, nestled in a fertile forest and savanna fed by three rivers. The culture itself is primarily a complex hierarchical social structure where the royals, in masks of various sizes with geometrical meaning, are portrayed as intricate manifestations of the nature spirits casting out evil, or as intermediaries between the gods and people. At the center of their artistic innovations and competition of cloth and mask is the King, Mwaash aMbooy. The most ornate and sumptuous of these precious cloths and masks are given great fanfare; distinctive motifs are introduced into the Kuba repertory and can even be signed by the individual designer. Beside the sheer artistry behind these textiles, what is so unique is their creation. The men are responsible for the cultivation of the raffia palm and its weaving. The women embroider with dyed raffia to create the plush pile. Each ceremonial cloth, a singularity, has an insistent, dazzling inventiveness that calls the Kuba to celebration. It is said that they are a people who cannot leave a surface without ornament. Geometric forms seem to place them in their knowable universe; the mystical quality of nature lies in its abstract entity. Although it is never made entirely clear why or how this deeply spiritual impulse, compulsion, and obligation generated into the Kuba universe as a geometrical communication, it could be suggested that Woot, the first man (the Kuba are also known as “the Children of Woot”), a pattern of utter intricacies, is feared, honored, and worshiped through these complex though dazzling displays of geometrical signs.

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Montgomery County Soil and Water Conservation District received more than $406,000 recently, as part of a push by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets to protect water from pollution caused by farming. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday said $12.2 million in funding will help 209 farms in 27 counties to prevent contamination to streams, rivers and lakes from agricultural runoff. Corey Nellis, district manager of the Montgomery County Soil and Water Conservation District, the funds going to the district - totaling $406,842 - will be used to assist two farms in Montgomery County; Cauwenburgh Farm in Canajoharie and ERCS in Root. Nellis said water tested at one of the sites included high levels of phosphorus coming from barnyard contaminates such as manure. Nellis said each farm will have work done to create ways to prevent wastewater on the farms from running into local streams. For example, Nellis said, Cauwenburgh Farm has an uncovered yard where livestock can walk around. Rainwater, mixing with manure and other contaminants in the yard, could then flow into nearby streams or creeks. Both farms will build covered barnyards to prevent rainwater from hitting the yard, as well as buffer zones to divert fresh water to the farms and block access to streams to prevent contamination from livestock. ERCS also will have a special grazing area established, he said, made from an old cornfield. The grant covers roughly 75 percent of the total cost, with the farms expected to pay the remaining 25. "I would say these projects would be scheduled for implementation in 2014," Nellis said. According to a news release from Cuomo's office, these competitive grants provide funding to county Soil and Water Conservation Districts to address water quality challenges facing farms in priority watersheds throughout the state. The conservation districts utilize the state's Agricultural Environmental Management framework to implement the grants. Conservation districts develop plans tailored to a farm's goals and watershed needs and establish practices and technologies to achieve those goals. "Well-managed farms are an integral part of New York's economy and landscape," Cuomo said. "Through this program, we are supporting farms across the state to put in place best practices when it comes to protecting water quality in their areas while ensuring the continued production of fresh, local food supply. Not only will these projects improve the environment, they will also help stimulate economic activity in the communities."

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Directions: Follow the clickable links on the topics related to each alphabet letter to complete each prompt. Skim and scan Times articles and features for the main idea and most important details. To learn more about a topic, look for graphics and multimedia features, related information and past coverage in the sidebars and at the end of each article. Be prepared to share your answers with your classmates. Here are related Times resources, aside from the Site Search engine, for finding supplementary information on these topics and questions: - The Health Section, including the sub-section on Fitness and Nutrition - Times Health Guide, including the sections on Obesity, Weight Management and Weight Problems and Children - Times Topics pages on Obesity, Children’s Health, Weight, Diet and Nutrition and Physical Activity - The Well blog, including the feature PhysEd - The special Health section on children’s health, “Small Steps: A Good Health Guide” - Recipes for Health, plus the Kids’ Edition and The Lunchbox What questions should you ask your doctor about obesity? Calculate your Body Mass Index and interpret the results. What do you need to know about cholesterol? For example, what’s the difference between HDL and LDL, and how can people lower their cholesterol levels? What is Type 2 diabetes, and why are increasing rates among children alarming? What does 15-year old Jazmyne Robinson do to live with diabetes? What struggles do doctors face to treat children with adult problems like diabetes, high cholesterol? Also, what do you know about eating disorders? What role do genes play in obesity? Are more kids choosing healthy foods from places like McDonald’s simply because they are given the option? Do you try to make healthy choices about what you eat? Why or why not? Should junk food be banned from schools? Does marketing food to children cause childhood obesity? Think of an example of a food ad geared toward kids and explain why you think it is appropriate or not. What does chef Jamie Oliver have to say about the nutrition of school lunch? How is one Bay Area business serving up nutritional school lunches in San Francisco? Do you think kids’ attitudes toward nutrition have been affected by the trend toward habitual snacking? What are the definitions of the words overweight and obese? Use the Expert Q & A on obesity and willpower to find out how systems in the brain affect weight management. Use this graphic and video to investigate the problem with serving sizes on food labels. What might the F.D.A. do to make serving size match a typical portion? If possible, measure out the serving size from a few of your favorite foods. How many servings do you typically eat at once? What unhealthy habits do you have? What simple strategies for success might help you change your ways? Do your favorite video games keep you inside and keep you from doing physical activity? How can kids balance time spent on video games, TV and other media with less sedentary activities? Visit the Well blog. Use the tag list to find a topic that interests you, and write down one new thing you learned about healthy living. What can you take away about daily eXercise and obesity from this “living article” on physical activity? What does this graph show about yo-yo dieting?

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Pools of water on the floor and old, hard-to-clean equipment at a Colorado farm’s cantaloupe packing facility were probably to blame for the deadliest outbreak of foodborne illness in 25 years, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. Government investigators found positive samples of listeria bacteria on equipment in the Jensen Farms packing facility and on fruit that had been held there. In a six-page assessment of the conditions at the farm based on investigators’ visits in late September, the FDA said Jensen Farms had recently purchased used equipment that was corroded, dirty and hard to clean. The packing facility floors were also constructed so they were hard to clean, so pools of water potentially harboring the bacteria formed close to the packing equipment. The equipment — purchased in July, the same month the outbreak started — was previously used to wash and dry potatoes, the agency said, and the listeria “could have been introduced as a result of past use of the equipment,” according to the report. FDA officials said that they are not concerned about similar listeria contamination in the potatoes that were previously processed on the equipment because those vegetables are rarely eaten raw. Cooking can kill the bacteria. The agency said the contamination likely happened in the packing house, but the way the cantaloupes were cooled after being picked may have also contributed to listeria growth. The farm did not use a process called “pre-cooling” that is designed to remove some condensation, thus creating moist conditions on the cantaloupe rind that are ideal for listeria bacteria growth. Listeria grows in cool environments, unlike most pathogens. FDA said that samples of cantaloupes in Jensen Farms’ fields were negative for listeria, but bacteria coming off the field may have initially introduced the pathogen into the open-air packing house, where it then spread. Listeria contamination often comes from animal feces or decaying vegetation. Another possible source of contamination was a truck that frequently hauled cantaloupe to a cattle operation and was parked near the packing house. Contamination could have come from the cattle operation and then tracked into the house by people or equipment, the report said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 123 people have been sickened in the outbreak, including the 25 who died. It is the deadliest known outbreak of foodborne illness in the U.S. since an outbreak of listeria in Mexican-style cheese in 1985. The tainted fruit, which Jensen Farms recalled in mid-September, should be off store shelves by now. But the number of illnesses may continue to grow — symptoms of listeria can take up to two months to appear. Barbara Mahon of the CDC said that the illnesses peaked from mid-August through September, but that the government would continue to monitor the situation for at least another two weeks. The CDC on Tuesday confirmed a sixth death in Colorado and a second in New York. Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming have also reported deaths. FDA officials said Wednesday that the agency has never visited the farm to do an inspection. But that would likely change under a new food safety law signed by President Barack Obama earlier this year that boosts the number of inspections the FDA conducts annually. Currently, the agency may only visit a food facility every five or 10 years, at the most. FDA officials said they have visited many food facilities over the years and the conditions at Jensen Farms were unique. “There is no reason to believe these practices are indicative of practices throughout the industry,” said Sherri McGarry, a senior officer in FDA’s office of foods. McGarry said the agency has sent the company a warning letter and is still considering what enforcement actions it will take. Officials said the farm had cooperated in all aspects of the recall and investigation. Messages left for the farm’s owners were not immediately returned. More breaking news - Community National Bank expands into NYC - State Bank of Long Island 3Q earnings surge - Lesko, Bishop creating business retention group - Lawsky to speak at LIA event - Pat Foye to head Port Authority - New York Community Bank earnings slide in 3Q - LI joins call for truth in wine labeling - FDA cites dirty equipment in cantaloupe outbreak - Apple employees to celebrate Jobs, stores to close - Feds require testing for tax preparers

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How would you like to be able to recall the name of a client or associate you just met? How would you like to go to the bank and not fumble for your account number every stinking time? Everyday scenarios like these are classic examples of our need for memorization. The function of memory has so many more applications, too—public speaking, schoolwork, studying, research, the list goes on and on. Imagine if we could be better at it. Would you believe that memorization is not an innate ability but rather a learned skill? Approaching the topic from this paradigm changes everything. You can learn how to memorize. You can become a memory expert by application and sheer force. You have the power to memorize anything and everything. How Our Brain Memorizes Things Before we get to the memorization techniques, first a science lesson on how the brain stores memories. You likely know that the brain is a complicated, beautiful system of working parts. Two of those working parts—the neurons and the synapses—are flexed during the memory-creating process. Neurons are the parts of the brain that send and receive electrical signals. Synapses are the roads that connect them. When memories are recalled, a series of neurons sends signals throughout the brain, creating a sequence that represents the memory. This pathway has been tested by scientists who can send electrical shocks into the brain, masquerading as these initial neuron signals, that can initiate a memory sequence. The stronger the synapse, the greater chance that a memory can be recalled. Consistent use of synapses often creates stronger connections, similar to exercising. So, say, recalling your old apartment number or childhood home phone is easier than a bank account number because an address or phone gets used more often. Weak signals—i.e., bank-account signals—lack the ability to create the cascade of neurons essential to initiating a memory. The Problem with Memory Today One of the leading voices on memorization is Joshua Foer, a journalist by trade who trained himself in one year’s time to become a memorization national champion (Foer’s exploits are documented in the book Moonwalking with Einstein). His perspective on the topic of memory points to an interesting, 21st century problem: Externalizing vs. Internalizing. Technologies (iPhones, software, etc.) have made our modern world possible, but they’ve also changed us. They’ve changed us culturally, and I would argue that they’ve changed us cognitively. Having little need to remember anymore, it sometimes seems as if we’ve forgotten how. With so many apps and tools at our disposal, memorization has transferred from a purely mental exercise to a tangibly outward endeavor. (Foer is not quite the first to share this sentiment. Socrates was sour on writing because he feared it would weaken memory.) Three Techniques to Become a Better Memorizer Construct a Memory Palace The ancient Greeks and Romans did not have the luxury of an iPhone or Evernote. When their scholars and orators remembered something, they did so the old-fashioned way: mentally. The common technique of the time was a Memory Palace, also known as the “method of loci,” also known as “mental mapping.” - Visualize a familiar space in your life, i.e. your house or your workplace. - Find five rooms or areas in this space. - Choose five large items in each room to serve as “files” for your memorizing. - Assign each of these five large items a number, beginning with one and going room to room in ascending order. For instance, in your office, your desk may be 1, your office chair 2, your bookcase 3, your whiteboard 4, and your door 5. In the break room, begin with the break room table at 6, the sink as 7, etc., etc. Number as many items in as many rooms as you wish, and keep in mind that you can always add more items and rooms later. It is helpful to number the items in an orderly way as they flow in the room. At this point, your Palace is constructed. Now, let’s fill it. - Picture what it is you want to remember. - Associate this memory with an item in a room. Let’s say you want to commit to memory each of the 12 teams in the Pac-12 football conference (to impress your boss, a Cal grad). Based on the above Memory Palace that I constructed in the workplace, the list might look something like this: - A wildcat is chewing on my desk (Arizona) - The devil is napping on my office chair (Arizona State) - The giant bear is pawing at Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink in my bookcase (Cal) - A buffalo is drawing caricatures of me on my whiteboard (Colorado) - A duck is laying eggs on my door jamb (Oregon) - A beaver is chewing off the legs of the break-room table (Oregon State) - Someone stuffed a tree down the garbage disposal in the sink (Stanford) - … (and so on and so forth for UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington, and Washington State) The visualization is important. The more vivid these scenes appear in your imagination, the more likely it is that you will recall them. Joshua Foer, the memorization champion, found that visceral, lewd, or bizarre imagery often worked best. This is called the Von Restorff effect. Create a Peg System An ideal technique for memorizing lists, similar to the scientific method of saying “no,” the peg system functions in a similar way to the memory palace: Create an association between what you want to memorize and what your mind already knows. To use the peg system, you assign words to a list of numbers, creating a mental image for each “peg.” Then, you can attach what you wish to memorize to these pre-memorized pegs, creating a vivid connection in your mind. The initial pegs can be created with anything. Common starting points are words that rhyme with each number or shape corresponding to the shape of each number. Here’s a rhyming example for one through ten: 1 = sun 2 = shoe 3 = bee 4 = spore 5 = jive 6 = ticks 7 = heaven 8 = grate 9 = wine 10 = hen Once you commit your pegs to memory, then you can begin associating your to-be-memorized lists. Let’s say, for instance, that you need to memorize a shopping list. Your list might look like this: - Bananas: A banana-shaped sun - Toothpaste: A shoe full of toothpaste - Birthday card for mom: A bee writing a sweet message in a greeting card Memorize Verbatim Text The above techniques work great for memorizing individual items. But what if you have a chunk of text you want to commit to memory? You can try a Memory Palace of paragraphs or a Peg System of key points, but here’s an even better option: the first-letter text method. The method is not a visual one, like the methods listed above. The key to the first-letter text method is good, old-fashioned hard work: Practice recalling, not repeating: This is the crucial concept of any type of memorization. The act of reading something you want to memorize fires different connections than the act of recalling. This is how you learn to memorize–your practice recalling, not repeating. Recalling vs. repeating might sound like semantics, but the distinction is notable. If you want to memorize a large chunk of text, you are better off recalling it within your mind than reading it over and over on paper. This is how the first-letter method functions. Take the first letter from each word in your chosen text. This becomes your study guide. Let’s use a couple paragraphs from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as an example. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” And here’s what it looks like with the first-letter text method (Productivity501 has a helpful tool on their website). I h a d t m f l c w o d l i a n w t w n b j b t c o t s b b t c o t c. I h a d t o d e v s b e, a e h a m s b m l, t r p w b m p, a t c p w b m s; “a t g o t L s b r a a f s s i t.” Now, instead of reading the text verbatim, you are recalling the text. Your brain is exercising its synapses in a way that will lead to better memorization. Reading through those first letters, you may find yourself recalling bits and pieces from the full text. Good. Great! The more practice, the easier it gets. Other Notable Methods - Psychology research has gone into the theory of mood memory: If you want to remember something, get back to the mood you were in when you experienced it. - The Link System works in a similar way to the Peg System, albeit without the numerical order. Say you need to memorize a list of arbitrary terms—a dog, a cake, a house, the rain. With the link system, you visualize an interaction between each consecutive item, e.g. a dog eating a cake, a cake filling a house, a rainstorm of houses. - Ron White, a former memorization national champion, has an intriguing method for recalling numbers. He assigns each friend a number, and he needs to memorize a new number, he simply pictures his friends in a particular order. - Associating a name with a personality trait or visual cue is an effective method. The Office‘s Michael Scott took this to a famously insulting extreme. - Ben Pridmore, a World Memory Champion, once memorized a deck of cards in 24 seconds. His Pridmore technique, documented here, is quite extensive. (Aside: What does it take to be a Grand Master of Memory? You must memorize the order of 10 decks of cards in 60 minutes, memorize 1,000 random digits in 60 minutes, and memorize the order of one deck of cards in less than two minutes.) What Works for You? Memorization—on a small scale in the work place or a large scale at the national championships—often comes back to the same foundation of visualizing, associating, and recalling. Some of the above methods might work wonders for you, or perhaps you have muddled together your own system that you swear by. I have been wanting to memorize a famous speech for some time, and I plan on giving the first-letter text method a go. How about you? Kevan Lee is a freelance writer by day, sports fan by night—-and sometimes vice versa. He writes about email and nutrition (not at the same time) and a whole lot more. Live simply, give generously, watch football, beat cancer. Illustration by Nick Criscuolo. Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

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Examining its subject from a generative perspective, this highly detailed text deals with the syntax of nominal expressions. It focuses on empirical data taken from the Spanish language, though the author goes further to draw conclusions of wider theoretical interest from material culled from other languages too. The book considers crucial phenomena in the nominal domain, such as extraction out of nominal phrases and ellipsis in these phrases, as well as their modification. In doing so it provides the reader with a unified explanation of a number of phenomena that have not previously been analyzed under a single basic account. In particular, Ticio explores how economy notions interact with a number of functional categories, with the length and type of movements allowed, and with the existence of three internal domains within nominal expressions. She uses these observations to inform her analysis of the structure of arguments and adjuncts in nominal expressions, and of the potential these elements have for extraction. To test the empirical adequacy of her analysis, she employs phenomena such as the properties of attributive adjectives, partial cliticization and nominal elision in Spanish nominal phrases. Aimed at specialized linguists as well as those with a particular interest in Spanish and Romance languages, the research laid out in this book contributes to the general discussion on linguistic theory by providing additional material relevant to key ongoing debates in the theory of grammar, such as the need to have a distinction between adjuncts and specifiers, and the lack of head movement (N movement).

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At the moment, I am working with Curriki on a number of open education initiatives in the Middle East and abroad. Today a post went live on the Curriki blog that I think many Literacy is Priceless readers will find of interest–a post regarding the use of Twitter in and out of the classroom. To see the original post, click here. I’ve also pasted a copy of the post below. I would love to hear your thoughts about using Twitter for within the classroom. Feel free to share your comments here or on the Curriki blog! P.S. Thanks to @moriza for inspiring my recent interest in using Twitter in the classroom! Recently there has been a surge of interest around the use of Twitter and other social media tools in the classroom. As this article points out, educators are increasingly experimenting with Twitter as a teaching tool in and out of the classroom to share resources, increase communication and prepare their students with skills for the 21st century workplace. For Curriki members that have heard of Twitter, but don’t quite know what it is… Wikipedia states: Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). As you explore ways to effectively use Twitter for educational purposes, take a look at this presentation by Tom Barrett titled, “Twenty-Two Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom”. For example: - Idea #1: Student can use Twitter to gather real world data up-to-date data by posting questions to fellow tweeters about location, historical facts, temperature, etc. - Idea #3: Students can use Twitter to summarize their opinions or topics they’ve learned in class. - Idea #10: “Word Morph”. Students can use Twitter to ask peers for synonyms and other word-related information. - Idea #17: Students can use Twitter to communicate with experts. As you explore the use of Twitter in your classroom, we welcome you to post your lessons and ideas on Curriki. In addition, feel free to follow our tweets here. Curriki uses Twitter to share information about education technology, to highlight resources contributed by the Curriki community and to connect and solicit feedback and ideas. See you on Twitter!

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Inflammation occurs when your body’s chemicals and white blood cells protect you from infection and foreign substances such as viruses and bacteria, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Some common diseases associated with inflammation include arthritis, gout and bursitis. Anti-inflammatory medications may reduce inflammation; however, certain herbs such as ginger root can also help lessen inflammation. Always speak with your physician before using herbs for treating any health condition. Inflammation may cause a variety of symptoms. Some symptoms of inflammation can include joint pain, stiffness, redness on or near the joint area; joints that feel warm to the touch and possible compromised joint function. In addition, more severe cases of inflammation can result in flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, headache, loss of appetite and fatigue, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Ginger has been used medicinally since ancient times in many countries. It has been used to treat conditions such as upset stomach, diarrhea and nausea. The volatile oils and pungent phenol compounds are the active ingredient in this herb. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), ginger is commonly recommended by health care professionals for nausea prevention due to morning sickness, motion sickness and chemotherapy treatments as well as an aid in inflammatory conditions like arthritis. A study conducted with 261 participants diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the knee experienced less pain and required less pain-killing medications after taking ginger extract twice per day, according to the UMMC. However, one trial showed that ginger was no more effective in treating inflammation than ibuprofen or the placebo. Ginger is available in many forms and can even be obtained through your diet by drinking ginger ale or eating ginger bread. Most ginger products are made from dried or fresh ginger root and is available as capsules, tinctures and oils. According to the UMMC, ginger consumption should not be more than 4 g per day including the amount obtained through food and drink products made with the herb. To relieve inflammation due to arthritis pain, the university suggests taking 2 to 4 g of ginger per day in the form of tea, extract or ginger juice. Ginger oil may also be applied topically to the inflamed area. - ginger root image by Neelrad from Fotolia.com This article reflects the views of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Jillian Michaels or JillianMichaels.com.

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(Mt. Auburn) -- Cincinnati has a lot of historical buildings, but the only National Historical Site is the home of a former President. The Taft National Historical Site on Auburn Avenue attracts about 21,000 people a year. But Taft wasn't just the Chief Executive. He was also the Chief Justice, the Solicitor General, the Secretary of War, and the Governor of the Phillippines. Taft was the first President to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. (Washington vs. Philadelphia). He's often credited with starting another baseball tradition. But, educational specialist Kerry Wood says they don't think he was the first person to do a "7th inning stretch". Wood says their research leads them to believe the stretch was already in practice before Taft became President. Wood says a lot of visitors ask if Taft really did get stuck in the bathtub at the White House. And again, he says that is probably just a myth, although America's 27th President probably did need help getting in and out of the tub, so he didn't fall. Wood says they have displays covering Taft's connection with baseball, his personal life, and his political career, as well as information on the political dynasty that followed him. The Historical Site is open from 8am to 4:15pm, seven days a week.

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Scientists have announced a new "Bird Flu" strain that can be transmitted directly to people. Researchers have identified the first human case of H6N1 that can apparently jump directly from chickens to a person. They published their findings in the journal Lancet, and they say they're very concerned about the rise of flu strains used to stay within bird species. Scientists in Taiwan speculate that a version of the virus in chickens may have mutated just enough to be able to latch onto cells in a person's nasal and airway passages, and that means this version of the flu could potentially spread through the air. - Rob Archer

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Those words combined with "a swish and a flick" of her magic wand let Hermione Granger send a feather from her desk top into the airy heights of a Hogwarts classroom. The combination of verbal command and body gesture was enough to energize the magical levitating force to bring about her feather's aerial feats, sans any attached bird. When dealing with forces as powerful as magic, one must be sure that the power is only invoked when desired. The combination of words and body language provide just such a safety feature, making it difficult to accidentally trigger these forces. Today, verbal commands and body gestures are being employed to control all types of electronic gadgets, from cell phones to televisions. Two consumer-based technologies are leading this charge in human-machine interactivity: the Apple iPhone's Siri and Microsoft's Kinect interfaces. Siri is Apples method of letting you control your iPhone 4S using voice commands. There is one physical gesture you have to perform: hold the "Home" key down until Siri activates. Then just tell it what you want it to do. If it doesn't understand the command, it'll ask you questions until it's happy. Kinect, on the other hand, works primarily with gestures although recent additions have added a limited voice command capability. The physical activity and motions you make towards the system controls what the system does next. While this might be nice for playing with a virtual tiger as a pet, you might ask what good is it in real life? The answer, of course, is everywhere. As a simple example, let's take "The Lady" doorlock that leads to the Gryffindor dorm in the Harry Potter movies. In the movie, "The Lady" appears as a full-torso apparition on the door when its approached as though to enter (the physical gesture). She then demands a pass phrase to permit entry. The pass phrase is spoken (the verbal component) , and the door opens. Obviously, this is magic at work...or is it? Let's attach a full-length thin-screen monitor to the back of an electronically latched door. Small camera vision sensors, like those found in any smartphone, detect anyone approaching or standing in front of the door. A computer generated image demands a pass phrase which must be uttered before the door is unlatched and passage granted. Of course, voice recognition software handles that. We could take this design one step further than the movie version and give the vision sensor access to facial recognition features. In this manner only certain people can use the phrase, or each person could have their own unique phrase. That's just one idea off the top of my head. It's by no means the only idea. If you think you've got an interesting application for this technology, give a shout in the reply area. I'd love to hear it. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of The Future, 1961

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The Relative Difficulty and Significance of Reading Skills The importance of reading in English as a foreign language has resulted in numerous studies on the construct of reading and the nature of its underlying skills. This study investigated the possibility of any hierarchical relationship among a set of hypothesized reading comprehension (RC) subskills measured by IELTS in terms of two important criteria of relative difficulty and significance. Furthermore, it examined the relationship between the level of difficulty and significance of the subskills. To this end, five reading subskills that are most frequently referred to in the literature were selected and presented to six expert judges in order to assign them to IELTS reading items. The results showed considerable agreement among judges on matching test items with the subskills. Then, the selected items were administered to 180 Iranian English majors. Analysis of data, using repeated measure ANOVA, showed significant differences among mean scores on four, out of five, reading subskills in terms of difficulty; therefore, a hierarchy of difficulty was identified. In addition, using structural equation modeling, contribution of each of the five subskills to the construct of reading ability turned out to be significant indicating a hierarchy of relative contribution to overall RC ability among the specified subskills. However, Spearman rank order correlation showed no significant relationship between difficulty level and relative contribution to the totality of RC. The findings have implications for test construction as well as teaching and material development. - There are currently no refbacks. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the 'macrothink.org' domain to your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.Copyright © Macrothink Institute ISSN 2325-0887

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Indigenous Australians are making extraordinary contributions to Australia. CSIRO Indigenous Engagement Indigenous Australians are making extraordinary contributions to Australia across cultural, economic and scientific domains. 27 April 2011 | Updated 16 November 2013 CSIRO recognises the social and economic disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and is committed to overcoming the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We believe it is important to work with Indigenous communities on projects to improve the prosperity of all Australians, and we value the contribution Indigenous knowledge adds to our scientific and social research. CSIRO is committed to encouraging more Indigenous people to work with CSIRO and contributing to the challenges and aspirations of Indigenous communities. Read CSIRO's Indigenous Engagement Strategy or learn more about Indigenous careers with CSIRO.

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Are you ready to wake up from the cult of Arduino? Tired of plugging together black-box pre-built modules like a mindless drone, copying and pasting in code you found on Hackaday? You’ve soldered together your TV-Be-Gone, built your fifth Minty Boost, and your bench is awash with discarded Adafruit packaging and Make magazines. It’s time to stop this passive consumption. It’s time to create something that is truly yours. It’s time, my friend, to design your first circuit board. And you’ll need a machine to print it. Outsourcing printed circuit board (PCB) manufacture can be expensive and slow. You want your board now, for free. And designing PCB’s is hard. You’ll make mistakes, and some boards will be wasted. You can etch your own PCB’s at home but the process is fiddly, and notoriously difficult to perfect. What if you had a printer that could make PCB’s? A rapid prototyping machine for circuit boards. In this talk I will present my progress towards an inexpensive PCB printer by reverse engineering Epson inkjet technology. And I’m not talking about the crappy print-and-bake method you might have seen on the internet. Come and learn about the miracle of microfluidics within the modern consumer inkjet printer, and how to push it to do new, exciting things. I’ll be describing some reverse engineering techniques, a bit of electronics circuit design and the potential for 3D microfabrication with inkjet technology. [Via Dangerous Prototypes]

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Frabjous is a sculpture that consists of thirty identical parts which are assembled into a geometric star with twelve spiral vortices. A few years ago, a MAKE post showed how to make a cardboard version that requires many hours of hobby knife cutting. Should you prefer a cool-looking acrylic version, made from laser-cut components, there is now a kit sold by the Museum of Mathematics. It is a tricky puzzle to assemble, but when done, you’ll have a lovely, seven-inch diameter sculpture to enjoy. Or if you want to spring for a fancy acrylic version with an iridescent coating that changes color as you move around, that is available, too. Catch up with all of George Hart’s Math Monday columns

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WMAP PRODUCES NEW RESULTS WMAP 9-year Results Released WMAP has refined its measurements with a final 2 years of data. The WMAP science team has determined, to a high degree of accuracy and precision, not only the age of the universe, but also the density of atoms; the density of all other non-atomic matter; the epoch when the first stars started to shine; the "lumpiness" of the universe, and how that "lumpiness" depends on scale size. In short, when used alone (with no other measurements), WMAP observations have improved knowledge of these six numbers by a total factor of 68,000, thereby converting cosmology from a field of wild speculation to a precision science. WMAP's "baby picture of the universe" maps the afterglow of the hot, young universe at a time when it was only 375,000 years old, when it was a tiny fraction of its current age of 13.77 billion years. The patterns in this baby picture were used to limit what could have possibly happened earlier, and what happened in the billions of year since that early time. The (mis-named) "big bang" framework of cosmology, which posits that the young universe was hot and dense, and has been expanding and cooling ever since, is now solidly supported, according to WMAP. WMAP observations also support an add-on to the big bang framework to account for the earliest moments of the universe. Called "inflation," the theory says that the universe underwent a dramatic early period of expansion, growing by more than a trillion trillion-fold in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. Tiny fluctuations were generated during this expansion that eventually grew to form galaxies. Remarkably, WMAP's precision measurement of the properties of the fluctuations has confirmed specific predictions of the simplest version of inflation: the fluctuations follow a bell curve with the same properties across the sky, and there are equal numbers of hot and cold spots on the map. WMAP also confirms the predictions that the amplitude of the variations in the density of the universe on big scales should be slightly larger than smaller scales, and that the universe should obey the rules of Euclidean geometry so the sum of the interior angles of a triangle add to 180 degrees. The universe comprises only 4.6% atoms. A much greater fraction, 24% of the universe, is a different kind of matter that has gravity but does not emit any light --- called "dark matter". The biggest fraction of the current composition of the universe, 71%, is a source of anti-gravity (sometimes called "dark energy") that is driving an acceleration of the expansion of the universe. WMAP has also provided the timing of epoch when the first stars began to shine, when the universe was about 400 million old. The upcoming James Webb Space Telescope is specifically designed to study that period that has added its signature to the WMAP observations. WMAP launched on June 30, 2001 and maneuvered to its observing station near the "second Lagrange point" of the Earth-Sun system, a million miles from Earth in the direction opposite the sun. From there, WMAP scanned the heavens, mapping out tiny temperature fluctuations across the full sky. The first results were issued in February 2003, with major updates in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and now this final release. The mission was selected by NASA in 1996, the result of an open competition held in 1995. It was confirmed for development in 1997 and was built and ready for launch only four years later, on-schedule and on-budget.

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Behind Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s sparkling stage comedy, The Roaring Girl, (ca 1607-1610), was a real woman, the notorious Mary Frith, aka Moll Cutpurse—a cross-dressing, hard-drinking pickpocket, fence, and Queen of Misrule. The vintner bet Moll £20 that she would not ride from Charing Cross to Shoreditch astraddle on horseback, in breeches and doublet, boots and spurs. The hoyden took him up in a moment, and added of her own devilry a trumpet and banner. She set out from Charing Cross bravely enough, and a trumpeter being an unwonted spectacle, the eyes of all the town were clapped upon her. Yet none knew her until she reached Bishopsgate, where an orange-wench set up the cry, `Moll Cutpurse on horseback!' Instantly the cavalier was surrounded by a noisy mob. Some would have torn her from the saddle for an imagined insult upon womanhood, others, more wisely minded, laughed at the prank with good-humoured merriment. Every minute the throng grew denser, and it had fared hardly with roystering Moll, had not a wedding and the arrest of a debtor presently distracted the gaping idlers. As the mob turned to gaze at the fresh wonder, she spurred her horse until she gained Newington by an unfrequented lane. There she waited until night should cover her progress to Shoreditch, and thus peacefully she returned home to lighten the vintner's pocket of twenty pounds. -One of the many merry pranks attributed to Firth in Charles Whibley's A Book of Scoundrels. Born in London in 1584 to a shoemaker and a housewife, Frith was an uncompromising tomboy who disdained feminine clothing. Instead she sported a doublet and men’s breeches. She smoked a pipe and swore like a sailor. The original Jacobean Roaring Girl, she ran with a rough crowd, aping the lifestyle of the traditional Roaring Boys, young men who caroused in taverns before going on the streets to brawl and engage in petty crime. In 1600, at the age of sixteen, she was first indicted for thievery, stealing 2s, 11d. By 1610, her reputation had inspired not only Middleton and Dekker’s famous play but many other works, including John Day’s 1610 drama, The Madde Pranckes of Mery Mall of the Bankside. These works sensationalised her scandalous behaviour. Men regarded women who habitually cross-dressed as sexually riotous and out of control. Yet Frith herself claimed to be uninterested in sex. She did, however, revel in her notoriety. In 1611 she performed at the Fortune Theatre in an age where women on the stage were unheard of and female parts in plays were performed by boys in women’s clothing. Frith, as always, appeared in breeches and regaled her audience by singing bawdy songs while playing the lute. Later in that same year, she was arrested for indecent dress and accused of prostitution. In February 1612, Frith was made to do penance for her evil living at Saint Paul’s Cross, an open air preaching cross on the grounds of the old Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London. Before the crowd she wept copiously and appeared very penitent indeed, although John Chamberlain later observed in a letter that he thought she only wept on account of being “maudlin drunk, being discovered to have tippled three-quarters of sack.” In 1614, Frith wed Lewknor Markham in what appeared to a marriage of convenience, but she gave no signs of settling down. By the 1620s, she was working as a fence and a pimp, procuring both young women for her male clients and strapping young men to service middle class wives. In 1644, records show that she was released from Bethlem Hospital after being cured of insanity. An apocryphal tale goes so far as to claim that during the English Civil War, she robbed and shot General Fairfax, then escaped the gallows by way of a 2000 pound bribe. However, her actual recorded death seems the least exciting episode in her long and colourful life. In July 1659, she died of dropsy in Fleet Street, London. Read her fabulously embroidered biography in Charles Whibley’s A Book of Scoundrels.

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Proof That G Is Abelian Date: 03/05/2003 at 19:53:01 From: Jim Subject: Abelian Groups Let H be a subgroup of G that is different from G and let x*y=y*x for all x and y in G minus H. Prove that G is Abelian. Date: 03/06/2003 at 04:46:58 From: Doctor Jacques Subject: Re: Abelian Groups Hi Jim, As H is a proper subgroup, there exists an element c in (G\H). This element will be kept fixed in what follows. We will first prove that any element of H commutes with c. Let a be an element of H. As H is a subgroup, and c is not in H, neither a*c nor c^(-1) are in H. By hypothesis, we have: (a*c)*c^(-1) = c^(-1)*(a*c) a = c^(-1)*(a*c) and you should be able to conclude that c*a = a*c. It remains to prove that any two elements of H commute. Let a and b be two elements of H. We can write: a*b = (a*c)*(c^(-1)*b) and neither (a*c) not (c^(-1)*b) belong to H. This should allow you to prove that a*b = b*a, using the previous result and a similar technique. As this exhausts all possibilities, it proves the proposition. Does this help? Write back if you'd like to talk about this some more, or if you have any other questions. - Doctor Jacques, The Math Forum http://mathforum.org/dr.math/ Date: 03/10/2003 at 12:38:13 From: Jim Subject: Thank you (Abelian Groups) Thank you, Dr. Jacques, for your time and quick response. The help was right on. Jim Search the Dr. Math Library: Ask Dr. MathTM © 1994-2013 The Math Forum

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Negative perceptions about generic drugs are more widespread among ethnic minorities than among whites, finds a new study in Ethnicity & Disease. Greater use of generic drugs, say the authors, could significantly reduce two major problems: patients' failing to take medications properly because they cannot afford brand name drugs and the amount spent overall on prescription medications. "A lot of people can't afford their medicine. They end up in the ER for something preventable," said Anthony Omojasola, DrPH, the study's lead author. "We wanted to see if people were aware of generic drug discount programs and, if they were aware, why they would or would not participate." Discount programs offered by retailers such as Wal-Mart offer many common generic drugs for $4 for a 30-day supply. The authors add that most doctors seldom ask patients about problems paying for prescriptions and patients seldom raise such problems with physicians. The study results come from a survey of Houston residents with incomes under $30,000 with a chronic condition requiring a prescription drug or a family member with such a condition. Most respondents were female (77 percent) and African-American (67 percent). The researchers found no significant differences by race/ethnicity in the use of generic drug discount programs. About 75 percent of survey participants agreed that generics are "equal in quality" to, just "as safe as" and "just as effective as" brand name drugs. However, negative perceptions about the potential for side effects and about "inferiority" of generics compared to brand name drugs were more pronounced among minority group members than among white participants. Compared to non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Hispanics were 10 times as likely to agree that generic drugs had more side effects than brand name ones. They were also 4 times as likely as whites to agree that generics were inferior to brand name drugs. Still, negative perceptions did not prevent minorities from using generic drugs. Gerard Anderson, Ph.D. of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health commented that while generic drugs are therapeutically equivalent to brand name drugs, patients often lack this information; generic drug companies don't advertise like companies promoting brand name drugs. Anderson added the fact that minorities are more suspicious of generic drugs is not so surprising, he said, "What is more surprising is that in spite of this suspicion they are willing to participate in generic substitution programs." Omojasola's team called for physicians and pharmacists to better educate patients about the general equivalency of generic and brand name drugs to reduce concerns about generic substitutions and medication costs for patients and society. More information: A. Omojasola, DrPH; M. Hernandez, MS; S. Sansgiry, PhD; L. Jones, Ph.D., Perception of Generic Prescription Drugs And Utilization Of Generic Drug Discount Programs, Ethnicity & Disease, Volume 22, Autumn 2012.

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Interactive Java Tutorials Specular and Diffuse Reflection The amount of light reflected by an object, and how it is reflected, is highly dependent upon the smoothness or texture of the surface. When surface imperfections are smaller than the wavelength of the incident light (as in the case of a mirror), virtually all of the light is reflected equally. However, in the real world most objects have convoluted surfaces that exhibit a diffuse reflection, with the incident light being reflected in all directions. This interactive tutorial explores how light waves are reflected by smooth and rough surfaces. The tutorial initializes with a beam of white light (represented by a spectrum composed of all wavelengths between 400 and 700 nanometers) being reflected by a diffuse, or rough, red surface demonstrating Diffuse Reflection. In order to operate the tutorial, use the slider bars to adjust the color and texture of the surface appearing in the window between a range of zero (smooth) and 100 percent (maximum roughness). By translating the Surface Color slider, the color of the grid-laden surface is altered to produce corresponding changes in the wavelength spectrum of light reflected from the surface. When the slider labeled Surface Roughness is moved to the right, the texture of the surface becomes more irregular and light is reflected at a greater number of angles and wavelengths. Moving the slider to the left produces a progressive smoother surface. At the far left boundary of the Surface Roughness slider, the surface becomes totally flat and exhibits specular reflection of all incident wavelengths that match the color of the surface. Most things that we see (people, cars, houses, animals, trees, etc.) do not themselves emit visible light but reflect incident natural sunlight and artificial light. For instance, an apple appears a shiny red color because it has a relatively smooth surface that reflects red light and absorbs other non-red (such as green, blue, and yellow) wavelengths of light. The reflection of light can be roughly categorized into two types of reflection: specular reflection is defined as light reflected from a smooth surface at a definite angle, and diffuse reflection, which is produced by rough surfaces that tend to reflect light in all directions (as illustrated in Figure 1). There are far more occurrences of diffuse reflection than specular reflection in our everyday environment. To visualize the differences between specular and diffuse reflection, consider two very different surfaces: a smooth mirror and a rough reddish surface. The mirror reflects all of the components of white light (such as red, green, and blue wavelengths) almost equally and the reflected specular light follows the same angle from the normal, as does the incident light. The rough reddish surface, however, does not reflect all wavelengths because it absorbs most of the blue and green components, and reflects the red light. Also, the diffuse light that is reflected from the rough surface is scattered in all directions. Perhaps the best example of specular reflection, which we encounter on a daily basis, is the mirror image produced by a household mirror that people might use many times a day to view their appearance. The mirror's smooth reflective glass surface renders a virtual image of the observer from the light that is reflected directly back into the eyes. This image is referred to as "virtual" because it does not actually exist (does not produce light) and appears to be behind the plane of the mirror due to an assumption that the brain naturally makes. The way in which this occurs is easiest to visualize when looking at the reflection of an object to one side of the observer, so that the light from the object strikes the mirror at an angle and is reflected at an equal angle to the viewer's eyes. As the eyes receive the reflected rays, the brain assumes that the light rays have reached the eyes in a direct straight path. Tracing the rays backward toward the mirror, the brain perceives an image that is positioned behind the mirror. An interesting feature of this reflection artifact is that the image of an object being observed appears to be the same distance behind the plane of the mirror as the actual object is in front of the mirror. Mortimer Abramowitz - Olympus America, Inc., Two Corporate Center Drive., Melville, New York, 11747. Matthew J. Parry-Hill, Robert T. Sutter, and Michael W. Davidson - National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, 1800 East Paul Dirac Dr., The Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 32310. Questions or comments? Send us an email. © 1998-2013 by Michael W. Davidson and The Florida State University. All Rights Reserved. No images, graphics, scripts, or applets may be reproduced or used in any manner without permission from the copyright holders. Use of this website means you agree to all of the Legal Terms and Conditions set forth by the owners. This website is maintained by our

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Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a business wing of PG&E Corporation (PCG), announced that it has incorporated the new advanced hand-held laser scanner device, EXAscan, to improve natural gas pipeline safety. The revolutionary device offers accurate and effective means to maintain the safety and reliability of the pipelines. As per the company’s Pipeline Safety Enhancement Plan ("PSEP"), the technology will complement other safety measures employed by PG&E to assess, repair and replace pipelines lying in its service coverage areas. EXAscan beats the orthodox ways of manually detecting pipeline corrosion and is rather a more time-saving and cost-efficient option for industry players. The technology will enable Pacific Gas and Electric to obtain information regarding any corrosion within minutes. This would help the company evaluate and make prompt decisions about pipeline operations. The laser tool was manufactured by privately held Canadian company Creaform and works by placing the device a few inches above a pipeline section which then gives a color coded three dimensional picture on the monitor and spots any probable hazardous signs like dents or warping and corrosion inside the pipelines. EXAscan’s capabilities are not confined solely to PG&E’s natural gas pipelines. The device can also be utilized in performing stress tests in hydroelectric infrastructures. PG&E’s engineers recently conducted stress tests to determine the reliability of the rotors at the Helms Pumped Storage Plant in Oakhurst-North Fork, California. We believe this state-of-the-art device will minimize chances of pipeline accidents resulting from infrastructural glitches and ensure the timely and smooth supply of electricity to customers. PG&E has also been fitting the latest Smart Grid technology and powering more than 400 of its distribution circuits. However, these modernization programs would cost the company substantially. Unless recovered by regulatory base cases, the costs may spill over to the customers’ bills. PG&E currently holds a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Another Zacks Ranked #3 operator in the utility domain to look out for is FirstEnergy Corporation (FE). Headquartered in San Francisco, California, PG&E Corporation is engaged in electricity and natural gas distribution; electricity generation and transmission; and natural gas procurement, transportation, and transmission and storage operations. The company has a market cap of $17.47 billion. FIRSTENERGY CP (FE): Free Stock Analysis Report

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Pre colonial history of Bengal is closely linked with the emergence, growth and decline of Murshidabad. It has governed all the proceedings of the 18th century eastern India and provided the platform from which the colonial interests had launched themselves and subsequently became an Imperial power in 1857. It is quite obvious that such a socio- political stage has enormous potential to engage any visitor from far and wide through its myriad cultural landscape. A seat of power of such a scale attracts lot of wealth, creativity and activity. For example the annual revenue of Bengal paid to the Mughal Emperor amounts to One Crore sicca Taka- in early seventeenth century was an unbelievable amount. In a cunning strategical move, Murshidkuli Khan shifted the administrative power centre of Bengal to the Bank of Bhagirathi- the prime life force of North India and almost in the geographic centre of the Province in 1701.

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Mar 6, 2014 Graphene oxide makes smart textiles A new type of strong and flexible yarn made from graphene oxide that could be ideal in “smart” wearable textiles has been developed by researchers in Australia and Ireland. As well as being strong and highly conducting, the yarn has the highest ever capacitance reported to date for such a graphene-based structure. Smart textiles will require electronic yarns and fibres that are strong, flexible and light. Such fibres, which will play the part of electrodes in these textiles, will also need to store energy efficiently if they are to act as integrated capacitors and batteries. Although researchers have made much progress in this field by developing yarns from carbon nanotubes and graphene, most of these fibres are still far from ideal. In particular, the best capacitance values reported to date (of 265 F/g) still fall far short of the theoretical value of 550 F/g for graphene-based structures. Now, Gordon Wallace of the University of Wollongong in Australia and colleagues have made yarns and fibres from graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide that are not only highly flexible and lightweight but that have an unrivalled electrochemical capacitance of as high as 410 F/g. “Our structure is a first for graphene oxide,” team member Seyed Hamed Aboutalebi told nanotechweb.org, “because, until now, 3D architectures of graphene-based capacitors were mainly limited to graphene ‘papers’ and micro-supercapacitors, which although interesting in their own right, are not really practical for when it comes to making intelligent fabric.” The researchers used a novel wet-spinning technique to produce unlimited lengths of highly porous yet dense, mechanically robust and flexible graphene yarns from liquid crystals of very large graphene oxide sheets. The yarns, which could be directly used as the building blocks for supercapacitors in fully functioning smart textiles, are very strong, with a Young’s modulus that is greater than 29 GPa. They also have a high electrical conductivity of around 2500 S/m and a very large surface area – about 2600 m2/g for graphene oxide and 2210 m2/g for the reduced material. The high capacitance of 410 F/g per graphene oxide electrode (in a practical two-electrode configuration set up) comes thanks to the fact that ions can travel fairly fast and without resistance in the fibres, says Aboutalebi. “The yarns might be ideal in powerful next-generation multifunctional renewable wearable energy storage systems,” he adds. “Our method to make these yarns is simple and can be scaled up to produce mass quantities of the structures.” The team, which includes researchers from Dublin City University and the University of Sydney, says that it is now busy working on making easily processed self-assembled, self-oriented and molecularly ordered graphene-based hybrids for use in intelligent fabrics. The current work is detailed in ACS Nano DOI: 10.1021/nn406026z. About the author Belle Dumé is contributing editor at nanotechweb.org.

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An iota of nascent iodine can can provide immense health benefits in countering infection, turning contaminated water into drinking water or in sustaining an energized sense of wellness. Nascent iodine, also termed as atomic iodine or Atomidine is a form of iodine which is the upshot of adding iodine into a solution that frees the element in an Atomic or nascent state. This type can easily be absorbed by the body. It is a golden yellow liquid that is considered as a supplement of iodine nontoxic. It is thought to be more active and less toxic and irritating to the body as compared to molecular iodine. And so is the most appropriate form of iodine, not only as an antiseptic for external purposes, for internal use, but traces of iodine because iodine is considered edible. The typical use of nascent iodine includes stimulation of thyroid function in the regulation of metabolism, increasing energy levels for people with iodine deficiency, improvement of immune function, fight versus infection as a natural antiseptic, and promotion processes and detoxification systems. Some experts have also made it a replacement to antibiotics, saying it is the best antibiotic, antiviral and antiseptic ever. With its antiseptic functions, nascent iodine can also be used to purify water to make it potable. And is one of the things you need to take the field or where there may be a shortage of drinking water and as part of first aid kit. With its wide range of health benefits, every family should take a bottle of it. A large proportion of the population of the United States and the world iodine deficiency, partly because the diet is not enough with it. This is partly due to a lack of iodine in the soil as a result of modernization and industrialization of agricultural processes. This led to the addition of a certain type of iodine in salt, but the type used is not easily absorbed. Therefore, taking nascent iodine can be called for to many people. But, as with other types of supplements, always seek professional advice of doctors for the correct dosage and to assess whether it is suitable for your state.

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Scientists have shown how tumours can manipulate the immune system to stop it attacking cancer cells. Cancer cells produce many proteins They have found that late-stage cancers produce a protein which switches the role of normally helpful immune cells. Instead, of aiding the mobilisation of the immune systems defences, these cells start to inhibit attempts by the immune system to attack the cancer. The study, by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, is published in Nature Immunology. Tumours produce many types of abnormal proteins, which play different roles in their development. Some enable the cancer to grow rapidly, but others appear to neutralise the effect of the immune system. The Seattle team found one of these proteins changes the role of otherwise helpful immune cells, called T helper cells, which in the early stages of the disease play a key role in the body's efforts to destroy cancer cells. In response to the tumour-derived soluble form of the protein the cells divide and take on a suppressor role, reducing the anti-cancer potency of the immune system. Boosting cancer fight Exactly how the T helper cells become suppressor cells is not yet known. Lead researcher Dr Thomas Spies said: "Once cancer cells have established themselves as a growing, solid tumour they produce massive amounts of the protein and shed it into the bloodstream. "It profoundly alters the composition of T cells in the body of the cancer patient such that the capacity of the immune system response against tumour cells is severely impaired." Dr Spies said the protein was of potential clinical interest. He said: "If one could prevent a tumour from producing the soluble protein it could be beneficial in terms of helping sustain the immune system's normal capacity to mount an anti-tumour response." Professor John Trowsdale, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "The work sheds light on ways in which the body's immune system could be used to tackle cancerous cells."

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By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News A genetic study has shed light on the mystery of how fish made the move from water to land millions of years ago. Tiktaalik was described as a missing link Previous research had suggested that fish had made an abrupt genetic jump to acquire land-friendly limbs. But a US team has now shown this event was not an evolutionary novelty and the transition was far more gradual. The study, published in the journal Nature, follows the recent discovery of a fossil described as showing the "missing link" between fins and limbs. In 2004, the fossilised remains of the Tiktaalik roseae revealed an animal with fins that were equipped for a life in the water but also for support on land. The crocodile-like creature, which lived about 380 million years ago, was said to "blur the distinctions" between land- and water-dwelling animals. Marcus Davis, lead researcher of the paper and a scientist at the University of Chicago, said: "The Tiktaalik and other recent fossil finds suggested to us that the structures that really make land animals unique - hands and feet and fingers and toes - just didn't appear out of nowhere." However, he said, this was in contrast to evidence seen in previous genetic studies, which suggested an abrupt transition from fins to limbs. These studies focussed on the Hox genes, which play a vital role in limb development. Scientists had looked at the expression of the genes in the developing limbs of land animals (tetrapods) and the developing fins of zebrafish, which are often used in embryological studies. Dr Davis said: "In tetrapods, these studies showed that there were these two separate phases of Hox genes that turn on within the developing appendage. Early in the development there is the first phase, and then there is a second very characteristic phase which plays a role in where fingers and toes form. "But if you look at a zebrafish during development, it has the first phase, but it doesn't have this second hallmark phase. "Based on this, the hypothesis was that the second phase of Hox expression must be a developmental and evolutionary novelty that correlated with the origin of hands and feet." However, Dr Davis and his colleagues decided to repeat the studies - but this time using paddlefish, which have a fin pattern similar to primitive fish. He said: "We found a very clear second phase in their fins - and this tells us that the second key phase of Hox-expression is in fact a much more ancient pattern of development. Paddlefish are similar to ancient fish "It seems that some fish have always had this genetic toolkit to modify their fins - it just seems like tetrapods have modified it in this unique and elaborate way." The reason why some of these primitive fish went on to become land-living animals while others remained in the water was most probably influenced by their environment, explained Dr Davis. A change to the ecosystem from deep water to shallow streams may have driven some fish to make use of their genetic limb-building capability. Dr Davis said the study was also interesting because it revealed that zebrafish were the "weirdos of the bunch". He said: "They have done something very unique - they appear to have lost the second phase of Hox expression altogether." Jennifer Clack, professor of vertebrate palaeontology at Cambridge University, said: "This is a really big step forward. I think we are going to find a number of similar patterns emerging in other fish in the future."

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Researchers are investigating whether snoring during pregnancy can affect the baby's health. Scientists say a lack of oxygen during sleep could restrict birth weight. Sleep apnoea - where a person stops breathing for a short period during sleep - is a common condition among overweight men and pregnant women. A £6,000 grant from Action Medical Research will allow scientists at City Hospital in Nottingham to study the link between apnoea and birth weight. The grant will pay for monitoring devices which record the levels of oxygen as the pregnant woman sleeps. Prof Jim Thornton of City Hospital, part of the study team, said: "My interest in this goes back many years when I had a patient who had the classic signs of sleep apnoea - loud snoring and low oxygen levels during sleep. "She went on to lose her baby, which her scans had shown to be very small. "We know that oxygen levels can have an impact on intrauterine growth." He said in some cases pregnant women have lost a baby during a severe asthma attack - which indicates some link with low oxygen levels. "There are many reasons for low birth weight, of course, but sleep apnoea is very easy to treat and if there is a link, it's something we can quickly put right and so help prevent growth restriction in an unborn baby," he said. The team is handing out questionnaires and using equipment to monitor patients as part of the study.

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By Jody Bourton Earth News reporter The saltmarsh sparrow has 'wild' mating habits A bird living on the coast of the US is the world's most promiscuous bird, say scientists. The saltmarsh sparrow, a bird that lives in the marshes of Connecticut, was found to have extreme levels of multiple mating. The researchers found that 95% of females mated with more than one male during each nesting period. This unusual behaviour could be a survival mechanism due to coastal flooding, researchers say. The researchers, who are based in the US, publish their results in the journal The Auk. Using DNA analyses and studying the birds mating behaviour in the marsh habitat, the scientists revealed the highly promiscuous activities of the bird. "We found that nearly every clutch of eggs was the product of more than one father, and that within broods it was extremely common for any two siblings to have different fathers," says Professor Chris Elphick from the University of Connecticut. Professor Elphick undertook his research along with Professor Christopher Hill from Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina, US and Carina Gjerdrum of the Canadian Wildlife Service. The scientists found that at least 95% of females mate with more than one male for a single clutch of eggs. A clutch is defined as a set of eggs laid together in the nest at one time. One in three nests had a different father for every chick, and the average brood of chicks had more than 2.5 fathers. "The chance that any two chicks in the same nest have the same father is only 23%," says Professor Elphick. "We were not surprised to find some level of promiscuity," he says. "But we were quite stunned at just how extreme the rate was." 'Eggs in one basket' The saltmarsh sparrow (Ammodramus caudacutus) is a small, stocky bird that lives along the US Atlantic coast. Some of their behaviour is unusual for songbirds; males and females do not bond together to form pairs, and the males play no role in caring for chicks. The sparrows nest amongst the saltmarshes, and are vulnerable to frequent high tides, which can cause a high level of nest loss. Very high tides occur every four weeks - the same length of time it takes for the sparrow to raise a family. Who's your father? Professor Elphick suggests that the mating patterns are are a response to this risky environment. "If they lose their young to flooding, they have to re-nest almost immediately if the new set of young is to survive," he says. This means that female birds do not have time to look for and invest in the best male partner. The lack of time increases the likelihood of choosing a poor quality mate. To overcome this, it seems that females mate with several males. "The females don't want to put all their eggs in one basket so to speak," says Professor Elphick. "We think that it is the most promiscuous bird species studied to date, although there are a couple of other possible contenders," says Professor Elphick. The greater vasa parrot (Coracopsis vasa) of Madagascar, and the superb fairywren (Malurus cyaneus) of Australia have comparable rates of promiscuity. "Both of these species also have multiple paternity in most nests, but it is unclear whether they have so many fathers per nest." The differences between studies that have been carried out into each of the bird species mean it is impossible to make a direct comparison. But their extreme promiscuity is not the most interesting thing about these birds, says Professor Elphick. "What is most interesting about these three species is that all have totally different social systems," he explains. "Unrelated species have all converged on high levels of promiscuity through very different sets of behaviours." "It's the multidimensional complexity of all those species - the many ways in which they differ from one another that makes the natural world so amazing."

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